THE OLD FRONT LINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 67, 4 October 1940, Page 3

THE OLD FRONT LINE

last war who visited the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium three years ago found little evidence of the former conflict. He had been in the Ypres Salient when the New Zealand Division went back into the line after Passchendaele, and wished to find again the old front line beyond the Butte. It was impossible; no trace of the trenches could be found, though the whole countryside, for hundreds of miles, was a vast network of them. That sea of mud and desolation had been transformed into a land of neat farms. Except for concrete pillboxes dotted here and there among them over the old battlefields, there was little to mark the signs of four years of conflict. Gleaming tarred roads cut through the country, covering the pavé which defied years of bombardment and on which the German shells made little or no difference. Hooge Crater, once Brigade Headquarters during the Division’s spell in the line, was not even visible, though it was deep enough in 1917 to take dugouts burrowed into its dripping banks. Nor was there any sign of other craters which lined the duckboard track all the way to the Butte de Polygon. The Butte de Polygon The Butte itself, he said, was a pieturesque sight and beautifully kept as a memorial to the 5th Australian Division. This great mound, which dates from about 1870, is visible for miles across the gently undulating country which stretches from Ypres to the coast. Perhaps, during the rearguard action fought by the British Expeditionary Force of 1940, that same Butte, which sheltered many New Zealanders during the last war, became both a refuge and a target once more. One feature of the countryside astonished the New Zealand visitor. On all the roads branching out from Ypres to various parts of the old salient, roads along which the New Zealanders wearily tramped, the old war sign-posts had been preserved to remind succeeding generations of the ravages of war. "Hell Fire Corner," on the Menin WRoad, for instance, was still there, along with others equally famous in that dreary region. The visitor found that the war cemeteries were tended with the greatest care and that each was surrounded by beautiful gardens. He wished to find his brother’s grave and, such is the organisation and accuracy of the records, that he was able to go to the exact spot in a few minutes. Many New Zealanders will remember the large hotel on the hill behind Boulogne which did duty as a hospital during the last war. Thousands of our men found comfort and relief there. Three years ago that hotel was a ruin. Every window of its grey front overlooking the coast had been broken, and gave the building a most desolate appearance. When the war ended and the hotel was emptied of its last patients, it was left to the bats and the elements, since the owners were no longer in a position to go into business again. : NEW ZEALAND officer of the