Ellsworth American., 1918-11-20
CHATEAU-THIERRY TAKES UP TASK
OF RISING FROM ''CITY OF ASHES"
Refugees Returning to the Little Left by Hearess HAready
Small Storekeepers Are Operating at Full BIas-Germans
Chased Out Too Fast to Take Their Loot With Them
Where Marines Wrote Themselves Into Fame.

NORTH ago. A Boche potted me there
and I'm just going back to join my
men. But you won't find it interesting
now. All the Germans are gone"
But he was wrong. There are Ger
mans marching through the streets of
Chateau-Thierry every day-German
prisoners armed with shovels and
picks who are cleaning out the wreck
age and desolation they left In their
path when they evacuated the city on
July %; proud Prussians who are
welding scythes to harvest the crops
In the fields that they called "Unser-
land a month ago; mild-faced boys
from the south of Germany who seem
to prefer jobs as chore-women with
mops and scrub brushes to carrying
guLs for the kaiser.
And as for the interest of Chateau
Thierry, the curious have visited the
field of Napoleon's Waterloo for sew
eral centuries. They will visit the Wa
terloo of the Boche march on Paris in
1918 for several more centuries and
thrill with every century at the story
of the battle on the outskirts of that
city where American marines, artillery
and infantrymen started the Huns on
their run for Berlin-and gave them
such a good start that the goal Is get
ting hotter each day.
War Activity Everywhere.
1t takes just an hour and a half by
rail from Paris to reach the outposts
of the battlefields of yesterday; an
hour and half that runs by like the
fast reels of a cinema with hurried
glimpses of passing trains loaded with
horses, with cattle, with big guns and
men; of camions crowded with sol
diers wearing dust-colored uniforms;
of hospital trains marked with red
crosses and groups of civilians hurry
ing back to see what Is left of their
homes in the reconquered districts. At
one of the stations the marine officer
swung off to join knot of men whose
backs were loaded with marching
equipment, showing that they were
going 'up the line War was written
in large letters over every human &C.
tivity, but off to my right was the
Marine, sleepy and peaceful, flowing
quietly through valley fields, hiding
behind gentle slopes covered with
wheat and splashed with vivid poppies,
and emerging again from a clump of
thick trees and heavy underbrush.
At La Ferte there is great cash
in the station where a Boche plane,
swooping down within few hundred
yards of the mark, dropped half
dozen bombs just a few nights ago.
And from there an auto road, pock-
marked by shell holes. runs through
fertile country and pink-roofed viii
lagos, lifeless and deserted, TO Lucy
le-Bocage and Belleau woods, where
the American marines showed the
world just what fighting stuff the
United States army is made of.
Lucy" keeps open house for all
comers. There are a few doors left
in the village. but they sag heavily on
rusted hinges. Windows are open
spaces through which the winds and
rains drive at will, leaving facetious
puddles about the little heaps of
broken glass that strew the ground.
The few roofs left look apologetic in
the midst of the ruin about them.
The village huddles about a little
church that has been pitilessly bat
tered to ruin. Only bits of the walls
are left but in the midst of the
wreckage rises a tall cruciix un-
scratched. The altar of the small
chapel on the right side had been
cleared off and the old able toiling
alone, was searching among the de-
bris for precious relics. A prayer
book and a few pathetic little orna-
ments of glass were all that he had
found to restore In his temple.
Guarded by the Dead.
From Lucy-le- Boeage TO Belleau
wood the road literally is guarded by
the dead, whose bodies were covered
where they fell and marked by simple
wooden crosses on many of which the
soldiers trench helmet has been hung.
1t was the way of the cross for the
American boys who journeyed it those
July days when they started forward
in the face of murderous machine gun
fire to smoke the Boches out of the
stronghold that assured their footing
in Chateau-Thierry.
l climbed over graves and shell
holes, through underbrush and past
isolated bits of barbed wire entan-
clements into the heart of the woods,
where the Boches had their dugouts
And at every step of the way, diff
cult to traverse even now when it has
been trampled over and cleared out
since the battle, I wondered at the
courage of the boys who had faced
hidden machine guns and unknown
horrors lurking in the shadows. A
human iawbone Law at the doorway Of
hunting lodge which had been des
perately contested for and from the
underbrush near by protruded the boot.
of an unhuried Hun.
A group of dugouts Off to the right