KILLING THE GERMANS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 17, 21 January 1916, Page 7

KILLING THE GERMANS.

NEW FRENCH METHODS. DE CASTELNAU’S STRATEGY. A new and terrible war strategy, before which the German armies and spies alike 'are powerless, has been developed by the Allies along the Western front, according to a remarkable special despatch from Paris, which is published in the “New York World.”

“Chewing the German Army to Pieces” i s the title of this despatch, which is dated Paris, October 20th, 'and reads in part as follows:

A new war strategy has developed in France, a strategy so terrible in it s purpose and so ghastly in its success that it has seized upon the imagination of the French people and placed a new aspect on the war. It lures and annihilates the enemy. It fories the Germans to father (hundreds of thousands of soldiers right under the French cannon ,and then tears them to pieces with literally millions of ■ shells.

The new strategy is developed so openly that it has made useless the complicated system of German espionage. Here, as so often, the French nimbleness of mind has counteracted German thoroughness and preparedness. It has made fools of the German spies. They have been using all their circuitous and expensive system of sending to Germany information that the French Staff was eager for the German Staff to have. It has lifted and made a joke of the spy peril.

General de Castelnau, commander of the army in the Champagne, conceived the deadly new strategy, and the enormous German losses before the French trenches there are attributed to his military genius. The

stategy is his. He conceived and presented the plan and was allowed to ■carry it out. * WHAT THE GERMANS KNEW.

Long before the recent advance wa« made in Champagne, it was known everywhere that there was a large number of French troops on less than a 20-mile front between Fismes and Rheims. ' 'lt was whispered about as a secret, but everyone knew it, and everyone felt sure the Germans must know it ,too. They did, their spies undoubtedly reported the movements down to the exact number of regiments, and that was exactly what General de Castelnau wanted them to do. He also moved his troops in daylight, so that the German airmen, high overhead, reported the gathering of the great army. There was such a fuss and to-do about the assembling of the troops that it is surprising if the Germans were not suspicious of some new move. But it did not make any difference if they were. The newest aspect of this new strategy is that it is a matter of indifference whether the enemy knows what is going on. The more the enemy \knows, 111 fact, the more he plays into

your Wands. He must either ®tand and he torn to pieces, or "get out from under.” it was indifferent to General de Castelnau which the Germans did. WHAT the; ENEMY DID NOT KNOW.

But there was one thing the Germans probably did not know. They could have no idea of the number of shells that were to be used against them . Such shellings was unprecedented.

There the French cannon were behind not only their own lines, but the English lines, too. There again the French 75 and 105 millimetre guns

have won from the Germans the name they were given at the beginning of the war —“the devil’s artillery.”

To held the great French Army in Champagne it was necessary for the .Germans to move forward -at least 1 300.000 men. But the more they .brought forward, the better the grim ■add warrior de Castelnau liked it. He wanted plenty of food for his powder and fodder for his cannons. He got

it, too. Nine £ orxnan army corps —

360,000 men —came under the fire of

the French guns in the Champagne, and ta third dj? Jthem weife wounded or prisoners within four days.

i The French also gained ground, but I that was incidental, even accidental. It was in de Casteln'au’s plan, except as an afterthought. His purpose was (to kill as many German soldiers as he could. He wanted to wear down . the German Army faster than it could be built up. EAGER FRENCH TROOPS.

Captured soldiers brought to prison camps are from many regiments, and a large proportion of them were never under fire before. This was due to the purpose of the German command\ers to keep their better troops in reserve while the hellish fire went on. It was obvious from the first day, as the Germans gave themselves up too easily for seasoned troops. They began to break the first day. Seasoned troops would have held out at least three days under that terrific caninonade. Many of the prisoners also paid they had been rushed up to the • rent from Germany. It was all one vo de Castelnau. All he wanted was p kill as many German soldiers as Ipossible.

The plan did not work out exactly las expected, as the French troops Icould not be held in their trenches. a year of trench warfare they lyere anxious to push on, and General de Castelnau was forced to yield to their impatience. Another time they Iwill be more easily controlled, and as Jong as France has plenty of shells there is nothing to prevent the Fi’ench Army from blowing the Germans out of France five miles at a time.