758 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Photo by International News Service 



Russians in the Trenches in Poland 



thousands upon thousands of trees have been felled along the russian fronts for the building of 

 defensive works as on most of the territory on which the czar's troops have fought there is much 

 forested land 



"As a general proposition in shell fire 

 I am not of the opinion that any of it 

 is very destructive without resistance. 

 Even the heavy calibres bursting in 

 mud or soft ground do an astonishingly 

 small amount of damage, while in the 

 air their destructiveness is due mostly 

 to the sheaf of shrapnel or the flying 

 fragments, the energy of which is 

 rapidly lost and, while perhaps annoying 

 to men, cannot be construed, I believe, 

 to have a very vital effect on standing 

 timber. The shells of the heavier 

 calibres, from the 15 centimetre field 

 howitzers up, do, of course, more damage 

 in timber, but even this is trifling in 

 general, the reason for this being that 

 it is difficult to get observation that 

 will give the range of troops in woods, and 

 hence dropping shells is largely a waste 

 of ammunition. There are of course a 



few places where fire has been concen- 

 trated where the forests have been 

 utterly destroyed, but these patches 

 are nothing but clearings of a few 

 square kilometers and cannot be con- 

 sidered as having any bearing on the 

 entire situation. There is one such 

 spot on the Bzura front, unnecessary 

 to locate more specifically, where the 

 Germans in their February attacks are 

 said to have concentrated over a short 

 front 600 guns. This patch of timber 

 has been reduced to kindling wood but 

 it is almost a unique exception. 



"The woods in Poland have given the 

 very best possible cover, in my opinion, 

 for the operations of artillery. I have, 

 myself, been in a number of 15 centi- 

 metre howitzer batteries beautifully 

 masked in timber. These are invariably 

 using indirect fire with panorama sights 



