ON THE YPRES FRONT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume L, Issue 175, 8 October 1917, Page 6

ON THE YPRES FRONT.

HOW THE GERMANS FARE, letters written by German soldiers on the YseV front have been captured by the British. They show the conditions under which the enemy lives. One soldier wrote: "We have the same filth -and drill until we ar e crazy. Every morning I have a painter's breakfast. You know what that is, surely. It is a cigarette and coffee." A German corporal of tils?-29th Ma-chine-gun Marsman Detachment wTote in an unposted letter: "Matters have come to", such a pass that our artillery moves forward in the night and let-? loose some thousands of gas shells and retires before the dawn." Prisoners from the region of Rt .Tulien made a nurribejr of interesting statements about the completeness oi , the British barrage. No food, water, or munitions, they said, reached the front line for three days, owing to our fire on the roads. The barrage prior to the attack absolutely prevented the Gei ■mans from manning their trenches, and they had to remain in the dug-out*, where our men found them. Four noncommissioned officers of the Lehr Regi ment, who had served from the begin ning of the war, have admitted thai -. the British bombardment before and during the attack was the thej had ever had to endure. While the majority of the prisoners are still extremely bitter against their own gun-riM-s for not giving them better support, many of them realise that it was not due to lack ofdesire but to opposition w Wh thov muld not overcome. The experience of the crew of th* «.~-.-n.t.h r<- t.tpr v of one field artillery regiment, -which was sent up to take ovo.»our 77's near St. Julien on the Sun<ln*- night before the attack, is worth noting. They found all the ammunition buried in the earth, and our shells dropnJno- all round'the trun pits. They tookcovot in some concrete dug-outs, wher** i < t iofantrv found them, and. the bat | tery in question was unable to fire » snarle shell from the time the crew reached the position until they and their trr-« were raptured. ° The quality of the fare served to tli* German troops at present is shown by the following scale of rations of on* battalion in the Sixth Bavarian Reserve Raiment: Breakfast, coffee apd drv bread; mid-day, one litre of soup with boiled or cold tinned meat, no potatoes and no vegetables; evening, dry bread and cheese, or bread and butter, o* bread and jam. They also haye a drink of brandy now and then. The bread was of poor quality. The meat was =erved in generous slic*s. The same fare was the front line trenches when it was possible to bring it- ™ save that an additional quantity oi cheese was substituted for the soup The men received two cigarettes and two cigars daily and aWt 25 grammes of tobacco a month. A captured officer of the Division thought our men more cheerful and "wide-awake" than the German troops, who are "now very tired oi the war, and who have by no means the same enthusiasm that they had even a'yeaT ago." >