Luncheon in the Garden at Blérancourt. Left to right: Mr. Irwin, nice French poilu gardener, Mrs. Wethey, Mrs. Hapgood, French officer who escorted us in zone des armées, Mlle. Bazin, Mrs. Williams
Once again one was impressed by the fact that a nation, or, I suppose one should say, two nations, who were keeping the whole world at bay, if not actually beating the whole world, could have time to do all the things with the attention to details which one finds in everything that the Germans touched. Take, for example, the fact that in the whole district which we covered—about thirty miles square surely—there is not a single bridge left. The present ones are every one military ones, more or less temporary. That is a true and exact statement—not a single bridge. The same is true of telephone and telegraph poles—not one remains. Also there is not a stick of furniture of any sort, except things too big to be carted away, such as pulpits and big tables, which are hacked to pieces and are of no value now. There is not any furniture left in any house in any one of these villages. Germany must simply be full of French furniture! I can’t think what they want it for, and what they plan to do with it, but, at any rate, they have taken it. In the houses they have blown up, if they have not removed it one could at least find the remains of it,—pieces of legs or something,—but there is no sign whatsoever, and I looked myself in many, many houses. How did they have the men and the time to do it all? Take also a little fact, but one so very characteristic of them. When an army takes possession of a village, one of the first things it does is to number all the houses and mark them on the outside as to how many horses, men, and officers they will hold. The French do this in paint in more or less neat figures on the side of the house, but the Germans chiseled the numbers in the majority of cases over the house door! A little thing, but taking time just the same.
I think that before I got off on that ramble I was telling you about arriving at Chauny. This town is pretty newly destroyed, and very completely so. It was evidently a manufacturing town, and the factories are now only a mass of twisted iron and steel. The rest of the village is literally ruined. I doubt if there is a house in the whole town that has two walls standing. We did not see it, if there is one. The completeness of the destruction is what impressed me. Nothing, nothing, left at all. It seems to me it will take generations to ever get that one town in shape again, and, of course, this is only one of many. As it is still under fire, we were scooted through, and were not allowed to get out, or take any pictures, for which I am sorry. From here we went via Guivry and Guisarde, two very much destroyed towns, to Champier, where we stopped and looked at a church which was ruined, and also saw for the first time graves which had been opened and emptied! This seems like a good story, I have no doubt. What in the world the German army wants with the contents of French graveyards I do not know, but I do know that they have opened and pillaged great numbers of the graves. At first it seemed to me that the sarcophagus might have been split open by the shock caused by the explosion of the church and other near buildings, for there must be a jolly shock when a church falls down in pieces, but I saw many graveyards which were not in the churchyard and which were also desecrated. I was interested to see the depth of the older graves. They were all brick-lined, and surely eight feet deep. This destroying graves has also had a very infuriating effect on the people in the district, particularly as there are such awful stories afoot about the Germans using their dead for all sorts of horrible purposes.
Very Old and Beautiful House at Roye Interior completely gone
The Cathedral at Soissons. Notice only steel bars left in windows
Roye was the next town. Here the Germans played a sort of dreadful joke on the inhabitants. They have left the outsides of the houses in fairly good shape compared with the other villages, but have destroyed the interiors perhaps even more completely than ever. One house on the road into Roye looks as if a giant had cut it in two. The section which remains standing is partially furnished; for instance, in the third story there is a desk and chair, and a bust on a shelf against the wall! Think of that bust staying there through all the shock which must have resulted in the building being blown up. We saw several queer freak sights like that. Among other things which made one feel that the innocent, peaceful inhabitants of these villages are the ones who are bearing the greater part of the war was a soldier home on permission, who had just got the key to his house from the Mairie, for they do not let people go into their houses until they have been inspected, as I told you that the Germans leave everything loaded. So this man went into his house and shop for the first time, and we all trailed in after him. The shop was once a good-sized store for ammunition and fishing-tackle, and that sort of stuff,—shelves running right up to the ceiling, with glass doors. Every one of the shelves was emptied on the floor and then exploded, every pane of glass was shattered in every door to every cupboard. This again is an exact statement. Now to take the goods off all those shelves, to smash every pane of glass, to burn and destroy everything that was not movable in that store, counters and such, must have taken time, and they did the same thing in every single store! Upstairs the same story—no furniture, walls mutilated, and windows gone. All metal things gone also, except lead, which they did not evidently care about. The French army gathers together the bits of gutter-pipes and lead plates which were on the roofs, and uses them again, but the Germans preferred brass and steel. The soldier did not say much. He told us, in grunts and shrugs mostly, that his wife and five children were lost, evacuated, and he had not heard from them for a long time. He kept saying, “What is there for me to do?” And none of us could answer him. The officer told him that the township would have the store cleaned out for him, if he asked them to. They use the prisoners for this, and it must be very irritating to the Boches to have to clean up their own handiwork! Also they send them into the houses first to try and find any loaded bombs, placed thoughtfully in clocks, or under doors and such places.
After looking about the town some more, we came on to Suzoy, where we stopped again to see the Boche drawings in the Mairie. It seems that they used that building for their staff headquarters during their prolonged stay there, and so decorated the walls a bit after their own taste. They did this in many places, but in most of the towns the natives have been so infuriated by the drawings that they have already destroyed them, but this village has saved theirs and shows them to you with pride. I could not help thinking of the Cook’s tourists who will be shown them later on, I suppose. The chief and most important one of these drawings covers the entire end wall of the big hall. The side walls have medallions of the various crowned heads of Europe, more or less terrible caricatures. The big picture shows two fat naked German devils, with broad grins, and horns sticking out of their heads, and with long, pointed, forked tails, sitting in hell and watching and superintending the frying of the crowned heads of their enemies. The kings and presidents are all dangling on peacock feathers, trying not to slip into the fire, but all are sliding towards their doom. In the center, in the hottest part,—in fact, right in the flame,—are two figures, one, King George, I should imagine, and the other a neat little Highlander in his kilts. This is interesting in view of all the stories one hears about the Germans being more afraid of and hating the Scotch regiments more than any others, is it not? The pictures are well drawn, but are hideous, and you can imagine their effect on a French villager! There were also some excellent black-and-white charcoal sketches, which were really beautifully done, showing what happened in villages where the Germans were sniped at. A real artist must have done these last pictures. The most interesting thing in the village was a rough grave in the churchyard with a green board for a tombstone, bearing the following:—