The Literary digest history of the world war, compiled from original and contemporary sources: American, British, French, German, and others . he director of operafions in France. A sense of the dramatic seemed to have dictated February 1as the day when American troops should be definitely in thetrenches, and under gun-fire. Just one^ year before that datethe unrestricted fZ-boat war had been declared by on the AVestern Front for several weeks in-activity had prevailed, but scarcely anV word even of minorsections had reached this country. Philip Gibbs ^ thought all «Correspon
The Literary digest history of the world war, compiled from original and contemporary sources: American, British, French, German, and others . he director of operafions in France. A sense of the dramatic seemed to have dictated February 1as the day when American troops should be definitely in thetrenches, and under gun-fire. Just one^ year before that datethe unrestricted fZ-boat war had been declared by on the AVestern Front for several weeks in-activity had prevailed, but scarcely anV word even of minorsections had reached this country. Philip Gibbs ^ thought all «Correspondent of Tbe Dailu Chronicle (London) and The Times (NewYork). 354 GERilAXYS BIDS FOR PEACE this was merelj the hush before the storm. Here andthere along the front for an hour or two might be seen firethat was tierce and* concentrated as long as it lasted, towhich British guns would answer with sudden gusts of fury,but there was nothing systematic, only the harassing fireof winter warfare. There still reigned over battlefieldsa strange, unearthly silence between these bouts, when itseemed as tho nature herself was in suspense, AMERICAN TROOPS GOING TO THE FRONT In the center, looking back. Is tbe Frencb officer who trained them for war work watching, and listening for the beginning of that conflictwhich was expected to occur before the year grew mucholder, perhaps before the first crocus thrust itself up throughfhe leaves, and before there was the first glint ofgreen in the woods, Sometimes over a wide expanse nota gun would be fired. At such times life seemed to havegone from, the land; no bird sang in thickets, no smokecurled from chimneys behind the Germa»n lines; all was dead 355 ON THE WESTERN FRONT and still. Even the wind, soft and warm, seemed to holdits breath, expectant of things that one day would breakthe spell of silence and shock the sky. German artillery on February 10 began an intensive bom-bardment of British positions in the Houtholst Forest
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
