Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0129Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a desolate landscape. Above the image "W97 (Star)" is printed, below the image "V18936 Weird Desolation of Berry au Bae, after Four years of Fighting, France." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood, Inc. Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V18936
BERRY-AU-BAC AFTER FOUR YEARS OF FIGHTING, FRANCE
If you had no conception of the power of modern weapons you might think that the surface of theese once peaceful hills had been tossed about by the titanic forces of an earthqueake. But all this desolation is the work of man and his engines of war. Berry-au-Bac, in the vortex of the fighting throughout the war, suffered particularly during the battles along the Chemin des Dames, which lies a few miles west of it. The most sanguinary of these battles were fougth in January, 1915, in April and May, 1917, and finally in May 1918, when British troops holidng Berry-au-Bac were forced back by the Germans when the latter broke through the Chemin des Dames defenses and poured southward to the Marne.
From where we stand we are looking westward into the valley of the Aisne, with the village in the distance. At first glance it appears to be dotted with houses, but they are only empty shells, swept by fierce fires and habitable only by the rats which swarm everywhere over the battlefields. The hill crest in the middle distance shows the enormous crater blased out by the explosion of one of the mines which would toss even whole villages, high in air; and immediately before us the earth is churned like the waves of the sea. Observe the muzzle of a demolish gun protruding from its deep emplacement there at the right, the angle of broke and twisted barbed wire littering the ground, the shattered trench with bits of rag tied to the strand of wire stretching across it to warn the defenders against tearing their flesh upon it. Fighting in such a place was nothing less than hell on earth.
Copyrghit by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection