The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-09-29
SIEGE OF COMPLIES
WAS TERRIBLE
CONTINUED from page -

ible number Of shells necessary to
feed these advanced lines of artil-
lery which could be reached In no
other way.
Back from these advanced lines, fed
by galloping, careening caissons,
were Thousands more soldiers,
methodically transforming what had
been on the proceeding days caisson
roads, into highways capable of sus-
tanning huge automobile conveys
bringing up heavier munitions for
heavier artillery that had supplanted
the lighter guns now further ad-
yanced during the night. Further
behind these automobilefed artillery
lines, WAS still third army Of work
men. steadily constructing railways
which were bringing up artillery so
gigantic that not only 1t. but its
shells can be transported only on
specially constructed railways. These
huge pieces were supplanting those
more transportable automobile-fed
pieces, already rushed forward.
If Combles fell before a method
cal, heavy artillery advance and en-
circlement, it fell equally before the
methodical~ construction of roadways.
from the dirt and brick bedded
wagon roads to the full gagged rock
ballasted steel railways. This method
marks the allied advance on the en-
tire thirty mile Somme front.
Reaching Maurepas, which is about
a mile and a quarter from Combles.
we had a vivid impression Of the
actual state of affairs in Combles,
which was III IN undergoing the same
bombardment that preceded the cap
ture of Maurepas. Maurepas. instead
of being simply leyelled to the
ground by allied artillery, like other
Somme villages during the first few
weeks of the oTensive, had been liter
ally driven into Ire ground by terrific
shell pounding. The village had al
most disappeared from the surface
of the earth, leaving only the naked
site, peck marked by shells from the
surrounding open country.
An officer explained that this was
the result of allies new artillery
methods, whereby shells are driven
as deep as possible into the ground
before exploding for the purpose of
ousting the Germans, who now dig in
from fifty to seventy feet.
In great numbers aeroplanes circled
above the village at a great height
like a flock of huge vultures, wait
ing only the certainty that life was
extinct before swooping down and
Selling their prey. Yet so strongly
were the Germans fortified in
Combles and so com pletely were they
equipped with artillery that almost
at the last moment preceding the
passage of the village into allied
hands when an aeroplane swoopec
down within range, i counted within
less than a minute the burstings q
several shrapnel shells about one
plane. The aviator. evidently con
WINGED that the village was still I'm
captured, rejoined his comrades a
higher attitudes. outside the range.
During our steady progress afoot
guns a hundred yards apart. all wer
firing so fercely and so close to us
that they drowned out the genera
roar of artillery, and destroyed an
possible impression of the giganti
struggle as a whole. 1t was onl
after reaching the advanced artiller
lines, where we saw well place
shell explode a munition depot, an
upon our return to the rear at tina
we were able TO get an impressio