Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1919 — GERMANY MUST PAY HEAVILY [ARTICLE]

GERMANY MUST PAY HEAVILY

COLONEL GEORGE H. HEALEY SEVERELY CENSURES GERMAN CRUELTY. (Second installment.) I wish I could describe. St. Mihiel and Verdun, and the small towns thereabouts as they exist today. If you can recall having seen pictures of ancient foreign towns, the kind that the built all of rock and whose narrow streets wind and twist about in the most remarkable manner. If you can see the gates of an old citadel, the high towers of churches, the massive stone walls of a great fort. If you can see the red 'tile roofed houses that, rise along the ascending hills you can gather a fair idea of a French hill city. Now if you can picture it after hundreds of thousands of heavy shells have tom through the walls and exploded inside, if you can imagine shot after shot directed with unrelenting .system- at every building large and small and can see piles of ruins where once were happy homes and business enterprises you can get a notion of the Verdun of today. It is said every bui'lding in Verdun, a dity of probably 60,000, was struck. Most were complete ruins, many had great gaping holes tom through the walls, many had just 'the side walls standing. Others had only the roofs tom off. Aside from the soldiers who garrisoned the fort and who lived in the great underground city protected from the shell-fire and observation of the enemy, the city was abandoned. It is said that there are always a few who decline to leave but when I was there, three weeks after the armistice was signed, the city was sti llabandoned except by soldiers of the French and American armies. A little town named Sampigny was hard hit by shells but already had the United States established an automooverlooked one thing that is very genat Thierville and at Neufdhateau. Active in the forward movement of the trucks and automobiles which play an important part in the occupation of the foreign territory was Major C. A. Radcliffe, son-in-law of E. D. Rhoades, of Rensselaer. He had been promoted on Oct. 7th and when I saw him on my return from the front was just starting out with other officers on a trip to Metz and Luxembourg to locate a place for another auto station. In describing French cities I have overlooked ont thing that is very general—the high stone walls. Not only are the chateaus fenced with walls of stone but they extend about the smaller homes, in fact, everything seems to be walled in. Some one said that they build thousands of dollars worth of walls to enclose a shed and a grapevine. Many of these walls like the houses are hundreds of years old and the stone was pulverized when the great shells hit. There seem to be no separate farm houses. All farming radiates out from a village, the tillers of the soil going several kilometres some times to tend their acres. This is one of the measures of precaution. From some of the fortified, hills one can' count a half dozen or more villages and not a 'house between although the lan dis or has been all under cultivation. Commercy, a city of considerable proportion, was just out of rance for shell fire but is said to have been bombed unmercifully by airplanes night after night. Because of this terrifying occurrence there were no night lights in any of the villages. The Meuse river which runs near or through many of the towns is a very unpretentious stream but the valley through which it flows is wide .and consists of fertile fields. The Marne has its source near Langres and diverges fro mthe Meuse. It also is a very small stream. Langres is one of the most strongly fortified cities in France. Had Verdun fallen it is probable Langres would have been the location of the next great stand. In 187 J) the Germans went around it and from the rear planted a gun oh a hiH and tfere ready to shell the city When Paris capitulated. Langres is on the top of a hill some 500 feet above the valley. A tramway climbs the ateep hill, transporting people from the railroad station. It is also entered by roads that wind about the hillside in making the ascent. Its history dates back several centuries before Christ and it was siezed by Julius Caesar in 58 B. C. Its fortifications which include a mote, now of little if any defensive value, have been augmented year after year. An ancient cathedral of monstrous size is one of the principal attractions. (To be continued.)