GERMAN ARMY SCANDAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 1514, 9 November 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

GERMAN ARMY SCANDAL.

COMPANY CHEAT AT SHOOTING.

CRACK REGIMENT'S RUSE. An* amazing state of affairs has been revealed fay a military trial at Potsdam. The entire 6th Company iOf the 1 First Regiment of Foot Guards, with their cap tain, Baron von > Schlichting, appeared before the court, charged with extraordinary irregularities. - The captain is., personally not implicated, the charge against him being that ho did not exercise sufficient supervision over his men.

The trial was. held in camera, but the facts are- known, and are briefly as follows: —The 6th Company, composed of 120 men, of this, the crack regiment of Guards, in which all the Hohenzollern princes serve, held last year the Kaiser's I prize for efficient marksmanship, their most dangerous rivals being a company of the- 4th Regiment of Guards. The contest takes place ones a year, and this year the two rival companies met at Doeberitz, near Potsdam, to decide which of them was to possess the Kaiser's prize. According to the regulations, each soldier was supplied with thirty cartridges. He was to use all these, no more nor less, and the contest was to be decided on disappearing targetsthose, namely, which fall out of sight when struck. While the shooting was proceeding an officer of the 4th Regiment noticed that the soldiers of tho incriminated company were extracting cartridges from their boots and bread satchels,. He gave notice of this, and the : contest was ordered to cease. An inquiry was instituted, and it was discovered that the 6th Company had a store of service cartridges hidden away, and that, their ' instructor-sergeant had dealt out these cartridges in a liberal measure to his company (1700 extra cartridges were found on the men) to enable the 6th Company to do bigger execution than their rivals, who had not hit on this happy expedient. Captain von Schlichting was sentenced to a' week's confinement to his rooms, Musketry-Sergeant Huttonburg to .four months' imprisonment, the sergeant-major to three weeks, and the sergeant and other non-commissioned officers to two weeks' simple arrest, while the older privates will be placed under arrest for three days as the receivers and distributors of excess cartridges, and, the remaining Grenadiers will be under arrest for two days. Ensign von Cramon wa3 acquitted.

BRUTALITY TO GERMAN , RECRUITS. Another remarkable court-martial, following the above trial, has taken place at Potsdam. The prisoners were a sergeant, two corporals, and four men of the Garde du Corps, the most celebrated cavalry regiment in the German army. The Kaiser is its honorary colonel/ and frequently wears its uniform and eagle-mounted silver helmet.

The prisoners were accused of systematic brutality to recruits, and particularly to a trooper named Strueving. who has how been dismissed as unfit for military service." The evidence showed that he was constantly beaten by the non-commissioned officers and older soldiers, who struck him with sticks, scabbards, straps, and bridles. When he visited his parents they thought ho was becoming insane. Later ho was placed in hospital, and the warder who undressed him testified that Ins whole body was covered with wales inflicted by whips. Struoving's maltreatment evenfcually.caused him to develop epileptic fits. One day Strueving's father received a letter from another recruit informing him that his son was being " terribly beaten" and that "all of us are being maltreated." These statements were confirmed in detail by recruits in the witness-box, though few uttered the truth readily. The favourite hour for beating, they declared, was after! dark, during straw-cutting in the stables, j The prosecuting officer asked for exemplary punishment of between two and six months' . imprisonment. " How many suicides and desertions," he exclaimed, "have been occasioned bv these evils despite attempts to eradicate them!" The court, however, decided there were " extenuating circumstances," and gave the principal offenders three weeks' imprisonment and the others six weeks' "intermediate arrest' in barracks.