FIRE FIENDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1915, Page 11 (Supplement)

FIRE FIENDS.

VILLAINS ■WANTi.NLY' WIl'KI) uli

II"- most complete specimens of Ccrman rnfhlessness which J l lim . seen ;„ I-ranee an- in tin- province of l.hamP'lgno, when: I havu been walking through places unci; known as the villages of llcilf/Jc, .Uaiirupt, Mesmos and lluirnn. writes Mr. Philip ilibbs.

scrmaize has. been utterly wiped out. As tar as 1 could .see not one house was Id! standing. \'„t one wall was -pared. It has hem, laid flat upon the earth, will, only a few charred c v slacks sucking, out of the piles of bricks ' cinder,, strange, piteous relic* of P'-'tty dwelling-places |i,. a \„ ml in tll( , litter, sijiinlyiiig thai men and wt n Willi sonic love for the arts of life '■nee lived here iii decent comfort The notice board of a hotel which had given ""•Pliably to many travellers before it became a blazing- furnace lies sideways 'in a mass of broken bricks, with 'a legend so frightfully ironical that I laughed among the ruins. "Chauffa"o Central"- the system of central heating invented by Hermans j„ ln j s war> |las been to,, hot for this hotel, and has burnt it lo a wreck of ashes .""If '" ■l'«.-n peasants stood in one »t the -streets," marked by a lino of '■j'l'l'ixl' liciip... which had' once been their homes. Some of then, had waited until Hie ni'st shells came over their einniiey puis before (liev fled. Several "I their friends, uoi s„ luckv in liming beir escape, had been crushed to death by (be billing houses. Hut it was not shell lire which did the work The Hermans strewed the cottages with their inflammable tmhlcts. which have been made lor siu-h cases, and set their torc.ics to the window curtains before marching away to make other bonfires '>" their road of retreat. Scrmaize Hit- !;'""' a street of fire, and from each of its houses flames shot out like scarlet -nakes, biting throng-l. the p.,]/ „• Mimke. Feasants hiding i„ ditches a ,ll ' l . l ' «»;»v stared at (he furnace i„ "Inch all their household goods wore '"'"ig consumed. Something of their .'","„ '"■-""'"'■' lt, burning „„,.,. 1 ''K -!>,- dust and ashes of old hope, and happiness. '

"''••'«t was mine." said .„,, of the l»-<N.nts. point,,,, to a few M|lMlr , V(II , N acros thT'n , ',', '"•*' "'"" la " hom '' s' .It, ,- tUIV>U : UI thi,t w «" "hto. • '- was a ),ne jjirl, monsieur, with hair hm e,ol,l —some voars a"o \' ou - ]. ~ I ll ■ '"' W ?""'"- T, '««- ««■ manv ; M !' !l ?'-«-« ".ills, white-haired b,'101 e their tune."

some of these white-haired 1 in Idcsmes and ||uiron and other T ,' 1 "'' I|IS , ° German ruthlessuess Z T l '" " w«v mi ~., , , ,0,1, c "'" '»•'•<' to "1' Jo,. ~,„.„,. , , •„;; ■';'"-■ Thcs, volunteers are ti'..l^SV:; r^ru?!u t ■l ,^n^,, ■ called on J, ,1 • M I,iIYC l,w " •"" "'.l'nends. | t|lt U|()| ~, (| . 1-n.m In (helrencll Ciovernmcnt foi this cn;i: , l al ' theirimlustr >'" l " ""0 <" these old world villa..os „f C 1.a...,.nj..u., Lu It centuries a BO it-U i:ir:i,7^ a^ ci,i,ie » <3, »v^ n ■ isf n- 1 , t] told tales of nistoiy to tic villaeers ," wi » <li«if»lt to patch up the l llrL.,h , 1 I"'''', o' lluiron Cl " lreh '' '" "' ll l,<l ,ls "«k roof, whose beams '■<; !ik(l tlll! ] „. oki>ii ril ;^ 1,,: I "-. 'T ll ' llSl ', ' l « white-; ' " l""-t "ii lit roadway here. His i" 1, "i"' v '•'••'"-■'"■ d JM-liiiia his l„.„t ' ;• j''" 1 -v.".'.*- now and then he thrust (1 ; ''»• '"-id felt hat and looked up I he poor hattercd thi„, which had <-'<" l„s church. w,th immense sadness ,11 his eves.

'1 here was an old chateau near lluiron !» »■''"•' a noble family of France had '»<•<_'• U had many pointed gables and 'M»»''t. turrets and nmllioned windows ovcrlookino- ~ „,„.,!,.„ in w)iich thi!t(i were many arbors and sculptured fill es. When I passed il a da vs am, tl'«' gables and turrets had fallen' down, mid instead ot n,ii]]i,„icd windows there "ere -apm, l,„]es in blackened walls, lie gardens were a wild chaos of liiinipled shrubberies anions ||„. ~jndcr In-aps. the twi.-ted iron, and the wreckage of this old mansion. A flamim; , "-' ll '"• 'wo had all that time liad -pared, and the chateau of Huiron «as 11 graveyard in which beautv had j'een killed murderously hv outraffcous hands.

In one of these villages of Champagne. I saw one relic the other day which had been spared by chance when the Haines of the incendiaries had licked up all other things around, and somehow— Cod know- why—it seemed to me the most touching sight in this place of desolation. It was a little stone fountain, out of which a jet „f water rose playlully. falling with a splash „f waterdrops into the sculptured basin. While the furnace was blazing in the village, it had played on—a svmbol of beautv and the grace of life. More awful than the destruction of these vilagos is the slow doom of l.'heims. A few days ago T stood on the edge of a great battlefield in champagne, and from an e\ rio in a tree above the valley looked across to the cathedral, (hat shrine of historv where the hones of kings lie, and where everv stone speaks of saints and heroes and a thousand years of worship. The Oernian guns were still firing around it, and iis great walls stood grim and battered in a wreck of smoke. Kor nearly nine months the city of Wiciins has suffered the wounds of war. Shrapnel and air-bombs, incendiarv shells, and monstrous ■•'marniitcs" have fallen within its boundaries week bv week, sometimes only one or (wo on an idle day. sometimes in a raging storm of fire, but always, killing a few more people, always -haltering another house or two. alwavs spoiling another bit of 'sculptured boautv. When I gazed at it the other .lav through the smoke of guns there seemed an awful grandeur in that eilv's tragedv.