Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1916 — PENS PICTURE OF VERDUN BATTLE [ARTICLE]

PENS PICTURE OF VERDUN BATTLE

Correspondent Gets a Glimpse of the Great Struggle in France. TELLS A TALE OF HORROR French Artillery Batters Down Dikes of the Meuse, Flooding Field of Fallen Germans—Grim Fight for Life. In the Village, Northwest of Verdun. —Yesterday I witnessed a great battle, the climax of the Verdun struggle, writes a special correspondent of the New York Times and the Chicago Herald. What a fury of charge and coun-ter-charge of two nations at grips on the blood-stained slopes among the Bhell-torn trenches these words could convey! In reality It is very different. Imagine yourself In the dark cabin of a ship, the whole fabric of which shudders in the tumult of her mighty engines as you peer through a narrow slit at a quick-changing cinema on a distant screen. For that was Verdun battle as I saw it, save that those rapid glimpses revealed horrors no producer would dare feature. Captain A. had led me through a maze of trenches to an observation post buried deep in a hillside due -south of-Gumieres-villager - Two officers and some soldiers are at work regulating the fire of a battery two miles In the rear upon the German trenches down to our right, near the river, where the enemy is massing for an assault. At the same time they directed a searchlight whose rays illuminates their field of vision. “Follow the searchlight and you will soon pick out the German trenches and see the effects of our fire,” says my guide. It Is a patch of field, streaked diagonally by a dark line, which is the German trench. Clouds of smoke obscure it at intervals, stabbedby swift flashes. I watch interminably. Nothing changes. Then the observer throws another order into the telephone and a second ray doubles the field of view. He turns' toward his companion at the table and reels off figures in a

level, unhurried tone. The latter transmits more figures to the soldier, who has resumed his telephoning. Suddenly the field patch Is covered with scurrying dots, like a mass of excited ants, rushing forward across the light, out of the picture into the darkness. It is the enemy charging at last. Then a dense thunder-cloud covers everything. The searchlight’s rays beat vainly against its yellowish walls. The glass trembles In my hand. Like a nightmare vision, conjured by magic amid the smoke, a horrible scene Is revealed; first dimly, then clearer and finally very distinct, In the sharp white light. The field, the dark line and the rushing ants have disappeared. In their place a ragged hollow, wherein blocks of earth like huge tree trunks roll and quiver. Among them the tiny dark things are writhing like fallen leaves fluttered by the breeze. Those shapeless objects are German soldiers. As the smoke cleared I distinguished arms raised in agony or supplication. Some try to crawl upward; they form heaps, sliding back together as one mounts another and drags him down. Meanwhile from the right of the scene what seems to be an immense blacksnake creeps forward. In the ray of the light it glimmers, and the observer beside me muttered: “My God!" It reaches the lip of the hollow and the mass of crawling men quiver with a new agitation. It is the water* of the Meuse overwhelming the Germans by the same concentration of melinite that ruptured the river’s dikes. With frantic gestures the Germans fight up-

ward. There comes a flash and another cloud-patch, half veiling the chaos of earth and water and drowning men. Then the shellß begin to fal® rapidly and the searchlight abandons the struggle against the smoke, swinging higher along the bare hillside. A few moments later it returns I see a placid pool glimmering beneath the ray, save where a glimmering spot of blackness is floating motionless. I look at my watch. Three hours have passed since we entered the post- That is what I saw of the greatest battle for Verdun.