"IRON DISCIPLINE"

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 561, 22 February 1916, Page 7

"IRON DISCIPLINE"

♦ PRINCE AS CORRESPONDENT. Much interest attaches to the following stories narrated by Prince Oscar, the fifth son of the Kaiser, who fills the role of war correspondent. The writer gives a full picture of events m which he placed his part as an officer on the staff of the commanding general, and finally leads up to the German defence of " Hill 196," which was captured by the French m October. The book, which is called ' The Winter Battle,' lays stress on the immense value of the iron discipline of the German army system. Prince Oscar is convinced that those who, from " undue softness " and " false sentimentality," once bade them relax rigorous discipline are shown to be overwhelmingly convicted of error. He has much to say about the fine fighting qualities, the " invincibility " of the German troops, but he is constrained to acknowledge the " marvellous valor " and the " reckless courage and nerve " of the French. Extracts, published m ' The Times,' are as follows : — lt was, however (he writes), not the attacks of their infantry which made this battle so hideous for us, nor was it the hand-to-hand struggles m the trenches, man against man, where the German, possessing greater physical strength, was easily the match of the individual Frenchman. What made the battle a living hell was the work of the French artillery, enormous m strength, with huge supplies of ammunition which was spent lavishly. Life m the trenches became a perpetual nightmare, and stamped as unforgettable heroes the men who went through Avith it without flinching. —Dreadful Artillery Effects.— On to a comparatively small area the French on one day threw a hundred thousand shells ! We found a French document m which the commanding officer calculated that 18 bombs must be the allowance per metre of German trench, these 18 bombs to be used, not m a day, but within one or two hours ! The rapidity of the artillery fire was, therefore, as great as that of an ordinary machine gun, but the shells hurled against us were not infantry shells, but grenades of every calibre. "Drum-fire" is the name for this sort of artillery fire, and its effects were simply dreadful— unspeakable. The barbed wire was completely annihilated, was wiped clean out of existence; the trenches were flattened into mounds, their foundations crumbled away. No known sort of earthworks were able to withstand such fire for even a short time. When such " drum-fire " began a huge wall of smoke and chalk particles rose over our trenches, cutting off the men from the rest of the world. The horror of the scene was augmented by the ceaseless rumbling, thundering, and crashing which filled the air, and which, even miles away, sounded like a heavy thunderstorm. It seemed impossible that any living creature should survive such a hellish turmoil. When the firing ceased abruptly, or when its direction was changed to, give the French infantry a chance to attack us, then our brave fusiliers, musketeers, grenadiers crawled out of the funnels and pockets into which the enemy's grenades had ploughed the earth, made their way from among broken foundations, crumbling cement, trickling sandbags, and, grabbing their guns and wiping the dirt from their eyes they repulsed the French attack. And this was done not once, but dozens of times. —Heavy Casualties Admitte-" - Occasionally our men were" oic'.ird to abandon a trench which was suffering particularly from "drum-fire" m order to avoid unnecessary loss of life, and the crew from such an abandoned trench was then placed m our second line of entrenchments. It sometimes happened that French infantrymen, under protection of their artillery fire, reached and took such an empty trench, succeeding the more readily because they encountered no obstacles. Our soldiers then sprang forth from their cover and attacked the French with hand grenades and bayonets. If for some reason or other this counter-attack was not made at once, but was postponed 1 for an hour or two, we were not so sure of success, and it was then never secured by us without heavy casualties, for the few hours that had elapsed had amply sufficed the French, who are exceedingly clever at every sort of entrenchment work, to change and remodel the trench for their purposes, to install machine guns, to place sandbag barriers along both sides, and to make sundry other changes. This done, the "Frenchmen's nest" was complete. — Huns' Attack at Night. — As an example of the tremendous fury with which hand-to-hand night fighting raged I will cite one instance. A grenadier of one of our Rhenish regiments, who carried a pick-axe, had the thumb of his right hand, which carried the weapon, bitten right off by a Frenchman. The German soldier, writhing with pain, contrived to change the pick-axe to his left hand, and killed both the Frenchman who had maimed him and his comrade behind. In another regiment three men had discovered that m making these nocturnal attacks they could work together to splendid advantage. The strongest man of the three took the centre. In his left hand he carried two steel shields from machine guns lashed together. In his right hand he held his weapon, bayonet or pick-axe. His two companions kept to either side of him, as closely as possible. One carried as many hand-grenades as he could manage, .the other was equipped with a bayonet. Thus accoutred the strange trio proceeded, striking, thrusting, and throwing grenades, and literally hacking its way through the ranks of the enemy. — Torn Limb From Limb.— . Just as the interest and action of a drama continue to ascend until the end of the last act, so the battle of Champagne reached its culmination and conclusion m the mad struggle that raged around Hill 196. Suddenly, on the afternoon of March 18, the attack was begun by densely massed troops, their objective being Hill 196, and the position directly east of the hill. The position of the Guards Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 133 and other troops, who received the main shock of the impact, was not to be shaken, however. The Fourth Turcos Regiment and others of the French army attacked m five lines advancing one by one, with some of their officers on horseback. We received them with a shower of hand grenades, M'hich tore hundreds of them limb from limb and literally blew to atoms the first two lines. Succeeding lines fared no better. Those who miraculously escaped the hand grenades were felled by our furious men with blows of pick-axe and bayonet, ln spite of their dauntless courage, their reckless contempt of death, their marvellous persistence, the French were forced back. Front and flank of this writhing maelstrom of densely packed humanity, rolling along m a disorderly retreat, was swept by our heavy artillery fire from 21-centimetre mortars, heavy field howitzers, 10-centimetre cannon. The losses which the French sustained were inhuman and sickening. With this' last valiant attempt to take the Hill 196 ended the winter battle of the Champagne.