WAR ZONE TOURS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 229, 21 June 1919, Page 8

WAR ZONE TOURS

BIG RUSH NEXT YEAR

PROSPECTS FOR TRAVELLERS

Several inquiries have been received at the m'iice of Tlios. Cook and Son in Wellington from people going Home as to the prospect# of being a.blo to visit places of. interest in tho. war ?x>ne of Northern Franco and llelgium, and it mav be news to many to know that already many (joints of war interest: will probably soon bo made available to the tourist. In March Mr. G. F. Harrison, who represents Cook's in New York, returned from a visit In Europe. Ho reported that conditions wero improving rapidly in London.

"I did not; go to Brussels," he said, when interviewed by the. ' "Tribune," "but Brussels has been officially reopened. One gets in Paris, or at (.ho .Belgian border, a. special form of laissez passer for Brussels supplied by tho Belgian Government. These are not hard to get I was informed, but. there is iis yet 110 direct train from Paris to Brussels. The quickest route is via Lille. Belgium is .naturally in no better position than France as to tourist travel, and 1 doubt it there can be any great amount of it to either country this year, but 1020 should- be a wondorful year for tho tourist to Europe.

"Rome idea of what, confronts travellers (0 the scene nf last spring's German drive can be gained from tho trip (o Amiens and Bethune, which it was hoped mi«ht extend to Yures, but that proved impossible at the time. While one sees en route to Amiens stations and villages which wore bombarded, it is only upon reaching (he place itself that 0110 actually gets the full impression of entering the war area. The railway station at Amiens was in a condition characteristic of nil that, part of France. Every pane of glass in tho building was smash, ed and the structure itself badly damaged. Many of the iron columns sup. porting the shattered glass roof were broken by fhell-firo. and but for ilia emergency supports the roof would have fallen in.

"After leaving Amiens tho railway train wa3 in poor condition and overcrowded, nnd as one neared tho former front conditions grew worse. Only one hotel was open at Bethune, nnd it had received only part of its new furniture. Each room was occupied by five or six uersons, and there were many marks of the building; having beert struck by shell fire. The thought that it might: be possible to return to the train to sleep was of no value, for thq train had been removed to -a distant siding. Tho station building waa practically non-existent, Champagne and Verdun. "Whilst the majority of French villages where the tlun has burned and pillaged, or which have been laid loi* bv his shell fire, will be rebuilt as soon as may be, many places especially noteworthy becauscof the fighting wliicli oocurred there will be left more or less a.l they were on November 11 (Armistice Dav). ... It is now possiblo to visit lieims and Soissons, and return to Paris the same day, ami I obtained a safo conduct covering them and Chateau Thierry, but did not use it' except to tlio last-named- place. Chateau Thierry itself suffered little, because of the' lack of artillery bombardment ther*. Tho town was-part of No Man's Land for about a month, occupied by the French and Germans alternately, and patrol work and street fighting wero noarlv constant; but the placo was never shelled to any extent during (lie days before ths Americans went in there, and stopped the German' march on Paris for good. In Belleau "Wood all tlio marks of a most Ravage fight are still deal'. At the foot of every (too is a concreto dug-out for machine-gunners, 'for the wood was simply a im;chine-giin nest, and these were all battered into silenoo by heavy artillery fire. All kinds of remains and rubbish were lying about, shrods and patches of uniforms, parts of belts and equipment, > ammunition cases, ' Very lights, cartridges and -hand grenades by the hundred, and a great many unexiiloded sneUs of every. . size-aiid tho wealth of realism . brings home to one most forcibly ilia finished fight in which the United .States Marines drove out of the wood for all time picked divisions of the Prussian Guards. "Vaux wo* battered by heavy shelllire. as bndly as Belleau. hut tho immediate surroundings of tlio villages are so very interesting that they should be kept in their present condition for tlio edification of tourists, just as Belleau and Belleau Wood are to be, I understand." Respecting tlio charges for European Uavel this year, the local office of Tlios. Cook'and Son has been ndvised that the hotel, transfers, and sight-see-ing rates are roughly about 100 per cent, higher than before tho war, and then there is a -difficulty in obtaining accommodation. which remark applies to such places as London, Paris, the South of France, and Milan.