As we now know, they took the risk and they failed. But one must look deeper than the strategy of the only be justified by supreme success, and that has not been attained. The men who are fighting now in retreat are savage with their officers—with the bloodthirsty business which has stroyed so many thousands of their comrades.
This is not written from imagina. tion, Among the wretched German prisoners whom I have seen trapeug through French towns or packed ike cattle into troop trains are many who have been candid in the expression of these things.
In many corps German soldiers have been glad to be captured as an escape from intolerable suffering.
'The German plan of sending forward cavalry outposts at a great distance from the main army has meant that many of the captured patrols in the region through which I passed southward from Creil and Compiégne along the line of the Allies' left have been starving men. Tu one case, to my own knowledge, their haversacks were filled. with grass as their only means of nourishment.
Captured Men Faint with Famine, The men were haggard and faint when they surrendered. themselves to the French cavalry, and begged piteously for food. Men do not fight gladly in such condition.
But most demoralizing to the German Right has been the capture of a great part of its ammunition, so that many of its guns are without supplies. Also the lose of a great column of ammunition which was destroyed by the brilliant attack of Gen. Pau at Crepy-en-Valois, caused many of the German officers to weep and undoubtedly contributed to the breaking up of the German Right, who have now fied far beyond the Ourea.
Again the failure to enter Paris has had, as I learned from German prisoners, a demoralizing effect upon the enemy. They fought to reach that goal, and the capture of the al from
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.