Grand Forks daily herald., 1914-11-17
SAVAGE CRIES OF:
PAIN AND ANGER
They Mingle on Battle Field,
Writes German Officer
to Swedish Friend.

Paris. Nov. 17.-The Aftenblatt of
stockholm publishes letter from a
German officer to q friend In Sweden,
giving the following impressions of an
engagement near. Chalons during the
battle of the Marne:
IN the neighborhood Of Chalons I
took part In the most terrible battle
that have ever seen; was, however.
a. Aege, at Namur and at Longwy.
Since 1t was impossible for our artil-
lery to silence the French batteries.
we decided to charge, thinking the
French and English would fly before
the German bayonet; the experience
proved that our ideas on that subject
were entirely erroneous.
Two Of our regiments were order
ed to take the, allies position by
ready to receive us and there ensued
such butchery as never was seen in
this or any other,war. A detachment
OF French concealed among the trees
threw themselves on us. They were
mostly turcos and zouaves. strong
devils against whom it is impossible
to night. A zouave, with gun. bay
onet fixed, is the most internal think
that can be described.
Savage cries Of pain and Of anger
resounded through the wood. A great
..AesAAJ AASA ASAA I1lcI0 duu SdIuIdLSu
the ground with blood. Soon the
French artillery came into action and
its projectiles completed the work of
the bayonet. Our men beat q retreat
at full speed across the wood now in
flames. Those who had escaped the
bayonet fell under the rain of bullets
and lay burning 1n the thickets. Only
80 men of my regiment returned. OF
the other only II came back, and of
NAu
grievously wounded.
Il followed the campaign in Man
churia, but I think in the course of
the Ave first days. of the battle Of the
Marne. more victims fell than were
counted in the battles Of Mukden and
Of Liao-Yang."
Another evidence of the murderous
character Of the fighting in this bat
tle Is furnished by a French soldiers
letter published by the Depeche De
Toulouse. 1--WE, have been fighting for
three weeks to the east Of Verdun in
the region Of the Tournon. Genicourt
and Saint Mediet forests" he wrote.
I'VE advance. but very slowly because
the 'boches'' tGermans) are strongly
entrenched.. For ten days We occu-
pied trenches only 400 yards from
theirs. and they. did all that was hu-
manly possible to break through.
They charged AZ many as ten times a
day and at night they tried to ap-
proach by creeping along the ground.
But all their assaults were repealed
with great slaughter: 5000 German
bodies were left In front Of our
trenCne0: ~ 81 =.
after every repulse each Of our
men grabbed.twN pr three mausera
with ammuhstionS ON: the bodies OF
the dead .and Btot{t them alongside
In the trenches, and when the enemy
came back he was received by fire
from his own weapons.
ITO guard against surprise at night
we took all the empty beef cans, tied
them to a cord and piled them so that
when the Germans came creeping to-
ward our lines and the cord was
touched. they made enough noise to
give the alarm. One night when the
cans ratified, we replied with imme-
diate volleys and there was no more
disturbance that night. In the morn
ing we counted hve hundred dead
Germans lying on. the ground within
hundred yards of the trenches