While giving the Frenchmen credit for knowing how to handle and serve
small field-pieces, the Germans nevertheless insisted that their
infantry fire or their skirmish fire was as deadly as that of the
Allies, or even deadlier. This I was not prepared to believe. I do not
think the German is a good rifle shot by instinct, as the American often
is, and in a lesser degree, perhaps, the Englishman is, too. But where
he can work the range out on paper, where he has to do with mechanics
instead of a shifting mark, where he can apply to the details of gun
firing the exact principles of arithmetic, I am pretty sure the German
is as good a gunner as may be found on the Continent of Europe to-day.
This may not apply to him at sea, for he has neither the sailor
traditions nor the inherited naval craftsmanship of the English; but
judging by what I have seen I am quite certain that with the solid earth
beneath him and a set of figures before him and an enemy out of sight of
him to be damaged he is in a class all by himself.
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