Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1916 — SCARS OF WAR SEEN ON SOMME [ARTICLE]

SCARS OF WAR SEEN ON SOMME

Fields Tom Up, Village Ruins Scattered, and Forests Torn to Shreds. DUST COVERS EVERYTHING Aspect of Newly-Conquered Territory Described by Correspondent on British Front—Gone Are Days of Ammunition Shortage. British General Headquarters. —We have Just passed through the tumbled ruins of Fricourt. The twisted tree trunks of the Mametz wood stand out naked against the skyline, stripped of their branches and foliage. The bark is gashed- showing many gaping wounds. The white heart of the wood, bared to the fierce sun’s glare, is a palpable Image of patient suffering. Along the roads leading south great dust columns rise in spirals heavenward, hiding the slow-moving horse transports. Further on broad eddies of dust ride on the passing heat currents‘scattering across the fields like spent smokd. The landscape is of a leaden gray, burled under this heavy manure of dust. Ashen gray are the tunics, the rifle barrels, even the faces of a column of men who have Just qome in from the first-line trenches. Their eyes stare out of their deepened sockets, rimmed around with dust. Their steel helmets, of darkened green, have taken on the dull-hued patina of a Greek bronze. The water caYts, the field kitchens, the heavy batteries which are being moved forward, the great lorries in long, serpent lines extending mile upon mile, all wear this pall of dust. As far as tlie eye can see are low, rolling hills, bare and treeless save for small patches of .woodland here and there. The fields are thickly grown with thistles, nettles, and lusty weeds which are waist-high.

, Can this be the land of France? Can these fields be the same which, two years ago, stood rich with golden grain? The bad lands of the Dakotas, the wastes of the Sahara, the dustswept desert of Gobi seem fair In comparison with this region of the Somme. My throat is parched, my eyes seem to be bleeding, though I have been walking but half an hour, picking my way through shell craters and upturned soil, jumping across abandoned German trenches, through a terrain littered with unexploded shells of all calibers and kinds. Here lies an innocentlooking little “Mills” bomb not much larger than a duck’s egg. The map who threw it forgot to pull out the cotter pin, so that it did not go off. Here it lies, apparently harmless, yet it has the potential strength to blow half a platoon into “kingdom come.” Next to it lies what looks like a giant’s dumb-bell. The great iron balls at each end are larger than a man’s head. I spurt forward as I trip against the connecting bar of the bomb. Nothing happens. Yet this mighty engine of war can wipe out a company. As I advance the dust grows deeper underfoot, thicker in the air, the sun’s rays more intense, more relentless. Overhead, Strung out like monster snubnosed whales on a line —a mighty catch !—the captive balloons of the. observation officers hang limply. I count 22 such craft within one short sector. Though the German Hies are in plain view, opposite us, I can only find three of their balloons. “Our airmen shoot them down as fast as the ‘Boches’ put them up,” my guide remarks in a matter-of-fact voice, as •we watch four British aircraft sweeping across the enemy lines. We push forward. The brisk explosion of departing shells, with a sharp, bark-like note, rends the air. It is a new experience to listen to the big howitzers fire in battery salvos as though they were mere 18-pounders. The smaller calibers then take up the melody, and the “forte” of the big guns, followed by the “piano” of the smaller ones, an “adagio” motif, and then a “scherzo,” make a continuous music which must be pleasant to British ears.

Here to the right is a great mound of brass, empty shell cartridge cases, 15 feet high and 40 long: It Is only one of many such heaps which I have seen here. When it is recalled that it is only the two smallest calibers of shells, the 18 and the 60-pounder, which leave any trace of having been fired in the hands of their users, and that for every two of these at least one qf the larger caliber shells is sent into "Bocheland,” as they call it out here, something of the work done by the munition makers in England can be grasped. Gone are the days when British batteries were on starvation rations, when only ten rounds were allotted to a gun, and the German howitzers could pound British trenches with impunity. Now, for every shell case empty a new one is waiting to take its place. And yet as a gunner said to me, “For every shell in hand we still need two new ones, and we know we’ll get them.” For the Germans have in no way slackened their fire.' On the contrary, they have brought.up new big guns and are still answering almost shell for shell to the British fire. Yet there is something aggressive in the British cannon roar which proclaims to all whp Avould hear that the day of smashing superiority Is at hand. i I - '-r • f