Fighting in
the Trenches

The well-campaigned correspondent from The New Republic filed this article some five months into the war in order to clarify for his American readers the exact nature of trench warfare. His observations are based upon the trench fighting that he witnessed both in France and during the Russo-Japanese War, some nine years earlier:

“There is an illusion that the range and effectiveness of modern arms tend to keep armies far apart. On the contrary, there is more hand-to-hand fighting today than at any time since gunpowder was invented… at this rate the French will not drive out the Germans in months, but on the other hand a frontal attack, and every attack must now be frontal, even if successful would cost several hundred thousand men.”

The article was written by Gerald Morgan; by war’s end he would serve as General Pershing’s press chief (ie.censor).

More articles about W.W. I trench warfare can be read here.

Baseball as a metaphor for war…