https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/spring-on-the-battlefront-6jbtpp7np
march 1, 1918
Spring on the battlefront
Whatever the future may have in store, we know, at least, that the talk of a German offensive in February was untrue. The month ends in quietness, and the front remains devoid of anything but local incidents, such as raids, sudden flurries of artillery or trench mortar fire, and, when the weather favours, bursts of aerial activity, in which we still hold markedly the upper hand.
The chief feature of the minor operations so far has, perhaps, been the increasing use of gas shells on both sides. Whatever truth there is in the alleged German desire, through Geneva, to obtain a discontinuance of the use of gas, it is certain they very much dislike our present gas shells. An order recently issued to the German
Army informs all ranks that the British have invented eight new kinds of gas, and offers rewards for the salvage of unexploded shells for analysis. From lack of rubber, the Germans have been compelled to substitute leather in the construction of gas masks. The authorities are trying to persuade the soldiers that the change was made because rubber was found not to be impermeable to our gas. They fail to add that, if the rubber mask is not impermeable, a leather one is much less so, but the German soldiers understand, and have generally little confidence in the present masks. Though the German divisions on the Western front are more numerous than this time last year, the trench or bayonet strength of a German division is 25 per cent less than it was in 1916.
Whatever the Germans are doing, Nature, in France, is certainly preparing her great spring offensive. In spinneys and sheltered places, daffodils, dwarf periwinkles, celandine, and wood anemones are all in flower, nearly a month ahead of last year, and shrubberies are greening with leaf buds. On warm days the woods have been ringing to the spring song of the chaffinches and the insistent calling of the green woodpeckers, and the first brimstone butterflies are on the wing. Even close to the front line in areas not devastated there is evidence that the earth is stirring in its winter sleep, and the sunshine makes some alleviation of the almost intolerable hideousness of trench life, for enduring which, with the spirit in which they do, the nation can never sufficiently repay her soldiers.
