GERMANY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 94, 16 September 1914, Page 8

GERMANY

BEFORE THE .STRUGGLE. j THE GERMAN ARMY REVIEWED. "AT HIGHEST POSSIBLE STATE OF EFFICIENCY." Times and Sydney Sun Services London, September 15. An American correspondent who was permitted to examine tlie German armies as they started for the invasion of France, says that iur five solid hours, travelling at express train speed, he was motored between walls of marching men. This ninth field army was composed of the very flower of. the Empire, including the magnificent Imperial Guard. The men were all young, keen as razors, ami hard a? nails. Til? hOl'SOs were splendid. The artillery included five gigantic Howitzers, each drawn by 10 pairs of horses, and capable of tearing a city to pieces at a distance of 12 mile®. Field kitchens rumbled down the lines, serving ■steaming soup and coffee to the men without breaking step. Wagons were tilled with cobblers, mending the soldiers' boots, and other apparently harmless wagons carried machine-guns ready for instant action. The medical corps was as efficient as a great city hospital. .Men on bicycles strung field telephones from tree to tree, enabling the commander to converse with any party of a fifty-miles long column. The whole army never sleeps. When one-half is marching the other half is resting. The soldiers are treated as valuable machines, and kept at the highest possible efficiency, well fed, shot, and clothed, but worked as a negro teamster works his mules.

« KAISER'S DELUDED SUBJECTS. ENTHUSIASTIC OVER IMAGINARY GERMAN VICTORIES. BUT DOWNCAST BY TRUTH TRICKLING THROUGH. London, September 14. German newspapers describe the tremendous enthusiasm ten days ago, when official reports were; received of the defeat of the British at St. Quentin.

Tho Cologne Gazette says: "Amidst the great German successes special interest attaches to the disaster to the British. Our people owe a debt of resentment to England, which might hare prevented tho war." Berlin was wild with joy, and at Hamburg there was an indescribable scene in the Exchange, when the news was read from tho galleries. Many thousands sang "The Watch on the Rhine," and the city bells were rung. At Munich, posters announcing British defeat were hung round with flowers. Berlin reports claim that the Germans "hold 7300 British, SS.-tOti French, OS,20(1 Russian, and 1)0,000 Belgian prisoners. Tlie Daily News correspondent confirms the Geneva statement that despite ever}' German precaution, news of the Gei-man defeat traversed Switzerland northwards, causing profound despair in Germany. The people are paralysed after so many announcements of victories. Mobs gathered in different towns demanding to know the truth.

FAMINE STALKS THROUGH GERMANY. Rome, September 14. Terrible stories are published of the famine in Germany. The Government has taken all the vast accumulation of food at Hamburg for the troops. The factories are closed and traffic has ceased. Fifteen hundred ships are idle in the harbor. Eggs cost ten marks (10s) per dozen. Times and Sydney Sun Services. London, September 14. A Breslau merchant, anticipating an invasion of Britain, offered 30,000 marks to the first German soldier landing in Britain. TREMENDOUS FEEDING PROBLEM UNSOLVED. London, September 11. Amsterdam advices confirm the anxiety in Berlin about the casualty lists, which are all behind hand. It is stated that the male members of some distinguished families have been wiped out. Experts admit that notwithstanding the perfection of the German organisation. it had not solved the problem of feeding a great army at the flout. HUGE WAR I.OAX WANTED.

Antwerp, September 11. Tlic German press appeals to the publip to subscribe £30,00#,000 sterling towards an unlimited war loan, declaring "tlie victories our glorious army has already won justify tlie hope that, as in IS7O, tlie expenses and burdens of this war will fall upon those who have disturbed the peace of tho German Em-