The Cordova daily times., 1917-05-30
GERMANY CLAIMS DEATH AWAITS
 DESERTERS
(By United Press)

WITH THE FRENCH ARMIES, May 10.-(By Mail)-One of the "im- perative military necessities" for the incredible devastation and destruction being wrought by the Germans along the pathway of their retreat in France is to convince 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 entire front between the Aisne and Saint Quentin declare, without excep- ton to their captors, that they realize they are going to be shot and are quite prepared for it.
 While the Germans manifestly have various aims in view in their system atic policy of reducing every inch of French soil occupied by them to 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 des- peration into the German army.
 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 occa sion has for a long time past been fully established One of the most striking evidences of this were the orders of Hindenburg himself, issued after the French attocks at Verdun last November and December. The prisoners in these two affairs alone tOtalled nearly 10000.
 Hindenburg in his orders to his gen erals, copies of which have since fal- len into the hands of the French, scathed in merciless terms the last of morale on the part of the German troops which permitted them to sur render by thousands without the slightest resistance. Imperiative or ders that all responsible officers take immediate steps to overcome this con dition were given.
 Since then, however, this tendency of the Germans to surrender on every possible occasion has increased so steadily, that Hindenburg himself has been forced to take heroic measures to overcome it.
 German soldiers now being taken prisoners, as well as other sources, confirm the fact that it was Hinden- burg who conceived the idea of the wholesale devastation of all territory which the Germans are forced to aban- don. It is under his orders that all German regiments now falling back on the western front have regularly 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 a veritable desert.
 These same sources confirm like wise that one of Hindenburg's prin- cipal objects in this is to place the entire German army now on the west front in a position where it will real ize that it is better to die fighting than to surrender, and where it will realize that only fighting to the last will save their own homes from the same fate they have inflicted on France.