UNDER THE BRITISH GUNS.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 2 October 1917, Page 1

UNDER THE BRITISH GUNS.

GERMAN" PICTURE OF DEATH. "CAN ONLY TRUST TO LUCK." LONDON, August 6. A German war correspondent, Herr Max Osborne, has written for the Berlin "Zitung am Mittag" a highly vivifi) ' description of the strain inflicted by thfi recent British bombardment on the German armies in Wea 1 ; Handera. He writes:— "Nerve-rending howls and screams are rending the air from the sea to the Kiver Lys. The whole of "West Flanders is one large steaming pot, in which brew death and devastation. With the sun laughing at his brightest at us, a terrific, nerve-rending thunderstorm is raging over the land. "We arc in the midst of noises such as the earth has not heard before. Millions of capital are being blown up. It is like a cyclopcan concert of unheardof brutality, becomingly celebrating the ending of the third year of universal madness. We thought wo had grown accustomed to the activity of all this, but it is no use. Here we are up against the worst form of slaughter again. These nameless noises bring it to you with overpowering force.

"Our soldiers sit in their dug-outs like unlocked prisoners. They cannot do anything but trust to luck. Only the big guns are now talking. The infantry cannot get out, and nobody can .approach them, the way being fraught with fearful danger, all around being steel splinters, shrapnel, bullets, and stones. The soldiers smoke incessantly until tlie air in the dug-outs is heavy with 'rough-cut.' This helps them to stand the horrors of the situations.

"One is unable to think clearly. I never realised such a difficult existence. There is agony that is nameless, though the losses are not so large compared with the mass of munitions exploded. The enemy's projectiles, though striking many yards distant, hit our nerves. Nobody will ever forget the horror of it."