Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-25
NEW YEAR WELCOMED
in TRENCHES BY RIVAL
OUTBURSTS OF NOISE
German Celebration Sur
prises Allies as Prema-
ture, But Is Based on
Berlin Time, Hour Ear
lier Than Paris Clocks.
Bv PHIL RAIDER

Copyrighted, 1915, by the tpitcd Press.
LONDON, March 25.--Ncw Yorl's New
Years eve celebration was probably as
wild and as noisy as ever.
But II couldn't have been marker to
ours In the trenches. ! only wonder that
New York didn't hear us.
We spent the entire day OF December 81
in getting ready for our midnight ccle-
bration. We intended to give the Ger
mans a fuslladc that they wouldn't for
got. During the Christmas Day truce we
had met most Of the Germans In the
trenches across the way from us and they
had told us that even they were getting
ready for their New Years eve Celcbra
tiou. Victor Chapman, the Harvard man,
from New York; Eugene Jacobs, the Paw
tuclSet butcher, and myself talked about
the raCkets that would usher In tho new
year in New York, San Francisco, my
home town, and pawtucket, and we did
everything we could to ginger up the men
of a dozen nationalites who were mem
bers OF the Foreign Legion.
But in fac, they didn't need much GIN
gering up There We're men who rcmem-
bered New Years eve celebrations i'm
Athens, Lisbon, Madrid and, in fact,
every capital of the world, so our prepara-
tions were carried out without any stint
of labor or expense in our 'sunken city,
PREPARING FOR RACKET"
Ky evening we had huge piles Of white
night lights ready to fire. They were
American made just ordinary skyrock-
cts. Each man had 100 extra cartridges
and there were piles of cartridges ready
beside our four machine guns. our artil-
lery, far behind our lines, was also pre-
pared. though we didn't know it until
later And all along the French trenches
that stretched the $50 miles from the
al 10 GNyityprlop1
thing that could shoot was ready.
France was going to show the Germans
how to usher in the new year. But before
the racket we in our trench were to have
big holiday dinner We had planned
to have the entire machine gun squad Of
lG men at the dinner. but there were only
l.. because four had been killed during
the week after Christmas. The first sur
prise of the dinner came when SilSorsky
Polish revolutiOnist, who belonged to
our legion entered the dugout carrying
the beautiful metal helmet of n German
lieutenant colonel filled with champagne
punch. We drank to the defeat of the
Germans from this odd punch bowl and
then began at the chicken. Sikorsky was
just getting UP to recite a poem which he
had written about the Allies when the
second surprise Of the evening came. 1
think it was a surprise that ran along
the whole 25O miles of trenches.
First we heard a blast Of bugles from
the German trenches. Then there broke
out the most terrific cannonade we had
heard in the entire war Everything that
the Germans had that could shoot was
shooting. Horns were blowing; men We're
yelling and whstling; bombs We're break
ing in the air; the sky was white with
the German white lights: 1t was brighter
than Broadway Far away cannons were
booming; their shells were breaking he
hind our lines | never expect to hear
such a tumult again. 1t was eNhiarating
We ran for our guns thinking it was all
in preparation for a charge. But no
charge came; no bullets flew around us;
the artillery shells fell at a safe dis
tanCe from US.
After 10 minutes the noise died down
and We could hear the Germans shouting
to us Happy New Year"
Well celebrate i'm Paris ncNt year"
How was that for noise"
But you're wrong we yelled hack.
Its only II o'clock and you're celebrat-
ing an hour too early"
I'VE 20 by Berlin time" they answered.
And suddenly II dawned upon us that
Paris time Is an hour later than German
time,
Yes. and all of France will be going
by Berlin time. too shouted one Ger
man, who made us all laugh. He talked
like Lew Fields. We waited until ~
O'clock and then we had our celebTa-
tion. 1t wasn't as noisy as that OF the
Germans. | must admit. Our white lights
weren't as bright; hut our artillery fired
noisy shells, and what our rifle and ma
chine gun fire lacked in noise the shells
that came from miles behind us made up
for
Our racket lasted ten minutes, We
didn't try TO kill anybody. and as far as
we could learn nobody in our district
was even wounded
When our noise was ended we yelled
TO the Germans:
"All of Germany will be going by
French time when we get TO Berlin"
Twenty days later the Germans
gave us another terrific cannonading, but
this time they were celebrating the
Kaisers birthday, and were shooting TO
kill
We didn't know IL was the Kaiser 8
birthday. and az midnight when many
of our men were repairing trenches with
their heads above the walls the German
bullets suddenly swept our trenches and
killed u OF us