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Show GERMANS DESTROY FAMOUSBUILDINGS THE MARKET PLACE AND CITY HALL OF YPRES BATTERED BY VIOLENT BOMBARDMENT. Furious Blizzard Prevents Action by Infantry, so Big Guns Are Put Into Action and Do Great Damage, Paris. The German guns have destroyed de-stroyed the famous Halles (Market Place), and city hall of Ypres. The French war office made this announcement an-nouncement Sunday night, adding that the havoc was wrought as a result of a most violent bombardment. Heavy cannonading was reported also at Soissons and at Vailly, on the Aisne, but the greatest damage was done at Ypres. The historic Halles was the most considerable edifice of its kind in Bel-glum Bel-glum and dated from the year 1200. The three early Gothic facades of the Halles des Drapiers, or cloth halt proper, were of .three stories and were flanked by corner turrets. It was in the cloth hall that some of the finest examples of the cloth making industry, which, in Ypres, dates back to the eleventh century, were exhibited. exhib-ited. The east side of the Halles was bounded by a charming renaissance structure erected in 1620-24. The Hotel Deville (town hall) was an unpretentious structure dating originally from the fourteenth century and located at the north end of the cloth hall. The day was confined entirely to artillery activity. The fury ' of the blizzards which have been raging in Flanders and in France for the past four days precluded the possibility of action by infantry except trench work, which was carried on under great difficulties, dif-ficulties, owing to the frozen condition condi-tion of the ground. The dead and wounded have heen reclaimed from the "No Man's Land" between the trenches, and great trains of the latter have been sent south, where the victims may receive succor long delayed. The dead have been interred in long trenches, sometimes some-times made by blasting the frozen ground, but behind most of the fighting fight-ing lines excavations for burials have not been found lacking, for the hostile hos-tile shells from cannon and mortar have torn great holes in the ground where they struck. |
