ARTILLERY'S IMPORTANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 64, 16 March 1915, Page 2

ARTILLERY'S IMPORTANCE.

FIGHTS FOR GUN POSITIONS. TAXING GERMAN TRENCHES. BRILLIANT BRITISH ATTACK. (Times and Sydney Sun Services.)

LONDON, March 10.

The Official Press Bureau has issued a [further narrative by "Eye-witness," who, in dealing with recent events, writes: — "On Saturday some snipers' posts were destroyed by our guns. The eriemy's efforts at sapping have been checked by bomb-throwing and other offensive measures. In those cases where a few of the enemy have succeeded in establishing themselves in line with our trenches they have stretched wire-oetting across, the top of the trench, and have fixed it aslant, so that the bombs will roll off It may be imagined what life under such conditions must mean for the occupants of a narrow excavation, within a few yards of the enemy and under a perpetual rain of high explosives. SUNDAY MORNING EXPLOIT. "Early on Sunday morning a battalion in the vicinity of St. Eloi delivered a brilliant attack on the German trenches. It then proceeded to fill tlrem in and render them useless. While doing this another British party advanced up to the commuiiicaition trenches, repelling all the enemy's efforts to interfere with the work of destruction. When the demolition was complete the men retired, the whole operation taking orHy 20 minutes.

"The troops are effecting a great improvement in the trenches by employing sign-posts as warnings against snipers. Very often a kind of sporting element, born of professional rivalry, enters into a contest in sniping.

"A great many of the attacks that are Undertaken by both sides at this stage oi the war have as their object the capture of rising ground which will enable one side to command and overlook the other. The infantry does not desire a commanding position, but for an artillery action it is of the utmost importance to gain a position "Whence the enemy's trenches, batteries, and ■communications are observable.

VAST EXPENDITURE OF AMMUNITION.

"The effect of artillery war is so great that it would .be almost true to say that in many cases infantTy are used more as a screen for the guns than for anything else. AH offensive action is dependent for success upon the sustained, intensely accurate fire of the artillery, necessitating a vast expenditure of ammunition. "A prisoner who was captured confirms the demoralisation of the Germans at Guinchy, and also the suspicions entertained against the troops in that quarter. He stated emphatically that they had been ordered not to take English prisoners. "GOD PUNISH ENGLAND 1" "The efforts made to incite them against us succeeded so well that the officers and men now evince their detestation of us by formally saluting one another with the phrase, 'God punish England!' "The Germans have less bread. The civa population behind the German lines live in a state of abject servitude. They are compelled to mend roads, dig entrenchments, and thresh corn, for .which they are paid with Tatiom tickets entitling them to draw army rations. Without this they would starve, for all foodstuffs have been commandeered."

"Eye-witness" adds that tbe German recruits suffer from swollen feet, and that the older 6oldiens have a poor opinion of the new recruits.