Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1915-04-22

British Captain, Whose Diary
Was Found on His Body,
Describes Fighting.
TRENCH LIFE SIMPLY HADES
Finds War Not What It Was Pic
tured, but Superhuman Trial of
Superhuman Power, Intellect
and Nerves.

Cologne.-The diary of British sol
der, which presents the grisly side
Of war more brutally than has any
trained writer, was found in trench
captured by the Germans near Ypres.
The hand that penned the entry was
forever still, but it had left a rec
ord picturing wildly the scenes in the
British trenches, inadequately built,
whose horrors were so great that the
men could not sleep within their shell
tiers, whose earthen walls were NOR
tared with the bodies of dead French
men. Even more terrible was the
revelation of the CHASTITY fear of these
men, who lay expecting death within
a charnel house. The semioffic ial
Cologne Gazette publishes the follow
ing excerpts from this journal and
thus comments on it:
One of the leading press organs of
neutral countries has recently declared,
in a review of Kitchener's army of
a million that it is comparatively easy
to enlist multitude of soldiers, but
hard to provide for the necessary
quantities of equipment and munitions.
That is true. But the greatest diff
Guilty of all undoubtedly lies in i'm
buing the newly recruited troops with
the desired soldierly spirit-in other
words, to accomplish extemporaneous
ly what has been developed in Ger
many through the labor of a hundred
years and what has been bestowed
upon the present German generation
as their inheritance and training.
Captain Jordain's journal.
Before US lies the war journal of
the English Captain Jourdain of the
First Suffolk, who on January II
landed with the Kitchener REINFORCE
ments at Havre and in time arrived
with his company in the trenches in
Ypres. Parts of this journal are re-
produced here literally:
February 5.-They say that the Ger
man guns, on account of the immedi-
ate neighborhood Of the several
trenches, cannot put us under fire
Let US hope it remains so. for the
grenades are something terrible. Ev-
erywhere dead Frenchmen are used for
the Strengthening of the breastWorks,
and my first work in the trenches was
to bury a dead chasseur.
February 6.-The trench is full of
French ammunition and all sorts of
things, even f1eldglasses. They are
a disorderly lot
Trench Work Veritable Hades.
February 8.-OnIy half rested, we
had to go this evening at nine o'clock
again into the trenches. No man can
say that this method of warfare pleases
him. 1t is a veritable hell Thank
God we have not yet been under fire,
although this time they will make it
hot as hades for US in the brigade
trench.
February 9.-In the course of the
afternoon on both sides a heavy artil.
lery fire. This is not war such as
we had even pictured or imagined.
1t is superhuman trial of superhuman
power, intellect and nerves General
ly we cannot sleep, and the shooting
continues with more or less vehe-
mence. Our trenches are very poor.
Hardly bulletproof, and therefore
very dangerous. 1t is a real wonder
that one remains spared, for a shot
in the cap or tunic is the order of
the day. The sanitary conditions are
bad, and on the terrain before US
lie many dead Frenchmen and Ger.
mans. The breastwork is bordered