The Alaska daily empire., 1918-12-06

The taking or the ldmOuS ltlnuen- burg line of trenches by the Allied forces. including the Americans, has given rise to detailed descrip- tions of the place since the Allies have occupied them
 The celebrated Hindenburg line or Siegfried line, has been compared by the German leaders to the great wall of China. Until the British broke it in the Spring of 1917 they believed it impregnable to assault as was once the Chinese wall and re- gardcd it as the eighth wonder of the world.
 The Hindenburg line as generally defined is about 50 miles long, run ming in a general North and South direction across the Picardy Plains in France. It's Northern extremity was guarded by the heavily forti- fled bastion of Vimy Ridge and by he mining city of Lens whose un- derground corridors and chambers { long have barred the British. The Southern end of the Hindenburg line, proper is in the vicinity of La Fere or Laon. That end is protected in part by the forest of St. Gobain and the Qualifications around Laon. Between Vimy Ridge on the North and La Fere on the South the line passes West of Cambrai and St Quentin so as to protect these two | tr;o Il .ers which are routes for bringing ur
 applies for the German Army. Some war correspondents describe he German line as continuing South eastward from La Fere to the Aisne liver and Rheims following the line f Chemin des Danes. They call that part of the line Southeast of La Fere
 ne AIberich line. This would add
 bout 45 miles, making a total ol
 iole than 100 miles in length. Gen orally, however, the Hindenburg line has been described as running onl. from Vimy Ridge to La Fere.
 | Fearing that the Northern end o. the line might be turned the Ger mans established switch" line connecting with the IIindenburg line at Queant and running North abou; i B miles to DrocoIrt. They called this switch the Wotan line.
 l The Northern end of the Hinden burg line and the Wotan line botl have been broken more than onct by the British armies and both arc now in possession of the British Armies. Long ago the Germans los Vimy Ridge and failed to take it.
 The Hindenburg line is not { trench but a system of field fortifi cations. In places it is said to be ten miles deep, consisting not only of the trench system but of multiple lines of barbed wire entanglements concrete positions for artillery, deeI dugouts capable of housing a battal on of troops, numerous pill-boxes fol machine guns and, in fact, every de vice the Germans have been able tt assemble to block the war to Ger many.
 Near Bullecourt was a formidable underground fertilization known al the Tunnel Trench" which the Ger mans believed to be impregnable This tunnel connecting the trenches was more than a mile long and was mined for it's whole length, lighted with electricity and had entrances at short intervals. It was reinforced | by concrete pill-boxes and support trenches. The British captured il in November, 1917.
 | Below Graincourt the British fore es found great catacombs along the Hindenburg line. These were elab orately fitted up as battalion head quarters, electrically lighted and pro tected by concrete trenches. In front of Cambrai, the villages, behind the line and beneath the great chambers which it would be islander to call dugouts. They were more like ho