There has been an interesting discussion of late as to
what induces the Get mans to lay waste the country which they evacuate with such bestial thoroughness. As soldiers, they very naturally try to impede the advance of tho enemy, and most naturally and properly from their point of view they destroy railways, blast craters in the roads, and cut down the trees and let them fall right across the roadways. Again, a good deal may be said for destroying villages, and so making it impossible for our troops to find shelter, for that also impedes our advance. What we find it so very difficult to understand is what they imagine they have secured by disinterring coffins, and burning, or in some other way getting rid of, the bodies they contain. It gives a good deal of pain, no doubt, to the families concerned or to the locality in general, but such acts of barbarism seem somewhat barren from the point of view of war-winning. We dismiss the idea that the Germans are collecting lead and other metals from the graves, for the amount of metal secured in this way by troops beating a hasty retreat is infinitesimal when compared with Germany's needs hi the matter of lead and copper.
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