Letters From the Front

Dated:

There is not much reported of the work here but a constant wearing down of men on both sides is going on and a continuous fight when neither is trying to advance but shelling the roads behind the trenches and turning on machine guns every now and then on known cross roads or exposed corners. They both have rifles trained on the roads and camped there and occasionally night and day fire a few shots on the off chance of hitting someone, and sometimes they do. Then each side throws with trench mortars and rifle grenades and mortar shells. I saw a German rifle grenade here that had come over and failed to explode. It is like a bull rush exactly, the stem fits into the barrel of the rifle, which exploding a cap, fires the whole thing into the opposing trench, and there is a cap on the big end which, explodes the guncotton inside the big end and the thing explodes like a shell. We have quite a number in here wounded with these rifle grenades. They can be fired accurately, up to 150 yards. The rifle is really not much use in this war, it is hand bombs, rifle grenades, machine guns, trench mortars and artillery. In making an attack the bombers, who wear an apron like a carpenter's apron with a number of pockets, and bombs in the pockets, go out in front and lob these bombs into the enemy's trench and either kill and drive out the enemy or are driven back by machine gun fire and counter bombing. These attacks are constantly going on. Sometimes the artillery shells the enemy's trenches or searches the country behind for enemy artillery and infantry lie low or come back a bit, leaving only a few men in the front line to watch the enemy. Then, again, they tunnel below the opposing trench and blow up a mine. Some of the holes thus made are enormous. One at Hooge is 60 feet deep and 200 feet across, this is called a crater, and it was for possession of five of these the big fighting at St. Eloi took place and the Canadians lost them and the Germans now hold them.

The fight at Verdun still goes savagely on and the Germans are gradually gaining ground, we think they are losing more men than the French, which, if true, is a French victory as this is no doubt a wearing down war, that is, a war of exhaustion.

Not long ago there was a German seaplane raid of Dunkirk and we hear there were 75 killed and 148 wounded. They dropped 120 bombs on the city and a French battle plane brought one of the German machines down that night not far from here. I have an idea that the French and German air machines are a little better than ours, that is they are faster. We had an airman in here a few days ago shot in an airfight through the liver. The bullet passed completely through him, but he is getting better and may be quite well again in a month or so, but don't imagine he wants to do any more fighting in an aeroplane.

Yesterday I saw some German graves at Mont des Cats, of soldiers killed in October 1914. The graves are in the enclosure of the monastery and kept just as nicely as the graves of our own men. The monks own this. Mont des Cats, which takes its name from the Belgium order of monks of the Cati, who held these hills against Caesar, and he mentions the Cati in his history of wars in Gaul, so this area has been the scene of wars ancient and modern.

It was quite hot weather for a few days, but is always cool at night, so that one can sleep. The growth of crops is very rapid and the thickness of the grass, hay and grain and hops is wonderful. The farmers treat their fields like we do our gardens and have wonderful crops. The country looks beautiful just now. There are a great many home trees in rows scattered here and there around the farm yards, along the roads and along some fences that give the landscape viewed from a height and added beauty. Everything is a bright yellow now except you the front, were forced disappeared under shellfire and the ground is plowed from the same cause. The fertility of this flat country is amazing, the farms are quite small but I suppose the best cultivated in the world.