Our men are easily the best troops out here, and the Germans are
the “rottenest” fighters it is possible to imagine. They fight like
devils when you can’t get at them, but when captured (and we have got
them wholesale) they try to give one the impression they don’t want
to fight, and only do so under compulsion. Our infantry are simply
marvellous, especially the “Jocks” and the “Guards.” Taking things on
the whole, the Germans rely almost entirely on artillery, and their
shells drop like rain without doing a great amount of harm, whilst
their infantry are packed like sardines in trenches, and they could not
hit the town they were born in: _Pte. L. Brown, 18th Hussars_.