Show WT barwe human nature becomes brutalized by conflict but the men in the trenches both friend and enemy have their fun and comradeship and kindliness AR has outwardly lost its romance with its color and cantry ea it Is bloody ugly and horrible yet romance Is not dead it still survives radiant and glowing in mhd heroic achievements of our soldiers and in the tender fancies of their hearts thus writes stephen stapleton an englishman in the contemporary ke view and he sets forth with vividness some manifestations of this romance little twilight pictures gentle touches of an otherwise ghastly existence in the trenches one evening a battalion of the leinster regiment held a bailee or irish singsong at which there was a spirited rendering of the humorous old ballad brian 0 lynn sung to an infectiously tune the opening verse runs brian oivan had no breeches to wear so he bought a sheepskin to make him a pair with the woolly side out and the skinny side in baix Us pleasant and cool says brian olenn the swing of the tune took the fancy of the german in their trenches less than 50 yards away with a turn turn turn turn they loudly hummed the air of the end of each verse all unknowing that alie Lein singing at the top of their voices gave the words a application with the woolly side out and the skinny side in sure we 11 wallop the gedrys said brian 0 lynn hearty bursts of laughter and cheers arose rom both trenches at the conclusion of the song it seemed as if the combatants gladly availed themselves of tills chance opportunity of becoming united again in the common brotherhood of man even for but a fleeting moment by the spirit of good limmor and hilarity A young officer of a different battalion of the aime leinster regiment tells of a more curious incident still which likewise led to a brief cessation of hostilities two privates in his corn pany had a quarrel in the trenches and nothing would do them but to fight it out on no mans land the germans were most appreciative and accommodating ot only did they not molest the pugilists but they cheered them and actually fired the contents of their rifles in the air by way of a salute the european Lur war was in fact suspended in that particular section of the lines while two irishmen settled their own little differences feren ces by a contest of fists who will now say the germans are not sports men was the comment of the young english officer there Is however another and perhaps a shrewder view of abe episode it was taken by a sergeant of alie company yarra come dow n out of tint ye gilr of born fools he called out to the fighters it ye had only a glimmer of sense sed see so ye would that playing the gedrys game ye are sure theres nothing like better than to see us all knocking blazes out of each other but as regards the moral pointed by the officer there must be of course many sportsmen among the millions of german soldiers though the opinion widely prevailing in the british army Is that they are often treacherous fighters indeed to their dirty practices Is mainly to be as ascribed scribed the bitter personal animosity that occasionally sio nally marks the relations between the combatants when the fighting becomes most bloody and desperate and as happens at times in all wars no ci Is given to those who allow none an interchange of christmas presents amenities between combatants are very ancient the greeks and trojans aed to exchange presents and courtesies in the intervals of fighting and the early stages of this seemed to afford a promise that they would be revived the fraternizing of the british and germans at their first christmas under arms in 1914 will perhaps be accounted as the most curious episode of the war the influence of the great christian festival led to a suspension of hostilities along the lines and the men on each side seized the opportunity to satisfy their natural curiosity to see something more of each other than through alie smoke of battle with deadly weapons in their hands and hatred in their eyes each side had taken prisoners but prisoners are out of it and there tore reduced to the level of ints the in being appears in a very different light lie bus the power to strike you may have to kill him or you may be killed by him so the british and the germans impelled in the main by a common feeling of inquisitiveness met together between the lines mans land there was some amicable conversation where they could make themselves understood to each other which happened when a german wis found who could speak a little english cigarettes and tunic buttons were freely exchanged but for the most part british and stood with arms folded across their breasts and stared at each other with a kind of dread fascination it never happened again how could it possibly be repeated I 1 t the introduction into the conflict by the germans in high command of the barbaric elements of frightfulness hitherto confined to savage tribes at war their use of such devilish inventions as poison gag and liquid fire their lellot only in brute strength and as regains the common german soldiers the native low ness of morality by so many of them their apparent in to ordinary humane instincts inevitably evit ably tended to learden and embitter their ad ver saries against them even so british feeling Is extraordinarily devoid of the germans in the mass are regarded as having been dehumanized and transformed into a process of ruthless destruction in any case they are the enemy As such 1 n satisfaction my n positive delight in sweeping them out of existence that is war but against the it may be said that on the 18 no rancor in fact british soldiers have a curiously detached and generous way of regarding their coun arys enemies when the german soldier 1 taken prisoner or picked up wounded the british soldier Is disposed as a hundred thousand in stances show to treat him as a pal to divide his food and share his cigarettes with him as he passes to the base in the gladiatorial fights for tha entertainment of the people in ancient homo the defeated combatant was expected to expose his throat to the sword oc the victor and any shrinking on fils part caused the arena to ring with the angry shouts of the thousands of spectators Ilece lve the steel I 1 by all accounts the germans have a dislike of the bayonet they might well be paralyzed indeed at the aff righting spectacle of that thin line of cold steel wielded by a furious irishman but it the bayonet were in the hands of a of any of the other british nationalities his cry to the german that recoiled from its thrust would probably be receive the steel expressed in the rudest and roughest native idiom the way of the irish at finchy ginchy was different and perhaps the of their revenge was not the least magnificent act of a glorious day if we brained them on the spot who could blame us ourselves that would think it no sin if it was done by anyone else said a private of the dublin fusiliers Fusi liers let me tell you he went on what happened to myself As I 1 raced across the open with my comrades jumping in and out of shell holes and the bullets filing thick around us laying many a fine boy low I 1 said to myself this 1 going to be a fight to the last gasp for those of us that get to the germans As I 1 came near the trenches I 1 picked a man out tor myself straight in front of me he was leaning out of the trench and he with a rifle firing away at us as it we were rabbits I 1 made for him w ath my bayonet ready determined ter mined to give him what he deserved when what do you think he notice me and what I 1 was up to I 1 dropping his rifle he raised himself up in the trench and stretched buthis fiands toward me what could you do in that case but what I 1 did sure you have the heart to strike him down even it he were to bill you I 1 caught sight of his eyes and there was such a frightened and pleading look in them that I 1 at once lowered my rifle and took him by the hand saying soure my prisoner I 1 I 1 don t suppose he understood a word of what I 1 eald but he clung to me crying Kame radi I 1 was more glad than ever that I 1 haan hadn t the blood of him on my soul als a queer thing to say maybe of a man who acted like that but all the same he looked a decent boy every bit of him 1 I suppose the truth of it Is this we soldiers on both sides liao to go through such terrible experiences that there Is no accounting for how we may behave we might be devils all out in the morning and saints no less in the cloning trench repartee and trench favorites the relations between the trenches include een attempts at an exchange of repartee the wit as may be supposed in such circumstances Is invariably ironic ind sarcastic my examples are irish for the reason that I 1 hac had most to do with irish bold lers but they may be tikon aa fairly representative of the taunts and brics which are often bandied across no mans land the germans holding part of their line in bel glum got to know that the british trenches opposite them were being held bv an irish battalion aiello irish 1 ahey cried biow ts king carson getting on and have you got home rule yet the company sergeant major a big tipperary man was to make the proper reply and in order that it might be fully effective he sent it through a megaphone which the colonel was accustomed cus tomed to use in addressing the battalion on parade hello gerry 1 he called out 1 I m thinking it information ye want but aivar ashton but be after giving ve all th same later on well be sending ye some fun make ye laugh at the other side of yer mouths the last we heard of carson he was prodding the government like the very devil to put venom into their blows at ye and more power to his elbow while hes at that work say we As for home rule we mean to have it and well get it please god when yere licked I 1 put that in yer pipes and smoke itt the two names tor the germans in use among he irish troops are gedrys and a corruption of the brench allemand for german a brief informal cruces truces are not infrequently come to between the opposing forces at particular sections of the lines so that one or other or both may bring in after a raid their wounded and their slain one of the most uplifting stories I 1 hae heard was told me by a captain of the royal irish fusiliers Fusi liers out there in front of the trench held by his company lay a figure in khaki writhing in anin and walling for help will no one come to met he cried in a voice broken with anguish he biad been disabled in the course of a raid on the german trenches made night before by a battalion which was relieved in the morning these appeals of his were like stabs to the compassionate hearts of the irish fusiliers Fusi liers several of them told the captain they could stand it no longer and go out to the wounded man it they were shot in the attempt what matter it happened that a little dog was then making himself quite at home in both the british and german trenches at this part of the line he wa a neutral he tools no sides he regularly crossed from one to the other and found in both friends to give him food and a kind word with a pat on the head the happy thought came to the captain to make a messenger of the dog so he wrote may we take our wounded man in tied the note to the dogs tall and sent him to the german trenches the message was in english for the captain did not know german and had to trust to the chance of the enemy being able to read it in a short time the dog returned with the answer it was in english and it ran yes you can have five minutes so the captain and n man went out with a stretcher and brought the poor fellow back to our lines then standing on tho top of the parapet the captain took off his hat and called out give the germans three hearty cheers boys the re bronse was most enthusiastic alth the cheers were mingled such cries as sure the are not all bad chapa after all and may the heavens be the bed of those of them we may kill more alian that the incident brought tears to many a mans eyes on the irish side and it may be on the german side too certainly answering cheers came from their trenches I 1 have had from a french officer who was wounded in a cavalry charge early in the war an account of a pathetic incident which took place close to he lay among his companions in affliction were two who were far gone on the way of death one was n private in the uhland and the other a private in the royal irish dragoons the irishman got with a painful effort from an inside pocket of his tunic a of bends which had a crucifix attached to it then he commenced to mutter to himself the invocations to he blessed virgin of which the rosary Is composed hall maii full of grace the lord Is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed Is the fruit of thy womb jesus the german lying huddled close by stirred with alie uneasy of n man weak from pain and loss of blood on hearing the murmur of and looking round in a dazed condition the sight of the beads in the hands of his fellow in distress seemed to recill to his mind other times and different circumstances family craters at home somewhere in bavaria and sunday evening devotions in church for he made in his own tongue the response to the invocation 1 mary mother of god pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death aroon so the alces intermingled in address and prayer the wrape ejaculations of the irishman the deep guttural of the german getting peak er and w cabor in the process of dissolution until they were on earth forever more |