INCIDENTS OF THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 72, 25 March 1915, Page 8

INCIDENTS OF THE WAR.

(From Our Own-Correspondent.) ' LATEST DREADNOUGHT HAS tl2 AERIAL GUNS. LONDON, February 14. HAJs. Queen Elizabeth, England* newest dreadnought, passed her trials this week and is now waiting at Pontland with her full crew on board. Sfce is a ship of 27,500 tons, 2,000 tons moire than the Audacious, whose crew aie has taken over. v She carries eight 15-inch guns afnd 16 6-inch, with twelve anti-airship gims and 4 submerged torpedo tubes. Khe was built at Portsmouth, and rwas completed in October last. The Queen Elizabeth is equipped rwith Parsons turbines and burns only oily The designated horse-power is 33,000. She is heavily armoured against aerial attack, and her estimated cast is £2,400,000. The designer estimates she will make 25 knots. SERB FORTRESS BLOWN UP. BY OWN GUNS. BERLIN, February 14. The Overseas News Agency says that according to telegrams printed in Italian newspapers the Serbian fortress of Semendria has been blown up by the explosion of its own powder magazine after being shelled by AustroHungarian artillery. Semendria is a town on the Danube, 24 miles south-east of Belgrade. GERMANY AND POLAND. News has readied Petrograd that Germany and Austria have declared the independence of Poland, to become operative February 14, when it is planned to hold a convention at Cracow, Galicia, for the purpose of choosing king Atcluluke Karl '."Stephen of_rAnstria will be a candidate for the throne. The convention members will be elected by the population in such parte of Poland and Galicia aa are in the possession of Germans and Austrians. Germany has yielded German Silesia to the proposed kingdom. REBUILDING BELGLAN TOWNS. | A. comprehensive plan for the Tebuild-, ing-of towns and cities of Belgium wa3 discussed at the opening of the International Conference of Garden Cities in London last month. "From the ashes of the devastated towns there shall arise a newer and finer Belgium," said Mr. Herbert Samuel, iPresidenvt of the Local Government Board. " Aanng the 200,000 refugees who were welcomed to England there are about 200 architects. Our idea is to bring them together." GERMANY TO TOORK WAR PRISONERS IN MINES. J Announcement has been made in Germany that the coal mine operators have reached an agreement with the military authorities whereby the latter will supply prisoners of war to work in the mines. Thi3 step is taken in order to Telieve the scarcity of labour, which has become acute. The military authorities purpose to select from among French. Belgian and •Russian prisoners men who previously have worked in mines. BRITAIN'S PURCHASE OF SHELLS IN AMERICA. The Pittsburg foreign trade commission recently asked local manufacturers for prices on 1.000,000 drop forge shells for use of the British artillery. A large order was originally placed with a Canadian manufacturer, but he could not make prompt delivery, and a part of it was passed on to Pittsburg. The value of the contract was given as 4,000,000 I dollars. An order for a considerable ! tonnage of projectile steel was placed there in February. TROOPS' HEALTH SURPRISE OF WAR. The military attaches of neutral countries, among them Major Spencer Cosby and Major James A. Logan, jun., U.S.A., recently visited the French and British battle line, starting from Arras. They report that they found the health of the troops remarkable. Only two hundred men in the Eleventh Corps were on the 6ick list. Dr. Gaston Cagniard, after five months' observation of the sanitary conditions at the front, declares that all former records have been upset by the present war, the number of deaths from illness being less than from wounds, which is contrary to previous experiences. In 6pite of the conditions predisposing to typhoid after the battle of the Marae, according to Dr. Cagniard, the men sent to hospitals for all maladies decreased 95 per cent in six weeks, and now are less than 1 per cent as compared with an average of 4 per cent when the soldiers are in barracks. Seventy-five per cent of the injuries sustained by the men are from shell fire, as compared with 15 per cent in the FrancoPrussian war. Many of the wounds that have the appearance of being caused by dum-dum bullets, according to Dr. Cagniard, are due to the wabbling of the German bullets. The neutral attaches declare that the Allied soldiers are being bountifully fed and that they are well and in excellent spirits. AUSTRIAN ENVOY ANGERS RUMANIAN KING. According to the "Secolo's" Vienna correspondent the relations between the King of Rumania and Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Bucharest, are badly strained on account of the Minister's alleged unsatisfactory explanation of the massing of Austrian troops in Transylvania, £120,000,000 SHIPPED BACK INTO TTtANCE. A second _ consignment of bonds; stocks and scrip sent to Geneva from Paris for safe-keeping soon after the Germans invaded France, was shipped back to the French capital in a strongly guarded car. The value of the shipment was estimated at £'120,000,000. AUSTRIAN MEDICAL-CHIEF DEAD. Surgeenr General TJiilip- Beckp.cliief 'of the- -Austrian- •anny~me<Bcal ?S 4jßttus7 during am inspection trip to the camps of the 1 Russian- prisoners. Typhus is becoming a, menace t<y MjSwt "" " '""' " " "

ACTOR'S WIFE AND SON iVICTTMS OF THE WAR. While at breakfast, M. Dnquesne, aBelgian actor, who has been playing with a company of Belgian refugee actons at one of the London theatres, j read in a French newspaper of the death of his eon, a young French officer, and also the death of his former wife, the officer's mother, who died after hearing of her son's fatal wound. M. Duquesne dressed and went to the I theatre as usual, but broke down suddenly when he had to speak the line 3, •"If only I had my revolver I would (take my revenge," and left the stage. AUSTRIAN NATIONALS SURRENDER BY WHOLESALE. Professor Bernard Pares, the official I observer of the British Government attached to Russian army forces, in a communication issued ou February 9, by the British Press Bureau, lays stress upon the political significance of tbe wholesale surrendering of the racial contingents which compose the Austro- • Hungarian army. | "In these surrenders are an indication of the feelings and aspirations of the j various nationalities bundled together under the name of Austria," Professor Pares declared. "From the beginning of j the war the Bosnians surrendered In large numbers. Then the Poles began to come in fast, and now come Bohemians and Moravians, who seem to be surrendering in larger numbers than any other nationality. The Hungarians are sure to continue to the end, but the Rumanian and Italian soldiers of , Austria have come over easily." Professo.r Paxes says the Czechs regard the Russians as brothers, and say that Russians entering Bohemia will be treated as friends. I Speaking of the Mennonites, who are so numerous in the United States, Professor Pares says that, although i excused from military service because of their objections to war, they are serving in large numbers as ambulance volunteers. Professor Pares describes the attitude of the Russian soldier towards death as in the nature of fatalism. "He will speak of it as 'going to America' the undiscovered country," the British observer writes. JEWS TO RELIEF OF PALESTINE AXD SYRIA. Announcement is made that officers of Jewish societies in America and Christian missionary organisations have formed a committee to appeal for funds for the relief of the, destitute inhabitants of Palestine, Syria and adjacent regions. The committee, known as the Palestine-Syria relief committee, says that an appalling measure of misery and threatened starvation exists over a region larger in area than Belgium, and among people equal in numbers— Christians, Jews and Mohammedans. SOLDIERS' UNMARRIED K WTVES." The question of aiding financially the unmarried wives of soldiers -was taken up and decided favourably by a vote of tteee to one at a general meeting of the Soldiers and Sailors Families' Association, held in London. This form of illicit union is encouraged indirectly by j army regulations against marrying, and there are 1,350 such cases out of the 75,000 families enrolled in the books of the scoiety. Aid iB to be given, however, only where a real home is maintained by the woman. To help these unfortunates is not, in the view of the majority of the committee menibers, a licensing* of vice, as asserted by the minority. Speaking on the measure. Lord St. Audries said:— "As an old soldier I deny the gross insult that soldiers are more immoral than men of the same class in other walks of life. If the soldier has not 1 gone through tbe form of marriage, it is the fault of the people of this country, who for a hundred years have discouraged soldiers from marrying while serving, because the separation allowance, would come out of the taxpayers' pockets. Ido not care whether the Council is technically right or wrong, but I 'believe that in the judgment of the great majority of the people of this country they have acted in accordance with the dictates of Christianity and humanity." ONE LONDON STORE FURNISHES 300 MEN. One of London's oldest and largest department stores has three hundred i men in on c regiment, the Queen's West- ' minsters' at the front. These men aTe officered by members of the firm and [heads of various departments of the 'stor e -where they are employed. The founder of the firm, 56 years ago, in the I days of volunteering, raised a company 'which the firm put into uniform and maintained at its own expense. This tradition has been continued ever since, land the company maintained at the store has made an enviable reoord in the country's militia, taking many prizes Iby shooting and other military service. Thirty-five members of the company served, in the South African war, and thirty-three, returning safely, resumed their work at th c store. Enouglh employees volunteered to fill the company four times over at the outbreak of the present war and many, unable to gain entrance into the Tegular store company, have entered other regiments. Since the store company went to the front it has been engaged almost constantly in the fighting.