TOMMY'S "LONG LEGS."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 24, 29 January 1915, Page 6

TOMMY'S "LONG LEGS."

GERMANS FIND THEY ARE NOT FOR RUNNING AWAY! CATCHING TARTARS. "Catching British soldiers" is the simple-minded idea which obsesses the raw German soldier who has not met Tommy Atkins in battle. How the misguided German discovers that it is a Tartar he is attempting to catch is told in a letter, says a Reuter Amsterdam message, from an editor of the Berliner Tageto his paper.*.. He is an officer in the reserves. , .;

"Otir young soldiers," he writes, ".show an eager desire for the fight, and tiny are marching to the battlefields with the intention of 'catching British soldiers,' as they say. "Every one of them was firmly convinced that God gave the Englishmen ..their long legs in order that they might the better run away. • "When the first British • prisoner Was brought in one man said: 'He looks like achaffeur. Are they good shots? He looks more like football or cricket.' "But after another hour the comrades of the captured Englishman gave us their answer to the question whether bhey could shoot or not.

"And chey did it so plainly that after the first encounters our battalion was red iced to half its number. ; "We learnt that the clean-shaven gentlemen do not always use their long logs-for the flight, lint now and then for very severe attacks.

"The British infantry opposed to us round Ypres can only be described as the best of trodps.

"The main of the Britis! infantry lies without doubt in defenc* and the good use of their terrain.

"The British soldier is an expert in patrolling. I often followed with infield glasses a .British patrol, and I could see that their work was very eleveiy much better than onr men could do. We Germans must no! underrate the British mercenaries."