War Incidents and Developments

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 64, 15 March 1919, Page 19

War Incidents and Developments

In conjequenece of demobilisation, the price of horses in Sweden declined about 23 per cent. BOOKS FOR SOLBIEHS. ' People have used the post office free postage privilege of sending magazines to the troops as a means of nuloadiug a wild assortment of journalistic and literary junk ou the Tommies. These are some of th» magazines and articles sent out for men in the trenches to read: "How to Impro\« Our Complexion." -Dressmaking at ■Home." "Needlework for Our Girls," "Nasturtium Plnntlng." and -rinky Tales for Tiny Tots." CRIME WAVE IN PARIS. Something approaching a national sensation has be-ii caused In America i>y reports from rarin tci Washington laying a crime wave Iv the French capital to the presence of U.S. soldiers there. Thirty-four murders. 2-JO day and night assaults, and nearly 500 serious fights, due to American snidieis, occurred in the Department of the Seine during the month of 'December, said the ".Matin," In reverting to the subject of the reorganisation of the American The American police until recently liad lieen chiefly recruited, the "Matin" pointed out. among American officers and soldiers who had been wounded. Their main duty was to give information to American soldiers in the streets and to regulate trilling onen<""f*s. Another of the I*iir!s ncivspHpers, tbe "lutransigcant' , welcomed the reinforcement of the American police service in these days, when, it is said, attacks by and jewellery 6toros were being robbed in full daylight in the main street. •For it must I>e said," the "Intransigeant" said, "and br.r friends of the U.S. deplore the fact like ourselves, that the audacity of some of their 'bad lots' has grown marvellously since the armistice." The recent theft of an automobile, added to a long list of such thefts, was attributed by the "Intransigeant" to "two Americans •who are niakias a specialty of this kind of crime," driving an automobile of their own and taking in tow a.ny car whose owner had left it unattended with the Ignition cut out. the gasoline tank ciosed, and the magneto isolated. PEACE FOILED FOCH'S TRAP. Some of the officers of Uncle Sam's atniy returning home to the United States are regaling their home towns with some highly interesting stories from the war front anent the awful licking that was in dently scenting their doom, wisely threw up the sponge and agreed to the armistice. All the world is cognisant of the fact that the Allies had several knockout schemes ■which they were immediately on the point of administering to the Huns for their temerity in forcing a cataclysmic war on the world In 1914. The American papers delight nowadays in giving Illustrations of weird contraptions, accredited to British genlns, for visiting a frightful end to Berlin and its militaristic policy. Daily Americans are introduced to some fantastic machine that was to smash Berlin with a monstnr aerial torpedo flung from the clouds by some enterprising British or which generally add elaborate details of "what was to happen," finish up regretfully with the statement that the armistice robbed the Allies of their rightful vengeance upon the deserving Huns. Electricity. powerful magnets, wireIpssly directed aerial and marine torpedoes, dominate these readable stones, in which American scientists are quoted ad lib. In regard to the armistice robbing the Allies of a big coup, Colonel Townsend Dodd, who went to France on General Tershing's staff, just arriving home at Aurora. Illinois, said: "It was told and generally known in army circles that General Foch cried when the armistice was signed. He had 530,000 Germans in a great trap, which was about to be sprung. The colonel, who was chief of the staff of the air forces of the Third Army of America, was recently ordered home from France to make a comprehensive report, on American aerial activities, and supplies at the front. "The Germans were pocketed," Colonel Dodd said, "and they knew it." Thp colonel Fa id a plan had been worked out for an Allied aerial attack on Berlin, which was soon to be made from the North Sfa. He had an idea, too. that the Germans believed Berlin was about to see a dnwnpour of bombs. This great raid was to have been from ships in the North Sea, and was to have been made by a vast fleet of American and Allied airplanes. HTTNS FEARED NEGROES. The negro contingents of Uncle Sam appear to have caused terror among the Hun soldiers, and it was only recently that a statement in the American Frees showed that the dusky Americans gave no quarter, and asked for none, because a sergeant of the negro regiment was shot in cold blood when two Huns were giving themselves up as prisoners, one of the Germans by a trick managing to whip out. a revolver and firing at the negro sergeant. Ev?r since that incident the negro forces have rowed vengance, believing that all linns are alike iv their duplicity.

In the field artillery training camp at Coi>quidan, France, where the units of the Dixie Division, now stationed at Camp Gordon, received their finishing touches, there was a large number of German and Austrian prisoners at work or i& stockades. The Southern men were proud of the manner In which negro soldiers of the South guarded the Hun prl-

"There wasn't a single chance in the Tvorld for a prisoner to get away as long as a Georgia negro, equipped with a hayonet, was on the Job," said one of the Savsnnah men in the 117 th. "The negro guards made no bones about their desire to be g-lven the opportunity of seeing what "sho nuff bayonet fighting felt like. worse than they did anything on earth. When a Georgia negro guard ordered Fritzie. at the point of the bayonet, to 'lif rtat garbage can to dat wagon, and show some spwii, , Fritz gave an exhibition of norfect npvor witnessed l)y offlcers of the Kai.=er. Three or four hundred ilnn prisoners were often assigned to a single guard, and never one attempted to

get away. In the first place they were well fed and housed, and were much better off than they were in the German army, and in the second place they had a mortal rir.ad of cold steel, and a tremendous respect for the negro soldier's ability to use

While fearing the American negro ihlinrs worse than they did the Kaiser. i- Frit zips were deeply interested in the

>.n:rin;r of thp coloured troops. When a file "f ringing coloured soldiers inarched hjr whPre the Hun prisoners were working. Industry was suspended while the prisnners listened in amazement. One of them expressed his surprise that such fighters could sing so beautifully."

HUNS USING U.S. FLAG. Jewellery Is a popular purchase of American soldiers, and the iron cross is doubly attractive, but the Coblenz Jeweller who tried to multiply the charm was placed in the cell of an old German gaol now used as a military police stockade by the American Army of occupation In that German city. This Hun rovelty, which all too soon attracted the military eye, was a watch-fob with an iron cross pendant. Many fobs are of that sort, but across the ribbon of those were planed crossed American flags. As

soon as the Intelligence service found them the entire stock was confiscated, and the jeweller locked up to await trial for attempting a propaganda stunt. This is an Illustration •o* the stern manner in which the Army is handling offences of the civilian population iv occupied territory. As a rule the Germans are inoffensive there, a message stated. Two Germans are serving terms of sixty days and three months respectively in gaol for liquor violations. One Him worked the Yankee trick of selling bottles of coloured water secretly as cognac, and got ninety days with hard labour. Another manufacturer on a small scale has been turning out American flag badges so deftly that he -was only detected by an engraving on the reverse side stating that the badges wctc "very feln." The German spelling was his undoing. AIR SAFER THAN THE GROUND. That the flying man in the air may he to t-bc full 3s secure frotn (iADgpr us tie man who travels on the earth is a fact which is still hardly realised outside the ranks o f the flying men themselves. There arc certain pround officers In &v?ry R. A.. F. Squadron, who are essential for purposes of administration and equipment. These officers 'do not fly, but remain on the ground to look nfter all the thousand and one activities necessary to keep a squadron at work in the air. On a certain aerodrome in France, at an early hour, the hour that aerial activity was wont to begin, the pilots waiting in their machines heard a sound like an approaching train. It gre"w louder, and culminated in a tremendous explosion in the centre of the aerodrome, followed by the uprising of a huge cloud of mud and smoke. It was, in fact, a German shell and a big one. Within a remarkably short space of time every machine was off the aerodrome flying evriftly towards their area or patrols. Twenty-seven shells "were placed on that aerodrome, and the ground officers, whose work kept them around the sheds', greatly envied their colleagues of the air, who could so srwiftly rise above shell-flre. Their feelings were probably intensified that same evening when a squadron of German 'planes dropped twelve large 'bomos around the aerodrome, causing, by the way, a good deal more noise than damage. The British pilots succeeded in bringing down four of the enemy machines, but the ground officers had to be content dodging the bombs below. BOYCOTT OF HTTNS. Peter Wright, delegate from the National Seamen's and Firemen's Union of Grtat Britain, the right hand man of Havelock Wilson, touring America in an endeavour to explain to America and Canada why the British seafarers have resolved to boycott the Hun for many years to come, dellvere a message from Haveloek Wilson, whose blunt reasons will be read with interest. Wright may visit Australasia in pursuance of his mission. One of Havelock's reasons is that the Huns should be boycotted because they destroyed the magnificent brotherhood of the sea. "The Germans in this war. after torpedoing our shipa, have deliberately turned their guns on the open boats in which their brothers of the sea sought what small chance of safety they had left to them. In this way they have killed hundreds and maimed for life as many more. oars of the cockleshells, which they must well have known -were the men's one frail hope. Even they have added salt water to the fresh water in the tanks. Only a sailor can know the agony of the aays spent in an open boat wltuont water, yet men who call themselves German sailors, have actually done this thing to their brothers of the sen. British seamen did not nish to boycott these devils heedless of what a boycott meant. We were very patient. At first we thought that the German seamen, and more especially the German trade unionists, did not know of these crimes. Accordingly we communicated with German organised -workers, asking them to make representations to their Government chat this wnj not the line of fighting that was going to bring them any credit. The German trade unionists, instead of taking this stand, bluntly told us that it was no business of theirs how the military and naval authorities conducted their warfare."

NEGRO PRISONER AND I.XTSITANIA.

A Chicago correspondent sends a picturesque narrative of the experiences of a negro prisoner who had to spend a long period under the Huns. This dusky gentleman would rather be a prisoner of the American military police in a stockade than a free man in the streets of Coblenz. "De Essen shuah ist gut—de best I have seen since all Jut Krieg bust loose," he says, and that mixture of words tells the story, for James Harry Smith Is an American, a black American, who lived eight years In Germany, and has had enough of it.

When the United States entered the war Smith started home, and got from Frankfort to Coblenz, but here he was stopped, and bis experiences during the ensuing twenty months persuade him that gaol among what he called "our own kind" is preferable to shifting about among the Germans. He learned to talk German like a native, but admits he sometimes talks so rapidly the natives don't understand. They didn't hold his colour against him, ajid he managed to make a living trading for vegetables amonj the farmers and taking them to town, but he is satisfied, "yas, sun," satisfied, that's all.

"These Germans celebrated when they took Antwerp," Smith said, "nearly laughed their heads off about the first trip of the Deutsehland. and howled when the Zeppelins bombed London, but none or there celebrations was a marker to the way they celebrated when the Lusltania went down. "The news got here about two o'clock in the morning, and the papers got out little extras, like handbills. The bells rang, the streets were filled with people, the cafes opened, and when daylight came every street was lined with flags. America is weeping to-day, I told them, but tomorrow yon listen, for you sure going to hear something. That something dldn"t happen for a long time, hut it has happened, and now they're like pie."

Smith says the Coblenz papers constantly published lies concerning the tide of battle almost to the end. This became known from statements of soldiers returning from the front, and the people, refusing to believe the papers, were prepared for the climax when it came.