Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1914-09-22
COLD STEEL CHARGE
BROKE UP GERMANS
DETERMINED DASH
Wounded Briton Tells How
Invaders Were Stabbed in
Back-City Troops En-
dure Noise Better.

LONDON, Sept 22
This grim story OF British bayonet
charge in which the Germans were routed
was related by "a wounded soldier Just
back from northern France
They can stand f1re, can those Ger
mans. We were picking them off like
| winking and still they came on
Then, when they got within shouting
| distance, we received the word to charge.
Our officer was a sprinter, but we were
out of the trench and heeling after him,
all of US shouting
THE Germans seemed struck They
| just stood and gaped as we came chas-
ing down. their mouths wide open, as
| II they were wondering what the blazns
| we were up to.
when We were within 20 or 30 yards
| Of them there was an alteration They
knew then what we wanted, and they
Just threw down their rifles, turned about
| and set the pace. Some of them as they
| went, chucked of their packs, and a few
even tried to pull off their tunics.
But we had 'em! never knew I
could run before, nor the other chans,
and we pinked the 'blighters' in the back
by the score.
when we got winded we came back
the same way, and it was so: they were
lying on their faces, bayoneted in the
| back"
a lance corporal of the Connaught
Rangers said:
THE disconcerting thing in battles now
adays is that you may be fighting for
hours on end and never as much as
see an enemy to grapple with.
THE way the Germans sacrifice their
men for the sake of making an impression
is appalling. One position on our left
from which we would have fallen back
in any case. because II was dominated by
a battery which we couldn't locate, was
olt i,,ot l,,.t tl,a ipfo oy,tr
under a heavy fire. They came on in one
long never-ending stream while our rife
and gun fire tore hideous gaps through
their ranks.
THE Red Cross men say that in front
of that position alone 1900 dead and
wounded were picked up after the fight
was over. Our loss was not more than
90 of all ranks.
What we are all wondering is how
long the Germans can keep up this sort
OF thing. have seen our cavalry thrown
into confusion merely because the horses
SHE'D at the heaps of dead bodies they
had to tread over when attempts were
made to clear our front of the advancing
Germans"
Sergeant Major MacDermott writes
in a letter:
We're wonderfully cheerful. and
happy as bare-lesged urchns scainper-
ing over the fields. Not that there's
much play for us. It's all work, fight
ing and fighting and working again.
though you mustn't think I'm grum-
bling. for I'm not.
II am writing to you with the enemy's
shells bursting and screaming overhead.
Though their artillery has been making
o fiendsh row all along our front
ITS the quantity not the quality OF
the German shells that are having eff
feet on us, and it's not so much the
actual damage to life as the nerve
rscking noise that counts for so much
Townsren who are used to the noise
OF the streets can stand it a lot better
than the countrymen and l think you
will find that by far the Attest men are
those OF regiments recruited in the big
cities.
"A London lad near me says it's no
worse than the roar of motor omnibuses
in the city on a busy day"