WAR NOTES

North Otago Times, Volume C, Issue 13181, 9 October 1914, Page 6

WAR NOTES

: ■'•'. : ' ■';■ AN.SpEp^Eip|!.;i, ; ': }:o, i- Writing iii:%io Clailoii'refloiitly,;;lli:• Robert; Bhitciiioni salili-rl inot-A nm| uucoiiiFoniising'and'iieUvo of .tho,'p!t.clllst leaddrs! VHostppnedto talk with nic/aiul.hotold.nic ) i)tucli:toiny'.Hur. [insc, that ho yvas noW oil our Hide <.'r. B cenow,":hc said, "that wo could not.liavckeptouVofthowar.''': Andlie added," But lain afraid of Russia." i'o> my part I am not afraid of Russia. Not tiintl trust Emperors or, Kaisers, Indeed; 1 have learnt sorrowfully Jhat this is a wicked world. But assuming that wo can put tho Kaiser in his vlnec, I tlo not soo auy.causo to fclir llnssia. By the time wo havo settled accounts with Germany 1 think wo shall | all of us havo supped full of horrors, ]. do not bolicvc that.Europo will want Another war for a very long while On the contrary, I, am'hoping for a federa; tion of the European States from Norway to Italy as a guarantee of peace. •Let France, Britain, Italy, Belgium,.. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Portugal, and Spain form an alliance for the preservation of the status quo, and there will bo no need to fear Russia or any other Power, Let us havo an armed, enlightened,' democratic ElilOpe banded in an open alliance for, the" preservation of peace; and let any autocrat or bandit break the peace at his peril,

SLEEPY PAPEETE,

A literary visitor to Papeete, Miss Beatrice Griinshuw, gives an attractive picture of this slumberous old FrancoPolynesian town. "The side streets that run oft' landwards here and there," she writes, "arc more like, botanic, gardens with a few ornamental cottages let loose among them than prosaic pieces of a town—so richly does the flood of riotous greenery foam un over low fence tops and brim into unguarded drains and hollows, ho gorgeously do the red and white and golden llowers wreathe tall verandah posts and carpet ugly tin roofs with a kindly tapestry of leaf and bloom. Foot to foot and hand to hand with Nature stands man, in these islands. Let him but relax for a moment, and—there!—she has'him over the line! Leave Papeete alone for a couple of years, uiitl you would uccd ;in, use to find it when you came back. . . . .

Under, all this the native life Hows on in its own way, and the Tahitian takes his pleasure after his immemorial fashion, its quietly and as lazily as he is allowed. No ono ever goes short of food in Tahiti, where the pinch of cold and hunger and the burden of hard unremitting unholidaycd work are •aill;e 'unknown." The sudden consternation into which the German shells would throw this lounging, half-awake eommunily may be well imagined.

GERMANY IN AFRICA,

It is-fairly certain, says the Standard of Empire, that Germany, in the event of'a ■'successful issue to her military operations on the Continent, and in the anticipation of Britain refusing to take part in the conflict, had at least half an eye open to the possibility of annexing the Belgian Congo, which would, with German East Africa, have formed a compact German block stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Now, unless all the portents prove hopelessly wrong, this Teutonic dream must vanish. Instead, an "All Red" Cape-to-Cairo railway, the possibility of which was apparently destroyed when Lord Salisbury allowed Germany to annex her East. African colony, will once again be rendered practicable. The British Empire would never have gone to war to secure the necessary territory. But, having been forced into the conflict against its will, it would be foolish not to take an opportunity that presents itself to secure compensation for the terrible losses in men and material which the present struggle must inevitably entail. IN THE PACIFIC. The oiiicial statement that the Admiralty has the naval situation in the Pacific "well in hand" is comforting, though .it does, not satisfy curiosity. The pursuit and capture of the German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and

Gncisenait obviously will be a task of no small difficulty, which must be accomplished before war risks on the island shipping routes can return to a normal level. The British warships stationed in the Pacific capablo of dealing with the big German cruisers are, as far as is known at present, the battleship Triumph, the battle-cruiser Australia, and the armoured cruisers Minotaur and Defence. The modern light cruisers Melbourne, Sydney, Dartmouth, Newcastle and Yarmouth are in tho Pacific, but they would be seriously outweighed in a conflict with the German ships, while the older cruisers would be outclassed completely. France has two armoured cruisers, the Montcalm and the Duplex, in Pacific waters. How many of these warships can be used in an effort to secure the 'Scharnhorst and the Giioisenuu is known only Id tho authorities, but it seems not improbable that the British warships will coiiccnti'iile their .attention lirsl on .mil; ting off coal supplies from the.enemy, Deprived of fuel, the . two cruisers would quickly become impotent.

ANGLO-GEHMAN ILLUSIONS. The nonsense talked by intelligent Germans about the British dominions, prior to the war is illustrated in a striking way by n. clipping sent us by a coiTttspoiidci!t, An "AngloGcrmnu'' wrote to ut British newspaper at the end of Juno to protest against the "illusion" that the British territories ovo'rscas'wcrc inhabited by "loyal anil patriotic people, ever really to honour the King, preserve the Hag, and fight for the Old Country." ; The repetition of'"old Victorian theories,'' he said, w .tis "nauseating'to onu who'has tra- ! ' veiled those snnio colonies and searched iii vain for tlie nmch;Vaiiutcd loyalty.'' ' ': Tll ° aggi'fissive disioyalty of Australia; undor,a'Labour Gbvornitifint is,beyond ;dk]iuj:«;''; tlit-' Vad'ly' liiliiotl 'G-ih'iiiiii'pro'"

Reeded "tfoulh Africa is dominate 1 I by, Hid ovui glowing twitch, anti British cloniont; whilst in Caiiudtfyou jiiuy tia\ol»'fionrt|io Atlantic to tlio Vi\f\h without hcitiing 11 good ttoii| spokqii foi Britain by .1 Ouiiuck. This is not sujpiising Tho Canuck is a polyglot pioduct, Ho aro the majoilty of tlio colonists. Why not lccogniso thorn as suih and kuuc faity talcs about ima* glnary Jmpoilal unity to bo exploited ]}) yom egregious Mi Kipling in a now scries of Jingo jiiiglcsf" Picsum ably thcie wus at least ono smpuscd Anglo Geiman in Biitniu ioity eight lioitis aftci tlio (leiluiatioii ot wai.

THE SLAUGHTER AT LIEGE.

A Belgian islio took pint in the do feme of Liege thus dcsuibes the fight

"borne ot us late annals only man aged to get to our posts when tho German attack began. Jt was night time. We replied sharply with our guns. Until the .dawn came wo had no very distinct idea of what our practice was, Then wo noticed heaps of slain Germans in a scmi-circlo at the foot of our fort. Tho German guns must/have been much less successful, because they rarely hit us that night. They,did bettor at daybreak. We did better still. "As line after line of the German infantry advanced, we simply mowed them 'down. It was terribly easy, monsieur, and 1 turned to a brother officer of mine more than once and said: 'Voilal They aro coming on again, in a dense, close formation. They must lie mad!' They made no attempt at deploying, but came, on, line after line, almost shoulder to shoulder, until,, as we shot them down, tho fallen Avore heaped one on top of tho other, in an awful'barricade of dead and' wounded men that threatened to mask our guns and cause us trouble. 1 thought of Napoleon's saying—if lie said it,.moll,'sicur; and I. doubt it, for ho had no euro of human life!—' Cost inuguifique, mais cc n'cat pas la guerre!' No, it was slaughter—part slaughter! "So high bccairo the barricade of the dead aud wouuded that we did uot know whether to lire through it or to go out and clear openings with our hands. AVc would have liked' to extricate some of tho wounded, from the dead, but wo dared not. A stifll wiud carried away the smoke of tho gnus quickly, and wo could sec some of the wounded men trying' to release thomsolvca from their terrible position, I. will confess I crowed myself; and could lijivo wished that the smoke had re niaincdl ■

"But, would you believe it, 'this veritable wall of dead and dying actually enabled these wonderful Germans to creep closer, and actually charge up Hie glacis. Of course they got no further than half-way, for our Maxims and rillcs swept thoni back, Of course, we had our own losses, but they were ulight compared with the carnage'inflicted upon our enemies."

RIFLES A3 FISHING RODS,

HAPPY BRITISH SOLDIERS.

That the British soldier can nuiiiitain peace of mind, even within the sound of the enemy's artillery, is .'proved. l»y tin 1 , report of a London Times correspondent, who was at Mons before the great battle there. He said: "At Mons the British troops havo made themselves* at home. Preparations for the city's defenco were extremely comfoiling in their workman-like detail. Jn the wodds lurked innumerable field guns. Everywhere in the town eonfiilemic was dominant, When, with heavy firing audible in the distance British soldiers enn sit quietly on the banks of the canal, calmly fishing with bayoneted rilles as fishing rods, the spectacle inspires vonlidence, even though from all directions the presence of tin: dreaded German cavalry is reported." A PEOPLE'S WAR. All the British war correspondents agree in declaring that the French soldiers are fiill of fun; light-hearted, as if they were going to nianuuivres merely. They do not underrate the enemy, lint they arc inspired by a cheery confidence that they arc going to beat him this time. "Excursion to Berlin" some humourist chalked on a troop train leaving Bordeaux. This may be, as a captured Uhlan remarked, an "of-fizicr-krieg" (ofliccrs' war) in Germany, but there is no doubt as to its being in the fullest sense a "volks-kricf" (people's war) in France.