TRUCES IN THE TRENCHES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 218, 19 October 1914, Page 7

TRUCES IN THE TRENCHES.

SUFFERINGS OF WOUNDED. "WHY MUST THE WAR CONTINUE?" ''Timjts'' and "Sydney Sun" Services. LONDON, October 16. A correspondent says that sometimes the combatants in the trenches agrve to a truce for rest, when the French sleep or play cards, and the Gennans enjoy music and singing. The eorresx>ondent supplies a vh id picture of the sufferings of. <-A who were shelter ing in a.farmhouse.- The German artillery concentrated its fire on the farmhouse, in the belief that it held French guns. "A sufferer asks for a drink and lifts himself. A bullet strikes him through the heart. Suddenly the plaster ceiling cracks, revealing the. head of 'a shell. A terrific explosion follows, and the house is wrecked. Everybody is half-suffocated by dust and gas from the shells. The wounded' arc carried into a cell-ir. "JTlie Gcr i>c.ns give rein to exasperation "at not having eaten for three days. They are exhausted and hare lost patience, and they ask, i Why must the Avar continue, costing so many lives, since defeat is inevitable'?' They desire defeat rather than victory, as a national deliverance. "During four tejrible hours; the wounded are kept suffocating in the cellar, with shells constantly falling ai d men dying all around. . Eventually tli,ey are removed When the house is a smoking ruin." •