The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-20

for a while the devastation that is to be found on all sides.
 Montfaucon, Epinonville and Charpentry have their union school" a long, rambling, unpainted hut where M. Valtier, who taught youngsters at Montfaucon ever since the war of 1870, daily directs the education of two dozens boys and girls But classes are unfeasible when American visitors are in the region and here, in Chateau Thferry, there is no shortage of guides for those wish ing to see relics of the American advance Vauquois Hill Still Attests
 Power of Modern Explosives
 Vauquois Hill, with it's crest carved away by mining and counterInining operations which preceded the American advance, stlli presents an amazing proof of the power or r71odern explosives, while the sheII-churned fields on both sides of the road leading to Varennes tell plainer than words what the troops of the Thirty-f1fth Division ill their attack and capture Of NarenneS, as well as McRaes Seventy-eighth Division, in reserve there later for the forcing of the eastern end of the KTienhilde Stellung, had to endure There is nothing left of Vauquois village eX- cept a signboard ''Vauquois," bearing an American divisional mark obscured by eIgh- teen months of neglect, and a few weed coV- cred mounds which once were the homes Of fairly prosperous farmers or tinlbermen-
 Considerable progress has been made 1n tbe clearing of Varennes. The German camp at the western end Of the town mas been entirely dismantled and the reinforced houses when, worn after their onslaught, they con- SsoIidated their position for a few hours, are gradually being razed. Here, as elsewhere the hut system is being adopted, and It IS estimated that within three months Varennes will have a population of 5'ooo.
 At the Varennes-Vauquois crossroad, op- posite the unrecognizable remains of the old village church, and also opposite the dlVl- sionaI monument of the 28th Division, two cafes have been opened, one of which still reserves s it's "cave" the dugout in which regimenta1 officers of the 2Sth and 35th divisions gathered after the Ger mans had retreated toward kr1eInhlid Sno were wasting their ammunition against the Varennes bluffs in a vain attempt to pre- vent the arrival of achievements ana ar tiiIery.
 confb of verd11n in he St. MihieI salient where Gen. Pershing directed the Allies sue cesses, only a few of the American object ives show any signs of reconstruction Les Eparges, battered by the allied as well as German heavy artillery will never be re- paired; there is no suitable site for a pros porous village in all that honeycombod area from which the Fifth United States Corps drove the Austro-Hungartan and prepared the way for the taking of Fresnes-en- Woevre.
 Who tn the Fourth Division. the stalwart regulars under Major-General Hines of West Virginia, does not remember the readless statue of Gen. Marguerite in the weedy Town Hall place? The statue is still there, cleaned and polished after it's war trials, but no one has ever been able to decide whether it was the German the allied artillery which decaDitated the general The streets Of Fresnes have all been cleared and a few Of the houses, especially on the road leading to St. HiTaire, are being repaired for occu- patton, but the chateau opposite the headless statue is still in ruins although surrounded by numerous huts. Reminiscent of the elan with which the American troops went for ward on the road to Melz is a crudely writ ten sentence on the walls of the chateau celIar-"Victory, Fourth Division." ." followed by the uncompleted line, Corp NJ A. Was Fresnes promises to become one of the most important of the Verdun area settlements. Its population now num- bers nearly 200. Fresnes church is being