'OLD NAP.'

Bruce Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 72, 13 September 1917, Page 1

'OLD NAP.'

1 FRENCH MEDIUM'S INTER- ; PRETATION. .-.. ; Albert Dorrington in his London letter to the 'Southland News' says:— The Anzac gunners ' who took part in the lighting around Verdun during -- the earlj' days of 11)10 are full of praise for the French soldiers who went; cheerfully to their end without a hope of escape. A well-known Sydney newspaper man who was attached to one of the batteries is now in London. The other night, at a smoke concert, ho related the following to a ; crowd of brother pressmen:— 'When the barrage lifted we often , visited the poilus in their bomb-proof shelters, north of Dead Man's Hill. There were effort's to provide entertainment for these doomed fighters iii their ; i advanced posts. " The commonest form of amusement was a kind of spiritual- ' istic seance given by an infantry capi tain and a medium named Thorin. I Thorin was some medium, if ouc may .■ judge by his state of exhaustion* after i a series of interviews with men' like | 'Danton, Robespierre, and Napoleon. i The questions often put to Napoleon 1 were:—"How long will this war. last? [ Is there any way open for us to annif lines laid down by our .present lead- • lines laid odwn by our present lead- | crs? Will the Germans beat us?" J 'Napoleon's answers came in rapid ' pencil strokes, and if one were to judge by the medium's conduct during the seance Napoleon's interest in tho present conflict is as een as Our own. 1 Translated his answers to the forcgo- - ing questions read thus:—"The war j will last well into 1918. The,present [ strategy employed against the Ger--1 mans has become standardised. The j .fundamental power of seeing beyond | ordinary shock attacks is absent from | every commander in the field. For mo j the impossible never existed. I was often guilty of carelessness, but never of the commonplace. . A genuine military genius will appear .before the end of 191 S. He will create new methods | and a terrible offensive that will destroy the German armies, here and j across the Rhine." ' The veterans of Verdun believe that Napoleon wouhl die of epiplepsy if "t were possible to bring the little man to life, and show him the Western front from an aeroplane. The man ■who worked - miracles with comparatively small bodies of troops, would certainly require a hot bottle for hi's feet if he were asked to manoeuvre the the six or seven million men vrtip ar<& at present bivouacing this sidd of the'' Rhine. , . No single-handed genius could win the present war. on the old Napoleonic lines. Although/ strategy counts for i much, it is the genius of the forge* and the laboratory who provides the real knock-out. A Douglas Haig or a ! Brusiloff must always remain passive j if the other fellow has a preponderance ! of shell, guns, gas and aeroplanes. TJio • heaven born genius is as mud when; there is a superiority of the aforementioned ironmongery on the skyline.