_The French report then addresses itself to the wastage of material. Discussing the wastage of guns, it says:_
It is easy to ascertain the German losses in artillery. On Dec. 28 the Sixty-sixth Regiment of Artillery entrained at Courtrai for Germany twenty-two guns, of which eighteen were used up. This figure is extremely high for a single regiment.
The same facts have been ascertained as regards heavy artillery. On Dec. 21 and 22 seventy-seven guns of heavy artillery, which were no longer serviceable, were sent to Cologne. These movements, which are not isolated facts, show how ill the German artillery has resisted the ordeal of the campaign.
Other proofs, moreover, are decisive. For some weeks we have noted the very peculiar aspect of the marking on the bands of a great number of shells of the 77 gun. When these markings are compared with those of shells fired three months ago it is plain beyond all question that the tubes are worn and that many of them require to be replaced. This loss in guns is aggravated by the necessity which has arisen of drawing upon the original army corps for the guns assigned to the recently formed corps or those in course of formation. Several regiments of field artillery have, in fact, had to give up two batteries.
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.