THE BLACK PATCH

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 191, 8 May 1919, Page 7

THE BLACK PATCH

SCOURGE OF RATS IN THE WAR WILDERNESS V MALICIOUS WRECKING OF BELGIUM '. ■' ' (from the London "Daily News.") There is a black patch inEurope. It is one of many, but it is the' worst, if any, comparison is possible in war's destruction. It is the one referred to by Mr.. Lloyd George at the Peace Conference, when he declared that such destruction as he had seen must be impossible in the future. This particular black; patch starts on the coast between Dunkirk arid Ostend, and sharply widens •to a breadth of about' 80 miles between Hazebrouck and Brussels, then it extends south-eastwards on practically the same width for something over 150 miles before it narrows' between Verdun and Metz, and shrinks to a strip; of desolation along the Lorraine and Alsaco fronv.'-,' ' ."...'

At the time when the armistice became effective—it will .be recollected that-the beaten Germans continued destruction and pillage ; for; several days, after the truce was signed—there was not a railway in- . tact in this black-patch, which, in the .neighbourhood of Lille,- Konbaix, Tonrnai, was-amongst the most, densely- populated and most thickly railway-netted areas-on the-.Continent. Railways 6erving .'. the inhabitants of thousands of. 6quare miles were 6crap heaps. . A few of them have been - patched up, and in two or three directions, you are able to cross the. wilderness of ruin. The rail from iirras to- Lille has been repaired for Paris uassengers to that town and Brus- : jels, the line from Hazebrouck to Lille, for Bologne' and -Calais passengers, amongst .whom-are many English business people travelling • from London to Belgium, and there is also bain communication from Dunkirk to the Belgian capital via Bruges; I crossed the'black patch from Hazebrouck to Brussels. Distance about 80 miles, time spent about sixteen hours, including a walk across •Lille from one suburban station to another, and waiting for a connecting train Irhich has' not yet been linked- up.. , '■, v. The Rats : of Le Quesnoy. - The awful ruin that stretches - away from this track of railway is simply terrifying in-its., completeness; and when you think, as you are,bound to,, that if yon, crossed the black patch anywhere thirty miles north of the line you are on,, or anywhere 120 miles south it, you would find the same desolation,' it really leads you to' wonder if life will ever find. its. way-into t-his : stricken area again. War destruction has been so .of'ten described and pictured'that.nothing more remains but to try and annreciate what it .means. But a curious thing did strike me, and that was that the novice crossing'- this black patch could 'trace the line where the desolation of war ends and the'malicious destruction •by a bea-ten-soldiery begins. .'..-■• I was 'asked; when X reached Lille, if I had seen Le Quesnoy, familiar in our v G.H.Q. communiques. I had to confess v that I Jiadn't, but no surprise was expressed, because the,reason of the inquiry was to tell me that if I.had seen Le Quesnoy I 'had seen the worst of war's destruction.' People, who. for four years have seen horror piled on horror 6peak.with terror of Le Qjiesnoy. It is invaded with rats.' Flooded out of the miles of trenches.tliat now' look like complicated, systems of toy canal;, the vermin have invaded the ruined iowns and hamlets like a scourge. . Bailleul seems to have been burnt out rather than demolished by artillery'firei It has more naked walls standing, than •Armentieres,' and it also -possesses its name plate on the railway s'tation. Here, is where the Germans reached last Eas-, ter, and. Sir Douglas Hai» had to tell an anxious nation: "We have got our back* to the wnll," and his hardly-dressed-troops: "We cannot afford to give another, inch." The wall that saved the Ypres salient, and the roads to the sea was. of,flesh and blood., :.

v.Presently-I same-into- a- country where all-the destruction is artificial; methodical, diabolical.-'-From the dirty wounds of the accidents of war you pass to the clean-cut slashes of, the skilled operator of detraction. No trouble was too great. As I passed over the single line that has been made usable I was able to see that the painstaking. German had placed dynamite under the end of every rail for miles, so'that when ho. blew the line utt the ends of the rails would be blown off or split or twisted—at any rate, so-dam-aged that they could no,t bo employed again \ temporarily. At places the destruction would .be on a large scale, whole sectors being blown into adjoining fields. Everywhere bridges were destroyed, those passing over the railway being brought down with the double object of blocking the railway and preventing the uso of. the roads,which crossed it. In the lions sector alone 123 bridges were destroyed, including a large one on the main. Brussels line which will''not be temporarily replaced until the end of this month. . >. ........

- On, ..the wrecked Belgian lines, 30,000 trucks, loaded with ammunition, were abandoned. AH had to be unloaded before they could be ,'moved. Locomotives were left strewn about the system, with their fires burning,' resulting in.the destruction of the boilers,, passenger carriages had the windows broken, tho'Wcstinghouse brakes cut, and the . heating pipes put out of order.- The whole of tho telegraph and signalling system in tho black patch so far as it refers to Belgium is destroyed. , '■

This is only the barest; outline of the details of damage done by the Germans as they withdrew on Brussels as given te. me at tho Belgian Ministry of the Interior; and probably .similnr'deedsof malice have been wrought in that larger section of the black patch which lies in France.