The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-06-01
TEUTON
SOLDIERS
LAY WASTE
TAUGHT TO BELIEVE FRENCH
WILL KILL THEM AS SOON
AS CAUGHT.
BY HENRY WOOD

WITH THE FRENCH ARMIES
One of the imperative military ne
cessities" for the incredible devasta-
tion and destruction being wrought
by the Germans along the pathway
of their retreat in France is to con-
vince the German soldiers themselves
that if they either desert or surrender
to the French they will be instantly
shot in reprisal
German soldiers now being taken
prisoners by the French along the en-
tire front between the Aisne and Saint
Quentin declare without exception to
their captors that they realize they
are going to be shot and are quite pre-
pared for it.
While the Germans manifestly have
various aims in their systematic pol
icy of reducing every inch of French
soil occupied by them to a wasteless
desert, the French military authorities
have been able to establish definitely
from the German prisoners captured
that not the least of these objects is
to inject the morale of desperation
into the German army.
The Germans Fear Death.
The latter are told not only that
they will be instantly killed if they
fall into the hands of the French but
that unless they fight to the death
in an effort to keep the allied troops
from reaching German soil their own
homes, farms and villages will quite
naturally suffer the same fate by way
of reprisal that they have inflicted on,
the homes, farms and villages OF
France.
The need of desperate measures on
the part of the German military au
thorities to keep their troops from
surrendering on every possible 'occas-
ion has for long time past been
fully established. One of the most
striking evidences of this were the
orders of Hindenburg himself issued
after the French attacks at Verdun
last November and December. The
prisoners in these two affairs alone
totalled nearly 10000.
Surrender by Themselves.
Hindenburg in his orders to his gen
erals, copies of which have since
fallen into the hands of the French,
scathed in merciless terms the lack
of morale on the part of the Ger
man troops which permitted them to
surrender by thousands without the
slightest steps to overcome this con-
dition were given
Since then, however, this tend
ency of the Germans to surrender on
every possible occasion has increased
so steadily, that Hindenburg himself
has been forced to take heroic meas
ures to overcome it.
Lay Waste the Land.
German soldiers now being taken
PRISONERS dS We'll DIS OlHSI SOuiS |
confirm the fact that it was Hinden-
burg who conceived the idea for the |
wholesale devastation of all territory |
which the Germans are forced to now
abandon 1t is under his orders that |
all German regiments now falling
back on the western front have reg !
ularly appointed crews whose sole !
business it is to destroy all property /
and to leave every inch of the ground
that goes back into the hands of the
French veritable desert.
These same sources confirm like
wise that one of Hindenburg's prin-
cipal objects in this is to place the
entire Germany army now on the west
in a position where it will realize that
it is better to die fighting than to sur
render and where it will realize that
only fighting to the last will save
heir own homes from the same fate
they have inflicted on France.