MINE WARFARE IN THE ARGONNE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2831, 24 July 1916, Page 6

MINE WARFARE IN THE ARGONNE

SOME FRENCH. EXPLOITS. (From Mr. H. Warner Allen, the Mutative- of the British Press with the French Army.) Forest of 1 Argonne, May 17. The Argonne is an ideal country for mine warfare. For months and montns tlio opposing lines hava been in close contact, and -each side has done its best to make'tho adversaries' lives impossible by every diaboli&l means provided by modern science. Nothing is more tryin" to the nerve than mine warfare. Not the least of its effects is the impression which it produces that the earth on which we live is no longer either trustworthy or solid. At the same time, the mine is often a two-edged^weapon: th.e smallest error in calculations is enough to convert the explosion that was intended to wreck the enemys trenches into a means of strengthening his lines. "The mine is like the grenade, one of the generals in the Argonne told me, almost as dangerous to the man who uses it as to the man against whom it u directed.'.' ■ . _ The Argonne, with all its coyer, is ft difficult country for. artillery, hut the French gunners there have accomplished a number of feats of which they may well bo proud. There is a point oil one of tlio tree-hidden roads of the forest which is shown to the visilor as the scene of the exploits of a certain artillery lieutenant. It is no disLwce from the German lines, but on one occasion, when the Crown Prince was- hammering away.at the French trenches and his infantry had left their co"?cr, this lieutenant brought up two 75 s and set them one on oither side of the road. There was no time to link up Ills guns to the front trenches, "hut with the aid of a compass and a map "fie biased away at tho line where he was convinced the Germans would try to pass. He knew the eountrv well, and searcelv wasted a shell, so efficient were his map and compass. The German advance stooped suddenly, and the next day the French counted four hundred bodies in the steep hillnide, for the majority of which those two Ta's had been responsible.