Many unique features of trench life were developed during the first month of winter warfare. Two-story trenches became common on both sides of the firing line. Bombproof underground quarters for staff and commanding officers were constructed, and these were fitted up so as to provide all the comforts of the winter cantonments of old-time warfare. The ever-necessary telephone was installed at frequent points in trenches that stretched for scores of miles in practically unbroken lines. Board roofs were built and provision made for heating the dugouts in which thousands of men passed many days and nights before their reliefs arrived. On the German side miles of trenches were provided with stockade walls, leaving ample room inside for the rapid movement of troops. The British built trenches with lateral individual dugouts at right angles to the main trench, protecting the men against flank fire--and these aroused the admiration even of their enemies. In the French trenches the ingenuity of a French engineer provided a system of hot shower baths on the firing line, and from all points along the deadlocked battle front came stories of the remarkable manner in which the troops of all the armies speedily accommodated themselves to unprecedented conditions and maintained a spirit of cheerfulness truly marvelous under the circumstances, especially as there was no cessation of the constant endeavor to gain ground from the enemy and no end to the daily slaughter. IN THE GERMAN TRENCHES A correspondent with the German army who visited the firing line in the Argonne forest late in November, by special permission of the German crown prince, described the conditions in the trenches as follows: "Here in the now famous Argonne forest--the scene of some of the war's most desperate fighting--the Germans are trenching and mining their way forward, literally yard by yard. This afternoon I reached the foremost trench, south of Grandpré. About 160 feet ahead of me is the French trench. Picture to yourself a canebrake-like woods of fishpoles ranging in size from half an inch to saplings of two and three inches thick and so dense that you can hardly see forty yards even now when the leaves have fallen. Among these is a scattering of big trees, the trunks of which are veritable mines of bullets.