The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-21
.OUTNUHABERED FOUR TO ONE, TEUTON FORCES TECHNICAL
 SUPERIORITY CHECKS ENEMY
Experts Point Out That Present Conflict Especially Rout of Russian Advance, Demonstrates That the Day of Brute Superiority in Warfare Has Passed.

'"The enemy's front is nberally pro- Vided with machine. guns-for each | 20 to 25 yards two of these have been | installed while there are also | mechanical rifles which fire ten shots | automatically and without re1oading. ] Out of ever part of a trench, 25 yards l long, 49o,000 projectiles may be fired | in 24 hours, or 10000 in an hour. One | ust bear in mind, in addition to this | the barbed wire entanglements, and then try to obtain an estimate of what it would be like to break this wall of steel"
 The article in question is remark able for the fact that it was evidently written by a person of none or little military experience, md that it pass ed the Russian military censors.
 While the German-Austro-H -Hungar- ian troops have thoroughly utilized the long spell of inaction in Russia to fortify their lines to an unheard-of degree, the Austro-Hungarian troops have done likewise on the Italian front in the face of an almost con tinua1 onslaught by the Italian forces. the present Austro-Hungarian front, contrary to what has been said was not prepared for the ''position war; which has since then obtained there The result of this was, that, owing tc the rock surface of the terrain which, had to be chosen, and because of the Italian artillery superiority, the Austro-Hungarian troops had a hard time of it. It was imp possib1e to dig trenches and bomb proofs with the pick and spade. Rock drills and dynamite had to be used.
 But today the Austro-Hungarian
 are declared to be well entrenched
 and housed along the entire front. Where water was hard to get reser- votrs and duets were established.
 Everywhere field railroads were laid out-in one Isonzo sector over. 125 miles alone Steep grades were con
 quered by means of cable railroads. Summits have been made accessible by the building of elevators. Up to December 1, 1915, 227 bridges had been built. What has been done to
 make the troops comfortable is shown by the use of 200 railroad car loads of lumber in single month last fall
 Meanwhile, barbed-wire entangle-
 ments and other obstructions have been laid out on an unprecedented scale Land mines have been laid
 In fact nothing tending to give the Austro-Hungarian troops technical superiority over the Italians has been left undone.
 Though the Serbs fought well, they
 succunbed rapidly to the technical superiority of the Central Powers
 u oops. At first it was artillery su- periorfty which harassed the Serb ian troops and prevented them from interfering with the crossing of the i Danube. Incident to this was the ef- I ficiency of the AIlstro-Hungarian and German pioneer and engineer troops. Any one of the four ponteen bridges 1 thrown across the Danube would
 have taxed the capacity of the best engineer troops. To meet this task four times, and during a season of high winds and flood stage in the river is looked upon as a monumental performance even in German-A uStro- Hungarian army circles where the fairly good,'' and even the decidedly
 good, job, have failed to bring more than recognition that those responsi- ble for it have merely done their duty The rapid reconstruction of the
 permanent Semlin-Belgrade rail- road bridge, a masonry and steel structure, which has just been com p1eted by GermanAAu o-Hungarian engineer troops must also be looked upon as very creditab1e perform ance, though neither shot nor shell molested the builders.
 With the Serbs driven from their l main positions in the North, and
 East, they fell prey to the technical
 superiority of German, Austro-Hun-
 garian. and Bulgarian leadership. A series of brilliant, old sty1e,' open field nlanoevres, inaugurated against them drove the Serbs from one posi- ton to another and finally into AL bania and Greece without even the scant consolation which might be ad-
 dueed from saving the heavy equip
 ment.
 Conditions in the western theatre
 of war are not sufficiently understood here to- permit a, treatment of the
 subject. Generally, it is accepted,
 however, that there, too, the Ger
 mans enjoy technical superiority in man and material otherwise the French, English and Belgian troops would have been more successful, it: is argued. Unlike the Russians, Serbs and Italians, the French and English have quickly benefited by experience, which highly developed war indus 1Ties'' made possible without much loss of time. As rule the applica- ton of a, new device or method has been quickly adopted there by the other side,- so that the use of hand bombs, bomb catapults, asphyxiat ting gases, and scores of other innova- ticns has become general now. !