From numerous indications it appears that the Germans are beginning to
run short of their 1898 pattern rifle. A certain number of the last
reinforcements (January) are armed with carbines or rifles of a poor
sort without bayonets. Others have not even rifles. Prisoners taken at
Woevre had old-pattern weapons.
The upshot of these observations is that Germany, despite her large
stores at the beginning, and the great resources of her industrial
production, presents manifest signs of wear, and that the official
optimism which she displays does not correspond with the reality of the
facts.
MORAL WASTAGE.
_Under the caption "Moral Wastage of the German Army," the review
continues:_
The material losses of the German Army have corresponded with a moral
wastage which it is interesting and possible to follow, both from the
interrogation of prisoners and the pocketbooks and letters seized upon
them or on the killed.
At the beginning of the war the entire German Army, as was natural, was
animated by an unshakable faith in the military superiority of the
empire. It lived on the recollections of 1870, and on those of the long
years of peace, during which all the powers which had to do with Germany
displayed toward her a spirit of conciliation and patience which might
pass for weakness.
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