SPIKED PIT-TRAPS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2665, 10 January 1916, Page 6

SPIKED PIT-TRAPS

TACTICS IN MESOPOTAMIA. An officor with the British Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia in a letter Homo describes-the difficulties that had to be overcome in the capture of the Turks' position at I£ut and Es Sin, on tho Tigris, in the closing days of September. lie says: — AYe have done the trick, turned tho Turks out of the position they have been preparing since June, and done it at a wonderfidly small cost. It was out yesterday and to-day to two different bits of tho position, and one would nevor believe that any troops could possibly, have been drive,n from them. There were successive, lines of trenches, some twelve miles of them in all, narrow, clean out, with traverses every fewyards, head cover, a perfectly marvellous system of communication trenches, and numerous redoubts with wells dug in them. In front were barbed-wire entanglements, and in many places a series of trous de loup (pits with spikes at the bottom). These looked just like a honeycomb, only the tops of the holes were circular. They were four to five feet across, from seven to eight feet deep, with sharpened stakes in the bottom, and were shaped like an inverted cone. At the top the edges, were about nine inches apart. AA'e were warned that they were supposed to be mined too. Over one lot I saw there was a, low barbed-wire entanglement. Into ono particularly strong partof the line, which had both flanks resting on impassable 'marshes, there was a regular water channel out leading from a 10 h .p. oil engine and Sin. centrifugal pump on the river-bank, sonio two miles away. Almost every twenty yards along the trenches there were niches cut, and in them big Persian filters for water. For the reserve there was a regular Greek key-pattern of trench, and, in case of emergency, I suppose, two big wells. Our guns apparently did particularly well. That night, however, was absolute hell; we did not reach water. Ono splendid doctor-man managed to get some Army Transport carts, filled them with water bags, and so the wounded did get some, poor fellows I AVe were very lucky. We got a number of shrapnel into us at various times, and only a few men and horses were hit. One fellow with some ammunition wagons was moving them to a flank. He was in front with a sergeant, and had only about six men with him in the wagons. They, too, had their rifles on tlie front of the limber in their clips, and it would have taken some few seconds to get tliem ready. Suddenly he saw a narrow trench some 50 yaTds from him', and men moving in it. Ho shouted to the gunners, and ho and the sergeant, drawing their revolvers, chargea tho trench. There were nine Turks in it, and they put up their hands at once. The cream of tho situation was that tho sergeant's horse took chargo and carried him clean over the trench, clearing it like a bird. V'or Ihrec and half days I never saw water near enough to bo of any practical use to me, except in a water-botl'le, and even that not nearly often enough. I had not had my clothes off, of course, or even my boots, and as this is by no means a cool climate during the day, and there is in addition plenty of dust, I was pretty grimy at_ the end of it. To square Things up a bit the nights >aro Bitterly cold. A great-coat leaves one shivering at about 3 a.m.