Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1916-06-16
DEADLY, BRUTAL
RAIDS ENLIvEN
TRENCH WARFARE
Monotony of Existence Broken by
Preparing for Assaults or
Against Them.
RIFLE IS OF LITTLE use
sandbag or an Indian BattIe-ax or
Spiked Club the Better Weapon
Inventions Fight Shippers and
Trickery - Many Saved
by Steel Corsets.
sy FREDERICK PALMER.

BY FREDERICK PALMER.
British Headquarters, France. - In
today's modern machine warfare
where every man was supposed to
have become a pawn without initiative
of his own, has been developing the
deadliest form OF sport imagination
can conceive. where every combatant
places his cunning, his strength and
his skill in hand-to-hand fighting
against those of his adversary.
Hardly a day passes that there is
not a trench raid. No ,subject is more
tabooed in its details by the censor
Commanders do not want to let the
enemy know why their raids succeed
or fail, or why the enemy's succeed
or fail Invention fights invention: Sc
crecy fights secrecy.
All the elements of boxing. wres
Ting. fencing and mob tactics plus
the stealth Of the Indian who crept up
on a camp on the plains. and the team
work of professional baseball nine
are found of value.
The weapon least needed is the rife
A sandbag or an Indian battle-ax OF
spiked club is better. A good slugger
without any weapon at all may take an
adversary's loaded rifle away from him
and knock him down and then kick
him to death.
The monotony of trench existence
these days is broken by preparing for
raids and against them. Battalion com
manders work out schemes of strategy
which would have won them fame in
smaller wars. Fifty men or a thou
sand may be engaged in a raid. 1t may
be on front of fifty yards or thou
sand.
Its object is to take as many prison
ers and kill and wound as many oil
the enemy as you can in few min
utes; and then to get back to your
own trench. If you try to hold on to
the piece of trench you have taken
the guns are turned on you, the
bombers close up on either side, and
machine guns and rifles are prepared
to sweep the zone of retirement.
An uncanny curiosity gives the sol
diers their incentive for the raids. Or
dinarily they never see their enemy
hidden in his burrows across No Mans
Land from their own burrows. Unseer
bullets from unseen snipers cracl
overhead. Unseen guns suddenly con
centrate in a deluge Of shells.
Grim Monotony Continues.
For months this sort of thing goei
on, and the trenches of the adverse
ries remain always in the same place
grim monotony OF casualties 'ant
watching continues.
This arouses the desire to get at
the enemy which the trench raid sat
isles. II means that you are going tt
spring over your parapet and rusf
across No Mans Land into the yer,
houses of the enemy. and man-to-mar
on his doorstep prove whether you arr
y better man than he is.
To 90 over the parapet ordinaril!
means death. In order to make an,
rush there must be interference" a.
they say in football, and the bari
wire in front OF the enemys trench
must be cut This is usually done b,
the guns, which become more ant
more deadly In their ability to turr
accurate sprays of destruction on Civ
en- points. They cover the rush AMI
they cover the return of the raiders
with their prisoners.
But the guns are not all: there ar,
all kinds of organized trickery in OF
der TO enable a body of soldiers to ge
into the enemys trenches for q few
, minutes of activity. when the invadet
throw themselves on their invaders a
such close quarters that II is a ques
ton II even a revolver is now a prac
teal weapon.
You cannot throw it over a travers'
and you can a bomb. Running init
. German around the corner Of /,
traverse. a blow may be better than ,
shot.
There have been trench raids wher,
every man who went out was respon
sible for q casualty or a prisoner
while the raiders own loss was no
one In ten to the enemy's. There arr
also failures.
Success requires that every detail
should work out right. The British
inaugurated trench raiding. which tn
Germans promptly adapted. Wher
It's development will end no one dare
venture to say. One advantage of an,
raid Is that those who return ar
bound 10 bring back some information
Of value TO the intelligence corps.
Steel corsets Save Lives.
Score one for breastplates." sal
m officer who had been doubled owe
by . shell fragment which hit him Il
the abdomen. Instead OF a flow @
blood crimsoning his blouse. all tina
was visible through the rent In tn
cloth was an abrasion on a steel SUI
face.
But for your new corset your aort
would have been opened. and 20
MAKES RESCuER HIS Hell
Californian Wills $500, 700 to saiesma