Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1915-06-09
AUSTRO-CERMAN
GUNS EFFECTIVE
AGAINST FORTS
Shells Weigh $500 Pounds
and Tear Things TO Pieces
When They Strike Build
ings Reduced to SpIinterS,
Associated Press Corre.pondence.,

TarnoW, Austrian Galicia, May IL.
The German forty-two centimeter
mortars. with which Liege was bat
tered INTO submission, are declared not
TO have been as effective as the Aus
tro- Hungarian weapons Of the same
calibre--two OF which were used
against the Russian troops in Tarnow
in the great May victory in west Ga
licia. They nave left few, but un-
mistakahle signs of their power, In
the shape of demolished houses and
big craters in Tarnow fired at range
of from five to eight miles. The
first shell. landing In the city at the
time il was occupied ms "A Russian
headquarters, caused the Russian gem
ora ANA his staff to aban len their
comfortable quarters in Tarnow, the
largest city in the radius of many
miles, and decamp TO a spot ten miles
TO the rear. Thereafter the Austrians
fired only five shots more from their
big mortars into the city for il is, AZ
ter all, an Austrian town and they had
no desire to damage unnecessarily
their own property.
Drop Shells on Supply Train.
As the advancing Austro- Hungarian
army slowly pushed forward against
Tarnow--the spot to which the RUS
SLAMS elung longest during the bic
Ma" battle I'm an attempt TO save the
enormous quantity of supplies stored
in this vicinity and TO give other parts
of their army q better chance to re-
treat undisturbed, the big ldE inch
twins were twice moved forward to
spots from which they could drop
shells into the supply trains and on
the men attempting TO save the stores,
The correspondent of the Associat-
ed Press, now visiting the battlefields
in western and middle Galicia on
which tho great victory of the
allied, German and Austro-Ilun-
earian armies was won. has not been
permitted 20 see the new guns but he
has seen the sites from which they
were fired and the destruction caused
by the shells. At one place the guns
were concealed behind village,
where the glazier is now replacing
window panes destroyed by the con-
cussion of the discharge. At another
place the guns were emplaced near a
railroad station--thls spot having
been chosen for convenience in erect
ing the guns in their foundation of
cement and in the third site they
were located i'm a valley
MUCH t6uIn FROM SttOt.
In Tarnow one shot struck, appar-
emily by error. a peasants house of
brick. 1t is now mere mass of
bricks. euriously level with the
ground. house and all having appar-
emily been swallowed up in the crater
made by the bursting she'll Three
persons We're killed in this house A
block away is one of the city schools,
which the Austrians believed rightly
was being used as quarters for Rus
sian soldiers gaping cliff, thirty
feet wide and extending from cellar to
roof of the four-story building, shows
with what precision the gunners
found their mark A second school
building, a half mile away, was hit
squarely on the roof. The wall on
the side toward the court yard is torn
out bodily. on the side facing the
street hole twenty-feet in diameter
was carved out neatly in the thick
brick and concrete wall the aperture
being as nicely rounded as IL the cir
Gle had been laid out with Il pair Of
The brick work circle
came out with such accuracy and
force that ii has left its imprint, again
as carefully rounded semi-circle. in
the high fence Of grated iron before
the school building. The roof is, of
course, gone and from vari lus win
dows the interior woodwork projects
in angled masses.
Weighs Over $500 Pounds.
Another shell struck the cavalry
barracks in the great court yard of
which Russian soldiers at the moment
were busily loading supplies for the
retreat. Horses and men were blown
TO pieces by the air pressure from the
explosion or killed by the shower of
bricks, roof-tiles and fragments of
shell. In the low one story building
the barrack square, is at
one point a great gap which the cor
paced out as "a yards |
measure of the force of the |
explosion.
The new 42-centimeter shells weigh !
over $500 pounds-more than those |
Of the Krupp gun, and each shell costs
over $500.