THOSE BROWN RASCALS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 192, 22 January 1915, Page 6

THOSE BROWN RASCALS.

j THE INDIAN SOLDIERS. ■ ALTERED GERMAN OPINION. The following extracts from a German soldier's letter published by the Frankfurter ileitung, show that the German Army is beginning to realise the fighting qualities of the Indian troops. The soldier writes: "To-day for the first time, we had to fight against the Indians, and the devil knows those brown rascals are not to be underrated. We spoke first of the Indians with contempt. To-day we learned to look at them in a different light. ".For three days we lay in our trenehes under an uninterrupted shell fire from the English, arad were lacking in the barest necessities, as only at night time could we obtain provisions. Water we had' enough, both above and below us; but we were hungry. "The English seem to take a diabolical pleasure in showering shells on us. When for three days it had rained shells and the British thought we were beaten to a jelly they had then in store for us a visit from those brown allies.

"Tlie devil knows what the English had put into those fellows. Anyhow, those who stormed our lines seemed either drunk or possesses with an evil spirit. With fearful shouting, in comparison with which our hurrahs are like the whining of a baby, thousands of these brown forms rushed upon us as suddenly as if they were shot out of a fog, so that at first we were completely taken by surprise. At a hundred metres w c opened a destructive fire, which mowed down hundreds, but in spite of that, the others advanced springing forward like cats and surmounting obstacles with unexampled agility.

Tn no time they were in our trenches, and truly these brown enemies were not to be despised. With butt-ends, bayonets, swords and daggers we foiHit each other, and we had bitter hard work, which, however, was lightened by reinforcements which arrived quickly before -we drove the fellows out of the trenches."