by their officers. "I saw a colonel striking his own
men with his sword to prevent them running away," is one of the many
statements. Revolvers, too, were freely used for the same purpose.

But, generally speaking, there is iron discipline in the Kaiser's army.
The men obey their officers implicitly. Trooper E. Tugwell, of the
Berwicks, tells this little story of a cavalry charge from which a
German infantry regiment bolted--all but one company, whose officers
ordered them to stand: "They faced round without attempting to fire a
shot, and stood there like statues to meet the onslaught of our men. Our
chaps couldn't help admiring their fine discipline, but there's not much
room for sentiment in war, and we rode at them with the lance, and
swept them away." "They are big fellows, and, in a way, brave," writes
Private P. Case of the King's (Liverpool) Regiment, describing one of
their attacks; "they must be brave, or they would not have kept
advancing when they saw their dead so thick that they were practically
standing up." "Their officers simply won't let them surrender," says
another writer, "and so long as there's an officer about they'll stand
like sheep and be slaughtered by the thousand." The essential difference
between the German soldiers and our own is in the officering and
training, and it is admirably expressed by Private Burrell,
Northumberland Fusiliers. "_We_ are led; _they_ are driven,"[F] is
Burrell's epigram.

According to other letter writers, the German soldiers are absolutely
tyrannized over by their officers. They are horribly ill-used, badly
fed,[G] overworked, constantly under the lash. "They hate their officers
like poison, and fear them ten times more than they fear death," says
Private Martin King. "Most of the prisoners that I've seen are only fit
for the hospital, and many of them will never be fit for anything else
this side of the grave. Their officers don't seem to have any
consideration for the men at all, and we have a suspicion that the heavy
losses of German officers aren't all due to our fire. There was one
brought in who had certainly been hit by one of their own bullets, and
in the back too." Other soldiers say the same, and add that if it
weren't for dread of their officers the Germans would surrender
wholesale. "Take the officers away, and their regiments fall to pieces,"
is the dictum of one of the Somerset Light Infantry, "and that's why we
always pick off the German officers fi