TRENCH WARFARE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16019, 10 September 1915, Page 8

TRENCH WARFARE.

DRIVING THE ENEMY BACK. I SOME TYPICAL FIGHTING. (Published by Arrangement. Copyright-) There is a slope just over the revere© side of the cliffs at Helles on which yoa may sit with a telescope and watch almost any fight that has occurred at Helles since the 29th Division made its landing there on April 25, wrote Captain Bean from the Dardanelles in July last. During the last three days there has been continual fighting at Helles, but for the first time this has been a fight that you could not see. For the first time the French and British have pushed over the slope of the long finger that runs down from Achi Baba along the Dardanelles, and are fiphting on the slope which leads down to Kerevesdere st:eam which runs from Achi Baba into the Dardanelles. It is the first time that we have looked down into that pally. It is not by any means the last gully before yon get to the Kilid Bahr fortress and the Narrows — it is not the last gully before yon pass Achi Baba. But it is a definite landmark in our progress. The fight by which this progress has been made is a repetition of almost every other fight by which this slow and very difficult progress up from the toe of the peninsular has been made. There is a tremendous bombardment by the French and British guns on a portion of the Turkish trenches in the morning. At a I certain point the bombardment stops. Our infantry or the French infantry in the particular front trenches from which tie attack is to be made, jumps over the parapet and rushes for the Turkish trench opposite it. The distance is from 100 yards to 7CO yards. Some troops lave made it in a single charge, going as hard as they can race—others have made it by short rushes. The instant the men go over the parapet, the Turkish guns burst into a heavy fire, which, according to the German theory, does not break over the front' line of the charge, but over the support- ' ing line—over the trenches which the charge has left, and over any troops being : sent up to reinforce these trenches. This Turkish cannonade almost always consists of the massed fire of either two or three ' batteries firing salvoes. After 20 minutes or so these salvoes cease, .and isolated puffs take their —the British or French are in the Turkish trenches, and the rush of the supporting lines across the open space between .the trenches has ceased. The probability is that the British or French are in the Turkish trenches ana in the Turkish support trench at the back of —sometimes in three trenches. They will not have taken the whole of them. The parties which have made the rush will have become split up, at any rate, on the attack on the second trench—so yards of that will be held by British, then 50 yards by Turks, then 100 yards by British, then a small angle in the trench by lurks, then British in trench again lor 50 yards.

What a Man Knows. It is easy to describe it sitting here after the tight is all over. It is comEaratively easy to obtain an idea of what as happened even at the time when you are sitting a mile or two behind the firing line watching this most spectacular battle-ground at Belles. The people who do not know what has happened, and have no means of finding out, are the men who have actually got . into the second line of trenches themselves. A curious thing about a charge, if yon are m the thick of it you rarely notice a man being hit. It is not until you have looked back from the trench you have reached that you see bundles of. khaki lying here and there all over the intervening space. A few men will be crawling backwards or forward to whichever trench is nearest—one or two others covering .the ground at a half run with a terrible sometimes a man rolling over and over to the nearest cover—but who they are or how badly they have been hit, or who have got through, or who have been left behind, yon have not the faintest idea. You merely know that you have dropped into the very welcome shelter of a strange trench with a few dead or wounded Turks in the bottom of it, and the head-coverthat is, the parapet of the trench and the loop-holes —facing the wrong way.

A Blind Game. The nest thing is thai a message comes along the trench from somewhere en your right—you do not know how near or "how farthat there are Turks in the trench. So you have not got the whole of H. Presently a message comes that yon are out of touch with the company, which you knew were on your —which means the same thing, that there are Turks in the same trench on your left. And that is about all, for the present, each isolated party knows. And tie people in the trench from which you made your charge know very little more. It is not easy to send a solitary messenger back over the space between in full dayl'ght, and even signalling is a slow and dangerous business. It is often some time before the authorities in the trench behind, and the brigade and divisional- staffs who are directing them, know exactly which part of the enemy's trench their men have taken, and which part is still held by Turks.

The Turkish Counter-Attack. Parties of Turks are thus sandwiched in between parties of British or French. There is confused fighting generally with bombs where the parties meet— will always be at a traverse or a turn in the trench, for, of course, if they can see either one or the other will be at once shot. If the Turks have a communication trench leading back from their trench into trenches further back they back down it If they have not they rill either surrei der or else try to hang out until the Turkish reserves make their counter-attack. The Turkish counter-attack will always be made with —which accounts for a good deal of the deadiiness of trench warfare. If the section of trench which wo have taken is isolated— the party which managed to reach it turns out to be the only party that did so— counter-attack from both sides and from the front with bombs will be furious. The Turks know exactly at what point in the trench the British are, because thev have communication trenches leading into other parts of it, alone which messages can come and go in penect safety A" counter-attack can therefore be ouickly planned, and at the same time it is deadly to retreat These little problems come at the end of most attacks upon modern trenches. Thev have 'ft be settled up *>? an attack the same afternoon or the same night in order to complete their possession of the whole of a trench which Ins been token in bit, Dnrm* the night our men work fmWly with nick and shovels to turn the Turkish trench into a trench facing the other wav —or in dyeing a new trench and nuanhi'r forward cnninmnication trenches from the previous British trench to the new trench cantured from the Turks. «cucn Up to the time of writing that is eSactly the sort of fitting thai has on for the last three days. * m<?