MY FIRST VISIT TO YPRES AND ARRAS
Greeted on Arrival in the Ruined City of Ypres by a Furious Fusillade--I
Film the Cloth Hall and Cathedral, and Have a Narrow Escape--A Once
Beautiful Town Now Little More Than a Heap of Ruins--Arras a City of the
Dead--Its Cathedral Destroyed--But Cross and Crucifixes Unharmed.
To Ypres! This was the order for the day. The news gave me a thrill of
excitement. The thunder of the big guns grew louder as we approached the
front line, until they seemed to merge into one continuous roar.
Stopping on the road, I asked if the Germans were "strafing" to-day.
"Yes," said one of our military police, "they were shelling us pretty
heavily this morning: you will have to be very careful moving about
inside. Bosche machines are always up in the air, taking bearings for
the guns."
Arriving at the outskirts of the ruined town, we were pulled up by a
sentry, who, finding our papers in order, allowed us to proceed. At that
moment a furious fusillade of gun-fire attracted our attention, and
three shrill blasts of a whistle rang out; then we heard a cry,
"Everyone under cover!" Stopping the car, I immediately jumped out, and
stood under cover of a broken-down wall, and looking up, could see the
cause of this activity.
[Illustration: TAKING SCENES IN DEVASTATED YPRES, MAY, 1916]
High in the air, about eight to ten thousand feet, was a Bosche
aeroplane, and while I was watching it shrapnel shells from our
anti-aircraft guns were exploding round it like rain. A great number
were fired at it. The whole sky was flecked with white and black patches
of smoke, but not one hit was recorded. The machine seemed to sail
through that inferno as if nothing were happening, and at last it
disappeared in the haze over its own lines. Only then were we allowed to
proceed.
I had made a rough programme of what to film, and decided to start from
the Grand Place. In a few words, I may say that I filmed the Place from
the remains of the Cloth Hall, the Cathedral, and various districts of
the town, but to try and describe the awful condition of what was once
the most beautiful town in Belgium would be to attempt the impossible.
No pen, and no imagination, could do justice to it. The wildest dreams
of Dante could not conjure up such terrible, such awful scenes.
The immensity of the outrage gripped me perhaps more completely when I
stood upon the heap of rubble that was once the most beautiful piece of
architecture of its kind in all the world. The Cloth Hall, and the
Cathedral, looked exactly as if some mighty scythe had swept across the
ground, levelling everything in its path. The monster 15-inch German
shells had dismembered and torn open the buildings brick by brick.
Confusion and devastation reigned everywhere, no matter in what
direction you looked. It was as if the very heavens and the earth had
crashed together, crushing everything between them out of all semblance
to what it had been.
The ground was literally pock-marked with enemy shell-holes. The stench
of decaying bodies followed me everywhere. At times the horror of it all
seemed to freeze the understanding, and it was difficult to realise that
one was part and parcel of this world of ours. Literally, horror was
piled upon horror. And this was the twentieth century of which men
boasted; this was civilisation! Built by men's hands, the result of
centuries of work. Now look at them; those beautiful architectural
monuments, destroyed, in a few months, by the vilest spawn that ever
contaminated the earth. A breed that should and would be blotted out of
existence as effectively as they had blotted out the town of Ypres.
Beneath one large building lay buried a number of our gallant soldiers,
who were sheltering there, wounded. The position was given away by
spies, with the result that the Germans poured a concentrated fire of
shells upon the helpless fellows, and the shelling was so terrific that
the whole building collapsed and buried every living soul beneath the
débris.
As I stood upon the heap tears came into my eyes, and the spirits of the
brave lads seemed to call out for vengeance. And even as I stood and
pondered, the big guns rang out, the very concussion shaking bricks and
dust upon me as I stood there. While filming the scene, German shells
came hurtling and shrieking overhead, exploding just behind me and
scattering the débris of the ruins high above and whizzing in my
direction.
To obtain a good view-point, I clambered upon a mount of bricks nearly
fifty feet high, all that was left of the Cathedral Tower. From that
eminence I could look right down into the interior, and I succeeded in
taking an excellent film of it. While doing so, two German shells
exploded a short distance away. Whether it was the concussion or pieces
of shell that struck it, I do not know--probably the latter--but large
pieces of stone and granite fell at my feet, and one piece hit my
shoulder. So I quickly made my way to more healthy quarters, and even as
I left the shells overhead began to shriek with redoubled fury, as if
the very legions of hell were moaning, aghast at the terrible crime
which the fiendish Huns had perpetrated.
Arras, although not by any means as badly damaged as Ypres, is one of
the most historical and beautiful places systematically destroyed by the
Germans. The Cathedral, the wonderful Museum, the Hôtel de Ville, once
the pride of this broken city, are now no more. Arras provides yet
another blasting monument of the unspeakable methods of warfare as
practised by the descendants of Attila, the Hun. The city was as silent
as the tomb when I visited it. It was dead in every sense of the word; a
place only fit for the inhabitants of the nether world. Only when the
German shells came screaming overhead with unearthly noise, in an empty
street, was the silence broken in this city of the dead.
I visited the ruined Cathedral, and filmed various scenes of the
interior and exterior, having to climb over huge mounds of fallen
masonry to obtain my best view-points. In places all that was left
standing was the bare walls. The huge columns, with their beautiful
sculptures, no longer able to support the roof, still stood like grim
sentinels watching over their sacred charge. And yet, despite the
unholy bombardment to which the building had been subjected, three
things remained unharmed and untouched in the midst of this scene of
awful desolation. The three crucifixes, with the figures of Christ
still upon them, gazed down upon this scene of horror. And high upon
the topmost joint of the south wall stood the cross, the symbol of
Christianity--unharmed. The united endeavours of the Powers of Evil
could not dislodge that sacred emblem from its topmost pinnacle.
I left the Cathedral and walked along the grass-covered streets,
pock-marked by innumerable shell-holes, and every now and then I had to
dive into some cellar for shelter from falling shells. At the Hôtel de
Ville the same sight presented itself. The bombardment had reduced its
walls to little more than a tottering shell, which fell to pieces at the
merest touch.
[Illustration: IN YPRES, WITH "BABY" BROOKS, THE OFFICIAL STILL
PHOTOGRAPHER, MAY, 1916]