THE BRITISH FRONT.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1915, Page 3

THE BRITISH FRONT.

I 110,ST 'DIFFICULT (BATTLE-C.il !U L r XD ! l-\ r UJSTOKV. CONTINUOUS HA IN" OP StI'KLLS. From Switzerland to the sea, an ova! K.of of hissing steel and sound and fire aivhes above the cities, towns and trenc.ic.3. where vast armies engage in the once barbaric, but now up to date, necessity of killing each other, writes the correspondent of ail English exchange. As night comes 011, the batteries that make the crescent cease their wort, only be S iu again at sunrise, If all the -"-tcel which makes the hellish- rainbow i<-uld be, gathered up and soldered together ill the circle it speeded through, liiore mould, lie a metal inesh'work rounding atiove a vast cham'ber ten miles wide and 'Jill Slides long. Only nireraft look down on the war hall they sometimes cnti-r as a tomb.

.Many who are ignorant of t'he exact situation are too .prone to prate about the '3-13 miles of 'French front, the tliirtvone of British. If they but knew the character of the battle-ground our army '■s facing, if they realised that from our junction with t'he French the Belgian border runs through one of the most densely populated districts iji Europe, they would close the subject.

TH'IRY-OXE-iMILK. FRONT. from one city can be seen Pinotlier, And so on to the sea; vast 'factories, brickfields, cement works, toal mines, and a network of canals and railways go to make a 31-mile lcpgth of hattielield. difficult beyond precedent, where the struggle is confined to the ruins of cities, works and factories of this battered down industrial frontier. Take, then, from La. Bassee 011 to I'erry-au-l'iic, and then 011 through the Champagne country, through Rhcims and on to Nancv.

Take, again, the section where the country flattens out. We face -the Germans 011 a long front, •where they hold, and have held for months, ground infinitely more advantageous than ours. Comparisons are certainly not called for at this time, and they only tend to belittle the man who is" at the front fighting for the stay-at-homes. The gallant French Army, than which there is 110 braver or better in the world, while sustaining its strong and invincible front-, realises and acknowledges that-, when the history of this war is written, no comparison of mileage will be found in the estimate of intense ami incessant figfliting on the 31 miles of the most difficult battle-ground known ill history.

■SAFE UNDER FLY KG SHELLS. Throughout the towns, villages anil cities in the long war zone, the inhabitants) exist under many exciting and variable conditions, hut among the many tin' situation in Armentieres is possibly the most remarkable, and certainly the most interesting, at t'hc present time. The German trenches curve round it on the north, just as ours do on the south. The shells of their batteries •pass continuously in a crescent overhead. The <afes on the north edge of the town are patronised by German soldiers, just as our men use. the cafes on the south side. People walk in the streets, where the children play, and the restaurants and •shops do business regardless of the shell shrieks overhead. Xo .German bombs, fall into the town, and ours, for many reasons, will not. During the German occupation, many lines of mines were planted under every street, and then they retired, hoping the British would take possession, but, the ruse not succeeding, the city became neutral, and the population, after so long a time, like those that live around Vesuvius, have forgotten their danger. That Armentieres will bo the scene of a £reat battle in the near future tfhere can be no doubt, hut what will become of the pontile, walking on the hidden mines and listening to the shrieks of shullrt above?