766 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



foot by foot and day after day; fighting 

 each other hand to hand ; taking, losing 

 and retaking position after position. 

 In all of this 10 kilometers of forest I 

 dare venture to say there is hardly an 

 acre without its trenches, rifle pits and 

 graves. 



"Here one sees where a dozen men 

 had a little fort of their own and fought 

 furiously with the enemy a few feet 

 away in a similar position. Day after 

 day it went on, and day after day 

 troops were poured into the Russian 

 side of the wood; and day and night 

 the continuous crack of rifle fire and 

 the roar of artillery hurling shells into 

 the wood, could be heard for miles. 

 But the artillery played a lesser role, 

 for the denseness of the forest made it 

 impossible to get an effective range. 

 Yet they kept at it, and the forest for 

 miles looks as though a hurricane had 

 swept through. Trees staggering from 



their shattered trunks, and limbs hang- 

 ing everywhere, show where the shrap- 

 nel shells have been bursting. Yard 

 by yard the ranks and lines of the 

 enemy were driven back, but the nearer 

 their retreat brought them to the open 

 country west of the wood, the hotter 

 the contest became; for each man in 

 his own mind must have known how 

 they would fare when, once driven 

 from the protecting forest, they at- 

 tempted to retreat through the open 

 country without shelter. 



"The state of the last two kilometers 

 of the woody belt is hard to describe. 

 There seems scarcely an acre that is 

 not sown like the scene of a paper- 

 chase, only the trail here is bloody 

 bandages and bits of uniform. Here 

 also there was small use for the artillery, 

 and the rifle and the bayonet played 

 the leading role. Men, fighting hand 

 to hand with clubbed muskets and 



Photo by International News Service 



A Trench in a Galician Forest 



MUCH OF THE GROUND OVER WHICH THE CONTENDING FORCES IN THE EAST HAVE FOUGHT IS SIMILAR TO THIS SHOWN 

 IN THE PICTURE. HERE THE TRENCH AND THE FOREST COMBINE TO PROTECT THE DEFENDERS AND MAKE THE 

 ATTACK DIFFICULT 



