RIVALRY IN DESTRUCTION.

From PHILIP GIBBS. WAR CORRESPONDENTS’ HEADQUARTERS. FRANCE, Sunday. There is no ceasing of the great gunfire which rages from the Flemish Coast southwards past Lens. It is enormous on both sides. The enemy’s artillery is thickly massed against the most vital sectors of our front, and he has brought up vast supplies of ammunition. He is pouring shells into Nieuport, Ypres, Armentières and other stricken, towns, and flinging them miles deep over the countryside in search of our batteries.

With his long-range guns he is firing at targets from twelve to twenty miles beyond his emplacements. At night and sometimes by day he is using great numbers of gas shells. For all this he gets in return twice more than he sends, storms of shell-fire double in intensity at least on some miles of frontage, long range shots far behind his lines, and bombs dropped by our aeroplanes forty miles instead of twenty on his side of No Man’s Land. It is a rivalry in destruction greater than any former phase of this war.

There are no words for all this, no written or spoken words. No thoughts even, for the mind is stunned by the enormity of this conflict. It does not cover a few miles of ground, nor swallow up in its agony a few human souls. It is spacious in length and in depth. The farthest-seeing fieldglasses cannot bring into one sweep of vision more than a little part of the battlefront where the smoke is rising. It flames away beyond that ten miles or more of country to ten other miles away down and down until our lines join the French lines, and so on to the Craonne Plateau, where there are more massed guns, more shell-fire, that never ceases day or night.

Yesterday there was heavy firing round Lens, and men watched a great panorama of flame and smoke from Vimy and Notre Dame stretching for many miles. Higher up I saw another panorama just as great, and beyond my range of sight there was another mighty sweep of gun-fire going northwards, until all its fire died abruptly in the sea. Where I stood there was Ypres, ghostly in its white ruin, as when I saw it first two and a half years ago, but more shrunken and low. Heavy shells burst about it, veiling it until the wind tore away this smoke in ribbons.

From Hill 60 northwards the line could be seen as far as Boesinghe and the Pilkem Ridge, with the smoke of shells rising at many points. The enemy was trying to destroy our batteries over a wide area of country and miles deep; his shells fell in roads and fields, and bits of ruined villages. The heaviest shells – 6in and 8in and monstrous 9.2’s – were exploding in our lines at Oosttaverne, beyond the Wytschaete Ridge, and in the enemy’s ground at Warneton. I could see the houses of Warneton and look into their enemy window frames when the smoke drifted away for a few seconds before other shells burst.

The infantry on both sides has stood still under this gunning, except for raids here and there, but these are fierce and destructive. North of Ypres our men have captured two officers and fifty-two men during the past twenty-four hours, and have brought hack machine-guns from several points in the enemy’s lines. An attempt to get into our lines at Oosttaverne yesterday ended in failure for the Germans, and they left nine dead up against our wire. East of Arras this raiding adventure has been carried out with hard fighting, as at the chemical works near Roeux, where thirty prisoners, a machine-gun, and a trench-mortar were taken after a desperate resistance from the enemy. At Fontaine-lezcroiselles the Germans ran away when one of our raiding parties rushed forward. To-day there was a great thunderstorm after yesterday’s cloudless and perfect weather. The rattle of the thunderclaps was startling, and gave a more awful sense of drama to the human work below.