In an attack of this kind, or a less well-supported attack such as that at Arras, mentioned above, the attackers suffer from two such severe disadvantages that against well-disciplined troops they stand little chance. These disadvantages are (1) the flammenwerfer carriers have to get so near their objective that they are almost certain to be shot, and they then become a source of danger to their own side; (2) men in trenches know they are perfectly safe from frontal flame attack if they keep well down and hug the parapet side of the trench. The reason for this is that the flame will not sink down into a trench, but having little force behind it at the end of its journey is curled _upward_ by the rising currents of hot air. The result is that any sort of head cover (unless made of wood) makes perfect protection, and a man crouching in a trench or even lying prone in a shell hole, is very unlikely to be more than slightly scorched at the very worst. I can vouch for this, for I have lain at the bottom of a trench with the flames playing over my head and have not been injured in the slightest, though I confess to being very much relieved when the flame stopped. The only danger in trenches to men who keep their heads is that of “blobs” of burning oil falling from the end of the fiery stream, but this is not a very serious chance. Another serious disability in the German liquid fire is its very short duration. The stream of flame from the portable flammenwerfer lasts rather less than one minute. It is impossible to charge up again on the spot, and the result is that once the flame stops the whole game is finished and the operators are at our mercy. Without making the apparatus of a prohibitive weight, the duration of the flame cannot be increased. Even the heavy projectors give only a flame lasting at the best one minute and a quarter. It must be realised that it is discipline and coolness (if one may use the word) which count, and that the moral effect on unsteady troops, unaware of the fact that the appalling flames have little destructive value, may be very great indeed. When men have bolted from the trenches into the open they are an easy prey. An enfilade attack, i.e., one made from a flank, would be much more dangerous were it not for the difficulty of approach and the fact that the traverses of a fire-trench are as good protection against flame as the parapet. Only where the “_Kleif_” squad can approach under cover and get in its shot at an exposed target is the flammenwerfer likely to have much success nowadays.