Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1920-08-18
old BATTLE Lines
Evidences of War Thick in Vicinity
of Ypres.
Shell Holes Beginning to Grow Green,
but Battered Tanks Are Every
where in Evidence on the
Scenes of Slaughter.

Leaving Zeebrugge the first days
Journey by motor takes the visitor
something more than hundred miles,
with Ypres as the turning point and
every variety of war-stricken lands
and recovering countryside on the way
there and back. 1t was point moot
ed with wearisome frequency in the
real days of the place-when 1t was
"functioning," as one would have said
and among front-line troops in the
salient, whether they would ever care
to come back and see that foul place
under a peaceful aspect. Agreed,
there were those at home who might
be taken, not without profit to them
selves and the world In general, over
the low ground under KENNEL, or
where Passchendaele looked down on
the swamps, and there were not
few of the armchair gentry whose
instant presence would have been well
coined. But, for himself, it was the
common verdict of the man in the
mudhole that, once out of it, Wipers
and he could be the best of friends
at a distance, says writer in the
Manchester Guardian.
Riding into the place from which
rises the battered tower of the Cloth
hall, in the high day and under
burning sun; coming. too, unscathed
and unfearful from what was unmis-
takably the direction of mo Mans
Land" one had to question such
verdict and finally, under the stimu-
lation of hundred quickening memo
ries, allow the appeal. For the In
terest of Ypres and Of all the ground
in front Of it would not be denied.
The place was like itself-in degree
hard to credit. And IL only some
mimic had been there to reproduce
the shrill crescendo of an approach
ing shell one would undoubtedly have
taken cover. Going out by the way
of the Menin gate and turning up into
the high road to Poelcapelle, with first
HODGE and then st. Julien, with Pas
schendaeie rolling up to the skyline as
background. is to pass into the field
of an endless battle from which moth
ing has been cleared but the dead;
and though elsewhere something has
already been done Of that 'cOncentra-
ton" of graves which Is to give our
dead an orderly and lasting memorial,
they still lie here. for the most part
in the scattered resting places to
which the hurried hands of their COM
rades consigned them.
The shell holes begin to grow green,
but 1t is only beginning. and IL the
trenches are almost unseen as one
goes down the road. were they ever
very clearly defined here' 1t is long
time before q place is reached from
which no battered tanks can be seen,
and now aud again they stand three
or four deep on the very edge of the
road-ditched In their first attempt
at the mud. To look back on war at
its worst, with almost oil its evidences
but present slaughter. one could
scarcely better the viewpoint Of this
road. A few miles farther, and the
murdered forest of Houthulst, with
fits acres of stricken trees and not a
live one gives new edge to terror.
There is something sound In the
notion that one can see the battle
fields 10 a day; the repetition would
give no new tone, but intrinsically the
same impression. AS lesson Ypres
and its province could not be sur
passed. Coming out at Dixmude, be-
hind what was an almost permanent
boche line, the car returning to Zee
brugge comes again into country
which is alive. For the hinterland Of
Belgium has returned quickly to it.
self. The army huts which serve in
the broken areas as shelter for those
who have returned to the shattered
villages, give place here to cottages
already substantially repaired. and
the frugal cultivation of the soil goes
forward with an energy and resource
fitness typical Of no class in the world
so much as the Belgian or French
npnSnptry