Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-10-06
GERMAN FIGHTING MACHINE
The Gray Green Soldiers Of Emperor
William a Splendid Lot.

William a Splendid Lot.
When the French regiments paraded
through GembleuX, a ripple Of admira-
ton ran through the almost hysterical
Belgian populace who had waited sc
long for the promised support OF
France.
With their light blue and red uni
forms, their gaiety, glitter and song
they made colorful entry which quite
fulfilled ones conception of the roman
tic spirit Of war. But it was noticeable
that they did not march in particular
ly good order and the doors of the
wagons in their baggage train tapped
and banged.
But when the Germans appeared on
the outskirts of Brussels they might
have been mistaken for a cloud OF
low-lying mist, their gray-green uni
forms melting against a neutral back
ground. The entry was not theatric
but it throbbed with power and eff
cheney.
In place of the romantic French God
of War there was a silent, gray colored
machine which was complete to the
last detail. Wagon doors, instead of
Tapping, had patented locks and bars.
For three days the gray green SOL
diers marched through Brussels, part
of an army of over a million and a
half that pushed their way through
Belgium. In completeness Of equip
ment it was like a travelling city. 1t
had it's postal service, it's telegraph
corps, it's provision trains miles in
length, which provided for the soldiers
a menu as satisfactory as that which
they could have obtained in a first
class restaurant.
Six caissons with ammunition, each
drawn by six horses, followed each
field gun and there were professions OF
them two miles long. There were, in
addition, many truck and traction en-
gines for the heavy siege guns. And in
all this colossal train, not wheel
squeaked, not an accident delayed the
forward progress. The efficiency of
the Red Cross department is best in
dicated by the fact that in following
the German army for a hundred miles
over battlefields at times only few
hours behind the fighting, none Of the
small groups Of correspondents discov-
cred a wounded German soldier uncar-
ed for, or any dead
The speed of the army is attested by
the fact that correspondents with BIZ
cycles and carriages found it difficult
to keep up with the German advance.
Daily marches of fifty kilometres were
the usual thing and at times they
greatly exceeded that distance. The
physical stamina Of the men is extra
ordinary.
At Beaumont gas lighting system
as effective as electricity was estaD-
lished twelve hours after the Geramn
entry into the town and not long after
their own trains were running on the
tracks to Charleroi.
Minor evidences of their thorough
ness is seen in the equipment Of each
soldier, who carries with him not only
every necessity of war but food enough
to sustain him if he were separated
from the provision trains. 1t was in
teresting to note that even his sus-
penders were protected against emer-
gencieS and that his trousers carried
an extra set of buttons in case one set
gave way. No detail seems small
enough to have escaped German study
and preparation.
At Zone -etat, on the way from Char
leroi to AiXla Chapelle, a man lying
at full length in the station yard sud-
denly extracted a telephone instru-
ment from a flower bed and began a
conversation with headquarters.
There is no hint of fulfillment of the
prophecies of French writers that the
German soldiers, victims of an inflexi-
BILE system of rules, would not be
adaptable to emergencies.
These German rules, in the words OF
a German officer, ''go into the brain
Of the soldier and he is not merely the
unthinking refleX-EXchange
81" Mamie seeds have heen known tC