THE GERMANS AS FIGHTERS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 June 1917, Page 2

THE GERMANS AS FIGHTERS

(By one who has fought them.) Are the Germans deteriorating in physique arid morale? I put this question to a solider who has been invalided home from France, where he literally rubbed shou-ldelrs with the Huns for nearly two years and has profited by the exceptional opportunities afforded him of making more than a passing study of Teutonic fighting abilities and other characteristics. His impressions, in view of the anticipated offensive, are of momentous interst. He would venture no prophecies, but the incidents he related, apart from their inherently thrilling nature, are sufficiently significant.

“Let me state at the outset,” he said, “that Fritz is a good fighter. But! when I say ‘good’ I mean it in the purely professional sense, not in the sense of what you might call honest or clean. He’ll fight bravely, tenaciously, and cleverly as a soldier should, for war with him is a wellloved profession, but he won’t fight fairly. He does not seem to appreciate or even to have learned, that there are rules in warfare just as there are in the ring, and at the very first opportunity he’ll Ho the dirtiest of tricks, tricks, I’m told, that even a Turk would scorn to adopt. NO FAITH 'IN FRITZ. $ “Our boys suffered much from this fact at first, but they soon learned war-wisdom, andto-day I don’t believe you’d find a Britisher along the wnole Western front who would trust a Hun farther than he could throw him. They are all alike, are the Germans, from that ‘scrap-of-paper’ pal downwards. They go on the principle, evidently, that there’s nothing dishonourable in deceiving those whom you are determined to destroy. There may be something in that, of course, but, somehow, it’s not playing the game, and now-a-days w e run no risks with friend Fritz.

“One can judge best from experi-

and here’s a strange one that I had. It illustrates not only my remarks, but shows, I think, how the Hun will change his tone when things go against him on the field of battle.ln the bad old days of the war, when wo were fighting againt trosmendous odds, cur little lot found themselves on one occasion with a hard nut to crack. It was that of taking, or at least rendering untenable, a certain German salient which was far too near to be comfortable. A day attack would have i-.’en madness, and so wc made our onslaught in the darkness of night. “I need not go into the details of the fight. It was a bitter, struggle, like a modern raid on a big scale, and so fiercely did the Germans fight that at the end of it, although we carried the day—or night of yon like —and practically wrecked the place, wc collared very few prisoners indeed. The point of my story, however, comes in here. A few of us took charge of half a dozen captive Huns. A hard looking lot they were, and they turned out harder than they looked. It was a big Prussian who started the trouble. Dark-

ness lied not yet departed, and in the gloom it was not easy to pick one’s way. We wore going forward alright however, when suddenly the Prussian turned and said, we were going forward all wrong. ‘lt’s this way, this way, ’ he began in excellent English, and changed his course rather abruptly.

“Wc headed him off, being a bit suspicions. But we had not gone for when he commenced again, explaining volubly that lie knew the ground intimately and that we were going away from the British lines altogether. That little tale wc refused to swallow, and the Prussian, who saw that wo were not going to be hoodwinked, went forward grumbling and muttering. Dawn was now breaking, and we could see each other fairly well. Wc could also see. that had we followed the captive’s guidance wc would have lauded back, very soon, in his own linos. That settled it. One of our chaps took the. Prussian in hand himself, and was trotting watchfully alongside him when, without a moment’s warning, the treacherous brute suddenly sprang at a big post which wc wore passing at the time, and, throwing his arms around it refused to budge.

“Whether nr not the other captives took it as a signal I can’t say, but no sooner did they see the big follow race for the post than they, too, made as If In scatter. It was a critical moment. We soon settled them, however. Our levelled rifles showed Dint escape was

hopeless, so. they came to heel nicely. Hot so the Prussian. The Tommy who had been walking alongside him went up to loosen hi.) grip from the post. He might as well have''tried to pick a lock wtli Lis fingers. The. Prussian held right. Tommy was amused at first. Then he became serious.

•‘Drawing back from the Hun, he suddenly lot drive with. Mfl foot and

took the post-hugger a smack that made him unslasp his hands with a celerity which sent us into roars of laughter. Our laugh was short-lived. The Prussian, bellowing with rage and pain, rushed at Tommy as if to annihilate him. He got the surprise of his life. 'And so did we. We knew our chum could ‘put ’em up’ when necessary, but the rapidity and force of the uppermt he gave the big hulk made us all gasp. The Prussian fell like a log. His comrades looked sadly on. Heed I say there was any more trouble? I should think not. We got the little bunch into our trenches like shepp into a fold.

“The real moral of this little tale comes later. Some time after, this we were shifted to another part of the line, and on a certain night we again attacked. This time, however, we had clearly the upper hand. It was just as bitter a fight, but the curious point about it was this, that once dgain we found ourselves up against the same regiment we had scattered in the salient at . They were the first to recognise us, too, and it seemed to take the heart out of them. They almost appeared to think w e were following them all over the shop, determined to wipe them out. It was pure coincidence, of course, but the Huns did not like it.

“Well, what do you think? On this occasion it was not a case of getting half a dozen prisoners, but a round couple of hundred. One might have thought that if we had trouble with half a dozen we would have proportionately more with a crowd like that, but we hadn’t. They came along with us as quietly as had their former messmates—after the big Prussian was knocked out, I mean. They knew nothing of that story, naturally, but we could not help thinking about the change in their demeanour, and we were very much interested, therefore, to learn the cause of it from the remarks of the prisoners themselves. “They told us quite gratuitously, for we were not allowed to converse with them. They told us quite unreservedly One chattering chap spoke of our artillery. and spoke of it as if he had a legitimate grievance. He considered it was not warfare at all', but slaughter! *We never had a chance,’ he wailed; and then, as if sort’of ashamed of that silly remark, he began to pay our gunners roundabout compliments, mentioning that when the war commenced they (the Germans) had all the say with the big guns, but now! 'I don’t know,’ he remarked, ‘how you took our bombardments then, but they were nothing to what we had to suffer now from yours. It’s awful, awful.’

“And there you have Fritz in a nutshell. When he has the upper hand, when ho is advancing, when his guns are doing all the work, when his guns are spreading terror and destruction, he is a mighty confident and brave. It’s war, he shouts. But turn the tables on him. It’s slaughter, he groans, thank heaven, it also encourages. I tell you, those of us who had the bitters of the war in the early days, and are nowhaving some of the sw-eets —if I may so express myself-—feel as confident as anything. The behaviour of these two bunches of captives is the behaviour of the German army in the mass. They’ll fight all right when things arc going swimmingly, and they’ll try dirty tricks when they have the chance; but when things arc going swimmingly with us, as they are now-, and dirty tricks w-on’t pay, its 'Kamc'rad, ’ kamerad, peace, peace!”

“But he’s not going to get peace. At long last our boys are prepared, 'they’ve stood all the battering back. Fritz knows what the British can do, even when the day is coming with them, and he fears and dreads the chining of that day. His morale is dwindling. Of that w e arc convinced and strong in our conviction we arc — avcll, I won’t prophesy, but time will tell.

“As to the physique of the Huns, /I can honestly assert it is on the same plane. In the early days they were "some soldiers.” My word, you should have seen them then, big men—not all big, of course, but big in the sense of being sturdy, well-groomed, and as fit as fiddles. Their victories gave them a jaunty, conquering air, too, which you could not help admiring. They’ve different now. Before I left for Blighty I had my share of scrapping on different parts of the line, and saw thousands, upon thousands of captive Huns. There were still big men amongst them, and obviously fit and capable soldiers, but the greater majority were weedy or young —too young to be fighting, in my humble estimation.

“And talk of dejection! The}-- were the limit, One can understand that after a dose of our ‘awful artillery,’ as the chattering prisoner I mentioned called it, you could scarcely expect anyone to look particularly heroic, but these men were more dejected even than they looked; and if the greediness with which they ate the rations given them in any indication of the state of their billeting, they must be pretty badly off. Here again, of course, our ‘awful artillery’ may have been able to interfere with their supplies, but granting that, they all seemed thoroughly sick and sorry soldiers, and I think that an impartial judge, lookingat captors and captives, would have given the palm to the former for phy-

sique and morale both. Well, the test may not be far off now. As I say, I won’t prophesy, but I feel in my bones that when it comes it will prove to Fritz that his dread and fear are well grounded.”