New Britain herald., 1930-09-03
WAR SCARS L|NGER l IN DEPT. OF MEUSE
Battle Wounds Too Deep for Healing in Ten-Year Period

OCpl. \OI NO uc- partment of France has better claim to the title of martyr than the Mouse. No department testifies more elo- quently to the prowess of Franco American arms, for it was the French who saved the half of it for four years, the Americans who fi- nally drove the invader from the half which was not saved.
 Within it's borders lie Montme edy one of the first towns to fall; Yer dun, still in the early spring o1 1916 considered a rest sector for wounded soldiers and destined in two months to become the greatest battle-ground of the war; Saint Mihiel. the thorny salient which endured until the. first American army swept it from the heights ot the Mouse; Varennes, where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were halt ed on their flight from Paris, where 137 years later, National Guardsmen from Pennsylvania, Kansas and Mis- souri drove weary Austrians back on Cheppy and Montblaineville; Sampigny, home city of Raymond Poincare and symbol of the war time presidents undying grudge; Bar-le-Duc, the chef-lieu and one time seat of the Dukes of Lorraine Naux. Mort-Hommer, Douamond, Cheppy, Charpentry, Baulny, Exer- mont, Apremont, Montfaucon, Ro- magne and many another place which reminiscent soldiers will not be likely to forget.
 It is impossible to see the Mouse of today or the Mouse of yesterday in the large without recalling cer- tain salient facts: First, roughly about half the department has never been under intensive cultivation, due to the nature of the terrain, the presence of many rocky slopes and hillsides unsuitable for farming, and the immense amount of land devoted to timber Second the peace time aspect of the countryside is not too pleasant, except for the immedi- ate slopes of the river, the adjoining plains of the Woevre being as deso- late as lower Nevada, a fact which unconsciously heightens the stark ness of the postwar picture.
 Bearing this in mind, one can still find enough at which to marvel, from the standpoint of what hap pened since. The countryside for 50 miles northwest, north and north east of Verdun was made literally unlivable. Nothing could have been grown there until the ground was conbed again and again for danger ouse explosives, and the very ab- sence of foliage made even birds and beasts shun the place. Very wisely the French government decided to zone the battlefield, designating cer- tain likely sectors for agricultural rehabilitation, and setting apart the rest as a series of national war mon uments. including the Trench Of the Bayonets." Farmers thus per manently deprived of their lands were compensated elsewhere, the number of residents electing not to return to the Mouse after the war making this possible.
 There is not one single village, wood, road or farm in the entire de- partment which escaped the almost continuous shelling. By the time the Americans arrived at Saint Mihiel every town in the salient had been levelled and churned into dust. The same was true to the west, where the Germans had hoped to reach Cler- mont. later joining the latter to Saint Mihiel in a "pinching off, move ment. Indeed, by the end of 1916 the department had been thorough ly ruined, so that the last two years of the war only served to emphasize that ruin, rearranging the debris.
 The records give 136,ooo of the 180,o0o residents of the Mouse as having fled their homes from 1914 to 1918. Most of the villages were still decimated in 1921, as for eX- ample Courcelles-a Bois, a ham, let of 300 souls where, as recently as three years after the armlstlce IS or 20 of the most courageous crawled about among the rubble like so many rats, hardly able to keep from starving. The figure of 39S will lages destroyed is almost identical with that of the number in existence in 1914. Some 20 martyred villages in the immediate environs of Yer dun were never rebuilt and are at the moment hardly distinguishable.
 Twenty-four thousand, two hun dred and twenty-nine houses out Of a round number 10000 were con- pletely obliterated, the rest being damaged more or less seriously. Six hundred and forty thousand acres were rendered useless for cultivation, or for that matter for pasturage for several years. Seven hundred and eighty-six factories were destroyed, 4,S7S kilometres of roadway and 129 kilometres of railways.
 Despite the heroic efforts of the Inhabitants in cooperation with the government, much remains to be done in the Mouse. One has the im- pression that suffering has not been, could not be, exaggerated In this de- partment. It is doubtful if 1t will ever return to the normalcy it en-