Semi-weekly herald., 1915-05-03
vance beyond a certain point.

roar of animals, all Immediately
drowned in the roar of the French
artillery, which finds them with dead
ly accuracy.
Peace on the Battlefront.
/ stood in an observation trench
out beyond the battle line. To get
there / crawled on my hands and
knees and was not allowed to speak.
Looking through periscope l could
see the German trenches only twenty
yards away. Between was maze of
barbed wire entanglements.
An officer whispered in my ear to
notice how some of the barbed wire
had been cut. When we crawled back
to comparative safety, he explained
that only two nights before the Ger
mans made desperate attack at that
point, cutting half way through the
wire before they were discovered.
artillery was upon them; the result
was simply massacre. 1t was scarce
ly necessary for the French infantry,
only few yards away, to fire a shot,
so complete with the work of the
"75s."
These batteries, which were way
behind in the hills, merely received a
telephoned message from the trenches
to fire at point they could not see,
but which the mathematician at the
trench end of the telephone mentioned
in figures with the most careful pre-
cision.
Scents like this are now being en-
acted all along the great line, and al
ways at night.
Always the Germans are losing a
little here and little there Not a.
single point, when looking in the
direction of Germans, did l see the
place "where the French lines were
formerly established" When l do
ed such information the French off
GERS always said:
Look behind you. Our first
trenches were way back there"
Peace on Battle Front.
| On this trip | received the best IL
lustration granted to any correspond
ent of why there was so little de
scription of the battles in the present
war, for | was shown why so little
of modern war was ever actually seen
by more than few participants at
specific points.
| was taken to an observation sta
ton on a mountain top. The station
was cleverly concealed by pine
boughs to prevent discovery.
| We we!, at the edge of dense
pine forest. Sheer down, stretching
before us east and west as far as the
eye could see was beautiful rolling
valley, apparently sleeping in the
warm spring sunshine Away to the
north was another range of high hills.
The Germans undoubtedly have OBJ
servation platforms, such as we occu-
pied.
Through glasses we could sweep the
valley for fifty miles. If horse or
COW moved across field, miles away
we could see it. If dog barked, we
could almost hear It, so intense was
the silence of that drowsy afternoon.
We could distinguish far off mar
row, wavy-white line, stretching the
length of the valley and disappearing
in the distance. Nearer to us and
parallel we saw another long, wavy
disappearing line. Those lines wero
the trenches of the two complete OPP
posing armies. In them were nearly
half a million armed men.
But aside from horse and cattle
grazing in the distant pastures we
could not see a living thing. We could
not hear sound beyond the bark OF
a dog and the signing of a breeze
through our pines.
This is modern war" said the cap.
tin who escorted me. "Since the frs,
days battle l have not seen single
German except prisoners"
AS we turned to leave our plat
form the distant rumble of heavy ar
.illery broke the silence. We could
see white puffs of smoke from the
direction of the French batteries,
breaking over the valley, probably
ten miles away.
This peaceful looking valley was /,
valley of death. Any civilian who en-
tered could not advance five hundred
yards without arrest. The French
army in this territory is under the
command of General Castelnau, Il
grand old warrior, who already has
giver the lives of two sons to France
in this war.
l visited his headquarters many
miles to the rear where in strict sim,