WINTER QUIET ENDING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16800, 16 March 1918, Page 7

WINTER QUIET ENDING.

CONDITIONS ON WEST FRONT LONDON, Mar. 6. Mr. Gordon Gilmour, special correspondent on the West front for tho Australian and New Zealand Press Agency, writes:— Tho stagnation r'jys of, winter must' be considered ended. It ought to bo said that the Australians and New Zealanders had a comparatively easy time during tho winter months. Those who experienced the Sonune conditions havo been grateful for the better times which prevailed this winter. The casualties were infinitely less, and there was also a marked diminution in sickness. Upon stepping ashore at the port which has become one of the front doors to thewar, I was immediately among the Australians, and visited an Australian hospital, whose empty beds told plainly enough that the front was quiet.' Tho hospital, which during the Passchendaelo fighting was full to its capacity, now only had a few patients. Quite a large proportion of these were neither Australians nor New Zealanders. The doctors said that the other hospitals were able to make* equally gratifying reports. Regarding our forces at this hospital I had fresh cvidenco of the spirit of tho troops. People are sometimes sceptical when they read that wounded men are anxious to return to the front, but one of the old liantls—a Queensland farmer Hearing the forties—expressed to me his earnest wish to be rid of his pains ami actios, so that lie could got back "up tho line among his pals."