The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1920-04-10
Soul of the Army and Heart of
War Revealed in Remarkable Book
Philip Gibbs snow Can Be Told" Best War Book So FarHe
Writes Of Men, Not MachinesMourns That Men Had to
Die That British Generals Could Learn War Game.
LudendorPs Story Snug and Sef-Satis6ed-No
Spark of Feeing-Fine Exposition Of Me-
chanics Of German Warn Machine

magnes. Landres-St. George. and many
other places are monuments Of this
corps would call using up the German
reserve It was noticeable that every
extended attack on q wide front was
successful with much smaller per-
centage OF losses than the brigade or
division attacks. But we had to learn,
too.
The Terrible Slaughter.
The progress OF the British from ridge
to ridge. valley to valley in the Somms
the summer Of 1915, is graphically told.
The struggle Of men from one low
ridge ,D to smother other low ridge In a terri.
twenty miles deep. through Ave months
tensity and proiongation Of slaughter.
wounding and endurance Of all hard
saPs sq :sTors the OF I .oo as o eye s
bloody drama. I saw day by day the
tidal waves Of wounded iimping back.
until 100000 men. had passed through
our casualty clearing stations. and then
downy countrywide. beautiful In its sum-
mer life. ravaged by gunfire so that
the white chalk of its subsoil was fiung
above the earth and grass In a wide
sterile stretch OF desolation pitted with
whose walsl were hideously up heaved
by explosive IRE. and Uttered yard after
yard. mile after mile. with broken wire.
rines. bombs. unexploded shells, rags
OF uniforms. dead bodies or bits OF
saw our men going into battle with
strong bataIlions and coming out OF 1t
trudged toward lines Of German
trenches. punching a little in groups,
figures or in batches. and lighting over
the enemies parapets. ] sat with them
In their dugouts before battle and after
battle and saw their bodies gathered
up for burial heard their shuttle Of
Fear Not Dominant.
But however deep the knowledge OF
tragedy q man would be. liar II he
lantry OF youth. even the gaiety OF
m p IN these Internal months.
on M Men sS %srs a wss
fear was not the dominating emotion.
save the worst hours. Men hated this
lighting. but found excitement in II,
often exultation. sometimes an intense
sions before reaction and exhaustion.
Men became tibbering idiots with she'll
shock. as ] saw some Of them. but
others re1oiced when they saw our shells
blowing into the enemy's earthworks.
They were healthy animals, with
animal courage as well as animal fear,
and they had. some of them, a spiritual
and moral fervor which babe them risk
death to save a comrade or to save
position or to kill the fear that tried
to fetter. them or to lead men with
greater fear than theirs. They lived
from hour to hour and forgot the> peril
or the misery that had passed, and did
not forestall the future by apprehen-
sion.
an the mass all our soldiers seemed
equally brave. It was only when
one spoke to the Individual, some friend
who b AIRED his soul a second, or some
soldier-ant in the multitude, with
whom. one talked with truth, that one
saw the hatred Of man for his Job,
the sense Of doom upon him. the weak
ness that was in his strength. the Bit
terness Of his grudge against a fate
that forced him to go on IN this way
OF life, the remembrance Of a life more |
beautiful which he had aban-
Suicide Of Nations.
Questioning a captured German physi- |
clan. Gibbs discussed the philosophy or |