The roads over which we passed were in good condition, having been kept in repair. We were told, however, that many of the finest roads near the front had been badly torn up and that it would require much work to restore them. Hundreds of bridges have been destroyed, and most of the rivers and canals, of which there are many, are now crossed by temporary structures.
We were given a glimpse of the complicated system of railroads, built in large part since the war and to supply the armies with food and other necessaries. These roads were all laid hurriedly, but they seem to be in good condition and are invaluable to the French. Some of them have been laid with rails taken up in other places where they were not so badly needed. In this system of railroads and roads one gets a striking illustration of the huge task it is to feed an army.
The Commission was given figures showing the total number of buildings destroyed in France, with an estimate of their value. These figures had been compiled in July, 1916, and were reasonably accurate at the time we were there, since the Germans had yielded little ground in the interim and there had been less wanton destruction than in the first months of the war. According to this official report, more than half the houses had been destroyed, either by flames or gunfire, in one hundred and forty-eight towns. In the greater portion of these towns nearly all of the houses had been ruined. Besides this there were scores of towns suffering from gunfire which did not lose so large a part of their buildings. Among the buildings destroyed were two hundred and twenty-five city halls, three hundred and seventy-nine schools, three hundred and thirty-one churches, and more than three hundred other public buildings of various kinds and sizes. The mills and factories, like all of the larger buildings, suffered severely, more than three hundred having been totally destroyed.
[Illustration: The Prefecture at Reims after Bombardment.]
Most of the towns suffering were of the smaller class, although four cities of more than one hundred thousand people were bombarded or burned by the Germans. These are Lille, Roubaix, Nancy and Reims. The section swept by the German advance and suffering even worse in the retreat is the most populous in France. It covered about ten thousand square miles. No one has yet undertaken to figure the loss in property sustained in this region. The Germans have still possession of about five million acres of French soil, including seventy per cent, of the iron ore mines and a large part of the coal supply.
The farmers are already back at work on a great part of the territory ravaged by the war. Farming under such conditions as we saw, where men and women worked in the fields within range of the guns and amid their constant roaring, or with the eternal white crosses for company, may be more exciting than the usual occupation of the agriculturist, but it must be a sad, discouraging and difficult task.
[XXI.]
GENERAL JOFFRE
