hey
are poured with redoubled fury into the second line of the enemy
trenches, and then moved forward again just as the advancing troops
reach this line.

DEPENDING ON LOCAL CONDITIONS.

The performance is made continuous so far as possible under the
conditions peculiar to the given section in which the attack is being
made. Sometimes it is possible to advance over three, four or five
trenches in a single attack. At others it is as much as can be
accomplished to capture one, which must be consolidated before further
advance is made. It depends on the strength of the trenches, the nature
of the ground, the distance apart that they are, and, of course, the
amount of artillery fire which the enemy is able to concentrate in
return.

When a sufficient advance has been made, it also becomes necessary to
suspend operations for a time while the guns behind the lines are moved
forward to new positions.

This is always the period of the counter-attack in force by the enemy,
who seizes the opportunity when a certain proportion of the artillery is
unable to fire because it is being moved. And it is during this period
that the infantry have to do their hardest fighting, which consists, not
in making the advance over no-man's land to the enemy trench, but in
holding that trench afterward when the bringing up of their own
artillery behind them to more advanced positions robs them of some of
the support of the drum fire.

Still another factor of delay at this period is the time required by
the air scouts to find the rearranged positions of the enemy guns after
the advance, for these must be taken care of also before a new advance
can be made.

An explanation of this form of attack shows why news dispatches have
told first of an advance of the British, followed by a period of quiet,
during which an attack by the French in some other section of the line
was in progress. Then suddenly the scene of action switched back to the
British lines again while the French were consolidating their new
positions preparatory to pushing the general advance a step farther.

GERMAN EQUIVOCATION.

It also explains just what has happened when the Germans state that the
"enemy penetrated our first trenches in a small sector, but his attack
broke down before our second line." When the next attack is ready, of
course, the former second German line is referred to as the "first," and
so, on paper, as far as the uninitiated are concerned, the Germa