Difficulties of the Advance

Levin Daily Chronicle, 27 September 1917, Page 1

Difficulties of the Advance

GERMANY'S ELABORATE DE FENCE SYSTEM DESCRIBED.

A cable published yesterday briefly gave Mr Robinson's (London "Times" correspondent) description of the now German methods of basing their defence oil a great depth, crowding troops on very narrow fronts, supported by strong reserves further back ready. for immediate counter-attacks, the whole area being sprinkled with concrotc redoubts and massed guns 4000 to 7000 yards behind the front line. This new system is more fully described by an American correspondent accompanying the British armies in Franco and Belgium. He states that the beginning of the fourth year of war has found the Germans rapidly making a radical change in their system of defence along the British battlefront in Northern Franco and Belgium. The continuous line of wonderfully constructed forward trenches, with their deep dug-outs, in which lived and fought great numbers of men, arc fast passing into the discard. The enemy is adopting a- system of scattering his advance forces over a great depth. Cunningly constructed strongholds among the shell-holes now conceal innumerable small and more or less isolated garrisons of men who formerly fought shoulder to shoulder among great stretches of picturcsquo ditches, through which communication was not broken for miles. This alteration has been brought about by the ever-growing preponderance of the British artillery, which buried the German front-line trenches under an avalanche of shells and has left the defences nothing but heaped furrows of earth, and has made the famous dug-outs veritable man-traps in which countless thousands have lost their lives without a chance of fighting back. The continuous deluge of breaking steel made repair work on the trenches impossible, and as the Germans were gradually pressed back they, of necessity, were forced to invent another mode of stemming the ever-advancing tide.

So, declares the writer, it has come to be depth of defences upou which the Germans depend in many places rather than the strength of his first line trenches. The recent Allied offensive east and north of Yprcs disclosed many examples of this new scheme of fighting, which bids fair to take the place of tlio tactics of the last three years. Wherever the German front line trenches have been made untenable, or where a British attack is expccted, one finds the new order of things. The first German lines now often consist of strong outposts concealed in shell craters or copses, and a considerable distance apart. Back of these outposts are

cliains of shell-hole nests, each nest consisting of two or three craters connected by underground passages that often lead to dug-outs. As the cut're territory is pitted with holes, this is easy of accomplislnncnt, and it may be presumed that the Germans believe it will bo hard for the Allied observers to pick out the defended sliell-holcs from the thousands cf others scattered about.

Where time has allowed, the Germans have made the shell-hole defences with elaborate care. Each nest is heavily protected ljv barbed wire, and the chambers beneath are reinforced by timbers and concrete. In these the infantry lurk with machine-guns and rifles, rendy to rush out and begin firing if an attack is launched against them. "A bird's-eye view of hell." is th:> description of the Flanders battlefield given by an American aviator who flew over it at the bright of the great Allied offensive. "I flew at an altitude of about 20,000 feet." he wrote. "The land was marked by yawning craters and holes, welling with water. Wounded men struggled through the mud. Tanks wallowed through the swamps like monsters. The old enemy first and second lines could bo traced with difficulty. German wire entanglements were buried. Down below I could see tiny figures of men—French and British infantry— frantically digging in everywhere far in advance of th"ir objectives. Stretch-er-bearers could be picked out, crawling back with bandaged wounded. A German biplane could be seen half buried in muck. Further back, scurrvig from shell-hole to shell-hole, the grey of German infantry could be discerned. Hundreds of spans bridged the stagnant Yser Canal, and over these bridges scurried men and supplies. I could see artillery hurrying to advanced positions. Over all this dark scene of carnage lowering black skies poured an unceasing tori-cut of j rain. The roar of guns was indcscrib-