UNDERGROUND, WITH GRAMOPHONE, WHITE TABLE-COVER, AND FLOWERS: FRENCH SOLDIERS IN A "HOME-LIKE" BOMB-PROOF TRENCH.
Our photograph reproduces a snapshot, by a French artillery officer, in the trenches to the east of the Aisne. It shows how some of the French are making the best of things, regardless of weather and the enemy. They hollowed out the trench at one point (describes the officer), and roofed it over with planks and earth, forming a bomb-proof. A seat was cut at the sides and a table got from a village near. A roll of sheet-iron found in the village was made a chimney for a fire with a cosy chimney-corner beside it. With some wire, also, a sort of candelabra was constructed. The flowers on the table are in a German shell for vase, and the gramophone was another village "find." It is evident that the war may develop a race of military troglodytes.
THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—[PART 21]—35
HEADQUARTERS UNDERGROUND: THE BRAIN OF THE BRITISH ARMY WORKING IN A SUBTERRANEAN ROOM, SAFE FROM SHELL-FIRE.
Our illustration shows how and why the motive-power of the Expeditionary Force, the brain of the Army, is often to be found below-ground. Mr. John Dakin, writing of this drawing, made by him from a sketch which he made at the Front, says: "Throughout the war, the enemy has displayed considerable skill in locating and shelling any buildings selected for occupation by our Staff. Various methods of countering these tactics have been devised. On at least one occasion, headquarters was established in a subterranean apartment, which was not merely bomb-proof, but a comfortable retreat from the weather. Here, by lamplight, plans were worked out; scraps of information pieced together with the aid of maps without risk of interruption from the enemy."—[Drawn by John Dakin from his Sketch made on the Spot.]
36—THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—[PART 21].
AFTER THE ENEMY HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO COME WITHIN POINT-BLANK RANGE OF THEIR SILENT FOE:
Determined night-onslaughts by infantry have been, according to a letter from Petrograd, a notable feature of the German tactics in the battles on the Vistula, particularly in the fighting that has been taking place between Lowicz and the river. By day, the Germans, we are told, were persistently aggressive, continuously launching attacks against various points of the Russian lines, while the Russians remained on the defensive. With the coming of darkness, however, regularly, night after night, the Germans redoubled their efforts everywhere, taking advantage of the obscurity to fling forward dense swarms and columns of men in massed formation, to storm the entrenched Russian position, apparently at any cost. They failed every time, it would appear, beaten back after literally a massacre. The Russian tactics, it is interesting to recall, were