New Britain herald., 1919-02-17

the Canadians just simply would not
give up. This place is a parallel to
the French at Verdun. And in all
my reading Of history, and you know
I have read some. there is no pos
sible fight, or battle, which can APP
proach the horror of the fighting at
these two places.
The countryside is blasted into an
irregular clamtlats, mud, in oceans,
nothing but plank roads would stand,
trees are blown up by the roots,
cemeteries are blown off the map, am
munitiOn dumps were exploded chew
ing the ground to bits and heaping up
mud and shells into odd looking hills
of earth and iron; bones, wagon
wheels, and wooden crosses and
camoufage curtains are piled in heaps
together. Miles of trenches and roads
in this section are cam Ouf1aged with
this curtain of bagging woven into
chicken wire and stretched on poles
about ten feet high, giving protec-
ton from sight to the wild and hur-
ried movements of troops and artil-
lery. 1t is a strange sight, too, and
must have taken thousands of men
weeks to make, perhaps to shield a
movement which only took few
moments to accomplish; such is the
warfare of the day and age in which
we live.
Horses are buried everywhere with
a sign posted Dead Horse Buried
Here" I asked a Tommy why they
took the trouble to write, Dead
Horse" why not say, Horse Buried
Here" everybody would know the
horse was dead. He said he didn't
know, so much for British wit.
after a time he sad, We'll Sir, It
would be a bit Of mess to dig up
dead horse. Now wouldn't it, Sir?
1--WE went from Ypres across the
dreary wasted country through what
is left of the towns of Moorslede and
Zoonebeke to the Belgian city of
Roulers. Between MOOrSlede and
Roulers are the temporary villages
built by the Germans to house the
women which they gathered from the
Belgian population for the use of the
soldiers at the front. At one settle
ment here is room to house, l would
think, about one thousand women.
The Hun had intended to hold the
Hindenb burg line for ever judging
from the way he built himself in
with concrete construction, narrow
gauge railroads, supply depots and all
the comforts of home.
zone thing very marked is the lack
of large, or even many small, Hun
cemeteries. We saw very few in
several hundred miles of this country,
although the losses which the Ger
mans sustained hereabOuts were
very numerous. This was explained
to me by a British major, as the re-
suit of te policy of extracting from
the dead the fats and oils. His men
captured many groups Of Germans en-
gagged in salvaging the bodies of the
dead. The method was to strip the
bodies Of all clothing, tie them I'D in
bundles of four by means of wiring
round and round, pass pole through
the bundle lengthwise, and then four
men could walk off with the lot
The majors men captured, at one
time, sixteen men so bundled ready
for the melting pot"-nice fellow
the Hun. This in all probability ac-
counts for many of the missing" on
the French, British and Colonial
lists. too.
From Moorslede on the country
is not so very much damaged, the
section being back of the actual bat
tie lines Houses and land show
evidences enough Of war, but still
enough is left to demonstrate the
great natural beauty Of the country
side. This section, with its canals.
long avenues Of stately trees, old
Flemish country houses and farm