THE DESPOILING HUN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 2 November 1917, Page 1

THE DESPOILING HUN.

An English officer, writing to some relatives in the United States ou the eve of that country joining the allied cause, thus comments on the devastation and savagery of the Germans when they were compelled to vacate regions in Northern France which they had occupied for two and a-half years.

'" I want to tell you how delighted we all are over here that your great country lias joined France and ourselves in this big world-struggle for freedom. It has cheered us all in the big task we are carrying out, and we all look forward to seeing the Star Spangled Banner. Did I_tell you that in my own regiment (the ——) I commanded for four months an American company? There were 220 of then:—every one a TJ.S.A. citizen, but calling themselves Canadians, English, or anything'else in order to enlist and fight. And well they have fought. I have seen some of these American lads during the last month. Some have won decorations, others have made the greatest sacrifice of all. Those that' remain are as proud as can he that America is now taking part. "I must not say just where I am situated at. present, but it is close up to the muchadvertised Hindenburg line. I wish you could' see the liberated .country through wl-ich we have been pushing back the .Gerruaii rearguards. I have been in village after village where never a shell has fallen and where no fighting has taken place. Every house in them has been blown up. every scrap of furniture either carted away or

burned after being smashed, and every single fruit tree chopped down. lii mc«t caees eren the ordinary trees around cemeteries : ~a.nd by the roadside hare shared the same fate, and I have walked through many trampled gardens where even each rose tree hat been. broken off short near the roots. Every church I have seen- has been blown up, = and at one plaee that I was at a week ago every decent-looking grave had been rifled. Yet in these very churchyards the Germans have always left one beautifuly-kept .part where, their own dead.are buried. In but cases artificial wreaths, . flowers, and eren. tombstones have been taken from the French graves to put on those of the German'soldiers. They trust- us to show the respect and honor to the dead that they themselves have never shown to others. 'You have to see all this to believe' it. for really &e sight of these once beautiful villages iu this countryside all deliberttelrdestroyed without any military necessitV makes one wonder if one is fighting mem or devils.

"After a year's fighting against the Tuik 1 say without hesitation that, with all' hie natural fanaticism and cruelty to non-Slo*-lems, he is a far cleaner fighter than the German, aind less cold-blooded. I know fiat, most of my men felt quite kindly tolerant toward -Johnny Turk' when not actu'a.liv fighting him, and when he was wounded or a. prisoner they would give him their last drop of water or cigarette. After seeing tho*« wrecked homes, however, much the size of their own houses in England, they are beginning to regard the Germans as beasts."