FOREST CASUALTIES OF OUR ALLIES 



901 



C. S. Chapman, of the Twentieth Engineers, who is 

 also to make a report on the forest losses in France 

 and Belgium. 



One unoffi- 

 cial report just 

 available as I 

 am leaving 

 Paris is that of 

 Sous-Directeur 

 G. Huffel, of 

 I'Ecole Nation- 

 ale des Eaux et 

 Forets, who 

 says : 



"Our French 

 forests have 

 terribly suffer- 

 ed from the 

 war. The fell- 

 ings made for 

 the needs of 

 the army, those 

 made by the 

 enemies with 

 an i n c r edible 

 V a n d alism in 

 the regions which he occupied — just the most wooded 

 parts of the country — have impoverished or ruined them 



DESTROYED BY SHELL FIRE NEAR VERDUN 



Such scenes as this are typical wherever there has 

 northern France. Only the skeletons of trees are left 



for a long time. As regards the groups of timber locat- 

 ed on the front lines, too often nothing remains of them. 



"This situa- 

 tion is all the 

 more alarming 

 as our needs 

 will certainly 

 increase by 

 enormous pro- 

 portions. We 

 have to rebuild 

 our houses, our 

 furniture, our 

 machinery. 

 Neither our 

 own resources 

 nor the re- 

 sources of the 

 w o r 1 d - w ide 

 market will be 

 sufficient, by a 

 great deal. It 

 will then be 

 n e c e s sary to 

 have recourse 

 to German for- 

 ests, to take from them all timber we need and which 

 Germany owes, because she ruined us. From the last 



been an intense bombardment of wooded areas in 

 and these will rot, decay and fall in a few years. 



Underwood and Underwood 



RESULT OF FIRE ON GERMAN DUGOUTS 



The targets for the tremendous shell-fire which destroyed the trees in this narrow valley were the German dugouts, the remains of which may 

 be seen on the farther side of the valley. So terrific was the bombardment that the dugouts were destroyed, the Germans driven out and not a 

 tree remains alive. 



