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Smith College is proud of what these graduates have done and are doing; and this note is written to assure the Unit rather than the outside world that those who have to stay at home see and understand.

William Allan Neilson.

Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

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The German Retreat

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As a relief visitor, in a Unit authorized by the French Government au secours dans la région dévastée, I have lived recently in the Department of the Somme. There I had in my care a village with a personality which I venture to think is typical of Picardy. As such, I would present it to you.

It was on a winter’s morning, by snow and lantern light, that I traversed for the last time a road grown familiar to me through months of use, the road which led from our encampment, known as that of the “Dames Américaines” at Grécourt, past the railroad station of Hombleux to the hamlet of Canizy. It leads elsewhere, of course, this road; to the military highway for instance, which has already seen in the last three years three momentous troop movements: the advance and retreat of the French, the advance and retreat of the Germans, and, again, the victorious sweep of the French and British armies which reclaimed, just a year ago, the valleys of the Somme. It leads to the front, that fluctuating line, some twelve miles distant, in the shelter of which we have lived and worked for the ruined countryside. It is an important route, on some occasions choked with artillery, on others with blue columned infantry swinging down its vista arched with elms. Officers’ cars flash by there, and deafening camions. But for me, until this the morning of my departure, it has led to Canizy.