Barrage upon barrage of humanity locked in bargaining, scurrying to and from , browsing without purpose, seeking with marked intentions.
Our artillery is firing without doubt to cover us, to barrage the roads along which the enemy must retire, and prevent him taking up positions which he must not be allowed to occupy.
A fight has taken place, and our 75's are still sending down a rain of shells, forming a barrage some five hundred yards before us.
The men affirm that our artillery placed a barrage along this marked line on the evening of the 24th.
When this barrage was finished night firing began and was continued throughout the night, two calls for support from the infantry being responded to at 1.
Nieuport and the batteries around it, Pelican Ridge and the roads running inland from the coast were all raked by enemy fire which increased in violence on the 18th, when a practice barrage on the right divisional front was carried out.
Two counter-attacks were broken up by the fire of the guns, and at nine o'clock at night a further creeping barrage was put down under cover of which the 17th Division pushed north and consolidated a line just north of St. Quentin Redoubt.
With gun muzzles pointed now to a high elevation, small detachments maintained a protective barrage at a slow rate of fire while the remainder of the men—after eating a hasty meal—began to repair and reorganise the positions.
The four batteries of the 162nd Brigade had, in common with all the other guns, been enveloped in the tremendous barrage which the enemy put down at two o'clock in the morning.
The creeping barragefrom the second to the third objective and the protective barrage beyond the latter are deserving of special mention.
A heavy barrage was immediately opened upon them, while Captain van Straubenzee and Lieut.
Gradually such Germans as were not bombed retreated before the hostile raiders and congregated in a herd in the middle, with the raiding parties closing in on both sides and the barrage roaring over their heads to cut off all retreat.
He was barely persuaded from ordering the barrage to be built with stone from the pyramids!
In 1847 Mehemet Ali laid the foundation stone of the great barrage across the Nile at the beginning of the Delta.
At this point a barrage is built across the river.
To get to the front line you had to cross two of these valleys, and in each of them the Boche put a terrific barrage all night, and every night.
Also there was the usual rotten valley to cross, with the hell of a barrage in it.
There was a terrific barrage to pass, but both of them got through.
You know the awful exposed feeling one has there, and they had a regular barrage just at the corner.
They did not, but every evening for many months they put a barrage of rifle-grenades all about that dummy.
When, finally, thebarrage of music lifted, we made our way to the line of attack at the spacious dining-table our hosts had meanwhile spread.
Struthers, intent on showing Whinnie that he is not the only man in her world, is placidly but patiently showering the lanky Cuba with a barrage of her fluffiest pastries.
It merely gave me the feeling that he was trying to entrench himself behind a raw mound of mirth, that any shelter was welcome until the barrage was lifted.
The French artillery sprinkled the opposite bank of the river with a barrage which the "novice" American fighters called beautiful.
We could see two of the three waves and not a single man out of place, following the barrage like veterans.
The moving barrage of fire stalked ahead of our men into Cantigny, keeping the boche down until the infantry was upon him.
A rolling barrage two miles deep and of indescribable violence extinguished the poor efforts of the local batteries to reply.
A rolling barrage behind which the infantry advanced was laid by the field guns.
Besides all this, a heavy smoke barrage was used, not only to screen our infantry from boche observers, but to blind the boche gunners.
I request that this aerial barrage be forced to break in order that a reconnoissance up to the line of Marieux-Puchevillers (ten miles from the front) may be carried out.
They had stopped near a woodland; other tanks grouped around them; the barrage had lifted.
The enemy barragewas considered the heaviest that had, as yet, been encountered.
Usually the standing barrage was put up behind the objective, and it is thought that the standing barrage should be on the objective until the creeping barrage coincides with it and then both move together to their next standing line.
The registration on the 56th Divisional front was followed by slow, steady bombardment, which increased, until about a quarter to ten a heavy barrage crashed down on the whole front.
Undoubtedly he attacked in force, and some must have been caught by the artillery and machine-gun barrage during the assembly and the initial stages of his advance.
Bailleul line, particularly on Bailleul East Post; this was completely shattered by a concentrated barrage and by rifle and machine-gun fire.
This misfortune caused the enemy to put down a barrage on our front-line and communication trenches, which prevented the smoke detachments getting to their appointed positions.
The Tanks were to be put out in No Man’s Land during the night, and would be half hidden by the smoke barrage in the morning when the attack started; the figures would be pushed above the trenches as though infantry were just emerging.
The 4th Londons, pivoting on the north end of Leuze Wood, gained their first objective under close cover of our barrage and with little loss.
The artillerybarrage was arranged against the flank of the enemy position, creeping in a north-westerly direction.
Accuracy, in time and in range, is the one thing which must be most strictly observed by the men who are conducting the barrage hundreds of yards back of the line.
Instead of all the gunners shooting in unison at a single command, each one had a different job to perform in order to make the barrage conform with the angle which the trenches made.
Then another barrage in the enemy's rear is cutting him off from reinforcements and after a time the trench is captured and perhaps many prisoners taken.
Soon, however, another improvement was put into effect and that was to shorten the barrage to sixty yards, letting the soldiers advance with the exploding shells nearer and nearer to their own bodies.
If they should go too fast they would run into the barrage and would be killed by their own artillery, which is in the rear of the trenches.
The science of this was at last so well worked out that a gap of less than forty yards lay between the curtain and the troops and sometimes only thirty yards which could be covered in a couple of seconds after the barrage was lifted.
It requires a rapid firing gun for this kind of warfare, and as armies have not had such guns heretofore, of course, the barrage fire was unknown.
As the soldiers move on ahead the barrage moves on, or it may be more proper to say that the soldiers move just as slowly as the curtain of fire moves, for if they do not, fatal consequences follow.
At practically the same time the creeping barrage was conceived, another idea which has also been extremely useful was developed.
Closely following the moving barrageis your infantry.
All lieutenants and captains who directed thebarrage must keep exact time and have watches timed to the second.
The rug hes got in the gun pit an the curtin over the trail of the gun to set the barrage shell on.
The nearer that barragecame to the Fritz trenches the faster they went up all along the line.
We could see red flashes runnin thru it like bubbles in boilin water where the shells from our barrage was bustin.
The night was full of the sound of war, the distant rumble of the heavy guns, the nervous stutter of machine guns, the tearing screech of a barrage high above the road.
In one American attack the Little Major followed the Lieutenant over the top just as the barrage was lifted.
A big barrage had been put over in the little, quiet village while she was away and the entire inhabitants had taken refuge in the General's dugout.
Sunday, 19: Quiet till the afternoon when a gas barrage started.
Friday, 17: I was startled by a fearful barrage at four o'clock when I got up, washed my clothes: was visited by the Y.
All day they were thus moving backward and forward between the hut and the dugout, not knowing when another barrage would arrive.
What is more, the French in their turn started such an artillery barrage that another attack was not to be thought of.
At 15 yards they send them such a violentbarrage of bombs, supported by machine-guns, that the Germans are not inclined to press the point.
The dishes continued their barrage of sound, successfully concealing the plans from those not included in them.
But the dean smiled again, held up a restraining hand as Terry and Sim evinced indications of opening up a barrage of thanks, and with a dismissing gesture said: "I suppose you will want to tell all your friends the good news.
With a slow but ceaseless persistence he was girding himself with a graven-faced indifference that must be his shield against the barrage of the gaping, curious world.
The barrage of eyes leveled upon him was only partly visible through the haze that for the first few moments blurred his vision.
They are only ours for defensive purposes; that is to say, they remain in their own gun positions in the French lines and are to help by thickening the barrage in front of the Naval Division.
There were days too when an enemy barrage cut off our supplies and prevented relief, and we were compelled to live on dry biscuits and cold water, taking our water from the shell-holes where the dead were rotting.
If the doctors had known enough they would have put a barrageof disinfectant in front of our trenches.
The system of barrage fighting that we now use has made warfare as much a hand-to-hand business as it was in olden times and we must go back a good deal to old-fashioned weapons, as we have to a great extent to old-fashioned armor.
They also put a barrage on this side until the prearranged moment when the attackers go forward.
The Germans were evidently getting suspicious of the silence, and to our consternation suddenly put down a heavy barrage in No Man's Land, not more than thirty yards behind us.
Toward daylight the German batteries put up a heavybarrage fire, which indicated that they intended to come over despite the frightful casualties they must have clicked.
Where the shell fire was heavy, the men could only work a few hours each day, under barrage of artillery or darkness, and they were soon making speed records.
Without the usual brief warning of a preliminary bombardment, the massed French and American artillery, firing by the map, laid down its rolling barrage at dawn while the infantry began its charge.
They said that the Americans had approached the barrage too closely once or twice, but this was not remarkable, as it was the first time American infantry had advanced behind a screen of shell fire.
American artillery had already shown proficiency in this sector by laying down a barrage for the French, who took a small height near Tahure.
The importance consisted in the fact that for the first time American artillerymen had an opportunity of rolling a barrage ahead of an attacking force.
One New England boy passed through the enemy barrage seven times to carry ammunition to his comrades.
While the barrage was on the trench, the Bavarians would be on the dug-out step, and the Highlanders would be waiting from seventy to a hundred yards short of the trench.
When the barrage moved forward after the pause, the enemy in the Bois de l'Aulnay put up a poor fight, and by 8.
He therefore telephoned to his own battery, and turned a section of howitzers from firing on thebarrage on to the machine-gun.
Accordingly at 12 noon the infantry advanced, preceded by a creeping barrage fired by six brigades of field artillery.
From this position an intense barrage was to be fired, moving forward from the German third line through the Green line and across the western slopes of the high ground east of Beaumont Hamel.
This barrage was designed to prevent the enemy from using long-range machine-gun fire against the attacking waves, and to hamper the movement of his reserves.
The barrage is then suddenly brought back on to the trenches, and is upon the Germans before they have time to regain their shelters.
The enemy's barrage had now lifted on to the area between the river Scarpe and brigade headquarters, and numbers of runners were killed in trying to pass through it.
Under cover of this barragehe then rushed his assaulting parties up to the crater, and attempted to consolidate posts both on the near and far lips.
The positions of these guns were all selected entirely with a view to obtaining good fields of fire over the sights, their uses for purposes of firing a barrage being treated as a secondary consideration.
This raid was accompanied by an intense bombardment and creeping barrage similar to that of the 6th Gordon Highlanders.
To enable a more accurate barrage to be fired by the artillery, the troops were all withdrawn to a trench which had been the old British front line before the Germans had attacked in this sector earlier in the year.
When the German barrage opened, men, animals, and motor vehicles broke into their best speed.
Four minutes later a light artillery barrage came down on and just in front of our assembly trenches, causing slight casualties.
Then the Hun gunners suddenly made up their minds to be on the safe side, and they put down a tremendous barrage on to No Man's Land.
Soon our attention was attracted to several French machines that were passing through a barrage of Archie bursts.
I raised my gun, aimed at the wicked-looking nose of the attacking craft, and met it with a barrage of bullets.
Twice we see enemy machines through rifts in the clouds, but each time we dive towards them they refuse battle and remain at a height of some thousand feet, ready to drop even lower, if they can lure us down through the barrage of A.
They had gone in and scuppered the Turk before the barrage had lifted.
Following up a barrage on the Hai, the 1/9th were on the Turks like terriers.
The enemy almost at once opened a barrage on our front line, and also an intense machine gun fire from an emplacement on our immediate front and from the high ground on the south side of Scarpe River.
Our barrage did not prove of much use, as the official front line given to us was found to be considerably in advance of that actually held.
To sum up: the enemy's barrage fire successfully annihilated our right and left flank, the evident intention being to surround those left in the centre.
At zero the artillery trench mortar and machine guns opened an intense barrage on the enemy's front, and the raiders at the same time left our trenches and followed the barrage.
At the beginning of the assault the artillery, while continuing to keep down that of the enemy, was to put down a barrage in front of the infantry and pave a way for it like a giant roller.
About 12 mid-day a new barrage was formed, under which we pushed forward the posts in the sunken road, advancing to a part of "Hammer Trench.
The enemy put down a fairly heavy barrage on our front trench and immediately behind it.
