SUMMER IN THE BATTLEFIELDS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2454, 6 May 1915, Page 6

SUMMER IN THE BATTLEFIELDS

TAKING STOCK OF WINTER CAMPAIGN London, May 4. A correspondent at Clialons-sur-Marn« says: "Summer has come. Along the I'rench centre, whoro the transports ploughed through morasses of mud, now vehicles lumber through clouds of dust.' In tile trenches, formerly soaked with water, there, is now'd scarcity of water. Tiie colonial corps find congenial surroundings, tho dust and heat recalling the plains and deserts of Morocco. Here the mileposts along tho road to victory are the graveyards of tho Battle of the Marne. Gutted villages nark tho enemy's retreat, the fields are strewn jyitli shell fragments, meat tins, rotting boots, empty cartridge-boxes, and the scarred and abandoned German trenches, and the trenches of snipers with their shell craters. To-day and September. The battlefields of September last aro not far from to-day's. Another line of German trenches has been wrested from the enemy, and the French front pushed higher up beyond the oid Roman road running from lleinis through the Argonne, in the neighbourhood of Perthes and Beausejour. "Measured by a map, the advance i 3 not. great, but it has strengthened the confidence, of the army and afforded a proof that the policy of 'nibbling at the Germans' is wise. A visit to the stricken area shows the e.onfideuce of the civilians _in the triumph of the French armies. At Sermaize a new strange village of huts is rising, and amidst the ruins they iare at work. Quakers at the Front. British Quakers, prevented by religious scruples from becoming combatants in the war, are doing their best to repair the ravages in tho war districts evacuated by the enemy. Despite the fact that the Quakers love peace, they have a military air and wear a serviceable'grey uniform. "The retreating Germans deliberately burned and sacked Sermaize, but people are returning and are busy in the reconstruction of the ruins. • "In Paris the people speculate about peace, but the armies iu this zone have no other thought but of war; instead of wondering when the Germans will say 'Enough/ thoy are workina day anil night for victory."—"Times ana Sydney "Sun." services.