Norwich bulletin., 1915-03-25
Stories of the War
Optimistic German Correspondent.

'I have come back from the front as a convinced optimist, even if there are some things which I cannot explain" writes a correspondent of the Frank furter Zeitung who has recently been making a round of the German trench es in Belgium and Northern France He was particularly impressed with the work which the German authorities have accomplished in the occupied dis tricts of both Belgium and France where, he says, every conceivable pro- vision has been made for the time when bur powerful army shall break over the borders into the interior of France" All the railways and roads, he observes, have been brought to the highest efficiency for that objective. He continues:
 ''The pause has been used to the ut most advantage. The north of France and Belgium have been transformed into a German border province, whose granaries. ammunition depots and bases for the provision of war supplies are overfowing and ready, at a sign, to send thousands of tons to the front, while the hospitals and transports for the wounded are marvellously organ ized. All the warlike preparations in the west have been placed on a new and extraordinarily strong footing. Tn many respects these prepara- tions surpa.ss even our German mobil- | ization. Here in the depots you feel how this preparation for war has been thought out in the most concentrated way. An unprecedented energy is de- voted to it. While greater and greater 1 masses of men are being hurled against | our wall outside-with only a wave now and then breaking over the dam, | while our trenches are sending the storming parties home again with bloody cost. all the time our inner fortress is being more heavily armed until the signal for a new offensive can be given. Kitcheners millions and | the new French army have never | alarmed us, although we must not un- | derestimate them. But it is one of
 front and to believe only in the ex-
 istence of what We can clearly per
 ceive.
 | Before I went to the front, all
 accounts and stories of the war left l me unconvinced. Even when I passed
 through the trenches in front of
 Rheims, where the front of the towers | of the Cathedral still stand out al | most uninjured; when I walked over | the heights which dominate Arras, that | Junction of important railways and
 roads; when I heard the thunder of the
 cannon by Ypres. where the trenches 1 are driven right up to the town, I had a lively desire to criticise. Why had we not held on to these towns? We
 were once in them! Why had we not I
 and the North Sea in the days when
 Antwerp was being taken, so that
 Calais and Dunkirk might now be in
 our possession. What has happened
 in the woods of the Argonne and or l the Marne?
 When I began to talk about my | doubts and to complain, and began tc
 question this person and that, in order
 to gain information to convince the
 Philistines at home, they simply put
 a map in my hands, which was marked with a blue pencil round the broad plain by Rheims
 l T was then invited to regard witt
 my own eyes our excellent disposi- 1 tions on the plateau which overloo1ks
 the Aisne. I was shown the crest ol | the hill in front of Arras on whicf
 our front leans, the Kemmetberg, thf
 center of our enerny's position in Elan.
 ders, the high road in the west il
 front of Ypres, behind the protection
 of which the besieged city is hidden
 The whole position was carefully OK.
 plained. and I was invited to saJ
 whether I could devise any better dis. l positions which could render our from
 more secure and more favorable, il view of the whole line of battle il l the west and the east
 Even this much knowledge Wal
 worth g. visit to the front"