The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-03-06

they might not see officially so unwar-
like a scene and the men on each side
rebuilt the parapets without firing
single shot. This instance serves TO IL
lustrate the precarious weather.
The German staff must have known
that the sufferings of the wounded ly-
ing through the long nights and icy
wind in mo mans laId' between the
lines would be great. 1t did not prob
ably disturb the crown prince, yet 1t l.;
the most Sruesome fact in the history
of the war that the French, peerlng
through the moonlight at what they
thought to be stealthily crawling Ger
mans found them to be wounded men
frozen TO death.
In Flanders camps and in hospitals
have conversed with at least one
hundred German prisoners. Their
talk is always to he accepted with
great reserve but the prisoners IN the
Verdun campaign have so plainly hor-
ror and misery depicted upon their
countenances l need no other evidence
as TO the tragedy through which they
have passed.
The vast battle of Verdun might
have been arranged for the benefit of
interested spectators were 1t not that
the whole zone for miles around the
great scene is as tightly closed to the
outer world as a lodge of Free Ma
sons.
French Well Supplied.
As one gets nearer and nearer to
the great arena on which the whole
worlds eyes are turned today proofs
of French efficiency and thoroughness
are countless. l do not pretend to any
military knowledge other than few
scraps gathered in some hat dozen
visits to the war front, but the album
dance of reserve shells for guns, from
mighty howitzers to the graceful
French mitrailleuse of aeroplane rifle
ammunition, petrol, stores motor
wagons of every description was re-
markable. 1 can truly say their vol
ume exceeded anything in my previous
experience.
Ypres looked like Verdun the first
time I saw it soon after the war began
The tall towers of Verdun still stand
Close by us is hidden a French bat
terry and it is pretty to see the
promptitude with which it sends its
screaming shells back to the Germans
within a few seconds of the dispatch
I of a missile from the Huns.
1 One speedily grows accustomed to
the sound and the scene and can fol-
low the position of the villages about
which the Germans pretend to mislead
the world by wireless every morning.
We journey farther afield and the IA
nous Fort DOuaumOnt is pointed out.
| The storming of Fort Douaumont as
related by the German dispatches is
d
and the recent air bombardment of
/ Liverpool. All the world knows that
| the Tiger is. as she was before the
Germans sunk her in their newspa-
pers. one of the finest ships in the
world, and that the air bombardmen mt
of Liverpool was imagined in Berlin.
Taking of DOuaumont.
! The storming of Fort Douaumont
| gunless and unnamed, was a military
! operation of little value. A number of
Brandenburgers climbed into gunless
| Fort Douaumont. Some of them are
still there, supplied precariously with
food by comrades at night.
The announcement of the fall OF
Fort Douaumont evinces the great
anxiety of the Germans to magnify
anything concerning Verdun into q
great event. 1t should also cause the
people to apply a grain of salt to the
German official communicates before
swallowing them. These modern bat
| ties have now been described so fire.
quently that there is little new to br
said of them.
End Not in Sight.
There is no means of estimating
how long the battle of Verdun will
rage. To say the French are confident
of holding their own is not enough
they feel they have the measure of the