SHOT, SHELL AND SOLDIERS DEVASTATE FORESTS 



335 



and, later, when the Gennans were forced back, it was 

 the scene of weeks and months of desperate struggle. 



"Not a bird is left in the forest and practically every 

 tree, which remains standing, bears the mark of battle. It 

 was swept by artillery tire time after time, and was the 

 scene of desperate hand-to-hand lighting. 



"But it was not the first time, for in the campaign pre- 

 ceding the battle of Se- 

 dan, in the Franco- 

 German war of 1870, 

 it was the scene of 

 many sanguinary strug- 

 gles. 



"The forest covers a 

 number of wooded 

 heights, 800 or 900 feet 

 high, in the northeast- 

 ern part of France in 

 French Lorraine and 

 Champagne. It is 

 about thirty miles long, 

 and from one to eight 

 miles wide. It is 

 bounded by the sources 

 of the Aisne, runs 

 along that river to the 

 Meuse and northward 

 t o Chene-Populeux, 

 separating a stretch of 

 fertile plains from the 

 barren steppes between 

 \ltry and Cezanne." 



Much of the most 

 recent hard fighting in 

 northern France has 

 been in wooded and 

 forested land and the 

 damage done in actual 

 fighting and the cutting 

 of trees necessitated by 

 military operations 

 daily continues. 



Perhaps it is not 

 taking too pessimistic 

 a view of forest condi- 

 tions in that section to 

 say that it will be a 

 hundred years before 



the forests of northern France are restored to anything 

 like the conditions they were before the war, and that 

 restoration largely depends upon the action of the gov- 

 ernment in relation to them when the war is over. 



A FREXCH writer's VIEW 



QUITE the best description of the situation in 

 France is from the pen of Louis Alarin, depute 

 of Aleurthe-et-Moselle. who in a recent article 

 says: "What have been, during the war, the causes of 



were 



woods 



gained 



hurled by guns of all calibers, which, in a hailstorm of 

 iron, mow down everything before them, breaking the 

 trees and leaving, instead of a thickly-wooded area, a 

 mere strip of land covered with dismantled trunks, and 

 dead snags ; the construction by the engineering corps 

 of works of defense; the consumption of firewood; the 

 erection of log shelters, in short, of many works necessi- 

 tating an extensive fell- 

 ing of trees, and, fin- 

 ally, the hewing down 

 of an enormous num- 

 ber of trees of all sizes 

 which obstructed the 

 range of the artillery. 

 "Everywhere, forests 

 have been of precious 

 assistance to our sol- 

 <Iiers; it is while con- 

 cealed in them that we 

 have lost the least men. 

 From the offensive 

 point of view, in this 

 war of trenches, which 

 has been waged for 

 long months, it is 

 where our positions 

 protected by 

 that we have 

 more ground. 

 From the defensive 

 point of view, they 

 have fully favored our 

 troops. The woods of 

 Argonne, however re- 

 duced from Dehouriez, 

 have set up in the way 

 of the invaders the bar- 

 riers of 1792, and thus 

 the investment of Ver- 

 dun was averted. The 

 woods of Grand-Cour- 

 ronne have contributed 

 to the halting of the 

 sad retreat of Mor- 

 hange and to the re- 

 sistance in the defense 

 of Nancy. These serv- 

 ices are recorded in the 

 orders of the day; the country thus learns the names 

 of the woods of La Grenrie, Bolante, La Cheminee- 

 Saint-Hubert, Le Petre, of the forests of Apremont 

 Grand-Couronne, etc. ; our brave boys describe them in 

 their letters." 



M. Marin, says of the future of the forests: "The war 

 has brought out the strict and urgent necessity of re- 

 building the forests. It is impossible to neglect our muti- 

 lated forests ; it would be a crime to not take up now 

 steps in order to ensure, in a comparatively near future, 

 our forests' destruction? The building of trenches on their reconstruction." 

 two adverse fronts; the ravaging effects of projectiles AL Marin then enumerates the wooded regions that 



Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. 



SCENE ON THE VERDUN FRONT 



This once well forested hillside presents now a scene of utter desolation. Territic 

 shell fire swept these hillsides for days and destroyed every tree. The holes 

 made in the ground by exploding shells may be seen and the bullet holes in 

 the trunks of the trees left standing make some of them resemble a sieve. 



