Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-09-26
No Wonder Germany Quit
BY MAJOR FRANK C. MAHIN
OF the Army Recruiting Station

"All through my service in France
it was a matter of great interest to
me to question the Boche prisoners
we took. As | spoke German and
had been all over Germany it was
particularly interesting, for as soon
as Il prisoner would discover L had
been in his town he would tell me
anything and everything he knew,
including the location of machine
gun nests, how many guns and men
there we're in each, etc, right along
with the story of how hard it was
for his wife to live on the food sub
stitutSs and how tired they all were
OF the war. While we were in the
Vosges we frequently left bills of
fare, showing in German what we
were getting to eat in our trenches,
in the hopes that some Hun whose
tummy craVed real food would see
the bill of fare and sneak over to
surrender. The first time our propa-
ganda to the Boche stomach worked,
WIS The day after our patrol shot
the sentry in front of the majors
house in the village of Menil. The
following evening two German SOL
diers came up TO our wire and sur
rendered. They both produced a bill
of fare as soon as they got inside
the wire and asked with deep anX-
iety if il were true. They later told
me their reasons for coming over
we're two-fold first. to get some of
that fresh beef and wheat bread adj
vertised in our bills of fare, and sec
ond. they were scared at what had
happened the night before. | asked
them what had happened and they
said that about one o'clock the SEN
Try in front of the commanding Of
ficcrs house in Menil had started to
blow his bugle but his blowing had
been rudely interrupted. They had
heard what sounded like a volley or
sh OTIS but the sentry was so torn to
nieAas that they had been unable TO
determine whether shell or an
aerial bomb had hit him and since
he was quite and entirely dead, ne
couid not explain what had really
happened. Having seen the eHects
of one A caliber pistol bullet on
man | could readily realize the con
dition of the sentry atter peihS MT
hy seven in n volley. The prisoners
went on to say that that DAY iiiahy
doctors and staff officers had been
IN Menil 10 view the body and the
scene of the crime in order, II pos
eihle TO determine by whom and
how this man had been killed. since
in all the four years of the war Such
a thing had never happened TO the
German army, sentry killed mys-
tcriouslv in front of his battalion
commanders quarters eleven nun
drnd meters back of the lines, every
one was very much excited and very
much frightened. The major had
moved his headquarters back TO a
camp about mile in the rear ana
4 was believed another battalion
ba ttalion of shock troops wouid come
into the trenches that night to rem
rorca the battalion already there.
| Alsc they said that a lot of their
comrades would come over and sur
render If they could get away from
Tho officers and machine gunnerS
who would shoot them like dogs II
tbey thought they were trying 10
iLt,nerad.' All of this was extreme
! lv Interesting and extremely gratify-
ing. That one little episode had sue
| ceeded in drawing shock hattallon
into the trenches of n supposedly
auet sector meant that one battal-
| ion less would get rested to meet the
allied attacks farther west. for
! then and there decided that shock
! battalion was going to have busy
time. and it did. The telephone was
mighty active for u few minutes and
! the whole front woke up. All night
long we harassed every road, trail
and communicating trench with ar
| tillery and machine guns, so that
battalion had real merry time COM
ing into the trenches. Also we
hastily arranged a number of patrol
raids which combed the Boche
trenches in different sections at diff
ferent times during the night and
kept their batteries barraging and
their machine guns burning up am
munition all night long. Towards
morning one of our patrols ran into
n bunch of Boche who really put uT
a fight and sure enough from their
dead we found that the shock troops
had arrived but we got first blood
out of them. We were in front oi
them for another month and l car
assure you they spent month o.
worried. sleepless nights, for they
never knew from one night to the
next what new damnable trick the
pig-dog Yankees would SPRING or
them"
Bless His Holy Name