THE WESTERN THEATRE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 8300, 19 November 1915, Page 5

THE WESTERN THEATRE.

"WAR AT ETS WORST:"

BATTLEFIELDS- IN A-RTOIS

:..'.' ' ■ LONDON, Nov. 17. ;.| ; Mr Anthony Gibbs, in the. " Daily Schroinelc," describing the battlefield', of Artois'.- says: It is the most awful thing I have spoii in the grim sugjrestivonoss ofNwar at its worst. The .very earth, with-white blotches of clay., and pock-marked with innumerable. shell-craters, is now truly dead ground. Everywhere arc . fragments of broken weapons and .shells, like bottles on c, rubbish heap. Worse things lie about —fragments of human , bodies, .halfburiocl corpses, the poor tragic relics of mutilated men. They lie in water pools, clutching the mud. One turns coldly from the bundles of rags and bones protruding from under broken windbags-in places that were once German" (shelters, 'but now' are wrecked beyond description, a. mass of chairs, broken mirrors si ml. shattered ' bones. i'This was the work of 1.1.00 French guns

and .the 300 : 000 shells which they ■flung'over the country-side before the- *•

infantry attack was made,' and of tho German guns, which, had battered Notre Dame do Loretto since the days of the French victory and sacrifice. The village^ of Ablain is a. ghastly place. A hideous proof of the strife is .supplied by the .twisted iron mingled with boots, helmets, furniture and perambulators. In one Gorman dugout }( found a splendid piano. When returning I beheld a fearful sight, limping men with, blood-stained bandages, and the- stark iiguro W a- .French- soldier wheeled in. a stretcher completed the picture of the awful horror and ruin of war."