WAR IN THE TRENCHES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 30 December 1915, Page 3

WAR IN THE TRENCHES.

FORMIDABLE ORGANISATION. The Paris correspondent of the Morning 1 Post, writing about the present situation in the Argonne , says that the big battle there permitted the French to gain the slopes loading to the broad plains of ChampagnePouilleuse, and to capture and organise the fortresses that the Germans had constructed upon every commanding point. Here and along the road to Rheims the French have; spared n--pains to develop and elaborate their entanglements, which are now a most formidable organisation. In chis respect, as in others, the German lesson has been well learned, and we have rapidly profited by the engineering methods which it took them many laborious years of warlike preparations to evolve and perfect in practice. Further, the more active intellect and original inventiveness of the British and French have carried ns ahead of the slower and more methodical German. Our trenches are at once more comfortable, more sanitary, and at least as protective as those of the enemy. The German trenches are generally very narrow, too narrow even for people to be able to pass each other in them. They have a flooring of wooden grating, covering at intervals deep holes -which collect the water, which is pumped out therefrom by little hand-pumps. Every nine or ten yards the trench is blocked by a barricade either left in the original earth when it was being dug or made out of sandbags. These defences localise the effect of a shelil bin sting in the trench, and in. the event of the enemy rushing the position, they form ready-made obstacles from behind which the defenders can fight. As a general rule, there is no one in the German trench when there is no actual fighting in progress, except the look-out man every 20 yards or so. who stands in a little alcove specially cut for him m the parapet. The ot tiers go down into one of the dug-outs, an entrance to which is close beside the look-out man's box, so that he can cadi down if necessary. _ The dug-outs are as much as 25L to 30ft below the ground. As a rule they are reached by a stairway, but i„ some cases the entrance is perpendicular, so that a ladder must be- used. The whole of the excavations arc .mb in place by strong timber frames, while the dug-out chamber is also usually concreted. Thdy contain beds for the men, tables, and s-.ats, so that they are very comfortable, while their great depth renders them quite immune from shell-fire. The trench itself has a high parapet on the fighting side, topped off with sandbags, in which are set the narrow wooden frames for loopholes every couple of yards. These are reached by the man standing up on the platform. In many cases the parapet is strengthened by iron plates. Every here and there is the machine-gun redoubt. The whole is roofed with sandbags. In front of the trench the approaches are rendered difficult by on-

tanglements of various sorts. The

first line of those usually consists of strong iron posts, carrying thick barb-ed-wire ropes. Outside of that cowthe chevaux de frise, wooden hurdles locked tightly together and carrying a tangle off barbed wire. Outside that again the ground is probably sprinkled with those wicked little four-leg-ged spikes about a couple of inches high, made in a star shape so that anyhow ’they arc thrown there is always a spike uppermost.