ENTRE NOWS.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 799, 22 October 1915, Page 11

ENTRE NOWS.

A REMARKABLE recovery has been made by an Australian wounded at" the front- He was those placed on a transport in the vicinity of the giant warship Queen. to be taken back to Egypt. The Queen Elizabeth suddenly fired a and the shock and concussion were so great that the injured on board the transport were quite seriously afvfected. This special soldier, upon reaching Egypt, was found to be paralysed in the right arm and shoulder, not from his wound, the doctors said, but from the nervous shock caused by the broad- ■ Side. He was returned to Australia as unfit for further service. A week or so afterwards he fell heavily upon that helpless arm. Imagine his surprise to find that what he thought would be additional injury had restored the use of the arm and apparently cured him. **■"**■ New South "Wales has got into trading communication. with Vladivostock. Russia's need for munitions paved the way, New South Wales sending shipments of lead. Thus the war is breaking up the old trade routes and giving the young countries like Australia, "South America and New Zealand chan'Cee to develop a new era of commerce in the Antipodes. Stated that it was Sir Samuel McCaughey who fortified Sir George Reid against a hard-up finish in the Commonwealth High Commissioner billet. The amount of the cheque is reckoned anywhere between £10,000 and £20,000. * * # # If they may not go to the front, the -dear creatures can at least * don khaki. Accordingly the London girl, to be in the fashion- nowadays, must have a khaki-coloured dress, gloves, veil —if she wears one—stockings, shoes, handkerchiefs, purse and bag and other etceteras that go to make up the complete outside toilet. And : to be strictly de rigueur, a fashion-note says that khaki•coloured underskirts and——but these ■details won't interest mere male readers of the Free Lance. "We have noticed the same desire to wear khaki on the part of feminine Wellington. You •see, "It's so like the dear fellows in the trenches." * ■' * * # At the opening of the Eastbourne Bowling Club's green on Saturday, the president (Mr. J. Morris), in introducing the Mayor (Mr. J. P. Kelly), who was to make the opening speech, referred to that, gentleman's popularity, and then rang on the following story at the Mayor's expense: —His Worship was walking down Lambton-quay the day after his election, when he "met a friend, who, after the usual greetings, Said, "And so vou have been elected Mayor of Eastbourne unopposed. By jove, you must be popular. I dont't suppose vou have a single enemy over there." The Mayor (blushing): '""Well, no, I don't think I have." Whereupon the friend with .promptitude said, ""Well, take it from me, old man, by the -time your term of office is up, you will be d—— lucky if you Ibave a single friend.-'' * * * , # The German field marshals have a penchant for attempting to modernise the ancient wheeze about the spider and his parlour and the fly. It is only appropriate that the Germans should play the spider's role, but so far Britain, France, and Russia have been too "fly" to walk into the carefully prepared parlour. Warsaw was an exemplification of this strategy. The Germans did their best to tempt the Grand Duke to remain there, while they threatened. his communications north and south. This was the secret, of Von Bulow's big .rush towards Riga. Practically this is what the _ Prussian, armies successfully accomplished l at Metz in 1870. Having defeated Bazaine in open battle, they kept him on the run, skilfully, directing the pressure of their armies upon his so as to offer him. a safe, easy line of retreat into the fortress of Metz. Bazaine fell into the trap. Instead of avoiding Metz, as he might well have achieved successfully, he retired into that fortress with an army enormous in those days, and was thereupon speedily surrounded, cut off, and forced to surrender. Without having delivered a blow, the army of Marshal Bazaine, numbering 179,000 men, ignominiously walked out of Metz and laid down its arms. * * * * Later, at Sedan, the Prussians effected another brilliant coup by trapping McMahon with similar methods. Here, however, McMahon was sternly opposed to the operation which induced his downfall. The blunder to which he was committed was the work of a woman

—the Empress Eugenie—who peremptorily ordered the French commander to attempt the relief of the beleaguered garrison of Sedan, where the Emperor had foolishly gone. In the end the Emperor of France, Napoleon 111., McMahon, and- 86,000 men were obliged to surrender—the last of the Napoleons [handing his sword to the present Kaiser's grandfather. It was these dramatic coups that set the Kaiser's teeth on edge . for " fresh glory to Germany. He had to so one better than his grandfather. * * * * It was the same stratagem that the Germans attempted on General Sir John French's "contemptible little army" in their rapid advance on Paris in August last year. Following up the British commander's retreat with great vigour and pertinacity, the Germans executed a wide flanking movement on his left, the object being to compel him to deploy his forces to the right, and to encourage, him to follow the road into the fortress of Maubeuge. But Field Marshal French was not having any. He perceived the subtleness of the German move, and declined the offer of Maubeuge. Had he retired into that fortress, instead of fighting as he did a desperate and bloody way oast it, he would have been cut off and the entire British army lost. * * # # " From London comes a new Kipling story. Poet Rudyard was motoring home one night recently after enjoying a theatrical performance, when a picket, on the look-out for German- motorists supposed to be signalling to Zeppelins, stopped his car in the road. "Your name?'' demanded the picket, a Lancashire private. "Kipling," was the reply from the occupant of the car. "It's a chap nommed Kipling,'' reported the private to the sergeant who came up. The latter had evidently heard of such a chap before, and the car was allowed to proceed. * * «• * The medical test for recruits. is not as stiff as it used to be. Why should it be? Why should only the flower of our manhood be sent to the front, leaving the'defective behind? * * * # Under the heading of "What will the end be?" A. H. Pollen, a well-known English writer, makes the following forecast. "If Germany and Austria," he says, "have not been able, with all their preparations, to conquer France and Russia, can the Allies conquer them ? The superior preparations of the Germans started them with much niore material, and therefore with many more armed and equipped men. And they prepared, not only guns, shells, rifles, machine-guns, etc, employed- at the opening of the campaign, but they prepared to prepare more. They have doubled and! trebled their means of supply in the course of the war. How do the Allies stand in this respect? Still, I fear, greatly behind. But an enormous effort is being made simultaneously in .Great Britain, and Russia, and the neutral manufacturers can supply us and cannot supply the Germans. It is, therefore, a mere question of time before the Allied forces catch up and surpass the enemy forces in munitions. "How about men? The population of Germany and Austria is something over 120 millions. The population of the Allied countries is nearly 300 millions. Obviously the resources of the Allies in men are more than twice the resources of the enemy. How have these resources suffered during the war? It is, I believe, generally as sumed that no more than 10 per cent, of the total population of a" country can be made available in the fighting line. Germany and Austria, therefore, cannot put more than twelve and a half or thirteen million men in the field. The Allies can ultimately put in thirty million. If, then, the wastage of war were equal on both sides, the German countries would exhaust themselves and leave the Allies with an armed force superior to that with which the Germanic Allies began. "At the end of a year nearly " half forces are gone, and none of her objects have been achieved. How,

then, is the fight to be continued? There is one ever present factor which is keeping* the Allies together ensuring _ that their strength will increase, equally ensuring the gradual -weakening of the enemy. The factor is Great 'Britain's command of _ the sea. Through this command munitions are going fast into Russia. It is a war on whose success depends the pace at which the unarmed Russian multitudes can be brought'into the fighting line. "Summing up the whole position, then, it is briefly this: The Germans have spent half their forces in men, and have not defeated any single one of the Allies. Through "being ready before the Allies were, they have certain gains in territory to their credit. But these gains in territory are only imaginary advantages. If Russia found it intolerable to be without Warsaw, if she were willing to make peace to get Warsaw back; if France found it intolerable to be without her ten departments, and was willing to make any sacrifices to get these departments back; if, in short, the Allies preferred territory to victory, then the Germans would have a real strategic advantage in having gained this territory. But if the Allies are determined to carry through the ideal they set themselves, that is, not to sheathe the sword until the material power of Germany Is crushed, then these gains of territory are of no value whatever, and a:s they . have cost half the fighting power of Germany, it means that the victories by which these . territories were won are not really victories, but pledges of ultimate defeat. ' 'Looking back, then, on a year's war, and keeping strictly to the essentials of the situation, one can, it seems to me, say with confidence that the German plan was to crush the armies of France and Russia, and to crush them quickly. "-That far from doing so, her own armies have suffered in men more than France, Russia, Great Britain, and Italy combined, and that : :as. a consequence her plan can succeed at all, One can say-next that so heavy have been these losses, to .Germany, that her numbers must, before long, reach a point that no superiority in equipment can save them from the increasing numbers of the Allies. Thirdly, that the Allies are increasing their powers of supply and equipment to tbe point which will either reach or surpass the German' level, or, at any rate, reach a level where, combined with the superior numbers, it will be sure of victory; and, fourthly, that in these numbers the Allies are helped by the magnificent power of the British fleet, Which adds America to our sources of supply and cuts off Germany from all foreign help." * * * * Surely never before has the old saying. "It's an ill wind," etc., been so forcibly justified as at present. For to-day none is so busy as the maker of artificial limbs. Hospitals everywhere are crying out for legs and arms by the thousands. Many of these artificial limbs are made, for the sake of lightness, from a sort of papier-mache. A propos of this, it is passing strange where some of the leading Parisian manufacturers get their material. Stated that they get it from the Bank of France. It seems that when the stock of old and withdrawn bank notes is sufficiently large, they are taken into a special room, and before high functionaries of the bank they are made into an indistinguishable mash, which is sold to the orthopoedists. So when one of "France's mutilated heroes limps along he may truly say that his leg; represents a fortune. * * * * In Hong Kong the Chinese- love a drive in a motor car, and the garage proprietors are kept busy. Quite a small car is considered capable of carrying a dozen or so of passengers. A four-seater car, for instance, is loaded up something on the following lines: The grandparents take the rear seat, father and mother sit on their knees, and as many children as possible are oiled in over father and mother and on the front seat. Sometimes a. child is placed between the driver's knees. Then off they go.