BATTERED BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2425, 1 April 1915, Page 5

BATTERED BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

THE VILLAGE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE. London, March 30. "Eye-Witness," with British Headquarters, describing the Neuve Chapelle battlefield, says: "Originally an unimportant collection of houses and small farms at a junction of country roads, with a church in the centre, all that is left of the place are a feiv crumbling brick houses, roofless, surrounding a tall white shapeless mass representing the church. The ground has been so furrowed and pitted by shells that only confused mounds if what were formerly German trenches remain—earth and stagnant pools covered with a yellow powder from the lyddite shells. "The village suggests the havoc caused by an earthquake. It is impossible to distinguish streets among the rubble of brickwork. In the churchyard thedead were rooted up and later reburied. Fallen masonry from the church and crosses from tbe tombs are scattered everywhere. The only thing that escaped damage was a small crucifix standing erect amid the medley of overturned gravestone 3 north of the Neuve Chapelle line of. breastworks, where the British gallantly faeed the machine-guns again and again. "Behind tho British lines are the graves of manv; some were buried where thev fell, singlv or in little groups; others are in the regular cemeteries, until a cross over each crave, with the name and regiment. Many of the graves have been turfed and flowers plnnted."—("Times", and Sydney "Sun" Services.)