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Show Yanks Fight Way Down f Fairy-Like Moselle Valley Mgfk ntton's Troops Push Along Old Roman (ffjl Pathways in Land of Forest, Lake And Ancient Turreted Castles. SphKJ By BAUKHACJE VYmm Analyst and ('.ommrntntor. WNU Service, I'nlon Trust Building, Washington, D. C. Amerio'in history, I believe, has begun to repeat itself as the Allies Btart to write the last chapter of the European war. By the time this is in print I hope General Patton's boys (the Third army), pushing down the winding valley of the Moselle river, have captured cap-tured or at least invested Trier, key city of the defenses of the Eifel. As they progress across those ancient highways or down the deep vulley of the twisting Moselle river where Roman Ro-man legions, equally as homesick, once marched in the opposite direction, di-rection, they will be reenacting the steps of the victorious American army which moved eastward to the Rhine in the last war. Then as now, it was the American Third army which occupied the ancient city of Trier at the close of 1918. It left in 1923. I may be wrong in my premonition, premoni-tion, but I believe that this approach to the Rhine, which only an American Amer-ican army ever used to enter Germany Ger-many as victors, will be the thor- and towns where each house was a foit. On the flat plain the use of armor is an advantage, but in hilly country, once possession of the heights is gained, artillery can dominate dom-inate the objectives below toward which the foot-soldiers are moving There are plains in the Eifel, too, but it would seem that the chief arteries ar-teries of advance would be along the valleys and the roads the Romans once used in their advance in the opposite direction. It was westward, the course of Caesar moved when he conquered the Treveri, the tribe from which Trier (Treves in French) gets its name. The Roman legions marched in 56 B. C. By 14 B. C. they were fortifying Trier. Today the famous, blackened height of the Porta Negri, the city's Roman gateway, has been bastioned with modern fortifications. The ancient brick basilica in the town and the renaissance fountain (Petersbrunncn) will be remembered remem-bered by thousands of American veterans vet-erans of the last war. Trier, seat of the electorate, became a center of monastic learning in the Middle oughfare of the victors of 1945. This country of the "Eifel," north of the Moselle and west of the Rhine, Is of particular interest to me for I have invaded it twice, peacefully to be sure; both times before World War I. Secluded Villages Sprinkle Countryside The Eifel is a stretch of terrain of volcanic origin, of some bare and bleak hills and some tiny, secluded villages. It is also a country of towns on beautiful lakes and rivers, in valleys with the terraced "morn-ingside" "morn-ingside" (where the sun touches first) on which vineyards have grown since the Romans first planted plant-ed them in the early centuries before be-fore Christ. Part of the Eifel was "remote" even when I visited it. On the modern mod-ern highways, many of which follow the old Roman routes, there were resorts re-sorts favored by tourists. But there were lonely villages which breathed an age forgotten by the "modern" Germany of 1912 when I first saw them. There were tall crags ages. Let us hope some of the landmarks will be preserved and when our bombers smash the bridge across the Moselle, the ancient buttresses remain Intact as they have these two thousand years. Perhaps they won't have to be bombed, but rather the destruction of buttresses than one American life. Remember what Bismarck (of all people) once said of a piece of foreign soil? A square foot of it was not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier. In the hope that our men can march the rest of the valley unmolested unmo-lested as their fathers did, let's turn 1 up the valley where the Eltz river pours into the Moselle not far from the Rhine. (I quole from my diary, April 2, 1912.) "We started out on foot, the only means of locomotion . . . the old village vil-lage with its plaster houses, the crooked, cobbled street, the old trees and the church, older than the trees . . along the meadows, past the mill and across the stream and the huddle of houses which cluster -I 14 U- nnh..ntinn iinllau crowned by the ruins of medieval monasteries and castles, there were quaint and comfortable inns, there were meandering mountain paths, walled by thick fir trees beneath which I slept in my "lodenfabrik" cape, resting on a thousand year old mttress of pine-needles, dreaming dream-ing of goblins and kobolds. In a moment I'll take you up to see an enchanted castle that might have come straight out of a Maxfield Parrish painting or an illustration from Grimm or Anderson. But now, let's get back to March, 1945. As this is written the fighting has been along the western rim of the Eifel, which is really the western rim of the German frontier from south of the River Roer to the city of Trier. Trier is 69 miles from Coblenz on the Rhine. The fighting has consisted of the parallel advance of columns along a 50-mile wide front. Patrols first move into the hills overlooking the valley villages. They secure the high points so their artillery can dominate domi-nate valleys, up which the infantry advances on the villages which are its objectives, protected by the artillery artil-lery in the hills. It must be remembered that all along the German frontier stretches the Siegfried line. Therefore, the Americans have to advance against its fortifications and will have to do so perhaps halfway to the Rhine. This means that pillboxes and other fortifications have to be taken as the Americans advance. Tanks cannot be used in this rough country. It is the old-fashioned, catch-as-catch-can fighting, with rifles, ri-fles, grenades, dynamite, flamethrowers flame-throwers and hand grenades. Rugged Terrain Calls For Close-Up Battle In these early stages of the American Amer-ican push the fighting has been in sharp contrast to the First army's move along the Roer river toward and into the Cologne plain. Once the Roer was bridged and tanks could cross, armor could come to the aid of the doughboys who were scrapping it out in the villages I wooded with beech and birch, the hurrying Eltz below, and the green meadows, underfoot the brown leaves that fell last fall and will lie like those beneath them undisturbed until the ones still green cover them. Down a dip in the path and across a stream until the somber ruins of Trotz Eltz' appear. (Trotz means against.) It is the relic of a fruitless effort to destroy the real castle of Eltz below. Moat, tower and buttress but-tress were built with the sole purpose pur-pose of destroying a rival, (just as the modern artillerist seeks to take the height to destroy those below). "Then up the path until suddenly, as if the ascent were planned by the architect who built the poem in stone below, the fairy castle of Burg Eltz, turret and tower, pinnacle, portal and drawbridge appear." That is the end of the quote, as we say on the radio. May it be the beginning of new dreams of a more glorious world, of which some day j the valley of the Moselle will be a part. The deaths of many semi-prominent Nazis, notices of which are appearing ap-pearing in the German papers (one man died at two different places on two different dates) are taken to mean that the alleged late and un-lamented un-lamented gentlemen have either escaped es-caped to neutral countries with a new identity or have become someone some-one else at home. However, it is also pointed out by persons familiar with conditions in i Germany that it is highly probable I that a number of real deaths which are unreported are likewise taking place. In the first place, the con- centrated Allied bombing on localities locali-ties where high officials congregate (Berchtesgaden and Nuernburg) is bound to catch somebody some time. In addition, various "inside jobs" are probably getting rid of a number num-ber of persons Negroes constituted almost one- , tenth of all the employees on the federal payroll as of March 1, 1944. However, they were disproportionately disproportion-ately concei-trated in the lower grades. |