New Britain herald., 1916-12-16

mans had fortified and refortified uns1s til it seemed humanly impossible to make any further headway. Then . came the tanks secretly made, piece by piece, all over England and shipped to a point of assembly on thA Somme front. Not even the meaf whom I was training as a gun crew for one of these ponderous but aston- ishingly flexible death dealers knew z the kind of juggernaut in which they | were to operate until they were ready for the terror-spreading assault The surprise to the Germans was complete and Thievpal was ours. But now that the limitations of the tank are known to the enemy it's usefulness IS 5 no longer exceptional.
 While there must still be a vast amount of important fighting on they
 west front, it is the general belief o9q <
 many of our officers that the war will
 be won from the southeast. Firm in
 this belief, the British French, and
 Italians are making phenomenal presf parations at Saloniki and in the spring the world will be amazed by the gigantic stroke which will be de- livered from this quarter. Of course, If Roumaniafs situation were to be- come genuinely critical the Allies
 
 hastened, for everything possible will be done to preserve the national in-@ tegrity of our latest ally.
 "It is interesting to note that while our tanks spread terror among seas- soned soldiers the 'Zeps', upon which 1 the Germans so confidently relied as a means of overwhelming Englands civilian population with uncomfortable fear, have proved to be a complete failure, except that their compara- lively inconsequential raids have re- acted against the would-be terrorists and have been the most effective re- cruiting agents that the English army has had. Indeed it would have been profitable venture if England had constructed a 'Zep' and sent it, flying enemy colors, on a tour of our islands. : for wherever the airships have ap- peared, dropping their comparatively I ineffective bombs, there has followed i a remarkable influx of raw materiaI ! from which fighting men could be 1 made to avenge these raids upon our 1 helpless civilian classes. "It was my good fortune to witness 1 the destruction of 'zep' on the occa- i sion of the first elaborately organized i but, as it proved. abortive air-raid on ! London several months ago. The air
 ship was attacked by an aeroplane. 8 ! wasp of the sky which darted past l the cumbersome hulk, and, at the 1 moment when the two were side by 1 side made thrust with it's deadly ] sting-an explosive missile With a 1 dull dsatnt report the impotent i cloud-craft was split asunder with ! flames and sank rapidly from a height [ of several thousand feet, both noses
 pointing downward
 Half of London was on the roohe ! tops watching this battle between an
 aerial Clyclops and a flying Ulysses the latter a pigmy in size but invinciz
 ble in skill and cunning. As the great ship settled each watcher imagined
 it had fallen in 'an alley just a block away and forthwith an army Of 500.- 1 900 sghtseers set out upon a wild
 night chase to inspect the wreckage. Daybreak found fully 100000 of these ! curious ones lost in the byways and 1 hedges on the outskirts of the city. 1 and only a small percentage of the number ever reached the wreckage twelve miles distant in an open field. Very exaggerated reports of the ! protest against according the mem ! Der of the Zeppelin's crew military | burial reached America I believe 1 there was a single instance of a wo- man. distrat over the loss of rela- { tive, who hurled a stone or a potato | at the funeral Cortege. but no other. : untoward incident occurred while the { Germans were being inferred near the spot where their airship fell. The bodies were all carried to their graves by members of the British Royal Fly ing corps.
 ITO the British subject one of the most notable achievements of this war has been the fact that England, ~ nobly aided by her colonies, has suc- ceeded during the short space of two years in raising her effective fighting strength from a pitiful 130.000 (the size of the British regular army at the beginning of the struggle in August,
 1914) to 100000 men. Earl Kicth-
 ener declared at the beinning of hos
 tlities that he could not tell how long v the war would last but that he did
 know England would each efficiency
 in three years The war lords hopes
 were anticipated by a full year-In July. 1916, we were ready to fight, and actually began to fight with our fully developed army of natiOnal-manhood strength.
 And not only has Great Britain trained and fully equipped 4,00O, ,00O
 men, but she has undertaken the task of supplying all her allies, except France with the munitions which they so sorely needed at the beginning of the struggle. France has mobilized her own resources so admirably that she is able to handle her munitions problems unassisted. One of the great problems of supplying Russia has been to get the material to the Czar's men after it is manufactured. Much of 1t, of course has been sent through Archangel, which Is now con- nected by a double-traCx railway with Petrograd. With the advent of win ter, and the closing of the ArchangoI