In my observations, when infantry charge infantry in battle movement, the majority of the casualties are caused by artillery. I have several times observed fields of dead infantrymen killed in an advance against infantry, where 90% of the dead had been killed by shrapnel. In my experience the Germans never use anything except shrapnel against infantry in the open. Shrapnel wounds are very ugly, being big ragged holes which usually become infected. On the battlefields I have observed, very few German shrapnel have failed to burst in the air. In one field about a half mile square, where shrapnel cases were strewn about [I counted about forty or fifty], I observed only four craters. The French often say that the German shrapnel burst too high. The German field artillery frequently place their caissons at a distance of two hundred yards behind the guns, there being no limbers or caissons with the guns. The ammunition is brought up by hand, each man carrying six shells in baskets holding three each. The caissons are usually in less numbers than the guns, there being two caissons behind four guns, or one caisson behind two guns. In examining abandoned German ammunition, I have found shells bearing all dates from 1903 to 1914. On no occasion have I seen observation ladders used by the French field artillery. This is probably due to the fact that, in general, their artillery is at so great a distance behind the scene of operations. Shells bigger than 3-in. when used in field operations seldom do any damage, but have a tremendous moral effect even on veteran troops. The disconcerting effect of heavy shells exploding in the ground is very widely recognized at the front. The fire of big howitzers is, as a rule, very inaccurate. When one of these shells hits a building or a paved street its effect is considerable; when they burst in soft ground they are not dangerous. Most of the battlefields of France are on muddy fields, in which the 6-in. shells make a crater about forty feet in circumference and five or six feet deep. Their effect is chiefly upward and casualties are so rare as to be considered freaks. Mud is, however, thrown over the whole neighborhood. The bursting of the 12-in. shells is a very impressive sight--I saw two burst. (My authority for their caliber was a major of French artillery with whom I was standing at the time.) They burst at a distance of about 600 yards from us, one in an open field and the other in a small French village. The concussion was very heavy and even at 600 yards was felt in the feet. In the first case the air was filled with flying mud to a height of several hundred feet and there was a cloud of greasy black smoke about as large as a city block. The resultant crater was about one hundred feet in circumference, the ground being particularly soft. The second shell produced the same sensations, made the same sort of crater, and destroyed four or five small French brick and stone houses.