WITH FRENCH ON GERMAN SOIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1917, Page 6

WITH FRENCH ON GERMAN SOIL.

ELATED FOILUS IN ALSACE. HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS VISITED. TRENCII WARFARE IN MOUNTAINS. (By the Sydney Sun's Representative, Keith Murdoch). On the French Front, June 2. The French are proverbially mercurial in temperament, swinging lightly between confidence and despair. Yet in this supreme test of nations they have moved buoyantly, despite all their troubles, in an unchanging mood of serene confidence. The old British picture of the Frenchman must) bo changed. Travelling literally from end to end of the French line, I have noticed only one divergence from the general attitude of strong, though long-suffering, confidence. Thi3 divergence I encountered in the southernmost army the army that holds the Vosgcs. It can be detected as you skirt Lorraine .and it becomes stronger as you meet army corps and divisional staffs in Alsace, until it permeates the whole atmosphere ass you plunge amongst officers and men deep into German territory—into redeemed France.

It is a mood of elation. The French here hold something they value more than life, and they convey the impression of being inspired by almost a celestial satisfaction. Imagine the Germans in possession cif that part of Australia between the Blue Mountains and the sea. Think of Australians having in this strip of happy Australia been exploited and crushed by p, foreign military system tor forty years, denied the right to speak their language, and compelled to fight against their countrvmen. Imagine a war in which our army at great cost takes tlie principal heights and seizes one narrow stnj) of plain, pointing to Sydney. Those men would have a'little extra touch of feeling denied to the forces fighting, say, against the invaders in the Northern Territory. THE ALSATIANS.

This clan mas especially noticeable among the Alpini Chasseurs, the mountain fighters, who in their flowing capes and large blue caps—like double-uized Glengarries without tne tails look as vivacious and nearly as debonair on the heights of Alsace' as in the winding streets of old Epinal. But it is more than noticeable among the Alsatian soldiers themselves —the men who migrated from German rule, or lived aboui Baifort —for with them the re-conquest of their land is a creed. Several such I met on General de Castelnau's staff and amidst the corps and divisional commands. The officer told oft' by General de Castelnau to accompany me was an Alsatian —a famous metelliirgist, whose father was maltreated by the Germans in 1870, and then killed. He had joined the French army as a boy, and risen to be major, before he abandoned the hope of re-conquest and tinned to metallurgy. Now his mind is seier.e again. I had as a guide later, at Jlartnninnsweilerkopf and Thaun, an officer whose career was similar —from the heights behind Old Thann we picked out with glasses the street in Mulhouse in which his family houso stood before the Franco-Prussian War.

But there can bo no doubt, in tho minds of those who go to Alsace, that the Alsatians are French in origin and sympathy. The Germans have forced tlie German language noon them the signs are glaringly painted in harsh German, and there are many German names over' the shops. But even the little children speak French, taught secretly at home after school; they wear the Alsatian dress, make up to the French poilus as natural friends, and display all the. vivacity and grace of form of little French people. You can pick the German children out from among them, distinct in type, and you see little difference between these French Alsatians and ths French of other provinces, except that the Germans have ooviously taught them to curtsey and doff their hats to foreigners and officers. MOUNTAIN WARFARE. The country is as beautiful as any I have seen. The mountains are high enough to give an impression of majesty, and vet. not so high as to seem out of the reach of man. Vegetation is deep and rich, and there are lakes and great valleys of villages and crops. From the outer ring, the southern half of which the French still hold, the promised land of Alsace can"(be seen stretching out upon broad plains, verdant as the greenest fields of England, stretching back into the blue smoke, haze of great cities. From observation-posts in the south I saw a thousand yards beneath the brown lines of wire " entanglements—the winding earth trenches, and the dead and lonely No Man's Land, showing where irregularly across the foothills the French and German armies had come to a standstill; for miles behind them were villages and hamlets, farms, woods, and copses, and the many colors of the rich Alsatian plains. Between the promised land and the old French frontier stretched the lovely but terrible mountains, and all along them still are tho signs of heavy fighting,- and the ceaseless business of warfare. They presented a veritable barrier, for they were ill-served with railways on the French side, and contained line upon line of strong defensive positions for the Germans, served by the railways of the plains. Yet the French were at one time established in the heart of Alsace, and to-day hold many square Siles of their } old territory.

The disappointments of these Alsatian campaigns have been nearly as great a? their fruits. During their first offensive across the Vosges the French carried al! before them, and reached Mulhouse and villages beyond it, but they had to come back to permit of corps being hurried north for their part in the great battle of the Marne. The French returned to tite attack, but had to leave most of what they took of the plains in face of large Senium concentrations. There have been other offensives—especially hitter lighting for the Hartmannsweilerkopf, which has cost tho Fiench many tens of thousands of men, and for Langc, a. dominating heights of equal importance, without which thcFrciich cannot debouch from their foothold on the plain. At Lange whole armies of Frenchmen have stormed uuavailingly against a German position almost impregnable. The height still shows the marks though for the time being German possession is not disputed. These mountains have indeed taken their toll of, French and German armies. Losses here during the first year of the war were not far short of those on lucre compact and bioouy b.tUl«fidM on the Soaicio r.nd in Chamj»gn«. Yet the

French armies which went over these heights upon offensives were dependent upon mule transport, hand transport, winding lines of communications, and all modem warfare almost impossible when divorced from railways. Their performance was remarkable, i anil would have had results far greater than these few miles of reconquered Alsace if fighting here had not been conditioned, as it was iji- Napoleon's time, and as it will ever be while Paris is the great prize of war, by the needs of battlefields in the north of France. TWO HISTORICAL POSITIONS. I went .far out yesterday along hairpin roads and through Germanised mountain settlements to French lines where, standing high above, can be seen the battlefield of Lange. Here Joffre on two occasions made great efforts with the flower of the French army, splendid in every way as an aggressive force. It wa3 on each occasion a question of numbers. The Germans had too many men—not too many at Lange, for the French in Alsace are irresistible, but so many millions elsewhere that they succeeded in shifting the centre of the whirlwind of war to a northern sector.

There has been little activity in these districts for a year. Fighting proceeds as intensely as in any sector of trench warfare.. and the guns bark every day. I saw all the preparations made for a typical raid, in which eighty men were to iio out at dusk after half an hour s artillery preparation. It was such a raid as the French are constantly sending across to German lines, and I was unfortunate in having to move on without seeing its results. But in general terms the lighting here for many months could be fitted into the communique term: "Jfotliing of importance." Yet masses of men are always working. You see them behind the lines on the roads and depots, and in the ambulances— cunnipgly contrived, for the mostpart, in deep tunnels, to escape the shelling which German gunners specially delight to turn upon the wounded. You see them leading the mule transport, ! and marching forward under full oquipinent, and managing heavy motors 011 roads where a broken brake means death. You see them underground when you dive into their trench svstem—it is always strange in every army how many men you see eating and sleeping in trenches, and you would think the soldier a lazy and greedy fellow if you did not know that most of the work of trench warfare is done at night, under cover of darkness. In these trenches 1 was led through unsuspected tunnels to places where 110 men could be looked for. Here were hairy poilus watching over mitrailleuse, and listening to Germans in lines a few yards away, and working to improve their strange shelters. There were many sniping posts also, but for many months it has become the rarest thing to see a German head in the Vosges. Indeed, it is almost a tradition now at Hartmannsweilerkopf, where I went today, that a living German is never seen in those parts. It can be said in general terms that where a Germans is quiet on the French front he is very, very quiet. On long sectors for long periods he asks nothing more than that he should not he disturbed. "Leave us alone and wo will not tease you" seems to be his policy. And his practice is to lie doggo, and never show himself, so that sniping bids fair at such places to become a lost art.

HARTMANNSWEILERBOPF. Hartmannsvveilerkopf is French. Tin? Germans say it is theirs. In many communiques they have claimed its capture, its consolidation, its retention. The fact is that at heavy price the French took it, and though pushed back in parts they have grimly held the height ever since. Their trenches may he only a fenyards over the low. fiat summit. but this summit is safely theirs, and upon it they are secure, and from it they can spy far into enemy territory, intimately into Gorman lines. It gives them an important point to command of the plain, and affords a point d'appui should their wishes run that way. •Y„ou come upon this famous battlefield which some day will assuredly again shake under volumes of explosives, with expectations which at once are more than realised. Suddenly as you climb the shoulder of the mountain behind, you see reaching up a height brown and bare of vegetation, with only a shattered little stump or two in place of the magnificent wood which previously had made the slopes like those around you rich in restful coloring. The mount is an isolated battlefield, set in a lovely chain of wooded ridges, but as shcllrtorn, as broken, and covered with debris as the Somnie, the Vimv Ridge, or Bullecourt. How the French managed to transport an army, with guns, shells, and supplies, over these ridges baffles the mind, tour own car lias had difficulty enough in climbing the ridge, though its load has been light. Yet the French pulled their heavy guns and maintained their supplies over these thirty kilometres ol dillicult road. They even maae new roads as they went, and cut tracks through the hills for their light railways. During the winter all the sector is deep under snow. The hard rock trenches are filled with snow each day, and laboriously emptied with shovels each night. Water provides less difficulty than 011 the plains, for here natural drainage brings water to be drunk, and carries away water that falls almost daily in rain. TSut no man would choose winter at Hartmannsweilei'kopf because of this little compensation. Winter is hard, ivith cold and storm to be ondurea, and Interruption in supplies, and long, mono- 1 onous days when the snow hems the garrison in their caves.

In a nest in the ridges some miles,behind the line I came upon a little wooden encampment) significant of the difficulties of warfare in the Vosgcs. Hero was housed some 400 Canadian dogs, which, nine in a team, work throughout the winter hauling up supplies of shells and food over the snow. The dog service in France is of such importance that commissioned .officers are deputed to control it. These leanis in their summer quarters—long rows of dog-boxes in low buildings—moved man;- hundred's of tons of munitions during last winter, and their only fault is that they have a disposition to tight, team against team.

THE APPEAL OF ALSACE. No army of occupation could look more settled and permanent than that of the French in. Alsace. The great barrack buildings built by the Germans for their trontier forces make ideal homes. Herman factories are at work, under French military control. German hospitals are occupied for French wounded. German railways along the valley to \A e.-serling are used for French neecrs.

This strip of re-conquered France has drawn like a magnet tile great men qf •Frauce. In a book recording tha visitors to cue headquarters far behind the lines one 'sues the signatures of greatest living Frencjimen. la the foyer de sold-

ats—the poillus rest plni?—.n ;or! , e Scott and other masters of drawing have covered the walls with tributes to the French soldier. In the officers' club close by is already a collection of pictures done on the spot by great artists who have come to see redeemed Alsace. In the messrooms are the laurel wreaths sent in honor of the valiant armies which restored, this atrip of land. It will bo a bitte: - disaupointment, perhaps a crushing blow, should* France b; denied lier old, unredeemed Rrovinces.