VERDUN-A DEAD CITY

Nelson Evening Mail, 29 September 1916, Page 3

VERDUN-A DEAD CITY

-THE SADDEST SIGHT OF THE WAR." Writing from Verdun to his father, Dr M. Crivelli, of Albert Park, Melbourne. Georges' .the 44th French Field' Artillery, paints a vivid .picture of the ruined tow a: "Tthink," he says, "that the oddest thing I have seen since the war Ibesan is that big, deserted town, VerSnTthat I have been watching every day for two months. One side of it. ,« levelled 'to the .ground, and m (the other .part of the town a few walls are «,t»I standing, with socre broken windows in them. But somehow it does not rive one an impression of a ruined town where absolute silence rcwrjis eveT >" where, and not a living thing can be S "The impression as rather that of a cold dead tomb, far weirder than the vastest desert, whero at least one can tWi the air has a certain amount ot lif« n Tt, and the sum shines,; n« soecks of sand move about or a few plants, miserable as thev might be. «ve some idea of life. Here the feeling •?s that it ought to move, resound, live . Instead of that—nothing! AH is vend. Everything is frozen, retrified, as it tne sow! of the place had left it. ~.... "4.11 at once one hears a whistling, at first almost impercentible. but grpdu■nllv «6fctiiMT louder and shriller, ending in "the exploson of a bomb that burst* above the nrins. A 'big. opamie ball of nastv vellow smoke annears. followed tw a shower of steel that flies in all directions. The movement shakes the stagnant, aiT, and rolls and rushes alorwr deserted: streets. Then, a silence thnt is more intense than ever, as if a veil had been brought over the caty, and aga:n all i« sad and finished. "There is one mam alone who is al-w-->vs there, I consider him a hero. He ig noor Tommy who is always watching' -from the top of a lookout, and has to 'warn trooxis that are stationed V round; the countrvside in case of fire. T am sure that if I held that position I would ibe Ftnicken with that dreadxul terror of which. Maupassant tells us—but which no German: attack has ever .given me; and vet I felt it at the beginning of the war."