Bisbee daily review., 1916-02-23
WINTER CAMPAIGN IN
 FRANCE SEES LITTLE
 CHANCE IN ONE YEAR
Both Sides of Gigantic Con- flict Are Watching for the Best Opportunity to Crap pie with their Opponents.


 Of The Associated Press)-The second winter campaign along the Franco Belgian front has thus far differed lit tie from the first, excepting in the greater efficiency that experience has given to tactics between the trenches. The two armies at close quarters are, as last year, like two wrestlers gather ing their forces, each seeking a solid foothold and on the lookout for the chance to grip the other by the neck. Most of the activity between the artill- cry positions is with flying machines overhead or with sappers and miners underground; in the trenches them selves it is largely a matter of vigi- lance. mud and water, with a frequent variation in repairs of defense works after a heavy bombardment. The mud is a more serious problem than at the same season last year on account of heavy rains. Ditching has been done on a large scale all along the front, excepting in the dunes of Flanders where the trenches are mostly above ground-composed of millions of sacks of sand; the water there is too near tEe surface to make drainage possible. Elsewhere drainage has been effective ia dry weather but the rain toys with the genius of the engineer and turns the ditches into canals
 The man gre well armed against cold with sheep-skin coats, mufflers, sweat CTS, boots and are quite comfortable in the Vosges where the water runs of readily. In the plains of the Woe vTe, though, where an entire brigade worked four days to execute a plan of drainage admirably conceived and the oretically perfect that was found in- sufficient during the first storm, there is no protection possible against mud and water.
 I The bottoms of trenches are cover cd with fagots, but in vain; they dis appear in the mud after a storm. A week of rain causes as much damage as a violent bombardment, according 70 an officer who has seen nearly eve " sector of the front this winter.
 In certain parts. of the Woevre, Ar tois and Flanders the ground all a- round the lines, belabored by shells of all calibres, covered with excava- tions that rain has transformed into miniature lakes, resembles march of interminable length and a nile or SC wide; the communicating trenches themselves. sometimes several miles long, are like cess-pools. The men O. bliged to tramp through them to get to the front line are tired out when they arrive One relief detachment was a whole night making the four miles from their quarters to the trenches: during the passage a num- Der of then left their shoes in the heavy, sticky mud. Men often prefer to risk the enemy's shells and make their way to their post on the surface, but even this route is scarcely better in many places on account of the pit falls dug by artillery fire. It is over such ground that the soldiers must plod with backs bent under loads of materials required to maintain the in reliability of the first line; no other means of transportation is possible. They reach their posts, as rule, ready to drop from exhaustion, an officer tells the Associated Press, but the smoking rata as the trench slang has named the rations, and hot cup of coffee, restore them quickly; indiff- erent to swollen and blistered feet, they set to work under the heavy rain throwing up earth that has caved Tn from the parapets, repairing the fagot supports, raising the parapets. with never a finch and never a sign that their courage may have suffered from those trying tramps through the mud. There are parts of the front where it is possible for the men to carry 10 the frigid trench a primitive foot warner in the shaps of a stone heater by a brasier at the quarters in the rear: the heat endures long enough to afford a real comfort, but. of course the trench must be dry. For other comforts the men must wait for their turn to go to the rear.
 4 head ventures above a parapet and is greeted with volley of bullets; the adversary replies and the fire. in- tensifies from both sides. All the men at work drop their picks and shovels for the rifle and the fusillade becomes general. The bomb singers join in and generally the siX-inch guns follow, covering the lines with fragments of steel. killing some men, wOunding oth- CTS. rupturing the barbed wire entan- glenents and damaging the trenches. That is the average inventory of day of the winter campaign on the French front that the official communique dryly characterizes as calm" It is going on every day all along the front with constant wastage of men in killed and wounded.
 Our shells go no straishter. but without question they do more damage s1 .r,fI n