The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-04-04
Germans Sprayed Enemy With Petro-
Ieum and Then Sent Lighted
Bombs Into the
Trenches.
MANY LIVES WERE LOST
Farnce 10 More Indignant Over This
Savage Method Of Warfare
Than Over Submarine
Raids.

[By Henry Wood, United Press Staff
| Correspondent
] PARIS, March 81 (by mail to New
| York)-This is how the Germans
initiated their latest method Of war
| fare against the French-that OF
spraying the enemy with petroleum
and then Smelling with incendiating
bombs 1t was recounted to the
United Press by one of the survivors
| Of the attack private who survived
with his face and hands charred al
most to the bone.
Not even the sinking by German
submarines of merchant vessels
crews has aroused the indignation IN
France as has this new warfare with
fire. Little consolation even has been
found in the fact that the one time
which the Germans tried it cost them
most heavily. 1t was in the Malan-
court woods between the Argonne
and the Meuse. Although score OF
French troops in the first line
trenches were burned to a crisp, the
men of the second line trenches,
aroused to q fury Of revenge by the
nature OF the attack, rushed up In
support, and the Germans retreated,
leaving $50 dead, '125 wounded ana
sixty prisoners. !.
at was evening. towards nightfall. !"
the burned soldier told the United
Press. "The day had been relatively
calm and nothing had us left to fore
see an attack by the Boches. Sudden
ly one of my comrades exclaimed:
LOOK here: What is this that's
falling? One would answer 1t was
petroleum.
.For the moment we remained In
credulous. But later, we were Obliged
to admit It. The liquid which reached
US in two carefully directed Jets was
assuredly petroleum. The Germans
were spraying us with it by means OF
lapparatuses. especially constructed
for that purpose.
cat once the lieutenant in charge
ordered us to extinguish our pipes.
But the precaution was useless. With
in a few seconds incendiating gren-
ades began to rain in on us, and then
as II to render infallible their d1abol1-
cal plan, the Germans. themselves,
dashed up to our trenches, hurifng
lighted torches amongst us. In an IN
slant we were all aflame. There was
not one of us who escaped the tor
rent of fire. Our clothes were satur.
ated with petroleum, and with every
one OF us on fire we were obliged,
cost what it might, to abandon the
trench and flee.
fortunately, however, our COM
rades in the second line of trenches
behind us, held fast. AS we dashed
madly towards them, they grasped In
stantly the situation and charged with
bayonets. The fury of their onrush
was such that the Germans could not
for a moment resist and all that they
| had gained by their dastardly attack
was not only lost but 800 of them re-
NAMED behind, either dead, wounded
or prisoners.
Almost simultaneously with this at
| tack by fire, similar assault by the
same means was frustrated at anotn'
er point Of the French line in most
startling manner Word has been re-
ceiyed in the first line trenches that
an attack was impending and a
steady fire was being maintained in
! to the darkness despite the fact that
nothing was visible.
| Suddenly, following a volley, a
| great burst of flame but few yards
! in advance OF the trenches illuminat-
ed the blackness, and then the horror
stricken French saw man wrapped
| in flames that leaped for yards into
the air. rush madly back to the Ger
man trenches, falling before he
reached them and perishing in the
fire that encircled him. He had been
approaching the French trenches with
one Of the machines for spraying the
enemy with petroleum when 1t was
struck by a ball which instantly in
cendiated 1t.
| Now it has just been discovered by
| the French that the very apparatus
which the Germans are using for the
purpose of saturating the enemy with
inflamable liquids was In 1903 pat
ented in France by its German in
ventor, Richard Fielder. A second
patent was granted it by the French
government in 1911. Fielder, in filing
bis model and sDarificafiona for tb a