The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-20
GERMAN DUCOUTS
DEATH CHAMBERS
FILLED BY DEAD
Writer Describes Trenches Cap
tured by the French.
Dazed Men Found Buried Be-
meath Dead Comrades.
is A BATTLE OF The SHOWS
Guns Convert White Blanket
Into Oozing Mud.
Germans Dash Into Trap and
Company Is Decimated.
DaZed Men Found Buried Be-
meath Dead Comrades.
is A BATTLE OF The SHOWS
Guns Convert White Blanket
Into Oozing Mud.
BY HENRY WOOD.

With the French Armies in the
Field, April 20.-It is the Battle of
the Shows that is raging over forty
twisting miles today on the great
French offensive front. French ar
tillery fire turns the carpet of snow
into oozy-mud and red spattered pat
terms thru which General Nivelle's
men were advancing-always advance
ing-today
I succeeded in following the French
advance in this Battle of the Shows
on one nameless hill southwest of
Moranvillers. Trenches, dugouts shell
tiers everywhere were filled with Ger
man dead. Dazed Germans were being
hauled from dugouts where they had
hidden, BIT rowed deep in the piles OF
their own dead. Farther back where
French troops were clearing the hor-
rorS of the ground taken by the first
forward movement, 1 had seen dazed,
starving Germans staggering out of
dugouts choked with their dead COM
rades thirty-six hours after those dug
outs had been taken by the French
Witnesses Strategy Operation.
Beyond the nameless hill the new
French and German lines were Wis
IDLE. Between them was an aban-
doned German battery stark and bare
on the snow AS I watched 1 saw
one of those marvellous bits of French
strategy executed
The French established lines to the
rear from this abandoned battery
They were plainly put there to entice
the enemy to seek recapture OF the
abandoned guns. The ruse was sue
cessful AS 1 watched. out the Ger
mans dashed. Their horses were
hurriedly hitched to the abandoned
guns. Then the French machine guns
7 i n
all except thirty Germans were
wiped out in a twinkling.
The morale of the French troops is
astounding. At 4 o'clock wednesday
evening kfound the same troops which
1 had seen capture the positions they
were then in on Tuesday morning, pre-
pairing forsa fresh advance, -
| The dash was to start at 5aoicleek
and the French troops We're jokingly
clubbing it their five o'clock tea"
No Trying to Pierce Line.
1t is typical of all operations along
the great French front that General
Nivelle is not seeking to pierce the
German line as a given point. Instead
he proposes an advance along the en-
tire front by steady stages. 1t is, not
like the warfare of the previous
Somme campaign. How well it is
working out is evidenced by the fact
that the French have advanced more
now, in this new style of attack, than
at any time since the battle of the
Marine.
From another nameless hill today l
saw across the Champagne plains an
endless maze of German trenches 1t
represented three years work of mil
lions of men. countless tons of barbed
wire; numberleSS carloads of steel
plates: miles of concrete Notifications
marked it. There were thousands of
bomb-proofs. Many were fitted with
electrical plants equipped with the
most costly and most modern conven-
fences.
Captured These Intact
These the French captured intact
The ardor of the advance, the irresist-