The Bamberg herald. (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, May 16, 1918, Page 6, Image 6
BAY NOT USE AMERICANS
TILL ARMY IS COMPLETE AM)
POWERFUL FORCE.
Summary of Situation Says Huns
Have Drained Country to Force
Decision Ere it is Too Late.
* At**********
*. London, May 13.?The Asso- *
* ciated Press was officially noti- *
* fied tonight that the statement *
* sent out from Ottawa last night *
* attributing to the war eommuiee *
of the British cabinet, announce- *
* ment that it had been decided *
* not to use the American army *
* on the western front until it *
* became a complete and powerful *
* force was due to an error, which *
* has now been discovered. *
************
Ottawa, May 12.?So confident is
the Entente of its ability to withstand
any drive the Germans can
launch that it has been decided not
to use the American army until it becomes
a complete and powerful force,
according to cable summary of operations
on the western front received
here tonight from the war commit^
tee of the British cabinet.
"The position now is," according
to the summary, "that the Germans
are draining their country dry to
force a decision before it is too late,
whil^ the Entente are so confident
that, having been given the choice
of a small immediate American army
for defence, or waiting till they are
reinforced by a complete self-supporting
American army, they have
ehosen the latter.
Allied Strategy.
"To the sledge-hammer use of
masses.of men by the enemyvthe Allies
are opposing the strategy of
meeting the blow with the smallest
force capable of standing up to the
shock while keeping the strongest
preserve possible. Troops on the
* wings are permitted to give ground
within limits whenever the enemy has
been made to pay a greater price
than the ground is worth.
"In the present operations the
British army has withstood many
times its own weight of enemy masses.
It has retired slowly, exacting
the fullest price.. Meanwhile, Foch
holds the bulk of the French in re.
serve, sending units only to points
hard pressed. This strategy has justified
itself in that three weeks it has
seen the enemy brought to a standstill
without a single strategic objective
being fulfilled and with losses
so immense that his reserve is in
danger of proving inadequate.
Has Seen Failure.
t
"The German commander seeing
' how nearly he is delivering himself
to the Allied reserve has been compelled
to accept temporary failure
and call a halt. His position is tactically
exposed in two dangerous salients
on water-logged ground. His
countrymen are dangerously dissatisfied
at the immediate price paid for
his failure to terminate their suffering.
His Allies are on the verge of
quarreling and daily exhibit their
growing dislike and distrust of the
master who robs them of their lives
and food.
v His Defeat Inevitable.
"His reserves have nearly reached
complete exhaustion. Those of the
Franco-British are still intact, while
the American preparations develop.
The time draws closer when defeat
is inevitable. Therefore, he must
renew the offensive. His preparations
proceed feverishly, but it takes
months to properly organize such an
i
offensive. He must be satisfied with
what he can do in weeks. We may
therefore expect a renewed, furious
onslaught before long.
Victory Deferred.
"The Allies may have complete
confidence in the reserve. For the
enemy the issue is a desperate endeavor
to avoid defeat; for the Allies
the issue is only that of victory
aeierrea. rne coming oame may ue
a repetition of Verdun on a large
scale and if both sides should be exhausted
the Allies have vast powers
of recuperation while Germany has
c drained her resources already."
An Editorial Dilemma.
We begin the publication of the
Rocky Mountain Cyclone with some
phew diphiculties in the way. The
type phounder phrom whom we
bought our outphit phor this printing
ophice phailed to supply us with any
ephs or cays, and it will be phour or
phive weex bephore we can get any.
We have ordered the missing letters
and will have to get along without
them 'till they come. We don't lique
the loox ov this variety ov spelling
any better than our readers, but mistaix
will happen in the best ov regulated
phamilies, and iph the eph's
and 's and x's and q's hold out, we
shall ceep (sound the c hard) the
Cyclone whirling aphter a phasion
'till the sorts arrive. It is no joque
to us: it's a serious aphair.?Rocky
Mountain Cyclone.
\
OVER THE TOP.
(Continued from page 3, column 3.) J
.
war. From that time on diplomatic re- i
lations were severed.
Returning to Tommy, I think bis!
spirit is best shown in the questions he
asks. It is never "who is going to win"
but always "how long will it take?"
CHAPTER XX.
"Chats With Fritz."
We were swimming in money, from
the receipts of our theatrical venture,
and had forgotten all about the war,
when an order came through that our
brigade would again tal^e over their
sector of the line.
The day that these orders were issued,
our captain assembled the company
and asked for volunteers to go to
the Machine Gun school at St. Omar.
I volunteered and was accepted.
Sixteen men from our brigade left
for the course in machine gunnery.
This course lasted two weeks and we
rejoined our unit and were assigned to
the brigade machine gun company. It
almost broke my heart to leave my
company mates.
The gun we used was the Vickers,
Light .303, water cooled.
I was still a member of the Suicide
club, having jumped from the frying
pan into the fire. I was assigned to
section 1, gun No. 2, and the first time
"in" took position in the front-line
trench.
During the day our gun would be
dismounted on the fire step ready for
instant use. We shared a dugout with
the Lewis gunners. At "stand to" we
would mount our gun on the parapet
and go on watch beside it until "stand
down" in the morning. Then the gun
would be dismounted and again placed
in readiness on the fhjp step.
We did eight days in the front-line
trench without anything unusual hap?
- ? * ? ?^ ^ AU/v
peuing UUiSlUe UJL LUC uiumaijr ucuv.11
routine. On the night that we were to
"carry out," a bombing raid against the
German lines was pulled off. This raiding
party consisted of sixty company
men, sixteen bombers, and four Lewis
machine guns with their crews.
The raid took the Boches by surprise
and was a complete success, the party
bringing back twenty-one prisoners.
The Germans must have been awfully
sore, because they turned loose a
barrage of shrapnel, with a few "Minnies"
and "whizz bangs" intermixed.
The shells were dropping into our front
line like hailstones.
To get even, we could have left the
prisoners in the fire trench, in charge
of the men on guard and let them click
Fritz's strafeing but Tommy does not
treat prisoners that way.
Five of them were brought Into my
dugout and turned over to me so that
they would be safe from the German
fire.
In the candlelight, they looked very
much shaken, nerves gone and chalky
faces, with the exception of one, a
great big fellow. He looked very much
at ease. I liked him from the start.
I got out the rum lar and gave each
a nip and passed around some fags,
the old reliable Woodbines. The other
prisoners looked their gratitude, but
the big fellow said in English, "Thank
you, sir, the rum is excellent and I appreciate
it, also your kindness."
He told me his name was Carl
Schmidt, of the Sixty-sixth Bavarian
Light infantry; that he had lived six
years in New York (knew the city better
than I did), had been to Coney
island and many of our ball games. He
was a regular fan. I couldn't make him
believe that Hans Wagner wasn't the
best ball player in the world.
From New York he had gone to London,
where he worked as a waiter in
the Hotel Russell. Just before the war
he went home to Germany to see his
parents, the war came and he was conscripted.
He told me he was very sorry to
hear that London was in ruins from
the Zeppelin raids. I could not con1
vince him otherwise, for hadn't he seen
moving pictures in one of the German
cities of St. Paul's cathedral in ruins.
I changed the subject because he
I was so stubborn in his belief. It was
my intention to try and pump him for
information as to the methods of the
German snipers, who had been causing'
us trouble in the last few days.
I broached the subject and he shut
up like a clam. After a few minutes
he very innocently said:
"German snipers get paid rewards
for killing the English." >
I eagerly asked, "What are they?"
He answered:
"For killing or wounding an English
private, the sniper gets one mark. For
J. __ n _ m
Killing or wounding an mngnsn omcer
he gets five marks, but if he kills a Red
Cap or English general, the sniper gets
twenty-one days tied to the wheel of a
limber as punishment for his carelessness."
Then he paused, waiting for me to
bite, I suppose.
I bit all right and asked him why the
sniper was punished for killing an
English general. With a smile he replied:
"Well, you see, if all the English generals
were killed, there wonld be no
one left to make costly mistakes."
I shut him up, he was getting too
fresh for a prisoner. After a while he
winked at me and I winked back, then
the escort came to take the prisoners
to the rear. I shook hands and wished
him "Thp best of lnrk And a Rflfp lour
I ney to Blighty."
I liked that prisoner, be was a fine
; fellow, had an Iron Cross, too. I advised
him to keep it ont of sight, or
some Tommy would be sending it home
to his girl in Blighty as a souvenir.
One dark and rainy night while on
guard we were looking over the top
the fire sten at our ?nm?41ne
W i <TT
I
Take What's Needed. 'g
, Some 175 million bushels of the p
1917 wheat crop are being held back z
f
and, if not marketed by May 15, will
fi
be confiscated by the government ?
under authority of military necessity,
say Washington Press Associated dispatches.
Tf tlie government can connscate ai0
farmer's wheat, why cannot it confis-j c
cate any other sort of his property, or! T
any other man's? c
Must there be a special authoriza-| i:
tion or law as to wheat, and other n
special enactments as to pigs, horses | v
lumber, etc., down the whole list of it
property? . | u
There is much roaring by certain of j a
oi;r statesmen over the granting of r
autocratic powers to the administration
an<i, in several instances, the administration
itself has seemed to
hesitate to act until more definate
and formal authority was granted.
Congress does not realize and, per- r
haps the administration does not fully
appreciate the extent to which the
country feels that all that it has, in t
particular and in general, is war pro- i
perty, to be taken and used by the r
trench, when we heard a noise Imme- ^
diately In front of our barbed wire.
The sentry next to me challenged.
"Halt, who comes there?" and brought
his rifle to the aim. His challenge was
answered in German. A captain in the
nov+ /illmhafl rinnn f Vi o conH.
UvAt UUT^lOg ^liUiUV-U U^Vll UUV MMUVA
bagged parapet to investigate?a brave
but foolhardy deed?"Crack" went a
bullet and he tumbled back into the
trench with a hole through his stomach
and died a few minutes later. A lance
corporal in the next platoon was so enraged
at the captain's death that he
chucked a Mills bomb in the direction
of the noise with the shouted warning to
us: "Duck your nappers, my lucky .
lads." A sharp dynamite report, a flare
in front of us, and then silence.
We immediately sent up two star
shells, and in their light could see two
dark forms lying on the ground close
to our wire. A sergeant and four
stretcher-bearers went out In front and
soon returned, carrying two limp
bodies. Down in the dugout, in the
flickering light of three candles, we "
saw that they were two German officers,
one* a captain and the other an
"unteroffizier," a rank one grade higher
than a sergeant general, but below the
grade of lieutenant.
The captain's face had been almost
completely torn away by the bomb's
explosion. The unteroffizier was alive,
breathing with difficulty. In a few minutes
he opened his eyes and blinked in Z
the glare of the candles.
The pair had evidently been drink- }
Ing heavily, for the alcohol fumes were ?
sickening and completely pervaded the i
dugout I turned away in disgust \
hating to see a man cross the Great Di- ^
vide full of booze. c
One of our officers could speak Ger- J
man and he questioned the dying man. In
a faint voice, interrupted by fre- ]
quent hiccoughs, the unteroffizier told
his story.
Thprp hnd hppn ft drinldner bout
among the officers in one of the Ger- '
man dugouts, the main beverage being
champagne. With a drunken leer he c
informed us that champagne was plen- \
tiful on their side and that It did not
cost them anything either. About seven .
that night the conversation had turned
to the "contemptible" English, and the
captain had made a wager that he
would hang his cap on the English
barbed wire to show his contempt for
the English sentries. The wager was
accepted. At eight o'clock the captain
and he had crept out into No Man's
Land to carry out this wager.
They had gotten about halfway
across when the drink took effect and
the captain fell 'asleep. After about
two hours of vain attempts the unteroffizier
had at last succeeded in waking
the captain, reminded him of his
bet, and warned him that he would be
the laughing stock of the officers' mess
if he did not accomplish his object, but
the captain was trembling all over and
An nA+iinninof fL n rinrmQn
XUdlStCU UU IClUlUlUg IV IUU VJVJLUJUU
lines. In the darkness they lost their
bearings and crawled toward the English
trenches. They reached the barbed
wire and were suddenly challenged by
our sentry. Being too drunk to realize
that the challenge was in English, the
captain refused to crawl back. Finally
the unteroffizier convinced his superior
that they were in front of the English
wire. Realizing this too late, the captain
drew his revolver and with a muttered
curse fired blindly toward our
trench. His bullet no doubt killed our
captain. N
Then the bomb came over and there
he was, dying?and a good Job too, we
thoueht. The caDtain dead? Well, his
men wouldn't weep at the news.
Without giving us any further information
the unteroffizier died.
We searched the bodies for Identification
disks but they had left everything
behind before starting on their
foolhardy errand.
Next afternoon we buried them in
our little cemetery apart from the
graves of the Tommies. If you ever
go into that cemetery you will see two
little wooden crosses in the corner of
the cemetery set away from the rest
They read:
Captain
German Army
Died ? 1916
Unknown
It. I. P.
j
Unteroffizier
\r" German Army
Vv Died ?1916
Unknown
I B.LP, .i
v. x(To
be continued next week.)
:overnment as it sees fit.
The country is not worrying about
lans, programmes, formal authori-1
ation but about performances. All i
ear has oozed out of the terms "con-|
iscation" and "commandeering. "!
Lnd particularly just now does the
ountry feel that time is most pre-1
ious.
All the talk about infringing upon j
ur demorcracy and about the rights.
)f property is twaddle and hypoc-j
isy. We're not going to have any.
lemocracy or property unless we get!
nto the fight for all that's in us,;
nighty soon. Confiscate hoarded
fheat? Yes, and confiscate everyhing
else that's hoarded and needed
n the war, with or without any other
uthorization than the fact that it's |
nilitary necessity.?Augusta Herald.!
^ i>I ^
Help Oust Autocracy?Buy War
Savings Stamps.
For heating small rooms a gas raliator
resembling the usual hot air;
adiator has been invented.
The total acreage in sugar cane in
he 24 sugar parishes of Louisiana
n 1918 is estimated at 218,000 aces,
as compared with 293,000 in.
917 and 315,000 in 1909.
TWA 5.
HULStfWQSSlAlfff
, iiionnrtn
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT
Buy Them And
Help Win Tlie War
FOR SALE EVERYWHERE
This Space Patriotically ?
Donated By
A. RICE
BAMBERG, S.[C.
J. F. Carter B. D. Carter
CARTER & CARTER
ATTORNETS-AT-LAW
Special attention given to settlement
of Estates and investigation
of Land Titles.
BAMBERG, S. C.
lie Quinine That Does Not Affect the Head
f
lecause of its tonic and laxative effect, LAXATIVE
BROMO QUININE is better than ordinary
' a J nor
juinine ana uuc? uui cauac uvt ...
inging in head. Remember the full name and
ook for the signature of E. W. GROTS, 30c.
Drives Out Malaria, Builds Up System
Che Old Standard general strengthening, tonic,
JROVR'S TASTELESS chill TONIC, drives out
ialarifir.enrichea the blood,and builds upthesysem.
A true tonic. For adults and children. 60c
Dr. THOMAS BLACK, JR.
DENTAL SURGEON.
Graduate Dental Department University
of Maryland. Member S. C.
State Dental Association.
Office opposite new post office and
>ver office of H. M. Graham. Office
lours, 8:30 a. m. to 5:30 p. m.
BAMBERG. S. C.
Labor
V
K
PL
I Ull
< gzn
At home in yoi
m
Wit
V^fi^jMpfs the great war- J .
^^^^pltliae sweetmeat.|
pleasure, the economy; 9
of a 5c package of 3
M^^UWf vorite "sweet ration" 3
nlUraff^S'jw of the Allied armies.
?send it to your friend J
\J ?it's the handiest. J
\1 \v\\?il longest-lasting re- 2"
Va freshment he can
] CHEW IT AFT?R . I? '
f W EVERY MEAL dbl
I ss The Flavor Lasts HI ,
1 OM MY "EUREKA LIME"
L A^j^^'ifll HAS N? E^UAL A ^
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L. B. FOWLER
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Conserve | I ,
energy and material? ^ I . Jj
eep a few bottles of g ^
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iir refrigerator?always ready to serve.
olesome?Refreshing
h no bad' after effect