Steenstraete
(May 25, 1915)
By Dr. Duwez, Army Surgeon to the Regiment of Grenadiers
At Steenstraete, the upheaval, the absolute destruction of everything
is formidable. The very places where the houses stood are only
recognisable by the heaps of broken bricks of their foundations. There
was not much left when we arrived in the Sector, but, at present,
there is not even one stone upon another. Everywhere there are craters
hollowed out, and these are so close together that they run into each
other. In one of these, a German corpse could be seen, standing up,
buried up to his waist and headless. Pieces of uniforms were visible
in the beaten soil, and, as the ground gave way, one saw a face under
one's feet, the shape of which was vaguely outlined and the mouth, with
its white teeth, was open like a rat hole.
We saw what had been the brewery with its huge cellars. It had fallen
completely in. We could only recognise the road by its torn-up pavement
and its twisted rails. Of all Steenstraete, there is nothing left, it
has been razed to the ground. The bridge is nothing but a wretched heap
of old iron.
The Steenstraete Bridge! Names and sites, like people, acquire their
titles of nobility. At present, the Algerian sharp-shooters are
guarding the bridge. In order to go forward, we had to disturb the
sentinels who were lost in thought near their battlements. We had to
climb over the sleeping soldiers, too. Some of them had hollowed out
alcoves in the earth and they were almost buried in them. Others had
stretched their tents out on the stakes and they were sleeping in the
square of shade which this afforded. They rather blocked the way for
the patrol's rounds. Their greenish yellow uniform was almost the
colour of the ground. Here and there, the red of a _chéchia_ cap gave
relief to the colouring. Bayonets could be seen everywhere, glittering
in the sunshine. They had a _crapouillot_, a bomb-thrower and a German
machine-gun, all this among the battery, together with sacks of
earth, dry mud, and the ruins of walls which formed the trenches. The
_crapouillot_ seemed to be crouching down, whilst the machine-gun and
the bomb-thrower stretched their necks forward in the direction of the
enemy. Here and there, the green and yellow bags, which the Germans
had left behind them, reminded us of the recent occupation. It was a
tranquil moment, for the cannon was silent.
Under the ardent sun, with the dry mud colour which pervaded
everything, the outlines of the Algerian sharp-shooters, their bronzed
complexions and their eagle-like profiles reminded one of an Oriental
street.
One can have no idea of modern warfare without having seen the ground
all torn up by shells and hollowed out in all directions by trenches,
with the old communication passages of the Germans cutting ours
perpendicularly. Houses, the road, gardens, fields are all mixed up in
one mass of ruin and broken earth. It is no use expecting to find here
that comfort which embellishes calmer war zones; it is useless to look
for tombs all regularly arranged and covered with grass, each one with
a cross, on which the dead man's name is written in white letters.
Here and there, in this region, a rusty bayonet emerges, and on it is
a tattered military cap. Two sticks joined together to form a cross
may also be seen now and then, but that is all. And yet, under this
ground, there are heaps and heaps of dead bodies buried haphazard. The
sharp-shooters have taken some of them for consolidating their parapet.
Cellars fell in burying their occupants. On every side there are whiffs
of strong odours. The ground moves under our feet and whenever one
treads in muddy puddles, this odour is still stronger. The wind of
Death has passed. Everything is destroyed here, and even the grass does
not grow again in such spots.