Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-11-15
COUNTRY NEAR
VERDUN ISNOW
ONLY RUINS

OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES EN4I .aNN4 t AFNN FLNsAs-.
With the American Forces in
The Associated Press.)LThe country
over which the. Americans fought
their way northward from Verdun
presents q picture OF ruin, destruction
and d~es0latfon. The villages are un-
inhabited and homes seem but
sepulchres.
Torn by mines causing huge clraters,
gashed by bompardments which made
hundreds OF thousands Of she'll holes
and streWn with broken or abandoned
guns. wagons, heaps of ammunition,
helmets and ali the other, debris of
four years of desperate fighting, the
whole out betrays the awful effects
Everywhere, in every direction and
protecting each slightest angle and
nook, across the roads until TORI
away by shells or human hands, are
countless strands of barbed wire,
most Of It rusted by the rains crafty
topsy-turvy on its supporting stakes
that have fallen to right and left.
IF 1t takes four years to win the
war" said some casual visitor to the
front, lit will take six years to roll
up the barbed wire that has been used
in winning it."
Take, for %inetance. the trip from
ruined, desolat9 Avocourt northward
to Malancourt and M~ontfaucon, the
scene OF some of the Interest fighting
OF the entire war. Avocourt was in
ruins before ever the American offen-
sive started.
For q mile northward the road winds
across foothil1s hat once were COW
cred with green trees but now are
snorn and bare. Gigantic mines have
torn the road in twain and gouged out
holes fifty and more feet deep, a hun
dred and mere feet across, to get
around or across which engineers
have had to- exercise their ingenuity
and h surrounding country, stripped
OF It's wood, has furnished the rock.
fortunately there is plenty of that.
To either side of the road are the
remains OF what We're once livable,
comfortable dugouts and buildings,
blown into thousands of pieces by dis
charges of explosive when the enemy
retreated. Farther a6eld and as far
as the eye can reach across the low
hills are hundreds and thousands Of
n holes, their craters overlapping,
big n little holes from missiles Of
every character. hat have torn and
SCARED the earth almost beyond the
hope Of redemption.
Everywhere is the debris Of the bat
tlefeld, guns. helmets. articles of
clothing, piles and heaps Of ammuni-
ton, broken-down and splintered
wagons. caissons and trucks. And If
one go over the scene soon enough,
bodies awaiting burial
The comparison between Malan-
court and Avocourt is striking-be-
cause the former has suffered so
much more. Buildings no longer
have even a semblance of their for
mer state. Where in Avocourt walls
at least still stand here and there. in
Malancourt everything has been RACED
as though with dynamite, and the
crumbltng remnants are seized upon
to rebuild the shattered roads and
make them passable for the, Unsuitable
and ever more ammunition, and food
and supplies. Il.
Neither Malancourt, nor Mont
faucon, nor any one Of a score Of
towns within the sector where the
Americans operated has a single liv-
ing inhabftant left. In every direc-
ton is a waste of craters and up-torn
earth. It is the qujntessence of desc
lation and nothingness.
, The once beautiful wooded slopes
and hills are now torn and gashed.
Great artlliery bombardments have
stripped hillsides Of all but the stumps
Of their trees, which tower pathetical-
ly against the sky without branches
or foliage, mere crippled relics of
their former selves. Many of them
have been shattered by shells as by
lighting. others cut off as though by
bungling wood choppers unable to fell
a tree cleanly.
The reconstruction Of Europe is ad-
mittedly going to be a long, hard task,
far longer than the war that made it
necessary. In time to come the
meadows and valleys between Avo-
court and Malancourt will be green
again, and >the trees Of the Argonne
Forest will grow up as they did be-
fore 1914. But as they all look now
it seems very, very far in the future
before the ruin. the utter destruction,
can be made good and the former
status of this portion Of France re-
stored. 80
WILL WITHDRAW MEMBERS.
London, Nov. 1.-THE British Ia
Dor party at a conference today de-
cided by a large majority to with
draw its members from the cabinet at
the close Of the present parliament