ENEMY "WAR BABIES."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 148, 22 June 1918, Page 5

ENEMY "WAR BABIES."

EAST FOR AUSTRALIANS. (Commonwealth Official Correspondent.) LONDON, June 16. The story cabled yesterday that prisoners are more ready to surrender is symptomatic of the growing tendency oJ the enemy on this front. It may be that the German division here is steadily deteriorating with the increasing proportion of new young drafts, consequent undoubtedly on the heavy losses inflicted on them in the last three months. It is probably unsafe to construe this tendency as general in the German army, but the Australians are certainly noticing it. Lately in several of their raids some machine-gunners have been found whc may be relied on to fight to the last, but other infantry is strikingly inferior. Our men feel confident that they could have broken through the enemy lines in any of these recent night attacks. The German accounts, stating that they held up the advance, are ludicrously untrue. Prisoners sometimes surrender easily, and are almost amicable. The first prisoner captured by a West Australian was taken before the colonel. He approached smiling and holding out his hand in the most cheerful fashion. Subsequently the prisoners greeted each other in the Australian lines in the happiest reunion. A senior Queensland officer relates that the last prisoner arrived at his headquarters some hours after the conclusion of a recent raid. He kept the German waiting there till daylight, thinking more would arrive then, and all could go down in the same escort. Finally the prisoner, when a German-speak-ing Australian spoke to him, said: "Why do you keep mc here, and not send mc back? lam the last prisoner. There are no more behind mc. They kept mc at battalion headquarters a long time, thinking more were coming. We are all in now, and I understand have had breakfast." The proportion of youths in the enemy ranks has increased considerably in the last few weeks.