Here the 15th April 1507 has
been printed the "Cosmographic
Introduction" where, for the first
time the New Continent has
been named "America."
Leaving St. Die we began a trip of more than fifty miles along the battle front. This trip required two days, and we were never beyond the sound of the guns.
Our first stop was at the battlefield of La Chipotte, where was fought one of the most sanguinary of the earlier battles of war, resulting in a great French victory, but entailing terrific losses on both sides. In the greater part of this region we saw forests which had been stripped by shells and the trees of which were only beginning to grow again. In some places they will never grow, having been stripped of every leaf and limb and finally burned by the awful gunfire.
The battle of La Chipotte was fought in 1914. Sixty thousand French drove back a larger army of Germans after several days of fighting. The French loss was thirty thousand, and no one knows what the German loss amounted to. The woods are filled with crosses marking burial places, where often as many as fifty bodies were entombed together. The French buried their dead separately from the German dead, but the community graves are all marked in the same way—with a simple cross. Some of these crosses recite the names of the companies engaged, but few of them give the names of the dead. Most of them simply record the number of French or Germans buried beneath.
At a central part of the battlefield the French have erected a handsome monument, with the following inscription:
"They have fallen down silently
like a wall.
May their glorious souls guide
us in the coming battles."
After leaving the battlefield of La Chipotte, we next reached the village of Roan Estape. It was full of ruins and practically deserted. Beyond this village we passed for miles along roads lined on either side with the crosses which indicate burial places of soldiers. The battle front here extended for a long distance and the fighting was bloody along the whole line. Much of this righting was done in the old way, trench warfare having only just begun.
[Illustration: Battlefield of La Chipotte, Showing Monument and Markers on Graves.]
Next we came to Baccarat, where nearly all the houses and the cathedral were utterly wrecked. For twenty miles beyond this town we passed along the battle front of the Marne, within three miles of where the main struggle had taken place, and saw everywhere graves and signs of destruction. It was surprising how the country had begun to resume its normal aspect and green things begun to take hold again. Our next stop was Rambevillers, where we had luncheon at the Hotel de la Porte.