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.

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.

The first prisoners we took in August showed themselves wholly
indifferent to the reverses of the German Army. They were sincerely and
profoundly convinced that, if the German Army retired, it was in virtue
of a preconceived plan, and that our successes would lead to nothing.
The events at the end of August were calculated to strengthen this
contention in the minds of the German soldiers.

The strategic retreat of the French Army, the facility with