In the West.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 59, 8 November 1915, Page 6

In the West.

STEADY IMPROVEMENT. United Press Association. London, November 7. The Morning Post’s correspondent i.f the north of France has no doubt that the situation on the West front, 0 i broad lines, is steadily improving, ihough there'is no spectacular ad-, \ nice. A great deal too much had Fen made of certain local successes by a public anxious for some big event, and the same public became d pressed because a local success had n./t proved a smashing blow. However, each local success was only of; groat importance in itself, but was’a 1- ..rt of the great plan, the key whereof is in one man’s hand, the hand of a .•wrong man. General J off re Amsterdam, November 0. The Vossiche, Zeitung gives a vivid description of the lighting on the Western front. It says: “The wild days of the battles in September wrought a new spirit in the trenches. The lighting in Flanders, Artois, Champagne, and Lorraine is more 1 indent and cruel, and the embitter-] maut of the great offensive still! ", ibrates in the air. Hitherto tbc| .most merciless lighting was confined to the Argonne, where the woods favored horrible methods which have n !W extended along the whole front, ’the oldest forms of weapons, combined with the most modern engines which science lias devised (steel arrows, the fire-arrows of aviators, and liquid fire), recalls the ancient days v. hen slings were used for pitching into tveneh mines. Some Roman weapons, such as blind grenades, were importcut in the seventeenth century, and even the old-time visor has been revised us a protection against poison-, (us gasses. The present day masks | make their wearers resemble ghostlv r . . retires, associated with the inquisition, and even horses wear masks in! tile poison zone. Thus the battle : v.:ays, with thrusting, wrestling, throttling, biting. Men are even list 1 1 j fist, and throat to throat, yet the General Staff report ‘nothing new.’ i ho occasional courtesies of the earlier n,miner are things of the past, and Mm troops no longer exchange harm- ! s- jests. When missives are exelm nged they are of the most im-l-hvisant and hateful character. Thus I!;.* bitterness grows and the mutual merit deepens until the day when the eivmy accumulates .sufficient nm munition to attempt another assault.” .