DESPONDENT GERMANS

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 98, 25 April 1917, Page 5

DESPONDENT GERMANS

BLOOD BATH ON THE SOMME. SHORTAGE OF AMMUNITION, That the morale of the German Army is being shattered is abundantly-shown by the despondent tone of letter's found on prisoners and published in England. In one of the English' papers just tc hand is a private's letier, in -which the writer says: " Not a day passes but the English let off their gas waves over oui trenches in one place or another. People five or six miles behind th\e front have become unconscious from the tail of the gas clouds. It 3 effects were felt eves seven miles and a-half behind the front. Ono has only to look at the rifles aftei a gas attack to see what deadly stuff if is. • They are red with rust, as if thej. had lain for weeks in the mud." "The effect of the continuous hornbardment is indescribable," a man in.the 11th R.I.R. writes.. "W© entrained! ait Savigny, and at once knew our destination—our old blood bath ihe Somtne. We relieved the 119 th ■ on. 7th October. We had dreadful casualties that night. The 9th Company dwindled to twentynine men. Two platoons were taken prisoner, and the rest were buried in the dug-outs. Our company has up tc date lost thirty men." Here is an extract from a letter written by a man in hospital:—" Our regiment was suddenly taken from Flanders and flung into the Somme district. Fox twelve days wo stayed thoro, and were completely smashed up. During ten days I endured that hell, and came to the end of my strength." Another writes:—" Yes, my dear comrade, I have been on the Somme, but can only tell you that I have been through a great deal in this war, but such' slaughter of men as there was there 1 have not yet experienced, • for in two days our division was wiped out. I cannot help wondering that I came ofi with a whole skin. But there are not many of us." A man of the 3rd Reserve Regiment says:—"The officers we have up to the rank of captain are mostly boys who have no idea, of anything. The German Government is always writing about the other States, and the German. Government, is far worse. The German Government deceives the people in <i very shameful way. One sees it now very cl£*rljr in, this wh^lejaio SJUKUr. .Qgg

can hardly help being ashamed of 'being a German. We must turn our round and destroy the whole Go\f'eminent. If I should happen not to reVurn then, think how I have' written to J' ou about it all. That, gang has .caused :Vs to be killed for fun and for sport. . Ifc';iV very different for the English. That yi> why they have not nearly so many, i losses. If only one of; us shows himself, i then they use up plenty of ammunition, l but they work in .hundreds without i cover, and our guns don't fire. They are r not allowed to. There is a shortage of i ammunition. The newspapers write th#t , the enemy is short of ammunition. By that they mean that we ourselves are. It is quite clear that Germany is losing, and getting into a, terrible state."