Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1916 — TWELVE FIGHTS IN ONE NIGHT FOR TREE STUMP [ARTICLE]

TWELVE FIGHTS IN ONE NIGHT FOR TREE STUMP

Hartmannsweiler-Kopf in the Vosges Is Scene of Constant Fitting. TRENCHES FIVE YARDS APART Character of Warfare That Has Engaged Armies in Alsace for Seventeen Months—Capture of Cemetery Costs More Dead Than Were Ever Buried in IL London. —The following is published in the London Daily Express from its correspondent in Paris: “When the snow-laden wind comes roaring over the Alsatian hills, its icy blast chilling the body to the bone, ‘poilus,’ huddled together, many feet below the ground, draw their blankets closer around them, for the blizzard creeps down every nook and cranny, and the men, now experiencing their second winter campaign in the Vosges, mumur: ‘How cold the Boches must feel!’ “This note of cheerfulness prevails throughout the French lines, and nowhere more than in this sector of the front. I have chatted with Turcos, who now see snow for the first time, and with men whose extremities were frost bitten last winter, but everyone is happy with the idea that, no matter how much he feels the cold, the plight of the Germans must be much worse. “Here We are in German territory; there is no gainsaying that aid to cheerfulness. How far we have progressed I am forbidden to state, but I can affirm that no fewer than twenty ( Alsatian towns are now within the penny postal rate of France. Every yard gained is a step nearer the Rhine, but for every foot of ground conceded by the enemy there is bloody fighting. Hartmannsweiler-Kopf has become a symbol of the conflict in Alsace; in no other sector of the front, so the French general staff say, has the fighting been so severe, but the importance of its loss or gain must not be exaggerated. “The summit, it is true, commands a great portion of the plains of Alsace, but ever since the French first reached the foot of the hill the whole of Hartmannsweiler-Kopf has never been wholly in the possession of either French or German. Warfare in Black and White. “Here is warfare in black and white. The black uniforms of the Chasseurs Alpins are silhouetted against a background of snow. From an observation post one sees columns of sure-footed mules carrying parts of guns, and companies of men, like myriads of ants, crawling through the mountain passes; or again, patches of black, vague smudges, whirling over the snow. More Chasseurs Alpins rushing on skis over hill and dale, stopping, twisting, firing and rushing on again; agile little men who are the terror of the Germans’ lives in this sector. “Tales of their daring are legion. It Is not so long ago that a handful of them crawled through the German lines and brought back a munition train! It was in the early hours of a winter’s morning. They found the train with steam up; the was started, the enemy was taken completely by surprise, and the train was brought to a spot near enough to the French lines for the men to remove the munitions and destroy the train. “The Chasseurs, or ‘blue devils’ as they are called, were concerned in the taking of Sudel farm, which opened up the road to the Reinbach valley. After some skirmishing between outposts the French established themselves on the River Sutz. The snow was falling thickly when the French began their advance in the teeth of a hurricane of shells that came from the German batteries on the hills behind Cernay, but nothing daunted the "devils,” although they) were two days on the way, sleeping in the snow. “At dawn on the third day the French outposts heard the sound of firing. It was caused by the skiers, who had been out all night looking for the, enemy. They returned, bringing back with them two wounded German officers and six men. “The ruins of the Chateau Freudstein concealed the guns, and massed in neighboring valleys were the Germans. Enemy airmen had been hovering over the column since it set out, and undoubtedly the enemy was trying to draw the French into a trap, but Teuton slyness went astray. Soon the enemy found he had no chance of ambushing the French, and he changed his tactics and sent out one company from a Bavarian regiment to wipe ov*. the 'blue devils. ’ The speed of the men on skis was too great, however, for the heavy-footed Boches and they were soon’ outdistanced. A French battery of heavy artillery received a telephone message giving them, the approximate range, arid after a period_of bombardment the guns in the ruins of the chateau were silenced. Storming Sudel Farm. j “Then came the opportunity sought by the‘devils;’ they began their attack against the center of the' position, which was Sudei fa rm.-'They advanced under cover to within about

three hundred yards of the position they had to storm, but the last stretch was across open ground. “After a brief but sanguinary action the position was carried, enabling the Chasseurs to open a murderous fire on their front and right. “Without the expected support of their artillery in. the chateau, the Germans were powerless against the human waves that swept over them, and they withdrew, but in good order, fighting a rear-guard action until the ‘blue devils' charged with the bayonet. The action terminated in a complete rout of the enemy and about 300 unwounded prisoners remained in the hands of the French. “A recent German communique spoke of a repulse of a French attack ‘near Metzeral,’ but omitted to mention that Metzeral is in the hands of the French, and has been so ever since our gallant allies won one of the most brilliant battles of this war. When the French advance approached Metzeral the Germans began to make a fortress of this little Alsatian town, and the streets were barricaded with barbed wire, and overturned carts masked machine guns. The battle began by an attack launched against the forest. Trees were uprooted in hundreds by the French guns, and gradually the enemy was pushed out of the forest, but it was only then that a fresh surprise was sprung on the French. “The enemy had dug trenches in the forest, which he filled with barrels of tar; these were connected by electricity with a point behind the German lines, and as the French rushed through the forest the barrels were ignited. Nevertheless, this did not stop the advance. They reached the outskirts of Metzeral, and here the fighting became furious. A number of factories were defended by the enemy, and each had to be carried separately by the attacking party. “From windows machine guns poured a hail of lead on the hejds of the French. The men had to break down the doors and fight their way up, story by story. South of the town the enemy defended the cemetery, which held up the attack for a whole night. The tombs were already torn away by the French shells, but the vaults were the scene of fighting of the grimmest description. The handles of coffins were wrenched off and used as knuckle-dusters by the enemy, who made a most stubborn defense; every vault sheltered a small battle, and the vaults themselves had previously been mined by the enemy; when they became no longer tenable they were blown up. Capture Metzeral Cemetery. “The cemetery was carried in the early hours of the morning, but not before it held more dead than ever were buried in-it. “The taking of this salient did not complete the task set to the French. Practically every house in the town was defended, and from cellar to the top story the French had to fight their way before Metzeral was finally in their hands. Truly, the enemy has not cause to make much mention of Metzeral in his official communications. “At the same time that the French were attacking in this sector, a second successful offensive movement was being carried out along both banks of the Feeht. Two important hills, Nos. 665 and 698, were stormed, and eventually Sillackerwasen was taken. From this point Munster was bombarded, which led to the evacuation of this town, _ “The progress along the crest of Linge, about .five miles north of Munster, led to the withdrawal of the German troops here, although strong re-enforcements had only arrived three days previously, but the terrible fire of the French artillery paralyzed the men fresh from the drive in Russia. They were, neverthless, put in to garrison the town, and there they probably remain, still bombarded by the French, who are slowly but surely creeping along the Munster valley. “Altkirch was evacuated by the Germans two weeks ago, and not for the reasons put forward by the Basel newspapers. The Germans have insinuated that the civil population was Withdrawn because of the arrival of fresh troops to undertake an offensive in this sector, but the truth is that the lower part of the town is flooded, as it usually is at this period of the year, and the French advance towards Altkirch has made the town unhealthy for the civil population. "Hartmannsweiler-Kopf is likely' to figure in the French communiques for some time to conia, for the Germans will never give up their counter-at-tacks until they are driven away from their side of the hill. Surprise attacks here are always to be expected, for both sides now know every inch of the ground, and on the summit of the hill the German and French trenches are only about five yards apart. This seems impossible, but it must be remembered that it is the Individuality of the solfiler that counts for everything. Twelve Battles a Night. “Very often a battle, lasting some hours will take place for the possession of a mere stump of a tree, and a tree stump has been known- to change hands twelve times during the course of a night. An account given to me by! a French soldier of a recent French offensive on Hartmannsweiler-Kopf is dramatic in its simplicity. This *rnnri Ima taken part in no fewer than fifteen battles for the hill. “‘The crest of the hill was white With smoke,’ he says. ‘For two days both sides had left the top of the hill, because both our guns and theirs were raking the ground We had buried the German dead the first time the crest came into our possession, but their big

shells, from a battery of Austrian guns, 305’s, disinterred their dead, so that when we charged we stumbled over arms and legs and limbless trunks. “Our attack was launched from three sides; the first charge only took us forward about 150 yards, and then we had to return to our original positions; it was heartbreaking. Before iwe could attack again the enemy sent up re-enforcements, but something must have gone wrong, for hundreds of their men were cut down by their own artillery firing from the ruins of the Hitzstein chateau. 4'We ceased our attack when night, fell, but, our artillery redoubled its furious bombardment of the enemy’s trenches. Their guns fired at ours, and ours fired at theirs and at their trenches. Thirty feet below the ground, snug in our dugouts, we could feel the earth trembling. The Germans kept their men in the trenches because they never knew when our artillery would cease firing and our in* fantry attack begin again. That 18 why we captured more than thirteen hundred prisoners. They were haggard and shaking when they were marched into our lines, for no soldiers on earth could stand what our artillery gave them. “We had very slight losses, comparatively, when we stormed the positions the next day, and if it had not been that the enemy had a few machine guns undestroyed by our fire our losses would have been very much smaller. “I have been here in Alsace for sixteen months,” he added. “I have been wounded three times, and always on the slopes' of ‘Vieil Armand.’ Terrible? Not at all. Think what an awful time the Boches must be having!’ ’