i8 
LAND & WATER 
May 3, 1917 
Scenes from the Battle Area Les Trains reclament de rHuile 
AHATTLE-FIKLI) from the begiiiiiiiig of time 
Ficardy of the rolling plains has siilf>?recl more 
from war tlian any other region of the world. 
L. Tacitus tells how the Gennans of hi? day dug into 
Its chalk to make refuges from the. enemy (eosqitc mullo in- 
super jlnio unerati/.n-i now! ) ; the Romans fought the l-'ranks 
many a year tor Cambrai and Faidherbe defeated the 
J'russians in February '71 at Baoaume. Its crops have been 
traiTipled under fool, its villages sacKcd many a time, but 
never has such ruin been wrought in it as to-day. for not on'y 
have its buildings been burnt and destroyed by shell tin\ 
but all of its surface has been torn up for a great deptii. 
So immense is the lighting in this war that few of us have 
been able to attune our sense of proportion to the under- 
standing of it. How many people in England realise that 
the fateful Thiepval was the tinie.it of \illages and its chateau 
but a small country house, or that Bapaume, the famous, 
liad less than .5,000 inhabitants ? Or, on the other hand, that 
the fierce battles at the end of last week from Koeux in the 
bend of the Scarpe up to (lavrelle. dwarfed the storming of 
Badajoz ? Rupert of Bavaria had seven divisions of I'onic- 
ranians, Rhinelanders and Badeners to defend this position 
against AUenby's invincibles, whereas Soult and Marmont 
hail (vrtainly not 100,000 men all told, and I'hilijipons garri- 
son was leJis than 5,000! 
The monoton<uis plains were very fertile and highly culti- 
vated before the war, with poor \illages of mean brick houses 
and wattle barns, nuich marshland and, south of the Scaqi^, 
some rich fields won from the waters. Beet-sugar factoiies, 
quarries and )nail-pits dot tlic map ; but there are very few 
big houses in the country. There was Thiepval cluiteau 
way back which used to belong to the counts of Breda ; 
it was bought in iQii by a muiing engineer, a Monsieur 
I'ortier, who spent a great deal of money on modernizing 
and decorating it. He had only been li\ing there a week when 
he, with his invalid son, had to fly from it before the enemy ; 
the Germans made of its cellars a ganglion of trenches. 
Then there was a new large villa with a pretty garden at 
Favreuil which M. Stenne, brother of the Mayor of Bapaume, 
had just finishecf for himself in August 1914, and now we are 
lighting round the only big place between .Mbert and Cambrai, 
the chateau of Havrincourt. It belongs to the Comte 
■ d'llavrincourt and was a beautiful jiropertv before the war — 
oil ! that terrible "avanl la ^iwrrc .'"of Northern France- but 
now with its home-farm, sugar factory and the rest, it is 
in every probability merely an undistinguishable mass of 
broken masonry. 
Gavrelle, whose capture will rank next in importance to 
the assault of the Vimy Ridge, boasted about 500 inhabitants 
before the war. The enemy had fortified it well, making the 
church and girls' school (sec plan below) a strong keep with 
Hv JiMn.K CAMM.\liiaS 
" HV are passing the great Corpse-Conversion- 
Eslahlishmcnl of this Army Group. . . ." 
(Kaii Rosner in the Lolfal- ^ "''''•'•'>' April loth.) 
Les trains grinccnt an dela du Rhin, 
Les trains rc^'clament de I'huile, 
Le canon gronde de Rheims a St. Quentin, 
Rien n'est sacre que I'utile. 1 
Les trains grinccnt an dela du Rhin. 
Les trains ont faini. . . . 
" Ou'on leur donne a manger, dit I'emiiereur, 
"La graisse— comme I'argent-n'a ])as d'odeur. 
"Que voulez-vous, les femmes .' L^n joli yvtit (imclirre, 
" Avec de jolies fleurs et de jolies croi.\ ? 
" — C'est un luxe, en temps de guerre ! 
" One voulez-vous, les femmes ? I'n coin jiour pleurer ? 
" L'AUemagne ne plaisante pas ; 
" JCntendez-vous les trains grincer ? ,' 
" One voulez-vous. les femmes? Une relique. une oriere:? 
" — La graisse est bien trop chere ! 
"Ouand on sert son pays, il faut tout lui doniur. 
" Kn avant, en avant, de Rheims a St. (_)nentin, 
" Rien n'est sacre que I'utile ! 
" Poussez-les, I'epee dans les reins, 
"Les trains reclament de I'huile ! " 
(.]// Rights Reserved.) 
immense dugouts. He undoubtedly considered it of great 
imjwrtance as he attacked it again and again, not only from 
the woods west of Fresnes, but up the road from Roeux. 
Roeux itself is also a very valuable position as a glance at the 
map will show ; it was used for a long time by the (Germans 
as the terminus of the transport by water of ammunition for 
the Vimy sector. The \ery barges in the ])icture may have 
served to bring uj) shell for the enemy to u.se against us, 
and probably the high chimneys shown behind Roeux station 
lielong to the c^iemical works so often referred to by corr(;s- 
]>ondents at the front. 
Avion is an important small town south of Lens, of v.hich 
it is almost a suburb ; it is one of the gates of that coal-land, 
wliich is now being restored to h'rance. J. 11. 
/&( ^^iT^-ic 
Though Tlaii oft/ie — ' 
Vilkge ofGAVJ^ELLE 
/node 6y a refugee jsr 
t — Cure'* bouse ; 2. — Public Weigh-shed ; 3. — Mairie and boys' school ; 4. — Pond ; 5. — Abbaye farm ; 6.— Church ; 7. — Girls' school ; 
8 -^Deputy mayor's bouse; 9. — Mayor's house: 10, — Windmill; 11, — Cemetery; 12. — M. Pavv'» hnusc 
