On the Western Front

Horowhenua Chronicle, 5 February 1918, Page 1

On the Western Front

_ SNOW AND ICE.

Mr C. E. W. Bean, official correspondent with the A.I.F. in France, telegraphing on the 13th inst., stated:—

The Australian front, and, indeed, the whole of the Western front, during the past week has been under the grip or severe cold. The cold winds which have swept over the land have been somewhat tempered to the men who have dug in. in the trenches. Several nights heavy frosts, followed by snowstorms, have been reported just as before Christmas. Many roads are impassable, being blockgd by great drifts of snow.

Elsewhere the roads are as hard as iron and slippery as ■ glass. A thaw following rendered many roads temporarily impassable by breaking them into holes of mud. The Australian troops, long inured to vicissitudes of climate, are enduring the severity of the weather with the utmost cheerfulness. Ponds are everywhere frozen inches deep. Ice skating in many places is a popular pastime. In one locality two Frenchmen with keen business instinct flooded a field before the frost, and .subsequently hired out skates at a franc an hour. Sickness in tne trenches is remarkably low. The men arc wrapped up like Antarctic explorers, and remain hearty and fit.

In the thick snow, v which is over all the battle lines of No Man's Land, patrols at night have crawled about dressed in white overalls hunting with added zest enemy parties similarly camouflaged. Australian snow patrols adopt a pyjama cut. The enemy generally prefer long smocks where they appear at all, but our rule over the whole stretch of No Man's Land is absolute. While the ground is frozen, the hardships of the troops are slight, though the snow betrays the seerets of our positions to aeroplanes. consequently the day following a snowstorm is marked by great air activity. Our squadrons arc mostly not challenged by the enemy-. The snow has now disappeared from the trenches and released the ground into heavy mud.