The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1916-05-30
FORM OF SPORT
NOW DEADLIEST
Known as Result Of Modern
Machine Warfare between
BritainS and Germans.

BRITISH HEADQUARTERS, France
May S0.-Between the British and Ger
man modern machine warfare where
In every man was supposed TO have
become a pawn without initiative OF
his own has been developing perhaps
the deadliest form OF sport imagination
can conceive-where every combatant
places his cunning, his strength and
his skill in hand-to-hand fighting
against those OF his adversary.
Hardly n day passes that there is
not trench raid" by one side or tho
other. and sometimes several such
sallies. No object is more tabooed
In its details by the censor Command
ers do not want TO let the enemy know
why their raids succeed or fail or why
the enemy's succeed or fail. Invention
fights invention. secrecy fights secrecy.
Mob Tactics.
All the elements of boxing, wrest-
ling, fencing and mob tactics plus the
stealth Of the Indian who crept up on
camp on the plains and the team
work OF professional baseball nine
are valuable to the player.
The weapon that is least needed is a
rife. A club or sandbag or an In
dian battle axe or spiked club is better.
A good slugger without any weapon at
all may take an adversary's loaded
rifle away from him and knock him
down and then kick him TO death.
The monotony Of trench existence
these days is broken by preparing for
raids and against them. Battalion
commanders work out schemes by
strategy which would have won them
fame in smaller wars. Fifty men or
thousand may be engaged in n raid.
1t may be on front of fifty yards or
a thousand. Its object is to take as
many prisoners and kill and wound as
many of the enemy as possible in
few minutes: and then TO get back to
their own trench. The assaulters try
to hold on TO the piece OF trench they
have taken, the guns are turned on
them. the hombers close up on either
side, and machine guns and rifles are
prepared to sweep the zone of retire.
ment.
Uncanny Curiosity.
An uncanny curiosity gives the SOL
diers incentive for the raids. Ordi-
narily they never see their enemy hid
den in his burrows across mo Mans
Land" from their own burrows. I'm
seen bullets from unseen snipcrs crack
overhead Unseen guns suddenly con-
centrate in a deluge OF shells. For
months this sort of thing goes on and
the trenches Of the adversaries remain
always in the same place: the grim
monotony Of casualties and watching
continues This arouses the desire
to get at" the enemy which the trench
raid satisfies. 1t means springing over
the parapet and rushing across NO
Mans Land" into the very houses of
the enemy and man to man on his
door step proving which is a better
fighter.
To go over the parapet ordinarily
means death. In order to make any
such rush there must be interference"
as they say in football and the barb
wire in front Of the enemy's trench
must he cut This is usually done by
the guns. which become more and more
deadly in their ability TO turn accurate
sprays Of destruction on given points.
They cover the rush and they cover
the return of the raiders with their
prisoners.
Organized Trickery.
But the guns are not all; there is
all kinds Of organized trickcry in or
der to enable body of soldiers to get
into the enemy's trenches for a few
minutes Of activity. when the occu-
pants throw themselves on their in
vaders at such close quarters that IT is
question Of whether even a revolver
is now practical weapon 1t canno bc
thrown over traverse and a bomb
can. Running into a German around
the corner of traverse a blow may
be better than shot.
There have been trench raids where
every man who went out was respon-
slble for casualty or prisoner while
the raiders own loss might not have
been one in ten to the enemy's. There
are also failures. Success requires
that every detail should work out right.
TIL British inaugurated trench raiding
which the Germans promptly adapted,
Where its development will end no
one dares venture to say. One ad-