WAR FRONTS COMPARED

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2677, 25 January 1916, Page 6

WAR FRONTS COMPARED

AUSTRALIAN CORRESPONDENT'S ; . IMPRESSIONS ; CAPTAIN BEAN IN FRANCE MORE HARDSHIPS ON GALLIPOLI The following special, dispatch has been received from the .Australian war correspondent, Capt. Bean:— ' { . London. Januap- 22. By the kindness; of the British . War Office, I have 'been- permitted -to pay a short visit to the British front in France and Ftyndcrs, .which I' was' particularly desirous of making in order to be able to draw a just comparison bet'ween.'the conditions, of the . campaign in Gallipoli and tlio Be of the great; struggle on. the _ Western front. My experience of officials in dealing with' correspondents,"-has' been, from first to last, that, far from putting difficulties- in our way, as the .common supposition is, they .liavo consistently goneiiout of : their way to help one in-tho perfonna.nce.of.oiie's duties to the fullest extent;' consistent Hvith'. the'regulations.! Finest Trenches at Calllpoli. ' i. The trenches at Anzao ivere much the tost; .in ■ Gallipoli, and were incomparably more elaborate than the /best I have seen in France. In France, the troops, •while.making the trenches,-, have 'to struggle the whole time against the influx of water, except for a portion of the summer, wlien the earth is dry. ... In -Flanders", '.as in the lower parts of Gallipoli, the troops have taken constant steps against the encroachment of water. Tunnelled trenches, like those on which there was a complete system around parts of the Ap'j&c line, would immedi-ately-fill with water in most parts of tho line here, and would have to be eliored up heavily with wooden props -and roof-beaihs. A system of. deep dugouts into tho heart of the hills, into iwhich 'a great part _ of an army , corps, could be marched, and live there as long 'as it wished in perfect security from any fenoTO'projectile,^iwoiddvb'e"quite ..out of. -the" question ou .'some parts-'of.the Westf em front." ' .The conditions'- at Anznc madej'it : possible to dig, there, , with, the; • immediate labour, what were' probably somelof the best trenches known to military soienco. .%e ; 'ai#}lery-firef in France seemed to, 'me to! he about, as Constant. as 'in' Gallipoli. The target'for the German guns here is nothing like so'crowded and con. centrated," as the.'closely-peopled areas at Holies .and Suvla. '■'! On tho other hand, the Turks were inot generally such gunners, and I doubt'if their explosive was always of. the" niost moderns The fearful bombardments which both sides administer to each-other in. France, and Flanders ;were never approached ill Gallipoli, ex-1 copt by the French guns, and on a few .occasions by our. naval.guns, when they caught the enemy coming down the sea-, ward .sloped of'tho hills. ; The 1 Allied lines'-in Gallipoli l were.never "subjected to such torrents of shell as preceded and succeeded battles like Loos . and ;Neuve''Cha-pello." "■ " The Tension at Anzao. \

■ The tension in the trencbes on Galli'poli, and especially at Anzac, ( was considerably greater than in Prance; The i old liiie of Anzac originally hung on to edge of $ hilltop cliff, and the only way to create second and <third lines was constantly to push forward and steal ,the ground from under the enemy's rifles. This work never ended from tho day we landed to the very last week; Constant sapping, tunnelling, and min- | ing along the whole line, at immense : labour, finally produced two or three, i and sometimes more, lines of, wonderI ful deop : trenches, and brought our lines in a. number of places to within twentyfive yards ■ of the enemy, and in several places within fifteen yardsj or even closer. This mining, which was not hampered by water, was continuous along a great part of the enemy's line. ; The enemy' was constantly mining towards us, in order to. deprive us of our narrow ground, and, though the Turks 'were 'utterly outclassed at the game, : this made the normal tension.along the .front line greaterthan seemed to me to exist.-in tho portions of the line which I'saw in France. I i Tho whole of the great system of the-hinterland which so impresses every visitor to the Western line—the im■mense convoys of heavy,lorries camped ■' on tlio roadside, or trooping slowly across the flats: —was, of. course, absent !in Gallipoli. Our hinterland ended ; from half a milei to a mile,and a half from the trenches.

Hie exaggerated effects of shell fire in tons, the _ heartrending spectacle of a civilian lying face downward in a gutter, ; old women running towards tragedy or away from it, young wives with little I' children standing in open doorways with strain imprinted on every line of their : pale faces—we saw none of these in Gal-" : lipoli. There you did hot 'feel 'the' pre--1 sence of real enmity which, in spite of cheery faces, v gives a constant sensoof seriousness in the Frenches in the Wfist. The" combat iiu Gallipoli' waß ! not fought with gas or-eyen'with the newest and greatest guns and projecI tiles. ; The army there had to do with- ! what. it could conveniently; procure;'for ■ example, the bombs on both sides were on the whole more old-fashioned ;than in ' 'France. The ' Strain of .hand-to-hand : bomb fighting'was more general in Gallipoli, : because, the lines were, on the whole, closer,-; More Hardship at Oallipoli: Summer in Gallipoli was trying owing ; to the dust and heat, and especially to the flies, which resulted in far more sickness, but I; doubt if the weather con 7 ' ditions were so disagreeable as the mud, rain, and slimy, wet, crumbling trenches of tho'Western front. The real discom- : fort of all in the Gallipoli campaign was ! that whatever • discomforts there -wore, whether shells, rifle'-firo, flies, the untold . hard work of tunnelling, trench digging, i and food and water carrying, tho lack of. wood and. iron, and, last but least, the lack of canteen stores, such as tinned fruit!and butter, it was impossible to obtain.relief from them. Brigades wero in the trenches for four, five, and six ' months without relief. The' so-called Test-camp was often within a hundred yards of- the firingline, and was always und&r shell-fire, and the rest consisted largely of mining and ■frater carrying, so that the units honestly'preferred tho trenches. The 'Army Service Corps, ambulanceSj and , some of the hospitals were always within range, and possibly lost a higher proportion of men. from shell-fire than if • they had been in the trenches. Brieade, Divisional, and even Army Corps' Headquarters were much closer than many battalions' headquarters in France. In short, each field of the war has ■peculiar difficulties. _ But what I have seen in France convinced mo that the Gallipoli campaign has been rightly estimated as one of somewhat exceptional and unavoidable hardship.