LIFE AT THE FRONT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 295, 22 May 1915, Page 6

LIFE AT THE FRONT.

I'KKSSMAX .MARK TIIIC ROUNDS. UXDFR FiRU FROM fiKKMAX SNU'KRS. London. April 12. Two or three privileged Knglish journalists have just returned to from a visit paid at the invitation of the French (Jovernment to an important sector of the French lines. These visitors were shown everything without reserve, and so far are the only strangers and non-military men to get right lip to the fighting front. They wrrc taken to the most advanced trenches, at one Jioint within twelve yards of the (ieiimtns, and saw dentil and. destruction piping hot around them. Speaking quite confidentially, these shrewd and experienced observers sing the praises of the French efficiency. Officers and men of all ranks are confident, high-spirited, and workmanlike. The domestic genius of the French nation fiinds quaint expression in a hundred different little devices that are ingenious and neat for making life in the trenches tolerable to themselves and insupportable to les Tiosches. The French Tommies name their dug-outs after their favourite actresses, portraits of whom are nailed up over the doors. Between offers- an 4 men there is a camaraderie that is paternal and fraternal.

One grizzled infantry colonel introduced a merry-faced little private with a.'red moustache and a uniform far too big for him to the visitors as "tlie bravest of all my children." This little man, who looks like a comedian, is a lire-rater, who makes n hobby of crawling out by»day and by night over the twelve yards of deadly no man's land between the trenches to fix up the barbed wire entanglements. "Wo cannot keep him in the trench," said the colonel, patting the little man's shoulder. He accepted a pocketfull of cigars, which lie shared with his comrades, but insisted on the acceptance in return of an interesting souvenir of an afternoon's call on the 'advance trenches. This souvenir was a German picklehanbe, an admirable specimen just taken from the head of its owner, the said head having been perforated by two bullets which had left neat holes in the helmet. Cautiously drawing aside the dark cloth that veils the loopholes, the little Frenchman complacently pointed to a dead German, whose grey form was lying stiff and stark a few paces away. "That)" he said, "is the gentleman concerned."

"CONFETTI." The journalists had a queer experience travelling over ridges by improvised bridges, alongside of the ruins of the permanent structures, creeping through woods with intervals of fifteen paces between each man under fire from German snipers, and picking their wav over the underworld wherein dwell the leigons of France, stumbling occasionally over bits of bark that proved to be chimneys, and startled occasionally by the sudden apparition of the cheerful dusky countenance of the splendid French colonial troops. The ivarrioas from Africa are apparently 'having the time of their livesT The life of the. open, even in the winter, and the protracted amusement of the fighting are as the breath of their nostrils. Tlie French have but the one expression for the German shells. They call it "cwi fetti." They seem to have a genuine contempt for the Hermans, but do not fully share the vitriolic hatred that inspires the French civilian population, The most evil thing about these longdrawn battle lines is the condition of the strip of varying length or breadtli that separates the opposing hosts. Dead Germans are lying everywhere. There is a wood in front of the British position where thousands of Germans have been rotting on the ground under the scarred and broken trees since last November. Villages have been ground to powder by shell fire. At one point fierce fighting lias been going ou for mouths in a great cemetery. The French advance from vault to vault, removing the coffins of the dead as they go forward. The horrors of modern war have driven the living into the graves to encape death. One of the visitors described to me the extraordinary ell'ect produced occasionally by the suddeu emergence from nowhere of thousands of mem who a moment before, had been invisible in an apparently deserted landscape. "They came up,'" he said, "like Roderick Dhu's warriors." Tlie English visitors were amazed at the skill with which the French concealed their batteries. You were right on top of them without knowing it. The held'in which they are located is always carefully ploughed so as to obscure theft' position. They saw the famous French Seventy-lives in action, observed through glasses the crumbling away of the German trenches, and admired the sangfroid of the French gunners when i the German shells went shrieking oveic I head, with the sound like the rending of mighty sheets of tin. j

SNIPEfS. From Jill accounts both tire t'reii-jh and our own men have now at last assorted a. definite supremacy over the German snipers, who haw boon so long the bugbear of the operations in France. I inn told that some of our oversea marksmen have rendurcd splendid service in' this direction. They take to ths sport as to the manner born, and the feierman sniper is now most successfully sniped. Our own territorial marksmen are also doing good service of the same sort. Men whose names arc familiar in the Bisley lists are spending hours stalking the (V'l'man sniper, who nowadays is getting more lead than iron crosses. The proficiency that the artillery is attaining is almost incredible. ■\Vhat military man of the old school, or of a year ago for that matter, wniiM have believed it possible for field guns and heavy artillery to bombard trendies held by the enemy within thirty yards of our own trenches'; Yet it is quite a common occurrence now in Flanders and France. The (lennan airmen are oven ninfc eclipsed. They simply cannot stand up against the French and liritieli dyers, who hover like luniks over tbe lines in aW weathers. There is a good story of a British airman wko came' down from a recounaisvmce during the great fight at Yprcs. His plans were riddled with bullets and he was as | pale as a sheet. "Close shave?" be was asked. "No," he replied. "Three (lerman divisions against our one."