Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-04-05
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civilized warfare as sophistries and para
doXes. Lord Fisher, the admiral of the Eng
hsh navy. expresses this view very force
FULLY in an article by William Crobin In tbe
Worlds Work (3):
rake for example Lord Fishers celebrated
description of war: "The humanizing of war;
You might as well talk of humaniZjrp beili
When silly ass got up at The Hague con.
ference and talked about the amenities Of
SSlvihzed warfare putting your prisoners
IeeJ IN not water and giving them gruel my
reply. regret to say, was considered to.
lally unit for publication. AS If war could
, pe civilized! If l am in command when war
nreaks out, l shall issue as my commands
Il ne essence of war is violence. Moderation
IN war is imbecillty Hit first hit hard hit
all the time, hit everywhere!' Humane war
lare! When you wiring the neck of chicken
al you think about is wringing it quickly
You You don't give the chicken Intervals for
rest and refreshment."
There is no subtlety or vagueuess in AL
inlral Fishers aims. Nor has there been in
nbi stS aesnitehvetpents s th He came to the leader
overmastering idea was to make the British
navy instantly prepared for war
when the war broke out, we read with
thrills descriptions of shells bursting n mile
away and the war correspondents analysis
of his confused state half-elation, half
fright, when first under fire But now the
writer has to do more than that to get
response from his reader. Perceval Gibbon
VINO has represented the London Daily
chronicle with the Russian troops in Po-
land ever since the war began, gives an ex-
tremely vivid and thrilling description of a
German charge in this months Everybodys
C4):
The nights have a Russian flavor; they
are acid, edged like a knife fanEed like a
wolf with cruel cold. The wounded who are
not. not round til the next day die of it. Yet
these are the nights in which the Germans
come down from behind their foremost
trenches backed by a tempest of rifle fire
and Smelling, couple of battalions at a time.
ana surge across the narrow strand between
lhelr defenses and the water, the lines Of
IIiein @ sWaylnS pack and forth under the
scourge of the Russian fire.
Down into the water they GO the water
That bites like yitriol, stamping through the
ice under the bank bearing ever forward
against the farther bank that is lighted like
Il testive street with the blaze of rifles and
mltrailleuses Armpt deep, with their rifles
upheld above their heads, clear of the water
the searchlights that mock the night, slash
ing across the sky and settling upon them
pewllderingy pointing them out to the inn
mediate finger of death, they come! was
I'm the positions when they attacked in force
four times between dark and sunrise -Four
times down into that water in the face OF
flre, four times blown off their feet by the
fitS da - ana me pretty little machine guns that
90 their work so devilishly. four times shat
tered and ground into water staining pulp
OF o,tn broken hesh-and next night they at
TIN NtS the asa, ensmv wa. ,fhe hey held their FIRE fire
an official account; but I have better infor-
mation; they held 1t till the enemy was
within 20 feet. They waited in the sheIled
trench peering across the breastwork, while
Inc charge raced down upon them.
Dying men. slaughtered by shrapnel were
wrlthing at the trench bottom among their
rect or shrieking in the insupportable agony
or wounds; pain, deadly wrath and murder
were alight In mems minds like Opposite
hres in the frosty night; all is frantic, a
nightmare of noisy horror and the Siberians
holding their fire! Holding II, waiting In
the stole calm of their half MongoI minds
TIL each bullet would drive through a file
of Germans; and then at the tactical mo-
ment letting go the hurricane of bullets that
moWs down the charging men like a scythe
shearing through grass.
The Bsura is a little river but stiu n is
90 yards wide. Upon that night II was
damned by the German dead. a barge OF
bodies that held up the water for awhile and
then floated with it, going down the cur
rent to the Vistula. German husbands and
fathers travelling back to Germany upon that
river which has borne in its time SO many
dead down to Dantzig.