~The THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG, SATURD 1. od AY, APRIL 5, 1919. Agony of the What the Fighting Men Suffered With Heroic Silence been hidden from the n warfare has sur It has world that mode passed been recorded the black history of human strife The vast casualty lists published month after month and year after year darkened. human imagination by their statisties of sae- rifice; and every name In those closely printed columns meant a cry of agony in some little home where a father, mother, or wife had tried to stifle the fear of the heart by faith in the luck of their man at the front. The tide of maimed and broken men, of blind and erippled and sick, which flowed back into England and France after the first battles of 1914 and for four and a half years after- wards, was overwhelming in its flood of tragedy, in great cities and in tiny hamlets, and it was only the courage of race and blood which refused to yield to despair because of this con- tinual slaughter and torture of youth Se the soul of the world cries out "Never Again," and in this period of re-shaping the structure of civilization says: "For God's sake let us devise some new philosophy which will eut out this horror Let us get at the root-causes of war so that we may kill them, and let us establish safeguards against any nation likely to let loose the old devils of fnter- national hatred in bloody conflict." 3 the present mood of civilized T kind and I think it is out of that general emotion of revolt against the sacrifice and agonies of its manhood that 4 new philosophy of Jife based upon new international relations may be evolved The danger is that in a generation, or less, the memory of what this war meant in human suf fering may fade out, leaving only the remenibrance of heroism touched by romance The danger is, even now that when people talk about "the horrors of war," it is but an ab stract idea to them and that they do not really understand the depths of abomination through which our men in A NEW HEALTH AND STRENGTH | FOR WEAK GIRLS AND WOMEN WEAK, WATERY BLOOD RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE ILLS FROM WHICH GIRLS Dr. Williams' Pink Pills Actually Make New, Rich Red Blood and Through "This New Blood Restore to Health Weak, Despondent Sufferers. If every youn are due to weak, watery, impoverished blood, regained by enriching the blood, folk in the land. headaches, world for renewing the blood the arteries and ve that they CONSTANT HEADACHES. Mrs. E. C. Taylor, Ascot, avenue, Toronto, says: "A few years ago I was 50 run down with anaemia that x ahout the I had no color; I was constantly trou bled with headaches, dizzy spells and general disinclination to move about or do anything. 1 tried many medi- cines, but none helped me, and my friends thought 1 was in a decline, One day a friend who was in to see me asked if 1 had tried Dr. Williams' Pink Pills. 1 had heard of this medi- cine often, but had not used it, so I determined to give it a trial. [ cer- tainly got a pleasant surprise, for after using two boxes I could 1 improvement in my In tinuing the use of these pills 1 be- gan to regain Smy health, the head: aches and dizzy spells were disap in : a enquiring what I was tak and 1 was not slow to give Dr. Hams" Pink Pills the oredit. 1 took the pills for less than two months, and completely re~ i health and 1 hope my experience may convince some doubting person as to the great merit of Dr. Willlams' Pink Pills, as I have cause to be a firm champion of them." " COULD SCARCELY WALK. in horror anything that has | a passed so bravely, so patiently, so si- lently. For the fighting men did not tell what was happening to them in their letters home they wrote of the brighter side of things for the sake of those who were anxious and afraid; and, when they caiie home on leave, in answér to questions about their sufferings they said: "1 want to forget all that. aie Let's go and' seed show which will make us lgugh. Thank God | for laughter." As a war correspondent in the fleld 1 too had to tone down the black side of war Apart alto- gether from censorship it was my duty to keep up the heart of the peo- ple and not to add to their torture of anxiety for those they loved by har- rowing descriptions of carnage and misery. And there were things the enemy wanted to know which I was not going to tell him---the exact ef« fect of his poison gas. The sum to- tal of his slaughter in particular places The success of his flame machines and other devilish devices, So, in spite of the tragic spirit which the front, and my descriptions of the front, and my descriptiotions of battlefield scenes which were grim enough, God knows, in their realism, I did not give the full picture of our men's agony. The need of secrecy is now passed. It is due to our men that the world should now know how much they suffered with such stoical courage The misery and the beastliness and the terror of it all should be stripped of all their romantic 'camouflage' so that the truth should be etched deep- ly in the pages of history After the Retreat From Mons. The worst suffering of the British army began after the retreat from Mons of the "old contemptibles" the gallant little regular army--in 1914, and when there began that long period of stationary warfare in i NAA Pl tr Could, fia reely walk Se, and was not able to leave it. DI an cover. entrenched positions which neither AND WOMEN SUFFER. \ & girl and every woman would realize that the majority of common diseases and that in this condition health can only be there would be fewer pallid Thin blovd means starved nerves, weakened digestion, functional troubles, heart palpitation, 'and a feeling of extreme weakness at the least exertion. It has been proven in thousands of cases that Dr. Williams' Pink Pils are the best medicine in the and strengthening the nerves. ins with new, rich, red blood that means good health, and even life itself; make weak, despondent people bright, active and strong. ALWAYS FELT TIRED. Miss A. Steruburg, Haileybury Road, New Liskeard, Ont., says: "I have much reason to be grateful to r. Willams' Pink Pills as they re- stored me to health, #f, indeed, they did not save my life. In 1914 1 be- gan to feel run down, and the doctor who was called in said that mine was 2 bad case of anaemia. I lost flesh, always felt tired, and I got so nerv- out that I could scarcely. hold a cup to take a drink. My heart would flutter alarmingly. 'The doctor did not seem to be able to help me at all and my family end friends all thought that 1 was in a decline and could not re- I was in bed for some weeks hen an aunt came tO see me and u that I try Dr. Willlams' Pink PiNs. My father got a supply, and by the 'time I had taken three boxes there was a noticeable improvement, and from that on 1 steadily progressed toward recovery. |[ continued usin the pills for some time longer, an they restored me to my old-time health and strength. I shall mever eease to praise this medicine, and to urge all weak run-down girls to give #t a fair trial as 1 have proved in my own case thelr great merit." NERVOUS DEBILITY. { Mrs. Alex. Gillis, Siew , A. 8. Do not be' persuaded to take a substitute. See that the Hams' Pink Pills for Pale People," is printed on the w wet these Pills .50, by The . through your dealer they will be sent by Dr. Williams' Medicine Co., B BY PHILIP GIBBS Copyright, 1919, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate. nies, preceding death to us, ---- side' couta- break through. Thel!0W @ house in Ypres which was piled Germans by good generalship and su-13bove them by Sera Nis Ars, perior numbers had established them-| NF groan re heard by their selves on high ground ahnost every- | comrades, who made frantic efforts to where on the whole line of their | FeSCue them, but during this work of front. Through . Belgium and FeSCugithe enemy's fire was intensi- France the British troops were in a | fled OURS We ving tomb of hideous position in the Ypres salient | ES 2 y any ey an or: iying in a saucer-like hollow rimmed | "6 ods Lapp nn. Jol. Onoe: at round by the Germans on the ridges | 1UnGreds of times, not only in ¥ pres, of Pilkem. Westhoek, Wytschaete | Put in Albert and Arras and many and - Messines When later in the | Other towns under Germah-._ gunfire ve & Re {into which we went. with the-pag- spring of 1915 they toko over a long- | il of er line to liberate the 10th French | SID little devil of thought that at army for the defence of Verdun they | 30Y moment death or hovzivie hgo- were again in low-lying ground might happen round Leng and Arras, with the en-| emy above them on the Vimy Ridge, | a . Monchy Hill, and the banks of the , Oar Men Whistled at Death. a Scarpe. This was the cause of much | Yet our men went into these places misery and enormous slaughter The | 20d lived in them, laughing and whis- Germans had complete observation ot | ting, taking the risk, day after day, the British trenches and of ; and hiding that cold touch of fear roads and tracks which led to them. | which was somewhere in the heart They stared straight down into wil. 91 lhe bravest of them. Our troops . hi ) ' land our transport went up the tracks lages held by British garrisons dnd | Otek the Germans had registered 14 into other villages six miles or more | behind the lines Souchez, Ablain, | ¥ith their guns. It was just luck, St. Nazaire, Viamertinghe and many | 21Ways, whether they passed between more--through which our troops had | t, he bursts of shellfire at "Suicide to march on their way to the front | COTBer," and "Shrapnel Corner," and or where they were billeted With | Hellfire Cross Roads," and out .of immense superiority.in gun power, |) Pres along the Menin Road. = Often until the end of 1915, they turned | ck was against them. and 1] Saw their artillery on tg these places with the unlucky ones blown to bits, ruthlessness and method, by day and | Dendless, or with smashed faces, or | night They pounded them into | Mere fragments of human flesh ly-| fragments and then into dust, so that | [M8 among dead and mangled horses, of Souchez town and sugar factory | Where a gun team rad tried to dash there is not even a rubbish heap, and | Pa8t Arras station, or a transport Ablain, St. Nagaire, could not belcolumn had come through Albert a Yet no man found except for the skelet bs pf With its Falling Virgin its Pipe gr he Suton vibs ever shirked going up those roads of and in that dust lie the bones 83 11-tame, and if one transport column British soldiers. Many of them wre Jere destroyed another followed past buried alive That happened scores ythe dead bodies of their comrades of times in Ypres where platoons past the dead horses and the broken men billeted In vaults below the| Wa8ons so that the men in the line cloth hall, the Cathedral and houses | Should rot lack for food or ammu were entombed by' tons of masonry | Bition And this happened not for hurled down by high éxpiosives j {one week or one mohth or one year, | torty men were buried like this be- | !eries behind our lines grew like for A A A A Al ca A tA Al ait remember in the spring of 1915 that | Put for four years until the ceme- | ests of white crosses | Behind the front lines where the {communication trenches began no! | body %f men moved in daylight with- | ont being "strafed" by the enemy's | guns directed by watehful observers on the ridges. with telephones econ- { nected with the batteries, so that all {movement was at night Further {forward in the tremches battalions lived horribly in foul and perilous | conditions. The Germans on the high ground made their drainage flow into the British trenches and the heavy rains of Flanders flowed down naturally into the flats so that many of our trenches were watgriogged. Even in August IL have waded waist- deep in water "through trenches where English sgldiers were holding the front line . 'That Grand Fleet of ours don't seem to he very active," said one of them, getting a joke out of his misery. "It's a pity it don't steam down these blinking trenches and do a bit of fighting." That was in sumer. In winter when the water was fcé cold it may be imag- ined what our men endured. They | were always wet, They slept In wet clothes, sat in wet dugouts, stood in wet boots and the cold slime of mud in Flanders encased them and put its clammy touch about their very souls. In the first two winters of the war they were stricken with a disease called "Trench Foot." Its symptoms were exactly like those of frost bite, a sense of burning until all sense was deadened and the feet blackened and rotted Battalions lost forty per cent. of their men for a time from this cause, and in the old Ypres salient I have seen men of the 49th (Yorkshire) division crawling back from the trenches, or carried picka-back by their com- rades, unable to walk a yard, and with both feet tied up in cotton wool at the field ambulance. There was no comfort for them in their dugouts, which were miserable holes in the wet earth without any of the comfort or safety of those deep tunnelled dug- outs which the Germans had built for themselves below the ridges. They were only wet but alive with vermin, and' our officers and ' men from decent, clean homes, some of them used all their lives to the delica- cies and refinements of civilized life, found themselves swarming with Hee, and they hated this worse than the danger of five-point-nines and trench mortars with the risk of being buried alive in their dugouts or killed by a scythe of steel across their faces, and nervous, breathless That given a fair trial they fill GAINED FORTY POUNDS. Mrs. N. E. Tompsett, Ottawa, Ont., writes: "For several years I suffered terribly from nervous debility -and was scarcely able to do a thing Dar ing that time I consulted several doe- tors, and many medicines without getting any help, and 1 began to think that I would never. get better. One day I saw Dr. Wiliams' Pink Pills advertised and thought I would try them. After taking four boxes I was much better, but I continued using the pills for several months when I was again in the best of health. When 1 n taking the pills I weighed onl' 100 pounds. While under their use with my re- newed health I now weigh 140. I re- commend Dr. Willlams® Pink Pills Is every ome whom i kpow to be ail- ng." PALE AND BLOODLESS. . Miss Dorina Bastien, St. Jerome, Que., says: "For over a year my health was gradually failing, my blood had seemed almost to have turned to water, my cheeks were pale, my lips bloodless, and the slightest exertion left me breathless. 1 suf- frequently from severe head- until their bones were bare and wi r-- har 3Egis Efxaisaie dE enemy's underground some liquid falling lightly upon them minutes later they saw German sol- diers advancing upon them with ecan- e and Germans carrying canisters were ods and varieties of gas poisoning. down into our cellars in Arras and that when gas masks were invented our men did not know when to weaf | our gas masks sent over gas which killed. vented "mustard gas," the worst of all, which deposited a brownish pow- der and burnt through men's clothes and raised enormous blinded them. over in shells, he "strafi teries action, and eatised thousands of casu- alties among our infantry, month af- ter month. to go through field hospitals where hundreds of these gas cases were ly- ing, panting for breath, with thelr lungs turned to water, with bodies burned, and with bandaged eyes. the line there were 1,500 of these Canes Jand evéry day for many months one shell so that nothing but the, outer walls remained and not a trace | trail of the walking wounded, stag- was found of thirty-six Canadian sol- | dfers who had been quartered there it was the constant shelling behind | the lines and in the lines which wore | down the nervesiof men and caused that new disease, unknown to man-| kind before, called shell-shock--the| most horrifile malady in war. Strange- | forward m serably with ly enough it affected the stolid. | phlegmatic type of man more than] the nervous and highly strung, and | it had nothing to do with lack of! courage, but was a physical disorder | of the nervous system caused by con- | cussion. During the attack on] Thiepval in the battles of the Somme I saw a tall and strapping sergeant- major go raving mad by shell shock He kept clawiiig: his mouth and his body was shaken wh convulsions, so that he had to Fe~Speopes to a stretcher Another "soldier near him, a young and handsome boy, was shaking in a kind of ague, staring wildly with a dreadful terror in his eyes, quite insane. After almost ev. ery battle we fought through four and a half years of fighting there was flways a crowd of shell-shock cases, and I used to turn my head away from the sight of these poor boys, with their dazed and lolling eyes and that clawing gesture at the mouth. Our asylums are still full of them. Every year, every month Sldtee intensified the powers of destructio on each side, or changed one form of slaughter for another In the early days of trench warfare the Germans mined under our lines, and our offi- cers and men in places like the Ho- henzollern redoubt and Fricourt and St. Eloi went about their duties with the awful consciousness that at any moment the ground might open be neath their feet and bits of their bo dies be hurled sky high So it hap pened many times until by counter mining we completely defeated the work Then the "Flammenwerfer," or flame- thrower made its appearance, and our King's Royal Rifles in the Ypres galient were the first to see this new form of terror. As they stood-to in the trenches they were aware of and it smeit of petroleum A few isters strapped to their shoulders and hose-pipes from which jets of flame gushed out twenty yards ahead. Some of the King's Royal Rifles aught fire and were charred to cin- ders. Others beat tHe flames out of their clothes, crying and cursing, and others in spite of their burns, fired through those tongues of flame. buraed to death in their own fire. What Poison Gas Really Meant. Then came the devilish use of poi- son gas, first used by the Germans in the second battle of Ypres, in April of 1915, when our men did not un- derstand its meaning and retreated before the vapor of death through a wild stampede of civilians in Ypres until many fell choking and gasping their lives out in the fields around. One. despateh rider, carrying urgent orders, rode forward through the tide of retreat until he fell from his mo- tor cycle, which dashed sixty yards ahead until it crashed into a ruined wall. That was in the spring of 1915, and until the end of the war| the Germans and ourselves developed and intensified the _most dreaded means of destruction. The enemy was devilishly ingefiious in his meth- He made it heavy so that it filtered Armentieres, where our men lay sleeping and breathed in its poison He made it invisible and odorless so them . He made a gas which caused us to vomit, and when we took off another And then he jn- blisters and With this gas, sent our bat- and put many of them out of It was a dreadful sight thetr On one day in one section of ere, were hundreds. It was but comfort to our men in agony our gas was even more deadly. -- ter on Battlefields Worst of Al once but scores by the cold in their bones, and how the grey slime of the Flanders mud was clotted on them, engrained in the skin of their faces and hands, and plastering the clothes to thelr bodies, So that they seemed to have been buried and dug up again. For-five months in 1917 our British soldiers endured those things, and our losses reached fastastic heights. It amount t in' the case of some. divisions to all but anmmiation, rhe two Irish divisions lost two thousand men each before attacking a line of German "pill boxes" (or concrete block houses) in August of 1827. They. were shelled for hours as they stood- to in their trenches before the battle ---and then when they went into ace tion each division lost over two thou sand more. In one case their loss was 62 per cent. of their total strength. In the other it was 64 per cent During all the years of war, until the last phase, there were dreadful episodes like that when whole bodies of men, round Ypres, in Delville Wood and High Wood, on the Somme, at Gommecourt and Thiep- val, were slashed to death by Ger- man gunfire. They were fine men, boys for the most part from English counties and Seottish farmsteads and cities, and Irish villages, and I had many friends among them, and loved them all so that it was hard to go to a battalion mess after one of these battles and to find few familiar faces, but new faces of other boys who had come out to fill up the gaps, know- ing that in a little while their turn would come But they came, and did not try to shun their fate. They walked among the dead and knew the horrors of war, but they put on a mask of cheerfulness and hid any fear they might have in their hearts God knows we were all afrald-- and they were gallant to the end, hat ing this war as the hell it was, but going through with it and drinking to the very dregs its cup of agony, for the name and honor of the Brit- ish race and for their own pride of manhood which would allow no sur- render of times the long gering back under shellfire with their arms about each others' necks, or nobbling alone until they dropped to wait for the stretcher bearers or to die, so patiently, that they hardly groaned--men with ghastly wounds revealed nakedly, blind men groping one hand tightly clutthing a wounded comrade, men sO hiddqus in masks of clotted blood that I red not look at them after the first glance. The Flanders battlefields were worst of all because of the intenSity of fire there and be- cause of the state of the soil in five months of heavy rains so that each shell hole merging into another pit ten or twelve feet deep was filled to the brim and made great bogs in which dead bodies floated. Our men could only get through that ground ten miles deep to Passchendaele hy duck board tracks, a foot and a half wide and greasy with slime, and "taped out" by German shellfire. They went into action at night up those narrow ways of death, and if they slipped off the duck boards they fell up to the armpits or deeper into the slime-filled pits, and their cries came walling down the gusty wind. Woe betide-a wounded man who fell like that. If there were no cemrades handy to haul him out he sank deep into those bogs of Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse, and drowned. -- The Slimy Bogs of Flanders, After a battle in those swamps there were many wounded men lying there and one of them told me how he recovered consciousness at dawn and thought himself quite alone, and was very much afraid because of that loneliness, until he heard the voices of wounded wailing about him, and as the light of dawn paled over those grey fields of slime he saw blood stained figures raising themselves ont of the pits like dead men risen from their graves Afterwards some of them clung to each other, or held hands like children, and so I met them and saw how they were shaken AP A cr ti Al Att, rm Mother! Look at his Tongue! Give Him a Cascaret--Quick | Won't eat? Don't scold! See if tongu breath feverish, stomach sour, TO MOTHERS! Nothing else "works" the nasty bile, the sour fermentations and constipation poison so gently but so thoroughly from the little stomach, liver and bowels like harmless Cascarets. While children usually fight against laxatives and cathartics, they gladly eat a candy Cascaret. Cascarets never gripe the bowels, never sicken. \ Each ten cent box of Cascarets contains directions for dose for children aged one year old and upwards, '