When history was being made during the war, which generally meant that laboriously prepared trenches were being kneel bits and the ground in the dug up with high explosive, the question often occurred to those on the spot whether it would be possible at some future date to revisit the glimpses of the moon and identify places where interesting events had occurred. A local resident who has just returned from a tour of many of the battlefields throws some light on the possi. bilities. While Cook's tours and guides were the order throughout the zone of the heaviest fighting. he found himself one of a party of ex-officers who were trying to the exact position of their wartime deeds, and who found it tra ordinarily difficult in places. Vegetation was growing rank in furrows that had formerly been trenches, and very often only the trace of what had once been almost impregnable positions remained. Where once a man could have found his way almost blindfold in a maze of trenches, it was practically futile to try to locate an erstwhile well-known position. Here and there. however, were still well-marked features, but they were in a great minority. It is rather sorrowful to think that in so short a space of time the work of countless thousands is largely blotted out. work that not only cost the nations of Europe very nearly their solvency but an_infinite number of individuals their lives. In 1916 a French landed proprietor advertised a battlefield for sale—part of the Somme country which had been recovered: within the next few years he would probably have difficulty (apart from historical record) in proving it to have been one. Peasants and the Chinese Labour Corps are doing much. nature rather more towards this end.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.