A STORM OF SHELLS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2754, 25 April 1916, Page 6

A STORM OF SHELLS

NEW RECORD ESTABLISHED AT VERDUN THE CRITICAL POSITION (From Mr.'H. Warner Alien, Special Correspondent of the British Press ■ with the French Armies.) Verdun, March 4. Verdun is French to-day as it always will bo despite the rncnace of tho German Army and the threats of the Crown Prince. As we came into the town— tho first civilians who have reached Verdun since its evacuation, Mr. Elmer Roberts, of tho Associated Press of the United States, and myself, with Captain Semcnoff, who is representing the Russian Press —the air was trembling with tho noise of tho battle that was raging round Douaumont. Even some five miles away the. noise of the German artillery was deafening. For minutes together it was absolutely a continuous crash upon crash and bang upon bang, hug© German shells bursting in and all round the town, and the French guns answering from every slope. Silence seemed an impossible ideal. Yet even outside the town from time to timo there would come a silence, perhaps of thirty seconds, and it . was more nerveracking than the 'eternal boom of bursting German shells and" the trembling of the earth beneath the reply of the French artillery. During these silences one was waiting in tense expectation for the infernal din to break loose again. Peace in the Town. In the town, however, where several big German shells were failing every minute, tliero is comparative peace. Houses deaden sound to a surprising extent, and in some of the small winding streets of Verdun one can fancy that the explosions that are destroying houses a few hundred yards away are merely distant artillery practice. The German High Command told the infantry that they would have nothing to do but march into captured French villages, and eventually Verdun, at- the goose step. The artillery was to do all the work. Never before had so many heavy guns and such superabundance of ammunition been concentrated on a single point of tho front. The infantry, which had never regarded the , prospect of storming Verdun with great equanimity, as we know from prisoners, were naturally delighted and determined to do the Paraden Marsch with the maximum of smartness and discipline. Later on they fought magnificently, but it is noticeable that every prisoner taken complains bitterly of the way in which he has been deceived by his officers.

It was at 7 a.m. on February 21 that the great German offensive against Verdun began. Everywhere upon the French line there raged such a storm of huge projectiles as has never before been known in the history of war. Verdun was heavily bombarded and also its lines of communication. The enemy was obviously trying to destroy the railway and the bridges across the Meuse. As far ,as tho front French lines were concerned the whole force of the enemy's artillery was first /concentrated on the Bois d'Haumonti ( Practically no small-calibre guns were used by tho Germans,' and their main artillery preparation was made by eight and .twelve-inch guns. ' "They used their 12-inch guns just as 'we use our seventy-fives,"- said a captain to me. He had come through tlio preliminary bombardment unscathed, and he meant by his phrase that there was a hail of heavy shell upon the French trenches that was only comparable with the "rafale"' of tho French seventy-fives, which fire twenty rounds a minute. He told'me, also, that the craters made by the shells lost their shape entirely. Instead of being circular, cone-lilto excavations they were shapeless, irregular holes, for shell after shell burst within an inch or two of the same spot. He himself, with his colonel, had taken refuge from the storm in an admirable circular crag' made by a twelve-inch projectile. Hardly had they got there when a shell burst on the north side of the; crater, and threw them both over on their stomachs. A second later anothor shell burst on the southern edge just as they were struggling on their feet, and threw them both 011 their backs. "How we came out alive from that inferno," ho said, "is a thing that I shall never understand." .

A colonel told me that on a front of a thousand yards, with a_ depth of about five hundred, not less than 80,000 big shells had fallen within six hours. Small wonder that • even the officers who had been through the Battle of Champagne declared that the French artillery preparation on that occasion ivas a mere nothing compared with the weight of artillery used by the enemy in the Battle of. Verdun. The defensive organisation of the Bois d'Hau-, mout was absolutely shattered and the concentration of the German artillery Bteadily moved towards the French right. . , ' Trenches Swept out or Existence. First the trenches of the Buis des Caures and then those of the Herbebois were literally swept out of existence. Throughout the assault the Germans followed this plan, .concentrating their guns lirst on the French left, and then moving the direction of the fire gradually towards the French right. Victory or defeat in the battle of Verdun, the greatest battle of the war, depends on one little .strip of . ground,less than five miles broad, between the hill that is called the Cote du Poivre and the fort of Douaumont, a plateau that is the outermost of the defences to Verdun. On this plateau the French have everything to gain,' and the.v are sure of victory. Every officer, every mail, even the wounded who have cope back to-day from the line of fire, are convinced that the German is beaten. They have clone their worst, but France has gone one better. Even jf the French, last this lino of defenco they have other positions on which they can fall back, and where they can oppose to ,the an almost irresistible barrier before Verdun is really in jeopardy. Supiiose, for an instant, the impossible: suppose that Verdun was taken. Behind it lie line upon line of organised entrenchments and barbed wire entanglements with full provision of men and artillery, and these the enemy can never carry, even if lie is prepared to sacrifice millions of men. The day when tho capture of a fortress meant tho surrender of a great army and the breaking of the enemy's line has passed away. Verdun is merely a point in the great barrier, five hundred miles long, that has been drawn across Belgium and Franco to cheek the advance of the barbarians. Certainly it has its strategical importance, but it is equally, certain that from'this point'of view it is far less important than, say, Nieuport; Germany, and the dynasty that rules Germany, has been compelled b.y the force of circumstances to stake everything on a moral victory. The Crown Prince hoped by the capture of Verdun to retrieve his military reputation and the decaying prestige of the Central Empires, siiice Verdun, as tho result oi past traditions, is a household word and the symbol of the impregnable fortress. The neutral and the man in the street have not yet realised that the term "fortress" has in modern warfare lost its ancient significance. If tho Crown Prince fails, Germany has staked her all 011 an attempt which, if it fails, as it surelv must, may well prove a deathblow to tho Empire.