The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-01-25
BY FRANK II. sIMONDs
The News Soinltars Military Expert.
Copyright, 1919, by the Mcclure News

lBy Gable to The News Scimitar)
PARIS, Jan. 25.-Through the courte-
sy OF the British government ! have
come to the peace conference by way
OF the war zone. To travel directly
lrom America, always at peace, to Paris,
now resuming much of her ante war
activity and become again a real cap
ltal, Is to forget almost entirely the
tour years and a half of agony that sep
arate Europe and the rest Of the world
from July, 1914, and thus to eliminate
many OF the vital questions remaining
TO be settled. 1t Is otherwise If one
journeys by Ypres, by Nimy rldse, BY
the Somme battlefielus, by the regions
where five years ago hundreds OF thou
sands of people lived and labored amidst
snlllhg nelds and In pleasant towns.
regions In which two million dead now
sleep in the. midst of desolation beyond
human words to describe. | have seen
the batteflelds In the hour OF conflict.
but in that time amidst the desolation
and destruction there was still a sense
OF human energy which had become al
most supeThuman in its fury, the forces
of destruction were themselves vital
amidst all the waste which they created !:
but tRr more terrifying and terrible Is
the battlefield when the living are
gone, when upon hundreds of thousands
OF square miles of territory there rests
the blight of war. 1t is in the dead
lagos OF Northern France that one must
seek evidence of what this German
thing has meant, must seek some esti-
mate of that vast account which re-
mains to. be settled, The German has
gone. He has vanished out OF the
trenches, out of the ruins Of the region
he has wasted, His conquerors have
gone after him, but the real Inhabitants
have not yet begun to return. Is -
Total DeSOlatfOi1 = NM
As a consequence, from Ypres to the
Disc river above Noyon, more than a
hundred miles In longitude, and from
dozen to so miles in latitude there ex-
lists the most appalling desert OF which
the mind can conceive. A few German,
prisoners cleaning debris from the more
important highways, few British SOL
diers standing guard over material, and
for the rest in a land where three mil
lions of French and Belgians lived five
years ago, just nothing Villages. for
ests, the fruit trees and the garden
shrubs, like the buildings, all gone
How, then, are the peacemakers at
Paris to set in motion the machinery
itself all to be made, which viii bring
the old inhabitants back to the GermaT,
desert, which, like the great American
desert of the last century, separate . q
two smiling regions? How are the mil
lions Of little people with their fIocis
anu tHtI lHflH implements to he re-
turned? How are the Germans, who
did this thing, to undo 1t?
In Paris one talks Of the league Of
nations and the right of self-determina- =
tion, but on the Hindenburg line one
thinks Of something more specific, more
tangible On the Hindenburg line I
found French woman who had come
to look for the first time at what had
been her home, the village in which she
had been born, and her people time out
of mind ] found her exhausted beside
the road after the 30-fnlle walk, her
face again turned toward her place Of
exile And this Is what for her, fni.
her children, her friends and nelghbors
the Hindenburg line was My readers
will recall how often I have written OF
this great system of defense, stretch =
ing from the Scarpe to the Somme. thew
win have vlsualized 1t as n fortirication
as a system of intricate field works
with forts In certain sense this was
exact, in another 1t was totally false
Here is what this French woman
found in the very heart of the Hin
denburg line facing Queant. Where
the famous switch line began, facing
Bullecourt, where once the Australians
| were slaughtered, surrounded on all
sides by places whose names were in
Continued on Page 4, Column 2l