feet deep. Their effect is
chiefly upward and casualties are so rare as to be considered freaks.
Mud is, however, thrown over the whole neighborhood. The bursting of
the 12-in. shells is a very impressive sight--I saw two burst. (My
authority for their caliber was a major of French artillery with whom
I was standing at the time.) They burst at a distance of about 600
yards from us, one in an open field and the other in a small French
village. The concussion was very heavy and even at 600 yards was felt
in the feet. In the first case the air was filled with flying mud to a
height of several hundred feet and there was a cloud of greasy black
smoke about as large as a city block. The resultant crater was about
one hundred feet in circumference, the ground being particularly soft.
The second shell produced the same sensations, made the same sort of
crater, and destroyed four or five small French brick and stone
houses.

The largest German howitzers which are in the field were, in my
personal experience, used only to bombard towns and villages.

INFANTRY

My observations lead me to think that the most important
qualifications for the infantry soldier are three, viz: to be able to
dig, to be able to hide, and to be able to shoot. At the beginning of
the war the French had paid very little attention to any of these
things. Their men were dressed in a uniform so conspicuous that hiding
was impossible. The only shooting that they had ever done was gallery
shooting at a range of about forty yards and they were singularly poor
even at this. Judging by practical results, they had very few theories
and no practice in the matter of digging trenches. The trenches which
they made in the early weeks of the war were straight grooves in the
ground with the earth thrown up in a haphazard manner on either or
both sides. Their early defeats were due to the unexpected invasion
through Belgium, and to their unpreparedness in the three essentials
mentioned above.

The German infantry also shoot poorly from an American standpoint, but
do better than the French. Their uniform is the most nearly perfect of
any of the armies in the war, and the Germans are virtually invisible
at short range if they are not moving. Their helmet is easily the best
headgear in the matter of invisibility. It sets tightly on the head,
and owing to its shape virtually never casts a shadow. The Germans
have been from the beginning very accomplished trench diggers a