GERMAN OFFICER’S PRAISE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1418, 1 July 1915, Page 4

GERMAN OFFICER’S PRAISE.

The opinion of a German officer who took part in the battle of Neuve Chapelle on the new British Army in France is quoted at length by Mr Herbert Corey, who is with the German army in France, Mr Corey states that the battle oi Neuve Chapelle is still a topic of constant conversation among the Germans. The officer in question declared -“There were two lessons to be learned from that engagement. The first is that an entrenched position can be taken if the price is paid. The second was a bit of a surprise for us, It is that the new English troops are better than the oia. We hadn’t expected that.” The Germans believed, incredible as it may seem, that the “new English” troops consisted of raw, undisciplined, guttersnipes. Alter explaining this, Mr Corey proceeds to quote the German officer as saying : “These men who charged us at Neuve Chapelle were not gutter-snipes, They were not slum sweepings. They were the best blood in England.” He said he saw tbeir faces both in fight, as prisoners, and as they lay dead in the field. They were lean, full-templed, loug-javved men. Those who went first under that hellish fire were youngsters for the most patt, men who looked as though they were sons of good fathers, or city clerks, or boys who had played iu the opou air. He was enthusiastic about them. Continuing, he said : “Let me tell you of one thing I saw. It was the most wonderful deed I have ever heard of on any field. 1 think it was the West Kent Regiment. They charged across the open field against us. Our fire was as though we had played a stream of bullets upon them. As they came across that open space, cheering and waving their rifles, I could see the men stumbling and falling forward on their faces and dropping sidewise. Gaps opened iu the line, so that I can remember seeing the landscape behind them But they always closed, The Englishmen took cover at last, having gained the last possible inch; but they were hopelessly exposed ; they could not get forward, and could not stay. Finally the order came to fall back. They had too yards to go. What do you think those brave, god-like fools did? Instead of crawling back, as the men of any other nation would have done —as trained soldiers are fold to do—they rose to their feet, they walked back. No, by heaven, they strolled back. They stopped to light cigarettes, they picked up their wounded and carried them home. They were cut down by the score, but they did not hurry their pace,”