Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1914-11-20
WEARY OF KILLING
French Officer ViviGIy Portrays
Horrors of War.
1--WE Fired-My God-and They
Stretched Out Dead-Our Grape
shot Tore Chunks in Them,
But Still They Came"

\ New York.-Vividly portraying the
horrors of the war in Europe, in hight
ing in mud-f1lled trenches with French
and German and BritOn tearing at
each other like savages, killing until
exhausted, but always killing, Ser
geant Louys Of the Two Hundred and
Sixteenth regiment of the French IN
fantry reserves has written a remark
able pen picture of the ruthless war In
q letter which his 1iancee in this city
has just received.
Writing from his cot in the General
hospital at Havre, the soldier con-
cludes this grim epic Of modern war
with a picture of the Sisters Of Char
ity.
With his company, the Nineteenth,
the sergeant found himself in a trench
near Fontenoy, where the conflict
ragged fiercely, day and night. After
five days of furious fighting, his com
pany was sent back for a short rest,
while fresh troops piled into the mud
filed trenches into which a dull,
leaden rain was dripping.
Like caricatures fashioned Of mud,
suddenly called to life, we hobbled
YEARLY out of the holes where we
had lived under a hell Of bursting
shells, soaring flame and nauseous
gases for days." he writes. I'VE were
relieved by other troops, who saluted
,,r 1hou
I'm the trenches we crouch while
the shells and bullets from the Ger
man infantry play over us-and, alas,
on us. Overhead the moon struggles
about in the clouds, for the rain has
ceased a little, while mad streaks of
white light whisper their way from
the German trenches and touch some
where along our line. In a moment
there is a screaming shell where the
light was, and we know that some OF
our comrades have answered France
last call.
1--WE were not paying much atten-
ton to anything after two hours OF
this. We just fired when told. Then
suddenly at daybreak the Germans
came. Fifty yards away we saw
them, in the streaky light that beck
ons the sun in these table lands. They
came like solid blocks which were ma
chimes. We fred-my God! We fired
into their faces, and they stretched
out dead. But they came on, some
times~shouting sometimes putting. We
beat them with the butt ends of our
muskets and we stabbed them with
our bayonets. 1t was horrible.
1--WE were exhausted from killing
Then came the order to abandon the
trenches. There were so many there
who would never hear that order, and
others who cried out when they found
they could not crawl away from those
men. who kept on coming and coming
They looked horrible in the new light
with their stubby, dirty faces; their
tight uniforms of the color of the
earth.
.T walked six miles to Vic-sur-Aisne
to the big hospital. Ny way was along
the pathway of the fire which had
been there a short time before. Every
where death and desolation. How
France suffers! There were tears in
NV eyes, and they were not tears OF
pain, ma petite.
cat Vic-sur-Aisne the surgeon there
after treating me, sent me. with 9th
ers. to sanitary train at the station
of villers-Cotterets 90 miles away.
For IL days now l am here. We
ALL are comfortable. We have the at
tendance of the best physicians III
Havre, and we have, above all, the
care of the Catholic Sisters of Charity
How shall / praise enough these
angels of earth? or infinite goodness
are they. without sentimentality. Oh
affected sensibility. So / have seer
them where death and destruction
abounded, and so l see them here
the same. In these women one finds
no romantic goodness that is in real
ity only selfishness projected for self
,a.;ssacffru One finds he p0oduass