The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-25
BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES WITH
 AN A. P. WAR CORRESPONDENT
Conducting Campaign From Five in Frontier
 dutral UnderakdngReal Incidents From the of

With the German Army Before Metz. September 30.-By Courier to Holland and Mail to New York. Correspondence of the Associated Press.)-A five-day trip to the front has taken the Associated Press correspondent through the German for tresses of Mayence saerbruecken and Metz, through the frontier regions be- tween Metz and the French fortress line from verdun to Foul into the actual bat tery positions from which German and Austrian heavy artillery were pounding their and 12-inch shells into the French barrier forts and the ranks of the French field army which has replaced the crum- bling Notifications of steel and cement with ramparts of flesh and blood.
 Impressions are those of some great in dustriaI undertaking with powerful ma chinery in operation and endless supply trains bringing up raw materials. rather than of war as pictured
 From an observation point on a hillside above St. Mihiel the great battlefield on which a German army is endeavoring to break through the line of barrier forts be- tween verdun and Toul and the opposing French forces could be surveyed in Its entirety In the foreground lay the level valley of the Mouse with the towns of St. Mihiel and Bannoncour nestling on the green landscape. Beyond and behind the valley rose tier of hills on which tie French at this writing obstinately hold an entrenched position checking the point of the German wedge, while French forces from north and south beat upon the sides of the triangle trying to force it back across the Mouse and out from the vitals of the French fortress line
 Smoke Showed Positions
 Bursting shells threw up their columns of white or black fog around the edge of the panorama. Cloudlets of white smoke here and there showed where position D was being brought under shrapne fire. An occasional aeroplane could be picked out lowering over the lines, but the in- fantry and the field battery positions coule not be discerned even with higher power field glass, so cleverly had the armies taken cover. The uninitiated observer al- nftSt WOulu nave Deliefeu tnlS a ueSeIteQ landscape rather than a scene of great battle, which, if successful for the Ger mans, would force the main French army to retreat from it's entrenched positions along the Aisne river.
 About three miles away across the Mouse a quadrangular mound of black, ploughed up earth and the hillside marked the location of Fort Les Paroches, which had been silenced by the German pfo,- t1,A ,ixrl,f l>affr To- I1.x Camp so named because the Roman le- gions centuries ago had selected this site for strategic encampment, had been stormed by Bavarian infantry two days earlier after it's heavy guns had been put out of action and artillery officers stated that Fort Lionville, 15 miles to the south and out of range of vision. was then vir- trally silenced. only one of it's armored turrets continuing to answer the bom- bardment
 Slept by Prince
 The correspondent had spent the previ- ous night at the fortress town of Metz sleeping under the same roof with Prince Oscar of Prussia, invalided rom the field in state of physical breakdown. Prince William of Hchenzollern father-in-law of ex-King Manuel, and other officers either watching or engaged in the operations in the field and had travelled by automobile to the battle front 55 miles to the west. For the first part of the distance the road led through hills on which are located the chain of forts comprising the fortress of Metz. usually so slSillfully masked and concealed by woods or blended with the hllsides that nothing out of the ordinary was apparent. The country as far as the frontier town of Gorge seemed bathed in absolute peace. No troops were seen and men and women were working in