HOW THE GERMANS FIGHT.

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 July 1915, Page 8

HOW THE GERMANS FIGHT.

BLIND, STOLID OBEDIENCE. EXCELLENCE OF THE SHARP- , SHOOTERS. (By W. Beach Thomas, in the Daily Mail.) Half a battalion of German soldiers swung suddenly into a clear space between two woods. They came forward —one can scarcely say charged-—at a slow trot which 'is ordained and practised for such adventures. The men in the front rank had actually locked arms, as if these most modern of warriors were part and parcel of a Macedonian phalanx. Their rifles were not even held at the hips, much less put to the shoulder, but were suspended by straps with the muzzles pointing upwards and backwards. The reason was that the men had no arms or hands to spare. The one arm was locked in the neighbour's; the other was held across and in front of the eyes to hide the death that was coming. It is needless to add that none of this sacrificed company dealt death and all of them died. PASSIVE IMMOLATION. This incident was told to mo by a British officer who has seen \as much of , the war as anyone, and has most deservedly made his name in the war. Ho gave the story in the course of conversation as example of the most moving spectacle which had come before his eyes during the war. The slung rifle and the hands before the eyes degraded the soldiers to sheep, ci sight to distress another soldier's heart, even though an enemy's. Why the men were forced to this "almost passive, immolation none could fell,- but apparently thev represented a deliberate move in a concerted attack. They were meant to die for an unknown end. * THE SNIPERS. The attack failed, and. the Germans lost heavily. The obedience, to winch tint whole nation is attached, was in this case ruin. How very different is the German soldier when his individuality is given play. "In the dodges of trench warfare they boat us every time," said the commander of one section of our trenches. Their snipers have exhibited a remarkable combination of patience, scientific precision, and. on occasion, daring. The standard plan is to watch for any movement in the opposing trench, or a flick of movement behind a loophole. Using a telescopic sight and fixing the rifle on a rest and "drawing a. bead" on the spot the sniper will wait fo ran hour or two till the movement is seen again; and so accurate is he that a hit is almost certain. We hava tested this accuracy again and again with dummies, and movements of paper or stuff behind the loopholes. I do not suggest that the German snipers are better than ours; but I am quite sure that they have an easier quarry.. More Germans' see British than British seo Germans. EXPERT IN TRENCH DODGES. , ' 1 have given examples of two different, almost contradictory, qualities in the German character and the method oi fighting. Th-3 contradiction is emphasised in the training of the men. The ' German Jagers, distinguished from the rest by their blue-green uniform, are almost "perfect soldiers. Many of them have had personal or ancestral connection with the chase. They are hereditary gamekeepers and inherit skill in mus- 1 ketry. But they are especially trained to ' develop, as their name implies, the. hunter's skill. It is very soon known in theopposing trenches when a battalion of ! Jagers Is present. The German ideal is, 1 believe, a battalion of Jagers to each divi- ; sion, but the proportion is not maintained. ; Many of these men were killed and some [ taken prisoners at Neuve Chapeile; and, ' with their wastage, the efficiency of the ] German troops steadily deteriorates. We have tried hard to match the Gei"mans in cunning. Along one line of our ; trenches the officer in command appointed a suggestion bureau and encouraged ali soldiers to send in their ideas. They responded well, but almost all the sugges- ] tions were hopelessly unpractical, though manv showed a perverted ingenuity. One man'had a scheme for making an artificial cow on wheels and fifilling her with men. ( Another proposed the erection of a plat- j form which could be quickly elevated to i a. height, so allowing our snipers perched on it a point of vantage against the j enemy's trench! It is the rarest thing i for any device so suggested to be accept- . able, though officers at the front, unlike , the 'normal official at home, are always ] onen to receive ideas. ; P CLINCHED IN DISCIPLINE. ; The, more or less haphazard incidents ; that I have out down are meant to lllusthate what seems to me the peculiar quality of the German soldier as opposed to ours. The massed formation, seen in exaggeration in the advance with covered eye, is necessary to the German because" he cannot co-operate with others unless he is clinched and tied tight, "ribbed and paled in" with bonds of palpable discipline for which the strictest iuxtaposition is necessary. He can act alone and independently when he is, so to speak, his own disciplinarian. His mind is full of concrete ingenuities and his cunning deep and various. But voluntary cooperation, in which understanding ot others and sympathy with others are the only bonds, is a thing impossible to him. In "the field vou see the same qualities which have made recent German politics the crudest mixture ever yet concocted of. small cunning, narrow ignorance, and brutal, bullying. mnritTM( MERE MATERIALISM. . The capacity to understand other people matters mn»h less in war than in diplomacy Blind obedience, varied by scientific" ingenuftv in the field, making, tho spear-poi'it of an organisation more thorough and national than the world has ever seea. produces a military machine still verv te/rible and effective after the loss of two million men But the point 1 would make is this: that the great German qualities, as they exaggerate themselves, lose force. The people s trust m cunning is now such that both at home and in the held they aie chiefly buoyed up by silly reliance on mysterious tricks and cunning plots—on Zeppelins and monster submarines and deadly gases, on zonules guns, on unborn inventions. Simultaneously with this weak optimism in material things, the denial of human feet ings and personal initiative to the soldiers is paving the way to national sincido: and, it is to be feared, degrading the men—as fine fellows as the world could wish to house—into mad and desperate agents as material as the weapons thev use. I speak with a grim knoweldge of events that marked the advance and retreat during the last battle of Ypres. The Allies fight for the soul as welt as the bodily safety of their children.