Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1914 — FIGHT IN DELIRIUM [ARTICLE]

FIGHT IN DELIRIUM

Wounded Respond to Cry of Raving Comrade. Correspondent Pens Vivid Description of the Horrors of War—Life In the Trenches a Continuous Nervous Tension. By GABRIEL DELAGARDE. {Correspondent of Chicago Daily News.) , Amiens, France. —There are four of us in the quiet garden smoking our pipes. What is it—a French attack, or a German? Somewhere around Chaulnes, 30 kilometers away, the cannon are thundering furiously. A sullen, uninterrupted growling passes over Amiens. Now and then we can distinguish the* more powerful shots of the big guns, some of which we saw passing through here. In any case, things are warming up but there. All day the battle will continue, and we shall suffer the anguish if not knowing what is happening. Are the Germans piercing the French lines? Are the French piercing the German? All around Amiens it has been thus for a month. The same villages have been fought for, the same positions taken and retaken. In some places the unburled bodies of men and animals are so numerous that French and Germans alike have withdrawn from these shambles, which war has made accursed and uninhabitable. This is the case, for example, at Roye, a little town of three to four thousand inhabitants, of which the ofilcial statements have spoken often. To find and remove the dead one has to search the cellars, go down into wells and explore crumbling ruins of masonry. A rough Parisian fireman, a brave veteran of many fires, told me that he would rather risk his life every day in a bulking building than pursue this new trade to which he has been assigned. The men engaged in it are unable to continue more than two days at a time —no human being could stand it longer.

But if it is hard for trained firemen, imagine the sensations of this old rural notary pqblic, calm and peaceful, who went to visit the ruins of his house in Albert, descended into the cellaf and there in the darkness ran against a body which swung to and fro. It had been there 15 days. He had to take it down and bury it himself. It was the body of one of the inhabitants who had killed himself during the bombardment, evidently from terror. The number of fticides in the northern provinces is Countless. The newspapers may say rothing about them, but the people knt>w, and here in the peaceful garden my companions continue to converse of these gruesome undercurrents of the war. Such horrible details could never have been imagined. It is not the dead who suffer, but the living—the men, for instance, who come back from their stay in the trenches with fevers and diseases. There are several herb in the hospital who have been delirious for days. Last night in the long white room where the flames of watchlights flickered feebly a wounded sergeant suddenly rose from his cot. "On guard! On guard!” he cried. "It’s warming up over there! Fix bayonets, boys!” Under the impulsion of the familiar words of command half delirious men all over the room staggered to their feet and rushed among the cots in their nightshirts, stumbling and shouting. The attendant who told me this still was visibly affected by the scene. He had had the»happy inspiration to command: *» “Halt! Rest arms!” And the mad brigade had obedi-

ently stood still. Some of the soldiers in this hospital have gone mad. Think, too, of the frightful life in the frenches, some of which are only 100 yards from those of the enemy. An officer described it at some length. All day a continual tension of the nerves and no chance to climb up out of the narrow ditch, even for an instant Even nightfall brings little peace, for it is the time chosen for surprise attacks. Suddenly, not ten yards from a trench, men rise from the darkness, a cry rings out; a sentinel, who had dozed in spite of himself, staggers to his feet —too late! The dazzling rays of a searchlight a kilometer away blind the men in the trenches, while the attacking forces, who have the light at their backs, charge bayonets. Then all is dark again. The searchlight is removed to escape the shells of hostile batteries. In the shadow of the moonless, starless night a frightful hand to hand fight takes place, with hoarse cries of anger and death, and with cracking of rifles. Thus the nights succeed one another, in heavy sleep full of dreams and nightmares, some of which are only too real. Hearing all this, one can understand that progress should be slow. One asks one’s self how many more months and months longer this killing of men must go on, this wearing them down, this dying of disease, this frightening them into madness, until at last the formidable invader shall have...been driven from France.