The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-06
UNHEROIC WAR
By BYRON LoMAx


 Warsaw. May 24-(Special Correspond ence)-Heroic war is diverging into un- heroic paths. Mechanism and ingenuity are submerging muscles and spirit. The new way to win is to fool as much as possible your enemy, and to expose as little as possible your skin. In that un- warlike way the struggle for Poland is going. As the war gets less mobile and becomes more and more stable brilliant charges and bold deeds grow rarer and | less valuable, and cunning and engineer ing replace them. You cease trying to beat the foe expensively with the bayonet and you do your best to beat him cheaply with spades, machines and tricks
 Best at this are the Germans, for they are technically the best equipped, and 1 they have most to economize with men. l The German new war of ingenuity Is thoroughly organized Field Marshal Hin 1 denburg's staff, say prisoners, has spe- cial department of engineer inventors and planners of ruses and tricks. These off, | cers are freed from all duties in connec- ton with strategy or tactics. so that they may concentrate their time in devising
 
 | of ruses bears internal evidence that it springs from a central quarter. When a new mechanical device or ruse is | tried, it is usually tried all along the line or simultaneously at different isolataed, remote points. From this we conclude that central brain inspires all devices and that the new kind of warfare has been deliberately adopted by Hindenburg's staff
 | Germany first showed her superiority | in war mechanism when her armies last | November retreated from Poland Then 1 H1ndenburg put into operation wholly | new machine for destroying steel rails This is big machine, mounted on a six wheeled bogy and weighing 20 tons, which, as it goes along, tears up and 1 bends into uselessness the rails behind it. Near the Pilitsi Hindenburg has in use a road destroyer. The road destroyer works like a dredger but instead of ! buckets it has chain of picks. The | destroyer moves at the rate of three miles an hour and tears up and totally destroys the road behind it. This ma- chine was seen by our aviators working | on road near the town of Toma schew The airmen dropped bombs and scattered the engineers who were marching beside the machine, but the machine continued l before 1t came to a stop.
 1 For tackling barbed wire entanglements l Field Marshal Hindenburg has several mechanical devices. The most cumbrous is wheeled platform from which rises a steel bullet-proof shield. From the front rises very heavy lever. The ma chine weighs a quarter of a ton. It can l be used only on level ground. On the platform, protected by the shield, kneel l three infantrymen. They propel the ma chine ahead by digging their toes into the ground and pushing. When the ma | chine gets within a yard of the first row | of barbed wire the heavy lever is put into operation and the wire is broken On the lower Bsura, in their night at | Jacks, the Germans use "entanglement 1 bridges. In German, "Stacheldraht- brucke." Russian barbed wire entangle- ments consist of three rows of short, thick stakes, deeply driven into the earth and connected by horizontal barbed wires, running parallel to the trenches and diag- onally. The entanglement bridge is a | short length of wire-backed canvas. This | is rolled before a creeping man, whom 1t protects against rife bullets. Other l creeping men help him quickly to unroll 1t and throw it over the entanglements. It makes a level bridge. Some infantry- men, while creeping forwards against en- tanglements, push before themselves steel shields. The shields are bullet proof at long ranges The Austrans are trying an apparatus like but larger than the
 armored platform which the Germans used against entanglements It is called a "schieber"-a ''pusher." It consists of a strip of steel 10 yards long by 1 yard high, mounted on wheels. Behind 1t crawl the attacking infantry. The shield is jointed in four places. so that it can be shortened or used in sections. Against the "schieber" and the German protec- | tive devices the only remedy is hand
 grenades. Bullets fail to penetrate and
 artillery cannot be used for fear of hit ting our own men. Our soldiers have a special grenade which bursts behind the
 "scheber" and spreads it's fragments so
 as to kill the greatest possible number
 of attackers.
 Hindenburg's engineers are showing
 great ingenuity in devices to get control
 of our positions and to secure elevataed
 positions, from which to use their ma
 chine guns and rifles. West of here. on
 the Bsura, they have built in the pine
 forests elevated platforms. On the plat
 forms they post rifiemen and machine
 gunners. The right bank, held by us, is higher than the German left bank, and
 the German device is to get even with ! us. It succeeded so well that the Ger mans now make aerial fortresses in the trees. They fell pine trees, strip them | of their branches and use them to make scanold1ng platforms in pine trees which still stand. The felled trunks are nailed or tied athwart always high up in the branches where they will not be seen. They are further masked with their own cut off branches. We first knew of this | device in February, when terrific hail came from machine guns high up in the trees on the Bsuras banks. The Germans were so pleased with the experiment that they increased the number of tree forts, 1 and they now hold eight on front of 1 three miles.
 I Our artillerists try to destroy the tree | forts with shell fire. This meets difficult ] ties. The tree forts are masked with ] branches also on top. and aviators cannot locate them. At one point we had sys- tematicaly to shoot down a whole forest. 1 At present possess tree forts, well ! protected against rife and machine-gun l fire by breastworks of bullet proof logs. 1 On these are planted machine guns. and 1 on one or two field guns. Night and day | goes on a terrific fusillade. On the 10th ! of March, German aviator bombed the | forest in which are our masked tree forts.
 He killed a few men. We retailated by | sending our best airman. Lieutenant Lad
 rinteff, to bomb the Germans. Yadrint- | seff's luckest bomb fell in the middle of \ a tree platform which carried two ma
 chine guns and 40 men. The platform l collapsed
 are so masked that German airmen can
 not see them. The enemy not only masks
 his trenches: he makes dummy trenches When the snow lay on the ground, he Ii scraped the snow away along line par q tn ic frnv md a1 nj