The patriot. [volume] (Indiana, Pa.) 1914-1955, 1918-01-26
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE
of the Vigilantes.


of the VigiIantes.
Somewhere in France never
imagined in the widest flights of fan
cy about war that to gain an objective
under modern battle conditions an
army has not to lay waste a position
or a village but practically a country
side You can motor nowadays for
hours in the region generally known
as the British front, sweep the land
scape for mites in every direction, and
see nothing but ruins Of what used TO
be human habitati0ns. Your guides
point to q scattered dump of brick,
mortar, twisted timbers, indiscrimi-
nate rubbish Of an sorts, lining either
side of the roadway along which you
are spinning. Here and there at ir-
regular intervals the bare, charred re-
mains Of what once were trees stick
up from amid the debris and the
chaos. There IS not a suggestion of a
standing wall anywhere, nor even Of a
door or window-frame, and, Of course,
no semblance of a roof. There are
only cellars into which houses, shops,
churches, stores, schools-everythi
have been thrown into a crazy hold
all Of a tOWn-Wide grave.
eve are now gong through -
remarks our military chaper0ne, la
conically, and we recognize the name
of a place prominent in the fighting
during some important push" weeks
or months ago-now wiped from the
face of the earth as effectuaLy as if
honest French peasants and villagers
had never striyen through the genera
tions to make a comfortable abode for
themselves and theirs. One hopes that
the ministering angels permitted them
to evacuate the town before their
homes were splintered and crushed by
15-inch death-dealers. One wonders
how many human remains may still lie
buried beneath the wreckage of beams
and sandstone. One SpeculateS
whether men, women and children who
contrived to escape the shells will
ever again be able to start life with
their dwellings, places of business and
cultivated fields mangled and devas-
tated. One is persuaded that stupen-
dous as is the work of destruction
wrought by twentieth century warfare,
the task of reconstruction will be
enormously more gigantic still. Towns
that took years to make have been
shot to pieces in an hour.
Last Word in Perforation.
I have heard of towns in our own
wild and woody West that have been
"shot-up." But is surely the
last word in complete and scientific
IperforatiOn. In July, 1914, it was a
happy, thriving community of $4,000
or 10000 inhabitants, a smiling town,
with a wonderful Grand place and a
picturesque Petit place, a noble Gothic
cathedral and a splendid town hail.
Round the Grand place ran quad
lrangle of colonnaded houses of sur
passing architectural beauty. For the
rest, the town was typically French,
by which l mean Il complex of, neat
stores and dwelling houses, churches
and factories, schools and estaminets
(cafes). Today there is not a solitary
building of any kind in the whole town
that is not entirely or partially wreck
ed. There is not 4 single thing Of
wood, brick or stone that is intact.
Not more than 1900 or 1000 people
live there now, and they must hide in
cellars most of the time, lest BOche
shells search them out. Death turks
In Sfr thp17th ybA RTiT-
ish have held it for more than two
years and have extended their lines
beyond it considerably during the past
few months. Though they have long
since turned the town into scraps of
dts former self, the Germans seem filed
with an Unsuitable lust to fatten 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 at your feet and send
fragments of you flying into the
ethereal eternal. But you are only
living the life that the British garrison
and indomitable little civilian rear
guard of 1,5C0 or 1000 people-mostly
old men and women too fragile to seek
"a safer abode further behind the lines
are living day in and day out.
Museum of German SaVagery.
This thought occurred to me while
surveying the tumbleddOwn cathedral
and mince-meated town hall and the
limitless field of. desolatiOn and devas-
tation lying all around them at every
turning: Why not keep it just as it is
today, pile of glorious ruins, as a
world museum of German savagery?
Why not leave it, stricken, battered
and MANNED In its every structural
limb, just as we saw it this day three
years after, for the admonition, horror
and instruction of q universe which