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Show i WRITER FINDS FRENCH DIGGING INTO GERMANY ' PLANNINGJfllSH FIGHT 1 Instead of Decisive Battles, Troops Engage in Skirmishes in Forests, With Little Trench Warfare Being Waged Thus Far By HENBY C CASSIDY ' WITH THE FRENCH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Oct 3 (AP) Under front line ihell lire I have just seen French 1 forces attacking in the Saar basin of Ger- Editor's note: many. This dispatch i also entered captured German ground gives the first wjtn advance troops in the Warndt forest, , picture of the west 0( Saarbruecken, and went through sub-w sub-w 1 1 rn battle terranean galleries of France's Maginot line ron. H,nrV 9 on the first authorized trip of accredited war Cenidy, the writ- correspondents to the western front, er. Is one of 10 Everywhere the Impression that French C rr"j i.h officers and troops gave was that, while they el l! Tk- were not makin nv verv "tensive terri-French terri-French front. This totM gains, they were taking positions of .iP x c high strategic imporUnce. others trom tu- The wgr m y,, westem front thus far is rope, was petted a cautiouJ Bparring match, with the French byth.cen.ort. M tha 1oaHing ; There have been no big battles. The troops are not even Continue on Pkgk Thr , CohnBn Otw) T AP Writer Visits Western Front 1 WRITER FINDS FRENCH DIGGING INTO GERMAN SOIL FOR LONG FIGHT (CoatlaooS Tram Pace Om - In trenches. They are skirmishing in forests and raiding villages, vil-lages, like the old American Indian fighters. Bn tlta th. mIUumi a! thai , . .. . f r V n if '! i' -: , action aa compared with the gigantic gi-gantic battles of the World war, this. Is serious business. Sees Direct Hit From a front line observation post with both French and German Ger-man shells screaming overhead, I saw a French battery score a direct di-rect hit on the heights of Berus, just west of Saarbruecken, which ! constitute the present objective of French attacks. Soon, afterward I aaw a rustic horse-drawn cart carry two bodies out of the Warndt forest east of Berus, where, I was told, a counterattack counter-attack by a German Infantry patrol pa-trol had been repulsed. French officers estimate the total German casualties on the west front since the war started a month ago at about 3000, of which 500 to 600 were believed to have been killed. French losses were described as less. French strategy has been one of strictly local attacks to rectify their own lines, obtain information informa-tion on the opposing forces and cripple the Saar coal and ateel In- dustry. In these they consider they already Tnave achieved Impor-' tant successes. There were no Indications that any general offensive was in prospect pros-pect from either side in this heavily heav-ily fortified region. ' French officers said that one of the sensations of the war for them had been the performance of the Curtiss pursuit planes bought In the United States. One estimated that the Curtiss , planes with French pilots had brought down 28 German planes with a loss of only two of their own. Everywhere the first question French soldiers asked American correspondents was: "When is the , United States going to revise the neutrality act?" American correspondents were the first to come to the front We were a party of 10, accompanied by two military attaches of the 1 United States' Paris embassy. Colonel Col-onel Horace Fuller and Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Colonel Sumner Wait. After a hard ride over military roads to the east we reached the Henry C. Cassidy, wearing trench helmet, as ha left Psris for battle area this morning battlefield In rolling farmland studded with forests, streams, fields and villages Ilka the New England countryside. A dull thumping sound was tha first evidence of war. It came from French artillery fire. The scene was the Meten valley, dominated by the Brus heighU rising ris-ing 500 feet about two miles within with-in German territory west of Saarbruecken. Saar-bruecken. The action was typical of western west-ern front fighting thus far. On the previous day French infantry in-fantry had seized the German frontier station of Uberhernn, a town of 2500, In a surprise attack at-tack just south of the Berus heights. They also had taken St Oran, a tiny German aettlement of two farms and a chapel, north of Berus. ' On the Berus crest French guns pounded a German pillbox observation obser-vation post controlling the heights. French Infantry under cover of woods on the valley edge were swinging carefully east Jn an effort ef-fort to cut around the town of Berus behind the heights. Observation Post Hit As I wacthed, French guns fired rhythmically with each detonation sending echoes through the valley. A white stone tower which once marked the heights already had been destroyed,. Smoke rose at every hit At the close of a half-hour barrage bar-rage one gray pillar of smoke marked a smash at the very point of the German observation post Then after a brief pause came what French military communiques communi-ques call German "reaction." There was a faint bumping noise from the opposing lines, a shriek in the air and German shells fell in the hills behind us. The German Ger-man barrage was brief and action came to a pause. As we filed back to our cars a heavy alienee settled on the valley. It was only at night that French shock troops would move out to Improve their positions anew. As we reached a French border post in the recently captured Warndt forest another engagement engage-ment characteristic of this war had just taken place. A French patrol came In to report they had met and turned back a German patrol. For evidence they carried a blood-spatterea-Cerman helmet two machine ma-chine guns and an assortment of hand grenades and other trophies of victory. |