UNFIT GERMAN TROOPs

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2664, 8 January 1916, Page 7

UNFIT GERMAN TROOPs

CAPTURED . PRISONERS' STORIES. According to prisoners' statements, tlie berman troops, following on the gi©at French, succ&ss ill tho Cnompagne district in September, bad been informed! that tbo Emporor would bo at Sedan during the 'attempt to recapturo the lost .positions. Tiiey were also told that they were about to tako part in a very important engagement. Among the soldiers thcro was a very, considerable proportion of old men, recruits of tlio l'Jlo contingent, and men of tlio untrained Laudsturm. There was only one officer to eacli company, and tbo battalions were commanded by a captain or an Oberleutnant. Of thrco Stellvortreter captured one was a former noncommissioned officer, aged 48, who till then had 1 been stationed in the depot; a second was a non-commissioned officer of the active army of unhealthy appearance, and the third was suffering from a malady of the heart. Tbo two last had until a few weeks before boon loft to train the recruits in the depots as being unfit for activo service. Tbo mou complained that during the attacks their officers remained in their shelters or shammed illness the dajr before. The Fourth Prussian Division had suffered very sevorcly in Russia, and the morale of its 111011 had been affected. In January, ID] 5, the 4th Company of tlio 49th Regioieut was beforo Warsaw, and was only 28 men strong; it was mado up to 80 men, and sent to the Carpathians, whore it was seven times reinforced. Thirty-five men were frozen to death in the Carpathians, and on May 17 it was before Prycmysl, only 47 strong. No wonder that tho spirit of its men was shaken.