DESOLATION OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1922, Page 11

DESOLATION OF WAR.

THE WESTERN FRONT TO-DAY. WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION. REPAIRING THE DAMAGE. A most interesting description of parts of the Western Front, as seen in the summer of 1921, has been received by Mr. Clutha Mackenzie, M.P., from Captain Blandy, of the Imperial Forces, who was blinded but afterwards partially recovered his sight. Captain Blandy and a friend landed at Ostend, which had hardly been touched by British guns or aeroplanes. “A line tribute to the forbearance of the Allies and particularly to the Navy,” remarks the officer. Soon after leaving Ostend the travellers were in familiar war scenes of shattered houses and churches and broken trees. A feature new, but to become familiar, was masses of rusty iron along the roads where the debris had been placed by the peasants before the cultivation of the soil began. Dumps of shells, “plum puddings,” and other missiles still were to be seen. Referring to the ruins of Ypres Captain Blandy remarks that he understands that the Cloth Hall is not to be restored beyond being made safe, but is to be left as a “monument to German %‘kulture.’ ” Before the war Ypres had a population of about 17,000 and some 4000 houses. Not more than 100 houses have been so little damaged as to be capable of reconstruction without being pulled down. The rebuilding operations are of a very piecemeal character and give the town a quaint appearance. “There is no common plan,” says Captain Blandy. “It looks as if the former owners were tenacious of their rights and interested only in the rebuilding of their own property.” Did houses are appearing from the ruins. The building is of an unequal order, usually of the “jerry” kind. The Belgians are working hard —from 6 a.m. to 6.30 or 7 p.m. sterns to be their normal day —but they appear to be rushing up the houses without regard to the future. THOROUGH RECLAMATION OF FIELDS. “If their building operations are sketchy, the reclamation of the Belgian fields is thorough,” says the writer. “The industry of the peasants is untiring. They beat and level out the land with their cumbrous mattocks and later with tractors. I regret to say that I saw hardly any British agricultural implements —the Americans seem to have a real half-Nelson on the trade. The courage and patience of the inhabitants have done wonders. The trenches have almost disappeared, and the shell holes, except the biggest, have been obliterated. Only the very worst areas, such as Polygon Wbod and Hill £0 have not yet been reclaimed. Wc were amazed i.o find Passchendaele Ridge and St. Julien smiling cornfields, and this is a very dry summer. It is lucky,” remarks Captain Blandy, “that the Flanders Plain is so moist, though most of us thought otherwise a few years a;go.” “The ramparts of Ypres. are an object lesson on the science of defence,’ says the traveller. “Built by Vauban in the 17th century, the great brick walls and bastions stood the four years’ bombardment almost without harm. The scars on them show how often they were hit, but even the biggest “crumps” made but little impression. They certainly vindicate the value of very thick earthwork faced with brick against even modern artillery.” MESSINES A COMPLETE RUIN. Messines itself, was, perhaps, the most complete ruin in Belgium. A good part of the famous ridge of Messines has been brought into cultivation again, but two of the mine craters of 1917 are untouched. They are deep and partia.ly tilled with water. Rifle and machmeoun pits around one crater were almost the only works of the kind which remained distinguishable. Many of the broken trees in Plug Street Wood were sprouting, and the undergrowth everywhere was rampant. The crest of Kemmel Hill was bare, it being inches deep in pieces of metal, relics of the furious bombardment in 1918- B.dge was almost unchanged. Arras was found less battered than the travellers had txpected, only 5 per cent., of tlie *°" Res being damaged. Serre, near Hebuterne, was the most complete picture of desolation Captain Brandy saw. On the site of the church two bricks were round after a search. In the vicinity were two shell craters 30ft. deep and 40tt. wide. Little work of reconstruction had been done in the Somme country. !. LESS RECONSTRUCTION IN' FRANCE. Reconstruction was much less advanced in France than m Be’gmm,^- h explanation being that trance was a much greater task and far fewer men .n proportion. “A large part, of the manhood. of Belgium,” comments Captain Blandy, “either came to . En B ,and . °L W fue under German rule during most of war Thus Belgium has a reserve of manpower, whereas .France has noNotwithstanding the magnitude ol task the French peasants had accomplished wonders—though the travellers were told that the fact that Er ™'|’ l Government granted compensation only to those who actually settled on their old lands was the sole , reas t °“ vßlages return of many. In most of the the people were “pigging it in shacks old army huts of “elephant houses. The roads perhaps owing to the good offices of the sappers, were in r ! rst ’ c ’ aSS ti ?i con . “The horrors of war indeed still co tinue,” says Captain Blandy. ■ evey day there’are explosions of shells, and one which occurred du ”"8 our slay cost the lives of six men The inhabitants have an awkward lab t »f popping off old bombs, etc., at nil ti and on one occasion while we resting on the ruins of the ° ld “ ,la n p Thienval. we came once more unciei direi 1 ' ffi-e from an enthusiast who apparently was loosing off old Mills a ' Anyone who wants to see the 1 fields,” concludes the writei, sb in the next two years, or there n<) no battlefields to see.”