GERMANS ON DEFENSIVE.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1917, Page 3

GERMANS ON DEFENSIVE.

CONCRETE AND GUNS. ALLIED AIR RAIDS CONTINUOUS. London, Sept. 17. Tho correspondent of the Paris newspaper Le Temps on the 'British front, writing regarding the enemy shortage of effectives, declared there is incontestible proof that the strength of a German company of infantry in certain sectors varies, from 40 to GO men. The shortage is compensated by additional machine-guns. Describing the defensive method* the German Fourth Army opposite; Ypres, the correspondent of the Morning Post says the desire of the Germans to hide in deep dug-outs is being remorselessly killed in the training camps. The men are taught to transform a shallowcrater into a machine-gun refuge and to festoon it with wire under the very eyes of the enemy. Even the gunners are forced to leave Wieir cemented pits and take up unprotected positions, which, are quickly changed if the British artillery finds them out. General von Arnim is also covering the new battlefields with concrete. He is transforming farmhouses into forts, and dotting "pill boxes" over the ridges and valleys behind the present front. Our guns are constantly playing upon working parties, which are 'bringing steel rails and girders from the wooden tram* ways. Concrete is the backbone of the German Army to-day, and has taken the place of .infantry. The Amsterdam correspondent of the Times says that allied bomb attacks in the north of Flanders near the coast are extraordinarily intense. Swarms of aeroplanes and seaplanes Appear daily and ■nightly, attacking German works, billeting areas, and aerodromes. Tlie nervlness of the German gunners is shown by a number of shells falling in Holland. The Germans are compelling civilians to | construct large military works, showing ■their intention to retain the coast at all hazards. The population has been instructed to hold matresses at the disposal of the soldiers, who after plundering the villas are beginning to use the homei of the settletV population, whose life is already hard through lack of food and forced labor.