GUN POWER.

North Otago Times, Volume CV, Issue 30938, 23 July 1917, Page 2

GUN POWER.

' TRIUMPH OF THE iIUMTIOXv - ) WORKER. .

SMASHING THE GERMANS

Writing after Hhe capture of Mi , .:i' , l:y, Mr Percival Phillips, the coi respondent of the ''Daily Expicss," says: Gun poncr smashed the Germans between Anas ami Yiiny Ridge, just as it them 'on the Somme, I flish the multitude ot redoubts and strange strongholds revealed by our latest breach in the German front could be preserved fessou for future generations. They. wbrito'ealise. the better how nnehinerv has triumphed over manin this great war, ' East of Arras the battlefield is thick with concrete forts, now low-lying earthworks, each distinct in itself, yet a part of the massive German barrier thrown around three sides of tlf itowflj There are square forts, roiuid tuts, a'uJ oblong forts; chapel forts, church forts, and cottage forts; forts sunk inconspicuously in the crater field with only a foot or two of loopliole ( d mrteliiue-gun emplacement visible at close range; forts rising boldly above the wire as though challenging observation; forts embedded in steep railway embankment?; forts stuek in a marsh;forts.of all sizes and shapes strewn about witli discriminating generosity, monuments to the patience and blind confidence of a misguided army—and all in ruins. You have only- to. look over this wholly blasted plain at the edge; of Arras to realise how the munition workers of Britain helped to win this victory. The guns and shcis Jhey sent us have freed Arras 'a/icTthcir own fighting men and set the armies again into open'country, where, they are completing tire ta9k so splendidly begun. :

Ruin, utter ruin everywhere. Bits of brick and mortar, heaved into formless masses; gaping holes and new mounds of earth; dead men in grey,'twisted niaehiiie-giiiis, powdered concrete, broken lilies, howitzers tilted at impossible angles, blackened tree stumps, bent rails, awl splintered timber. Chaos and an appalling desolation. The picture cannot be imagined. The earth is convulsed and dead. The wonder of it is that any living tiling could survive, much less try to resist the force that was irresistible.

The end of this infernal .bombardment just before dawn on Easter Monday was too sudden to be reassuring, All night 'long the British guns hammered and hammered at the crumbling city of forts, and 'then, as though by magic, the storm ceased. .' "The silence," said one officer, "was like a thunderclap! We drew long breaths and were thankful, although we knew what was coming. . . It was' an unspeakable relief." It was all too short for the dazed, dwellers in the caves by Arras. The guns fell on them again with greater fury, and in the wake of this new barragegreater and more nerve-racking-than the steady pounding that preceded itcame the fresh and confident battalions] from Arras and the British lines around it. I saw them sleeping in the fields or lying along the roads under a flaming sky, and pressing forward to the attack between midnight and daybreak singing, whistling, joking, giving no thought to the uncertainty of their next hour, wholly glad to be alive, though' death might march with them into the fields beyoiid, They were ghostly regiments moving steadily through the night-men in bonnets, men from the Midlands men from all corners of Britain and her" outposts, swinging along over the wet and shinning road with a serene con- - : Mence that made the heart glad, They passed like phantoms, I heard their voices in the-darkness—heard little scraps of their cheery talk and the, greetings of their comrades on the «'ay. . . ."Old Fritz is done for. . , Going to do in Kaiser Bill . . .Wish

' I was back in Man-chestcr. . .Lumme, look at the sky; it's like the nuldyj eld Crystal Palace . . . Wot cheer, ' mate!" , I £ aw, their faces Hash into the ilicker- , ing light of a roadside lamp. A camp ! of huts was (here, and the soldiers who , were not yet called to battle roused from [ their sleep to see the battalions pass. , Their fifes were at the edge of the field I playing the column by—three.youthful fifers shrilling out a musie-hall air and . two drummers pounding fiercely as they . grinned a welcome that could not be ! heard. I jaw the colunrn melt away again in the darkness beside the ramparts of Arras, the last man singing, "I want to go .home," and marching with a zest' to meet the enemy. / One of the most obstinate of the stir- ■ viving forts was that built" in the socalled Railway Triangle immediately east of Arras. Its guns were still workable, its tired garrison still hostile. When our infantry came within striking distance they paused before a destructive fire. What happened) then is; frfßij triumph of the British gm.neJKi'ho barrage, creeping before the WMry with incredible exactness, had passed - ahead, being a blind though intelligent instrument of annihilation. Miraculously (it seems to an onlooker) the barrage was Wte(lantH|iii bail L'ljj'fii i beautiful mglt/'Taid :. ~'ecta 'ji".'.nJ ■' anxiously awaited its support, "a per« fectly wonderful sight, for it came back over, the ground it'had threshed, as though led on a 1 leash." The barrage halted on the Railway Triangle.- It played about. Concrete splashed the waiting infantry; 1 machinegun mountings lobbed through the air. ' The barrage simply sat on the redoubt and it-was not. Then if resumed,its interrupted journey into the unknown ' land and left the broken evidences of its handiwork to be dealt with by the "cleaners up."' ~