ssity of lying still
in the same place, the danger of being buried, the long time the wounded
have to remain in the trenches, and chiefly the terrible effect of
the machine--and heavy-artillery fire, controlled by an excellent air
service, has a most demoralizing effect on the troops.

"Only with the greatest difficulty could the men be persuaded to stay in
the trenches under those conditions."

There were some who could not be persuaded to stay if they could see any
chance of deserting or malingering. For the first time on our front
the German officers could not trust the courage of their men, nor their
loyalty, nor their sense of discipline. All this horror of men blown
to bits over living men, of trenches heaped with dead and dying, was
stronger than courage, stronger than loyalty, stronger than discipline.
A moral rot was threatening to bring the German troops on the Somme
front to disaster.

Large numbers of men reported sick and tried by every kind of trick to
be sent back to base hospitals.

In the 4th Bavarian Division desertions were frequent, and several
times whole bodies of men refused to go forward into the front line. The
morale of men in the 393d Regiment, taken at Courcelette, seemed to be
very weak. One of the prisoners declared that they gave themselves up
without firing a shot, because they could trust the English not to kill
them.

The platoon commander had gone away, and the prisoner was ordered to
alarm the platoon in case of attack, but did not do so on purpose. They
did not shoot with rifles or machine-guns and did not throw bombs.

Many of the German officers were as demoralized as the men, shirking
their posts in the trenches, shamming sickness, and even leading the
way to surrender. Prisoners of the 351st Regiment, which lost thirteen
hundred men in fifteen days, told of officers who had refused to take
their men up to the front-line, and of whole companies who had declined
to move when ordered to do so. An officer of the 74th Landwehr Regiment
is said by prisoners to have told his men during our preliminary
bombardment to surrender as soon as we attacked.

A German regimental order says: "I must state with the greatest regret
that the regiment, during this change of position, had to take notice
of the sad fact that men of four of the companies, inspired by shameful
cowardice, left their companies on their own initiative and did not move
into line."

Another order contains the same f