THE GREAT PUSH

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2860, 26 August 1916, Page 10

THE GREAT PUSH

OFFICERS' FIGHTING STORIES

CURIOUS INCIDENTS

Nobody who talks with the wounded of the new Army can think that trench/1 warfare has a tendency to destroy a soldier's keenness in attack (says a writer in the "Westminster Gazette"). Officers and men all speak with excitement and delight of "c;oing over.' 1 That i.s the universal phrase. One officer put it, "Going over means to us tho dash into open air and freedom after the tedious, cramping lifo of tho trenches.. Wo were all fed up with trench life. We had been shut up behind the bars of our trench all i.l-eso months, and now we were free. There was no need' to urge tho men on when thev were climbing on and up. They were wild to get out, and this was Jtho view of a man from Bedford, wiio was full of enthusiasm for the great push." In the same- strain an officer Irnm Kent spoke of tho fascination of raiding ; these little raids are regarded as a "sort of picnic amid the tedium of trench life, and a fairly cheap .picnic too. He had taken thirty-five men put on one of these expeditions riear.Armontieres, and had brought them all back again, one man with a bullet in the leg, and himself with a millet in the shoulder. The excitement becomes a kind of passion, he explained, and there-is tremendous keenness among the men for the job. Some .-oldiers want to he always at it. The fun of tlie whole thing is the look en the scared faces of the Bosclics when you got to their trenches. He thought these raiding tactics one of the happiost inspirations of the war. J hey had broken the monotony of trench life and kept tho Bosclics in perpetual suspense. , ' People used to wonder how the clerks and factory workers of Lancashire would stand military lite, and what kind of soldiers they would make. There can be no doubt of the answer after the events of the last week, and the wonderful fighting of the Manchesters. I was talking to one of the wounded Manchester, one of ten men employed in a weaving mill before the war, writes a correspondent. His battalion was' to start at 8.30 to take a tillage; another battalion starting at 7.30"t0 take the trenches. Tho 7.30 men were to put bridges across the trenches when they had taken them, and the 8.30 men were to follow on and sweep over the trenches into tho village. The first- rush;was an immediate success, and before tho 5.30 men started German prisoners were coming in in great numbers. It was a curious spectacle, for the German prisoners were so relieved to find themselves out of the bombardment that they were laughing and joking, so everybody was in the best of humours, for the Manchester men, all agog to get off, were amused by the sight of the cheerful prisoners, and they began to think that perhaps the Germans holding the village would be just as happy to he made prisoners. Off they started, and they ran straight into a storm of machinegun lire. Hut they went on, in little groups of five or six, with cigarettes between their lips and Lancashire jokes, in their mouths. Of course they had casualties —my friend ' among them — but hot a man faltered.

An officer in the Lancashire Regiment gave an amusing description of a scene in a trench abandoned by tlie Germans. Another regiment had been sent to take a certain wood, and they had taken over a thousand prisoners. The officers were described as looking as if they were dressed for parade, with their uniforms quite clean. When his battalion relieved this battalion they bad, to drive, the Germans from another line of trenches. When this had boon accomplished successfully they entered Hit; trench and dug-outs belonging to the officers and men who bad surrendered, and they found them fitted up like dressing-room's in a hotel. There wero electric light, a great'water pum\), : amt abundance of clean chjtho.s, shirts, linen, boots, washing and shaving gear, cigars, cigarettes, and food. It looked ns if the German officers had expected to be there for many a long month and Ihey certainly had never exported this beautifully-ap-pointed place to fall into the hands of the British.

An officer with an eye for the mysterious, noted two strange incidents in the Croat Push. Just before, the offensive four dogs came out of the German lines and crossed over to our lilies. The Germans whistled and shouted, hut the deserters held steadily on. Our men, of course, hailed it as mi omen. The otlie>" incident "vas still more curious. Tu this war-scourged wine there is a road called Crucifixion Avenue. When our men reached this road they found every tree destroyed hy the. bombardment, and the road bad been Hanked by trees on both fides, lint the lanro crucifix still stood there, and when it was- examined closely it was impossible to find a single trace of shrapnel lire.