The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1918-01-17
1,na Can Meter fer Hours IN Region
Now Know, Is British Front a ~
60 Nothing hut Ruins Ct WHAT 'l''
Used "a 6s human Habitatlonn
Psopls Hide II Cellars Lest soehs
shells Find Them Out.
~ FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE "a
of the vipilantes.

mortar, twisted timbers, indiscrimi-
nate rubbish Of all sorts, lining either
side Of the roadway along which you
are spinning. Here and there Ct IS
regular intervals the bare, charred Re
mains Of what once were trees stick
up from amid the debris and the
chaos. There is not suggestion Of 2
J, standing wall anywhere, nor even Of Q.
door OF window.f frame. and. Of course.
NJ semblance OF; q roof. There are
onnly. cellars into which houses, shops,
churches, stores, scho OLE everything
have been thrown into q Grassy bold
all Of toWn-wide grave.
1--WE are now going through
remarks our military chaperone, Ia
'conically, and we recognize the name
OF place prominent In the fighting
during some Important push weeks
or months ago now wiped from the
face Of the earth as effectually as +
honest French peasants and villagers,
had never striven through the genera
lions to make a omf0rtable abode Tor
themselves and theirs. One hopes that
the ministering angels permitted them her
to evacuate the town before their
homes were splintered and crushed By
15-inch death-d ealers. One wonders:
how many human remains may still lie
buried beneath the wreckage Of beams r.
and sandstone. One speculates
whether men. women and children who
contrived to escape the shells Will
ever again be able to start Me with
their dwellings. places OF business and
cultivated fields mangled and devas-,I
tated. One Is persuaded that stupen.s
dous as is the work Of destruction
wrought by twentieth century warfare,
the task Of reconstruction will be
enormously more gigantic stu. Towns
that took years to make have been
shot to pieces In an hour.
last Word Ii Perforatlon.
I have heard Of towns ii our own
Wild and woody West that have been
'shot-up." But ----- -- is surely the
last word In complete and scientific
perforation. In July, 1914, At was q
happy. thriving community Of 35.OOO
or 10000 inhabitants, smiling town,
with d wonderful Grand place and u
picturesque Petit place, a noble Gothic
cathedral. and q splendid town hull:
Round the. Grand place ran 9 quad
rnngle OF colonnaded houses of sur.
passing architectural beauty. For the
rest, tile town was. typically French,
by which ] mean complex of neat
stores and dwelling houses, churches
and factories, schools and estnlninets
(cs,fes). Today there is not solitary
building Of any kind In the whole town
that is not entirely or partially wreck
ed. There Is not single thing OF
wood, brick or stone that Is intact.
Not more than 1,5OO or ?, 600 people
live there now, and they must hide In
cellars most Of the time, lest Boche
.,helIs search them out. Death turks
In every street, even though the Brit,
ish have held 1t for more than two
years and have extended their lines
beyond 1t considerably during the past
few months. Though they have. long
since turned the town into seraps OF
Its former self, the Germans seem filed
with an Unsuitable lust to flatten out
even the scraps. You walk through
the Grand place. hugging close to the
walls by order Of your army guide, In
perpetual danger That a souvenir from
krupps will land lit your feet and send
fragments OF you lying in,o the
ethereal eternal. But you are onlys
living tile life that tile Bfiilsll g..rfison
and indomitable little cisilian rear-
guard of 1,5C0 or 1000 people mostly
old men and women too fragile to seek
u safer abode further behind the lines
are living day III and day out. I.
\. Museum OF German savssery.
This thought occurred to me while
surveying the tumbled-lown cathedral
and mince-meated town hall and the
lilnitless field Of desolation aud deyas-
tation lying all around them at every
turning: Why not keep 1t just as it Is
today, q pile of glorious ruins, as o
world museum of German s:vagery?
Why not leave 1t, stricken, battered
and manned IN its every structural
limb, just as we saw 1t this day three
years after, for the admonition. horror
and instruction Of q Universe which
has rushed to arms for the overthrow
OF liberty's foe? There will be vast
libraries of documentary evidence OF
the Huns atrocities to educate and
terrify posterity. But what are books
and descriptions and docurssntary
proofs compared 70 such an ocular dem.