Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-10-03
SCHWARbEN REDoubT
GONE after AS seen
FROM A Tree TOP
Almost Unforgotten Point on
Old Line in Somme District
Wrested from Germans by
British

with the British Army In the Field
in France. Sept 2S.-(Via London Sept.
29)-"You have just time to get into
tree top and see US go after the
Schwarben redoubt" said a STAFF gem
eral to the correspondent of The Asso
ciated Press today,
Attacks have been so numerous along
the British front in the last few days
that even if informed Of all before
hand, the correspondents could hardly
be present at all of them. The often
sive is in one of it's bit-by-bit stages,
but is being pressed with sustained and
tireless fury.
Schwarben redoubt is beyond Thiep-
val, which was taken Tuesday. A cru
cifiX once crowned this ridge. Where
it stood became the center of the
strongest defense German industry and
ingenuity could build. This was the
goal of the Ulstermen in their heroic
charge on July /, when they fell face
forward under the storm of machine
gun fire sent from the site of the for
mer shrine, which peasants working in
their fields could see when they looked
up from their labors in the surrounding
fields and villages.
In all the weeks since July i, the
British made no further attempt at this
hill Their trenches were in the same
places as before that day. The NO
mans land" or dead space remained
where it was when the Germans first
formed their defensive line. But while
they were swinging in from the south,
where the grand attack on July l had
succeeded, they had given Thiepval
and Schwaben redoubt fair daily
allowance of shell fire, though making
no infantry attack.
For nearly three months this soften
ing process continued. Then, when the
British had gained the ridges running
at an angle with the old German line
OF Thiepval. they began to take fresh
interest in that old first line. Now
they did not have to attack it in front
but approached it from the side, as
well as having it in crushing wise.
Bare and brown it looked this
morning and distinct were the German
trenches, which We're going Ito get it.
AZ {, given moment.
Meanwhile all along the line of battle
came the steady gun fire which recent
w has been maintained without inter-
mission. This keeps the Germans al"
WAYS under strain, destroying their
works as fast as they can dig. They
never know when or where such things
as happened this morning at Schwaben
redoubt will happen.
And suddenly balls of smoke so thick
that they soon became cloud were
laid over the German first line on the
ridge, every one breaking from an ugly
flash. Kissing, crashing death laid its
grip over this trench. whose inmates
could survive only by hugging their
ducouts. Every shell seemed to fall
between two imaginary lines of tape
laid for the guidance of the gunners.
When the rain of steel ceased the Brit
ish soldiers, timing their arrival to its
cessa ton. were over the parapets and
at the doors of the dugouts. Then on to
the next trench in the same fashion
the waves or shell fire swept up the
hillside as shields for the advancing
waves Of khaki.
And the Germans came back, their
shells screaming through the British
shell curtain, trying to check the hui
man waves. But unless their curtains
were laid in the right place they were
waste. 4 lire Of infantry may be fair
ly safe with a curtain shell fire a hum
dred Yards on either side.
Tomorrow those waves may break