Show OF A TRIP THROUGH DESOLATED AND devastated VILLAGES OF FRANCE 0 e edward B dark clark gives a simple and uncolored story of conditions As he found them responsibility for the destruction of many fair fai places of france one to be considered when final day of rec reckoning koning gomes comes by EDWARD B CLARK start staff correspondent western newspaper union sommeilles Somme illes france As I 1 make a few notes in this place which once was a village the ground Is shaken by the trans t r a n s bitted tremor imparted to the earth 1 al x 4 by the shock of 1 11 1 g 4 the groat great guns 1 which are bellowing all along the battle front from S st t mihiel to the forest of argonne Somme sommeilles illes is XV beyond the present 1 ax indicated range of the big rifles but an elevation of an inch or two to the muzzles of the siege pieces would result in a rain of shells falling on a village or at least the remnants of a village which already has had bad not a rain but a deluge of fire there Is little chance that any gun will be elevated tor for the canno are too much occupied with the multitude of human targets and with the sod and beam covered trenches immediately at their front to be willing to waste shots at the well nigh invisible I 1 am here with a french army officer capt gerard de ganay who stands six feet three in his military boots and who looks and is a soldier if the enemy in the trenches battering away over the hill and the valley at our front wanted to put this officer out of the service with a shell I 1 doubt dolbt it if it could see him even if their range finding experts were possessed of triple powered held glasses the captain Is arrayed in what they call horizon blue a color which so melts into the skyline that it becomes a part of it ruins where army passed to this place I 1 have come after a trip of two days duration in a high powered military motor through about twenty of the desolated and devastated villages 1111 ages of prance france which lay in the line ot of advance and of retreat of a great army in the days to come when there Is a final reckoning to fix responsibility tor for the destruction of these fair places of france and for the killing of more than a few non combatants there will be a controversy as bitter as that which has marked the battling from the marne the high point 0 of the german advance to the ainne aisne where the german now is entrenched with the frenchman on the offensive and striking dally daily and boldly at his hie front included technically within the field of war operations today Is a large part of france virtually all the scene of the battle of the marne is forbidden ground to all persons except those who go with proper credentials it Is my intention to take my readers through some of these desolated places of france to tell a simple and uncolored story etory of 0 their condit condition ign today as ray my eyes saw them and to repeat ocasio occasionally nally the words of 0 men and oi bomea who raw the acts of destruction and who have formed their 0 ayn n opinion as to the reasons i one day the truth underlying all t this ravage will be known the world world probably will continue to judgment but the fact remains that a score or more of thriving french villages have perished from the earth after a manner that seemingly will not admit of the excuse or the explanation that it Is simply the result of the acts of ord faar and so called civilized warfare I 1 was waa fired by incendiaries from le francois where I 1 left the train and took a military motor I 1 went first to 10 aurion or rather to the place where aurion once stood the french declare that this place M was as burned birned by german incendiaries they hold that the absence of shell holes tn in the walls walla and the roots roofs of houses standing aloof and whose interiors are scorched and blackened ruins proves beyond cavil that the fires were set by hand the germans say that at this place some athe of the inhabitants were caught with firearms in their hands bands this plea will probably enter later when all these acts are brought to the bar of mans adjudications A it is hurlon vil virtually dually has haa disappeared from the face of the earth this village villace was proud of its gothic catholic church of st marelu which has stood here for centuries the ithe church is not beyond repair but today it is literally riddled with shot and shell within is an undamaged shrine of mary the virgin and before it women were praying for the success of the arms of france not far from hurlon stands the village age of glennes GI ennes or again let me say bay what once was waa Glen fiennes clennei GI ennes nei this village was destroyed utterly by shell alre except in the cases of a few of the larger buildings the church ls badly damaged but like the sanctuary at hurlon it can be restored rest bred I 1 went into the chuich churchyard yard at glennes GI ennes drawn thither r 1 I 1 think by a somewhat shadowed form of curiosity the shells had bad fallen thick and fast into this place where the villagers for centuries have buried their dead the church and cemetery are pictures of gray and black desolation deso la images and monuments are shattered almost to dust barely one of the smaller tombstones in the cemetery Is left untouched here however one sees the frequent freak of war A great tomb stands almost in the center of the churchyard it dominates the scene all about it trees and headstones stones and foot stones have and smas smashed lied and yet the great tomb stands unmarred its escape is one of the mysteries of the chances of war within the tomb as the inscription tells us rests the family of jesson boidleau Boil Doil leau jesson and his family still sleep undisturbed soldiers sepulchers everywhere after leaving glennes GI ennes the country is nothing but a great graveyard soldiers sepulchers chers are everywhere single graves are the exception ger 3 M t M A aw s devastated by war mans and frenchmen alike rest under the newly sprung may flowers in these fields of the republic nature is celebrating its own memorial day and js is decorating the resting places of the brave with daisies and dandelions violets forget me nots bots and the while valley lilies cour de manges Is ja a village not far from glennes in it only a few houses liou ir e escaped fire or shot into the desolation of this place the people are beginning to enter they scattered to the four parts of prance france when the storm broke but this was their home and here bew few by few they are coming back and are seeking the means to build again their houses as they already in the retreat of the enemy have built again their hopes the mayor of cour de manges dwelt in a handsome house with outlying grounds closed in by an iron fence of line fine workmanship today thare the re is nothing left of the official home but its foundation stones shell and alre took their toll the outlying garden bo however we ver seemingly knew nothing of the ravage of battle it had bad been un tended since last autumn but nature the iese restorer re r today is making it to blos bom with springs rare coloring war showed no favoritism at cour de Nl manges anges the houses of the poor and tile the house of the rich alike were swept to swift destruction it is only a few miles from cour de manges to frignicourt but the journey is from Ile desolation to desolation all the way between the villages however there is a land of beauty the peasants following on the heels of the french army in its forward movement are cultivating every possible patch of ground leaving untouched nothing but the graves of friend and foe the grace of enjoyment is not to be bb found among ruined homes but confessedly thero there la in momentary forgetfulness of the stricken villages when one looks on the beauty of the fields which lie between the houses of desolation ola tion frignicourt has been swept from its PI place ace on the plains not one stone rests upon another here was there justification for this laying waste or was it sheer wanton time perhaps will disclose the truth I 1 wanted to myself whether or not nol the tales constantly told of ism were true or untrue I 1 began to observe closely nn d I 1 mt upon ameant of test which I 1 have found that already the frenchmen have applied faremont la Is not far from frugni court and it was destroyed only in part by artillery fire A line fine highway runs through the heart of the village and it was along this highway that the invading army passed the houses on either side of theroan and immediately confronting it have all been destroyed destroy ed while the houses back of them are intact gunfire from a distance makes no such fine distinctions The houses along the street were set on fire by hand the old church of the village of faremont Is still standing there is a shell hole in its tower and more breaches in the wall below from Fare faremont mout I 1 passed th through rough blesie blesme and le mun mon toy there to Is little left of any one of these places to give it the right to be called a village at blesme blesie there are some curious contrasts the lowly homes of the villa villagers gep all were destroyed st but close to them an old and beautiful chateau stands unharmed amidst I 1 its arts trees As if by miracle at le montery montay the bombardment caused cause d heavy heady damage to the village church and churchyard in the latter where the shells had fallen alien thick there is a stone cross bearing upon its marble front a representation of saint veronicas veronicaa Vero nicas handkerchief upon which according to the catholia Cath Cat olio hollo belief was imprinted the face of the christ in curious workmanship puhoa upon the marble handkerchief in this cemetery the face odthe savior was inlaid almost alone this cross and this christ stand uninjured in this shell shattered acre of god frequently stress has been laid upon the escape from injury by shell are of representations of the savior and the virgin his mother I 1 know however that these escapes are only accidental and while it may be pleasant for the faithful to believe that immunity came to the things they hold sacred it is only the part of truth to say that I 1 have seen the same destruction visited upon crucifix and on shrine that fell upon other images and other sanctuaries of which christians take less account at vaubecourt such walls as still rear themselves from the ruins are shaken dally daily and nightly by the thunder der of pounding guns at least one half of the vaubecourt villagers have returned to their blasted dwellings r ready a dy again to take up life where their fo forefathers lived for centuries these villagers give no heed to the trembling of the earth under their feet the cannon shot does not disturb their dreams hell came here last fall there was terrific fighting at baube court and in the country all about it and there 1 is still ter terrific rifle fighting near at hand hand the village has been b battered at from its foundations by shell and shot when the time comes for answering the question of responsibility it is pr probable babl that no fine interrogations will be rat raised sed ks as to whether this place was swept from the face of af the earth by bombardment or deliberate here the question will concern itself with the right of the invader to put to death summarily three french soldiers whom they found in the village were shot as spies the cure of vaubecourt a priest who stayed loyally at his post told me that the french soldiers were in uniform and in advance of the lines and that therefore they could not have been spies the germans however have said that these soldiers were spies and it wason was on this ground they shot them the priest of vaubecourt has gathered a part of his flock together once more he is babbe he was sentenced 9 enten ced to be shot by the order of t the he commanding officer of tho the invading army he added that this officer was a good deal of a brute but that his immediate jiff junior ilor in ill command was a soldier and a gentleman the junior he said secured his release so one hears lacars the stories and so one may or may not pass judgment as he be will As things are however the village of vaubecourt as a village of homes and houses is no more but the people are coming back to rind find the may sun shi ningon the ruins and showing forth fort the ravages ot of ft a storm that has passed on a little way find and which now vexes priest and villager village villa gex r only with its noise much more has been heard beard in amer ica of the destruction of we th e villages of belgium than of those of prance France I 1 had no conception of the ruin that had been wrought by artillery and by fire in this part of the french republic which lies under the shadow of the argonne forest and not only within sound but within range of some of the heavy guns IBS they play hourly today along the banks of the aisne aasne the mouse meuse and the orne a dozen places ethl other er than aban thosa tho soot Of which I 1 have written and th the e aary of the desolation virtually is the game same it I 1 is s a hird hard sight to look upon and a hard story to write I 1 turn from the last blackened picture while the roar of the distant guns reminds me that these scenes elsewhere if fate so wills may be re enacted in all their horra |