VERDUN

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7740, 24 June 1916, Page 4

VERDUN

ITS MAZES AND TRAPS. Writing in the New York “Times” Mr Davis, who was invited to one of the Verdun forts, and privileged to inspect it, supplies interesting information, in the light of which it is not difficult to see why the Germans have failed to capture the great fortress. The forts of the city, lie says, form but a part of the defences. For 20 miles in front of Verdun were spread trenches and barbed wire. In turn, these are covered by artillery positions in the woods and on every height. Even were a fort destroyed, to occupy it the enemy must pass over a terrain, every foot of which is under fire. As the defence of Verdun has been arranged, each of the forts is but a rallying point, a base. The actual fighting, the fighting that will decide the struggle, will take place in the open. The fort which the New York “Times” representative was invited to inspect lay in the very path of the drive, and to describe it, he says, would be improper. But the approaches to the fort are now what every German knows. They were more impressive even than the fort. The “glacis” of the fort stretched for a mile, and as they walked in the direction of the German trenches there was not a moment when from every side French guns could have blown them into fragments. They were mounted on the spurs of the hills, sunk in pits, ambushed in the thick pine woods. Every step forward was made cautiously between trenches, or through mazes of barbed wire and iron hurdles with bayonet-like spikes. Even walking leisurely one had to watch every step. Pits opened suddenly at their feet, and strands of barbed wire caught at their clothing. Whichever way they looked trenches' flanked them. They were dug at every angle, and were not further than 50 yards apart. On one side, a half mile distant, was a hill heavily wooded. At regular intervals the trees had been cut down and uprooted, and, like a woodroad, a cleared space showed. These were the nests of the “75’5.” They could sweep the approaches to the fort as a fire hose flushes a gutter. That a human being should be ordered to advance against such pitfalls and obstructions, and under fire from the trenches and batteries, seemed sheer murder.' Not even a cat with nine lives could survive. The German papers said that before this great drive upon Verdun was launched, the German Emp6ror reproduced the attack in miniature. The whereabouts and approaches to the positions they were to take were explained to the men. Their officers were rehearsed in the part each was to play. But, says Mr Davis, no rehearsal would teach a man to avoid the pitfalls that surround Verdun. The open places are as treacherous as quicksands, the forests that seem to offer him shelter are a succession of traps. And if he captures one fort he but brings himself under the fire of two others.