HORRORS OF WAR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13601, 5 February 1915, Page 4

HORRORS OF WAR.

"NERVEAVRECKeD" GERMANS

$0 DESIRE TO RETURN

Germany has been ; the fore'moßt exponent of the doctrine that war is the great regenerator of peoples. This makes specially interesting «n article written &y the Berlin correspondent of the Nieuwe Rotterdamscho, Gom-ant, which he calls "The Spiritually Wounded." He says: — • "Every one finds m Berlin young officers .who. have returned from the front with their nerves wrecked. • Tliotigii many of them wear the Iron Cross of the First Class, "they cannot bear the thought of returning to the front. . The dreadfulness of what they have already seen, they cannot banish from their minds. Even their .sleep, is Vroken by .visions Of, what they l»aye witnessed and endured.. ■

"They «annot bear that people should talk to then}, of the war.. This is not confined to offigers. G<jnerklly speaking, there is no, desire m the hospitals lor war literature „. r , „ . . , "The Ayounded much prefer love stories, But perhaps it is m the officers that the, change . jb mq^t. noticed.. ,. In Berlin you can see ypjing lieutenants with grey, f alien-in faces. Even their hair is sometimes grey,, and oh, those eyes! „ , : „ . . "Many of them came back here to rest, after being wounded, and, have, hadto remain ,pn accounts of ,ibeir nerves. It is -; said that at, t the present nio^nent there . are ,3QOO officers m, Berlin, who are incapacitated by their nerves, /md cannot- rejtuyn to the front. ..Ope dayi 100Q of . them were called- togethW .and addressed m, the, name of the-ICaisfir, who urged , them tp pull themselYes,together, as they were.ipxgentiyrtequired a4 the fronti, vThey we^ tpjd that- $hey must not too long hold thejn.Bej^§s back from .the aervice.xtf , the Fat3li#rlfliftd- . ..<

These statements, made-noi without some MBktoL.himself by this ; correspoiv dent, have -a sardonic flavor when iMs

remembered lhat only a few weeks ago the Kaiser assured liis troops m the East that they must win because they had the strongest nerves.