THE INVISIBLE ENEMY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 178, 6 January 1915, Page 6

THE INVISIBLE ENEMY.

BATTLEFIELDS APPARENTLY EMPTY. NOTHING BUT NOISE AND SMOKE. I It is a remarkable fact that thousands of soldiers—British, French, and German—have been wounded and sent backto hospital without having caught a glimpse of the enemy. This applies ; more particularly to men who have been wounded by shrapnel, for even the 3-in. i field guns have a range of nearly live i miles distant, and the larger guns have ' a longer range. It is impossible to see | with the naked eye an enemy who is live miles distant, even when the ground is level, but the country over which much of tlie lighting has taken place in France is of an undulating character, with patches of forest which provide good cover for men and guns. Few things have been more striking in the desperate lighting which has taken place than the general invisibility of the enemy. Of course there have been many engagements in which the opposing troops have been visible to one another; there have been many engagements in which rifle volleys at close range have been followed by bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting; there have been instances in which entrenched opponents have crept nearer and nearer to each other at night, until their trenches were less than hundred yards apart ; there have been cavalry engagements, in which the opposing troops have met in the open and have fought with lance and sword. But the fact remains that a great deal of the fighting has been carried on by artillery, engaged in shelling trendies several miles away, .sot only are the entrenched men secure from observation, but the batteries take up positions where they cannot be seen from the enemy's lines.

j The seemingly deserted aspect of the modern battlefield is emphasised in a semi-official report from the British i headquarters in France, which describes t.io battle of the Aisne—a battle which • lasted for four weeks, and ended withi out a definite decision, the Germans I shifting their mam attack northwards, I without evacuating the positions they j held on the Aisne. "At a certain point in our front,' says this semi-official report, "our advanced trenches on the | north of the Ai:-.iu! are not far from a j village on the hillside, and also within a short distance of the German works, ( being the slope of a spur formed by a ; subsidiary valley running north, and j the main valley of the river. It w.is a [ calm, sunny afternoon, but hazy, ami j from a point of vantage from the south , of the river, it was difficult to locate J exactly on the far bank the well-con-J ccaled trenches of either side. From far and near the sullen boom of guns echoed along the valley, and at intervals in different directions, the sky was j flecked with the almost motionless j smoke of anti-air-eraft shrapnel. Suddenly, without warning, three or four shells fell into the village, sending up huge clouds of smoke and dust, which j slowly ascended in a brown-greyish colI umn. To this no reply was made by our side. Shortly afterwards there was , a quick succession of reports from .a ; point some distance up the subsidiary | valley, on the side opposite to our | trendies, ami therefore rather on their I flank. It was not possible either by | eye or ear to locate the guns from which j these sounds proceeded. Almost simul- [ taneously, as it seemed, there was a corresponding succession of flashes, and j sharp detonations in a lino on the hillj side along what appeared to be our | trenches. There was then a pause, and ! several clouds of smoke rose slowly, and remained stationary, spaced as regularly as a line of poplars." Again there ; irtis a succession of reports from the German quickfirers on the far side of the misty valley, and—like echoes—the i' detonations of high explosives; and the row of expanding smoke clouds was prolonged by several new ones. After i a few minutes, thero was a roar from j our side of the main valley, as our field ) guns opened one after the other in a | more deliberate fire upon the position [ of the German guns. Again, after a I short interval, the enemy's gunners reopened with a burst, still further prolonging the smoke, which was by now merged into one solid screen above a considerable length of the trench, and again did our guns reply. And so the duel went on for some time. The German artillerymen, probably relying on concealment for immunity, were concentrating all their efforts on a particularly forceful effort to enlilade our I trenches. In the hazy valleys bathed in sunlight not a man, not a horse, not a gun, nor even a trench was to be seen. There were only flashes, smoke and noise."

Jlr Donald C. Thompson, a photographer sent to Belgium by the New York World, to obtain war pictures, also draws attention to the invisibility of the opposing forces as ono of the most remarkable features of a modern battle. He states that he caught glimpses of 32 battles in Belgium, but in all . cases there was so little to see that a battlefield provided little scope for photography. There was simply a wild landscape of varied features, full of terrific uoise, but apparently empty of human beings, lie had to depend for his ■pictures on incidents leading up to engagements, and out of the ruin and devastation caused by the lighting. Not only is it generally impossible lor troops which are being shelled to locate the distant batteries which arc fihelling them, but the batteries generally take such precautions for remaining hidden from observation from the enemy's lines by lieu glasses, and from the enemy's aeroplanes above that they cannot see the troops they are shelling. In the battle of the Aisne, tlie configuration of the ground enabled the opposing batteries on each side, of the river to remain hidden from one another. Nevertheless, they were able to engage, in a long-distance duel, and also to shell in the valley trenches that were invisible to them. The, range and direction of the lire to shell the enemy, Were given to tiie batteries by means of signals from aeroplanes hovering over the positions occupied by the enemy. But H"rial obsi-riolion cannot be carried out with strict accuracy, owing to tlie diminutive app'-aranee which object-; on the ground present when viewed from a good height. The movement-: of the troops unit vehicle; [-;! ii lie detected, however, and I'or thi; ivason troops and trail-ports have instructions to remain stationary when a hostile aeroplane i,; hovering above. The guns of a battery can be. "hidden fro;:'. '.l.serration by covering tin m slightly with branches of trees. The, gunners sometimes play tricks on ;h" aviators by erecting dummy guns with logs, and in due course fin enemy's guns shell these dummy gnns. A. row of hay in a field has somelimes hem mistaken by an aviator for a trench, and the batteries, 011 receiving thi' aviator's signal, have shelled the field.