The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1917-07-13
PICTURES LIFE
INTRENCHES TO
LARGE CROWD
Cant. Leslie Vickers of Brit
ish Army Tells of War
Experience.
GERMANS USED WOMEN
TO PROTECT ADVANCE
Cambridge Players Chautauqua
Feature Today-Lady to Speak
On War.

The several hundred citizens wh'
heard Capt. Leslie Vickers of the Brit
ish army in his lecture yesterday aft
ernoon, left the Chautauqua grounds
with a vivid and lasting impression OF
the conditions on the battlefields ir
France as described by the British off,
Ger. Crimes inconceivable to the
minds of the civilized world were and
are being perpetrated upon the de-
fenseless women and children of Be-
pium and France by the German SOL
diers, Capt. Vickers told his audience.
In simple and short sentences the Cap
tain told of instances when the Ger
mans, at the point of their bayonets,
drove the women and children in front
of them as protection against the al
lies fire, and how the British after re-
treating to their last line of trenches,
were compelled to open fire upon the
women and children in order to stop
the advancing Teutons.
To obtain clear idea of this barbar-
ism of the German soldiers, said Capt.
Vickers, a person would have to visit
one of the many little cities and towns
in Belgium or France once occupied
by the Germans, and listen to the
story of any survivor who was fortu-
nate to escape death from the hands
of the Germans.
at is utterly impossible to fully de-
scribe the horrors that followed the
German INVASION" Capt. Vickers said,
and after seeing the results of their
atrocities, one can not imagine how
the Teutonic race ever reached the in
tellectual heights it attained in the
civilized world"
Capt. Vickers then related how the
declaration of war found Great Brit
ain totally unprepared with an army
of only 100000 men; how the country
was thrown into a turmoil, not know
ing how to go about raising an ade-
quate fighting force, and of the mis-
take made by the Government in rely
ing upon the volunteer system. The
draft was finally resorted to and an
army of several million men was
raised.
The speaker then described the many
instruments of destruction used by the
Germans, such as trench gas, gas
bombs, liquid fire and dum-dum bull
lets and exhibited one type of the
mask used by the allies to combat the
poisonous gas. This gas was first used
bv the Germans in April, 1915, the
Captain said, after they had given
their word that gas would not be used.
This was followed by the liquid fire
and later by the gas bombs. The dunn
dunn bullets, several of which were
shown by Capt. Vickers, are used by
the Germans contrary to all methods
of civilized warfare. The particular
type of bullet used by the Germans
can be converted into a dum-dum by
simply removing the bullet from the
cartridge and changing ends. A man
hit by cne of these blunt-nosed bull
lets is mutilated much more than If
struck by the ordinary pointed kind.
Capt. Vickers himself was wounded
in the head by a dum-dum bullet, he
said, which has never been removed.
1t is due to this injury that he was
disabled for further service and per-
mitted to come to America for his
present tour.
The preparedness of the Germans at
the very beginning of the war, the
speaker explained, was responsible for
the successful drive of the Germans at
the beginning of the great struggle.
Their advance was stopped at the very
threshold of Paris by the Canadian
troops who sacrificed more than half
their number to regain trenches that