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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 172, 26 August 1914, Page 4

Pretty fairy steries of the operations of dirigibles and monoplanes over Belgium are as numerous as ever. A French dirigible is alleged to have dynamited a railway station at Treves, in Germany, ''Notwithstanding a fusillade of bullets." Either this particular ,airship possessed a tough hide, or the (German riflemen are shocking bad ?marksmeti. The mention of dirigibles will serve to recall the fact that during the siege of Paris in 1871 war balloons were liberated from the.- doomed city. These were not very successful. It is interesting to note that a young Ger-

man artificer named Krupp, who was present at the siege, invented a special gun throwing a light shell to combat the primitive airships of the French. If the. balloons proved innocuous as a means of relief, the Krupp gun, invented on the spot, was just as unsuccessful. The young engineer was the founder of the great Krupp armament factory, which plays such an important part to-day in German military and naval operations. According to a cable message published yesterday all the newspapers in Belgium but one, the "Independence Beige," had ceased publication. The editor of this journal declared that so long as there was liberty anywhere in Belgium his paper would continue to depict. the .suffering and splendour of the country that had done so well in the face of great odds. This journal, or a journal of the same name, had a vogue during the war of 1870-71, and was noted for its outspokenness with respect to the brutalities of both French and Prussian troops. To-day it is fighting a lone hand battle • surrounded by the enemies of Belgium and all things Belgian. Its declaration demonstrates that the old spirit is still there, and that its traditions have not been impaired by the passage of years or the corroding influence of Continental intrigue.