human
The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to beat down the resistance of their enemy by a concentrated and prolonged fire, and to shatter their nerve with high explosives before the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us; but they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly experiments to discover this fact. From the statements of prisoners, indeed, it appears that they have been greatly disappointed by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which, despite the actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate with the colossal expenditure of ammunition which has really been wasted. By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good. It is more than good; it is excellent. But the British soldier is a difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense shells filled with high explosives which detonate with terrific violence and form craters large enough to act as graves for five horses. The German howitzer shells are 8 to 9 inches in caliber, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'Coal-boxes,' 'Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. Men who take things in this spirit, are, it seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on the loss of _moral_ so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.
gpt
At first the din is terrific, and you feel as if your ears would burst and the teeth fall out of your head, writes one of the West Kents,
human
gpt
The sensation of finding myself among screaming shells was all new to me, says Corporal Butlin, Lancashire Fusiliers,
human
And describing an artillery duel a gunner declares:
gpt
It was butcher's work. We just rained shells on the Germans until we were deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on their position could have sold for old iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just odd pieces of clothing and bits of accouterment. It seems 'swanky' to say so, but once you get over the first shock you go on chewing biscuits and tobacco when the shells are bursting all round. You don't seem to mind it any more than smoking in a hailstorm.
human
We can go through anything so long as we have tobacco, is a passage from a soldier's letter; and this is the burden of nearly all the messages from the front.
gpt
The fight was pretty hot while it lasted, but we were all as cool as Liffy water, and smoked cigarettes while the shells shrieked blue murder over our heads,
human
It is like standing in a railway station with heavy expresses constantly tearing through, is an officer's impression of it. A wounded Gordon Highlander dismisses it as no more terrible than a bad thunderstorm:
gpt
You get the same din and the big flashes of light in front of you, and now and then the chance of being knocked over by a bullet or piece of shell, just as you might be struck by lightning. That is the real philosophy of the soldier.
human
After all, we are may-be as safe here as you are in Piccadilly, says another; and when men have come unhurt out of infinite danger they grow sublimely fatalistic and cheerful. An officer in the Cavalry Division, for instance, writes:
gpt
I am coming back all right, never fear. Have been in such tight corners and under such fire that if I were meant to go I should have gone by now, I'm sure. And it is the same with the men.
human
Having gone through six battles without a scratch, says Private A. Sunderland, of Bolton,
gpt
I thought I would never be hit.
human
I have no clear notion of the order of events in the long retreat, he says;