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Show CITY OF YPRES 15 BIG PILEDF ME Literally Nothing Left of Lordly Municipality But Dust and Broken Stones. BUILT 600 YEARS AGO Place of Beauty and Is Reduced Re-duced to Ashes by Minions Min-ions of Kaiser. BEHIND THE EU1T1SH UNKS IN FRANCE, Dee. 20. i Correspondence of the Associated Press.) There is literally nothing left of the once lordly city of Vpres except heaps of dust and broken stones. Although still within the rany?e of German artillery, the cit y may bo visited in comparative safety, as it la too far behind the lines to offer a certain target for continuous bombardment. Vpres is 600 years old and carried with it before the war the impress of an honorable hon-orable past. In the middle ages, when the Fl em i s h m er c h a n t s were the gr ea t t rad e rs of Ru rope . tho city wa s fa bu -lously wealthy, being for many years the center of the wool trade. After its prosperity pros-perity passed if would have become obscure ob-scure bu t for the cathedral and Cloth hall, where thg wool merchants once had met. These two monuments were remarkable re-markable examples of the architecture of their time, and for :t hundred years had made Vpres known and visited by th world. Destroyed by Germans. 7t remained for the liermans to turn tn ashes what had been a place of beauty for oi'O years. The linst bombardment of Vpres came on November 1 . 1914. The town was then full or' on tided soldiers and peasant refugee from the surrounding surround-ing country. They were crowded principally princi-pally in the eathedral and tbe Church of St. Nicholas, in the vain belief that th.es ' sanctuaries at least would be spared by the invader. The battle on the lntls around Tprea ended eventcn dpys later. The Germans Ger-mans failed to bieNk through the British line, but the bombardment of t he town, instead of waning, grew more intense-The intense-The Germans, foiled in their attempt to capture Vpres. determined to destroy it-For it-For a long period hea shells fell into tfle town at the rate of ili'teen a minute. The sound of the eontinuous destruction could be heard llfty miles away. The inhabitants of the town mostly flc4 soon after the bombardment started. When it was over, they returned io tlnd the beauty of their town well-nigh gone. The famous Cloth Iiall still stood, but it was a rootless skeleton ; only its cellars were, intact. Tho great square in front, of it was heaped with broken stones and charred wood, and near by lay the broken belis. the famous bells of Vpres, which for fiftn years had sounded every hour across the level fi" Ids of Belgium. Cathedral Is Ruined. As for t he eat hedral, one could stand inside and look up at a roof which waa like a sieve, while tho interior was tilled with stones, fragments of marble statues from the tombs, charred wood that had once been tho wonderful carved roof, rags of burnt canvas that ha.d been beautiful beau-tiful pictures, broken glass of wonderful color that had been the fa mous pain tod windows. .Such was Tprcs after the first bombardment. bombard-ment. Whole streexs had been destroyed, yet there were still houses where peoplo could live; there was still a broken skeleton skele-ton of what had been a town. For six months Vpres was left in coin-par? coin-par? live pence; shells still fell In t he town at irregular inter als. but. it wa h possible for people to live thero and to open shops for the t roops that passed through to the battle line. The second bombardment began without with-out warning on April 2U, J 0 1 The tirsl shell fell in the "Great Place" when 11-was 11-was filled with people. Heavy Loss of Life. It is impoFsihlr today to get any accurate accu-rate estimate ol the loss of life caused by thai Jirst niiell. but those who saw It st HI blanch and tremble with t lie mere memorv of it. H was a heavier diell than any that had been used in the Hint bombardment, coming from ono of Die giant siege guns. It could he heard for ten seconds in the nir, t he noise of it growing as it. came, like the sound of a.n e-pre.s.s train. When it fell the thick smoke of its Mplosion roue 200 feet high. The full storm of the bombardment burst forty-eight hours later, accompanied accom-panied by the tnst wacf of po i so nr. I gas used aga i md t lie Frn'di a nd Liritb-li lines. Tay and uiKht for a long pej Uxl the grea t shells prun ed info tho town in a stead v st i.am. while above Htreeun and suuarrp and fields hung a. sinister elond. gas and :moe and dust. When this bom ha rd incut r;.a,sed. it was l.aidly possible t find oner way through tlit town. Houses nnd Firsts had all me ited together in heap of rubbish -. Destruction Complete. The on'- or two walls which still f-'tood only served to emphauiJ!'1 the desolation, a lew fragments of the ditirdi wall and tower, with their pointed arrhs; tho remains re-mains of a belfry, a scarred fragment of the facade of the Cloth ball. From thr.so ruins one rould locate where the mor important buildings of the Mty had stood and could eatlmate the completeness of the ruin. Ho Vpres remained for two more yearn. The Germans completed f 1 -iv d Mru-dlon durnii; the past Kprink' and m me r, re-nrr.'i'iL" re-nrr.'i'iL" the lad rcoK 1 1 i.a ) le v'stigc.K of i 'iinc bv turning their heavy arrnor-pb'i-'-ing shells HKitini-'i 'he -;lbrdie ruins. the end uf July tiier was literally nolhing I'-ft erc;d dusl and biokcii ptoii-'--. Thai is ad thai, now remains of tiit; famous town uf Ypren. |