Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1918-12-06
RUINS OF LITTLE PLACE
OF ARRAS TO REMAIN
Point Where Was Broken Forever
Tide OF Enemy Onrush to
Stand Untouched.
THERE THEY WE'RE HELD
In Center OF French Town Was One
Rock Visible on Which Waters Of
Invasion Broke and Surged. but
Could Flow No Further.
ny LIEUTENANT q. VINCE.

Paris, December 5.-ln the Little
Place OF Arras where once stood the
peal of bells. led by La Ioye,ise. is To-.
day notice board in English II SAYS
nat I'M TINS place is to be preserved in
Other places viii be built again. and
viii forget. but this Little Place will
remain empty: aud. one day. Arras will
Of those few brokcn stones than. are
other towns of the most beautiful
things that they possess
II For 50 Arras viii remain always as
IL IS to-day. one of the rocks visible
on which the great waters Of invasion
broke and surged and broke again but
could flow no further. There they were
held T:tre in the center OF Arras YOU
com Sne1eniy to-day on tho. dark line
Elsewhere, across tho open country
YOU como M IRE gradually into the land
~ var by roads where troops move.
by fields where are lines and lines OF
brown and white trenches ready but
never used. by empty villages with here
and there "a house broken; and so at
las; into the great mo mans land" OF
France. uninha bi;ed. uninhabitable
where armies have fought and fought
i've Il S%pSy life by the roadside Blu,
II ArrdS you turn "a corner of one of
the little streets. and II is as If a win
looked out on war
Fer three years one could only enter
A i,;, from the west by the road from
BY the road from II. Pol pas, Dead
Mans Corner. whore. nightly, the re-
both those roads the trees stand. and
the fields are titled and there are woods
across the hills. You enter. Arras to-
Cd: through 4 country unchanged by
war. The change is not yet.
1t is silent town. Its houses stand.
though scarcely one is quite whole.
broken faces boarecd up The tow,
Is IKE man that sleeps after long
suffering.
So you pass through cobbled streets.
very gray clean. silent streets. between
those exhausted houses. going down
the Rue s.: .Iubert and by the white
Then you turn UP by other little streets
with their narrow sky above them
ana ana come ..i, very suddenly. on an open
nctt!cs ana coltsfoo, and ioosestrife
grow. But this tina, looks like a
country lane Is cobbled, and its banks
are heaps OF brick.
Is as you enter this lane that
you are conscious of something more
unexpected and more awful than any
ruined and broken tnings--of an enor-
nous emptiness in the middle Of tina,
town OF tall houses and narrow streets
HERE Is FOUND
FULL RUIN OF WAR
Here. where YOU see for momcn,
oily me sky, you come, at the turn
ing OF a street corner into the full
ruin OF war, 10 houses that are ONLY
heaps of bricks. or even iess-no more
than open cellars By the road: TO a
rev rough shafts of gray stones that
once were arches and tall belfry OF
the town hall; to great avalanches of
broken stones that look as il they had
Deen pcurec down from the sky
You come into Arras from the west
~ villages and fields and tall trees
You go out Of il TO the east into A
country where nothing remains At
tnat turning. at the southwest corner
world.
when The years have passed and al!
the country TO the east of Arras has
long been made whole: when the trees
gro" again beside the Cambrai and
me Eapau!ne roads and there are cot
lagos once more in Beaurains and
iieIny and Wis -Artois. there will
stiil be that sudden emptiness be-
nciih the sky among the na-roy
streets Of Ar:as
Standing there men will remembc.
that once one could come into Arras
only from the west. They will think
OF IL then rs OF one Of those towns
row far inland and surrounded h..
quiet fields. which once were on the
Yeashore. They will look at that gray
ruin of the town hall as at the ruin
of great rock where once the storms
hea;.-copyrigh 1915