The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1918-10-18
RAIN CAN'T AID
fOES-GANSSER

Bad weather will not save the Ger
man army in France. 1t will merely
add to its difficulties, declares Major
A. H. Gansser, of Bay City, in a letter
from base hospital 1926, France, I'M
der date of "late summer, 1913"
AS in previous letters, he insists
that the German morale Is breaking
and calls attention to some of the re-
markable work that the Thirty-second
division, which includes the old Mich
igan National Guard, has been doing
toward crushing the enemy's will to
fight.
The letter, in part, follows:
Dear Friends at Home-Another
dreary, rainy day is northern France.
Late evening. The drouth of months
is broken. Much mud, darkest night,
sure TO influence conditions on the
firing line. But our wounded here
have it right. 1t cannot help but be
worse for the enemy who is dispirited
by defeat; handicapped by losses Of
rail and motor transportation; no
time or means for repairing roads,
now almost impossible; surely sep
arated from his rolling kitchens, which
with the enemy field trains must al
ways keep going back, back, back. So
bad weather helps the attack and
hurts the defense. And after four
years of campaigning none knows this
better than the enemy.
Americans Beat Best of Foe
"Here in this base hospital are a
number of wounded German prisoners.
They came here about the same time
we did. They are receiving the same
care as our own wounded. Have had
to censor their letters. They are
Prussians, all of chem. Proving that
what Marshal Foch claimed was true;
the enemy sent in his elite troops final
ly to stem the retreat from the Marine
to the Aisne. Yet he failed. Now we
find these letters admit all this. They
tell of their desperate fight and their
capture. How well they have been
treated. How many Americans they
have seen. How hopeless they deem
their fight. How fresh and strong
and even gay the Americans are. How
glad they are that for them this war
is over.
That is exactly the same sentiment,
thankfully uttered by the first lieuten-
ant and machine gunner of the md
Prussian infantry, just before the high
explosive shell hit the American post
of command that put us into this hos
pital Verify, for those two, the war
was over, for both were instantly kill
ed by their own artillery.
GAIL the prisoners we see wear a
weary and detected look, quite differ
ent from the cocky manner of the first
prisoners we saw here last spring.
The German people may not follow
Russia in internal dissolution and rev.
olution. But the German people APP
pear to be through. The censor in
Switzerland may not let the German
prisoners letters through to Germany
that the enemy wounded are writing in
this base hospital, but he has allowed
some family letters through from Ger
many to enemy soldiers that we have
taken from their dead, and they seem
to prove conclusively that whatever
the Kaiser or his war lords may de-
cree, the mass of Germany people
have reached the limit of their fighting
stamina. In several we read sly hints
to surrender at the first opportunity,
and soon they will be back home. In
all of them we read of short ratlons;
of poor harvests, Of more sad news
from the front, more good friends
killed, of worry about the one ad-
dressed, and some relatives, of doubts
and fears and forebodings."
"Add to these sure indications of
war WEAKNESS and disgust, the things
we have seen ourselves in the trenches
Continued on page two.)