Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-11-03
FIGHTING IN FLANDERS.
Described AS Bloodiest Work In th'
History of the World.

History Of the World.
A correspondent of the London
Daily Chronicle, telegraphing Friday
night, from the northeast of France
describes the siXteen-day battle IN
west Flanders as the bloodiest bat
tie in the whole history of the world. .
The slaughter on the Marne ana
the Aisne he says. paleS into COM
parative insignificence before that
which has strewn the undulatlng
countryside of Flanders with bodies,
and il is doubtful if the total dead
will ever be known.
Those who have been in the actual
fighting, says this correspondent, tell
the grimmest tales of the slaughter
they have seen during the past week.
"The fields and swelling SEASIDE
dunes are Uttered with dead in great
heaps in the deep trenches" says the
correspondent Death has come in
wholesale fashion and filled not only
the trenches but the User, and 1t can
be said without eXaggeration that the
river runs crimson. The canals at
places can be bridged with dead bod
les, and the land which has been
flooded between Nieuport and DIX
nude, is an inferno which words can
not describe. The water is thick with
corpses and muddy with the splash or
shells.
"An officer who saw the Germans
caught in their intrenchments when
the flood came rushing in upon
them, says 1t was terrible sight. Just
at that time the fire from the fleet
and from the batteries of the allies
increased greatly in intensity. The
infantry were sent in, and perfect
tornado of terror, which no one who
saw il can ever possibly wipe out OF
his memory, seemed to affect the Ger
mans.
"A soldier of the Black Watch regi-
ment. speaking of his experiences,
said that he was in one trench which
was charged by the Germans fifteen
times in two days and a night yet
without success. After that, it was
simply impossible to charge any more,
as the ground was strewn so thlckly
with dead bodies Seven of the charg-
es were made during the night and
during the last six or seven days, most
OF the heaviest fighting has been done
after dark.
Every morning before daylight the
big guns were at it again with re-
doubled vigor. shaking the windows
of houses within a range of twenty
miles and waking people from their
sleep.
THE artillery fire both from sea and
land has exceeded in intensity every
thing in war so far. The British artil-
lery has done excellent work and cap
tured German officers express their
surprise at the volume of fire from the
British positions and at its amazing
accuracy
THE scenes in the searchlight-
streaked darkness are eerie in eX-
treme. The men fire into the dark
ness and then rush forward, not see
ing a yard in front of them. The
searchlight flashes and flares light up,
revealing the oncoming foe and a
shower of lead and rain of shrapnel
burst upon them. They fall in heap
after heap and then fade away. fol-
lowed into their trenches by the
searchlight's glare.
Then the other side sends out its
men: there is a strange silence ana
they come upon deserted trenches. AS
they search the trenches and the
shelter to which the enemy has re-
tired there is another charge, which
dies away as those before ii did, and
again the trenches are abandoned.
Then some line of trenches will be
recovered by tremendous effort. and
upon il the artillery will rain death
and destruction. So the battle goes.
and every yard of ground is won only
by tremendous effort and loss at an
appalling cost"
Another correspondent says that the
British soldiers in the Ypres region
also have buried more than $4,000
Germans. and there are many piles OF
Germans dead around DiXmude, which
il has been impossible to bury on ac-
count of the continuous fighting.