The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-23

| fines with fragments OF steel, killing
some men, wounding others, ruptur-
ing the barbed wire acknowledgements
and damaging the trenches. That
4 is the average inventory of day of
4 the winter campaign on the French
front that the official cOmmunique
/ characterizes ''calm." It is going
on every day all along the front with
| constant wastage of men in killed and
| wounded.
without question they do more dam
age than those of the Germans said
| an artillery officer to the Associated
Press. eve see it every day in
| ammunition stores blown up; we
1 can't see all the execution our fire
! does to the trenches, but we can
gauge it pretty well from what we
| do see."
| The principal havoc to the German
trenches and field foruncations is the
work of the six-inch shell. The
three-inch shell is more effective
against troops. in defence, in pur
suit. but not powerful enough to
| break through trench Notifications.
At nightfaI after one Of those calm
days of the official communique, the
men creep out through the mud to
stretch more barbed wire where the
lines have been broken, to drive new
stakes where they have been wrench
cares are the destruction and main
tenance of those lines. To drive
those pickets into the ground it is
necessary to pound them; each
stroke of the sledge hammer re-
sounds and draws a shot from the
opposing trench, 20 to 100 yards
away; the shot afterwards becomes
a fusilade and often brings the first
and sometimes the second line into
a night attack.
"Our soldiers have developed the
instincts of trapper," said an officer,
from living so long in close contact
with the enemy they are able by i'm
perceptible signs to detect the stroke
in preparation by the adversary, or
a weakness that it is necessary to
put to profit without delay.
1.-THE trench is a daily school of
bravery and heroic patience added
the oficer, with no recess, but a lit
tie vacation every four days. See all
that goes on but don't be SEEM that
is the watchword all along the line; it
is unquestionably the same on the
other side of the wire entanglements,
for every rise of ground that gives
vantage point of observation is bit
terly contested"
The slightest elevation occupied on
one side obliges the adversary to bur-
row deeper into the earth. At some
points the adversaries have renounc-
ed heights that have cost too much
and have dug in on the slopes; they
push out little listening or observa-
ton posts armed with machine guns,
for the possession or destruction of
which all imaginable expedients are
employed. At certain points the lis
tening post is within two yards of
the enerny's trench, and in some ca
ses the two adVersaries occupy the
same trench separated only by a bar
ricade of sacks of earth. The ten
sion there is at the maximum in the
incessant guard against a surprise. It
is in such spots so many soldiers sue
cumh or are blinded for life by the
hand grenade, which. in hands be-
come expert by a years training have
become a more terrible engine of
war than ever before.
1.-THE struggle never ceases though
it may not every day give copy for
the communique,' said an officer. s'It
takes on all hitherto known and some
hitherto unknown methods. Each
detachment makes war in the way in
which the lay of the ground and the
position of the troops impose it.
spiked defenses, called tchevaux de
frise,' with sharp-pointed stakes of
steel sticking up to the height of
man, are rolled over the parapet of
the trench. Where the lines are so
close artillery cannot be used against
the adversary. the trench mortar
called the 'crapouil1ott' comes into
play. Where the contact is such
that even the mortar cannot be util-
lied, we fall back on the hand gren-
adS, or the aerial torpedo. It is the
torpedo that. according to the evil
dence of prisoners, causes most ter
ror as well as most havoc in the Ger
close range and its explosive force is
a3zfra ordiTa