THE TRAIL OF THE HUN.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 6 July 1917, Page 6

THE TRAIL OF THE HUN.

In describing the wanton destruction iand vandalism committed by the Germans in the territory, reconquered recently, Mr. Philip Gibbs gives the following pathetic particulars he had with the village priest,

He sat before me, a tall old man of the aristocratic type, with a finelychiselled face, but thin and gaunt, and as sallow as though he had been raised from the dead, If I could put down his words as he spoke them to me with passion In his -clear, vivid French, with gestures of those transparent hands which gave a deeper meaning to his words, it would be a grand story, revealing fhe agony of the French people behind the German lines. For the story of this village of Voyenncs is just, that of all. the villages on the enemy’s side of the barbed wire.

Here in a few little streets about an old church were the bodily suffering the spiritual torture, the patient courage, the fight against despair, the brooding but hidden fears, which have been the life over a great tract of France since August, 1914. “For a year,” said M. le Cure Caron “my people here have had not a morsel of meat and not a drop of wine, and only bad water in which the Germans put their filth. They gave us bread which was disgusting and had haricots and potatoes, and potatoes and haricots, but not enough ever, so that the children became wan and the women weak The American people sent us some foodstuffs, but the Germans took the best of them, and in any case wo were always hungry. “But those things do not matter,

those physical things. It was the suffering of the spirit that mattered, and monsieur, almost destroyed our intelligence, it almost made us silly, so that even now we can hardly think or reason, for you will understand what it meant to us French people. “We were slaves after the Germans came in and settled down upon us, and said: ‘Wc are at home; all here is ours.’ “They ordered our men to work and punished them with prison for any slight fault. “They were the masters of our women they put. young girls among their soldiers; they set themselves out deliberately at first to crush our spirit, to beat us by terror, to subdue us to their will by an iron rule. They failed, and they were astonished.

‘■“We cannot understand you people,’ they said, ‘you are so proud, your women are so proud. 7 “And that was true, sir, Some women, not worthy of the name of French women, were weak —it was inevitable, alas! —but for the most part, they raised their heads and said: — “ ‘We are French; we will never give in to you, not after one year, or two years, or three years, or four years. 7 “The Germans asked constantly: “ ‘When do you think the Avar will end?’ “Wc ansAvcred : ‘Perhaps in five years; but in the end avc will smash you. 7 “And that made them very angry. So our people Avent about Avith their heads up, scornful, refusing to complain against any severity or any hardship. “Secretly among ourselves it was different. We could get no news for months except lies. Wc knew nothing of AA T hat was happening. Starvation crept closer upon us. We Avere "surrounded by the fires of hell. As you see, we are in the outer section of the great Somme battle 'Jine, and very close to it. For fifty hours at a time the roar of guns SAvept round us Aveck after Aveek, and month after month, W.d the sky blazed around us.

GERMANY AS "WOUNDED TIGER. “We were afraid of the temper of the German officers after the defeat on the Marne, and after the battles of the Somme, Germany was like a wounded tiger, fierce, desperate, cruel. Secretly though our people brave faces, they feared what would happen if the Germans were forced to retreat.

“At last that happened, and after all we had endured the days of terror were hard to bear. From all the villages around, one by one, people were driven out, young women and men as old as sixty were taken away to work for Germany, and an orderly destruction began, which ended with the cutting down of our little orchards and ruin everywhere. “The commandant before that was a good man and a gentleman, afraid of God and his conscience, He said, “I do mot approve of these things. The world will have a right to call us barbarians.’ He asked for forgiveness because he bad to obey orders, and I gave it him. ‘‘An order came to take away all the bells of the churches and all the metal Work. I had already put my church bells in a loft, and I showed them to him, and said, “There they are.’ He was very sorry. This man was the only good German officer I have met, and it was because he had been fifteen years in America and had married an American wife, and escaped from the spell of his country’s philosophy. Then he went away. COMING OF THE BRITISH. «Last Sunday, a week ago, at this

very hour, when the people were all in their houses under strict orders, and already the country was on fire with burning villages, a group of soldiers came outside there with cans of petroleum, which they put into the church. Then they set fire to it, and watched my church burn in a great bonfire. At this very hour a week ago, I watched it burn.

“That night the Germans went away through Voyennes, and early in the morning, up in my attic, looking through a of glasses, I saw four horsemen ride in. They were English soldiers, and our x>eople rushed out to them. “Soon afterwards same some Chasseurs d’Afrique, and the colonel gave me the news of the outer world to which we now belong after our years of isolation and misery. “Our agony had ended. The Germans knew they were beaten, monsieur; a commandment of Ham said:

“ ‘We are lost. 5 “After the battles of the Somme the men groaned and wept when they were sent off to the front. “‘God- 5 they cried ‘the horror of the French and English gunfire! Oh, Christ, save us!’ “During the battles of the Somme the wounded poured back, a thousand or more a day, and Ham was one great hospital of bleeding flesh. The German soldiers have bad food, and not enough of it, and their people are starving as we starved. “The German officers behaved to their men with their usual brutality. I have seen them beat the soldiers about the head while those men stood at attention, not daring to say a word but as soon as the officers arc out of the way the men say: “ ‘We will cut those fellows’ throats after the war. We have been deceived After the war we will make them pay.”’ So the cure talked to me, and I have