AWFUL DESOLATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 254, 6 April 1915, Page 6

AWFUL DESOLATION.

STATE OF LORRAINE.

WORSE THAN BELGIUM.

The French military authorities conducted a second party of English war correspondents along die battle-line towards the end of January. The London Daily Telegraph was represented by Mr Ashmead Bartlelt, who wrote:

"Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, is a delightful town of over 100,000 inhabitant. Happily, it has escaped a German occupation, although the Bavarian army made most desperate efforts to obtain possession of it. The only excitement the occasional visit of a Taube, which drops a bomb, of which 110 one takes the slightest notice. Nancy does not even turn down its lights at night. These frontier towns despise and laugh at both aeroplanes and Zeppelins.

The area of our tour, which lasted three days, was that stretch of French Lorraine embracing the famous Gra:.d Courormc dc Nancy, the country between the Grand. Couronne and the German frontier, then south-east to Luncville, and from that town south-west as far as Eambervill.er, which was the far;hest point reached by the German armies in their desperate efforts to break through the famous Touee de Mireeourt, between Epinal and Toul.

The. whole of this immense stretch of country was the scene of some of lire most desperate fighting which has taken place 011 French soil during 'he w-\r. Roughly, this prolonged battle lasted from August 1-i to September ]2, when the Germans, despairing of success and

discouraged by the result of the battle of the Marne, finally threw up the sponge and retired across the Seille to their own territory. Since September, both armies have settled down on the'.r lespeetive frontiers, and are waiting for the development of events elsewhc.-e before attempting to resume an offensive which led to unparalleled losses m and Se|)tcm>»->

ITere let me say that never before inve I seen .such an awful state of desolation a 4 prevails over the whole of this immense tract of country over which the armies fought in August and September. Belgium is bad enough, but, French T.orrairie looks exactly as if it has been devastated by a gigantic earthquake, '.vhich lias shaken down all the tov.is and villages into a mass of shape) -ss, &:noke-blackened ruins. Many of these villages were destroyed by artillery fire, or in the course of desperate hand-to-hand fights for their possession: but the majority are the dedeliberate work of destruction systematically carried out by the liavarifin hordes, when, disillusioned, disheartened, a'id battered, they commenced their final letircnient across the Seille.