BATTLE OF SOISSONS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2260, 21 September 1914, Page 5

BATTLE OF SOISSONS

WAR CORRESPONDENT'S NARRATIVE , VIVID PICTURE OF GERMANS' RETIREMENT ir • -nt n f 1 aris ' September 18. Mr. Richard Harding Davis witnessed the end of the battle at Soissons during the retreat from Marne. Ho says that German gunners sought to destroy the road from Meaux. Their marksmanship was so accurate and the execution so terrific that pursuit was impossible tlio while. During four days the armies struggled thus. Four miles of country are now littered with unoxploded shells, knapsacks, and uniforms. Bed Cross flags hung in bushes still show where the dressing stations were, together with the bodies of German soldiers whom first aid failed to save. Ihese are the so-called missing. Some peasants will bury them, and not knowing the purpose of t(he medal eaoh man wears around his neck their identity and circumstances of death will never reach their relatives. The Litter of Flight. Everywhere there were dead borses. ijomo. were killed by shells, but the majority wero the property of French • peasants, which the Germauß destroyed lest they be used by the French as remounts. It was impossible to count the- motor-trucks and automobiles abandoned along the twenty miles of road through lack of potrol or 'breakdowns. Hie Germans smashed or set fire to the oars before abandoning tbem. They also shattered the remains of two German airships. When Mr. Davis reached Soissons, the Germans had abandoned the hills to the south, but had left a rearguard to protect the saggers, who were destroying the bridges. The French ordered the Turcos to clear the town. The blackfellows crosseqV in boats, and followed the engineers, who endeavoured to repair the bridges. Meanwhile the German guns were bombarding the hills and pounding the roads in order to retard the French advance. From the heights it was possible to see .Cd.npiegne for thirty miles northward to St. Quentin—a beautiful panorama of wooded, grain-clad country. Hie track of the hurtling, bursting shells and the smoke of the battle could bo followed for fifteen miles, including the section to the right, where the British were fighting. Shells, Cale, and Fire. . Time v shells set fire to houses, h'ay= stacks, and piles of grain, a gale fanning the fierce blaze. The siege guns sometimes dug a hole twenty yards in circumference. The French disregarded them, and slept peacefully in the German trenches or under the haystacks. They had been fighting seven days without a pause. Later in the afternoon the firing ceased, and the Germans retired. Mr. Davis saw little ,wanton damage ■ —nothing comparable to the horrors in Belgium. Other observers, state that during the siege of Meaux a German general and his staff occupied the his-' toric Chateau of Guie, at Gougis, fillled | with art treasures and priceless tapestries. Little now remains but the bare walls,' broken pieces of furniture, and stained and tattered tapestries, which the Germans used to clean their boots. They also slashed the remains of old masters. SACKED AND PILLAGED. WANTON DAMAGE IN SOISSONS. (Rec. September 20, 2.15 p.m.) ; Paris, September 18. Sir Alfred.Sharpe (formerly Governor of' Nyasaland) traversed the district of the recent fighting in France. Ho states that the Germans wrecked all the unoccupied houses as a matter of principle. The peasants were not molested apart from being requisitioned for supplies. The whole of Soissons was sacked and pillaged. The wanton damage done passes belief. The contents of 6hops were scattered. Though there waß no suggestion that the townsfolk had resisted, • houses and safes were rifled and women wore forced to give up their jewellery. There are many German prisoners at Soissons, chiefly men taken-in batches of twenty and thirty, who were eager to be captured.