The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-23
Along With the Spectacular
 Has Gone Ignorance
THINGS TO LEARN
Only Once in Awhile Does Soldier Get Back to Fundamentals and See His Opponent-Finishing Touches
 Only in the Trenches

British General Headquarters, Northern France, April 15.-(Special Correspon- dence.)-War isn't what it used to be. There is no smoke of battle any more, no bugle, no whispered countersign. The day of the foam-flecked and cbamplng charger, the night riding courier astride fiery steed is gone. No one nowadays plants his countery's flag atop the enemy trench-there are no flags. They don't even have hardtack any more, nor em- balmed beef Cannon balls no longer roll about, their place being taken by the bursting shrapnel and high explosive shells.
 There is no smoke, as to what there used to be when battlefelds were made obscure, because smokeleSs powder is used instead of the old black stuff. The bugles make too much noise and betray posi- tions The pass, friend, and give the coUntersign, is gone forever; its place is taken by 'let me see your pass, please" and one has to show his bit of paper granting him the right to pass to and fro. The galloping war horse has been supplanted in several ways. Sherl- dans and Paul Reveres will never ride to glory again. A message in these days goes by telephone, wireless or by the hand of leathered spectre on a motor cycle Or perhaps an aeroplane will be sent hopping a score or 100 miles with dispatches The old hardtack has given way to fine crackers, fit for the table of a palace and supplemented by such things as butter, jam, bacon and so on Ask your father grandfather what he would have thought when engaged in the Battle of the Wilderness of the com missarat furnished him with fine white bread, butter and jam each and every day without fail. Think of what such things would have meant in Valley Forge \ fn, flaorc | 1xra,c i,,t tlaa r six days and the only flag l saw was British ensign flying over hospital barge on canal.
 WAR IS DIFFERENT
 It is a different kind of warfare today in it's outward aspect, but the fundamen- tals remain the same War is still mat ter of victory or defeat, and this depends upon the men of one side killing men on the other. Life and death still remains. Much that is spectacular and picturesque is gone, and that is what makes it all the more horrible. Unseen death turks on modern battlefield. Shells come from unknown places and kill and wound. Be- ing killed by hidden foes, killing men you cannot see-that is the game. But although the swish of the sabre and the lunge of the bayonet have passed out, generally speaking, for there are still handto-hand conflicts now and again and the element of personal conflict has
 
 mated, no man can say that any form of warfare from the days when Cain and Abel used bludgeons, through the eras of spear, bow, lance, catapult and blum derbuss and on up to now, required more personal courage on the part of those engaged. Gallantry and heroisrn are still with us, perhaps in greater degree than ever before, for science has made the chances of death far greater.
 In the old days there was the excite nsent of the fray to carry you through. You moved about, you charged and re- trea ted, and you had your chance of smashing your enemy down. It was more man-to-man then, and the personal ele- nent was there in greater degree. Now it is damnably impersonal. You lie in a trench and wonder if the next one over will hit you, and the worst of it is that so often you can't do anything about it. Doing that for weeks and months takes nerve, good deal more. perhaps, than in the wars of old.
 And war today requires more brains than before In older times press gang would bundle off costermonger in Covent Garden over in London and the next morning he would be 8 soldier, and as good a soldier as most of his compan- ionS Not so now A soldier Is not sol dier without months of training. He must learn to handle simplified complexity called a high-powered rifle. and he must know how to land a bullet from his weapon at 8 certain eint 1000 yards away. to do which he must take in &C., count the curve of the trajectory of the projectile and the strength of the wind sweeping across the field of battle. He must learn how to be invisible to the en- eny, to rub his feet in oil to avoid frost bite. His poor head swims when he hears things about himself that he never sus- pected before-that, for instance, he gets tn1a 1aI1 oy,6 .aI, f<o7 it has been decided, somewhere back in London, that soldier requires so many 'calOries" of food per day in order to keep him fit. If he has the brains he learns the intricacies of the machine gun, is detailed to run a trench mortar or a field gun. He must have the capacity for learning wireless telegraphy and signal ling.
 MAY BE CHAUFFEUR
 He may become chauffeur or cook. There is no end to the things he may have to do. No man learns all of these things of course, and many learn none But for the ordinary man who will never be more than private, on up to the en- listed chaps who do highly technical work and who become officers, present-day warfare requires more brains than sol diers of same mental calibers required in other times. The soldier learns lot during his training from his own officers DClOtC Ho icdVcS AOIne loT out Lnero. His education, however, is not complete. He has much to learn from the enemy He finds from them all about gas, shrap- nel, grenades, bombs and rifle and ma chine gun fire. He develops an instinct for self-protection like some animal of the forest. He learns the meaning of gas. He knows and identifies different kinds of shells, knows which side of the trench to throw himself against when there is burst overhead, knowns when to flatten himself on the ground as a whistling shell approaches.
 It is not happy life. but 1t is not without it's excitement and thrills. Even with death flying through the air there are still Vaccinations. The stalking of the sniper, the occasional rushes for the en- emy trenches, the patrols at night, the