The Elbert County tribune., 1919-01-31
Thrifty French Already Cleaning
Up Battle Ground to
Plant Grain.
TASK MOST DIFFICULT One
Removing of Barbed Wire Entaneie-
ments Is No Easy Matter-Nar-
row Gauge Railways Being
Torn Up and Trenches
Filled In.

Paris.-Eradication of all traces of
everywhere along the old stationary
front which marked the line of the OPP
posing armies since the inception of
war of position.
Barbed wire entanglements are be-
Ing torn up, trenches are being filled
In, camouflage is being taken down.
narrow-gauge railways removed. and
shell dumps and other depots for ma
terial being transported away.
This is the first time that any field
Notifications have been permitted to
be touched by the civilian population.
Even after the Germans had been
driven from the Chateau Thierry re-
gion south of the Marne TO north of
the Vesle, the military authorities re-
fused to permit barbed wire to be
taken up or earthworks filed in.
In most cases this work is being
done by civilians, but. everywhere with
the release of the older classes of
French soldiers and the numerous re-
formes-wounded discharged from the
army-there are enough men familiar
with field works to supervise the re-
moval of them.
Difficult Work.
II is no easy matter for the novice
to pull up barbed wire. and in places,
particularly in the Juvigny region
north of the Aisne, where the Thirty
second division fought with General
Mangin's superb Tenth army ard won
for themselves the sobriquet OF "The
Tigers" the entanglements cover hun
dreds of acres; the belts being hun
dreds Of yards in depth. This wire
dates back from September. 1914. and
is rusty and dangerous to handle.
owing to the presence of tetanus mi
crobes. The newer "giant German
wire." the strands of which are
quarter of an INCH thick and which
bristle with barbs, is equally hard to
remove.
The old wide trenches which were
in vogue earlier in the war before the
development OF the minenwerfer as an
accurate piece of ordnance, are hard
to fill in, as their parapets have been
washed away by rains and blasted to
bits of shell6re. They are like great
bitches. furrowing the earth in every
direction. The newer. narrower
trenches, shored withstInber and pro-
vided with blackboard floors are easier
to fill in. The thrifty French first pull
out the snoring and let the rain net
on the trenches for a couple of weeks
in which time they invariably fall in.
then they shovel over the top, smooth
ing 1t off.
No attempts are made to fill in the
dugouts. the entrances merely being
boarded up and covered over. In
many Of these German dugouts there
are Internal machines md man traps
likely to explode when the first per
son enters. Loose boardsson the stairs
or bits of suring stretched across the
entrance set off explosives. In mnny
other dugouts there are corpses of
friends or foes. killed underground by
bombs hurled down the exits.
All roads in the zone where the op-
Losing armies have swayed back and
forth are lined with fox holes, as the
American doughboys call the tiny
shelter caves they are taught to dig
with bayonets and mess kits and
which provide such wonderful shelter
against shrapnel. Everywhere In the
belt of terrain marking Sthe extreme
limits of the passage OF the fighting
troops there are endless rows of these
Cox holes sdug into the bitches beside