The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1945-03-16
Ydnks Fight Way Down
Fdiry-[ike Mose|Ie Valley
Patton's Troops Push Along Old Roman Path
ways in Land of Forest, Lake and
Ancient Turreted Castles.
BY BAUKHAGE
Netcs analyst and Commentator.

fort. On the flat plain the use Of
armor Is an advantage, but in billy
country, once possession of the
heights is gained, artillery can DOM
mate the detectives below toward
which the foot-soldiers are moving.
There are plains in the Eifel, too,
but it would seem that the chief ar
teries of advance would be along the
valleys and the roads the Romans
once used in their advance in the
opposite direction.
1t was westward, the course Of
Caesar moved when he conquered
the Treveri, the tribe from which
Trier (Treves in French) gets it's
name. The Roman legions marched
in Sc B. c. BY IA B. c. they were
fortifying Trier. Today the famous,
blackened height of the Porta Negri,
the city's Roman gateway, has been
Fashioned with modern Notifications.
The ancient brick basilica in the
town and the renaissance fountain
(Petersbrunnen) will be remem-
bered by thousands of American vet
Grams of the last war. Trier, seat
of the electorate, became a center
of monastic learning in the Middle
ages.
Let us hope some of the landmarks
will be preserved and when our
bombers smash the bridge across
the Moselle, the ancient buttresses
remain intact as they have these two
thousand years. Perhaps they won't
have to be bombed, but rather the
destruction of buttresses than one
American life. Remember what
Bismarck (of all people) once said
of piece of foreign soil? A square
foot of it was not worth the bones of
a single Pomeranian Grenadier.
In the hope that our men can
march the rest of the valley unmo-
Tested as their fathers did, let's turn
up the valley where the Eltz river
pours into the Moselle, not far from
the Rhine.
Il quote from my diary, April 2,
eve started out on foot, the only
means of locomotion the old vii
lage with its plaster houses, the
crooked, cobb1ed street, the old
trees and the church, older than the
trees -. along the meadows, past
the mill and across the stream and
the huddle Of houses which cluster
about it, up the enchanting valley
wooded with beech and birth, the
hurrying Eltz below, and the green
meadows, underfoot the brown
leaves that fell last fall and will lie
like those beneath them undisturbed
until the ones still green cover them.
Down a dip in the path and across a
stream until the somber ruins Of
'Trotz, Eltz' appear. (Trotz means
against.) 1t is the relic of fruitless
effort to destroy the real castle of
Eltz below. Moat, tower and but
tress were built with the sole pur-
pose Of destroying rival, Gust as
the modern artillerist seeks to take
the height to destroy those below.
'Then up the path until suddenly,
as if the ascent were planned by the
architect who built the poem in stone
below, the fairy castle of Burg Eltz,
turret and tower, pinnacle, portal
and drawbridge appear"
That is the end of the quote, as
we say on the radio. May it be the
beginning Of new dreams of more
glorious world, Of which some day
the valley Of the Moselle will be
part.
The deaths of many semi-promi-
nent Nazis, notices of which are ap-
pearing in the German papers Zone
man died at two different places
on two different dates) are taken to
mean that the alleged late and I'M
lamented gentlemen have either es-
capped to neutral countries with a
new identity or have become some
one else at home.
However, it is also pointed out by
persons familiar with conditions in
Germany that it is highly probable
that number of real deaths which
are unreported are likewise taking
place. In the first place, the con-
centrated Allied bombing on locali-
ties where high officials congregate
(Berchtesgaden and Nuernburg) is
bound to catch somebody some time.
In addition, various inside jobs"
are probably getting rid of a num-
Der Of persons.
Negroes constituted almost one
tenth of all the employees on the
federal payroll as of March /, 1914.