A TOUR IN DEVASTATED FRANCIS.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 April 1921, Page 4

A TOUR IN DEVASTATED FRANCIS.

lII.—A RICH BATTLEFIELD. t hc but (By Sir William Beach Thomas.) ; ,ss The immensity of France’s task in r restoring the devastated regions is de- S | H scribed in a series of articles J>y Sir p] K William Beach Thomas, who has re- ( j; K visited tbe scenes with which lie was so familiar throughout the war. The journey, which extends from B-ail-leul to Verdun —lately adopted by London—touches every side of the problem ] of reconstruction: the clearing of lar j battlefields, the building and repairing l> n ] of houses, mines, bridges, and railways ; ( . oi | and tbe remaking of social life in tile cii thousands of hutment townships. ou i FILLERS, BRETONNEUX. j n J One miracle at least has been wroug’-t an , in French ground. a ! There is a battlefield known to us till by a succession of great battles, each \\ I of which tortured it out ot scape. \Y j General Fech, as he then was, ‘ wa- \\ torod” it with a thoroughness only pos- f L . j sible to an artillery genius, during the j s , first battle of tbe Somme—in July, 191';, w j when lie reaped a great crop of Gvr- y ■j mans. Tbe enemy pounded, it Hll bis ! retreat in 1917, recovered it in bis m | “push” of 1918 and lost it- in our great- sl i est h tile, opened on August 8,19 P. [ s i I A good part of that spacious field t j - j yielded most excellent crops this nut- ]j r I unm. Even the small farmer, wiv> loves „ -j to grumble, confessed that. Mic-h of it 11 - I has grown two ciops since the war t i j An eager peasant who bad helped to 1 ( produce tbe miracle gave me the de v tails. f e The first year a-plague of mice and t rats appeared. He. seemed to think „ tliev bad Ix-cn spontaneously br -d from v (l shells or released from.some devil’s cm- 1 j- (-i n by burrowing soldiers. Tbe lod.-nU (> ate every other plant that pushed up. s C The second year they vanished, as j. mysteriously as they came. \ I, This peasant has his stock housed, j some under lean-to tarpaulins, some ] c under bits of tin and wood jutting from j| shattered walls. He himself lived in a e f hut with his family. t s "What would your” he said, “A man r| loves his country.’,’ '/• { He meant not France but bis bit •-! >. r country ; bis parish, his plot ; and in this t sense I doubt whether any people in the ( g world have such passion as toe I* reneh . for their land as such. < * * * * * < () The State, with a simplicity that , , marks the best French work, sent cut t , e men with spades and tweezers. After j ; c cutting the limitless wire into two- . yard lengths they went to work like : r Darwin’s earthworms, so patiently, so t , off' •ot.ively. Every shell-hole was filled . jj. in by spade and shovel ; am! so tlior- 1 „ oughly done that there is no cracked I (1 -hrinking to denote the crater. The tin- < c local and casual roadmen who fill up j t o holes near the road Have "ire sticking I o out. and after some days a subsidence K ' ,t very plain. ,f H is not so at all on tho (arms. A < rough tractor followed the long-handle 1 . i ,f spades; and then the farmers got to 1 h work with those very shallow ploughs ot i< o theirs that regard only the -urtace but l- arc by no means superficial. •e Shells work up by degrees, and when ie found are put up conspicuously or < ,c stacked and flagged for the engineers to l, (o'.hvt and explode. Sometimes they •l are hit before being seen, when good- i r, bve ploughman, plough, and horses; but 1 e for the sake ol tho land that risk is i s run. ii if n class piize were given lor tecony I stritetion energy the French tanner i s would gf't it--r If there were a village competition I I. should pick from the very many villages 1- ’[ have seen Fillers Brelonneux as prize--d winner. d It would please every Australian, s especially the people of .Melbourne, who < d have adopted it, to see already built a t large and well-equipped factory, a new chateau with many architectural trimmings, and a number of real brick y bouses under construction. The village v saw the death of German hopes. When r with a tank or two the Australians stopped the German advance there what r mi incurable mess of ruin the village y was—of brickbats, beams, trunks, girt (levs, aeroplane sheds, and bits of tank ; of dead tilings entombing dead life. 1 It is now alive again, with rich farms i' around it and a cheerful people, r (To be continued).