The Holbrook news., 1916-09-22
PAINTS WAR HORROR.
"Death Stalks Everywhere, "
 Writes Bernhard KeIIermann.
Men Only Parts in Great Machine All the Time Their Thoughs Are of Home, but They Do Not
 Shrink Duty.

Berlin.-Bernhard Kellermann, well known German novelist and corre- spondent of the BerlinCr Tageblatt, who became seriously i'll while in the trenches in France in December, now has recovered and is back on the western front. His first contribution since his illness is a graphic word picture of war conditions now exist ing on the western front:
 "Along the whole front of hundreds of kilometers extending from the North sea to Switzerland the faithful are in their trenches" he writes ''They are there day and night and at this very moment.
 up in Flanders the water reaches to the knees. The pumps are working, but the water does not subside. Des- pite concrete, beams and sandbags, the trenches daily collapse and the sandbags have to be replaced again and again with much labor. If they leave the trenches the soldiers have to wade in water. In the Champagne region the mud is ankle deep, also i'll the Argonne. Here, too, the pumps are working to free the country of the water.
 "In mud and water, behind the sand bags, the soldier stands with his gun in the narrow labyrinth of trenches. Thousands of men are doing this, from the coast where the wintry sea rolls on the beach to Switzerland, where k0 eI~ night they stand, few feet apart, and day and night the machine guns spout and send out their deadly fire. In damp inclosures are the reserves, ready at a moments notice to spring to their guns and charge if need be. The water keeps trickling from the walls of the trenches. There is deep silence among the men; they are thinking of home. As long as they stand at their guns, in muddy uni forms and boots, they do not think, but as soon as a few hours rest comes then they think of home and family
 Remnants of burst shells, rain wa ter, barbed wire and bodies that have lain out there for weeks. and over there the enemy's trenches, that is all the men see. That is their entire world. It is always the same-a mo- notony to drive men mad. Thousands of fine, healthy men who could be do- ing good work are thus engaged.
 Death is doing fine business here. The rats, too, from wrecked French villages near by, are adding to the troubles of the men in the trenches. Added to this is the horrifying shrieks and cry of the ravens. The war is without mercy.
 And here death stalks everywhere. The rife bullets, the shells and the hand grenades-all do their deadly work. Officers and men all feel the hand of death upon them. Even in the tired soldiers seek a rest, in the woods, in the air or under the earth, everywhere is death. There is no safe place here.
 "This girdle of death extends through France, Belgium and Alsace, and there are particular spots where hell breaks loose. Now it is at Ypres, then at Souchez and vimy, then in the Champagne region or the Argonne. Often for days there is a lombard ment, when thousands of shells come cre shing into our lines with the regu- lar movements of a sledgehammer. It is then that the trenches are smashed to dust. We are driven from our trenches, but the reserves are or dered forward; they charge in the deadly fire, and the trenches are again ours.
 "This is not a war of man against man. The telephone, the automobile, the railway, the big guns-all have changed the method of warfare. It is now war of science and chem istry, of brains against brains. The soldier of today is a skilled mechanic who simply aids in operating the gi- gantic machine of modern warfare.
 "A trench is captured, lost and won again. That is all that happens here, ! and the siege continues.
 "The roaring of the shells is con- i stant. Even when lying on his bed of straw the soldier hears them, and then the picture of his home, his wife and family quickly fade away.
 ''The siege continues, and the sol dier is at his post, keen, alert, faith ful and true"