THE OLD FRONT LINE.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1924, Page 4

THE OLD FRONT LINE.

YPRES REBUILT,

A CHANGED SCENE

(By F. M. Cutlack in the Sydney Paper).

“But certainly, monsieur, I know C'rois du line. Do 1 not live there? No, I know nothing of tho lady who lived in tho big House with small twin girls. I have no knowledge of the existence of Madame , who used to give monsieur hot-bath water.’’

One left him impatiently. Did he know anything—anything at all! How the old places are changing! There was no time to revisit the little village near that Erqiiiiigheni where Atlios and his assistants sent Milady to her account ; hence the questions of a resident cliaiue-iuet on the road. One revisits the (dd front line in France and Belgium to-day to meet some familiar corners, yes: hut much that is hewildeiinglv changed. It is the duty, apparently, of this low-country to survive wars and forget them.

Wo started from Amiens on the usual v.ct day. The old road to Yillers Bretonneux looks strange without the A.S.C. parks and the drapery of broken wires on the telegraph posts. “Villers Bret” is reviving a little, but the old red chateau is just as it was, and the site of the reserve battalion headquarter* in tho railway cutting on the north side of the bridge looks as though it had been vacated only yesterday. From the new white-stone cemeteries near this place and on tho rear slope of Hill 101, you may look out from either side across the valley up which the loth Brigade advanced to perform its part in the famous night attack on April iM-do, 191s*. There arc still extant some military direction hoards wliidi the A.I.F. put up at the corner wlieie the Corbie road conies in. Corbie is little changed. The houses, restored in places, give llic town no altered look, and the ruins uf the church seem mil to ha vc been touched. We ran thence along the road up the Morlaneoiirt Ridge, hare as ever, and, with infinite regrets at avoiding Bray and all that lies beyond, we turned down left-handed into McriconrlRibemout. Bile here must have gone forward but little Irom where the war left it-, and in Rihcmont are visible still some of the boles in the barnwalls which the artilclrv “lairies” ate out—assisted by other wear and teas of wartime. Then on to Buire and Dernanronrt —rebuilding, but dormant as ever—to Albert, which the British army ravaged tor sloes in the .Somme winters, and has scarcely begun yet to

recover. i.ITTI.K RESTORATION. The leaning Virgin was shot down finally in BUS, of course, and tin weeds growing among the brick ruins of the church show how little has been attempted here in restoration. Ihe French peasant has begun bis restoration first in bis fields; the Belgian in his farms and villages. This is plain from Hie evidence ol the Newfoundland war-park (Caribou Bark), near Tbiepval. The Newfoundland Government lias here enclosed some acres ol the old I rout line for

preservation ; it is just as it was (roili-lies kept up iiml riveted, duck hoards along iiumy of them, old rub l.ish of treiifli life lyin;; oil I lie spoi of the trenches alongside them. Hit of rilies lie uhoiit on the ground, witl wiring staples, shell splinters, and oh homhs aii-1 entrenching tools. *>iu iiuiv mark hy comparison how the country outside the enclosure has heen cleared or talleu hack into its lie.i ural condition. Through the Y-ravine we took the muddy track to I’ozicres. where tne First Division .Memorial is now quite eoneeali'd hy new liriek houses from view by this apj'aoiuh. Nobody ill the A.I.F. would recognise the village, and we could not pick out the windmill site a.s tie .sped alone the mad. to Jhajaume. This is not country to la- raced through at the pace we had to travel. The tree-stumps alone the mail remain, lint between them young trees hit ve heen planted. Th old German light railway along the right-hand side of the road is now in civilian use. Beyond it. on the (onialiuaison side of the road up to tne .Hutto, (lie grass-grown tangle of the trenches is not yet redeemed; hut on the opposite hand the country between l.e Sars and Coureclettc is under crop again. Bapnume is still j considerably in ruins, and hy disappearance of the big military parks and dumps, seems distinctly smaller than it used to he. Then, on flic road (a Arras, dusk and the drizzling rain shut down on the scene. Tin* only link with war-time was the car’s same old splashing of mud against the roadside village houses. Arras railway station and square are rebuilt, and much of the town. Gangs of men are engaged on the shattered l.uildi ngs around the spume near the the Cathedral, as we saw bv the light of next morning. We ran out through the plain beyond the town which lias

attracted armies through all history, and came through Viinv to Lens. II was at Lens that we first- saw rea restoration. The town, is rebuilt nnc flourishing, and the mines, heating all expectation, have nearly reached their pre-war output again. Xear La Basse we entered the pill-box area; the old

German machine-gun forts still stand sentinel here and there along the road ami will remain for many a year yet —obstinate growths upon the ruins of old cottages. N’ear Snilly-snr-l.uys we turned aside to a cemetery in swampy fields below the low Anhers Ridge and Froinelles. A striking site this (dilatory has. It is almost entirely occupied hy Australian graves (as few me); it looks straight out on to wheat fields, and on the western side it faces in the near distance a curving line of pill-boxes—some 20 of them, stretching across nearly a mile of country. BETTER RESULTS.

• Armentieros is still tumbled about. As at Arras, the most complete rebuilding is in the vicinity of the railway station. Half-past Eleven-square too, lias regained much of its pre-war life. Tiie atmosphere of the town is quite changed, and the ghost of Lucille, who told the stoiy about the A.I’.M. and the sardine factory, would he hard to find. Away to the loft of hs in the I.ys villages lay a heap of old romantic memories, hut we were denied the search of them. IVe bumped through Lo Bizet out to Plngstreet now a brand new brick village—church and all. Immediately afterwards, Hyde-park Corner takes you straight hark to war-time. Only the rLmote rv on the site, of the 3rd. Division’s old brigade dumps, is new; all the rest is so ragged as to arouse doubts whether this is peace, or only a quiet day with the Hun. A party was.dismantling the Catacombs above tlio spot where General Holmes was killed. The road on to Messines is slightly repaired. but on the approach to the Dome Valley von may still see the remains of fallen-in gun pits, and the farms here arc not yet rebuilt. But Messines! It is a town again. There is not an inc-li of its large area of red brick that can be recognised.

A tflo<] pavement runs on either sido of the road to Wytsehaete, and indeed it is only just possible to see "here the one new village ends and the other begins. Some magic wand must have been waved over this locality. St. Eloi is a mass of brick houses on the next rise. The old canal is still empty and shell-torn; but away on the right Hill GO has been cropped tlijs year, and there is a hay-stack on the ton of it. In a few minutes we had entered Yypres bv the Lille Gate.

Ypres is full of banks and hotels and shops, and doing a roaring trade on tlie pilgrimages of those who come to see its ruins. It is a .swindle—there ate no ruins. Only the old Cloth Hall and the Cathedral can honestly bear witness that_ there was once a war here—and even those are being rebuilt. The .Monin Gate, unforgettable by millions, makes a wider gap than ever in the rampart walls, for much of the masonry has been demolished to make room for the great new Alenin Gate arch width is to bo tile local memorial to the British armies. We did not go to Polygon Wood, but rushed out to Zonnoheke and back again. Every harm in the salient lias been rebuilt subsuintially of brick. The Ikdds up to the Westhook Bulge, on the left side of the Zonnebeke-roud. are under crop rgain, and on the right-hand side we saw families with sondes filling in the old shell-craters. The p ill-boxes only rcuia!u unchanged. Zonnchcke is a large village of brick bouses, with 1.l ue doors and window-shutters. Save for the trees, not yet grown again, the only peovle who could recognise this salient to-day would he the men of the First British "Expeditionary Force, (in the slope of I’e.ssrhondacTe Itidge. overlooking Augustus Wood of evil memory, is the Tyuecol Cemetery. enclosing live mammoth pillbox l*K and 11.000" graves. We got back to Ypres and to” bed, wondering whether we bad not been projected suddenly half a (cntury into the future, unable to believe that the war was really only five years past.