GERMANY'S NEW METHOD OF FIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1917, Page 6

GERMANY'S NEW METHOD OF FIGHTING.

DESCRIBED BY AN AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT.

The difficulties overcome by the British in their magnificent advance are well described by an American correspondent accompanying the British armies in 'France and Belgium. He states that the 'beginning of the fourth year of war has found the Germans rapidly making a ■radical change in their methods of defence along the British battle front in •Northern France and Belgium. The continuous line of wonderfully constructed forward trenches, with their deep dugouts, in which lived and fought great numbers of men, are fast passing into tlio discard. 1 The enemy is adopting a system of scattering his advance forces over a great depth. Cunningly constructed strongholds among the shell-hole 3 now 'conceal innumerable small, and more or less isolated, garrisons of men who formerly fought shoulder to shoulder along great stretches of picturesque ditches, through which communication was not broken for miles. This alteration lias been brought about by the ever-growing preponderance of the British artillery, which buried the Germain front line trenches under an avalanche of shells and has left the defences nothing but heaped furrows of earth, and has made the famous dug-outs veritable man-traps, in which countless thousands have lost •their lives without a chance of fighting •back. The continuous deluge of break« ing steel made repair work on 'the trenches impossible, and as the Germans were gradually pressed back they, of necessity, were forced to invent another 'mode of stemming the ever-advancing tide. • So, declares the writer, it has come to be depth of defences upon which tlie Germans depend in many places, rather than the strength of his lirst-line trenches. The recent Allied offensive, east and north of Ypres, disclosed many examples 'of this new scheme of fighting, which bids fair to take the place of the tactics of the- last three years. Wherever the •German front line trenches have been made untenable, or where a British attack is expected, one finds the new order of things. The first German line now often consists of strong outpests concealed in shell craters or copses, and a considerable distance apart. Back of these outposts are chains of shell-hole nests, each nest consisting of two or tlirag craters connected by underground passages that often lead to dug-outs. As the entire territory is pitted with holes, this is easy of accomplishment, and it may be presumed that the Germans believe it will be hard for the Allied observers to pick out the defended shell holes from the thousands of others scattered about.

When time has allowed, the Germans have made the shell-hole defences with elaborate eara. Each nest is heavily protected with barb wire, and the chambers beneath are reinforced by timbers and concrete. In thsse infantry lurk with machine guns ana nnes, ready to rush out and begin firing if an attack is launched against them. "A bird'seye view of hell," is the description of the Flanders battlefield given by an American aviator who flew over it a' .the height of the great Allied otl'onsiv "I flew at an altitude of about 20,000 feet," he wrote. "The land was marked bv yawning craters and holes, welling with water. Wounded men straggled' through the mud. Tanks wallowed through the swamps like monsters. The old enemy first and second lfnes could be traced with difficulty. German wire entanglements were buried. Down below I could see tiny figures of men—French and British infantry—frantically digging in -everywhere far in advance of their objectives. Stretcher-bearers could be picked out, crawling back with bandaged wounded, A German biplane could be seen half buried in muck. Further back, scurrying from shell-hole to shell-hole, the grey of German infantry could be discerned. Hundreds of spans bridged the stagnant Yser Canal, and over these bridges scyrried men and supplies. I 'could see artillery hurrying to advanced positions. Over all this dark scene of carnage lowering black skies poured an unceasing torrent of rain. The roar of the guns was indescribable."