been promptly replaced. I once saw a battery of two guns, the
other two having been completely destroyed by direct fire the previous
week. The heaviest piece that I saw at the front with the French was a
6-in. howitzer. The Germans use all sizes up to 12-in. in field
operations, the latter being of Austrian construction. I have never
discovered any conclusive evidence that Germany possesses
42-centimeter guns.

In my observations, when infantry charge infantry in battle movement,
the majority of the casualties are caused by artillery. I have several
times observed fields of dead infantrymen killed in an advance against
infantry, where 90% of the dead had been killed by shrapnel. In my
experience the Germans never use anything except shrapnel against
infantry in the open. Shrapnel wounds are very ugly, being big ragged
holes which usually become infected.

On the battlefields I have observed, very few German shrapnel have
failed to burst in the air. In one field about a half mile square,
where shrapnel cases were strewn about [I counted about forty or
fifty], I observed only four craters. The French often say that the
German shrapnel burst too high.

The German field artillery frequently place their caissons at a
distance of two hundred yards behind the guns, there being no limbers
or caissons with the guns. The ammunition is brought up by hand, each
man carrying six shells in baskets holding three each. The caissons
are usually in less numbers than the guns, there being two caissons
behind four guns, or one caisson behind two guns.

In examining abandoned German ammunition, I have found shells bearing
all dates from 1903 to 1914.

On no occasion have I seen observation ladders used by the French
field artillery. This is probably due to the fact that, in general,
their artillery is at so great a distance behind the scene of
operations.

Shells bigger than 3-in. when used in field operations seldom do any
damage, but have a tremendous moral effect even on veteran troops. The
disconcerting effect of heavy shells exploding in the ground is very
widely recognized at the front. The fire of big howitzers is, as a
rule, very inaccurate. When one of these shells hits a building or a
paved street its effect is considerable; when they burst in soft
ground they are not dangerous. Most of the battlefields of France are
on muddy fields, in which the 6-in. shells make a crater about forty
feet in circumference and five or six