Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-10-08
!: The Truth About Belgium ::
BY BRAND WHTTLOCK

IN the sunlight Win the naTNSSlS
ripe in the fields on either side,
though there were no peasants. to
gather them; Russian prisoners,
great fellows with heads like Toll
stoys, had taken their places at the
reapers. We were running sixty
miles an hour. too fast to talk, but
just before we got to Lens, lying
there before US in a little valley, we
stopped and our captain pointed
away off across the fields and roll
ing hills, to the right: La Chap
ellie de Notre Dame de Lorette," he
said.
1t was the famous and sanguinary
Loretta Heights, where the terrible
fighting of May 81. 1915. occurred.
in Joffre's great offensive. II lay
a little TO the northwest of Souchez,
almost half way to ArTas. There is
an old legend in northern France,
brought down through centuries OF
battles, that the one who holds
Loretta Heights will win the war.
1t is not perhaps altogether SOL
dier's superstition, but founded no
doubt upon the very salient and
substantial fact that the army that
held those hills had a strategical po-
sition that commanded the country
side for miles around.
Behind was la Bassee and a lit
tile farther on Neuye Chapelle, where
the English heroicaIly failed. These
of course were out of sight but we
could see Loretta Heights, see the
smoke rising and hear the thunder
of the guns in the artillery duel
that goes on there forever. There
lay those lovely fields in the sun
light of France, under a haze OF
grey smoke and grey dust.
Lens, Dirty Like the Best
We drove down into Lens, a little
town. dirty like the rest, smelling
of the odor of invasion. deserted by
everybody who could get away, in
habited now by slatternly women
depressed and bedraggled, and by
children on the sidewalks watching
the endless stream of grey soldiers
flow by. We drove through the
town and beyond into a cemetery
of course after the factory one must
visit the cemetery. There at the
entrance of the cemetery, where
closely huddled graves, decorated
with artificial flowers, crosses of
wood or OF iron ornamented with
photographs and other mementoes
of the deceased, lay in the blazing
sun. was a monument that had been
erected to the citizens of Lens that
had fallen in the war Of 1870. and
already there were the new graves
of those other heroes who had fallen
in this latest war.
But they took us there not to see
so much the French as the German
cemetery. The Germans had bought
a plot of ground adjoining the
French cemetery and therein were
buried, with German regularity, the
officers in a sacred enclosure by
themselves in the center, the Ger
man soldiers killed in that vicinity.
Already eighteen hundred Germans
had been buried there, men who
had fallen in the battles of May and
June. and there was a significant
repetition of the same date on the
rough wooden crosses over the
graves, and the inscription "Hier
ruht in Gott." ('Here rest in God.")
Ivy had been planted in the yell
low ground, and there was a colos-
sal angel in stone. heavy, stalwart,
muscular, Teutonic, with a sword
in her hands larger than the sword
of Gideon. And Immediately ad-
joining this space, the French were
buried and over the graves the
same little wooden crosses, the same
dates. and lei repose en- paix."
C'Here rest in peace.")
From the brow Of a lofty hill,
crowned by a colliery, its great iron
building lifting its gaunt sides high
above the surrounding country, its
cupola shattered by a shell, we look
ed down into the broad valley. The
thunder Of the guns below us was
loud; once more we heard the Shrek
Of the hurtling shells and the sharp
er rattle of the artillery over az
Notre Dame de Lorette. Off to our
left a whistling and shrieking of
German shells; one could hear them
and one thought one could almost
see them before they struck and ex-
ploded in a puff of smoke. We
stopped. watching the duel through
glasses. But:
I'VE must not stay here long,
said our captain. cor they will see
us and take shot at u.s."
Under Shell Fire
We went back to the motors and
our Jehu dashed through the village
and on to LEVIN. out on the way to
Angre, where are the outer defenses
OF Lens. A dismal little town. An
gre. wholly abandoned by it's inhabi-
tants, and occupied by German
troops in force; we drove through it
and on to the road just outside up
TO a little hill, straight in the d.
rection of Notre Dame de Lorette,
now as IL seemed. not half a mile
away. The road was crowded. wag-
on trains trundled up the hill. Gals
sons were drawn up by the roadside,
in the shelter of a crumbling bank
and row of tall trees, the artillery
men sitting with their legs careless
II crooked over the pummels Of
n IL - 81.