Evening star., 1914-12-21
BRITISH IN FRANCE
FACE DIFFICULTIES
Official Observer Tells How
Campaign Is Now Being
Conducted.
POSITIONS OF GERMANS
ARE NOT EASY TO TAKE
Barbed Wire Entanglements and
Other Obstacles Make Advances
Necessarily Slow.

LONDON, December 81. - The great
difficulties under which military opera
tions in France and Belgium are being
conducted are described IN narrative
of recent developments, written by an
official observer attached to the British
headquarters and made public by the
official information bureau. The recital
brings the story of war. as covered in
these eyewitnesses report, up to De-
cember II.
The opposition now being encounter
ed resembles to some extent that met
with by US in the beginning of DC
ltober. when we first reached the Franco
Belgian frontier and before the Ger
mans brought up their full force and
assumed the offensive says the re-
port. TT has one great difference
however and that is that the enemy
is in much greater force, and his po-
sitions are much stronger and better
organized than they were two months
ago.
AT that time an advance on the
eastern end OF the line implied a move
ment across a very difficult country, as
it does still. and for us it meant an
attack on skilfuly but hastily for
titled strong-points or villages. held to
a large extent by cavalry and Jaegers'
Machine Guns More Plentiful.
with the large proportion of ma
chine guns that We have in front of
us TODAY. it is no longer succession
of isolated points. There are still such
points, and some are the same, but
they are stronger and form part OF a
practically continuous defensive zone,
consisting in some places of seyerdi
lines of cunningiy sited and carefully
constructed works.
This zone really amounts to a maze
of trenches and obstacles. Every
known form of obstacle is used. En-
tanglements-to select the most com
mon form-vary from loose coils of
Wire Wire to securely staked networks of
from IS inches to nearly six feet in
height and of different widths.
These measures of defense are only
such as to be expected from troops
which are well trained and have ample
resources and time: and there are, of
course, ways in which they can be
overcome. But where these methods
are applied. the rate of advance is nee
essarily slow. When it is reported
in laconic terms that ground has been
gained at a certain point, Topographic
cally the gain may amount to only a
few yards. Tactically. on the other
hand, the progress implied by even
such a small step forward may be i'm
portant, for a trench, cluster of
trenches. the edge of a wood, a build
ing, a village or a knoll may have
been reached. possession of which will
facilitate further operations.
"Siege approaches such as saps help
the attacker to advance under cover and
so to minimize the losses. but they do not
and cannot obviate the liability to sur
prise reception when once the enemy's
works are gained. The only certain
method of preventing this is by a pro-
lonyed bombar rdment with high explosive
shells until trenches. mines and ma
crime guns are reduced to scrap heaps
or to mine under them and blow them
into the air.
we have rea soI, to believe, from the
evidence obtained from prisoners, that
many Of the landwehr are heartily sick
of the war and resent the harsh treat
ment Of their officers. They have been
persuaded that the British III treat their
prisoners, and but for this some would
be willing to surrender"