A TRIP TO ARRAS
One day toward the end of March, 1917,
our battalion was in reserve in huts and
tents at Bois des Alleux, a mile or so back
of Mt. St. Eloy, so I took advantage of a fine
afternoon to ride about the country. Making
a detour through fields to avoid being stopped
by some officious transport control, I came to
the Route Nationale running from Bethune
to Arras.
To my surprise it looked like the Strand
on a busy day, for it was full of marching
troops, transport wagons, hurrying motor cars
with staff officers, and double-decked
motor busses painted gray, full of Tommies, gay
and happy, going to a railhead to enjoy a
well-earned leave. One could not but wonder in
what part of London these motor busses used
to carry their passengers, and think how
strange it was to see them now hurrying along
a French road within shell fire of the Germans.
As I rode along the well-paved route, our
trench lines could be seen in the nearby fields,
and the picturesque towers of Mt. St. Eloy
were on my left, seen through the nets stretched
from tree to tree to hide the traffic from the
watchful eyes of the German observers.
Riding toward Arras, eight kilometers away,
I came up with an English officer riding in the
same direction. When I joined him he was
at first, as all English officers are, a little loath
to be joined by a stranger, though the latter
wears the same uniform. But gradually he
thawed and became the likable, courteous chap
that the English officer nearly always becomes
on closer acquaintance. He informed me that
one required a pass to enter Arras, but as he
had one and was going in to see his commanding
officer, he offered to take me in as the
medical officer of his battalion. Availing myself
of this brotherly offer, I rode with him along
the net-guarded road till we came to the
outskirts of Arras where a sentry allowed me to
enter with him. We put up our horses at the
old French cavalry barracks, now occupied by
British--not Canadian--troops, and then we
started out to search for his C.O.
We came first to what was once the
attractive Boulevard Carnot, now "Barbwire
Square," as it was nearly filled with this
material to keep the soldiers out of it to prevent
them from being hit by the German shells
which landed there daily, either from the
enemy lines only 100 yards away, or from hostile
aeroplanes. The Huns had the range of this
street to a nicety. As we walked along the
street shells bursting a couple of blocks away
threw pieces of rock so near our heads that we
were glad when we reached the end of it.
We wandered about the streets, deserted by
nearly all civilians except an old man here and
there walking about with bowed head, or an
old woman long past the days of her beauty
being spoiled by the splinters of a shell.
Except in a shop where I coaxed a young woman
to sell me a souvenir spoon, in two hours I
saw only one young woman in the streets. She
was hurrying along with a parcel under her
arm, paying no heed to the sharp, cutting
explosions of our 18-pounders nearby or to the
explosions of the German shells a few blocks
away. She looked for all the world like a young
housewife returning home after a morning's
shopping.
The houses that lined the streets were nearly
all closed. All of them showed marks of shell
fire, some being completely demolished, others
having only the rear walls standing with parts
of the sides pointing outward like arms
stretching forth for their loved ones. The
immense station of the Chemin de Fer du Nord
was a mass of ruins. The stone Cathedral was
represented by the lower part of the tower,
and a brass bell lying on the pavement, the
bell that had in times of peace so often called
the faithful to prayer. The Avenue Pasteur--France
is a country that recognizes its
scientists--showed few complete buildings, and
ironically one noted the ruin that German
shells had made of the Avenue Strassbourg.
Here and there a stone barricade had been
built, loopholes being left for machine-guns,
to prevent a possible German advance. Notices
told all to keep near the walls and away
from the open streets to avoid shell fire.
Estaminets, cafés, épiceries, and restaurants were
all damaged and closed. Joyful nights and
gay days were things of the past in this shadow
of a prosperous city. _À la mode Parisienne_,
the sign over a ladies' suit store, was all that
remained of the center of fashion of the women
of Arras.
Altogether Arras, which had been a well-built
and modern city of 25,000 people, had
become a deserted village. What shutters
remained were closed and riddled with shrapnel,
and the place had a sad, forbidding air, as if
the inhabitants had flown because of some
horrible plague. It reminded one of the ruins of
Pompeii. In one square stood the pedestal
only of a monument erected, it said, in 1910,
"in honor of the sons of Arras who had died
for their native land." When the monument
is rebuilt the dead heroes in whose honor it
was erected will have been joined by many
comrades.
I passed out of the walls, depressed by the
unhappy wreck of a once prosperous city
destroyed by the highly refined methods of
warfare developed by twentieth century German
kultur.