Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, October 17, 1918, Page 5

Written by a Prussian. Officer = Who Participated in the Ravag- ing and Pillaging of Belgium, A Copyright by Detroit Free Press} ee CHAPTER VII. To complete our misery, we received ‘s during the night-to attack the French at 4:15 in the morning We wade our preparations under a pour- ing rain. Promptly at 4:15 we went over the top, jumping over corpses and ” Devastated Evérything. wounded men. We were forced to re- tire before a hail of machine gun fire, and taining a large number of un- necessary casualties. Bardly had we regained our trenches when the French attacked us. They came within three meters of our trench, and here their attack broke down un- der our fire. They too had to retire with fearful losses. Three times in two hours the French attacked, alway with heavy losses and no results. af help, chine spat would ble for us to hold the post- tion. We were tortured by hunger and thirst as well as being wet to the skin and were so exhausted that we could hardly stand, At ten o'clock the French attacked a fourth time. They came on in enor- mous numbers, Our leaders recognized the danger of our position and ordered us back, abandoning the wounded and much booty. By a superhuman effort we did manage to save the machine guns and ammunition. We retreated We Went Over the Top. \ 1.000 meters and took a staid in our | former trenches. The officers told us we would haye to make a stand under any circumstances and that the re-en- forcements would come soon. _ % In a moment the machine guns were set up and soon we were sending a hail of bullets into the ranks: of our pur- sulng enemy. His advance stopped in- Stantly. Encouraged by this success we fired harder, so that the French were compelled to seek cover. ‘The promised re-enforeements failed ippear, About 600 meters to’ our were six German batteries in po- ‘on, but they maintained only a very weak fire, An artillery officer appeared before us and asked the commander of our detachment if it would not be well to recommend that the batteriés be taken back, He said he*had learned by telephone that the German Mne was wavering on its entire length. ®nother attack en masse followed, ch outnumbered us by from fivg to Seven times, Our commander now gave uisthis position also. Completely de- | moralized, we retired in flight, Jeaving the six batteries (36 guns) to be taken by the enemy, . The French stopped. their Warnes We were. at our Wit's | fire because they feared to hurt their | own troops. The Germans utilized this | moment to bring ‘up re-enforcements made up of all branches of the service, Scattered infantrymen, unmounted cay- alry, detached pioneers, had all been assembled. Every makeshift was’ em- ployed to fill the ranks. Complete re- serve units apparently no longer exist- ed.on this,.the.third day of.the battle | of the Marne. | Once more the command was given | to turn and take a position and the un- | equal fight began anew... We saw the enemy adyance, and jselze the bat- teries, Then we.saw him storming ahead with fixed bayonets. We fought like wild animals. For minutes there raged a bayonet fight. beyond descrip- tion, We stabbed through the breast, through the abdemen, and wherever else we could. This was-no occasion to employ the bayonet tactics taught at | drill, something which must be left for | drill-ground practice only. The ,butts of the rifles -whizzed through :the;air and-any man’s head which they struck was broken. Hel- mets and knapracks had been lost long since. In spite of the superiority of numbers, the French could not defeat this little group pf desperate men. We forgot everything around us and fought like bloodthirsty beasts, thinking of nothing else. Part of our men pene- trated the hostile ranks and fought to retake the lost cannon. The enemy recognizing the danger, retreated, and tried to hold the conquered guns with all his energy. We continued to stab, to club, man for man, but the enemy held on to the batteries, Every can- | non was surrounded by corpses, and ; every minute new victims were cre- ated. The artillerymen who were fight- ing with us tried to remove the breech blocks of the guns. xI Three Germans fought four French; men at the third gun which was just to my right. They were all that was | left around that piece. At another gun 70 men lay dead or wounded. A pio- | neer went toythe mouth of this gun and with astounding calmness pushed shell after shell into. the» barrel, touched | them off and ran, Friend and foe alike | were torn by the terrible explosion, The gun was.scompjetely demolished; | Seventy to eighty men were killed for | nothing, { | | | After an hour's fight, all the guns | were once more in our possession’ We | were now able to-approximate ‘the ter: | | rible casualties, in the. battle for this j battery... Di and wounded by, hun- dreds, infantry, cavalry, artillery and | ploneers, covered) the narrow’ strip of | group. ot ee yy Aste 101 |, Once, more we received, re-enforce- ments. This time four regular compa- nies -of Infantry .-had. been . taken | away from another detachment, Byen | If a soldier takes-part ti everything, he | can get only, a, very restricted view of what is going on and has absolutely no | way*of determining how the battle is going. Hit doh tial vices a These, re-enforcements had been taken from all different arms and late arrivals had been taken froma diyision | | which had been threatened exactly like ours was. This Jed.us to.conclude, that we-could only resist further attacks , ed.as cowardly and degenerate! . ‘cut off and we saw our men surrender, able to come to their assistance; our decimated from min- “Revenge for Sommepy,” sounded in a heart bi After running a long time we reached a hamlet northwest of Vitry-le-Fran- cols. Without guns, helmets, or knap: sacks, the few who had been able to save’ themselves gathered here. is ‘of ei the guns which had been the center, of 80 much bitter fighting gan ee the hundreds upon hun 3 - diers who participated in>the. battle, scarcely 100 were left, . The others were all déad, wounded. on. This is what was done to the invinel war machine by the -French CHAPTER Vil. We now tried to gather by com- panies. Of our own company only 12 men remained, Presenpyigoer : gled in until there were. mt 4 sembled. .There-is eager asnnct 4 everywhere as each man attempts learn about his comrgde.or ae ay ance. Few questions can we however, as each men. had. thought only of himself In that MEHE oo. op Driven by hunger \we-ap} the village. The first? we was to hasten to the wells and We drank as if we wanted.to fill our selves up with énough x the rest of our lives. 4 J nd (ever ioere ene we able to ning ty’ cated eat. A few beets were leftin the, dens and. we ate them winoat of waiting to wash or clean € ate Where is our compa * knows. We are the company, we 20 men. And our offi oc Somer surely,” said a soldier’ Moments ie a bomb-proof corner.”. jortew ienre But what were we to. do?.No one could decide. Presently a noncommis- stoned officer of the field gend: approached on horseback. It is duty of this particular class of defend- ers of the fatherland to round up slackers. behind the front... .. « «| «4 “You are pioneers,” he called tous roughly. “What are you doing here?” Then+rhe. asked. us... le ques; tions, which we answered as well-as we could, “Where are the others?” he asked. “Over there,” said a young Berlin soldier, and pointed to, the battlefield. “The others are dead or perhaps brisoners. Several others have man- aged)to Te themselves and are some- where, pefiaps.” +! ig “Never mind,” the noncommissioned officer said roughly. The conversation had become disagreeable to him. “Walt here, until 1 come back. Where are the officers?” dehy in . Again no one could answer, “What are thelr names? I shall find them. Perhaps they ere in Vitry.” . e We told.him the names of-our,.offi- cers, ;.He gave us identification papers so that we might be able to prove to others inquiring. why we were waiting where we were. _ “hope his horse falls and /he.bPeaks his neck,” sald one of our men. . We-entered one of the houses whieh had been robbed, as were all the others, threw ourseives down upon-the mat tresses to sleep, sleep, sleep... How long we slept no one knew. We only knew that it was night and that some of our company had aroused us. These Were newcomers who had been punting for-us for a long time... } “Come along.—The captain is, out- provided fresh troops reached us. If side and, he is very angry. He has only we.could get something to eat. gathered 17 of his men together.and is But there seemed'no way to relieve the cursing Hke the very devil because he hunger ana thirst which tortured us. Wow, horses geliopnd up to remove could not locate you.” » Sleepy, and entirely indifferent to the | the guns we had left, and at the sam@ future, we left the building. We knew instant the French artillery.opened @ that we would be sent into action tremendous fire from guns of all cali- again but no longer cared. .I had never bers.. The shells; fell among, the.80 before-seen.among a body-of soldiers | teams. comprising the colpmn,.,Copfu- such an atmosphere of absolute indif- sion reigned. Groups of six horses ference. _ - ? comprising each team sprang Into the | We came upon the captain.. He saw. air, then, ran {n-all directions, pulling s,approach minus our headgear, our their carriages with the wheels up be- uniforms torn into shreds and without bind them. Some of the terrified anl- guns and knapsacks. mals‘ran@iredtly into-the heaviest fire, | “Why are you running around here? only to be torn to shreds with their | he:roared. ‘That was our reception. drivers: es & Nobody-,answered. Nobody ‘cared. ‘the enemy now transferred/his fire Nothing could be worse than what we ; tothe battery position which we occu- had been through, but although every | pied. For us it wasonly a question of one among us felt keenly the injustice | advance or retreat. Retreat? No! The of the taptain’s attitude we all xe | order came.to. retake. the positions mained silent. Sh which we had.Jost atthe opening of | “Wheres your equipment?—Lost— the battle and which the Frenchmen Lost—. , has been a nice business. | presumably had made ready to with- The state equips you, you rebel. If all | stand a new attack. By this time we were like you—” | had been re-enforced with more can: He raved on for a while after this non fodder and: the insane-fight could faghidn, this brave fellow, who, without begin anew. , : any action on his. We advanced over-a wild Seld,- cov- the rebels 'to seeing oa ue . ered by thousands upon thousands of ed his. fatherland in V/ry, Before the commander could reply, | torn human bodies. No shot fell; the only firing was the hostile artillery contihu'ng..to..shell our battery, posl: tions. Neither the enemy's artillery nor infantry was turned upon us. This made us suspicious, and,qur,apprehen | sion régarding what was to come in; creased as we were permitted to\ad- vance pomolested. . . , f Suddenly there vas turned «loose npon-us the fire from a multitude of, | machine guns. We threw ourselves on’ the ground and hunted cover, An in- stant later we again sprang up and continued our march. Once more we encountered destruction, By this time we had lost almost a. third of our men and, exhausted, we halted. Scarcely liad we taken a position be- fore we were attacked from the front and flank. We no longer had an ade~ quate foree, to successfully resist this double. blow, as the enemy, in greatly | } meters behind the battle line. | We sélected guns from those lying around -us-in heaps-and eoom were ready to fight again. ‘We stood around half asleep, lean- ing on our,guns, and. waited to be led once more’ tq the slaughter... A’ fell in’ our, midst, strucks Sergeant and smashed He cried out from the was quickly bandaged. He first. An eyewitness told us\how. happened. He had rested his the gun barrel im the same j/manner as did all the others except it his hand partly covered the m The orders provide that the gun be locked if loaded, Turning to the color ser- geant, who was writhing with pain, the captain roared at him: “I shall Teport you for .punishment “fer your gross carelessness and for nyutilating rn fad Page Five <eiee x his military career was at an end, We all felt for (self with the privates. . We never learned whether he was brought before @ court-martial. Pun- ishment for-self-mutilation was a daily event and many severe sentences were pi and then made known to site os to serve as a deterring ofauigin: The color, sergeant’s place conferred upon another, after more in the direction of Vitry.. j We ched away and halted at a point northwest of the village. Here we met other pioneers who had been gathered together from variaqus bat- talions and beet: unit was once more brought- to,85 men. The officers told. us ‘Dat we Would, not enter. the battle, tod Our only duty for the to keep, the bridges @ in good condition for fighting on <the -they-could be used ‘Went, against. us., to. our destination, point where the aix o'clock Morninge The dead everywhere. We a. wooded» height (be, seen of the g despite. the fact jops were locked in a Se ke ot ¢ ove, aw the fighting Ine, ag were about two kilome- the Marne, which flowed by .directl eee Ral 2 Gorman he. of the river, ‘bri in.a_very dilap- what- Phe, fighting ( e:;more «Lively, We saw.the Preach rush to atteck and 5 Zhe fre of musketry.tn- frequent. This continued for more than two hours, - ‘We saw the French, continuing’ bring. up -re-enforcements constan' despite the German artillery fire. After ap"extended pause the French made another attack, employing sev- eral different’ kinds of formations. Each time the waves of offensive troops were foi back. At three o'clock in the afternoon, under a blow yhich coptained..the full power of Ce, | OU y were forced to re- tire, first slowly. then. dn wild. flight. The ex! atbat 408 could not be rallied in the face of this blow. With The Fighting Became More Lively. wild confusion 6}! tried at the same time to reach ‘the bridges beyond which lay safety, f ta At this instant the cavairy which had taken cover along the river bank galloped, to. the bridge position. In,a moment the bridge was covered with human bodies, all racing for the op- poulte. bank. We tould gee this tem; porary structure trembling under this enormous burden. peQur, officer enw the situation and he nervously pregsed the telephone re- ceiver to his left ear. His right hand) was m_the. witch. Breathlessly he iearea at the ing mi “Tt only hone connections had not been cen” be wouttered. to himself Pas well as all the rest of us that he was to act on the instant that the curt order came over the wire, ~-It}-was not ‘much that he had to do, Merely make @ movement of his hands, Masses of troops continued to rush across se uptil) more than half were safe! ores. ae bridge further phere was Hot)in such great, demand, and.with the lessened congestion al- most all who crossed here were already safé, We could see how the first of the French units had crossed, ; but the bridge continued to. stand. The:sergeant:who manned, the appa- ratus at this bridge became restles: waiting for orders, and finally on his own initiative blew {it up. ‘Some | ‘Frenchmen and hundreds of Germdtis upon the bridge found their graves in the Marne, ! ,,At the same moment the, officer standing next to merecelved the order to blow up. cbiidas, . He-besl: ee He bt could see the race-for the road leading to the bridgehead as dll sought safety at the same instant. There a saps _panie reigned. Meny soldiers Jum; into the river and tried to swim across. The pressure became greater as the thousands still on the other side tried to get back. The message over the wire became more and more insistent. Finally the officer sprang up, rushed. by. thie. plo- neer standing at the apparatus and a second later there was a terrible. deto- natlon—bridge and men thrown into the air hundreds of meters, Just as-a-river at high tide races. along, taking with it all manner of debris, so the surface of the Marne was covered with wood, men, ‘torn uniforms and horses, Efforts to swim were futile; yet soldiers continued to jump into the river. On the other side the French began to disarm such German soldiers as stood there with raised hands. Thou- sands of prisoners, innumerable horses apd machine guns fell into the hands of the enemy, Several of our company Were. Just about to retire with the electric apparatus when something de- veloped. which certain, of-our, number made and it was too late to rectify it The ,upper bridge, which had not been used to any great extent by the Germans, should have been left stand- ingl json) Tt had, been the purpose of the staff {n-command to leave this bridge so that the enemy: might continue its pur- sult of our troops until a certain num- ber. of Frenchmen had crossed ie river, plan was to permit enol Frenchmen to,pass so that they eould be taken prisoner, yet, not too large ® force, lest it might prove a menace to the German arms. After these hostile troops had crossed,.the plan was to destroy the bridge. to..prevent their being re- 4) enforced... That, was why the sergeant manning this switch had been kept waiting for, the order to blow-up .the bridge, . But the sergeant in. the, ex- | eitement- and, confusion thought’ that the:cable, to, which his phone was con- nected had in. disconnected and blew up, the, bridge.on his own initiative while it was crowded by Frenchmen and long.before the enemy could have bad, an-opportunity to cut that cable. At the same time the officer at the switch connected with the explosives under ‘the second bridge received his orders. He afterwards sald that the order he received was hard to make out and that he had lost his presence of mind and threw in the switch, thereby killing thousands on the bridge and leaving mapy other thousands to the merey of the enemy. 4 Before there was time for more pressions our entire unit was ordered to Vitry to be agsembled.in front of the cathedral. With a sigh of relief we hurried away, for the French ar- ldllery: began.once more to send shells with much accuracy over the entire countryside. Wounded,men from other detachments whom we passed on..the toad told us that the French had al- ready crossed the Marne in several different places, Everyone among us voiced the same opinion. We had al- ready sustained great ,losses on, Bel- gian, soil and each day brought new sacrifices. Our lines became thinner and thinner. Many companies were entirely, destroyed and all units suf- tered heavily. These companies whose torces had been reduced to.a.minimum | and with the survivors half starved were opposed by an army well equipped with supplies and arms. The enemy constantly brought up fresh troops while our forces became fewer | We realized, that | from hour to hour. It was impossible. to make a stand here. We were constantly learning from soldiers of other contingents that their losses in men and materials were enormous. I thought of the God of, the Ger- mans. \Had he forsaken them? I thought it so loud that the others could hear. “Yes,” said another; ; “whom the Lord wishes to punish is first stricken with blindness, Probably he thought of Belgium, Donchery, Sommepy and Sulppes,.and still many other places and let us run into this perdition like flying fiends.” We reached Vitry, Here the misery seemed -to be still greater than ever before, for in the. entire town there Was not. a ‘single house that was not overcrowded with wounded. In’ the midst of all this misery robbery flour- shed, All residences had been emp- Hed. of their. furnishings. and .cvery- thing was thrown Into the ptreets to make room for the wounded. The sanitary squads went: over the town and took everything of any value, The munition and, ratiraad columns. followed the same practice. They had plenty. of room for plunder, » This was amply proven by numerous zure afterward of parcels put in the mail, which contafned gold rings, watches, precious stones, etc, The business of the marauders flourished here in Vitry. The soldiers in the supply columns en- countered very little actual danger; bad. an.-easy time as.campared Soldicra fighting st the front, We soon reached the cathedra}.and reported to Lieutenant Elm. He also had. defended -his fatherland at-a safe distance and here in the city, freshly shaved and-in immaculate attire he looked yery,presentable. ran The contrast was-yivid:as he stood before us who. were torn, dirty and cov- ered with blood, with, unkempt hair, with beards grown and caked with mud and dirt. We were obliged to wait so we sat down and looked around us. The hyurch was full of, wounded; many jdiéd-under the hands of the doctors. Theywere carried out to make rqom for) others. The dead were carried to one side, where whole rows of corpses lay. We counted more than sixty. On our way to Vitry we had begged some bread, but .we, were, still hungry. and our field kitchens were nowhere in gightThe crews of our field kitchens im- j | _is well as our forage officers and non- commissioned officers prefer te defend thelr fatherland, many detlom be- hind the battle fronts. They did not are about us.as \98 they were ig obliged to go ARE 8, te oP the artillery fire. Comradeship has: its {imitations with them, Other field kitchens were near by. They had prepared more food than their companies needed. Many for whom they had cooked will never eat again. We were inyited te come and Set whatever we,wanted. . . ‘We had scarcely (finished eating when we had to march on. Presently we were joined by more, members of our company. Our captain appeared. ‘One of our officers reported to him the aumber missing. He stepped in front of the company and said cheerfully, “Good morning, men,” although it was seven o'clock in the evening. A growl was the only response. We were then ordered to go to the wagons standing at the north side of the town, where each man was to supply himself with cartridges and three hand grenades, We gathered at the wagons at 9:30 o'clock and each man took 500 car- ‘tridges, his three grenades and matches to light them. On the way to the wag- ons we saw svorrgr be here formations be- ing hastily orga from stray sol- diers and we received the impression of some great activity in preparation. The rain had begun to fall in tor- rents. As we took our places we saw the streets filled with troops wearing special uniforms to protect them against the weather. Thesé uniforms tonsisted of a suit of weatherproof slothing, a cap, such baggage as must be taker on a march, a tent cloth, tent iticks, dishes and, with | pioneers, trench tools... Thus equipped,.we stood in the rain and waited, ignorant of what lay before us, We were ordered to take the breech ‘locks out of the guns and put them m our,bread bags.. The guns now were no good for shooting. We now yegan to understand what lay before a. <A night attack was planned with oayonets and hand grenades, and the teagures which had been taken were taken so that we would not shoot at one another in the darkness. We stood and waited until eleven o'clock, when the order suddenly came to go into quarters. We did not know what to make of this after ail the Preparations. We could tell from the drum fire and the red glare in the sky that the battle had not lessened in violence. The sky glowed, illumined by the burning villages and farms. On-the way.to our quarters we heard the officers saying among themselves that a final trial had been intended to /@efeat the French, This had been the n = + | ffents, and that the sanftary ¢ompa- nies also had been mede prisoners. At about two-o’clock.in the afternoon we arrived at the heights which had been pointed out to us early in the march ‘by our captain, . } $ We now began to understand that something had gone wrong. Streets were filled with troops from all branches of service, trying to use the road along which we were matching. Being outnumbered, we were crowded backward. ty munition columns raced by us“In no order whatever. They were followed by canteen and other supply wagons. The greatest confusion reigned everywhere. Every minute added to the congestioA until finally there was a dead halt.. The drivers of some wagons left the road and tried to pass around the congested portions by traversing the fields, which had been soaked by heavy rains., Sev- eral wagons turned over and others became imbedded in the mud. The horses were unhitched from these and the wagons left behind. The wagoners mounted these horses and droye on, forgetting everything in one. wild panic-stricken race for safety. An officer rode up and handed an or- der to our captain. We-were halted at a field close to the road. There we were permitted to stack our guns and rést..AS.we lay at this point we watched the passing columns, field kitchens, munition trains, sanit: col- umns and field postal wagons racing by in one grand carnival of confusion. Every wagon carried wounded men. Their faces indicated clearly what tox- tures they were enduring as they were bumped along over the unspeakable roads upon heavy trucks. Still they were anxious to go ahead at whatever cost. They feared the fate which would befall them should they fall into the hands, of their merciless enemy, which would show them the same con- sideration which they themselves had offered in previous encounters, in which they took no French wounded men prisoners, Evening, came Qn and with it tor Fential rain. We lay in the fields, weary and chilled through, yet no one of our unit moved, for we were ut- terly overcome by exhaustion. . Artil- lery detachments now began to arrive, but few of them had their required number of six guns. Many had only three, others two, and a few proceeded with only one fieldpiece. At one time a whole row of about fifty gum car- riages passed without any guns mount- ed upon them whatever. These hat- teries had managed to save_ their horses, but were cornpelled to abandon their guns to the French. Some car rlifges were drawn by only two to four horses instead of the required six. ‘There now passed before us some fifteen magnificent automobiles, the ap- pearance of which won the admiration of everybody. “Ah,” exclaimed muny of the sol diers, “the general staff—Duke Al- brecht of Wurtemberg and his friends.” Discontent and murmurs of. rebel- lion went through our ranks. Every- hody war mad and the accursed tor- ‘rential rain had-no tendency to ghten our spirits. “They have directed the Slaughter of thousands and now they motor away,” said one man, while we lay here in a morass in the rain, “We are not considered.” What we were to be assigned to do lying in our swamp until ten o'clock | that night. The troops-continued to flow back in great disorganized con- tingents. Machine gun companies passed with empty wagons, having lost their guns. The thundering of the cannon gradually came nearer from the west. The noise along the highways became greater and a panic spread, adding to the horrors of the night. Pus gitives wandered around in the dark- hess through the streaming rain, trying to lead their wives and children to safety, only to find death under: the wheels of the wagons. The wounded Were also mangled by scores; piteous erles for help were heard everywhere. | Under ®he strain of the traffic the | roads became badly broken up and all | along their sides abandoned vehicles of | | | | Field Kitch w. Near By | every description lay. I Sere r*y: ~ | We started forward at about three reason behind the preparations for the | o’clock in the morning and soon we night attack which had now been called off. | Headquarters, apparently had. de- cided otherwise. Perhaps it was known there that nothing could be accom- plished by attacking and the,order was » given to, begin the retreat which was put into effect the next morning at six o'clock. We did not realize then that this was to be our last night in Vitry. We were sheltered in a shed for the night. As we, were yery tired, we soon were fast asleep. We were aroused at four o'clock in the morning, everyone was given a loaf of bread and ordered to, fill Kis. canteen with wat¢r, after which the march began. Although we were ignorant of our destination, the inhabitants of Vitry seemed to under- stand where we were going aud they stood on the streets throwing us sig- nificant glances. Everywhere the feverish movement was on. We stopped in front of the town, hall. Here, the captain told us that because of difficulty in the terrain our tro. had to-vacate thelr posi- Homa ahacridie tonearby, heights and occupy new defenses. With that he turned around and pointed to a ridge on the horizon. “There we shall make a stand and wait for the enemy,” he said. “No re-enforcements will.arrive today, and in a few days. we may send picture pea cards to your homes from ‘aris, | CHAPTER (xX. I must confess that most of us be- Meved in this at the time, that we | would soon be in Paris. Other bodies of troops arrived from all sides. We had marched several hours when news ' came to us that. Vitry had been re-, taken by the French and that they had} seized a tremendous amount of mill- | tary stores, captured the hospitals, to- | gether with their medical units and pa- were with the rear guard. Infantry regiments, now merely fragments of thelr former strength, arrived in a | fearful condition. The soldiers had | thrown away thelr knapsacks and ev- ery unnecessary article which might be an impediment: to speed. Before long the first enemy shrap- nel burst over our heads, which re- | Sulted in an even faster marching. | The road used during the first march | contained deep shell holes, which were | filled with water. In the heavy dark. ness men fell into these water holes. Thoroughly drenched, we, continued our march. No attention was: paid to obstacles in the way over which we ‘were constantly stumbling. Speed was the only alm. Dead men and horses lay in the middle of the road, but no one took pains to remove them. | | At dawn we arrived at a little yil- lage, where we halted. We took pos- session. and established as strong.a temporary defense as possible, in time permitted. Our position was .es- tablished behind a cemetery wall. New troops continued to arrive, but all were badly disorganized. Cavalry, mounted artillery and machine-gun detachments followed. These had some .sort of formation and while there was some disorder the panic, which character- ized the other units, was missing here. ‘They also showed evidences of, having suffered losses, but nothing in com- ‘igs.n to ours, ; To Be Continued) Seti te BO tar scr Money to loan on everything. The Security Loan Company, Room 4, imball Bldg. 10-1-tf elie IE A EE , ADD PIE TO MENU r The Salvation Army has added pie coffss and doughnut menu flose to | the front line trenches, “It’s jan American’ institution for American soldiers,