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I.-Frightfulness         in   Retreat.
d" N the course of these last months," writes
the military correspondent of the German
Lokalanzeiger on March i8, I9I7, " great stretches
of French territory have been turned by us into a
dead country. It varies in width from IO to I2
or iS kilometres (6-to 71 or 8 miles), and extends
along the whole of our new position, presenting
a terrible barrier of desolation to any enemy
hardy enough to advance against our new lines.
No village or farm was left standing on this glacis,
no road was left passable, no railway-track or
embankment was left in being. Where once
were woods there are gaunt rows of stumps; the
wells have been blown up, wires, cables, and pipe-
lines destroyed. In front of our new positions
runs, like a gigantic ribbon, an empire of death."
The writer claims to be an eye-witness of what
he descnbes; he made a tour of the devastated
zone a fortnight before the retirement began,
having been " taken into confidence," as he
informs his readers, " by the IHigh German
Command." It was they, no doubt, who inspired
bhi to dwell so gloatingly upon the " empire of
death" which they had made; it was the only
consolation they had to offer the German
people for a strategic movement alien to the
tradition of the Prussian military power and
damaging to its prestige. It is a poor consolation