The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1918-04-17
Land BACK OF
Lines DES0LATED
Harry c. Evans Draws Vivid Picture
Of the Territory to Which the
Huns Applied the Torch
IN WRECKED HOMES
Claw Burned Bricks Out of the Cor.
ner of the Cellar to Make War
time Dwellings.
(By Harry c. Evans, Y. NJ. C. A. Sec

(By Harry c. Evans, Y. M. C. A. Sec
retary)
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, 1915
Before I left home my brother, who
was stationed at Camp Cody, wrote
me that Deming was the place that
God forgot. Back O. the front" in
France, of which I have just had my
first glimpse, looks like the place that
God had forsaken.
This weird region of woeful deso-
lation is grippingly picturesque. Here
there is both tragedy and comedy,
and the pathetic gets all mixed up
with the amusing. Let us first take
|a glimpse at the trdgedy.~ Three and
a half years ago the German legions
broke through Belgium and came
smashing southwark through France
to the gates of Paris. Here they were
beaten, and their retreat became a
rOut.
Backward they went. pcll nell,
faster than they came, the French at
their heels. The invaders found
time as they retreated through villages
and cities to apply the torch. A por-
ton Of the French army was disarmed
and set about the business of eX-
tinguishing the fires BY this means
many towns were saved from utter de-
struction.
But so thorough was the work of the
incendiaries, the torch having been
applied to everything inflamable, that
many villages and towns were in ruins
by the time the pursuers arrived. l
have been told by Frenchmen how
precious were the minutes that inter-
vened between the time the Germans
left town and the French entered it.
II the time was two hours the town
was badly damaged or destroyed. If
but few minutes. the town could be
saved.
So it is that all the way from Paris
to the lines where the fleeing Ger
mans were halted by the masses of
reserves they had brought up
France is singed, and scorcheu, and
burned.
Utterly desolate is that portion of
France which the Germans have sur
recently been driven. AS they went
back they burned or razed every build
ing in country, village and town;
they cut down every forest tree and
every fruit tree; destroyed every
we'll: sawed in two or broke the beam
of every plow and the handle OF ev-
cry farm implement, and twisted the
iron-provided they hadn't sent them
to Germany; shipped to their own
country or destroyed all household
furniture; burned all haystacks and
granaries they could not move; dyna-
mited holes in the earth at every
crossroads deep enough to put 4 six.
story building in-in short. left the
country utterly lifeless and desolate.
During our civil war, just after Cen
eral Sherman captured Atlanta, Ca,
fire broke out in that city and seri-
ously damaged it. For years after the
war there were charges against Sher-
man by the south and defense by his
friends. At that time no greater
crime could be thought of than for a
victorious army to apply the torch.
German kultur is indeed modern
thing.
Man has played gruesome trick on
nature in the land back O. the front y
He has leveled her beautiful trees
and criss.crossed her fair fields and
stretches of green sward with muddy
trenches. Sometimes these winter
days Nature, growing weary of the
blistered, shell hole monotony, quilts
or camouflages it over with beauti-
full white sheet of snow. Nature in
tended that this once fair region
should be inhabited by man; but it
was not within the economy of Ma
ture that it should become the habitat
of these millions whose only business
is to kill More men swarm along this
battle line than there are men, wom-
en- and children living in Colorado.
New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, wy
oming and Utah..