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Show BRITISH FIRST I LINE IN REST I Every Battalion Proud of Keeping Its Formation Until First Trenches Were Reached. NEW ARMY MADE- GOOD German Soldiers Have Food While Letters From Homes Indicate Privations of Their People. Press Camp, British Army In France, July 5, 7 p. m. Battalions which have been fighting since the battle began now have been relleve'd from the front and are in billets in quiet villages or towns free from the sound of shell blasts or cracking bullets. bul-lets. Answering questions as to what they wanted most when relieved, they invariably answered in three words, "Sleep, wash, shave." Every battalion is proud of keeping Its formation until tho first lino of the German trenches was reached and of the fact that the new army made good. One battalion, with whose officers the correspondents talked, met machine gun fire and lost half of its officers and men before reaching the first line trench, but fought its ! way on another thousand yards to an objective set for It, where it entrenched entrench-ed and maintained Its position. One of the officers of this battalion served out biscuits and half a bottle of soda water to each nym .from supplies i found in the German dugouts The British who had to subsist on their travel rations for the first few days In some instances were saved from shortage by tho German rations which i escaped destruction by shell fire These Included canned German beef I which was found to be good. I Talks with prisoners generally revealed re-vealed that the German soldiers have I food while letters from their homes I in every part of Germany Indicate , privations of the civilian population. Asked what he thought of the great naval battle, one prisoner said he never heard of it. Another said that fresh eggs had been a great luxury In the German army and that a basket of them had just arrived and the Germans Ger-mans ,In his trench were feasting their hungry eyes upon it when a British howitzer made a direct hlL One British officer found his favorite brand of cigars in a German officer's dugout. Many of the prisoners asked the samo question as do the British soldiers, sol-diers, "Has the British army enough shells to keep up such bombardments as that of last week?" |