The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1915-07-05
fRv Erederiok Palmnr.l

British Headquarters in France,
July 3, via London. July 4, 10:35 a. m.
One might have gone miles along
the British front this week without
hearing a sound Of a gun. 1t seemed
as if both sides were taking a holi-
day from war out of respect for the
beautiful weather, or else the silence
was significant of preparation and
accumulation Of shells by one side
or the other for some great effort.
Beyond the occasional explosion of a
mine and routine shelling to harrass
the enemys guns. to destroy new
fortification work, or to keep the
enemy from taking life too easily,
there has been no action. The soldi-
ers in reserve have been swimming
in the canal, resting under shade trees,
playing cricket and football and tend
Ing their flower gardens about their
quarters, which have been made to
look like those one sees in front of
rows of cottages at this season in
England.
The flat and gently rolling country
of Flanders and in northern France,
which was a forbidding, gray, leafless
mire under chilling winter mists, has
become a pleasant land of rich crops
dotted with groves. while long lines of
motor trucks of the transport pass
along stately avenues between poplars
which line the roads.
All fears of an epidemic of sickness
In the hot months for the Immense
army billeted in the thickly populated
lowlands are groundless. Thanks to
the anti-typhoid innoculation, the
habituaI personal cleanliness of the
Englishmen and the strict enforce
ment of sanitary precautions by the
Royal Army Medical Corps in the
minutest details, the health of the
troops is as good as that in the bar
racks at home. Flies are being kept
down to a minimum. There are few
even around the camps of the cavalry
and artillery horses. The paths,
roadsides and yards where the men
are billeted are kept as clear of litter
as first class golf course or the
lawn of fastidious suburbanite.
Tommy Atkins frequently lends a
hand to the French peasant, all of
whom. from boys and girls of six or
seven to the bent old men and wom-
en-, are engaged in the harvest, and
by the way Tommy uses his scythe or
fork one knows whether he is city or
country bred.
The correspondent has walked
through the long communication
trenches safely in broad daylight to
the firing trenches which, II ap-
preached in winter except over open
ground and stumbling through mud
under cover of darkness, would have
been worth ones life.
Siege warfare has been made COM
Portable. Some trenches even, have be-
come a sort of sylvan paradise, where
meals and tea are taken al fresco, and
flowers even have been planted on the
parapets which support the trenches.
Where in winter men stood freezing
in water up to their knees, mud ooz-
ed from sandbags and only continual
pumping and bailing kept them from
complete immersion, and walls con-
tinually falling in. now the only COM
plant of the trench housekeepers Is
the want OF water for washing, for the
spongy subsoil is as dry as bone and
as hard as cement.
The toll of casualties where there
are only sniping and infrequent she'll
ing has been much reduced, owing not
only to the increased adaptability OF
the men in self protection the result
of experience in trench warfare, but
to an immense Improvement In the
: protective character OF the work.
Though trench may be on exactly
4 the same line as it was in December,
] shade work in the spring and summer
has completely transformed 1t, afford
ING small chance for either shrapnel
shell bullets or bullets fired by snip
ers from trees or buildings to hit the
defenders. -