"WAR-TORN" MEXICO.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 112, 14 May 1929, Page 3

"WAR-TORN" MEXICO.

SIDELIGHTS OF THE REBELLION. | ;;_ ; i 'L :.\ ! WOMEN DOBGE i | UNWILLING HEROES led (From Out- Own Com \\lqi J) Jva SAN FRANCISCO,. April. 1~-. [ 9 The so-called war in Mexico, has. Maimed the attention of all the Ameriwan news associations and hundreds of ''correspondents have searched the ".war-; :iCom area" for suitable copy such' as Idnight be read with avidity, by a public ;Shixious for blood-curdling, news of thelatest scrap,, but it has been exceedingly 'difficult for the scribes to secure the right class of sanguinary copy. Scores of news photographers have infested the war region and it has also been hard for; them to obtain gory pictures such as are demanded by a sensation-loving populace outside the war area. One of the visiting news photographers managed to send out a series of pictures showing Federal soldiers repulsing an attack by. the rebels at Naco, Sonora, and be also transmitted a description of the scene at the front. In his dispatch, John-" Thomas Burns, writing from the-firing line- at Naco, said: "Dawn broke with, a rattle of musketry and the long-awaited battle of Naco was on. Four of lis,;. American news camera men, had ringside scats on the Federal firing line. '"'We stood within 50 yards of the end of the Federal trenches between two railway box cars, closer than any other American observers. "Bullets whizzed about in a vicious stream. There was a vein of comedy in this tragedy of battle. Federal Mexican soldiers were yelling and whistling like wild men. Three Mexican women kept running from a house to the trenches near us, carrying food. Spasmodically a strident bugle call rose above : the" clamour. The soldiers in trenches fingered their noses at the approaching rebels. Some threw kisses. Another bugle call, for what we did not know, and the troops in trenches seemed to care less. "The rebel air raid accompanying the infantry advance attracted no attention ill the trenches. The dug-in Federals kept plugging away, firing over the plaiu in any direction that caught the individual's fancy. - "Then came a rebel tank. The Federal troops went into wild spasms of yelling. All rifles and carbines pointed toward it, sputtering steel-jacketed bullets. The tank backed up, then came forward again in attack. Again the bugle call and another rattle of musketry at the tank. And a litle yellow pup joined the fray. It stood up on the earthworks barking like mad. Every time it noticed a bullet -spattering the earth near it it dashed out barking shrilly, and digging and biting at the spot where the bullet raised dust. It was busy chasing them. Horses Grazing Near War. "A band of wild horses were grazing near the entrenchments. They went wild when the firing started, dashing about with tails high and finally running madly off into the plains. "With lied flags flying, the attacking rebels approached within 200 yards of the trenches. There were no dead in the trenches, but several rebel cavalrymen fell off their horses. "The entrenched Federals laughed and yelled at us as wo shot pictures. With my photos I walked back to Nace, Arizona, bullets whizzing by. At the border, behind a building, were a group of Americans, soldiers, border officials, residents. One buck private shouted: 'You'd better get outta here or you'll be shooting pictures of angels.' They showed me a steel-jacketed bullet which pierced' a wall near them. All around the American town people stood behind wallSj peeking around corners to. glimpse the battle." ' .: . Another chapter in the Odyssey, of the now famous "lost battalion" of General Antonio Armenta was written by a Mexico City newspaper man who found at Monterrey a wounded soldier who served in the battalion. The soldiers were pressed into the rebel service, which they so heroically had tried to avoid, but their leader and a few of his staff officers vanished and their fate was not known. Marched 22 Days. General Armenta, the wounded soldier said, was at San Marcial, Sonora, with a battalion of 300, when the rest of the Federal garrison of Sonora declared for the rebel cause. He refused to join the revolt and was faced with immediate necessity of getting his small body of troops out of the hostile territory. Believing that the State of Chihuahua had remained loyal, he decided to attempt the almost impossible task qf crossing the semi-arid and inhospitable mountains separating the two States. For 22 days he tramped with his men toward the east. On many days there was no food. The men took turns in riding their few horses. Finally, on the verge of exhaustion, the little, army reached Temosaehic, in Chihuahua. General Armenta immediately advised Governor Caravec of his arrival. The latter, in fact one of the rebel leaders, sent assurance of his loyalty to Mexico City and said he was sending a train, ft was only when his command was almost surrounded by insurgents that General Armenta learned of the deceit practised on him. Lining up his troops in the picturesque plaza of Temosaehic, General Armenta, with tears streaming down his cheeks, told his men-that their epic march had been in vain. He recommended that they endeavour to escape in small groups. Most of the men were captured and incorporated into the rebel army. They were sent south to Jiminez and La Reforhia, where some of them were forced to give their lives in the very cause they had suffered so much to avoid serving. But General Armenta was not with them. His men never saw him again, and the wounded soldier believed that he escaped and might still be hiding in the mountains.