ENEMY SECRETS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9622, 30 March 1917, Page 8

ENEMY SECRETS

EVIDENCE FROM THE TRENCHES SHERLOCK HOLMES ALWAYS BUSY AT THE FRONT. Mr Henry Wood, the United Pres? correspondent with the French Armies, writes: Wnile raids on the enemy’s trendies serv'd several different purposes, by far and away the most important one is that of securing accurate information as to just what the enemy is doing. This entails the , capture of several prisoners, who are taken to headquarters and put through a rigid interrogation. Even if the prisoners decline to talk, and the means cannot he found to make them divulge what military information they may possess, the objects of the raid are still accomplished by their capture. • The mere number of the regiment alone 'which the prisoner wears either on his coat or lapel is sufficient to give the trained military commander most of the information he desires. Thi? is also invariably supplemented by the personal military cards and papers which every soldier carries, so that, if only one or two prisoners are captured in a raid, and those prove uncommunicative, the raid still counts as a success. The possibility of the raid-captured prisoners giving inaccurate information is also reduced by several methods to a negligible quantity, and it is seldom, if ever, that a soldier who attempts this is not quickly trapped. The various general staffs along the front have at all times considerable information from other sources as to what is taking place behind the enemy’s lines. If the prisoner attempts to tell a different story he is quickly checked, and when he finds that his interrogator possibly knows more than ho, he seldom fails to get back into the straight and narrow path of truth that leads to a comfortable internment till the close of the war. It is seldom if ever that a raid fails to yield a half a dozen or more prisoners, and as each is interrogated separately, wide divergences in the story of each are quickly noted and checked up. CALLING ON THE ENEMY. When the commander of a certain sector has reason to believe that sonie new German troops have just occupied tho trenches facing him he plans and executes a raid for the purpose of seeing just who his new adversary is. If the orisoners captured prove to be members of a regiment that, foi example, is known to have been fighting for a month or two at Verdun or on the Somme, and to have sustained heavy losses, the presumption is that it has been sent to its new post for a period of repose. The French commander facing the sector can therefore figure that it is hardly likely tho Germans are planning an attack with these worn-out and exhausted troops. It may even inspire him to attack himself. If, on the other hand, the prisoners prove to be from a fresh contingent of the Prussian Guard or from some crack Bavarian, "Wurtomburger, or Brandenburger corps, the French commander would very likely deduce the inference that the Germans were preparing an attack at that point.

Whatever the results of the laid iadi« cato on tho surface, like one or the other of the above suppositions, xh is seldom if over that full confirmation fails to bo forthcoming from tho prisoners themselves, and so bo a certain degree both sides keep cheek on each other up till the supreme moment when tho big attack is launched. Aa in aviation, grenade fighting, and half a dozen other phases of modern warfare, the French have established a superiority over the Germans in raiding that must inevitably give them a great advantage. In the first place, the great bulk of tho German raids that have been attempted this winter have failed under ■ the ■ terrific barrage fires of the French before they ever roach the latter’s trenches. If by any chance the German raiders succeed in passing the ail hut solid fire and steel curtain of the ‘‘ Soixanto-quinzee’ ’ shells, they must then run the gauntlet of the machine-guns. If, again, they pass these, ther* oomes still later the deadly barrage fife from the rifle-propelled grenades, and still later the barrage of the hand grenades, after which, if anyons is left alive, a hand-to-hand fight t< the death must be sustained. COSY BUT UNCERTAIN.

On the other hand, several phase* ot German warfare have rendered th* raiding of their trenches a very successful operation for tho. French. When the Germans first dug in on French soil they road© a speciality of deep underground shelters, many ot them twenty, thirty, fifty, and sixty feet below the ground. "While intended primarily for the shelter of the commanding officers, their spaciou* subterranean chambers are now used largely by the soldiers, especially during the heavy artillery fir© that frequently precedes a French raid. Even when the French execute a raid without tho artillery warning, the Germans are usually found comfortably stowed away in the snug depths of their bomb-proof shelters. Once the French are in possession ol the entrance to one of these, the rest is easy. The Germans are as helpless as the proverbial rat in a hole. They are, of course, invited to come out and surrender, and to do so in a hurry, If they hesitate or are undecided, grenades provide the means necessary to accelerate them both in their decision and in its execution.

In the matter of grenades the French have a little choice. If they wish, they can hurl down the stairway of the shelter a few of their ordinary exploding hand grenades. Unfortunately, these almost inrariably kill all of the Germans in the shelter, and thus the whole object and purpose of the raid is frustrated. As a consequence the grenade usually employed is a smoke one. Two or three of these exploding at the bottom of the stairway fill the entire subterranean she), fer wTEh an unbreathable smoke that never fails to bring all the Germans to the surface in a hurry, where they are trotted off at double-quick time to the French lines. The French batteries in the meantime execute a perfect curtain fire that prevents any interruption of tha ceremony from other portions of tha German line.