Ellsworth American., 1918-11-20

TO accommodate FIVE men during
bombardment or barrage. When the
barrage was lifted the men would
come out and go TO work again with
their machine guns.
We saw lots of dugouts. however,
from which the Germans never
emerged. The opening had been filed
up with earth from exploding shells
and the sanitary troops that came
through after the battle were spared
the trouble of burying those men.
Many of the shell holes had sickly
greenish hue, the mark of gas which
poisons even the earth, and around
others were mounds of empty car
tridges showing they had been used as
semiprotection for machine gunners.
Wrote Themselves into Fame.
When the Germans entered Chateau
Tbierry In June, they reached the apex
of triangle, the other ends of which
were at Scissors and Reims. They
held the city for 80 days and were so
strongly intrenched that the French
and American troops who retook the
city did ii by outlanking movements
instead of direct drive which would
have cost many times as many lives.
The marines of The American divi-
sions which turned the scale of the
fighting, wrote themselves into fame
by taking Belleau woods. The other
troops of the divisions, eager for Il
sss,, nj, .e
ice. We're allowed" TO take yau:, Ill
rectly TO the west of Chateau Thierry,
which became the pivot point for the
scissors that squeezed the Huns from
the city. American artillery battered
the village to bits and then the infan-
trymen. armed with maps which had
been drawn by an old stone mason of
the village, marched In and corralled
the Germans who had taken refuge in
the cellars.
The mason knew just where the Gel
lars of the village were located be-
cause he had built them, so that the
cleanup" after the artillery prepa-
ration was quickly done. And the lit
tie town is now rebuilding with equal
rapidity. 1t lies on the main road
from La Fere TO Chateau-Thierry so
the people are drifting back, and as
we passed through / saw carpenters
and plasterers at work making houses
habitable. A group of red-fezzed Mo-
roccan soldiers were clearing out a
courtyard. and further down the road
were Italians repairing shell holes.
Another turn and we were In the
city itself, crossing the substitute for
the famous stone bridge over the
Marne that the French were ten years
in the building, but which the Ameri-
cans blew up in ten minutes to him
der the German advance last June
We climbed on up to a hilltop from
which we overlooked the river and
the city
Malicious Destruction.
The towering cathedral steeple had
offered gunner's mark which had
not been overlooked. The spire of the
Hotel de Vile also had been shot and
the weathereock hung at half-mast. In
the square about the city hall the
houses had been shelled to ruin. A
radiator stood out in midair from one
of them. On the second story wall
of another hung large portrait of
girl. Bombs and shells had torn their
way through roofs and afterward
when I walked through the city streets
/ realized that the work of destruction
had been completed by malicious
hands. Furniture had been smashed
and thrown into yards and streets, pic
lures had been ripped from frames,
and even kitchen utensils had been
thrown out TO rust.
A large part of the loot of the city
was recovered when the Germans
were hurriedly forced out, and a nurse
in an American Red Cross hospital
which followed the allied troops into
Chateau-Thierry told me of seeing
great sacks filled with gold and silver
cups, candlesticks, tableware and or
naments of every description which
had been stored there in the hospital
and left in the retreat. The hospital,
originally for French civilians, has
changed hands five times and was in
such state of unspeakable filth when
the Americans took it over from the
Boches that it took ten days to clean
il out.
Up back of the hospital are the
grounds of the ancient chateau for
which the city was named. They once
belonged TO the duke of Thierry, who
was one OF the famous seigneurs of
the early eighth century. / climbed
| through subterranean passages there
which were built by his vassals that
he might escape to the other side of
the Marne whenever his enemies
pressed him too closely, but which
recently have been used by Boches as
protection during air raids from
French planes. The openings are par
TALLY filed up now SO that tney no
longer afford passage under the river,
but they offer adequate protection
against homhS rrhoro ara <1oo.. l..,s.