WANTON GERMAN DESTRUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1917, Page 5

WANTON GERMAN DESTRUCTION.

AS A NEW ZEALANDER SAW IT.

(Special from N.Z. Official War Correspondent). Headquarters, ](larch 22. During the pdst few days I have been in the area of the German retreat, andhave witnessed some of the most tragic scenes of the <var. 'The Germans, in their retreat, have destroyed, desecrated, and defiled. From village to village, one goes from bad to worse. I was in Peronne the morning after the German retreat, and made a minute examination, enabling me to say that the calculated destruction by the retreating enemy was diabolical in its thoroughness and vindictiveness. All houses riot touiShed by shell fire were blown to bits by high explosives, and all the furniture and the household goods and treasures of the late inhabitants, were smashed with axes, hammers andv picks. Even the handles of the instruments of destruction were then themselves destroyed. The town was a scene of empty desolation; trees of the boautiful avenue were hacked half way through and all orchard trees sawn down. The fires are still burning. To-day I visited other villages, where woe is added to desolation, and only women, old men and children were left. The children, p»le-faced and thin, stared at one with all their childish merriment gone. There had been neither meat nor milk for months. The people were virtually held in bondage, all the cattle and provisions were commandeered, and even young girls made to work hard at wood-chopping and other tasks. Much of the food sent by America and Spain for the inhabitants was taken by the army, and children died through ill nourishment. The interesting fact was elicited that the German soldiers have been badly fed for the past six months, but the officers bought food in Belgium and lived fairly well. Behind one officers' mess, I saw a pile of between 1500 and 2000 empty bottles that had held expensive wines and liqueurs. Latterly some of the soldiers cried when sent forward to the trenches; others refused to go, and were sliut in an attic without food for four days. Germany has expressed her bitterest hatred of Britain, and realises that she cannot now win. In private houses the Germans the pianos, mirrors, and pictures, destroyed libraries, and carried off all valuables they could lity their hands on. In the mortuary chapel of .one chateau they broke open the coffin of the owner, buried in 1859, cut- into the lead coffin, and left the body partly revealed. They also Btrewed the altar vestments about. For miles one went through avenues and orchards in which scarcely a tree stood. The scenes witnessed were such as left the saddest impression, and called loudly for assistance from all civilised countries towards the punishment of the barbarous militarism that caused them.