IMPREGNABLE VERDUN.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1916, Page 6

IMPREGNABLE VERDUN.

GERMAN FAILURE. AFTER EIGHT MONTHS OR BATTLE. TURN OF THE TIDE. (By H. Warner Allen) On the Mouse, Oct. 25. "Souville telephones that our men are entering Douaumont." Such was the news that an artillerv officer brought us from a neighboring fort as we were standing -on the heights above Verdun watching the battle as best we could despite the mist and the thick masses of smoke that kept pouring up from every ravine, across which tl»« French attack was- passing Douaumont, "the keystone of the defence of our principal enemy's most powerful fortress," as the German Emperor called it after his troops had carried it on February 2fi, was once again in the grasp of the French. 1

Surely if there is one thing calculated to complete German discomfiture on the Western front it is the loss of Douaumont, which heralds to all the world the absolute failure of the great push on Verdun, and the utter uselessn'ess of those holocausts of German live; which marked the advance.

The contrast between the first days of March and October 24 was the very expression of victory. Yesterday the noiae that came to my ears was no longer that of bursting German shells, but the reiterateiPreports of the Frcn-li wuns that were preparing the way for the French infantry back to Douaumont The enemy was firing heavily enough on the advanced French lines, though his barrages seemed hesitating and unsystematic. Occasional big shells fell on the hills nearest to the battle, a wisp of two of white smoke rising from Verdun 'showed where a German shell had burst.

THE AMMUNITION WORKERS. Steadily the line of shell-bursts moved tip the slope. Every hill and every valley was flickering , with tongues of flames, the flashes of the French guns, which were not merely playing on the Germans who would soon be taken or slain by the victorious infantry, but were searching methodically every battery emplacement, 'and spreading confusion among the enemy's line; of communication. As the evening darkened the flashes more and more vivid' From the big howitzers, from the fifteen and sixteen inciters, there eame sinister bursts of broad red flame, which leapt out greedily into the grev mist at though seeking what they might devour. High aloft in the distance, seeming level with the stars, (lashed out the flickering lightning of their shells, bursting on the commanding crest between Douaumont and. Vaux. <

v.-.'-in was no longer the .centre of <'••• -'figle. Behind the city scarcely \>t shell was bursting. EveryHi:;:': behind the lines emphasised the reversal of conditions that seven months have accomplished. If only the ammunition workers, both in France and Kng- ■ bind, could realise the extent of that reversal they would understand -how true a right tliey have to be proud of their work When the great battle foi Verdun was c:ciiK r 011 hut March the roads behind the front were the scene of an indescribable activity. The great main road from Bar-le-Dno to Verdun was reserved to motor traffic, and each day there passed along it 4000 motor-lorries, one every twentv-five seconds. Never in history has a highway carried so great a weieht of materials in so short a time as that main road at the beginning of the battle. THE ROAD MENDERS. Yesterday there was none of (hi* Icverishness and excitement. There was no continuous stream of traffic on the roads. 110 frantic road-menders challenging (he chauffeur? to run them down. /Convovs there were, but (hey were ill* most leisurely in their movements. Such activity as there was belonged lo the im-r.ortant-lookins little locomotives of the light Deenuville railways, which were puffing about over the fields in all directions. Tiiinss are normal now, and tliey have taken (lie place of the emergency motor lorries. Their lines meander aoout everywhere, and. thanks to them, tli' 1 burden 011 the, roads, has been lightened a hundredfold.

Instead of wild road mender? riskin? their lives at every second, all along the highway there are ganjrs of Asiatics, drnvrn from Tn.lin-Chinn. breaking stones and working industrially villi that placid,, indifference for their _ surroundings which no European can imitate. Surely in the. history of war few towns have passed through such amazing vicissitudes as the city of Verdun in the short space of nine months. Knw the time of trial is over. Xot only has Verdun held pond, but already she lias begun to win back outlying forts of her girdle, which the enemv won at so teri:ble a cost. Verdun is to-day Verdun the Invincible. Verdun the Tnmregnablc. the rock which broke the might of ficrmany. Herman shells have worked havoc with her streets and houses. Scarcely a house is left in the rue Mazel. once her busiest thoroughfare Yet the very destruction has increased her invincible power of resistance. One of the inner lines of defence is a Roman wall. The Romans had surrounded the hill on which the Cathedral stands with' a thick continuous wall. (Jraduallv the wall was hidden by the houses that sprang up along it. until its very existence was forgotten. When the German shells came they destroyed all the flimsy building; of later generations: and laid bare parts of the ancient wall, which held l out against even modern high explosives. The French did not hesitate to press into their service the work of the Romans, and they have now organised the Roman enceinte to resist any attack. But supposing the impossible, that the whole of the town, with all its traps and barriers, all its deep shelters and hidden machine-guns, succumbed to an assaul,t there would still remain Vanban's citadel, which could only be re. duced by a prolonged siege. And the artillery that can reduce ViuibJn's citadel at Verdun has not yet been produced.