MESSINES FROM THE GERMAN SIDE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1917, Page 4

MESSINES FROM THE GERMAN SIDE.

“ FOLLLOW THE ENGLISH

METHOD."

(From W. Beach Thomas.)

War Correspondents’ Headquarters, France, July 19.

A battlefield such as Messines has irresistible attractions as well as great repulsions when you know exactly what was done and at what I spots it was done. Here men of" Kent in one of the few bayonet charges of the day stormed a wood which had been burnt by boiling oil and uprooted by shells. Other Englishmen leaped into a sunken road irom one cross-fire into another, and spent hours in hauling out prisoners from elaborate dugouts. There the Londoners, first checked as they were last September in High Wood, gathered for a second storming as glorious as the first, and this time took no denial. And at this point other troops went through them to make further advances in the wood.

Near our farthest advance point the first soldiers over an innocentlooking slope of earth stopped astounded at the sight of an underground street running along elaborate house-fronts. As they sought their prisoners they passed through rooms panelled with hoarding or papered with canvas and hung with pictures and furnished with upholstered chairs, sofas, and the rest. They found here a boudoir and a summer-house. BATTUE RECONSTRUCTED. To-day, through the eyes of prisoners, the lessons of documents, and the evidence of the field, we can completely reconstruct the battle and its days of preparation from the German point ol view. May I compose a German officer’s diary, imaginary in structure, but containing oiilvascertained facts ? It will open about June i, then : We are told the British will attack between the 3rd and the iotli, and must expect previous raids by whole battalions. I send out patrols every night, but they bring back little news. One advantage of the British fire is that patrols have ho difficulty in getting through our wire, which is vanishing rapidly. I receive instructions that supporting battalions will counter-at-tack immediately if any ground is lost. It is curious that we are told “ to practise the English method of attack.” Have we really to learn Continental war from these islanders ?

It is ordered that an energetic officer is to walk behind each advancing company to prevent straggling, and no regiment is to know the name and the number of its neighbour. We lost last night 8 killed, 8 missing, and 35 gassed. I hear one shell hit our headquarters and killed S and wounded 18.

1 saw to-day two batteries of antitank guns with their funny little wheels go right forward almost to the support lines. Regulations of all sorts grow much stricter. I. must provide all men going back from the front trench with passes. I am told to try avoiding tactics” when the British artillery opens, but our men do not like leaving the trench for the open. Precautions against gas are now so many that company officers spend half their time seeing they are obeyed. We hear of terrible losses to our right.