The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-04
Wdtery SheU Crdters Stop
 Fighting m Winter Time
 But i1 the Spring. What?
By PHILLIP H. PATCHIN

London, January 25.-I>ast year the great offensive on the Somme started on July l. It continued with unabated fury through August, September and October. Then it began to dwindle. During September it was freely prom ised that this season there would be no abatement in the attack, that straight through the whole winter the war on the western front would be continued with great vigor, day by day and week by week, with the enc my being given no rest The promise hasn't come exactly true. The enemy, to be sure, Is given little rest and is not having a happy time, but he is being disturbed by artillery fire and not by infantry fire, and he does not fear, along the British fighting front, at least-on the Somme and Ancre-- general advance.
 ONE DETAIL LACKING
 In this super-modern war it would be supposed that every possible detail would be worked out, every exigency figured to the last degree, but there was one thing to which too little con sideration was given when a steady advance Germanward through the
 
 the effect of shell fire on the ground to be covered. Bursting shells, Brit ish and German. peppered the whole battle zone. making great holes, rang ing from & couple to 12 or IA feet deep. These craters were formed by the tens of thousands in all parts, until the ground looked like the indentation on the top of comb of honey. Then came the rains, extraordinarily heavy, and the shell craters filled with water The ordinary mud of winter was bad enough, but not impossible, but all these shell holes are hopeless No troops can advance over them and an attack through them, with troops winding and circlfng around the de- rressions would be futile even if the troops could actually drag themselves through the mud So the war has sagged In November, the British man. aged an attack on the Ancre but on the Somme, nothing. Around Verdun, where the ground is higher and drier the French did great things. Other wise, and particularly with the British, the western front devotes itself to raids more or less extensive and to a continuous artillery pounding.
 This unreckoned impassibility of the battlefield adds to the horror and to the difficulty of war. Night patrols through No Mans Land are doubly dangerous, Many men have fallen into water-filled shell craters and been drowned. The parties that slip out under the cover of darkness, carefully ieei1ng their way, and dropping to the ground when star shells flare. have dangerous and unhappy time Fatrols do not wander far from the front line as in days of yesteryear. the working parties bent upon repair ing shattered wire entanglements are Tn greater danger from the oozy wire than from enemy bullets
 It IS worse for the British than if is for the Germans. As the British troops advanced from July 1 onwards, their guns kept just ahead of them. Shells, large and small, dropped in a continuous tattoo on front of 20 miles, As the troops advanced mile by mile slowly and with terrific fighting nearly all the While, the ground became ploughed with shells not only British, but German as well. The result is that the British front line now runs directly through . great shell scared area. Not only is the ground directly in front cut up, which makes advance almost impossible, but behind the front line for some miles back the same condition prevails making the work of bringing up supplies from the rear and taking wounded back from the front more than doubly arduous.
 GERMANS LITTLE BETTER OFF
 The Germans are little better off. The condition of the land between them and their enemy is to their advantage. for they do not appear to be in any mood to attack themselves and are doubtless well pleased that conditions prevent their being attacked. It gives them time to dig themselves in and to perfect an ex- tensive organization of defenses still further back To the rear of their front line the ground is not so cut up as is that behind the British line, so the Ger mans do not have the same difficulties of transport.
 l have heard that the Germans have turned the shell craters to good account and have invented a new form of trench warfare Until this innovation front line trench was a deep, wel-constructed