New Britain herald., 1915-04-07
EnOYmOns Losses Among
 - Officers of German Army
French Official Review of War Decares-Also Deals With Wastage of Material and 'The Moral
 Wastage of c erman Army

been many times perceived at the front.
 Artillery Lacks Munitions.
 "Furthermore. the German artillery lacks and has lacked for very long time munitions. It has been obliged to reduce it's consumption of shells in a notable degree. No doubt is pos sible in this respect. The statements of prisoners since the battle of the Marne, and still more since the battle of the Yser. make 1t clear that the number of shots allowed to the bat teries for each action is strictly linn ited. We have found on officers killed or taken prisoner the actual orders prescribing positively a strict economy of munitions.
 ProjectiIes Do Not Burst.
 For the last three months, too, we notice that the quality of the pro- jectiles is mediocre. Many of them do not burst. On January ' in the course of a bombardment of Laven- tie, scarcely any of the German shells burst. The proportion of non-bursts was estimated at two-fifths by the British on December IA; two-thirds by the Belgians at Furnes in Jan- uary, and at two-thirds by our selves in the same month. On January at EoCrsct t-Comin, and at other places since then, shrapnel fell. the explosion of which scarcely broke the envelope, and the bullets were pro- jected without any force. About the same time our fourteenth army corps was fired at with shrapnel loaded with fragments of glass and on sev- eral points of our front shell castings of very bad quality have been found, denoting hasty manufacture and the use of materials taken at hazard.
 From numerous indications it ap- pears that the Germans are begin ming to run short of their 1898 pat tern rife. A certain number of the last endorsements tJanuary) are armed with carbines or rifles of poor sort, without bayonets. Others have not even rifles. Prisoners taken at Woevre had old pattern weapons.
 ''The upshot of these observations is that Germany, despite her large stores at the beginning. and the great re- sources of her industrial production, presents manifest signs of wear, and that the official optimism which she displays does not correspond with the reality of the facts"
 Moral Wastage of Germans.
 Under the caption, Moral Wastage of the German Army" the review con- tinues. ,~ s.r-,t .... & .tr.....a
 The material losses of the Ger, man army have corresponded with moral wastage which 1t is interest ing and possible to follow both from the interrogation of prisoners and the pocketbooks and letters seized upon them or on the killed. '
 "At the beginning of the war the entire German army as was natural. was animated by an unshakable faith in the military superiority of the em-. pire. It lived on the recollections of 1870 and on those the long years of peace during which all the powers which has to do with Germany dis played towards her spirit of con- |ciliation and patience which might pass for weakness. " ..-#
 Indifferent to Reverses.
 ''The first prisoners we took in August showed themselves wholly in- different to the reverses of the Ger man army. They were sincerely and profoundly convinced that If the Ger man army retired it was in virtue of d preconceived plan and that our sue cesses would lead to nothing The events at the end of August were call culated to strengthen this conviction ill the mind of the German soldiers.
 "The strategic retreat of the French army, the facility with which the