THE HORRORS OF WAR.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14525, 29 November 1912, Page 7

THE HORRORS OF WAR.

A PEN-PICTU RE OF PLEVNA.

AN ENGLISH OFFICER'S IMPRESSIONS.

That very interesting book, Captain yon Herbert's "Define© of Plevna." is additionally so in

riew of tho present war. Captain yon Herbert, an English ofEcer, tock part in the Russo-Tiirkish war of 1577, as a lieutenant of Turkish infantry, though ho n\i s only seventeen, and fought all through the siege of Plevna. His book on tho war is one of the most fascinating works of tho kind, and has been strongfy commended to the attention of British officers by Sir John French. The following extract from tho book gives a most graphic description of tho horrors of. war. Scenes resembling these have doubtless been enacted in tho present campaign. He is writing after one of tho unsuccessful attacks on tho town.

"The streets are streets no longer, but brooks and rivorsj whore there is a remnant of terra firma (save the mark!) it has tho consistency of butter. Each tree sends down insolent little showers of its own when tho wind moves it; from the roofs thin waterspouts drench us, who j bavo just dried ourselves, and make •mc utter impious words. The block at I tho street corners has been recalled to jmo by tho sceno in the thoroughfares •of tho city of London on busy weekday mornings, minus tho police. I Strings of carts with groaning men—of ) whom many aro disfigured by dirt, blood, wounds, beyond tho semblance of humanity, who aro piled llko bmchcrs carcases upon rce'king and steaming straw—aro crossed by other trams of vehicles with similar cargoes; huge fires at important crossings dispel the blackness of a particularly dark rr.pht by vacillating patches of yellow brilliancy, with flickering shado.ws chasing each other like ghosts along the house-fronts, making the trees appear as if animated by goblins. The uncortain light of the flames adds to tho fierceness of tawny Tartar countenances, sets hideous demons at work on ! tho stol'd surface of Muscovite physiognomies, suggests grotesque changes of features, turning sound men to devils, and sick men, sometimes to angels, sometimes to the brute creations of a doarium-heated brain. What a babel of tongues! Men praying, lamenting, cursing in Russian, Roumanian, Turkish, Arabic, Circassian; drivers loudly clamouring for a passage, enquiring their way or destination, exchanging abuse and blows with those who obstruct their progress; snatches of Bulgarian, French, unknown dialects; the guttural tones of a German eurgeon who swears at himself, as he vainly tried to get order into tb's chaos; the shrill notes of an English doctor, who apostrophises, to a collonguo across tho road, the fool of a driver who has brought him corpses instead of wounded men. Beforo every ambulance a queuo of carts is waiting to unload; a fire to light the ghastly labours; a banner, with red Crescent, limp and wot on its pole; a perspiring, overworked, dead-beat superintendent or surgeon refuses to take in any more stock for his thriving trade. Hero is a crowd of jubilant Turkish, there a group of crestfallen and trembling Bulgarian, inhabitants. What a change for the latter —yesterday insolent and triumphant; to-day, in the deepest abyss of ignominious fear!

'"Detachments come from all sides, on the way back to their redoubts; two or threo squadrons of cavalry trot westward to assist the Vid bridge guard; a battery gallops to some sud-denly-discovered exposed point. The guns splash us from head to foot; on the soft clay the usual thunder of the wheels is strangely absent, so that they pass us well-nigh in silence, looking lileo tlio dissolving views of a magiclantern, emerging from tho darkness and plunging into.it with a speed-and a vehemence such as only gun-drivers can get out of tbeir vehicles. Everybody "has to step out of the way. A gun collides with a cart, and upsets it; with a crash, a shriek, a thud, the human cargo rolls into tho slush, and tho next gun goes right through the sprawling heap of maimed mankind. It does not much matter: only a few wounded men wounded a little more. Where they have fallen there is a purple pool; when wo pas* tho spox a minute later the men's heavy tread sp/ashes our faces with red specks. We come- to a street where they have not lighted a fire, and where tho con- ! fusion is worse in tho impenetrable darkness. We are "hailed, and find our progress impeded until an obliging resident brings a lamp, and wo discover that we have- encountered a. small body of prisoners. Next we come to an imj portajit crossing where there are two huge fires, and where a sight greets U3 afc which my men givo a shout of joy; half a dozen Bulgarians dangling fron. gallows improvised in front of theii own doors, like bundles of wet rags. , with sullen, ashy faces and vacant eyes. At the feet of one is a weeping woman; near another are children crunching apples, and wondering why their father looks so funny. In the same street women bring Us coffee and cakes, which we consume in view of tho gallows, some men leaning against the posts and playing a shuttlecock with tho culprits' legs. Thefoot of one hits mc in the faco, and the man who has made tho thrust apologises: 'I meant to hit Murad over tl:orc, sir; but I declare tho fellow has gat a twist in his kneo, so that one cannot throw straight.' To illustrate this ho raises the dead man's leg and aims at his companion, who is holding out his hands, grinning like the w:ckctkeeper at a diabolical game of cricket; and, true enough, the foot describes an arc and gives a_ thumping knock in a corporal's capacious back. The latter turns round with fnce so scared that we all burst out into a merry laugh; and this rouses mo from what as a nightmare would bo indescribably hideous; but what as. stern reality simply baffles tho illustrative powers of all tho adjectives in the dictionary. I forbid the continuation of such wantonness, and my men become suddenly sober —wo have all been out "of our senses, after thirty hours of slaughter and horrors. I rub my eyes. Surely this has been a dream; surely this cannot be God's fair earth, on the surface of which I have lived such a hanny life, which has brought forth thosb" I lovo so well —my father, my dear mother, my pretty sisters, that j little girl 1 have left behind in tko ■ West?"