AIR RAID OVER BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1915, Page 5

AIR RAID OVER BELGIUM.

ANNOUNCING GOOD NEWS, Received Oct. 17, 3 p.m. Ilavre, Oct. 15. Belgian aviators raided Zeebruggi and Antwerp, and dropped Belgian flags, and newspapers, announcing the successes on the West front. I FRENCH RESERVE TROOPS, UNDER-ESTIMATED BY GERMANY. "Mr. Claude Anet, a French war correspondent, has Bent to his newspaper a statement by a German officer, now a prisoner of war in Russia, about the impressions made on the Germans by the French army's valient defence of their country. "When the war is over," this officer said, "we shall realise that we were mistaken on one point of vital importance. We considered the French army pretty good, on the whole, with well trained soldiers and a corps of officers who knew their profession thoroughly. We thought less, however, of the reserve troops, both officers and soldiers. On this basis we figured out what efforts would be needed tjo accomplish the task before us, and We considered ourselves vastly superior. "The troops we were sending into France at the opening of hostilities were, in our opinion, able not only to monquer, but to crush the French army. It was in fact, the elite of our regular establishment which was sent ahead, and our numbers were greater than the French General Staff has ever, imagined. "A French military writer had estimated that we could possibly send a million men across the border. More than twice that many actually crossed the Rhine. Add to this that we had an immense advantage in armament, that our heavy artillery was ten times superior in numbers, and that we had a much larger reserve of munitions. This great army of ours entered Franca, and we made spme excellent progress, but when the day arrived to meet the French army in organised battle we struck a reck. "Alas, since that day we have not bean able to take another step forward. Onthe Yaer and afterwards along the entire front we have been hurling ourselves against an impenetrable wall. We haveemployed all our available resources to break it down. Men and ammunition have been spent without counting number or cost. In vain—absolutely impossible to advance any further. And in the .meantime we have felt the strength of the French growing every day, right in face of us. The French have taken the offensive, and it has become their turn to choose hour and place for attack. . "Their, artillery has develoged in a marvellous maimer. They have won everything they lacked in the beginning. I don't know where they get their munitions, but when occasion demands It they keep up an infernal firing and rain of shells, without cessation, as if tjiey were sure of never getting short of that kind of supplies. The troops themselves, and particularly the reservists whom we despised so much, appear to be more efficient now than those we encountered In the early days of the conflict, tip to date we have held our positions, and these are rathers trong. But who would dare to say that these devils of Frenchmen might not some day make a bad crack in our front?"

"To the pessimists of France," is the war correspondent's dedication of the above lines.