The citizen., 1914-10-09

OF shells the French must have been
using to cause regiment of German
infantry to die in their trenches,
standing bolt upright and still holding
their rifles In firing attitude" re-
marked London paper the other day,
and another correspondent quotes an
American member of the Crois Rouge
as having seen "the German trenches
as the French guns had left them, but
world had never seen since the de-
stroying angel passed over the Philis-
tine camp in that avenging night OF
Scripture, a silent company Of ghosts"
But there is no secrecy about what
is now an open secret. "Turpinite," the
latest French "hell-producer," is the
invention Of M. Turpin, the parent"
inventor Of melinite and lyddite, which
latter Is merely SO named because the
first experiments were made by Lydd.
in Kent, In presence Of the French
inventor. How far this turpinite has
been or is being used by the French
artillery Is not known, and may not
be exactly known till after the war,
but one of the salient features of this
novel terror is that it cannot be fred
from an ordinary field gun, and for
its use guns of particular and diff
cult construction are required. The
handling Of these guns is at present
confined to specialists. Had the sue
cessful experiments carried out at
ChalonsNsur-Marne taken place ear
lier, the result of this war, in so far
as its primary stages were concerned,
might we'll have been different.
So lethal in its effect is the new
shell on explosion that, should its use
become widespread, whole armies, in
deed, entire nations, would be COM
pletely exterminated in the course Of
a few weeks.
Offered to France.
M. Turpin is not only a. remarkable
man, he is also man who for many
years nursed a serious grievance, and
who considered that he had been
deeply wronged in connection with
the discovery of his previous inven-
tions, melinite and lyddite. He be-
came resentful and suspicious. and de-
termined to discover some new ex-
plosive that would completely throw
into the shade his previous discover
les, which had been improved" by Of
fetal French technicians.
For years he worked in his quiet
country home some twenty miles from
Paris, and it is not long ago since the
French government made him the
''amende honorable" This mollified
him considerably, and he offered his
new discovery to his country; but
France, at the imperious demand of
her democrats, had for many years
been cutting down her military ex-
penditure, while Germany had been
steadily increasing hers. In such cir
cumstances there was little money to
! spend on experiments with explosives,
and the outbreak of war found France
not nearly so prepared with artillery,
in munitions, in reserve forces, as was
Germany.
M. Turpin, however, used as he was
to war office procrastination, had had
| special gun and shells made "on
his own" and conducted experiments
on the Atlantic coast before carefully
selected and invited officers.
A man who witnessed one of these
early demonstrations Of the possibili-
ties of "turpinite" sends to the Daily
Express description of its terrific ef-
fects:
ION a stretch of sand 500 yards
from high water level temporary
sheepfold had been erected, about four
hundred yards square. and rallied of
with wooden hurdles. In this space
were some dozen sheep and couple
of aged and worn-out horses.
"One of the horses was contentedly
munching away at some hay in a
trough, the other was rubbing himself
against one of the hurdles, while the
sheep were huddled together in one
corner.
AZ II Petrified.
This was what / saw through my
glasses when, from behind ridge
some twenty-five hundred yards away,
there came a sharp. loud thud and the
shrieking sound of small shell, just
as If somebody had taken a piece of
silk and rapidly torn 1t in two. 1t
was the same tearing sound, only
louder
There was an explosion in the
open space in the middle of the impro-
vised sheep pen. The sheep were still
all huddled in a corner some distance
off, one of the old horses was appar-
emily leaning up against the railing,
while the other, the one that had been
munching hay at the trough, lay on
his side.
When, ten minutes later, l reached
the pen, the sheep looked for all the
world as if they had been suddenly
petrified. They were mostly standing
up one against the other.
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