GERMAN ARMY

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1939, Page 11

GERMAN ARMY

GROWTH AND DEFICIENCIES. Now that we may assume that the greater part of the German army is assembling on the Western front it is time to form an estimate of its numbers and quality, wrote the military correspondent of the London “Daily Telegraph” in an article published on September 29. It may be remembered that the Treaty of Versailles allowed Germany to maintain a small, long service professional army.i Conscription was forbidden, and if the terms of the treaty had been rigorously observed it would have been difficult to build up any considerable trained reserve of men discharged before completing the stipulated period of service. The original Reichswehr was, however, organised and recruited so as. to form an officer and N.C.O. producing body with a view to ultimate expansion. When Herr Hitler defied the Versailles Treaty and openly declared his intention of forming a conscript army of some 36 divisions the original Reichswehr provided admirably trained cadres to build on. Moreover, most of the conscripts had already received elementary quasi-military training in labour camps and schools. Those 36 divisions should very soon have reacheed a high standard of efficiency. Since then the German army has grown rapidly and is now believed to number well over a hundred normal divisions, plus some dozen or more armoured divisions —it would be unwise to reckon on any definite number of either.

The 36 divisions of the first expansion programme were not, however, as well qualified to provide officers and N.0.0.’s for the new formations as the original Reichswehr had been. It may safely be assumed, therefore, that the drastic watering down process has left the present army short of fully-train-ed junior officers and N.0.0.’5, more especially as a full issue; of arms and equipment can hardly have kept pace with the formation of new units.

It is probable that higher ranks of all formations are filled by ’ highlytrained officers, though they may be young for their appointments. Further expansion of the army as the war is prolonged will no doubt take place, but it is more likely to be limited by the difficulty of providing new arms and equipment when war wastage is high than by shortage of personnel. Already we are told that some of the German aircraft show signs of embodying inferior material, though the best available would certainly be used in their construction.

If that is true, high grade material for other forms of armament is likely to be lacking, with a consequent acceleration of wastage through rapid deterioration. The fight for Saarbrucken, which has produced so much raw material for German armaments, has probably am economic rather than a tactical meaning. The arrival of fresh divisions from the East will keep the British and French intelligence services busy building up from all sources of information the enemy’s order of battle — the grouping of the new arrivals into army corps and armies and their location. It is from such information that the enemy’s plans can often be deduced.

Present indications point to an attempt to drive the French from their footing on German soil, but possibly with the object of involving the main forces of the Allies in the struggle prior to effecting an enveloping movement through neutral territory.