DWINDLING AWAY

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13474, 3 May 1917, Page 5

DWINDLING AWAY

ESTIMATES AMD COMPARISONS OF THE GERMAN FORCES. RESERVES NOW CANNOT NUMBER MORE THAN 130,000. FIGHTING DESPERATELY, BUT LACKING IN ARMAMENTS AND SUPPLIES. DAY APPROACHING WHEN GAPS CANNOT BE FILLED. (Australian and N.Z. Gable Assooiation.) Brceived May 7.30 p.m. LONDON, May 2. The Daily Chronicle's correspondent on the French front states that the estimate of 100,000 German casualties in the present fighting is far below the reality, and they are probably double that. When the offensive started there were 143 German divisions on the West front, and 76 in Russia, Roumania and Macedonia. There was a general reserve of 44 divisions on the West front, each division being about half its former strength, consisting of three regiments of infantry, totalling 7500 men, 500 in the machine-gun section, 200 cavalrymen, 9 to 12 batteries of artillery employing 2000, and 800 pioneers. The German reserve on the West front, therefore, did not exceed 500,000. Between April 9th and 26th thirty-two fresh divisions came into action on the Anglo-French front, and more than half of these 32 divisions were ,so severely punished that they had to withdraw to be reconstructed. The German reserve is now 130,000. These figures, there being no need to comment, show that our men have not died in vain. The German army is still formidable in numbers and is fighting desperately, but it has fallen in quality and in its armaments and supplies, and is approaching the day when it will be unable to fill the gaps in its failing ranks.