WAR'S NEW MARVELS IN VERDUN BATTLE

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 173, 12 May 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

WAR'S NEW MARVELS IN VERDUN BATTLE

Lord Xorthcliffe is the principal owner of "The Times,'' the "Daily Mail," tiie "Evening News," and other British daily and weekly papers. He was at ttie French front during the terrific hat tie of Verdun, and his impressions here recorded show the s range nature of the struggle.

Those who saw the triumphant march of tiie magnificently organised German troops at Brussels in August, 1 ( J14, gathered tilt) impression that the Teutonic hordes, with their years of preparedness behind them, would he able to march about Europe, Napoleon-like, offering peace here and there as ' hey chose and demanding anything they wanted. There are a number of written records of that brilliant spectacle. Turn back to the photographs of the time and look at the impressive serried ranl:s of the many well-clothed soldiers. The first German prisoners I saw were those taken by the English in the battle of the Marne—great big Prussians, fine, smiling Saxons, well-mannered Wurtomburgers, of good physique, just such men as you would see at any German turnverc-in in the United States.

Saturday I saw the German prisoners who had escaped the hellish fire of the French seventy-fives at Verdun. Where had gone those splendid stalwarts captured in the battle of the Marne? If there be a breadline in the city iu which you live at the present moment, go have a look at it to-night and you will get a fairly accurate impression of much of the rank and file now left of the Germans.

GERMANS BEAU LOOK OF FRIGHT. Undersized, badly dressed, witli fa.-cs that bear a look of fright that seems as if it would last a lifetime, their appearance is such as would move the heart of a stone. It is difficult to believe tiiat these dregs of humanity are labelled the "corps d'elito." Exactly how they would fare in a hand-to-hand encounter with any of the 10,000 young Americans (or Australians) in the British Army need not be speculated open. As it is, the ether with which tliey were drugged before facing the French; and their giant guns, 2000 in number, under whose cover they advanced, alone enabled them to survive the terror under the influence of which some of them were almost unable to speak. With two exceptions among those with Wiiom I spoke, all were utterly weary of warfare and begged to bo told when peace could be expected. One exception was a fine young Bavarian of good class who had enlisted as a volunteer at the utbreak of war, and who is already high up in the ranks of non-com-missioned officers. I was sorry to see him anions such canaille.

The other exception «t,s a handsome Hanoverian who admitted that Germa::y could not win, but trusted there was some limit to French ammunition. I thought of the vast parks of shells now lieing built up in England and the huge sunp'ics on tha Paris-Verdiw road, but I said nothing to disturb the poor fel'ow's anxiety. The climate of Mouse and the district around Verdun is not unlike that of Scotland or Maine at this time of the year. All the more astounding is it that these poor wretches should have been thrust into tiiis struggle w:t'i clothing that lias distinctly deteriorated in quality in the last six months. Wool must be at a premium in Germany. The- German saying that everything goes to the army is certainly untrue as regards the soldiers on the front at Verdun. Clothing obviously docs not go there.

MOTIVE FOR WINTER ATTACK. I describe tko~o nun in order that the- reader may more easily put himself in a position to probe the German motive for an attack in mid-winter. Ger man-Americans reading these lines win Set occasional letters from the Fatherland through the censorship will know a little what I mean when I say that Germany is fighting against time. Food calculations have gone wrong in Germany. The calculation that England would not submit to conscription has also gone wrong. From one end of Germany to the other the word '•peace' is uttered. Its parallel throughout England and France is the word "war.'' Just as Germany did not reali'.) that England would go to the assistance of little Belgium, so she does not yet understand that the live British nations of Canada, Australia. South Africa, New Zealand, and the Home country herself, wiu.i Inu'i fn addition, are only now starting out on a war which they are preparing to wage, not only as long as war was waged by the North against the South, but as long as the war between England and Napoleon. The stupid Zeppelin trips over England, silly German newspaper threats, and the foolish idea that the capture of Verdun would in any way affect the future of the war, all point to the fact that Germany is lighting against time. I understand that the account I wrote of the batt'e of Verdun has been cabled to the United States, Canada, and Australia. It was written for Britain and France, where we have read k> much about these modern battles that I did not say as much about the actual fighting as may be interesting to those who are so far removed from tno

I would begin liy saying that in this groat struggle night and day all sense of time and being is submerged. Tlio only thin ; that seems to put a check upon the activities of tiie fiercely contending forces is a heavy fog, and night, of course, .-tops the flying men, upon whoso observations so aiuch of tlio effect of modern artillery 'ire depend;. Hut at niglit there is a great deal of saining.

CALLS i'REXCH 7-V.S BEST. It is at nigh! that most of the Iri Us of war : 0 played by one enemy upon tlio other. At night the rear nf the Iront on Imtii sid.es is alive with the bringing up of shells, food, and men who have In '■:) re-ting. At night bravo men crawl mil and oeeasionally sueeec.l in bringing hack wounded who rould otherwise freeze to death or die of exhaust ion. At the first glimpse of dawn begim the terrihle music of the guns. Both sides began this war with gun:, the greatest proportion of which wt? of three-inch ealihre. The French seventyfives, the German seventy-sevens, and the Knghsli throe-inch are. roughly, the same. Of these the French seventy-fives arwl the n.en behind them are the best, m the war. T have watched the effect ' f the simultaneous firing of batteries of four of these gnus on a given point more than three miles away, and it is such that men are swept away as wheat before the reaper. The Fiench gun has no recoil. I

By Lord Northcliffe.

have seen one fired with a glass of water placed upon it a-s an experiment, —id the water was not spilt. As the war has progressed the size of the guns has been doubled, tripled, even quintupled. Shrapnel shells, which burst and threw fragments over wide areas, have been partially superseded by shells tilled with all sorts of new explosives. People do not know that war is changing every day, and that the machinery of war is improving every day. the gunners themselves are becoming more expert. As a rule, by comparison with the mlamry, they are not killed in anything like such numbers, so that there are scores of thousands of artillerymen to-day v. ..o have been practising ai the real school of war ever since August, 1914. With the improvement in artillery and explosives, however, has come an improvement m methods of defence — deeper trenches, some thirty feet down ; higner parapets, steel shelters, steel helmets, communicating trenches through which the men can run about and get away from the front trenches almost as rapidly as rabbits, so chat the rate ct killing is not now much greater than it was at the first battle of l'pres, when the men had not learned tne power ot modern artillery or how to stop asphyxiating gas. 'the projectors, which commenced bj using chlorine gas, are now using the gas of a chemical, the composition of which I am acquainted with, it has curious effects. One, for -instance, that it poisons any food with which it comes into contact, causing death thereby. Another is that it seemingly has no effect at the moment of inhalation, 1 ut may kill the man two days alter he has breathed it. The early flame projectors used by the Germans were feeble i n comparison with the new ones.

None of these devices seems able to overcome human valour in the long run. The one weapon the Germans will not face is the bayonet. Throughout the war there has been hardly one authenticated case of a German bayonet charge against the English or French, but there are innumerable eases of them dropping hand bombs and flame projectors and fleeing before the bayonets wielded by lusty Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Canadians, and Britishers. It seems to come to this—that when every mechanical device has been tried it is the quality of the men that wins or loses. Jo the annoyance of GermanAmericans, I have never hesitated to state my profound admiration for the Germans as domestic servants. It is equal to my disbelief- in them as masters.

Their method of fighting, their massed court ~e, as it is called, is typical of Bismarck's saying:— "We Germans ere a nation of house servants."

SAYS ALLIES EXCEL IN AIR. While I was at Verdun the weather was too misty to enable me to witness tip air tights with the latest types of machines, but I had seen a number of air duels on previous < ccasions, and every time the German cleared out when he faced British or French aviators, lest, so run the o'iicial German excuses, lie should lose the machine and with it the machine's secret. There is no secret in rece.it German aeroplanes, or the aeroplanes of either side. The war has merely developed horse-power, which means climbing power. A few weeks ago the German Kokker rose to notoriety. To-day it is being outeiigined by Morauc-Sauliiier and Nieupfut and the newest type of Enciish aeroplane. The battle of Verdun is the only great struggle that has yet taken place in France or Belgium that has afforded an opportunity for a spectator to witness practically the whole conflict. .My friend Will Irwin estimates that if the respective Governments engaged in this bloody struggle would enable American spectators to witness the contest at Verdun at £4OOO a seat, enough money would be available to defray the whole cost of the Red Cro.-s work on both Sides

Lying in a shallow basin, it is possible to witness from various points almost the whole battle in comfort, apart from the appalling, deafening sound which is so continuous that those engaged get into the habit of shouting when they lvturn to the dugouts or are resting in billets.

MEN AND BATTERIES HIDDEN. Men and batteries are all hidden. When the Germans advanced in mass on February -1 and 22 they had evidently not properly located the French guns or they would never have begun the attack. *

The law of self-protection enables. birds and fish to merge their colours into their surroundings. Artillery officers have followed Nature's example. But 1 have no intention of revealing the many clever devices they invented in this respect. Exactly why the Germans selected Verdun is not known. It is believed they did so as a matter of advertisement. In ancient times Verdun was a valuable fortress. Verdun sounds well in the newspapers and communiques. To capture the Battery in New York City would sound extremely we'l in hostile communiques. Written iu the Gorman commun'.quo style, it would read something like this •

"After a terrific combat, in which we sank a large number of important transports, we succeeded in capturing the Battery, which commands the entrance to the United States and the road to Seattle."

In lead ,i\ Verdun, why not Nancy or Vpr. ■!■' One ian und< rstand the German fear ef try ng to break through the centre hue. which would mean they would probably become enveloped. Verdi:;', is no better mad to Paris, despite the German newspaper contention, than the Hattcv is in Seattle. The Germans have iu*l as mm h chain c of getting tn o.;e as tn the other. I went to s, ma ~|' i! ~ Verdun forts, and can enrrob irate the -lafenient that

the\ hive lonjr atrti heon dismantled and fire f'irts mil .' in iisinn"*. While tho'Frcmk hnv,. killed enough Germans .'it Vordu.a l>v hading them nn, troiu-li l>y i'. ni h. I>\ lotting them capture tli- cr that iininipnrtnnl vi'hi" • in return lor tlie full nrico ;, i 1,1.7m1. :t k unite pns.il.h, though 1 hnve no autlinritv for saying so. that tl e Germans niiilit lie allowed to whet their appetites hy the occupation of Verdun. 1 am not n French general, hit n his place 1 should he satisfied to let them get there, provided 1 could co c.n hilling fiernians as the Freneli have done in the last fortnight. Lookers on sometimes see most of the game, and I hw? liecome firmly rnnv'ncod that this ouoktion of the capture or los.; of a few trenches, a few villapes or towns, has nothing to do with ending the war. Cannon have heen thundering and sln-lls screaming at Yprcs for > \ ! :t:i

months, but neither side has advanced far.

The tiling that maters is that large numbers of English, Germans, and Canadians have been 1- lied or put out of action there, and that matters tnst to the Germans, who have not the resources of the British Empire to draw ¥pon.

GERMAN TRADE BEING KILLED. While the killing process is going on there is strangulation of German trade by the Anglo-French blockade. There are some who surmise that Verdun is the direct result of the blockade. Certain it is that Verdun is proof that the German nation is as closely besieged by the Allies as were the Parisians in 1870.

The sorties they are making at Verdun an d elsewhere are endeavours to bring the war to a quick close, which is exactly what John Bull and his ssociatcs have no intention of doing. Tins kind of warfare means a long war. The only way to meet it is to smash the trenches with a deluge of high explosive shells. The Germans at Verdun attacked the French trenches under cover of their artillery, but the French led them on and waited until they had an immense number of them in compace masses under the range of their barking machine-guns and seven-ty-lives, all, of course, carefully hidden, and then destroyed these unfortunate Germans before they had time to realise that, aftel all these months of war. they had fallen into an old, o!d trap.

Supposing the Germans took Verdun, it would not have any real effect on the termination of the war. To take Verdun will mean an incalculable loss of German lives, and afterward the Germans will find themselves face to face with new trenches, requiring a repetition of the same process. Nor do I believe the capture cr loss of guns amounts to much in days when guns are turned out as rapidly by each sides as automobiles ere in Detroit.

In judging this war we are much too prone to think of 'past wars. When the Russians captured Turkish guns at Erzerum it mattered considerably because the Turks have not sufficient guns. When the English capture German guns in Flanders it docs not matter much, because the Germans hav? unlimited guns. It is merely tradition and soliderly pride that cause the loss or capture of munitions to figure so largely in official communiques. The sinking of ships matters most tothe sicb with the fewer ships. Despite the loss of some ships the British nary is infinitely stronger than it was before the war. owing to the night and day building we are able to execute. The German military authorities aic not fools, but they are not masters t f the situation to-day as tiny were when they started the mad-bull rush to Pans in August, 1914. The German irmv does not particularly need a short war, but it certainly does not want a winter campaign in poor clothes and against positions which render huge loss— inevitable.

It may consent to mad exploits of the Verdun typo l)eeause it knows, as •surely as night follows day, more i:nd more men of the British Empire aro being put into the field, while fewer *md lev. or Germans and Austrians are available. That is why the Entente Allies regarded Mr. Ford's peace mission as a pro-German move.

'•TOO PROUD TO FIGHT" AMAZES ENGLAND.

To talk peace in France and England to-day when England at least is only beginning the war is to talk, fortunately in vain, in favour of German barbarism's success. There are apparently a number of Americans who like the idea of rule by a German drill sergean'. or :\ German policeman, and rather than iift a finger in the cause of freedom prefer to change the national anthem from "My Country. Tis of Thee' ; to " I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." Such Americans do not venture to show themselves in American circles in Europe outside of Germany.

The i( too proud to fight" idea is a positive staggerer over here, where America has ahvays been regarded as a virile, rod-Wooded nation.

While you are reading this in your comfortable parlours or excellent Pullman cars, a storm of Gorman rape in the form of shells at Verdun will he poured out as vehemently. T think, as they were when T watched the battle last week: but they will have no effect on the determination of the AngloSaxon and French Allies to settle this horrible business of war for at least a hundred years.