The Washington times., 1917-03-06
Abandoned Trenches Found
churned Into Stencil Pits
BY Rain of Shells.
DEAD ARE LEFT UNBURIED
Men Often Swallowed Up Whole
in Mud Sixty Feet
Deep.
By WILLIAM PHILIP sIMMs.

WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN
FRANCE, March 6.-One reason why
the Germans retreRted along the
Ancre was because they were fast
becoming q garrison OF gibbering
lunatics. Their position had become
more hideous than the scuppers OF hell.
Aud-bottomless In plaees-and- the
eeaseless pounding of the British
guns had turned their positions into
stencil pits too horrible for human
nerves to stand.
The United Press correspondent was
the FIRST American permitted to pene-
trate across the ground evacuated By
the Germans as far as Thilloy to-
ward Bapaume.
In Charnal House.
Madame Tassaud's wax works
Chamber Of Horrors was as cheerful
as q May day compared with this
field Of terrors, painfully pictured at
each step. I zigzagged around stag.
nant cesspools and interlocking
shell craters in which the water was
the exact color of blood. This might
have been due to chemicals in the
high explosives which have rent the
holes, or to the nature of the ground
itself.
found myself stepping on German
bodies which were In all imaginable
conditions and positions-sometimes
piled several deep. I saw arms stick
ing full length out OF the mud that
concealed all else Of the bodies TO
which they were attached. There
q
alone-protruding. Some lay face
downward, some were prone on their
backs, exactly as II asleep.
At another place, on q pile several
deep, lay a boyish officer, fair as
girl, with the arms thrown back and
his blue eyes staring to the sky. His
sandy hair had been brushed back
modishly by the rain.
Swallowed Up In Mad.
Imagine scenes like this covering
miles. Imagine every trace Of vege-
tation long since blasted away. Inn
agine the earth powder-stained and
churned up from ten to sixty feet in
depth. Imagine mud SO bottomless
that the German prisoners claim their
men frequently were swallowed up
whole in attempting to cross after
dark.
This il the tsrritory the Germans
left.
The German prisoners told Us that.
communication trenches had been
wiped out by the incessant British
fire and the mud, 30 that relief and
reYictualIing was difficult, most dan
gerous. Men on such missions were
caught by the British machine guns
sweeping in the darkness and could
not be saved. It was impossible to
save those thus cut off by destruction
of the communication trenches. The
dead were left where they fell.
Two attacks in November left
scores Of dead Germans outside the
trenches. They have remained there
until now, when the British are bury
ing the remains.
Human Nerves Collapse.
Such was the sink hole occupied by
the Germans.
The scenes were too horrible for
human nerves to Withstand. They
make quite believable the stories OF
soldiers who became raving maniacs.
It is quite possible that in the with
drawal Germany plans to use her
troops elsewhere in q big offensive,
but the British are undisturbed.
One outstanding morale Of the Ger
man retreat II where the various
Germans stop their retirement, their
new positions can be reduced to the
same hideous uncomfortable Quagmire
of cadavers and muck, where crisped
dead hands clutched from the mud at
the Kaiser's men and dead eyes stare
at them from the slime, defying even
German discipline to hold live men in
Ifpa