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Updated: May 23, 2025
The object of the artillery fire, which always preceded an attack unless it was a surprise one with tanks, was to blow away the barbed-wire entanglements, and, if possible, dispose of some of the enemy guns as well as the fighting men. The barrage was really a "curtain of fire" moving ahead of the attacking troops to protect them.
Since then there has been great work clearing away barbed-wire entanglements along the old front. But it seems to be a nightmare task: entanglements multiply upon us faster than we can clear the old ones away. You cannot get across Europe because of the obstructions: you cannot circulate. It has been a bleak early spring with snow on the uplands of Thrace.
In a few minutes two companion land boats made their début amongst us; up they went over the ridge, rolling down the German barbed-wire entanglement as if it were so much thread and forcing huge gaps for the Infantry to pass through, continuing their way placidly on through the trenches of the Hun, flattening scores of German soldiers under their bulk who were too awe-stricken to move.
They could not advance, and dared not retreat, having been caught in a sunken place in the road, with a barbed-wire fence on one side and a precipitous hill on the other. They held their ground, but could do no more. The Spanish poured volley after volley into their ranks. Little thought the Spaniards that these "smoked yankees" were so formidable.
In these operations along the Ancre the British captured 761 prisoners, including twelve officers. During the preliminary bombardment of the German positions a British artillery sergeant slipped out of the trenches with a telephone, and, establishing himself in a shell hole in a forward position, directed the gunfire which shattered the German barbed-wire defenses.
They took no notice of us and we walked on, but very soon came to a sandy piece of ground where a good many soldiers were entrenched and where others were busily putting up barbed-wire entanglements. They looked at us rather curiously but did not stop us, and we went on. Suddenly we came to a village where a hot skirmish was going on, two Belgian and German outposts had met.
"Let's get over the fence an' find what it was they threw in there." Jake rested a lean hand on a post and vaulted the fence. But Anderson had to climb laboriously and painfully over the barbed-wire obstruction. Lenore marveled at his silence and his persistence. Anderson hated wire fences.
When she rode around the bold, out-thrust shoulder of the hill which formed the western rim of the coulee, and went loping up the trail to where the barbed-wire gate stopped her, you would have said that Jean had not a trouble to call her own.
Borckman, with half the boat's crew, went about the ship's work. Van Horn, Jerry at his heels, careful that no one should get at his back, superintended the departure of the Langa-Langa returns and kept a vigilant eye on the remaining half of the boat's crew that guarded the barbed-wire rails.
Make dry yourself" he handed me a piece of cloth a little bigger than a handkerchief. "Hurree." I donned my clothes, wet and shivering and altogether miserable. "Good. Come now!" I followed him, through the room with the stove, into the barbed-wire lane. A hoarse shout rose from the yard which was filled with women, girls, children, and a baby or two.
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