Not far from Huningen we met an intelligent Alsatian peasant who remembered the war of 1870 and had witnessed some engagements in the last few days. Here is his account of what he saw:
"The bravery on both sides was amazing. The effects of artillery fire are terrific. The shells burst, and where you formerly saw a body of soldiers you see a heap of corpses or a number of figures writhing on the ground, torn and mutilated by the fragments of the shell. Those who are unhurt scatter for the moment, but quickly regain their composure and take up their positions in the fighting line as if nothing had happened. The effects of other weapons are as bad. It seems remarkable that soldiers can see the destruction worked all around them, yet can control their nerves sufficiently to continue fighting.
"I remember the battles of 1870, in five or six of which I fought myself, but they bear no comparison with the battles of 1914. War forty-four years ago was child's play compared with war at the present time."
In several villages the schools and churches and many cottages are filled with wounded Frenchmen and Germans, and everything is being done to relieve their sufferings. In the stress of fighting many wounded soldiers were left from three to ten or twelve hours lying in the fields or on the roads. The ambulance equipment of modern armies appears utterly inadequate, and most of the wounded were picked up by villagers.
A French aeroplane from Belfort reconnoitred the German positions behind Mülhausen. As it passed over the German works at the Isteiner Klotz there ensued a continuous firing of machine guns and rifles. The aeroplane, which had swerved downward to give its two occupants a closer and clearer view of the German position, immediately rose to a much greater altitude and escaped injury. It cruised over the German position for more than an hour, now rising, now falling, always pursued by the bullets of the enemy.
This aerial reconnoissance, part of which was carried out at an altitude as low as 1,000 feet, was undertaken at terrible risk, but in this case the aeroplane escaped all injury and returned in the direction of Belfort, doubtless with all the information it had set out to collect.
[Special Cable to The New York Times.]
BERNE, Aug. 22, (Dispatch to The London Morning Post.)—Gebweiler, in Alsace, twelve miles to the northwest of Mülhausen, was taken by the French at the point of the bayonet on Aug. 20. My correspondent, who has just arrived at Basle from the field of battle, says that eight battalions of the German One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, numbering about 10,000 men, engaged the French Army. The French artillery was deadly and caused great ravages among the Germans, few officers escaping.
During the whole night the wounded were being transported to villages in the neighborhood, beyond the reach of artillery. All the buildings of Sierenz were filled with wounded.