The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-07-30

began constructing the little '.pi'l hoy
es," as the troops call them, or ca
mouflaged blockhouses built of blocE>
of concrete ten and twelve feet thick
big enough to hold garrisons of twenty
or thirty men, with narrow Sits to per-
NIT machine-gun fire and fame throw
ing.
These pill boxes are the backbone of
the German defensive system today.
They are so strong that nothing but a
direct hit from the heaviest kind of
shell will demolish them. They shed
ordinary field gun and howitzer shells
like raindrops. Next to the pill box
the ruined house now proves the hard
est nut to crack. Steel Orders are
placed across the cellar, then upon
them are poured many feet of concrete,
and below crouches the garrison, safe
against bombardment, with machine
guns, bombs, and emergency rations in
case they are cut off. Whole days are
sometimes required to reduce these re-
doubts, unless cases of high explosive
can be brought up to settle them.
Shell holes are also concreted, and con-
nected by underground passages invis-
ible, unlike the trenches, from hostile
airplanes.
Trench Systems Easily Destroyed.
It is by increasing the depth of the
defensive zone that the enemy is able
to hold out under the bombardments
to which he is subjected: Trench sys-
TENS Of the old kind could be entirely
destroyed, the old-style deep dugouts
broken in or filled with poison gas,
while today 1t is next to impossible
to smash all the hidden blockhouses or
discover which among thousands of
shellholes, over q devastated area sew
eral miles deep. are filed with defen-
ders. 2 "# ''s
r. When the Americans attack, they
will 60 forward In small groups, behind
an artillery storm Of such intensity
that in all probability at least one can
non will be firing behind every infan-
tryman who advances. Already, in
the last verdun attacks, more gunners
than infantrymen were employed. II
tactics develop along the present lines,
1t will not be more than a year before
cannons are more plentiful than SOL
diers. Mi "a. s.e la.
Poison gas, boiling oil drums, fame
throwing machines, are increasing in |,
effectiveness on both sides. The rifle
bullet, once the prime weapon Of de-
struction, gave way at the beginning
Of this war to the machine-gun stream
and the shell. Many soldiers have
told me that they think the new weap-
'ns Of scientific deviltry will have su-
perseded the machine gun and the
bomb before another campaign has
ended.
American Power Already Felt.
If Germany fears American military
'rowess and wants peace before the
American army is in the field, she is
aking a long view. But the blockade,
md the financial power. of the United
States, are already making themselves
elt. The popular feeling in France
ind England that our soldiers and
hips are going to do great things in :,
few months is too optimistic but 1t
8 probable that Britons and French
nen do not sufficiently realize what
las been done by American bankers,
nd by the stoppage of supplies to neu- q
rails which during the whole war have
ltered into Germany in enormous
uantities.
America" said a member of the
overnment recently, IFS doing about
1ree times as much as we thought, last u
pring, would be possible at this date. u
Americans are annoyed that our peO- II
lie expect them to perform impossible y
liracles let them remember that such II
opes are the highest expression of "
onf1dences and appreciation that we u
IN give their great country" ,