The Washington herald., 1919-05-25
Huns Heroic Feats
Conceded by British
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came an ironical message one day
from the enemy. ''and we win do II
ourselves. We hate having your shells
In our neld hospitals"
Well, the English amateurs learned
all right. and with marvellous rapidity
and skill as the Germans acknowledge.
But they were handicapped at the
start OF things. So II was in engineer
ing applied to trench warfare. The
German trenches were vastly better
than the British and their deep she'll
PROOF dugouts. pannelled. well-fur-
nished and ventilated. and drained.
niled US with wonder when We hrst
captured some OF them. All that work
was due to German discipline. indus
Try and military knowledge.
Ehowed Quality Of Courage.
The quality OF their courage was
shown a thousand times and In many
battles I saw the preliminary bonn
bardments in the first battle OF the
Somme. in July OF 1916. and / was
nlled with a kind Of pity for the poor
devils Of Germans underneath that
hre. not believing that many OF them
shells.
By that time we had grown very
strong In gun-power, and for miles on
each side Of the town of Albert. where
the statue-of the Virgin and Babe
leaned head downwards. we had
massed batteries OF field guns and
heavies in every fold of the earth. and
for a week preceding the battle they
fired incsssantly. day and night. This
wide spread OF gunfire was terrible to
see. as thousands OF shells burst in
the German lines. finging up--yol-
canoes Of earth and fame. and ravag-
ing the ground with high explosives.
Afterwards when I went over the
lines We had captured I saw the
enect of all this fire, and IL was
dreadful sight. German trenches were
obliterated, and dead bodies, or bits
OF bodies. lay about the upheaved
waves OF earth. German dugouts had
been blown in. and other bodies lay
there in the ruin of their dark cav
erns-
During that seven days lombard
ment OF ours the German troops, cut
OF from supplies. and expecting death
as every crash of a shell shook the
earth about them. suffered hellish tor
lures. But they did not lose their
courage. German machine gunners
who lived through the bombardnnent
behaved with almost incredible hero
ism. As soon as the British infantry
attack began at 7:3O in the morning
and waves OF men left their trenches
and advanced toward the German po-
sitions behind a barrage of shell ire
the enemy's machine gunners scramN
hied out of the chaos OF earth about
them filled with their dead comrades
and rushed through the wall of hign
(ANN -
the survivors planted their machine
guns in the open and moved down
the British troops at close range.
That was below Thiepval and lie Bois
ellie, and with our trops on the right
ct Fricourt I heard that terrible ma
chine gun fire and knew that Eng
land was losing many OF her sons. But
wounded men who came back showed
tier sporting spirit and over and
over again that day English and Irish
solciers said to me: The German
machine-gunners were wonderful.
Their pluck was marvellous. They
would not leave their guns until We
killed them"
Put Up Fierce Defense.
All through the battles of the
Somme. in 1916. the German troops.
Prussians. Bavarians and Saxons.
put up a desperate defence and made
fierce counter-attacks against the
British onslaughts so that places
like High Wood and Delville Wood
I changed hands many times in an
ebb and flow of slaughter. The de-
fence of Ovillers by the Third Prus-
sian Guards was very stubborn and
spirited
This place. which was a small
town until English guns knocked
its houses into rubbish heaps, was
on the left OF the Albert-Bapaume
road and was surrounded by an in
tricate mall OF trenches and machine
gun redoubts. The Prussian Guards
had dug tunnels under the town. in
which they were fairly safe from
she'll fre. and they came through
these tunnels into the trenches and