The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1918-11-15
The Wreck Left by the War
Torn Section of the
Republic
HARD TASK AHEAD
BUT TT WILL BE DONE
In Many Towns Not a Single
Inhabitant Left and
Only Shattered
Buildings

With the American Forces in
France, Oct, 26, Correspondence of
The Associated Press)-The country
over which the Americans fought
their way northwest from Verdun
presents a picture of ruin, destruction
and desolation. The villages are un-
inhabited and homes. seem but sepul-
chres.
Torn by mines causing huge crat
crs, gashcd by bombardments which
made hundreds of thousands of she'll
holes and strewn with broken or alb
andoned guns, wagons, heaps of am
munition, helmets and all the other
debris of four years OF desperate
fighting, the whole route betrays the
awful effects of war
Everywhere, in every direction and
portecting each slightest angle and
nook, across the roads until torn
away by shells or human hands, are
countless strands of barbed wire,
most Of it I'usted by the rains crafty
topsy-tuvy on its supporting stakes
that have fallen to right and left
eff it takes four years to win the
war;" said some casual visitor to the
front, at will take six years to roll
up the barbed wire that has been
used in winning it."
Take, for instance, the trip from
ruined, desolate Avoncout north
ward to MalancouI't and Montfaucon,
the scene of some of the bitterest
fighting of the entire war. Avon
court was in ruins before the Ameri-
can offensive started.
For solid mile northward the
road winds across foothills that
once were covered with green trees,
but now are shorn and bare. Gigan-
tic mines have turned the road in
twain and goughed out holes SO and
more feet deep, a hundred and more
feet across, to get around OF across
which engineers have had to exercise
their ingenuity and the surrounding
country, stripped of its wood, has
furnished the rock. Fortunately
there is plenty of that.
To either side of the road are the
remains of what were once livable
comfortable dugouts and buildings,
blown into thousands of pieces by
discharges of explosive when the en-
emy retreated. Farther afeld and as
far as the eye can reach across the
low hills are hundreds and thousands
of shell holes, their craters overlap
ping, big and little holes from mis-
siles of every character, that have
torn and SCARED the earth almost be-
yond the hope of redemption.
Everywhere is the debris of the
o. battlefield, guns, helmets, articles Of
clothing, piles and heaps of amrnuni-
ton, broken-down and splintered wa
gons, caissons and trucks. And, il
one go over the scene soon enough
bodies awaiting burial.
The comparison between Malan.
court and Avoncourt is striking-be
cause the former has suffered 81
. much more. Buildings no longer have
even a semblance of their forne1
state. Where in Avoncourt walls a
least still stand here and there, il
Malancou1t everything has been raz
ed as though with dynamite, and tn,
crumbling remnants are seized upol
to rebuild the shattered roads an,
make them passable for the insatia
BILE armies ahead that must have NOR
and ever more ammunition, and foo
and supplies.
Neither Malancourt, nor Montfau
can, nor any one of score of town
within tile sector where the Ameri
cans operated has a single living in
habitant left. In every direction is
waste of craters and up-torn eartl
1t is the quintessence of desolatio
and nothingness.
The once beautiful wooded slope
and hills are now torn and gashec
Great artillery bombardments hav
stripped hillsides of all but tn
stumps of their trees, which towe
pathetically against the sky withou
branches OF foliage, mere crippled re
lies of their former selves. Many @
them have been shattered by shells a
by lighting others cut off as thoug
by bungling wood choppers unable
fell a tree cleanly.
The reconstruction of Europe
admittedly going to be long, har
task, far longer than the war ths
made it necessary. In time to com
the meadows and valleys betwee
Avoncourt and Melancourt will b
green again, and the trees of the A
gonne forests will grow up as the
did before 1914 But as they a
look now it seems very, very far
the future before the ruin, the uttt
destruction, can be made good an
the former status of this portion {
France restored.