railways, rivers and woods, and even the probable battlefields and
their artillery positions, and so on.

The Germans in the present war have been using the huge guns whose
shells, owing to their black, smoky explosions, have been nicknamed
"Black Marias" or "Jack Johnsons." These guns require strong concrete
foundations for them to stand upon before they can be fired. But
the Germans foresaw this long before the war, and laid their plans
accordingly.

They examined all the country over which they were likely to fight,
both in Belgium and in France, and wherever they saw good positions
for guns they built foundations and emplacements for them. This was
done in the time of peace, and therefore had to be done secretly.
In order to divert suspicion, a German would buy or rent a farm on
which it was desired to build an emplacement. Then he would put down
foundations for a new barn or farm building, or--if near a town--for
a factory, and when these were complete, he would erect some lightly
constructed building upon it.

There was nothing to attract attention or suspicion about this, and
numbers of these emplacements are said to have been made before war
began. When war broke out and the troops arrived on the ground, the
buildings were hastily pulled down and there were the emplacements all
ready for the guns.

Some years ago a report came to the War Office that a foreign Power
was making gun emplacements in a position which had not before been
suspected of being of military value, and they were evidently going to
use it for strategical purposes.