RIVERS IN WARFARE. THEIR VALUE IN DEFENCE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 239, 5 January 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

RIVERS IN WARFARE. THEIR VALUE IN DEFENCE.

RIVERS in the war-zone are, of course, strictly guarded. Their fords are mined, their bridges fortified, their beds filled with invisible barbed wire, their banks ringed with trenches and gun emplacements. It is impossible for a detached army corps to cross unseen and to deliver a surprise attack. Every yard of river front must bo gained by direct fighting, or by enfilading from positions won to right and left. The Aisne, The Marne, the Yser, and the Ypres Canal on the Western front have seen some desperate and bloody battles, and there is likely to be many a stiff action against water-de-fended positions before the Allies reach their objectives on the Rhine. 'file Russians have faced and carried river defences innumerable. The names of Dwina, Dniester, Stokhod, and Styrpa are familiar to the readers of battle dispatches from the Eastern front. The forcing of fortified rivers is the most dangerous and costly act in modern warfare. A whole army may be swallowed up in an untimely attack. The defensive works must be wiped out by sheer artillery fire, or rushed by weight of men. The first is an affair of weeks; the second struggle of but a few hours in which the casualties are always serious, and may be annihilating so far as further immediate advance is concerned.

Tho fortification of a bridge-head s an elaborate affair. The girder or stone o; suspension roadway is a kernel of protected forts, redoubts and trenches, and every yard of approach is contested. Then when the fortification is no longer in a condition to be defended the artillery retreats to safety, the engineers explode the charges to destroy the bridge, a- few companies or regiments may be left to be collected at lesiure and discretion by the advancing enemy, but the main army has escaped. Soma wonderful engineering feats have been done while the broken bridges were still under rifle and artillery fire. The gap between the sloping girder and the broken pillar has been filled by re.idy prepared timber, so that the obstacle which should have baulked advnace for several days has scarcely checked it for an hour. A RUSSIAN DARE-DEVIL. Stories are told of daring men who have swum the river during the night before attack 'and cut the wires which ere already laid to explode the dynamite and to wreck the bridge. A Russian dare-devil is reported to have crawled along the lattice girders of a threatened bridge, 'and to have removed tho terrible bombs which the Austrians had prepared. He was in deadly peril from rifle and machine-gun fire, but somehow managed to escape uninjured. On a previous occasion the enemy, seeing their explosive was in danger from Brusiloff's men. touched off the whole thing and blew bridge and adventurers to pieces. Incidentally—and probably this was unction to the brare Russian souls —the premature wrecking added to the ordinary trophies of the bridgehead several guns and many hundreds of m'en. Sometimes it happens th.it keen watching detects the point at which the electric wires for demolition are bunched together, and then every gun which will bear is brought into action, smashin gup engineers, batteries and ! connections. Snipers at times get into j i. position to command such a wire-head and by accurate fire have even prevent- ) ed the firing of the charge. ' Usually, however, rival armies come' face to face in trenches with the river rolling between. Heavy bombardments shatter the banks and make quagmires, but that does not prevent the preparation of pontoons, which seme midnight are launched in strings, yet so anchored that the stream floats out the farther end of the chain to the opposing shore. Star-shells, search-

lights, detect these floating masses and i-i a tew seconds the quick-firers have concentrated and are smashing the attempt to firewood. The loss of a hundred pontoons, however, does not d<eter the attack. At a score of points the floating bridges are being strung across stream, and no sooner is the far bank reached than the "forlorn hopes" are charging across, to get at grips with the enemy.

It frequently happens that a knot of men get into the enemy trenches, while the bridge at their heels is battered out of existence, and there they remain, without; supports often for a day. More pitiful is the condition of those whose pontoons break apart, carrying the crew downstream past the muzzles of hundreds of machine guns and thousands of rifles.

When ;i river is shallow enough for infantry attack a good deal of work is necessary. The sunken wire must be drawn out bv grappling irons; the holes where big shells have p'.unged must be narked and avoided; the opposite shore must, be surveyed, for the preliminary bombardment usually pulps the whole slope and leaves it impossible to climb. Luckily from the point of view of the attackers, the eniemy trenches are but shallow in such places, and heavy artillery easily knocks them and their troops to pieces. _ Under such circumstances the oncoming forces need onl yconsider the pcrK of the way and the curtain tire of shrapnel—two serious items indeed, but nothing like so deadly as the work of hidden machineguns. The fall of Babylon, after the feast of Belsliazzaiy was due to the Persian besiegers turning aside, at considerable lebour, the entire course of the river which flowed through the high-walled city, and then marching their legions through the empty water-course. Both this trick and it 3 converse—the building of a (him to flood out the trenches which command the ford by which tho advance has to be made —have been used succesfnlly in the present campaign. FERRYING THE GUNS. Artillery crosses rivers either on pontoons or by the repaired bridges. In the first case many lively incidents are expected, for usually the operation is done within range of the enemy"s fire. Horses, men, guns, ammunition, are piled on rickety craft indeed and launched, often to take ground yards below the proper landing place. Then the men tumble overboard, swim their hoises to some low place in the bank, and in a few minutes have rigged up a gear sufficiently powerful to haul the quick-firer up the awkward slope. Of course by the time the main body of troops and artillery comes along the pontoons have become properly anchored and "well-finished bridges of boats, and the maddening shell and rifle hie of the enemy has ebbed miles awny. Crossing a river may seem a small incident in a widfe-fronted campaign, but it is a serious business, and much thought is given to all details. Once safely over, the attacking line spreads out,"enfilades the enemy trenches, and surrounds and outflanks the redoubts thrown up at bridges up and down the stream. The whole plan of campaign may turn on the gaining of a certain ford or bridge, and events five hundred miles away may be governed by the skill and luck of some regimental commander.

Once, however, (tl<e enemy line, whether' in France or in Galicia, is properly broken, the elaborate fortifications which have so hampered movements will be impossible to the enemy, and than one may expect to hear of cavalry galloping through or swimming the slow-running rivers in their pinsuit. Cavalry of all arms are least dependent on roads, pontoons and bridges, and surprise attacks by their aid arc possible.