Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-10-09
WITHERING Death
OF FRENCH GUNS
The "Great Secret of
French Army Believed to
Be Field Artillery
;MYSTIFYING DEATH
MYSTIFYING ]
DEATH
Entire Companies Of Germans Found
Dead After Being Fired Upon,
Yet Bodies Show No
Wounds.

London, Oct. Sat the outset OF
the titanic European war, French
writer's commenting on the probable
fate of the Germans, had much to
say of the great secret of France
as a factor in the struggle. Time
and again stories emanating from
Paris mentioned the great secret"
and the mystery" by which their
country was to strike down the Ger
man hosts.
Not once has there been given an
inkling of the nature of the great
secret" but a London correspondent
writing from Dieppe, after visit to
the battle fields along the Marine,
believes he has found it in the three
inch field guns used by the French,
which according to the stories, par
alyze the Germans as they stand,
killing them apparently without
wounding them and leaving them
much as were left the victims of the
great volcanic tragedies of Herculan-
eun and lPompeii.
The writer says: "A visit. to the
fields of the battle of the Marine
shows the devastating power of the
French three-inch field guns to be
something of which we hitherto had
not dreamed.
Entire sections and companies or
German troops have been struck as If
by simultaneous thunder-bOlts, re-
minding one OF nothing so much as
the wholesale extinctions of the pop
ulations of Herculeaneum and POM
peii."
Such an account sounds mysteri-
GUS. Were the Germans killed where
they stood by violent and over-pow-
ering, poisonous fumes? Is that the
"great secret?" Continuing the cor
respondent says:
ION the borders of one of the
forests, a company of Prussian ln-s
fantry at bivouack is laid out as il
it was surprised by the fire. Two
sentries are still grasping their rifles
and little way off messenger lies
by himself.
Further on an officer lies a few
yards from his men, who are stretch
ed out with loosened belts and lying
in their blankets. Two of them still
hold playing cards in their hands.
"Those sleeping and those who
we're awake when they died evidently
were swept out of life, together WITH
out apparently having had time to
move"
The same thing is noticeable on
other battlefields in France, say var
ious writer's but not one Of them has
made any attempt to explain the
matter. Evidently, when the French
talked about their great secret
they had in mind something worth
talking about. In the mysterious
whitening death" of their three inch
field guns the secret" Apparently
the results, and the comments OF OBJ
servers would indicate as much.
The Germans, according to all &C
counts, have been killed in some way
other than by bullets or fragments Of
shells. They have been smothered
to death, evidently by powerful con-
cussion, or have been asphyxiated by
powerful deadly gas.
According further instances of ap-
parently mysterious deaths among
the Germans. the correspondent says:
Even more extraordinary is an
other group of sixty dead lying about
a small haystack as il in sleep their
rifles stacked and their knapsacks ar
ranged in orderly heaps.
"In the outer ring the path of the
shells can be traced in direct line
by heaps of bodies, but the partic-
ular shell that killed these sixty
struck them in front, from behind
and at the sides with the same sud
den death and yet none of them bears
any outward wound. They are
stretched face downward Or staring
up at the sky, seemingly paralized
by the mere force of the exposition.
"The same mysterious results were
seen in many of the trenches where
Germans were piled in rows. The
German army to the east and north
of Rheims was stated to be strongu
intrenched in deep cuttings, with
bomb-proof shelters and rest houses
underground and very similar ones
were found at Betz. behind the
Ourcq. One of these was a mile and
quarter long with tunnels in aN
directions yet it was filled with
dead.
along the whole length of the bat
tie line, according to all the stories|
of French artillery men, Germans
never were able to stand before the
fire of the French guns whenever It'll
found them out. but latterly as soon
as a French battery opened, hastyt
retirement was quickly followed by
heavy bombardment by big calibre
German artillery far out of range.
'"That the Germans are beginning
to feel discouraged is gathered from
letters seized and statements made
by officer prisoners. A lieutenant of
the Twenty-sixth Artillery regiment
writes
"The Tenth Corps has been fight
ing necessarily since the beginning
OF the campaign. Almost all of our
horses were gone. We had been I'M.
der fire from a. m. to p. m. with
out food or drink. The French Eighth