NEW KIND OF WAR

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1917, Page 4

NEW KIND OF WAR

BRITISH TAKE AND LOSE A VILLAGE.

(From W, Beach Thomas.)

France, July 31

The war was never much hotter along our front, though no battle is

being foaglit. We live in a, storm of artillery that, shocks the air over 100 miles of country—British artillery and German artillery—and the belt of war grows deeper and deeper. A isin shell or two fell recently 20 miles from the front line ; thousands of gas shells were poured into A pres; heavy shells were concentrated during the day at Coxjde, on the coast, 5 miles behind Nieuport, and at. night at Oost Dunkerque (near Coxyde), which I saw bombarded for the first time in 1914. The back areas at a score of places, untouched fcr two years, are almost daily searched, and at intervals little stretches of frontline trench are blotted out by sudden storms of fire, sometimes preparatory to a raid, as yesterday at Honnecourt, sometimes without sequel, as near Armentieres a few days earlier. What the German is doing we are doing in greater volume. The principle of retaliation holds absolutely on our side, and of course we open more attacks and deliver many more raids than the enemy. There is this difference also: the German fires more by night than day; we fire more by day than night. Yesterday the heaviest of all attacks was the German at Honnecourt, half-way between St Quentin and Cambrai. The enemy’s artillery, arranged in long-prepared positions behind the Hindenburg line, concentrated on a short reach of trench, till it was quite obliterated. Then, while the artillery continued to bombard a wide stretch on both flanks and all the rear of our position, two bodies of raiders came over in the concealmeni of smoke and dust. They wanted a few prisoners, and they took a small group of engineers, who had gone up to repair trenches and dug-outs I HDNS’ SMOKE CORPS. j But our engineers were not in- . genious for nothing, and by a quick act of presence of mind on their part and flurry on the enemy’s slipped away from their captors, who were in a frantic hurry, in the middle of No Man’s Land,

The war lian now reached this j stage: that any small bit of trench ! may be at any time completely wiped out by either artillery, and when an • attack conies nothing whatever is | visible from behind. On occasions it 1 has not even been knowu when or in I what force the infantry attack was delivered. No observer behind the front trench has seen anything. Sometimes the German infantry advance, spitting out smoke from an apparatus strapped on the back, with pipes coming under the arm.

This Honneconrt raid, though within limits successful, was also a triumph for our artillery. 'They responded to the Germans within a few seconds, and are known to have done much havoc. The}’ broke up the Germans, getting at the back of the smashed trenches, and attacked their gun positions. Our trench artillery also got to work very quickly, and some of the raiding parties wen killed by machine-gun fire.