HUNS' BASEMENT FORTRESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 3 August 1917, Page 1

HUNS' BASEMENT FORTRESS.

9 [By W. Beach Thomas, in the ' Daily Mail.'] Some of our English troops, after wre; ing with zareba-s of uncut wire, captured section of a loose end of a Hindenbu : trench, and they now show you with t pride of i> 'showman a -perfect model what the Hindenbiu-g line is like. Uml the greater part of the second line ru a tunnel about 30ft below the ground wi the shafts so frequent that shell lire can the occupants no harm at all in any c i cumstanees., and any wounded man in l-et-iro to a retreat as sung as any hospit; When we bombed onv way along the upr corridor and afterwards penetrated to ti ample basement we found 21 of c wounded from the fighting of two d;i ' before and .two of 10 days before, qu comfortably installed. The retreati ! enemy had left with them, half an he | earlier, a portion of their morning coft'i ' I_ liked the responsible humanity of c . English fioldires.; they memorised the mi ; her of that German reo-iment, and t( . their fellows to have a kindly eye for a : prisoner's or wounded "of the 176 th ] - fantry Regiment of the 35th Division w ■ had shown this kindness. The Hindi ; burn line where wo have broken it was j very comfortable and sti-ong place; it I no wonder that the enemy feels rati I bitter about Its los«. I have- before j the diary of a .Prussian sergeant, who presses the general disgust in set teuns. ! extract from its many papes a short pa s .sraph on this particular' theme, under 1 x diate April 17, or eijrht days after < r first attack, when his company was hurv s lip to resist our further advance : S "It is misery to bo here; the doiis - home are better off than we are. 1 *■ | 61st Regiment is said to have bad he; ™ losses yesterday. Not half the men , left in some comjKinies. It-is a scan that the troops who were, liere bef 3 . ga-vo «P to the enemy so comfortably. • 0 beautifully built positions-, while we h. Ie to lie out here in the open. The E Bt lish are apain shooting the whole uo ip try with their artillery as if they w ," mad. What this German sergeant, whose di n- had ceased suddenly two days before ?• stained document was found, had to |* dure it> written in a plain alphabet aci * the _ newly-captured field*. Bodies . equipment lie everywhere over acre a 1-Ij acrfl of jjTomid. or