great battle in West Flanders. It was stated on October 27 that French
Marines holding the town had withstood a continuous attack lasting forty
hours, at the end of which the place was in ruins. Mr. E. Ashmead
Bartlett, who visited Dixmude on October 21, wrote (in the "Telegraph"):
"The town is not very big, and what it looked like before the bombardment
I cannot say.... An infuriated German army corps were concentrating the
fire of all the field guns and heavy howitzers on it at the same time.
There was not an inch that was not being swept by shells. There was not a
house, as far as I could see, which had escaped destruction."--[Photo. by
Newspaper Illustrations.]




__________________________________________________________________________
THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, NOV. 18, 1914--13


[Illustration: WRECKED IN THE MODERN, AND GREATER, BATTLE OF THE DUNES:
IN THE RUINS OF THE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CHURCH AT NIEUPORT.]

Some idea of the destruction wrought by German shells in Nieuport may be
gathered from this photograph of the interior of the church, another
example of the fact, pointed out under a drawing on another page, that the
German gunners do not respect the House of God. The church at Nieuport,
which dated from the fifteenth century, was restored in 1903, and its
massive baroque tower, visible from afar, could be easily avoided by
artillerymen capable of accurate aim and desirous of sparing a sacred
building. Nieuport has at least twice before in history been the scene of
conflict. In 1489 it made a stubborn resistance to an attack by the