THE NEW WARFARE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 167, 12 July 1918, Page 3

THE NEW WARFARE.

WHAT' A BATTLE LOOKS LIKE

SCENES DURING A RETREAT

Describing the conditions' of warfare on the British front during the Herman offensive, the eorrespond.ent of the Morning Post wrote: — What would, I think", chiefly strike those who saw a battle for the first time would be the distance that usually separates the combatants. When you read of the enemy being "driven bank," or of our troops "giving way "before superior numbers." you must not suppose that there is necessarily a mix-up of the two forces, or even that they got very close to one another. What happens as a rule is something like this : the opposing troops -are in improvised positions in woods, groups of ruined cottage.*, old trenches hastily deepened andi parapeted, sunken roads, which, in the north of France ar.e so plentiful, river or canal banks, quarries, or brickworks, or, perhaps, out in the open, each man scraping a little hole in the soil for himself. Almost incessant is the clatter of the machine-gun. There is much manoeuvring to get these into the ibest positions for playing upon the enemy. Our men all give the. Germans- credit for quickness and cunning in this respect. Their noncommissioned officers have been well trained for this duty ever since it was shown by the development of the macnuie ernn during the Rnsso-.lapane.se War Uiat this would, 'be one of the ! principal iactors in future infantry actions.

The German private is not much of a rifle shot, so our men say. There are a number of enemy snipeis who are dangerously brilliant marksmen, but the ordinary soldier is not much to be feared. This does not greatly matter, however, seeing the extent to which the machine-gun h;is taken the place of ridefire. It has also become a more effective killing engine than artillery. In .•ill the accounts of Gennan losses 'the same refrain occurs—"mostly by machine gun fire." This means that a large proportion of the wounds are soon cured. If a man is hit by a fragment of shell it makes a jagged wound, and generally keeps him in hospital a long time. .A butt"*?' wound either kills or makes a clean hole which quickly heals tip

.v'hat generally happens? in a battle, which really is a number of small fights engaged in' by groups ! ol men in the front lines, is that after a while one side falls back, eitli&r because the other side's tire i 9 too hot or eke because the enemy has pushed in 'between it and the next group and; is enfilading it—that is to say, tiring upon it from the side.

The greater number of bursting shells do no harm. Seldom in open warfare of regular kind do troops get near enough t" each other to throw bombs. Not often are positions held long for 'twjunei enarges to be possible. Over a large part of the present battlefield open wartare is not of the ordinary kind. It is not really open As I have mentioned, we are fighting in a. big area in an old system of trenches. Both we and the enemy move up and down these, coming fail' ly often to close quarters.

As there is no definite front lino it it easy for men of one side to stray over to the other by accident.' A Cxcr man soldier rod© into ut party of on r men on a bicycle. He had no idea b** had g'ot beyond his own outposts. Another German, a gunner carrying a telephone. >hox from his 'battery to an observation post, took the wrong turning and found himself m our lines in stead 01 his own.

Often small detachments of troops discover that they are in hostile coun-ti-y, and either slip off unnoticed «.»» have to fight their way out during o*ar retirement. \A battery of. Royal Hors** Artillery was ""lost" for three dayp and: turned up at the end of them hungry, but otherwises none the worse..