The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-08-26

Before | forget the impressions which
most often come back to me IN my recoi-
leetions of the battlehelds, IL mention
the few things which | feel may interest
you
At chill 10S." which is now virtually
fat. the French and Germans We're en-
trenched not many feet apart. Each en-
deayored to blow the other to pieces by
undermining the trenches. Both sue
ceeded Today two huge holes, probably
100 feet deep, adjoip each other ana one
can walk on narrow ridge and look
down either side. The soil IS white
chalkv clay as hard as rock and
sprinkled with pieces of ruSting metal
and she'll spIinters Anything that ap-
pears to be a pebble is iron. lis hall
lowed ground and you are told YOU walk
ON the bones and fragments OF hundreds
of men when you visit the spot. | should
estimate those craters are 300 feet in
diameter The Germans fired their mine
of - tons Of dynamite just when 300
French Blue Devils were preparing to
90 .over the top" Not 4 piece of any
man ever was found.
We followed the road beside the Ilin-
denburg line Of trenches for hours. On
both sides are the cement machine gun
nests of the Germans, scattered over the
fields about 200 feet apart. The tops
We're nearly level with the ground and i
noticed particularly that they had ce-
ment doors which swung on iron hinges.
Those doors and the side walls were
about two feet thick and the tops about
four feet thick over which another foot
or two of earth was spread. Behind these
for fully mile were series of trenches
and row upon row of intertangled
barbed wire 1t is all there still and
will not be removed. 1t cant be. There
is too much wire to make its removal
practicable. 1t would cost more than its
scrap value to clear the ground and il is
worthless for any known purpose. The
weeds are rapidly covering most of IT.. but
being strung largely on iron uprights it
can be seen as far as y0u can get view
in all directions. 1t is slow to rust away
50 | believe it will remain as it is for
many years. That means all those fields
are idle and worthless.
At other sections the farmers have
piled up the wire into huge heaps and be
gun to reclaim the land, but those spots
were further removed from the fighting
fronts. Not a tree was to be seen that
had not been shattered. There was no
shade and nothing green but brush and
weeds grown within the past three years,
where formerly extensive forests existed.
Miles back of the lines the farmers were
leveling the shell holes by hand. They
find the work very dangerous on account
Of the immense amount of uneXploded
shells which lie at various depths every
where. ! noticed one place where 10
men We're working side by side using
only hoes. that they had picked out about
a dozen huge shells and piled them beside
the road, and they hadn't leveled more
than 30 square feet when digging out
that many shells.
On the ridge by the Chemin de Danes
there formerly was a village of 1000
people and a church which overlooked
the valley. / don't know how many
times that town site was taken and
tretaken. but today there Is absolutely
nothing but piles of earth and masonry.
The site of the church has been partially
excavated by digging down. from tile
present surface about 10 feet showing
where the door step rests. Back on the
! hill are steel lookout towers and gun
/ emplacements left by the Germans who
occupied the commanding position two
| years. They were finally driven out by
( the French after a three-day attack over
/ the open ground in the face of machine
! gun fire. but few months later the Ger
mans retook it from the British in one
/ day. That spot was SO many times
I.churned up and bombarded that even
railroad tracks can be seen protrudiug