m.

Before a great advance where a system of trenches is to be taken, a
"rehearsal" often takes place. From a height of thousands of feet
above the lines the aircraft with powerful telescopic cameras
photograph every foot of the battlefield covered by the enemy's lines.
These photographs are developed and studied and diagrams drawn from
them of the enemy's system of trenches. These diagrams are reproduced
far behind the front in elaborately prepared earthwork and trenches
which are an exact replica of the enemy's lines. The divisions which
are to take part in the attack are sent back to rehearse their exact
duties at just the point corresponding to that which they will have to
take. Each officer knows every nook and crevice, each bay and angle of
the trenches he will have to capture. When all is ready the men are
placed in their exact positions and they execute in reality what they
have rehearsed in theory behind the lines. The lesson of preparedness
and organization is studied and mastered with infinite care.

CHAPTER IV

WITH THE BRITISH ARMY

I

In sheltered America we cannot realize what war means, but when we
entered the warring countries of Europe, in an instant we were in a
different atmosphere. We landed in England upon a darkened coast, we
entered a darkened train, where every blind was drawn lest it furnish a
guide to London for invading Zeppelins or aeroplanes. We passed
through gloomy towns and villages, where not a single light was showing
from a window, where every street lamp and railway station was darkened
or hidden. Automobiles with a dim spark of light groped through the
black streets of the metropolis.

In London we saw a great Zeppelin brought down in flames. It was a
sight never to be forgotten. At half-past two in the morning we were
awakened by the roar of the anti-aircraft guns in and around the city.
After traveling all night from Germany, one Zeppelin had arrived over
London and a whole fleet of them was scattered over the coasts and
counties of England.

We sprang to the window and found the sky swept by a score of
searchlights with their great shafts of piercing light, shooting from
the dark depths of the city high into the sky, where they all converged
on a single bright object that hung nine thousand feet above us. Long,
and shining like silver with its flashing aluminum, the Zeppelin seemed
held as if blinded by the fierce light. Bombs were dropping from it
an