Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-04-03
FER CE HAND-TO-HAND FIGHTING
IN THE DOUAUMONT STREETS
French Meet Germans, Body to Body, and
Hook Them Out With Bayonets.
Hours Before Battle Described.

, either by fear or pity. They wait in
a state of hard carelessness for what
may come.
1T is a Stupor of the emotions.
| The French commanders at Nerdun
! prepared well in advance for the
counter attacks they proposed to hold
the Germans in check. Before each
such attack 4 routine must be gone
through. Experience has dictated it.
There is 4 good reason for each action
"One battles. if possible, and always
! shaves. said Dufresne.
The tyro in war is apt to find a ro
mantle motive in this. He finds the
| fighters going forth to meet death as
brldegrooms to meet their brides. That
| isn't it at all. The surgeons. vel, back
i of the line. have dictated this clean
lection that too often follows wounds.
| The: men wash their bodies thor
I oughly. shave. cut their hair if pos
| sible. and roughly manicure their
hands The wise Old soldiers tries to
keep on hand suit of clean under
wear and a clean shirt in which to go
forward He knows this may mean
the difference between life and death.
Very Short Letters.
| Then comes the letter writing. Du-
| fresno finds that underneath the love
and longing for those at home is per
haps deeper than ever. but a curious
veil has been drawn by the front
| trench conditions and the anticipation
of what is to come over the ability to
express these feelings. Men who to
his knowledge at other times write
long and eloquent letters have been
unable to do more than scribble short
notes in the hours Immediately pre-
cedinS an attack. BY reason OF their
very simplicity and brevity these notes
are sometimes more impressive than a
a lot 4
ly not often that a soldier enters upon
careful inquiry into his emotions
They are for the most part mere
fareWells. said Dufresne. apparently
such communications in his effort to
dig into the soldier psychology. Then
| we tear up all the letters we have re-
ceiNed from home
This course is not dictated altogether
by desire to keep sacred from Ger
man eyes the tender condolences of the
ones at nome. One of the valued de-
partments of each army in the field
IS that which has to do with the gath
erlng Of information. and a good part
or the knowledge either side possesses
, mas been gained from a reading of
letters written to or by soldiers Nova
Gays the men are ordered to destroy
every scrap of written matter before
they so forward to fight
Blankets Gathered Last of All.
Last of all, the blankets are gathered
and the sacks taken up This often hap
pens several days before the men leave
the trenches. and for those days they are
even more hopelessly uncomfortable than
they were before. But they cannot take
the blankets forward into a charge, nor
could they run forward under the forty
pound weight of their haversacks No
man can say to what trench he will re-
turn. II he returns at all A system must
be observed. and the obvious system is to
gather all this impedimenta to be reis-
SUED 10 the men when they return from
the fight.
Then 100 or more extra rounds of am
muntlon are doled out, so that the men
sometimes carry eight to twelve pounds
OF cartridges, contingent upon the nature
of the proposed movement. Hand grenades
are given to the bombardiers If the ar
engagements have been properly timed all
these things have been attended to hours
before there is a probability of action
The goodbye letters have been sent to
headquarters. to be put in the post when
the battle is over. No mail from home is
permitted at such a time, presumably be-
cause of the potential unsettlement such
letters might carry. Clean, shaved newly
clothed. the men are called to the final pot
Of coffee and the steaming cauldrons of
soup.
After this is the fight.