Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-07-29

the British Tommies lacopcally call the bg stnif"-the eight and eleven inch wowitzer shells and the projec- tiles from heavy caliDred long range naval guns, known without affection as "Whistling Percys."
 There will be little opportunity to hear "Big Bertha" for these famous old 42-centimeter howitzers are sell dom used nowadays. It is believed that the German plarned to lombard Arras with them, using prussic acid
 shells. but the British advance on Easter Monday last put stop to that particularly nefariou scheme against the already sadly battered little Ar
 tois cathedral city.
 There is also awaiting the new American army a bounteous baptism of boombs and hand grenades and the
 still more dismaying introduction to the ghastly rattle of the machine gun
 and it's sinister swish of spraying bull
 lets-sounds we'll calculated to stab
 with moment of fear the heart of
 the bravest man.
 But above all the American soldiers
 must equip themselves to endure the
 lethal gas that will be sent over against them in poisonous, vaporish
 clouds, or showered ipon them in deluge of heavily charged cylinders and shells. They must prepare to deal and with the treacharous lachryma- tory gas while not dangerous to Mfe irritates the tear ducts until one cries with blinded, smarting eyes for hours. The surprise of both these gases is their altogether pleasant smell, the lethal variety suggesting the clean odor of a sanitary hospital ward, while the socalled tear gas has l the appetizing scent of crushed apples or cider.
 There is also the reason shaking terror of the "flamenwerfer" with it's roaring stream of liquid fire flaring with the velocity of high pressure | fire nozzle and with an offpouring
 of smoke rising like black cyclone cloud to the heavens.
 The first day of their stay in bat l tie trenches the Americans will make l the acquaintance Of the very old, but
 scarcely cherished friend of the
 Tommies and Poilus-another mem- l Der of the werfer family known as Minnie" This is the German mine thrower or minenwerfer, which filings
 over at short range treat heavy pro- jectiles known as flying pgs" be- cause of their wabbly, ungainly flight.
 They go off with deafening roar, ever, than on material damage. A notable development of the war has been the dread with which the Germans have seen weapons of their l own invention turned against them and turned with steadily increasing in- tens}ty. Their prisoners Speak of
 the terror these weapons -have caused and declare the German higher com mand is realizing all too late the Frenkensteins it brought into being. While the entente allies are multi plying these terrors in the lines laid down by Emperor William himself, the Germans, isolated so long from ! the world, find their resources and materials constantly failing both as to means of carrying on this style of warfare and, what is more important to them, combating the retributive measures undertaken by British and French.
 Asphyxiating gas may be taken as a striking example. The whole world was shocked when Germany first re- leased those poison clouds during the second attack on Ypres when the al- lies, little suspecting such weapon, had no protection whatever, against
 1t. The horror of those days when men engulfed by the lethal waves died agonizing deaths will never be forgot ten. But the manner in which the Canadian troops rallied and prevent ed the Germans breaking through in
 what they hoped would be victorious l march to Calais and Boulogne, will l ever be one of the most thrilling sto- ries of the world war. Nowadays the British fairly bathe the Germans in every form of gas whenever the slight
 cts opportunity offers and prisoners all say their losses in these attacks
 have been alarmingiy heavy. Gas is scr1t over in creeping banks of fog l is shot ove; in bombs that suddenly explode in the trenches and at en-
 frances to dugouts, while no billets or l sleeping quarters for troops in rest
 miles back of the fighting line are
 safe from the gas shells which are
 ever knocking at their doors.
 The bitterness of it all to the Ger
 mans, however, is the fact that daily
 they find they have less and less rub
 Der with winch to construct their gas
 masks, many of which are very infer
 for and offer but poor protection to
 the fighting men against gases that
 constantly are becoming more power
 ful.
 Boiling and blazing oil drums
 which they find exploding about them