GERMAN ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1940, Page 6

GERMAN ARMY

COLLAPSE IN LAST WAR. DEVELOPED INTO A ROUT. It suited Germany to create the legend that the German Army was not defeated in the last war—a legend that has been widely accepted outside Germany as well. The legend is exploded by Major-General Sir John Humphrey Davidson in a London “Times” letter. German propaganda has lied systematically regarding the reasons for Germany’s collapse in 1918. Facts and figures which are incontrovertible prove beyond doubt that the German Army was beaten to its knees by British troops, states the letter. On August 8, 1918, the British Fourth Army attacked and drove the Germans back 10 miles, capturing 21,850 prisoners and 400 guns. The First. Third and Fourth British Armies continued the attack from the south of the Somme to the north of Arras, capturing a further 53,100 prisoners and 470 guns. In these battles of Peronne and Bapaume the determined thrust of the British soldiers, coupled with the carefully co-ordinated action of the armies and the highly efficient co-operation of all arms, succeeded in overthrowing the German forces opposed to them and started the "rot” which later spread to the whole German army. In September, the letter continues, the First, Third and Fourth British Armies, with the Second Army co-oper-ating in the north opposite Ypres, continued the attack, capturing 53.050 prisoners and 580 guns. Pressing forward again in October. Courtrai and Cambrai were captured together with 39.000 prisoners and 90(1 guns. Meanwhile the Germans were hurriedly retreating from the wide gap between the Second Army in the north and the First, Third and Fourth Armies in the south, thus liberating the towns of Lille, Roubaix. Dounai and many others. The morale of the German Army was completely broken, and in the early days of November its retreat was turned into a disorganised rout. It had lost to (he Allies from August to November nearly 400,000 prisoners and 6000 guns. There is no parallel for such a defeat on such a scale and so complete in the whole of military history. If Germany wisb.es to boast she can boast of sustaining a record defeat, and no words of her professional liars can distort that fact. The British troops of today, the letter concludes. should be reminded of these achievements and should realise that the “invincibility of the German Army" is nothing but an empty boast j of a lying bully.