European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                1914 annl inuit my / Aue i ii loss of 15,000,in afternoon was nothing it finally dented the consciousness of tin French High command  helmets and less Oli Irful Lothing. Though less Vivanc ions might save lives. British cavalry bubbling with Jolly Esprit joined the Chase. Charging into German in i Hine gun Siul artillery fire with  near milk. They were obliterated by in enemy they never saw blazing machine guns Lewt i Ould mow Down a battalion barbed wire 2.00.1 Pound Trench busting shells from guns with names like Uig Bertha artillery barrages that reached 100, pm rounds per hour. Fleas lice rats typhus Trench fever  throwers. Of Vhal n Lovely War. Instead of Clouds of glory soldiers found themselves wallowing up out of irow i s into Shell churned bogs of 15-fool-deep mud Rhrou a i louds of Mustard Gas and Waves of Yellowish Green chlorine. As cavalry horses  about in useless circles behind the lines Soldier fixing  Between whirls of Poison Gas looked up vein the muck to see a monstrous something suit a bad mechanical dream called the Lank splattering toward them looked up still higher and saw aeroplanes doing vie Lory Rolls in a smoking screaming sky Lull of aces and dead ducks american  capt.   peered Down from his cockpit and wondered Why All those Little and Lik men swarming All Over  other in the smoke Ami slime below did not go absolutely  with  indeed when mud and disease and hellfire turned battlefields into graveyards of horror and revulsion the an became the new Field of Honor a last gasp of Warrior chivalry full of Choe Nul daring s Oung men who after a few hours of Solo time went up in rickety planes sitting on stove lids or Armor and Milieo  downward just As the tank became anew a Emen in warfare unending Trench warfare with its accompanying Day to Day hardships was one of the horrors of world War i. Fast. In the beginning they were mostly flying reconnaissance but then they got the idea they could shool at each other with pistols and rifles and Ihen someone discovered How to fasten on a machine gun and drop bombs Tal first the Pilot simply cradled bombs in his Lap or hooked them to his Belt and before it  Over the knights of the air had the shortest combat life of any Warrior in any service. Then were wild dogfights tin. Sky roaring with 50 to too planes Al Onte and the at of aces a alone Baron Manfred von Richthofen who began the War As a bumbling Cavalryman always being thrown from his horse. I Lis skill his Mother explainer did not match his i  until he got properly tuned Inlo the air Anil even then it look awhile he rec. Ked the first two planes he tried to Solo in. The icy nerved ked Baron would however make the. Adjustment and go on to command the deadly Squadron ailed the i lying   person Silty shoot Down 1 0 Allied planes before he himself rigged when he should have aged and became a flaming statistic Over Chesom Mkeiver. April i9ih. But the destruction caused by the crude planes and tanks of world War i was a drop in the bucket compared to the epic clashes of massed armies on the ground. Then would be War to the Easl on the russian front in the Balkans High Altitude c combat to Hie South in the austrian italian Alps there would he fighting All the Way to the far East but the most costly Bailies in a terrible Wai i if attrition whose Only strategy at times seemed to be who could fill up the biggest Rivers of blood would be fought on Europe s Western i Roll. For the Trench strategy was Mil complicated. The philosophy of the school of the attack and the All conquering will even in red pantaloons needed Only to know where the in Civ was and Ihen to Rush Forward Wilh irrepressible Elan and crush him. There was a clan 17 which was to Bash straight through to Berlin. Introduced to the Mac Hine gun the chief of the French infantry assured his troops the guns would not make the slightest  what the enemy intends to do asserted another f Rench military brain is of no c  whal the enemy intended to was a bit More i implicated and for awhile More effective. Keep the right Wing Strong were the watchwords of the sir elegy developed by count Alfred von Schlieffer a disciple of clause wit. Schlieffer would die before the War and was perhaps turning Over in his grave by the Timi the German chief of Shaft i Lel Mulh von Moltke Wheeler the plan into action. In Early August of i 14 the great right Wing of the German army heaved Inlo Belgium and the Liny ill equipped belgian arm1/ resisted valiantly but vainly. By some accounts the germans outraged Al unseemly belgian stubbornness dealt with them brutally before spearing on through the reeling French and British armies Inlo the heart of France. In ils original concept the plan whose major thrust was to outflank the com enl rated French Border defense and attack France through Belgium and Holland was considered Brilliant. Lei the sleeve of the last Man on Tiv right Brush the English Channel was Schlief Fon s Way. The aim was for a Quick Victory Wilh a massive sweep behind West of Paris followed by encirclement of the great City. And historians believe it might have worked had it not been tampered Wilh by Mollic and ils efforts scattered. Moltke weakened the right win cancelled the invasion of i Lolland wasted troops in futile counterattacks against the Trench in Torraine pulled up Short in the sweep around Paris and no German sleeve came close enough to Brush the Channel. When the Kaiser heard the British had entered the War against him he raged to his commanders it is my Imperial command that you exterminate first the treacherous contemptible i English Lille  in their great Rush the germans drove to within 30 Miles of Paris Easl of Paris. 1 Here near the Marne River thousands of Frenchi troops rushed to the front in 700 Paris taxicabs furiously hit the German rear flank and along with the British slopped the enemy juggernaut thai had triumphed in a Bailie called the Miracle of the  1 Here would be no Quick Victory for the Kaiser after the Marne the German and Allied armies huffed j and clanked northward in determined efforts to outflank each other until they ran into the Edge of the North sea they had run out of flanks i Ven As the germans went on the offensive against it russians the War on the Western front settled Inlo a 12 stripes Magazine August 17, 1989