These two phenomena--wearing out of material and drafts upon
batteries--will inevitably result either in the reduction of batteries
from six to four guns, a reduction of the number of batteries in the
army corps, or the partial substitution for 77 guns of 9-centimeter
cannon of the old pattern, the presence of which has been many times
perceived at the front.
Furthermore, the German artillery lacks and has lacked for a very long
time munitions. It has been obliged to reduce its consumption of shells
in a notable degree. No doubt is possible in this respect. The
statements of prisoners since the battle of the Marne, and still more
since the battle of the Yser, make it clear that the number of shots
allowed to the batteries for each action is strictly limited. We have
found on officers killed or taken prisoner the actual orders prescribing
positively a strict economy of munitions.
For the last three months, too, we notice that the quality of the
projectiles is mediocre. Many of them do not burst. On Jan. 7, in the
course of a bombardment of Laventie, scarcely any of the German shells
burst. The proportion of non-bursts was estimated at two-fifths by the
British on Dec. 14, two-thirds by ourselves in the same month. On Jan. 3
at Bourg-et-Comin, and at other places since then, shrapnel fell the
explosion of which scarcely broke the envelope and the bullets were
projected without any force. About the same time our Fourteenth Army
Corps was fired at with shrapnel loaded with fragments of glass, and on
several points of our front shell casings of very bad quality have been
found, denoting hasty manufacture and the use of materials taken at
hazard.
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.