GERMAN PRISONER'S STORY.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13732, 22 March 1915, Page 8

GERMAN PRISONER'S STORY.

A deserter from the German Army ;it Courtrai has related his experiences to a representative of the Rotterdam "N'ieuwsblad." He says:—

"The first time I was_called upon to u.se my rifle was early in August, when I was ordered to shoot two children who, together with an old woman, were found in a farmhouse from which shots had been fired on the German troops. I could not do it, and refused, whereupon my sergeant shot them himself, the girl through the head and the boy in the back, saying to me, 'You are no man.' It was awful! Afterwards we set the farm on fire. "The most fierce fighting I have seen was near St. Quentin, where we stood firirf, without ceasing for two days and rights, our dead being piled four deep,

vhile the wounded died- in hundreds, rhero was no time to bury the corpses md they were burned with petrol. At Vtrecht wo were opposed by Turcos, ,he most terrifying men- you can tnagine. They never go back. They ight and Jight till they fall. Our osess were terirble, especially among he young men. "We learned to fear the excellence 3f the British big guns, which shoot :arther than ours, and they mowed us lown before we could reach them. Of my regiment, 3000 tstrong, there, tvere only about 100 left when we came to Lille, and I and three comrades ivere all that remained of a company 3f 250. Our sufferings were awful. We suffered greatly from hunger, and the men who ate their reserve rations were severely punished, some being tied to the guns. "I decided to desert? because life was intolerable. Four of us crept through the guard at Courtrai, but "being discovered we Avere pursued. My three comrades were shot, but I escaped. From Belgian peasants I received much help, and I was fortunate enough to cross the frontier into Holland, where I was kindly received by the Dutch soldiers."