Weekly journal-miner., 1918-12-25

know what is to be done with us. w,
 have been detached from the Firs
 army, Army of Occupation. We ar,
 at present about twelve miles iron
 Verdun just cast of the Argonne for
 est, where the 9lst Division had sucl
 hard fighting, and south of the line O
 departure of the First Army in thei
 offensive of September 18th. Thi.
 line had been unchanged since Gen
 eral Petain's counter offensive 1T
 February, 1916. Tuesday we mov,
 to the town of Stenay, which is or
 the east bank of the Mouse, little south of Sedan. That country i:
 quite interesting, but-though shot
 up somewhat-does not show signs oi war as one sees them around here
 Nerdun is interesting from a histori.
 cal view point, but other than the
 signs of Germanism in the way oi shell torn buildings, and the so-call- ed underground city which is built so that some of the ordinary pursuits of peace time could be carried on in spite of the almost constant smelling to which the city was subjected, there is little to be seen.
 To me the real interesting sights consist of German environments built in the Argonne forest. The Huns evidently meant to stay until the French and English were completely tired out One of the buildings is supposed to have been occupied by Prince Rupprecht It is part under ground SO as to afford protection in case of shell fire. It is fitted up with electric lights and running water. There Is a marble bath room and all rooms are either tinted or papered. Farther up on the forest some of the officers houses were stucco work, beautifully finished inside. There were concrete chicken houses, rabbit pens, and other signs of their inten- ton to remain and make themselves as comfortable as possible. I would give great deal to be able to get some of the solid oak furniture with which the houses arc furnished. In the open the only signs are gun posi- tions and less elegant dugouts-that is. other than the never-ending maze of trenches and barbed wire. Even this is lacking after you get beyond Montfanoon-the town in which one of the German high officers had his observation station. It consisted of a concrete dugout with a periscope some thirty-five feet long. Beyond this point. which was taken twice by the S9th Division before it was fin ally held, the Germans were never given an opportunity to dig in and it was open warfare until Sedan was reached. We are northeast of Yer dun on the 5th, the morning the Sec ond Army started its first offensive. As usual the Roche resistance was machine gun with a little desultory artillery fire, the latter doing no harm, but not so with the former. This offensive succeeded in pushing the Roche from all the high ground east of the Mouse and he was out on the flat. open land even before the armisticc was signed We had been ordered to report to the second army at Toul and were packed and would have left in another half hour, but the order came to unload just i'll time to catch us-that was about two hours after firing had ceased. The Second Army was to have staged an offensive in front of Toul which probably would have resulted in an enveloping movement on Metz, this was to have begun at midnight on the twelfth, but as you know hostilities ceased g hours before.
 It was hard to realize that the war Is over and the Allies are the victors. It came so suddenly and at d time when it really seemed as though the Germans intended to make a stand on the Rhine. We are not quite sure the United States had enough of the war to make her stern enough at the peace table and al home dealing with the interncd alien enemies and the other Hun agents which are bound to appear. hope vou will do everything to cause pub lie opinion to demand that Germany be dealt with as she has and would have dealt with others. She has be- gun to whine for mercy and beg for food already. Thank goodness, Hoover seems to sec things in the right light and doesn't propose toI send them any great amount of food As he says they have not starved during the past four years-why should they Starve now: And they arc not starving, One of the officers in our battalion came back from Luxembourg. today and he says they have far more than the French. The only two things of which they were noticcablv short was rubber and bread. Everything including meat