Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1916 — WAR-SWEPT VERDUN [ARTICLE]

WAR-SWEPT VERDUN

Crashing of Shells Only Sound in Deserted Village. Three Remaining Civilians Boast of Their Courage in Staying in Bombarded Town—Gendarmes Keep Good Watch and Prevent Pillaging. London. —H. Warner Allen, representative of all the British newspapers with the French armies, sends the following picture of war-battered and deserted Verdun: Today, Verdun is not crowded. Not a shop is open. It can muster three civilians, and all three of them are rightly proud of their courage in staying in the bombarded town. I have just been walking down the main street. Everywhere there Is silence except for the crashing of the big shells and the sound of splinters falling on the roofs. All the goods the shopkeepers had collected as specially calculated to appeal to the soldier in the trenches have disappeared and now when one walks down the Rue Mazel one’s course is frequently interrupted. There comes a rush of wings in the air and instinctively one makes for the nearest doorway, ducking as one goes. Then there is a big explosion and one goes on. It- was 4n the Rue Mazel that I met one of the three civilians of Verdun. He was contemplating the view from his door with a contented smile and looked at me with supreme contempt when I scuttled for cover at a particularly loud explosion. “You are taking refuge on the wrong side of the road,” he remarked mildly. “The left is the side'to escape from splinters, since that is the side from which the Bocheß are firing. Anyhow it is no use ducking, since by the time you’ve heard the shell the danger is over.” As we went up the steep, lonely streets towards the cathedral our attention was suddenly attracted by a stronge, piercing sound that contrasted quaintly with' the continuing roar of exploding shells. It was a kitten ipewing plaintively in the first story of a house. It had obviously been forgotten in the haste of evacuation. The owner of the house had closed up the shutters and had never given a thought to the poor beast and it was slowly starving to death. A rescue party was at once formed, M. Georges Scott, the artist, who is mobilized as a chasseur alpin, mounted on my shoulders and endeavored to pry open the shutter with a stick, but his efforts were unavailing, and eventually the kitten’s life was saved by the firemen of Verdun, who, at our request, broke into the house. Several large shells had fallen near tbe cathedral. One of them had gutted a girls’ school and another hacl landed fair and square on a shop that sold religious ornaments and emblems. For some unexplained reason there was a cure’s hat lying pathetically on the top of the debris, and at the back against a wall that had miraculously escaped destruction stood a stucco statue of Joan Of Arc. "

The pigeons, which were flying in uneasy circles above the cathedral, seemed to be curiously disturbed by the bombardment. As a general rule, the birds seem to regard bombardment as a natural cataclysm, to be suffered since it cannot be prevented. Anyhow, the pigeons of Verdun have not yet grown accustomed to the noise of the German bombardment. Despite German shells, the French gendarmes keep a good watch in Verdun. There is no pillaging, and the refugees who in their hurry left their house windows open and doors unlocked can sleep easy as to the contents of their houses, except in so far as an enemy projectile may reduce them to powder. Just near one of the gates, there Is «House of which the shutters have not been closed and the window is still open. It seems that just before the evacuation the owner of the house had Some special occasion to celebrate. Looking through the window one can see a table laid for 16 persons and everything prepared for an excellent meal. There was a beautiful, clean tablecloth with napktm folded miter-shaped for every

guest. Decanters of wine, red and white, were standing beside each plate. On the sideboard piles of oranges and apples were waiting for the paftly which was never to eat them. The gendarmes in Verdun seem to keep a catalogue of the shells which fall in the town. Those who live in bombarded towns take a definite pride in showing the visitors the holes made by German projectiles and the houses that they had thoroughly destroyed. It was with an expression of the greatest satisfaction that one of the gendarmes asked us to come and see his gate, becausd, during the previous night he had counted 117 big shells that had fallen into its neighborhood. M. Scott, the artist, remarked to me : - “This war is the end of the battle painter, since, apart from curiously lucky circumstances, there is absolutely nothing to paint. Modern warfare has nothing to do with colors. It is a symphony in sound. It is a subject matter for the musician, not the artist. Perhaps the musician of the future will be able to convert into terms of music'the extraordinary contrasts of noise and sullen silence which one may hear in a bombarded town.” The cinematographers have been taking everything they can find in Verdun, and their only grief is that so far no shell has burst near enough to their apparatus to be photographed.