The Lakeland evening telegram., 1917-11-10
MUD
(By Frederic William Vile of the
Vigilantes)

(By Frederic William Vile of the
Vigilantes)
Somewhere in France.-Sherman
was wrong. War is not He'll. 1t is
Mud. l have arrived in it up to my
knees on one of the periodical JOY
rides which the British Foreign Of
fee and General Staff between them
organize from time to time for civil
ian visitors from abroad. 1t is my
second excursion into the adventur-
GUS country where millions of armed
Britons and Frenchmen are battling
to the death, that the world may con-
tinue to remain safe for Democracy.
I have said that war is Mud. It
is also rain. At least on the occa.
sion of both of my instrusions upon
Armageddon, l have seen far more
rain spilled than blood, and such bat
tlefields as l have navigated were
seas of slime and slush These were
the conditions when | was here in
October, 1916, and / have run into
precisely the same sort of atmospher-
ic and typographical i'll luck this
time. My emotions of disappoint-
ment and disgust are nothing COM
pared to the wrath which fills the
souls of Haig's men at the merciless-
ness of the Weather God in churning
the Western Front into mud at this
particular juncture. Though we hear
that Haig has achieved every single
immediate objective his staff had set
itself. there is wailing and gnashing
or teeth that operations have been
checked which might we'll have been
carried forward to vastly more far.
reaching strategic advantage. Rot!
ten luck" is the only complaint these
dogged warriors of Britain, mud.
caked and rainsoaked can be per.
suaded to utter, but it gals them to
the marrow that al /'show"-every
battle is "show" in British army
parlance-so successfully inaugura-
ted should have been brought to a
standstill by second-rate things like
the elements. They have beaten
Tommy Atkins before during the past
three years-many time. Since the
retreat from Mons, indeed, they are
about the only thing that has beaten
MIN. He hates them almost as cor
daily as he does the Boche.
Yet l am glad to have arrived at
the war.to find it once again more
muddy than bloody; for it provides
an excellent and unexampled oppor-
tunity of seeing The hardships in
which the British soldier has to live
and fight, compared to the outright
luxury in which the best of \us-I
don't care how humble his lot-lives
by comparison. l am in tonight from
a day in the trenches beyond ......,
network of lines till they were
Knocked to pieces and annexed by
Haig in the great April offensive. It
rained all the time. The trenches
were gluey and sticky and the duck.
boards" along which we travelled
were afioat a good share of the day.
But the only people who used really
strong language about having to eat,
sleep and navigate in such soggy ter.
ritory was our party of civilian ten
ierfoots The cave-dwellers in khaki
whom we encountered in endless
numbers were as happy as schoolchil.
iren on picnic. Clay-spattered
rom head to foot, their clothes aften
wringing wet, they looked up from
whatever happened to be their tasks
and grinned as we passed.
Our chief and always dominating
impression was of their grins and
smiles. | am firmly convinced that
soldiers who can laugh in such
weather cannot be overcome by any.
thing, not even the Prussian military
Perhaps Tommy smiled
more broadly than usual today at our
expense, for during our hike from a
certain quarry to certain front line
Fritz sent over whizz-bangs which
caused us armchair warriors from
hnme to duck and dnduo n, tho r,.a.4