GALLIPOLI AND FRANCE.

Bruce Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 42, 31 May 1917, Page 3

GALLIPOLI AND FRANCE.

A contrast between conditions on Gallipoli and on tho Western front is contained in a letter received by a country resident from an Auckland soldier now in France. "War, witli all its horrors," says the soldier, "is a great game. We all wish at times we were out of it, and yet—like your son—if we were Ave might have a hankering to get back. The men one meets, tiie immensity of it all, and the great gamljle in human lives will, to a certain extent, make the peace and ease of civilian life stale. Life is hard, but think of being 'dog tired' and then of the way you can sleep. The rations often may be scanty, but think of how wolfishly hungry you are and the enjoyment of even bully beef and biscuits. Drops of water may be like jewels. l r our son, if ever ho gets here, will find conditions very different from Gallipoli. Better in some ways and worse in others. The Turk fought like a gentleman; the German, needless to say, does not. Living conditions hero will be better than on the Peninsula. When in the line, though, the trench warfare is much more severe than was ever the case with the Anzaes. All the old linads admit it. Tho constant heavy artillery and trench mortar firo hero is a tiling that was never thought of on the Peninsula. The gas here, too, is horrible. Had a practical demonstration the other day of its fiendishness, and*we have always to be constancy on the alert for it. Even tho schoolchildren back of the lines carry their little helmets."