"OUR DESPICABLE LITTLE ARMY."

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 17 August 1917, Page 2

"OUR DESPICABLE LITTLE ARMY."

'•I heard from ouc officer, an Ulstenuan, some of his experiences with German officer prisoners," writes a •Scotsman' -.war correspondent. They were extremely smart, dignilied, and soldierly—" not half as arrogant as the average Prussian or Bavarian officer captured heretofore,'" said my informant; . and all of them frankly expressed the greatest admiration for the manner in which we had planned and delivered this attack. It was really surprising to hear them talk like detached military critics instead of angry and beaten enemies, asking techuical questions with real interest, and repeatedly praising our artillery work, the methods of our infantry, and the manner in which they consolidated the ground taken. It is an extraordinary change from the usual bumptious attitude of German officers taken two years ago. These officers wanted to know, first of all, what division was opposite theiis, ami , one simply lifted his eyes to heaven when | told that, the Irish had wrested Messines from his battalion of Prussians in Wytschaete. They admitted that their- men. in many instances. fought with little real energy, but ascribe it to the fact that thev had been driven from their wrecked concrete refuges by our gunfire, and were badly shaken by their unexpected experience, having, like the homeless Bavarians in relief, to spend the night before the attack under hedscs I or in open fields. Irishmen told me thev appreciated the work of German hospital orderlies some of. whom turned to at dressing stations without instructions, and bandaged our wounded as well as theirs. One German officer told a surgeon that we otudit to find a well-equipped underground dressing station in Wytschncte, but none of the troops I have seen who explored these ruins can find any trace of it. All the German officers admitted the terrible effect of our bombardment. There are concreted dug-outs 60ft by 40ft partially blown in by high-explosive shell, with many bodies embedded in the debris, and others i"ln;i av.il crowded wjHi dead men. who were

killed in their sleep by concussion. I came upon one such tlujj-out near a little wood below."Wytsdiucte. with three Germans lying, partially stripped, on the earth floor, and a great fissure in the concrete loom, made by a shell burst.

I To realise the effects of really good shooting, you should see the German front line and the communications behind it leading to the ridge. Our gunners laid their barrage so nicely that "No Man's Laud"—it is very narrow at most places in front of Kemmel Hill, facing Messines and Wytschaete—is still a green field, and the drab, dead area begins exactly at the broken German wire. You can almost step from a living pasture field, untrodden for two and a-half years until the Irish and their brothers from overseas set foot in it yesterday-morning, on to the churned-up wastes of the battlefield that ivere German- defences before the ridge.