New Britain herald., 1915-10-21
MGSST POWERFUL
 ATTACK OF WAR
Correspondent Tells of Great Bat-
 tie in Champagne Region

first day." said an officer standing on the first line French trench whence wave of men fifteen miles long rose on the morning of Sept. 25 and dash cd on from one to five miles before 1 the tidal rush of soldiery was stop ped
 The correspondent in his first view of the field of the great battle in the Champagne looked across a rolling land whose thin soil was studded with graves and thickIy sprinkIed with dwarf pines which stood out against the almost snow white system of 1 chalk-like redoubts, trenches. traverses, communication ditches and
 other defensive constructions by which German military science had !n vain sought impregnability. The population was meagre in this camp of Chalons, where the French army had fought to regain the old review grounds which for a year has been the theatre of relentless sap warfare. Only the village of Porthes, whose slight cluster of houses have become typical ruins through shell fire, was in sight from the spot.
 German Transport Line Cut.
 Walking over the course of the French advance, the correspondent witnessed the results of the most powerful defenses against the most powerful attack of war The famous Hill, the butte of Tahure, the occupa: ton of which clinched the French success. resembled a small wooden h fr1
 Shells were seen bursting at 2. dis tarlce over the railroad at Sommepy. Thus this important German trans by French gun fire, rendering the railroad useless.
 The prSdigious labor done by the French before the attack is indicat- cd by the transport road ten miles long and a winding communication ditch six feet deep, six feet broad and five miles long which they had cut through chalk to enable them to move rapidly under the cover of their shell fire for the assault Though this is three weeks and more after the battle ground was still strewn with German shells and hand gren- 'ades that had not exploded, and French soldiers were yet gathering and sorting piles of German accoutre- ments and other war material
 Buried in Dugout.
 Here and there, sometimes in shell hole, sometimes in a dugout the German dead had been buried At one place 34, and at another 16, as cross over the common grave revealed, unidentified French dead had also been laid to rest. Close to the cemeteries where were buried Germans who had fallen during pre- ceding battles are newer cemeteries for the French, the graves in both being marked by wooden crosses bearing the names of the fallen. Tn cases where there had not yet been time for the placing of crosses, bot ties containing pieces of paper bear ing the names of the fallen had been thrust neck downward in the fresh earth of the graves. Nearly every cross seen bore the inscription "Kil- led on the field of honor"
 Considering the in1r1ensity of the operations-at least 100000 men were engaged on both sides along the narrow front--it was amazing how apparently small had been the number of French casualties. Officers who participated in the charge said the German losses must have reached 15O,000, including twenty-five thou sand prisoners.
 Barbcd Wire Front Cut. The barbed wire front of the first l line trenches had been cut to bits | during the preparatory bonn bardm ent. | Soldiers agreed that the rushing Of | the first line was a walk-in, there being neither rifle nor machine gun | fire to stop them, so excellent hau | been the work of the enormous con- | centration of French artillery.
 Serious resistance developed at the | second line. where the trenches for
 the entire fifteen mile sector had not
 in all places been smashed and the l wire not always cut, so that the ad-
 vancing troops had to pause at places
 and slowly cut their way. Ugly
 meshes of wires, rusted from a years
 rain, told where the tide had ad-
 vanced, halted and flowed through
 the opening made before rolling on Enormous Labor.
 The labor that had been expended
 in constructing the German trenches
 and Notifications was enormous. | French officers said the Germans
 knew that the attack was coming
 and thought their positions were i'm
 pregnable, but were overwhelmed by
 the number of French guns and the
 masses of French troops. The most ! formida b1e point seen was the re- 1 6o,lht 1Tro1, Rricot which had on all