EUROPE FROZEN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21555, 18 January 1940, Page 7

EUROPE FROZEN

Intense Cold on West Front Strain On Outposts United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received January 17, 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 17. Further freezing weather has gripped Europe. Estonia is experiencing the coldest winter since 1866 t! e temperature being 82 degrees below Fahrenheit. Bitter winds sent Moscow’s temperatures 76 degrees below freezing point t.r_d closed all cshools. Denmark records temperatures of 0 degrees below freezing point, resulting in deaths, immobilising shipping in harbours and causing a coal shortage. The censorship prohibits the mention of Britain's weather. It is so c l on the Western Front that British oldiers manning outposts within rifle range of the German lines are robbed of sleep. Their only shelter is shallow dugouts and log huts. Fires are forbidden as the smoke would guide enemy patrols and attract artillery. Physical exercises and stamping of feet are not permitted because the impact of heavy boots on the frozen earth echoes like a shot. Dress discipline in forward areas has been relaxed. The men wear scarves and balaclavas and use straw-filled sandbags as footwarmers. Sentries at night must pull back their balaclavas and strain their ears in the bitter wind, as a result of which they suffer from the cold acutely. Those in advance posts are relieved after short periods and sent back to the base town to rest. The static nature of the war has produced a number of personalities on both sides of No Man’s Land. One, in “George," a German sniper who carries tea to his breastwork every morning, does his exercises 900 yards from the nearest British outpost. Efforts to snipe him have failed.