UNDERSIZED AND BADLY-DRESSED GERMAN PRISONERS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2719, 14 March 1916, Page 5

UNDERSIZED AND BADLY-DRESSED GERMAN PRISONERS

London, March 12. Lord NorthclifFe, in a. message published in the "Weekly Dispatch," contrasts the fine physique and bearing of the German prisoners taken at the battle of the Marne with tho undersized and badly-dressed prisoners taken beforo Verdun. An indelible look of fright is stamped on their faces. It is difficult to believe that these are labelled "Corps d'Elitif." How they would faro in hand-to-hand encounters with tho British need not be speculated upon. Only ether, with which they are drugged, and the cover of 2000 giant guns, enabled them to .survive the terror of the French resistance. . Not a word is hinted at in Germany of the horrible slaughter of Germans this week. 'The Allied wall across Franco is impregnable against ally attempt to secure a definite military position. The German line may also be iiiipregnaMe, but tha tfiiferencto is that Germany is besieged. Even a feeble blockade will deprive the German troops of proper clothes. Continuing his story, Lord Northcliffe says it was difficult to guess tho Germans' roasons for flashing astounding falsehoods round tho world. The Crown Prince was gambling with human life to an oxtent unprecedented even in this war. The French success 111 mowing their enemies down was , duo to the great courage in keeping hidden machine-guns near tho Gorman 1 positions—indeed, often in front or in tho midst of the French barbed-wire entanglements.

The Germans liftd no weapon equal to the "seventy-five," or guners in any way'comparable to the Frenchmen. The modern artillerynlan requires a suj> ply of shells necessitating hundreds of miles of light railways to bring it up to the proximity of the guns at Verdun. The bravery of the engine-drivers of these little trains 'was wonderful; siich non-combatants, with the surgeons and stretcher-bearers, are among the real heroes of the war, and like our mercantile marine mine-layers aiid sweepers, they do not get the recognition they should. There was a typical German act this week. After a French gunner had located and destroyed a hidden'battery within an hour, obviously after consultation with high authority, two hundred shells were dropped on a distant inoffensive village, destroying many homes and killing ohildren playing in the street. It was a revelation of the callous unsporting side of the detestable character of the Hun.

GERMANS CAPTURE A SMALL TRENCH IN THE WOEUVRE,

London, March 12, 4.30 p;m. The High Commissioner reports: _ "North of the Aisne there has been very active artillery fighting in the region of Bois do Buttes, north-west of Reims. "On the loft bank of the Mouse fairly intense bombardment is going on in the region of Bethincourt. On the right bank a small German grenade attack near Peper Hill was easily repulsed. The bombardment continues violent east of Fort Douaumont and in the region of Vaux, where the enemy has made no fresh attempt to reach the plateau around the fort. "In the Woeuvre last evening, after artillery preparation, the Germans captured a small trench adjoining the Etain Road, north of Eix." DESPERATE COURAGE UF GERMAN SOLDIERS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Paris, March 12. A French officer says: "It was impossible_ not to admire the German bravery in the attacks on Fort Vans. They tried to capture the fort, regardless of our fusillades, with desperate courage, helping one another up the. steep slopes until they fell."