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SCENE IN DELVILLE WOOD, DEVASTATED BY THE WAR 



A photograph showing the effect of intense artillery fire on forested land on the western battle front in Europe 



over which contending armies swept back and forth 



There has been in this country much discussion upon 

 ti?e effect of modern artillery fire on forests in the Euro- 

 pean war zone, and the photograph printed here shows 

 the frightful destruction wrought in thickly forested Del- 

 ville Wood by bombardments which perhaps have not 

 been excelled in intensity at any other point in the war 

 zone. Delville Wood is on the Somme front and for 

 the first two years of the war was held by the Germans. 

 Like every wooded section along the battle front, it was 

 subjected to frequent bombardment, as all woods so 

 located serve as shelter for the movement of troops, the 

 locating of guns and storage of ammunition. When the 

 Somme advance of the Allies started, Delville Wood was 

 one of the objectives of the British forces and against it 

 powerful infantry attacks were aimed after several days 

 of tremendous artillery fire. 



Then ensued sanguinary struggles for possession of 

 the Wood. British and Germans swept each other out of 

 it several times. Finally the British retained possession 

 and still hold the Wood. It was soon after they had gained 

 it all that the accompanying photograph was taken. 



As a shelter or a screen for artillery or infantry move- 



ments it is now valueless. Not a tree remains whole, even 

 the shattered trunks of but few remain standing. Trees 

 were blasted into splinters by the explosions of the big 

 shells and whole sections were mowed down by the tor- 

 rent of fire which swept through them — but the photo- 

 graph needs no word picture to describe it. 



Most of the wooded sections along the battle line in 

 France where contending armies have been in possession 

 and which are exposed to daily fire are more or less in the 

 same condition as Delville Wood. What has happened 

 to the famous forest of the Argonne is described by 

 Captain Granville Fortescue, formerly of the United 

 States Army, and who is now in France, who says : 



" Here and there a gibbet trunk still rises, a sort of 

 skeleton tree standing as a stark symbol of the results 

 of war. Scattered over the soil are rotting branches that 

 bleach in the sunshine and the rain. The armies of 

 France and Germany where they have pushed through 

 this beautiful woodland are as the plague of locusts that 

 sweeps through the green fields of grain in Argentina. 

 Where the trench lines run, the trees, giant pine and 

 stripling beech, have disappeared." 



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