Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-03-06
WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES /
FRANCE, March 6.

One reason why the Germans retreated
along the Ancre was because they were
fast becoming garrison Of gibbcrlng luna.
tics Their position had become more hid
eous than the scurpers Of he'll. Mud-bpt- To-
fomless In placcs--and the Ceasoess bound
ing Of the British guns had turned their
positions into stencil pits too horrible for
human nerves TO stand. Your correspondent
was the first American permitted to pene-
frate across the ground evacuated by the
Germans as far az Thilloy toward Ba-
y paume.
Madame Tussauds wax work Chamber
Of Horrors cheerful "a May day
compared with this field Of tcrrUrs pain.
ful ~ pictured at each step. The CORE
spondent zigzagged around stagnant cess
pools and interloCking shell CTater5 in
which the water was the exact color Of
blood. This might have been due TO chem
icaIs In the high explosives which rent the
holes or to the nature Of the ground itself
The correspondent found himself step
ping on German bodies which Uttered the
region. They were in all imaginable con.
6itions and positions, sometimes piled sew
eral deep. He saw arms sticking fun length
out OF the mud that concealed all rlse OF
the bodies to which they were attached.
There were legs, feet, half bod,es--or heads
eione--protrudlng. Some lay face down.
some were prone on their backs, exactly as
n asleep.
At another place on pile several deep.
lay a boyish officer, fair az "A girl. with his
I arms thrown back and his blue eyes staring
-s-A-the sky. His sandy hair had been
brushed back modishly by the rain.
Imagine scenes like this covering miles
Imagine every trace Of vegetation long since
blasted away. Imagine the earth powder
stained and churned up from ten 10 sixty
feet In depth. Imagine pits SO bottomless
that. German prisoners claim, their men
lsV #.I f1a In at-
tempting to cross after dark.
This is the territory the Germans left
;, The German prisoners declared that COM
municatiOn trenches had been wiped out by
the incessant British fire and the mud so
that relief and revctualing was difficult,
most dangerous. Men on such missions
were caught by the British machine guns
sweeping in the darkness and could not be
saved. II was impossible to save those thus
cut off by the destruction OF the communi-
cation trenches. The dead were left we're
they fell
Two attacks in November left scores Of
dead Germans outside the trenches. They
have remained there until now, when the
British are burying the remains.
Such was the snkholc occupied by the
Germans
The scenes were too horrible for human
nerves 10 withstand They make quite be-
ltevable the stories Of soldiers who became
raving maniacs.
1t is quite possible that in the with
drawal Germany plans to use her troops
Seikewhere in big offensive. but the British
are undisturbed
One outstanding moral OF the German
retreat In wherever the Germans stop their
Retirement, their new positions can be re-
duced to the same hldeous, uncomfortable
Quagmire of cadaverB and muck, where
erisped dead hands clutch from the mud at
the Kaiser's men and dead eyes stare at
them from the slime. defying even German
discipline 20 hold live men in line.