Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-01-21
RUINS MR.. WILSON
WILL SEE IN FRANCE
Devastated Area Which the
=; President Is to View on
Coming Trip.
DESCRIPTION OF HAVOC
BY CHARLES Fl. DENNIS.
Cablegram to The Evening Star and
Chicago Daily News. Copyright, 1919.

ment because peace conference mat
ters in Paris delay President Wilson
visit to the devastated regions where
wars wastage and the almost incred-
IDLE malevolence of German military
methods have laid vast areas in ruin
and stripped them of all inhabitants
except the magpie and the crow are
unrealizable by those who have not
heard the expressions of regret and
disQuiet In order to learn why such
Importance is attached by the French
authorities and peoples to the care
fully planned tour of Mr.. Wilson
through the war-torn districts I have
just made two-day trip amid these
scenes of desolation over what is
practically the route proposed for Mr.
Wilson's journey. Such a trip must
impress deeply one charged with the
duty of determining the nature of the
peace terms, since Germany never can
repay the cost of her aggressions. but
should certainly repay to the extent
that she can.
Permitted to Make Rapid Survey.
BY the courtesy of the French war
department / was permitted on an au-
tomobile trip to make a rapid survey
OF many OF the most famous battle
fields, roofess cities marked by lab
arynths and broken walls and innum-
erable villages beautiful for situation
but now worthless heaps of rubble
amid uncultivated farm lands strewn
with deadly explosives.
With a fine young French lieutenant
of artillery and also Paul Scott Now
rer. OF all the correspondents the most
familiar with the operations in those
regions, ] left Paris by train early in
the morning and passed through bat
tered Chateau Thierry. where the
americans added a glorious page to
history. Thence skirting the banks
OF the Marine, where the Germans
made numerous crossings in their
abortive offensive last July, we turn
ed northward to Epernay, the German
objective in that offensive, and climb
sa the wooded mountain of the
Rheims front. where the splendid SOL
diership of the French. English and
italian divisions broke and half de-
Stroyed the heavy forces of the enemy.
BY a descent from Rilly one quickly
snters Rheims, lying covered with
ecarred. half dismembered, but still
beautiful and majestic cathedral.
6heims mas become a place of pill
srimage for French and American
Slen.seers the latter also stopping at
and sailors on leave and Red Cross
nurses enjoying brief holiday pene-
trdte these cities. gathering tons of
souvenirs. They see the cities re-
Iusrning to life amid iamentable con-
unions ana all manner of ruinous dis
array. The inhabitants, aided DIV busv
polius. are patching toeether some
sort OF habitations from their former
MONIES: Here pathetic makeshifts
ssrSs the patient people in takins. IN
tne broken threads of their old lives.
: Cathedral Still Beautiful
! The cathedral of Rheims, greatly tor
su " showers OF immense shells
mucn damage was done to its hollow
shell and broken roof. is sti,l no;e.
nantiy beautiful. It's vast shapeIy col
emns are but little injured. Their
carved capitals are still fiawIess and
one must almost wish that the re-
storer will stay his hand after indis-
pensabie repairs be made so that the
glorious mutilated monument will for
ever testify to the measureIess bar
oarism OF the kaiser's armed hordes.
motoring northward from Rheims
one speedily enters the zone long oc-
eupied by the Germans, where ruin
vas systematically wrought, where
tne landscapes are filled with muddy
trenches and cavernous dugouts and
where broad tangles of stakes and
n2rbed wire extend to the horizon.
Here. also. one comes upon many
proofs Of the Germans hasty retreat
last fall in the shape of piles of shells
OF all calibers, boxes of grenades
skeletons Of horses, abandoned rifles,
helmets and other equipment
the road leads to that most desc
late Of cities, Berry au BAG, a desc
Grated corpse lying at a crossing of
the Aisne and frowned upon by the
terrible Hill 10S. which mines turned
bottom side up. Here 1000 people
dwelt, but now only fiattened ruins
'eofrtdors. making even the site of the
city untnhabitable.
Such q place is a fitting gateway
20 . region Of peculiar horror and
Oscillation penetrated by the road
49, ay; nov ". named W,fs by the s; French the
'onne, that antechamber to the death
citadel on the heights of the Aisne,
Where once was the Chernin des
DANES. but where now are only naked
m9d slopes and crests pierced by
debris and Uttered with human skulls
and fragments of soldiers skeletons
torn from their graves by bursting
smells. The ground is as thickly
covered with shell fragments, rusty,
unexploded grenades, rifles and tor
pedoes as a new-sown field with
grain
Where Thousands of Men Died.
Here on these ain-channeled, she'll
pttted heights, where men died by
thousands, an observer such as Mr..
Wilson. might be particularly i'm
pressed with wars hopeless insanity.
Farther than the eye can reach in
any direction lie villages beaten into
the earth by shell fire. deserted farm
lands and forests reduced to splin-
tered stumps. War ragged all about,
slew mercilessly, wrecked everything
and then ended like an exhausted
delirium.
From these evil heights we de-
scended through Craoneile, following
. surviving remnant of the Chemin
des Danes through stone heaps that
once were villages. At Juvigny we
saw the first sign of human life since
leaving Rheims From behind the
few broken stones of low fragment
of wall was visible stovepipe
projecting from a cellar door below
an orchard. From the pipe came a
wreath of smoke. A knock at the
door brought a response from an
apple-cheeked gray-hearded peasant,
who, with his wrinkled, old wife sat
by a stove in the dim firelight of
the windowless vault eating bread
Around the lonely pair were a few
utensils. articles of furniture and
wearing apparel. These were the
trict
They had returned six weeks before
to the cellar of their former home
He was a peasant and had tract of
land which he had cultivated with
two soldier sons One of these was
a prisoner in Germany and had not
been heard from in many months
Though his home was utterly de-
stroyed by the Germans he was par
ticular1y outraged because they had