ENEMY COUNTRIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 11 October 1916, Page 5

ENEMY COUNTRIES.

AN AMERICAN'S REVELATIONS.

ARRIVAL OF GERMAN WOUNDED

DESCRIBED

THE MEN HOPELESS

REALISE THAT WAJI MACHINE IS

BEATEN

(Times.) (Received October 11., 8.55 a.m.)

LONUON, Oct. 10

Mr Cuptin, the American journalist, continuing. his v account of experiences while on a visit to Germany, says that the police cleared the streets when wounded Prussian Guards arrived at Potsdam.

By a subterfuge Mr Curtin witnessed the arrival of successive trainloads of nearly seven hundred wounded. "** Each was evacuated into long rows of mammoth vans and other, vehicles with endless^tiei's of stretchers, by a small army o,f doctors and nurses. Many of the sufferers were horribly maimed and battered. These were the remnant of fi'/e reserve regiments which had been bloodily smashed up whilst endeavoring to retake Contalmaison from the British. On subsequent days trainloads arrived, a large proportion of the occupants being permanent invalids and cripples, while several vehicles were filled with the corpses of those who had | expired on tha journey. This terrible i sight, he says, will never pass from* his memory. ,

Mr Curtin gives the lie to the German official statement asserting that ninety per cent, of the" wounded will return to the firing line. The most impressive feature, he_jsay.3. was the ghastly hopelessness of the white fao?s of the wounded, plainly revealing that the men knew that Germany's fighting machine had met superior forces and had~ been vanquished by an army of mere sportsmen. The Prussian Guards were flung against Contalmiason because it was a vital noint in the defences of Baupaume and. Peronne. Wounded-men say that the Guards, although heavily reinforced, were twice driven back after t&3 bloodiest hand to hand encounters.