THE BARRAGE AND THE BOSCHE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3142, 21 July 1917, Page 6

THE BARRAGE AND THE BOSCHE

WALKING INTO BATTLE HOW THE ARTILLERY CURTAIN , HELPS > [The following article, published by authority of the British War Office, is forwarded on by the Royal Colonial Institute.]

I had seen the word-"barrage'!, often enough in official and other reports of tlie fighting in France, and' 1 had, I .suppose, some vague idea, of ; what it meant, but now 1 have heard from a. British officer all about the barrage—or as much about' it as anyone who is. neither an artillery officer nor its unhappy victim is ever likely to understand. He had told me that he and his orderly, a boy of eighteen, had together captured 70 Germans in. a dug-out. I know him. I know that if he told me so, it was so; and I said: "But are the German troops really so indifferent as all that now?" He 'laughed. "I don't call that very polite," he said. "But really," said I, "making full allowance for your soldierly qualities, seventy prisoners to two of you.is a bit tall, isn't it? The quality of the German troops must have deteriorated tremendously." "They aren't what they were," he answered: "But that's nothing, or hardly anything, to do with our haul. It wa3 due to tho barrage." And so T came to learn all that there is to learn about bairage.

The Lifting Veil of Fire.. "The attack, was timed, for two o'clock," he said. "We, that is my platoon of the (an infantry. T6giment) were in our front trench, about 100 yards from the German front trench. At five minutes to two we got ready, and at two o'clock we quietly and walked across No Man's Land. "Walked?" I said. I thought an attack was. a dash through a hail of ""Not" it. That, was 'Attack, old' style." 'Attack, new., style,' is quite another thing." '..'.-. , . "But why weren't you; mown, down by the enemy machine-guns?" "Ah that was where our fnend the barrage came in. You see, Behind ua were several gunners with several guns. On our portion of the. front-about halt a mile-there was a .little matter of two hundred guns or so, of 18-pounders, that is, providing the barrage; there, were quite a lot of big boys as well-9-inch, 12-incii, 15-inch. But more about-thein presently. I don't know many gunners. That did not matter so long;,a? they could fire off the guns and had plenty of shells." . ■ '•' ■...',"'-,i T "And they had plenty of shells: I he said.. "There were shells to eat. Tho shells were shrapnell chaps that burst in the air, you know, ?nd throw a shower of bullets' forwaru. Or.e of these sheiis will spray about. M yards of trenoh. 'Each 20 yards of enemj trench was getting fivo. shellsaminutf. That's why we weren't troubled with machine-gnn and rifle fire. To" _ the Bosche's point of view. He- say 0 tif I put up my -head for one minute I get killed five times. No, thank you or words to that effect in German. So the machine-guns were pretty quiet. J\ot that anyone would have heardj hem ii thev had all yapped at on«y because of the noise of the barrage It s impo - sible to describe' it, but when I tell tou that the roar from .those big (runs is go continuous that you catft distinguish the report of any one enn, youll guesi it's fairly deafening. JVhen you re advancing it's bad-enough.to have it coming over from behind you,, but when vou're facing it from a trench, its stnpefving. There's another: thin? which shows you a. little .how hot the bomWment is. and that is that'theres what Zokl like a.thick mist-lyinporer the enemy trench and.hidme everything bevond itfromvie*.. Tins isn't really mist, it's white smoke from the bursting "•"Well, we marched across the.ground between our front trench and theirs, and when we were nearly up to the enemy trench our guners lifted thenir lange, the barrage began to fall on fifty yards yards ahead, and we were into their front trench before they'd recovered from the shelling or knew it had lifted You see, there's no cessation of firing to tell them ifs lifted, and when the only way to find out is to put up your head S see if ft gets h| the cW are vou'll presume it hasn't lifted- and star Jn your dug-out-especially if Wre half silly from the noise. That's where I and my young orderly came in. Our eoventy friomk were lolly glad to see us. We Se noise, too, they'd have embrace* us, "•ri&S'to see things a litUe," I said. "These may have been quite good troops undor ordinary conditions. •TDK yes. quite. Onr present-day bartheir range each time ]ust as we got do they know when you get tK "By ? 'their watches. They know how lO "And e so 6 tn , af<Kwhat a barrage means," I said.

Also the "Big Fellows." "That's the barrage proper," he answered. "But it isn't all the shelling that's going on by a. long ™y. abere are 5-inch guns dropping shells hard all intothe communication trenches, en to cross-roads, or anywhere where an o rwau spots enemy troops moving; while wrue pV particular attention to cnemj batteries and keep them in order Then there are 6-inch guns, and 9-mch, and 9 2 and 12-inoh, and even 15-inch. These are" shelling villages and ters and anything elseof. interest ,tp to *%&,s#**&%£ «*■* shells from 15inch guns don't fall all round in perfect showers, but if .one. does •.fall on you it's very unsafe indeed." "I shouldn't care to be a German soldier," I said. "■■"'" r m. "No. There are a good many ot the German soldiers who have the same sort of feeling. I daresay it was quite good fun when our guns used to drop one shell in a hundred yards every <ainute, and tall it a heavy bombardment. But now that it's five shells in twenty yards ifs another pair of shoes. And, of course, the gunners say that five shells is really very slow. That's why their rhooting ie so accurate. It means shooting off each gun only once a minute." "And what could they do?' . "They can do twenty-five if they re pushed. And they will do, too, I flareBay, one of these fine days. Oh, ife rotten being a German soldier."