DEVIL'S CHARIOTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1916, Page 3

DEVIL'S CHARIOTS.

GERMANS AND THE TANKS. HOW THEIR BLOOD FROZE. Under the title "The Devil's Charioteer," the Duesseldorf Lanzeiger's correspondent describes the British tanks and their effect on the astonished German soldiers: "As the German trench posts came out of their holes in the foggy dawn on ICth September, and raised their heads again after the heavy iron blows of the night and looked towards the English," he says, "their blood froze in their veins, for two mysterious monsters came creeping over the crater-fields. Stupefied by the earthquake which had raged around them, they all rubbed their eyes, which were rivettcd as if they were deprived of their senses on two fabulous creature?. Their imagination was flogged by the storm of fire, anil they were full of j.'.iitement. They had learned not to fear men; but there was something approaching which a human brain with tremendous mechanical powers had fitted out for a devil's trick. A sense of the mystery which oppressed and shackled their powers, because they could not comprehend it, and a feeling of fatality against which one seemed helpless, came over all.

"One stared and stared as if paralysed. The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it. A supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Someone ir. the trenches cried 'The devil comes,' and that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out, of the armored side of the iion caterpillar. Shells whistled overhead, and in a terrible concert the ma-chine-gun orchestra filled the air.''