UNDER THE BRITISH GUNS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 23 August 1917, Page 2

UNDER THE BRITISH GUNS

GERMAN PICTURE OF DEATH. ‘ * CAN ONLY TRUST TO LUCK.’ 5 LONDON, August 6. A German war correspondent, Herr Max Osborne, lias written for tbe Berlin Zietung am Mittag, a highly vivid description of the strain inflicted by the recent British bombardment on the German armies West Flanders. He writes: " Nerve-rending howls and screams arc rending the air from the sea to the River Lys. The whole of West Flanders is one large steaming pot, in which brew death and devastation. With the sun laughing at his brightest as if a terrific never-ending thunderstorm is raging over the land. "We are in the midst of noises such/ as the earth has not heard before. Millions- of capital are being blown up It is like a Cyclopean concert of un-heard-of brutality, becomingly celebrating the ending of the third year of universal madness. We thought we hrd grown accustomed to the activity of all tbis, but it is no use. Here we are up against the worst form of slaughter again. These nameless noises bring it to you, with overpowering force. "Our soldiers sit in their dugouts like unlocked prisoners. They cannot do any thing but trust to luck. Only the big guns are now talking. The infantry cannot get out, and nobody can approach them, the way being fraught with fearful danger all round being steel splinters, shrapnel, bullets, and stones. The soldiers smoke incessantly until the air in the dug-outs is heavy with ‘ rough-cut ’ This helps them to stand the horrors of the situations.

"One is unable to think clearly. I never realised such a difficult existence. There is agony that is namelesb, though the losses arc not so large compared with the mass of munitions exploded. The enemy’s projectiles, though striking many yards distant, hit our nerves. Nobody will ever forget the horror of it."