Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-07-21
DEVASTATED REGIONS KEEP
FRENCH WAR DREAD ALIVE.
LAWRENCE FINDS In EUROPE
All Students of Reparations
Problem First Should See
Havoc, He Says-Restora-
ton Going on Steadily
BY DAVID LAWRENCE
Especial Cable to The Journal.)
(ropurioht 1000

(COpyrlght, lS2S.
PARIS, July 17.-When Woodrow
Wilson stepped off the train in
Paris five years ago the first man
who met him was Raymond Pom
care, then president Of France, and
now it's premier.
The first words that M. Poincare
whispered in Mr.. Wilson's ear were
plea that the president of the
United States should visit the devas-
tated regions of France. Mr. Will
son did not accept the invitation and
the French were very much hurt.
He did go many weeks later, after
the bulk of the work on the treaty
of Versailles had been completed.
Had ne gone sooner there might
have been less wrangling at the con-
ference, and the whole course of
European history might have been
changed
So the first thing that anyone
who wishes to study the European
situation ought to do is to examine
the physical aspects of Frances
~ OUlCJIls II was NEARLY live YEARS
ago when the writer last saw the
battlefields, with the ruins of cities
and villages. The changes that
have taken place since then are so
heartening that the average Ameri-
can will not realize what has been
done unless he saw the destruction
when the guns ceased booming on
the western front.
Steadily ReStorad
The process has been gradual and
only when someone makes q COM
parison based on France today and
France five years ago can the
progress be measured satisfactorily.
For France is rebuilding and is
making a splendid job of it.
Even the cathedral of Rheims.
which one might have believed had
been damaged beyond repair, is be-
ing restored rapidly. Hopeless ruins
with piles upon piles of debris which
the visitor saw five years ago have
been replaced with thousands of
new houses and buildings. The old
foundations have been utilized and
here and there portions of the orig
inal wall remained, so that the
patch work can be discerned even
through coats of paint.
When the writer saw Rheims aft
err the German evacuation hardly
single house remained intact. The
same was true of scissors, for ex-
ample, and other cities and villages
where shell fire mad been inces-
SAINT. To look around today is a
revelation indeed of the French
spirit. The business section of the
cities have been almost entirely re-
built and rows of roofless ruins are
the exception rather than the rule.
Farms Blot Out Trenches
Even in the fields picturesque
patches of diversified farming are
rapidly overspreading the landscape
once burrowed with trench systems
and shell holes.
The sunshine of peace has seemed
to cast a halo OF glory over yester-
days battlefields. Here and there
pIoughman still turns up a hand
grenade or a bomb or perhaps the
body of an unknown poilu, asleep
these five years as the world moves
onward, but the aspect of war is
passing out of the picture, and in it's
place is the work Of reconstruction
that speaks eloquently of French
initiative.
The embattled areas still remain,
Of course, as they were left five
years ago. These were regions
where habitations were few, as, for
instance, outside of Verdun. From
these the sightseer will always be
able to get some idea of what the
war was like. The famous bayonet
trench at Verdun attracts every year
thousands who need only to gaze a
moment on the fourteen h9VOnetS
sticking out of the ground in order
to realize how often soldiers in the
great war were buried alive by shell
fire.
French Preserve Trench
The French will preserve this
trench as a memorial to the heroism
of the men who were killed as they
were about to go over the top, and
who remain standing below ground
in exactly the same position as
they occupied when the fatal shell
entomhed them. The trench will