The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1916-02-21
INTELLIGENT TROOPS
OVERCOME NUMBERS
Day of Brute Physical Courage is Said
to Be Over and Only Those of In
telligence, Moral Courage and
Fair Amount of Pluck are
First-class.

Vienna, Feb. 2l.-"To what extent doe
technical superiority discount inferiori
ty in numbersi 7" To this question a larg
number of Austro- Hungarian and Ger
man officers with long experience at TIN
various fronts, have replied that-tech
nical superiority, depending upon terrain
conditions, nature of the work to b.
done, and quality of the troops involved
is to-day in all cases the element which
decides the outcome of a military ac
ton.
The day of brutal physical courage
was over. Only troops in whom intel
ligence, moral courage and fair amount
of pluck were inherent and had been
welded by thorough training and discip-
line could be called first class to-day, be-
cause only such troops were able to get
maximum results from the technical
methods now used in warfare.
Technical superiority starts with the
character and ability of a general staff
and ends with the quality of barbed wire,
in other words, its elements and phases
are as varied and manifold as are the
means with which modern war is being
conducted.
According to the Associated Press COR
respondents informants it was technical
superiority alone which defeated the Rus
sian army. This may best be understood
in contemplation of the fact that the
Russians lost to the central powers
forces sixteen fortresses in As days dur
ing the drive in the summer of 1915. Here
the greatest single element of techni-
cal superiority is declared to have been
leadership. Second in Importance is rated
the great efficiency of German and Aus
tro Hungarian heavy artillery. Third is
the highly developed field intelligence
service of the central powers armies,
in whom air craft, cavalry and infantry
patrols, and the possession of first-class
military maps are assigned an almost
equal share. The fourth factor was the
highly quality of German and Austro-
Hungarian machine-guns and last, be-
cause in class by itself, must be ranged
the excellent work of the supply troops.
In every one of these departments,
say these officers, the Russian army was
inferior. The excuse made by its general
staff at the time that lack of ammun
ton was responsible for the series of re-
verses, has been shown to be idle. The
stores of small arms and artillery am.
munition left behind by the Russians on
their retreat are said to be greater than |
the quantities used by them during the |
trolling up"
1t was not lack of bravery, however, |
that prevented the Russians from COM
ing TO a halt sooner. The courage of I
the Russian soldier has never been
doubted by the Austro- Hungarian and /
German officers and men. What contrib
uted mostly to the debacle was the
absence of capable officers in sufficient
numbers; low military intelligence and
an uneven training of the men, and the
Russian tactical system which, based
upon principles of defense, was not equal
to the nimble mindedness possessed by I
officers and troops trained for the often
sive above all else.
No figures on the numbers employed
by Germany and Austro- Hungary in the
offensive against Russia last summer J
are available, but officers claim that gen
orally the Russians outnumbered their
aggressors from three and four to one.
From what is learned here, the day is
not far off when the trenches OF the Ger
man positions in Russia will have a ma
chine gun to every ten rifles and the
most extensive bsrbed wire fields yet ]
laid out, ready to meet the Russian of
fensive
TO the Russians these things are not
of course, as the following de- :
of Duna sector, which APP J
peared recently in a Petrograd paper Q
shows:
'The tremendous labyrinth of German 5
trenches" says the writer in part, grows d
more intricate as it nears our own lines.
The German trenches now have pecul- v
lar character; they are wide on top and t
narrow at the bottom with walls that c
slant considerable so that shell t
fragments striking them are detected up ;
ward and outward. Back of this front v