THE DEVASTATION IN FRANCE
WELL-ATTESTED FACTS ORGANISED VANDALISM o "I have just returned from the district in France which was devastated during the German retreat," writes H. J. .Mackinder in "The Times." Although .some description of this great infringement of the laws of war has already been given by correspondents attached to tho French army, I doubt whether most people in Britain have as yet any, real idea of the extent, the system, and the thoroughness of tho destruction. Will you, therefore, allow mo to summarise the imnressjsu made on a few members of the British and Italian Parliaments who have' just visited tlie region for the purpose of informing opinion in tho Allied countries? Wo owe thanks to the French Parliamentary and military authorities for tho completeness and efficiency of the arrangements which were made for us. I limit myself to definite facts which I saw witli my own eyes or myself heard from credible eye-witnesses. There is to be an official and detailed inquiry, but this will necessarily involve some delay, and it is important that in the meantime the broad outlines should be known. In the Little Town of Ham. In tho little town of Ham, a place of soino three or four thousand inhabitants, wo spoke with the Mayor and tho Collector of Taxes. The Mayor was at his post during the first three 'months of the Uerman occupation, was then taken prisoner into Germany, whence ho was ultimately sent back to France, and returned to Ham immediately on tho German evacuation. The collector remained ill Ham throughout the enemy occupation. It is clear from the statements of these men that, in this particular town, at any rate up to the month of February last, the Germans behaved with severity, but not with barbarism. Both men were emphatic that there was no violation of women, and that the American food was duly delivered without any substitution of inferior German flour. It is important to note this, as indicative of the moderation of these witnesses. Last Fcbruarj', however, exactly ouo month before the evacuation, 700 men and women, between the ages of 15 and GO, were suddenly removed to an unknown destination, and nothing has been heard of them since, except iu tho caso of one woman. Two. sick persons, who wero practically dying, were included in tho number, because their ages fell.within the limits stated. It must bo remembered in estimating the proportion of the population taken that most of the young men left the town to join the army at tho' beginning of tlv. war, and that 6ome of the wives and daughters of the better class went awuy before the occupation began. Tvdny the remnant of tho people of Ham are a pathetic little crowd of grandparents and •school children. This case appears to be typical of w.hat has happoned in a considerable number of villages mid- small towns of the Departments of the Canine, the Aisno, and die Oise.
Next _in point of wickedness, .in my estimation, stands the cutting down of fruit trees. In order to appreciate- what has been dono in this matter it must be realised that this k one of tho richest iruit districts even in fruit-growing France. Not merely were there many orchards and fruit trees round almost every house, and avenues of fruit trees along the roads, but practically every field ia the countryside was studded with fine trees, from 20 to 100 years old—apples, pears, aim cherried. They stood over all the landscape with the / regularity of chessmen on a chess board. A French Deputy, a Norman, who was with us, estimated the average value of each tree at 200f., the average yield per annum at 20f. After careful consideration \n the spot, I write with duo caution when 1 say that tens of thousands of theso trees have beeu felled. When you look from a hill top t'hov lio across 'the fields ranged in ranks like men lying in extended ™icr, not a branch having been lopped, I'fay, and each stump having a white ""rly cut top to it. In some- communes . few trees romain standing, but oven of thoso wholo groups have rings neatly chipped round them so that they will die.
Deliberate Vandalism. At Coucy-lc-Chateaii there stood tho massive remains of a round "tower, the keep of a Medieval castle. This untenanted ruin was one of tho most romarkiiblo monuments of its kind in France, and indeed in Europe. I saw it myself only a few months before the war. It now exists no longer. The destruction of it is so complete, 'that tho remains lire not in great fragments, as is usually the caso when masonry of this kind is broken up, but have been reduced to their component stones, which now lie in an immense shapeless hoap. There is no military excuse- for this crime against history, for the 'tower added nothing to the military value- of the hill on which it was placed. Tho destruction of- railway stations, bridges, canal looks, and factories is allowable to a retreating army for tho pur-' pose of impeding the advancing enemy' , Tho destruction of towns not merely as the incidental result of bombardment, but deliberately for the purpose of depriving the advancing foe of shelter, is a more debatable act. In the district which we have visited, however, the destruction has been carried far beyond tho point which could be justified even on that plea. At Chauny every single house, except in one suburb, has been destroyed by explosion from the cellar. Outside each ruined doorway there is chalked up on the wall wiiat was apparently an order as to tho quantity and kind of oxplosive which was to bo put within. At J ussy there was even 'greater thoroughness, for, whereas at Chauny the unroofed and ruined church and houses still stand, and make a tragic appeal to the imagination. Jussy has been literally razed to the ground. It was a well-to-do- Uttlo market 'town, 'of some two or three thousand inhabitants, almost every house ol it with a cellar, a little front garden, and an iron gateway and palings. To-day only ono cellar in tho whole place remains intact, and the Germans wero not content with an explosion in each house, but took tho trouble to pull down the ruined walls, so that now Jussy is like the epoil heap of a mine, with a rough surface of broken brick at about the eye-level of a standing mnn. A known inhabitant of the little town came there a few days ago to unearth the little fortune which ho had buried; though the military authorities did all that they could to help him, he was utterly unable to identify tho site of his home. I phssed through a number of villages in the same state of ruin ns Chauny.
A Phase of Frightfulness. It is said that tho Gerroan object in all tliis has been to frighten the peasantry of Franco into peace, lest similar il'iDgs should bo done in the districts not yet evacuated. If that be indeed so, they have not reckoned with the French Army. I saw many thousands of that truly wonderful force, which con"eists to-day of .young and iniddle-aged men, drawn mainly from the peasant and fanning classes, for most of the artisans arc at munition work. This manhood of tho- French nation, perhaps a little shorter than our men, but more even in stature, presents to an extraordinary degree the picture of uniform physical well-being anfi intelligence. But tho most remarkable thing to an Anglo-Saxon observer is the curiously silent, self-possessed, cheerful, and yet deadly efficiency which characterises tho French of to-day. Our men sing and cheer, but of all the thousands of the French I saw not me was oven gesticulating or speaking • with excitement. Tho indications are all of a set
determination (o lake a terrible retribution, though I do nol think it will bo barbaric. Perhaps tho felling of the fruit trees is felt by this nrmy of peasants as the fouljsj stat) of all. As I travelled back i.ubugh" Kent, and looked up from my newspaper, and saw an orchard, I found myself exclaiming, "Why! tliero Is an orchard standing!" When you have traversed milo after mile of that vast ruined orchard in Franco even a townsman feels as in a nightmare. At the end of a day of it tho rage mounts in your throat. It is dillicult, iudeed, but vitally important, to make the people of I'.Ts island realiso the coldlv scientific metliod of the Hun. The 'wnr U for him an act of comemrce. It begins io appear Chat after all tho resiilt o? it may not be a capital investment for himself, and therefore ho destroys systematically tho capital of his future competitor.
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3169, 21 August 1917, Page 3
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1,475THE DEVASTATION IN FRANCE Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3169, 21 August 1917, Page 3
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