Williston graphic., 1918-07-04

help IN the struggle. Smoke screens
were thrown up to hide the move
ments from the observation balloons
and airplanes; some of the screens
had been thrown up as early as the
week before when we were there. The
German guns coughed harder, loud
er and more often. The coughing
and barking of guns and the whiz-
zing of shells made the din we heard
the week before seem like child's
play. The Germans were shooting
over their own line of trenches into
the first line of British defense. That
is the method of starting an offen-
sive.
The German men in their own
trenches had been dressed in new
uniforms, had been made to drink
rum and ether so that they would be
reckless and in frame of mind to
face any ordeal. The captains had
not been trusted with the information
that they were being marched to
slaughter, At given time they were
to open written orders, and at anoth
er given time the heavy guns were tt
change their range from the first
line of British def ense to the sec.
ond, and it was then that the Ger
mans were to make the rush from
their trenches to the first line Of the
British.
To the surprise of the British, and
to ond, and it was then that the Ger
mans came in solid mass formation,
the same formation that Napoleon
used in his last desperate st-ug-
giles. Many of the British had been
killed in the barrage, but others were
there hanging on with true British
grit.
AS that wave of Germans, a solid
mass, came across the land between
the British and German trenches, the
heavy guns of the British opened on
them. They had but to fire. They
could not miss the enemy. The Ger
mans sank to their death by thous-
ands before those guns. But the war
mad managers behind them had plan
ned for just such a slaughter of their
own men. With the death struggles
of the first wave of Germans, came a
second, uniforms new, hearts beating
fast and brains borne up with the
stimulus of rum and ether. They,
too; went down before the terrific fire
of the same British guns.
The third wave of men came and
third wave of men died.
Thousands more came in the fourth
wave, and were piled dead above the
bodies of their comrades.
So it went, wave after wave, the
German generals determined to make
"the kaiser's own battle" . victory
by wearing out the British guns with
German human flesh.
The British gunners actually be-
came heart-sick with killing the poor
beings who marched to their death
on the orders of their own cruel gen.
erals.
When the ninth wave of men had
come and died, the cannon in the first
line of British defense became so hot
that they could not be fired any more.
The gunners took off the breech locks
and retired to the second line of de-
fense.
On came the tenth wave cf Ger
mans, there to meet the fate of the
nine that had gone before. On came
others, sacrifices to the will of an
determined to fasten on
the rest of the world the same mill
tarism that made these subjects give
up their lives. -
But the German generals had more
men to feed into the barrage of the
second line of British guns, and feed
5hem; fed them until more British
gunners were sickened by the sight |
and fired more from duty than hatred
such hatred that must arise
IN men with red blood and hearts of
human beings for generals who will
make such a sacrifice of human life.
So human flesh wore down more
steel, men paid the toll with their
ives until more British guns became