WESTERN FRONT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 355, 15 February 1917, Page 5

WESTERN FRONT.

SNOW AND FROST.

REVEAL WAR SECRETS

GERMANS IN WHITE UNIFORMS.

[AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASS’N]

London, Feb. 7.

'Mr. Philip Gibbs, writing from the British Headquarters in France, says: —The snowfall and frost have compelled us to adapt methods of warfare to the surrounding whiteness of the snow, which makes things visible which were previously invisible, and reveals guns positions hitherto artfully concealed. Air photographers bring back queer landscape pictures. Every smudge

on them reveals new facts to the gunners, and German airmen have been equally busy reading the snow's secrets. They are showing

greater audacity than for a long time past. One of our machines, which is the fastest ever seen, zigzagged about, outstripping a slower battle-plane No Man’s Land, with the bright and glistening l snow, littered with old iron and broken shell holes, and death-haunted ruins, looks as beau-

tiful in the moonlight as a Christmas dream picture ; but officers and men are afraid that its beautiful whiteness makes the patrols and raiders as visible as a group of pierrots in the limelight. Any movement becomes hideously apparent. The Germans have adopted white snits, and look like ridiculous white ghosts. They attempted a surprise the other day. A fierce bombardment and deadly cross fire from machine guns greeted the stealthy ghosts, who scattered like rabbits. Only a few survived. Our winter

raidings have been ten times more successful than the Germans’.

Nothing can be more hateful than the surprise attacks. They keep the Germans in a state of nervous apprehension. Our raids have become nothing more than body-snatching, though being caught helpless in a dugout by a swarm of British makes some voting Germans ill with fright, li nth condition c mpel t < < i mans to nold tneir line bv advanced posts, where little groups sit shivering. 1 nev are not red as well as thev were bciore. and are suffering m h t md st on u h ti lilts Inti it pnsonei m i tu n post tion gloomily and are bitterly disappointed at the Entente s refusal to discuss peace. It is not difficult to guess tne reeling or other (vermans. seeing thev a r e mere cnildreu. lhe latest drafts for halt ot one German arinv corps consist ot bovs ot 17.