Daily British Whig (1850), 30 Mar 1916, p. 11

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Joh 4 lV (27, View of Frontal Attacks : : \ An 'official 'British press represen. tative writes from Sheikh Saad, Ara- bia, as follows: "The ground between, ithe Tigris River and the hills was the Scene of the battle of Sheik: Saad. The land is maliciously and fanatic. «ally sterile. Bvéu the agoon anu the :kh@fgoog come to an end. It was «over this rutty ground 'hat the trans: (port wagons bumped and jolted with jel freight of wound.d. It was jevening when our steamer moored 'Bear the battlefield. We went out to "meet them as they streamad in over the mudcolored flat, and gave what ald we could, Many were walking very crect, some of them with the Stiffness of effort. T were the less serious cases. @ stretchers sand transportwagons me in later. One was with the hardiness Soleo OF hie British and India alike. 'Beg sir,' sayy a Brit ish private; 'can you tell me where ithe ambulance 187 and he deprecates i the Support of my shoulder, though {his is bandaged, and it is pain- jful for him to put his left foot to the ;ground. '1 am all right, sir; its 'nothing serious.' } Science and Heroism i "He lifts up his shirt, and points to uncture in his stomach, His face loody and bandiged. 'It is nothing,' ~he explains; 'took off a bit of my jgums.' He will not rest, but moves 'on towards the distant Red Cros: flag 'and the funnels of the steamer on 'the River. Here at least should be rest, warm tea, and comforts for hia ;wounds. But in Mesopotamia it is ia far cry to the smooth motor am- ' bulances of France, the rapid transit {to the hospital, where an hour or two after he has received first ald doc- tors and nurses are ready with every | TOMMY'S LETTERS NoT FULL OF ELOQUENCE [ Hume, Modesty, Grumbling and es Boasting Found by "the : Censor < -- A 'Critish regimental chaplain in the field writes the following description jof the censoring of the soldiers' let- { ters: Pity the padre iu the leaky pos- {tal wagon, knee-deep in picture post- (cards, love letters, brief acknowledg- | ments of parcels, and s:olid accounts tof doings too epic for the written i word! -As postal censor we parsons : often, relieve keen, combatant subal- terns who would otherwise Ly fretting ~..and poring over the pencil scrawls Twhich Tommy by the hun | dred | 1 id. Bach letter is care- fully read for lncautious revelations, 'unreasonable grousing, and matter "calcalated to alarm or depress" folks (at home if published. Our soldiers know what not to say. What is more, {they know they are better looked after { than soldiers ever were before. ; vowae: Heavy Malls Disliked The man to be checked is the { "lonely soldier" who is after creature comfl and--such is public kindness gds In coaxing a perfectly mon- 8 mail from home--to the fury 88 of the posial section of al Engineers. So we clip the soldier. He may be a good sort, are the ty, but any extra ; nm on our Fleld Post Since ery properly resented at Head- %.. 'Then there Is the too fluent wr sance to the cen- % J) with five fa is er saving device that science can pro- vide. ) "We have heard the overnight and again in the mo: as our pad- "dle steamer With its attendant ers forged up The first ghell disturbed a fight of sand which came wheeling across the fiver in such myriads that we who were Ratehing from the roof of ibs bridge Orgot the shells turn our glasses on the or Rr skein of plum- age half a mile long tying itself up in loops in the most complicated evolutions, the van snddonly wheeling around, while the rear, an opposite point, then converged in a hoop. They were dark at one turn, silvery the bn 48 the sun caught their under w through the black smoke of a monitor. 4 "Men Like Trees Moving" "The evolutions 'of our troops on land were obscured by the mirage. We. saw infantry like trees moving, and thought them a transport train. Other masses, which could: be nothing but , crossed the pontoon bridge ahead of us from the right bank to the left. The mirage does not affect the atmosphere at the height of a bursting shell; we could see the shraprel smoke unfolding two or three miles from the bank, and wondered if it were Turkish artillery Or our own. 'Shelling their advance posts' was the general verdict. It was not until later that we realized that the whole force was at grips with the enemy; and it was not until we moored and met the converging stream coming in from the trenches that we realized how costly the day had been. The guns we had heard had played but a small part in the action, and the bulk of our casualties on both banks of the stream had oc- curred in frontal attacks on the enemy's position. As I write we are moving on to attack a new position." A A INP 1 SALONICA'S CONTRASTS | rn AAA As erin Salonica resemiles most ports of the Eastern Mediterranean in being a picture of beauty from a distance cud a sty of squalor near at hand. Tha sallors on board the warships in the gult look at it through the morning mists and envy the soldiers who are quartered there. The soldiers stumble through its muddy, rough-paved, ill- smelling streets, and wonder why a sailor with a comfortable war rocm to live in, should ever want to come ashore. It is, in fact, a slatternly Levantine town, in a beautiful, me- diseval setting, comely in the mass, unpleasant in detail. As you survey --Salonica from the water she has a dignified air that accords well with her historical re- nown, being set in stately isolation upon the steep slopes of her bare hills and girdled by ruined but still mas sive walls that rise to a great {Venetian citadel on the landward side. Graceful white minarets that the Turks built are sprinkled about amopg the houses, and the quay that is the chief street of the town, lined with picturesque Greek sailing craft, stretches fora fuil mile along 'the water's edge. But ashore, shut in by the narrow streets of the "Frank quarter," your vivid Impressions «f squalor and slovenli- hess soon make you forget the grace- ful picture from the sea. -- LIEBKNECHT'S DREAM First President of the Germanic Re. public, is His Aim The German socialist'c deputy, Dr. tion as his One of his Swiss friends writes to the Socialistic "Ber ner Tagwacht™: "Liebknecht will gon- centrate the eyes of the whole world upon' himself. His fi is much volutionary party whi destroy the present Social- | He and his followers are resolved to free the Ge # grouse | Prince Yussuf Izzeddin, "sas murdered on his way to Stockholm from Constantinople gives a very pessimis- tic description of the sitgation in Tur: key. The question whether he did not think that the heir presumptive, by the tools of Enver Pasha, made him smile. Everybody in Constantin ople, he said, knew that and had ex- pected it t. happen, no one, perhaps, more than the murdered prince him- self. The latter had placed hie last will and political testament ip the hands of nine friends, living imlvarious parts of the country. "The Turkish population," he said, "has no confi- dence whatever in the German bulle tins of victory and never had, not even when they were true. They have always felt that the participation of their country in the world war was nothing more than a gamble, and as the war is being prolonged their fears of the oul e are growing fast "Phe mum 8 visits of British submarines to e. harbor of Con- stantinople created a veritable panic. 'These Englishmen,' the Turks said, 'must be in league with Theitan him- self, since they succeed in getting through, no matt. how many rows of mines are placed outside the en- trance to the port, and then they al ways know where the ships are moor- ed which they want to. destro;. Not once have they made the mistake 'of attacking a neutral ship.' What is very depressing is the constant fric- and the Gerglan soldiers. time before' I left there was not a single Turkish soldier left in the city and never did an evening pa:s without battles between Turkist citizens and German solclers in the narrow streets of old Constantinople. While the A Swedish engineer passing through London tion. between the Turkish population | For some | -~ The Pupil of "Lucky Haig" they call the Com- mander-in-Chief of the arm in France and Flanders--the largest ever led by a British general. Still, it is not by luck alone that Genera! Sir Dougfs Haig has "won through," but by sheer merit and hard "slogging." "The energy and vigor with which Sir Doug- las Haig handled his commidnd show him to be a leader of great ability and power"--thus wrote the former Commander-in-Chief 'n «ne of his de- spatches. Since the beginning of hos- tilities Sir Douglas has proved him- self the strong man oi the war, as witness his stern fights at the Aisne, his defensive in the huge struggle for Ypres, his important victory at Neuve Turkish officers who had received their military education in Germany | were full of admiration for everything | German, the great majority o the | civilian populatior sympathizes with England and France, though they fear Russia." AFRICAN WAR DIFFICULT Expwosive Bullets and Huge Distances Hindered Conquest of Kamerun A young British subaltern who was with the columns which won the Kamerun from the Germans writes: "The Germans had armed the natives for the most part with elephant guns and had supplied them with explosive shells. It was thc most brutal kind of warfare, for these shells after striking a poor fellow would explode inside him and tear his tody to pieces. Dum:dum bullets were used by the millions by the Germans and some of the natives uséd poisoned arrows. The German advance picket: were almost always fortified by trenches or deep holes. It means suge death to fall inté ome of these holes, for spikes similar to those used on harrows were on the bottom. Each of these spikes was tipped with a"botson, which meant sudden and sue death to those -who were impregnated by it. "As our colump left the seacoast the main difficulty lay in getting a sufficient amount of ammunition. every cartridge and every shell had to be carried by hand hundreds of miles inland. By the time. an attack was begun sometimes the attacking force would find itself short of ammunition. Those in command made pleas to the home government for automobiles and about' fifty London taxicabs and an armored automobile were sent to us. These arrived late in the campaign, hit they certainly were most useful. It was a queer sigit to see these taxis, which we knew at one time Lad been soliciting fares in Piccadilly or in Fleet street, loaded with boxes of shells, ca"tridges, food stores, and what not. Some of them had the meters still on them. However, they proved a boon in quick tramsporta: tion." it we win through this war, and the Bmipire is saved, it will be by the courage and devotion of British Oght- ing men, and despite our politicians. -- Chapelle. In war, as in love, ! ¢ has proved himself a man of prompt action. He had wedded thc beautiful daughter of the third Lord Vivian a fortnight after first setting eyes upon her, and had the almost u.i'u: distinction of being married from Buck ace; he rose from captain to major-general in The English John Bull and the German John Bull. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" up-to-date.--The . Passing Show, London. Kitchener; Career of "Lucky" Haig the astonishingly eight years. Sir. Douglas is a Scotsman--a great leader from a race that breeds strom leaders. "Borf in June, 1861, Sir Doug- las 'entered the Tth Hussar: at the age of twenty-four. If the medical examiners of that day had had .their way Haig would not be leading Brit- ain's soldiers to-day, for he was "turn- od down" for color blindness! Refus- ing to submit L. rejection, young Haig consulted: many oculist~, urged and argued with the military authorities, and at last appealed personally to the Duke of Cambridge, who gave a special order for his admittance to the Staff College. "Haig's way," it would seem, won through even then! Soon the young officer, by his out: standing merit, became one of that chosen band known as "Kitchener's men," and served with "K. of K." at Atbara, Khartoum, and in South Afri ca. "Halg never misses a chance, does he?" a Staff officer said one day to Lord Kitchener. "No," was the dry response, "not half a chance!" High praise from "K. of K." short space of ENGLAND AND RUSSIA ; - GREY'S SENSIBLE WORK No Clash of Interests But Age-old, Discredited Suspicions It was Sir Edward Grey who effected the Anglo-Russian understanding. No finer achievement stands to his credit. Think what Anglo-Russian - relations had been before Grey some time ago took them in hand. There had been neither sanity in them, nor consis tency, nor stability, for ower half a century. A secmingly incurable sus- piciousness separated the two powers. Many suggestions for their improve ment had been made, but nothin" had come of them. Lord Salisbury had informed his countrymen that to re gard antagonism between England and Russia as something fundamental and inevitable was "the super:tition of antiquated diplomacy"; but nothing had been done to 'ranslate that utter ance into terms of policy. Asia No Real Bar Englishmen had gone on repeating that they backed the wrong horse in 1856 and 1878, but their statesmen had not drawn from the admission any practical conclusions. They had de- clared again and again that there was "room for both England and Russia in Asia," but they had not attempted to attach any specific meaning to the words. Anglo-Russian relations, In short, had been marked by a danger ous and drifting inconclusivenes:. Sir Edward Grey made up his mind to end a deadlock that did neither country any good. He saw that the extreme cordiality and intimacy of Anglo-French relations required as their natural and logical corollary the formation of an equally elose friend- ship with the ally of France. He saw, 100, that it was not a British interest, but its very reverse, that Russia should be unable to make her due Sir George Makgil. Unwilling Derby Recruit: "Congratu ed me down. Says I may drop d fon. ete ae a A A weight felt in the European balance of power. He saw, also, that only it England and Russia came together would Japan and Russia really .and sincerely accept'the Peace of Ports mouth as the basis of their Far East- ern relations, Result: Alliance Above all he saw that London and St. Petersburg were parted by an un- happy state of mind and obsolete pre: Judices rather than by any concrete antagonism of interests, and that questions might arise which wauld once again awaken their mutual and inveterate suspiciousness, Therefore, he sought an agreement with Russia He sat down and seriously exan.ined and compared the respective interests of the two countries, and he did so in @ spirit of conciliatory frankness that very soon bore fruit. The value of the understanding that he effected was abundantly proved when Persia lapsed into anarchy without disturb ing, without even ruffling the surface of Anglo-Russian relations. Its value was still more abundantly demon- strated when the cutbreak of the war found England and Russia no longer at odds, but bound by a sober and tested friendship that ripened at once into a firm alliance. y V.C. FOR SWIMMING Feat of British Lieutenant Saved Machine Guns The mbst heroic act of the entire Kamerun campaign was performed by Lieutenant Butler, of the British army, according to an officer correspondent. "I was with the land forces at the time," he said. : , guns across the wide Sanaga River to repel what we thought was a small force of attacking Unique rific fire across the Fiver. mans were in The Ger- and We féared the em ed a van point on the opposite bank and dive. When he came to the 'they riddled the waters ity with bullets. Butle: | i: gpid ill t | FALKENMAYN: DESPOT | GAMBLER WAR LORD The most powerful man in Germany to-day is General von Faleknhayn, says Hendrick Hudson, a neutral, who re turned after a long sfay in that coun- try. He 'writes in the Paris Temps: "Qe von Falkenhayn, whe. was placed at the head of the great General fell into disgrace immediately after the battle of the Marne, is. the most powerful man in Germany. In to his antecedents, one knows that Von Falkenhayr, while a young officer, was obliged to give up his military career an account of having run scan- dalously into debt. He left for China, where he took a position in commercial house. When the expe dition against the Boxers was organiz- ed in 1900, Von Falkenhayn was per mitted to re-enter the army service; because of his valuable knowledge of the country in which the operations weére conducted. Since then he has risen steadily in rank, but he has not been able to shake off his previous reputation. Maximilian Harden, the well known journalist, was unsparing in his critic ism of Geheral von Falkenhayun's selection as Von Moltke's successor. In his pubHcation. The Zukunft, he declared that "it was a bad policy to intrust the fate of Germany to a gam- bler, even if he were a good one at the game.' This beld utterance caused the suppression of the Zukunft for'a whole week. Von Falkenhayn's power rests' on the extraordinary influence he wields over the Kaiser, which is altogether inexplicable to those inti mately acquainted with the German ruler. 'Our Emperor has been hypno- tized by this gene.al,' said a prominent German. 'He is a victim of the domin- ating spell which the latter has man- aged to cast over him.' "Being extremely jealous of his authority, General von Falkenhyn keeps away from the General Head- quarters ali persons whom he sus. pects of trying to gain the confidence of the Kaiser. Many court officials ve on different occasions tried-to get audiefices . with their sovereign only to be invariably rebuffed by Von Falkenhayn. Sometimes the refusal is very curt and ungracious. In other instances diplomacy requires that some thinly-veiled excuse be given, The Chief of Staff then usually in- forms the petitioner that His Majesty is just getting ready to depart for another fromt, but that he will grant the desired audience on his return to headquarters. This promise, however, is never kept." SWAMP WOLF VS. HUNS Polish Landowner Led Relentless Guerilla Warfare in Strange Land In .the enormous swamp region of Polesia, where the country has been in the possession of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies strange and | gruesome events are taking place, wrote a Warsaw correspondent. Un- der the leadership - of a mysterious chieftain who is known as the "Swamp Wolft'," the ts of this digtric: are con ng a relentless guerilla war against the invaders, inflicting great damage upon them. Polesia is an immense triangle north sod east of Brest-Litovsk. The railroad line Brest-Litoyst-Pinsk-Gomici runr by these uncanny swamp and forest lands for nearly 250 miles A large part of tae district is the private erty of the Czar. The endless wilderness has béen kept in its primeval con: | dition purposely, because it is one of | the finest hunting grounds ir the! world. © Wild buffalos cnd elks are! plentiful * numerous » packs of | wolves roam the woods. - The region is! very thinly populated and the xidely | y De scattered small villages can onl reached by marrow paths through thei dangerous swamps and wild forests. | In this district bands of natives are waging a determined war. Almost dally German and Austro-Hun, patrols are or and provision capt Foariilae operate in five hun men. "Swamp -Wolf," the leader of marauders, little is known but said to be a rich aristocratic land- have ever seen him, hey are sil convinced that be ey are con ! armies of Ri is 0 er nicn of tal ene- t and ha : iH i is 2 itary | was "almost 'double the number Staff when Field Marshal von Moltke | abi ties as the bread supply, the butter supply, the meat supply snd so on. there is one curious authority is too often missing. Casea of juvenile theft, burglary snd even of highway robbery Hive id wid continue to inerease. ne organiza- tion which looked after youthful of fenders, 'dealt with over three .- and cases so far back as in 1918, Shieh lor 914. - War and Crime A tew days go two 14d, of eight dnd twelve respectively, carried out a and skilful burglary. They were not caught at the tigie, but they were seized later and were fi to be 'n possession of the most con plete and sclentific kit a hardemed rook could desire. The influence of the war is here unmistakable. hi here of daring ad- ) In the ehrly days of the war the little ers were content with a t, or more often during the day, they hid in the wools or in empty houses. Once so far it was easy to go far ther. They were rovers and highway- men and carried thelr impudence to an extent that would be unl were it not witnessed the courts" No Hope of Reform Thus, the little rebels are left to themselves. The schidol must take care of itself. Whether the children arrive late or mot at all, is a Matter over which, too often, they themselves decide. Of 3,600 Berlin teachers, over 2,000 were with the colors in Decem- ber, 1915, while 107 municipal schools were being used as hospitals, or for other military purposes. Schools since had to be combined, classes ealarged and the number of lesson hours re- duced. So much the longer are child: ren without control. Another dangér in the present situation arises from the demand for juvenile labor. _ Little porters hang around the market. and the station and ehrn as much as 42 a day or more and find, fn their avoca- be sent? schools and turned into hos good time for or shet, flee, |

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