The evening world. Newspaper, May 20, 1918, Page 6

> ewe ay ee aa —_——— ee HOW iv FEELS ' THE EVENING WORLD, MONDAY, MAY 20, TO BE THRILLING EXPERIENCE 1 GIVEN BY AN EVE asian (Continued from First Page.) " that no sensible person drinks water.! She @finks wine with her meats; all the matives drink wine. They say that water is all right for washing clothes in or serving as the founda- tion for soup, or as a gymnasium for gold fish. But todrink! Oh, ja, Ie, la, jalala! | U, & TROOPS MAY FIGHT IN) COUNTRY LIKE WESTCHESTER. Turaing from French rations and) water‘to the training of troops, I am| reminded that I started out to tell what @ battic in the open looks like MY. pUrpose Is to present, if I can, a picture of what the American troops) Will do and tho positions in whioh they Will find themselves when hed get the or to go into action #aw @ erent battlo in the open in ine valley of the Oise a short time ago saw ft from all angies and was right in the middle of the battie formation| for hears. Tho battlefield of the Val- ley of the Oise is, topographically, representative of almost any battle- fiei@ in France. The country along the western front is a succession of valleys and h ith rivers and numerous feeding streams in all the valleys. If our American troops in| this purt of France aré assigned to a portion of the front they will do most/ of the fighting in valleys and on the} slopes f hills, In its natural features! the country hereabouts resembles} 9600006000 | i Certainly,a pound 3, | rEA will yield more cups than will a pound of ordinary tea. The freshness and quality of the leaf ensure this. nae Grawp Rapips - FURNITURE COLUMBUS AVE | be used as reserves or |similar movements in the past com- quire @ total of 40 many thousand re- jlosses have been heavier than they g| anticipated because they have had to NING WORLD WRITE Westchester County back of the Hud- son River, except that there are nit- ous villages and many roads. The: n reads wind up the hills In easy gradients, but the «ide roads and con- necting highways follow the principle that a straight lne is the shortest distance between two points and many thoroughfares whieh would have to be used in « battle run with plumb-line-like precision right up and down mountain sides. All the villages) are jn valleys or on the sides of hills, and from almost any elevation there are always from one to three vilinges! in sight. The country lacks the dense woods and wildness of Westchester, County, but there are plenty of groves: called on French maps “forests.” Groves and villages play an Impor- tant part in open warfare and rivers’ always figure prominently {a open battles, because a river is m natural where 4 retreating army must eventually make @ stand or an advancing army must eventually launch @ terrific attack to achieve a crossing, A valley leading to an ob- Jective Is the natural route of an in- vading or attacking army, which 1s why the last German attack in the Noyon sector was designed to follow the valley of the Oise to a point close to Paris, where the Olse empties inw the Seine. The Germans swept down from the norta to the Olse, and there they were stopped end there they re- main, while their main attack bas been diverted to the north against the British Army. Whether our American Army Is sent ia te attack the Germans or to| meet & German advance, thy prover dure in the preliminaries will be about the same. The Americans may an advance} force. In either event, they will pros ceed from @ position behind the lines 40 & point indicated in the orders, the infantry being supported by the ar- tillery, the heavy guns bringing up the rear. When the action opens it will re semble the battle in the valley of th Oise because all military movements follow sat lines except in casos cf pre- cipitate retreat, The battle I saw wae the stand on the south bank of the Oise of French and Dritisb soldiera who had been driven across the rivor and were forming new lines, unger fire, with the aid of French reserves. THE MATHEMATICAL PRECISION OF OPEN FIGHTING, It might be well to call attention to the fact that warfare has become a matter of almost unfailing mathe- matical calculation, especially tn {planning an attack, By reference to me barrier manding Generals are able to tell Juat how many men will be needed, how many men will be lost and how many resorves will be required, “In thie contemplated advance,” says the com- manding General, “we need so many thousand men, we will have so many thousand casualties and we will re- and such ty serves delivered at such points at such and such times, the effort worth the cost in men?” The Germans knew to a practical certainty what proportion of their vast attacking army they would lose in the great drive which began on Mareh 21, and they figured that the effort was worth the sacrifice. Their ‘use more men in the attack and more in the resrves than the original plans called for. The success of an open attack de- pends largely on the facilities with which reserves can be moved in to BET.103 & 104"ST TODAY, f Fifth Avenue and 35th Street Established 1879 MAY 20th 10% of the Entire Gross Sales of Best & Ce, will be donated to the take the place of soldiers killed or wounded, and the closer the co-erd!- | nation the greater the certainty of|Uilery far behind the battle lines.| The second victory, UL was French reserves who stopped jermans at the Oise. It thay be kanes reserves Who Will stop a German advance somewhere else. But, whatever part the Americans play, the story of the battle I saw, briefly told, will, I hops, contey to the reader an idea of what our soldiers will be called upon to perform, for the battle of the Oise incorporated @ retreat, the reformation of a tem porafily beaten force, the arrival of sufficient reserves and a counter at- tack. FIRST SIGNS OF BATTLE ARE THE REFUGEES. We atruck the southern rim of the battle of the Olse early on Monday afternoon when our train came to @ halt. ‘The ratiroad station was under shell fire from « German position about twenty-six miles away. As we walked up the raliroad track into the town wo met streams of refugees coming out-old men, olf women and children mostly, haggard, etambling, terrified. The refugees hed come from the north, many of them from devastated districts north of the Oine, from whioh the Germans had been driven by the French and to which many of the inhabitants, sided by the American Red Cross and the Anne Morgan Fund, had returned to také up the work of cultivating the farme from which they had been driven in the great German sweep from the north and east in 1914, It wan the second time these out- caste had been driven from their homes by the Germans. Quite nat- urally they were depresred, but there was no indication of hopelessness in thelr attitude, Unanimously they ex- pressed the opinion that they would come back, There is something in the character of the French people— @ bouyancy, 1 might call it—whtch In Irrepreseib'e under the stress of ad- vernity. TNey feel that they are des- Uned to victoty over the German, » went to the hotel, three of us— American correspondents. Then we presented ourselves to the French of- cers in charge of the zone, which was a zone of combat. Our papers from the War Office in Parte were found to be regular and we were !m- mediately promined every facility which would ald us in our work. After arranging for transportation to be furnished the next morning, we returned to the hotel, where we found that we had been assigned to roome facing one of the main etr of the town. The hotel was about ihe enly intact structure. Acros# the atreet were lines of shattered walla telling of the destruction wrought by Ger- man shell fire in the early days of the war, All night long German shells dropped into the town, but We were used to the shock of exploding vhella and went to sleep early, only to be awakened at midpight by # disturb- ance in (he street. A fellow correspondent entered my room with the information that he hid been out in the atreet and had found that French reserves were hurrying through to the relief of the armies to the north, Tho din wus terrific. For hours French soldieré loaded into mo- tor trucks, and, accompanied by their motor and horse equipment, passed by. talking, laughing, sometimes sing ing. Strangely enough, the predom- inating noise was the barking of dogs. The French soldier loves @ dog, and ho takes his dog with hin: whérever he goes, The town dows, aroused by the excitement, began barking as the first troops entered the town, and tha soldiers’ dogs barked back at the town dogs fo the @reat amusement of the soldiers, The town people, grouped at thelr doorways or at win- dows watched the passing troops until dawn, when the movement suddenly ceased This was the movement of the re- rerves sent into the Battle of the Oise. They had been filing through the town for days and nights. In an automoblie the hex! morning we caught up with the rear guard of the feservés shortly after we had crossed the River Aisne, and from that time on we honked our way through tens of thousands of French troops, artillery, infantry and some airy. The infantrymen were alt riding in motor trucks, In the French Army troops en route to ac- tion ate saved the strain of march- ing. There is a plentiful supply of camions, or trucks, in the French military establishmént, a supply which ovr country, the foremost in the world in the manufacture of au- tomobiles, should seek to equal without delay. We are behind In motor equipment because of trans- portation diMoulties. I trust that as our facilities are increased we shill ship actods the Atlantic trucks and trucks and more trucks, because trucks make for mobility in the movement of troops, and mobility joakes efficlency in military action, EVENING WORLD MAN UNDER GERMAN SHELL FIRE, We passed hundreds of guns, many | of them immense ploces drawn by 1918. UNDER FIRE IN AN OPEN BATTLE was the long range! They had been held for an emergency| searcher. ‘The third will fall at a and the emersency had called. point between where the other two| It was not until mid afternoon that} landed and that point, it seems to we reached the battle ground. From] me, I» this crows road. ‘They always an elevation where wo rested for « time we overlooked @ valley lerrain probanly twenty miles wide and from three to five miles deep along the south bank of the Olse. The terrain swarmed with men. Every road was choked with them, and the open fleids in soms sections had been trans- formed into highways, The Germans, Marching south from Noyon, which they had taken shortly before, had advanced their patrols to the north shell I have seen quick jobs of tire re-| placement on automobile race tracks, | but professional mechanic ever) slapped on a tire and pumped it up more expeditiously than .we thr urs and our chaiffeur, who ad subsequently that he had never pul on @ Ure before, Fortune- ately wus wrong about the | destination of the third German shell, It landed right alongside tho Britisti| 4 cross road.” n am mitted Carroll bank of the Olse, due south of Noyon| battery. Other shelis fell on the | and at other points. We rode up to| barn. | a bridge acrows the river which wi The British gunners yanked their barricaded on our side by piles of Mattresses, baby carriages, wheelbar- rows and dismantled farm wagons, and troops with machine guns were crouched behind the barricade, while out on the bridge French engineers were connecting wires with great charges of explosives. There were many machine gun emplacements along the river bank on the south side, and at any sign of movement in the woods across the stream, which, at that point ts about 150 or 200 yards Wide, the muchine guns sprayed the point at which the movement had deen observed. “There are forces of Germans inthe woods,” an officer told us, “but we haven't been able to tell what they are, In my opinion they are ubian patrols.” British khaki was intermingled with the horizon blue of the French forces for, to the north and west had been the point where the British and French lines had joined before the battle, which had forced the retreat acros# the river. The retreating torces afd the reserves were form- Ing In lines along the river and in horses away from the brook, hitched | up and galloped on in a cloud of dust. Fifteen minutes later, from a point | we had reached on a hillside, could see the smoke from their guns! firing in a new position on the other side of the village, German shel's were falling about the old position, and the barn which had served as the first shelter was already half destroyed. Except for the noise of guns and| exploding shells the buttle area was| sirangely quiet. There was no shout- ing: or bawling of commands. Thou- sands of men in motion on roads or in fields kept clear of each other and took up positions assigned to them with the order and precision which might mark an exhibition drill. French reserves climbing out of motor trucks and forming in line to march to their alotted places, sang | au they worked aud marched. There | was an impressive tense or our part of witnessing a great pageant staged for our benefit, for we four only civilians within miles of scene. ‘| AMERICAN AMBULANCES CARRY | the foothills to the south, In these Heels dei ital As foothWla were miles and miles of old Resnerha | eoauaen Loreen trenol 7 . ; se Wie: rigs = mites acres OF | over all roads le nding to the plain on | fad been pl ers are. which | which the French’ and British had ve phd Rene. Che erent taken up their new position. As fast Orive in which the French forced the! ay the trucks disgorged thelr load Gormana back from the Aisne, across| oe soldiers und supplies they were the Olse and into a stand on a line }tyrned around and headed for the ranning Westward from Laon. In every clump of woods and in evéry village Ltitish and French bat- terles had been stationed, and the bombardment of the woods across the river wag continuous. Further back the big French guns were busily en- @uged In hurliyg sholls into the main German positions far to the north of the river, The front line positions along the river were in woods and villages. French and British soldiers were hid- den in tree trunks or buildings, snip- ing. Where there was no natural cover the men had thrown up mounds ot earth behind which they were prone on their bellies with their rifies {p position, The machine gun em- south again to bring up fresh forces, Many American trucks, driven by American oldiers, had been pressed into service for this movement, Back of the third line hundreds of trucks parked in a village while the chauf- fers, eating their evening meal, bore the insignia of all three armies— French, British and American. In all the movement on roads attending this battle we did not see, in three a single disabled truck horse. American Red Cross field service ambulances, driven by American youths, wefe busy all along the battle line taking wounded men to the rear and bringing up supplies and sur- days, or @ disabled | itseit | position Js incessant placements were behind any surt of protection that offered. A British machine gun company was stationed behind the wall of a cemetery shoot- ing through holes they had broken throgh the stones. The front line of infantry and machine guns was pre- pared to bear the brunt of the attack should the enemy try to cross the river. Back of the front lino were several French engineer units with shelter awaiting a call to throw over In the and French who had taken the battle across the Oise and great numbers of reserves who had come up from the south, cond line were the British part STALLED IN ROAD, SHELLS DROPPING ALL AROUND, The day was warm, the sun was shining and the air was dim with dust from the roads, Scores of acro- planes, some of them Boche, were tn motion overhead. In the flelds to the south of the river we could see foun- tains of thé earth thrown up by German shells reaching for battery positions, Shortly before sunset the whole terrain was fairly bubbling, so violent was the German artillery fire, At irregular intervals the firing of small funs would cease on both sides and we could hear the great shells from the batteries to the rear screaming over our heads and exploding in the woods on the other side of the Oise. At @ cross road back of the river the tight réar tire of our automobile ex- Ploded and as we were taking off the old tire @ British battery galloped by The men were whipping the sweating horées and the soldiers on the caissons were hanging on with both hands as the wheels bumped over the ruts in the road, Beside a barn on the out- skirté of a village, about as far from us as the divtanée across City Hall Park, the battery swung into @ field and we ceased working on our tire to watoh the unlimbering of the guns. ‘The Horses trotted across the road to a brook and within five minutes the bat- the river where smoke betrayed the | presence of a German battery, pontoons on trucks. They were behind | temporary ridges in case of an ad- | vance across the river against the| in} tery was firing shells into a point in| the wooded slope on the north side of | geons for advanced dressing stations. | These ambulances were also used for transferring bewildered refugees from the battle zone to points outside the range of German artillery, where those | who were too exhausted to walk were | transferred to camions and hustled to | the nearest railway lines. | A considerable portion of the valley was under cultivation. A thin carpet | of green here and there in an area of ploughed ficilda showed where crops were beginning to push through the ground, One little farm on-a hillside ap- | peared to be a particular target for | German shells, which tore up the soft | earth and scattered the work of some | poor husbandiman to the four winds. Much of the cultivated land along the south bank of the river was in a sec- tion over which the Germans had passed in retreat from the Aisne. They had cut down or mutilated and killed every tree they could reach, Peasants returning after the Germans retreated had laboriously chopped the c White Shoes T CAMMEYER can save unsurpassed, and there are ferent styles to select from, AMMEYE) Stamped on a Shoe Means Standard of Merit 34" St. New York wantonly destroyed trees into fire: wood, blasted out the stumps anc turned the ground with ploughs and harrows. And here were the Germa | back again and threatening once more }to visit their system of friehtfulness on a piece of country they had devas- But they were tated months before. held at the river, The fighting along that sector | etill in progress, but it has resolved an artillery engagement, | although the valley still swarms with into trqops and the movement of infantry and light artillery from The big French guns Of the hills dominate the river dnd forbid a German ve tvance. At the whole valley rocks with the ex- plosion of cannon and shells and the shes and rockets give the country- side the appearance of early twilight or dawn. It is never quite dark, even in rainy weather, for each side keeps the terrain illumindted the better to | euard against surprises WHAT AMERICANS MAY EXPECT, PICTURED BY BRITISHER. In open warfare the of attack; that charges under art! dom hold a united front points the attacking f is, the At yrees, or driven back, Then the resolves itself into a series of bucking movements at se appear to be weak. A British office ling whom we took to the rear for hospital jet treatment for machine gun bu wounds gave us an idea of how wart fare in the open shifts in intensity from point to poiht for no reason | that is apparent to the men in the thick of the fighting. “Three nights ago,” he sa Germans opened up with guns of al sizes on a trench position held by combined force of French and Infantry and artillery, They red qui shell fire drove us to let them shoot all night “Early the next morning the infantry came at us. I showkd say regiment of them suddenly appear over the top of their trenches and started toward us. It seemed tha Just as they made their start thing: had u came to a halt all along the line, The big guns took a rest, and it was sq quiet we could hear the crunch of t feet of the Boche on the ground. In all the sector under our observation | that one unit of German soldiers was the only moving factor in the battle. They came toward us shoulder to| shoulder as though on parade. “Fortunately we had some machine | gun nests planted at points command- ing thelr approach from both flanks We let them come until they we: almost to our wire and then we o up and caught them from both Our gunners fired slowly and they went down like shooting gallery targe “Those who survived came on and) we met them and captured several But, by this time there was another line moving toward us from the Ger- man position, marching as though on parade, We let them have the same treatment, with the machine guns and the ground was covered with killed and wounded. Then came the third Ine, and by that time they had succeeded in | loca’ tin | be: gan to shell them. “That third line reached us.and we! fought t » hand to hand. We were! : . outnumbered, but we held them. for| Tub Silk Petticoats half an hour, Then they sent another | eee wave at us and we had to retire. Now Tailored models of superior tub the remarkable part of it is that dur- silk, shadow proof double panel 2 50 ing all that activity we were practi-| hack nd front ry ial e cally the only Allied troops fighting in al ° pect our sector selves for a couple of hours. ‘The nex’ we knew we found ourselves in an un tenable position because our forces ha¢ fallen for the Bride HE month of May brings forth quite a little shop- ping by the June bride. prevailing color for this occasion, White is naturally the the little bride-to-be quite some time and trouble by relieving her mind of White Shoes and Stockings (thereby enabling her, speedily, to cross these two items from her long list) Our assortment of White Low and High Shoes is a “thousand and one” dif- Two are illustrated below. position to night fighting ix never contintous arong the entire line infantry lery support sel- some break through; at other voints they are held fighting tors which ‘the We just| Boche and carefully, | a 1|the river, They drove us by wetghi of numbers, They would launch great masses of troops at different points of our line and apparently abandon the rest for the time being. We didn't have inen enough to sup port those who had to meet thos: s rate attacks, and timt is how the Boche got the better of us tor the time being.” OPEN BATTLE DESTRUCTIVE, BUT AMERICANS PREFER IT. Open warfare is a destructive game, and for-that reason it must 14 prosecuted vigorously, in the hope uf reaching '& au.ck conclusion. It has its fascinations for officers anu wo had to retire again men because it gives opportunity for | individual aétion, and it hay its par- ticular appeal to Americans on that acogunt. A surprising thing about a battle in the open i# the indifferent attitude of the men not engaged in actual con- flict. With shells bursting all around “They were two days driving us te |give OPPENHEIM. GLLINS & © als them, troops in an open battle will their undivided attention to something unusual and not connected |with the fighting at all, An instance ilustrating this occurred on the bat- tlefleld in the Olse Valley We had |hatted alongside a French artillery jtrain drawn by horses. One of th ha rench soldiers called attention to « messenger riding a mule along a road about a mile away, Shells were fall- \ing on both aides of the road, but the |mule was moving at a slow trot and the messenger dict not even look Jaround. A shell burst in tho road ahead of him. He kept right on, The whole artillery outfit, pointing, ges- \tieulating and shouting had eyes only |for the mule the messenger, aod after he was out of sight they talked about the nonchalant gait uf the mule and the attitude of the rider. Exploding shells and gunfire soon cease to have any influence on eol« jdiers in the open. You never hear the shell that hits you. So, If you hear @ |shen explode, you know {t has not hit you. Volla! There you are! Hlong r | | | Model of serpentine | crepe, in rose, Copen- Al hagen, pink, light blue | ty) 8 | 34th Street, New York Special Sale Tuesday 800 Women’s Breakfast Coats Fringe Trimmed Coat and lavender. Exceptional Value Important Sale of Women’s Silk Negligees Offering Extraordinary Values (as illustrated) 2.25 K Our machine gun positions and We had the war all to our- k to our right and left and Crepe de Chine Negligees, tailored or lace trimmed, in pastel shades, ribbon trimmed. Special | Crepe de Chine Negligees, su- perior crepe de chine, pleated skirt with chiffon coat, trimmed with lace and rosebuds. Special Two-tone Slip-Over Negligees of superior chiffon in pink or light blue, tailored model. Special 5.90 8.90 | 10.75 i d Wash Satin Nightgowns Of superior washable satin, in tailored model, sleeveless. 5 50 Special * Satin Underbodices Of washable satin, in flesh and 1 00 e white, tailored and lace trim- med, ribbon straps. Special Wash Satin Petticoats Of superior washable satin, in med | 2.05 flesh and white, lace trimmed models, Special eZ Bridgework Without Gold Are you wearing a Bridge with a lot of nice, shiny gold in the front of your mouth? Why put up with such a vulgar di AMERICAN RED CROSS play of “dentistry” when you | fy “| motor tru¢ke, The French motor) were in an excellent position to watch | can obtain one of my All artillery is # murvel of speed in| the effect of the British fire and, as It Porcelain Bridges at small t? t 4 \transportation. The trreprossible| proved, we were also in an excellent Full Sets of Teeth $5.00 up bet , | n French have a way of painting on| position for German observation. the fact that you are wearing artificial teeth, Gold Fillings... .. $1.00 up Gold Crowns, 22-4. $5.00 up \ thelr light guns the names of women. moving toward Pow! & German ehell exploded in | We saw, the front,!@ field adjoining the cross road. A f Ten cents out of every dollar spent | he Your 4 paintensly | Maréelle, Yvonne and Marguerite,| piece of stone broke the windshield and # perfectly three seventy-fives which had been| of our car, afld wo were pelted with Silver Fillings...... SOc up snieca 10" yrern,’ Decayed’ wuehs . . in a reserve camp along a road we) fragments of earth, Pow! Another waved, Diseases of the gums cured, re today will go to relieve fad traversed sodres of times oa our shell exploded in the same field, but White Linen, 5,00, 7.00 further on. White Snowbuck, 7.50 White Buckskin, 10,00 way between the correspondents’ camp and the American front in Lor-| “The first one," explained Carroll ratne. We realized for the first time|to Irvin Cobb and me—Carroll being the reason why there had been such|an expert in artillery—“was what is 4 great congestion of soldiers and ar- known as the short range searcher. White Snowbuck, 5.50 Dr. Salter, Dentist, 491 Fulton St., Brooklyn Be sure to get the right place, 30, Sunday 9-19, Opposite Abraham & attendanc PAIN and DISTRESS White Kid, 8.50 How 0 8.30 to 7 Ladies in