GENERAL WAR NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15912, 8 May 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

GENERAL VON HINDENBURG. The Germans are using General von Hindenburg in yet anther way. His portrait is being employed to decorate Bibles, which are being «old for tho benefit of the Red Cross Society. All over North Germany and in Schleswig-Holstein these Bibles are being sold. A COLONEL AT 27. A colonel at the age of '27 (he commands one of the new battalions of the " Fighting Fifth") is one of the latest records this war has produced. In the Napoleonic wars Junot was a general of brigade at 27, Murat was a general of division at 28, and .Napoleon was a commander-in-chief at 26. •Wellington was a lieutenant-colonel at 24. NEW NAVAL AIDE-DE-CAMP Captain Douglas Romilly Lothian Nicholson has been appointed navad aide-de-camp to the King, in place of Captain, C. F. Dampier, promoted to flag rank. Captain Nicholson, who is a second-class commodore, has been a temporary aide-de-camp while in command of the Royal yachts. He was appointed captain" of the battleship Agincourt when she was commissioned last August at Newcastle-on-Tvne. GERMAN PRISONERS. About. 1000 German prisoners captured at Neuve Chapelle reached Southampton recently. The bulk of them at once cutis ined for Dorchester, where they are now interned. Generally speaking., they were men of good physique, appeared to have been well fed, were well clothed, and under the circumstances appeared happy. Some 200 British and 70 German wounded have been sent to Manchester, Selly Oak, Worcestershire, Oxford, and other districts. CINEMA OPERATOR'S COURAGE.

Mr. George Ercole, an English cinematograph operator, who was wounded fry a shrapnel bullet while taking views pf an artillery engagement on the Russian front, but refused to go to the fear until he had completed his work, has been decorated on the battlefield with the Cross of St. George by the commander of the Russian army corps to which ho was attached. This is believed t.i bo only the second time- this highlyprized award has been bestowed on an (Englishman.

DEAL BOAT'S EXPERIENCE. While the Deal boat Kelly was waiting near the Goodwin bands to land the pilots of two steamers that were due the crew heard a rumbling noise under the water not far from them. The sea became disturbed, and the next minute they saw a German submarine come to the surface only 25 yards away. It remained on the surface about 10 minutes, and then proceeded slowly in a northerly direction. The Deal men took the precaution of taking oil their outer garments, and also grasped their oars firmly, expecting every moment to be sect to the bottom. < AMERICAN NURSE DECORATED./ 1 The French Minister fo:- War has granted the Gold Medal of Honour for services rendered during epidemics to Mrs. Clara Muriel Kipling, an American orderly attached to the American Ambulance," Lycee Pasteur, Neuilly. Mrs. Kipling contracted typhoid fever while nursing French soldiers in a hospital in the Department of the Somme. She is at present being nursed at the American Ambulance, but is out of danger. This medal is the highest of its class and is usually only awarded to doctors and surgeons. BOGUS V.O.'S OATH. At the Dublin City Sessions a private in the Royal Field Artillery pleaded guilty to obtaining £2 from a Dublin lady by pretending he had been recommended for the Victoria C.'oss for bravery at the battle of Mons, and that he was on his way to Buckingham Palace tj receive the cross from the King. 11 was stated he had sworn to the truth of his statement on a crucifix which, he had stated, he had received from a priest on the battlefield. At the time he said he was at Mons he was in custody. The prisoner was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with haid labour. PADEREWSKI IN NEW SOLE. M. Padereswski, the famous pianist, appeared in a new capacity in Paris, as chairman of a meeting. He has been the leading spirit in founding a committee to help those of his Polish -compatriots who have been ruined by the war, and the meeting was the first held by the committee. M. Paderewski said that seventeen million Poles are suffering from the horrors of war, and' that 120 towns and 400 villages in Russian Poland have been destroyed. Ten million people are dependent, he added, on charity lor food and shelter. The great pianist made an earnest appeal for assistance in relieving this vast amount of distress.

GERMANS' DESIGNS ON THE NORTH. In his work just published Sir Robert Baden-Powell says that the Germans do not look upon London as strategically the capital of England, but rather upon the great industrial centres of tho North Midlands, where, instead of six millions, there are more like 14 millions of people assembled in the various cities and towns, which now almost adjoin each other across that part of the country. Their theory was that if they could rush an army of even 90,000 men into Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax, Manchester, and Liverpool without encountering great opposition in the first few hours, they could establish themselves in such strength that it would require a, powerful army to drive them out again. WOMAN MOTOR-DRIVER. The first woman professional motordriver has made her 'appearance in Leeds. She is a Miss Virtue, of London, and has been engaged to drive a motor deliveryvan for a firm of grooers in tho city, having taken the place of a man who has gone to tho front. The firm declined to appoint any man in his stead who was eligible for military service. Miss Virtue presented herself" for the post, being anxious to liberate a man for service for his country lor the period of the war. The firm acknowledge the success of their experiment and the manager declares that there is far less time wasted on errands, possibly because there is no flirting between the domestics and the man at the wheel.

HEROES IN DARK WORLD. "The most pathetic gathering I ever attended," was the observation of the Bishop of London after an hour spent at the Blinded Soldiers' and Sailors' Hostel, Bayswaler, with a dozen of our fighting men who have come home from the from; sightless. But the soldiers themselves show a brave and smiling face to the dark, world, for the hostel, started through tho energies of -Mr. C. Arthur Pearson (president of the National Institute for the Blind), is a most cheery abode. Every evening friends provide an impromptu concert, and very few days pass when some public man does not drop in to spend an hour in conversation. Braille and typewriting are taught, so that the patients may be able to read and communicate as a first step towards being taught a useful vocation. They have been wonderfully encouraged by the discovery of what their blind instructors have been able to achieve in spite of the lose of sight, and the cheerfulness of the whole of the little company is a splendid tribute to the tonic atmosphere of the hostel*

ARMY'S TALLEST SOLDIER. '

Who is the tallest soldier in tho British Army? Private T. H. Frith, of the 3rd Battalion Manchester Regiment, is 6ft Bin, and D Company, to which ho belongs, think they have the champion for height. Frith is a Broughton (Manchester) lad, and only 18 years old. NEW ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS. Birmingham, it is stated, will shortly be known as having the credit of manufacturing the very latest thing in antiaircraft guns. This new weapon surpasses anything ever yet designed and constructed by modern science, and it will bo a bad job for a hostile Zeppelin should it ever come within the perfectly prodigious range of this latest engine of destruction. GANG OP FRAUDULENT ENLISTEES. There is a gang of 15 men going about England enlisting i n different regiments, who, after receiving uniforms and other effects, desert, sell the property, and thenl repeat the performance. So said Captain Stabloford of the 17th Battalion City of London Territorials, in giving evidence against a deserter at tho Thames Police Court. He asked for a remand for a week, as the prisoner was one of this gang. TOO MUCH FOR THE SCHOOLMASTER. One of the grumbles from the now army comes from a schoolmaster over 45 who gallantly lied about his age and enlisted as a private. He finds himself (savs the Queen) fairly comfortable. The only thing that touches him on the raw is when a boy lieutenant, of an ago to be one of his pupils, comes to inspect him and see whether he has washed the back of his neck. —— _ j SOLDIERS ASK FOR BREAD. Bread is greatly in demand by British soldiers imprisoned in German camps. A number of postcards have been forwarded by relatives to the Daily .Mail in which men are asking for bread. "What I want most is for you to send me a loaf of bread every week," i.i the common request. One father who has been sending parcels of food to his son for months containing bread and tinned foods, and even tea and coffee, none of which has readied it*i destination. The postcards asking for bread still arrive.

ELEPHANTS MOBILISED. The German military authorities have mobilised Hen- Hagenbeck's elephants to clear the roads behind the firing line lin France. The beasts, with Heir Hagenbeck's staff arrived at Valenciennes and began their work. The Austrian ex j plorer, Dr. Koenig, who received fiftyseven Greenland dogs for the German South Pole expedition, is now using them for war service, although he signed an agreement with the Greenland Administration that the dogs were only to be used for scientific and exploration purposes. "FOR VALOUR." Our highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, was originated in 1856. It owes its motto to a suggestion by Queen Victoria, in a letter to Lord Panmiire, then Minister for War. Writing from Windsor Castle on January 5, 1856, she said :— "The Queen returns ('■« drawing of the Victoria Cross. She has marked the one sho approves with an X; she thinks, however, that it might be a trifle smaller. The motto would be better '■For Valour' than 'For the Brave,' as this would lead to the inference that only those are deemed brave who have got the Victoria Cross." POTATO TICKETS. A message from Berlin states that the Berlin municipal authorities have decided to issue potato tickets in "the same way as bread tickets. These tickets will be made out to heads of families and will enable them to buy 201b of potatoes weekly, from the communal stores. Tho tickets are not transferable, and if the holders lose them thev will not be replaced. Any abu:ie will result in deprivation of the riglt to purchase potatoes. The first cards issued contained weekly tickets until the end of April. An article in a local paper states that the German horses, which have hitherto been receiving 51b of oats daily, are now to be limited to 31b daily. NO MEDAL, NO WIPE. Addressing 500 wives of soldiers and | sailors at Ilford, Lady Jellicoe said i' was individual effort that mattered in this world. It was individual effort that made her husband commander-in-chief, and, if they were to bring this war to a successful issue, it was individual effort that was going to do so. " You know," Lady Jellicoe continued, "that the Government have decided to give a medal to all the men who are working just like the soldiers, and I am sure that none of the men who don't have a medal in future will ever have a wife." (Laughter.) Lady Jellicoe also read a letter from her husband, in which he said it was an honour to command such men as he had with him in the navy. GERMANY'S NEW CROPS. So much depends on the maintenance or failure of the German food supply that careful attention will be given to a report made to the Washington Government by the American Vice-Consul in Berlin, Mr. Louis G. Dreyfus, jun. The report is dated January 28," but it has only just been made public. After summarising the steps ! taken to ensure economy, Mr. Dreyfus declares that there can.be no harvest results before July, and that experts fear that the crop to be gathered then will be a failure. It is certain, he thinks, to fall below the crops of previous years. The Vice-Consul states that the subject has been taken up all f"er Germany, and that ministers are I pleading from the pulpit against wastefulness.

PONIES FOR ARTILLERY WORK. Nearly all the Russian artillery horses I have seen, Mr. Stanley Washburn writes in the Times, arc the small Siberian ponies. They strike one as ideal for this sort of work. They are small and stiff, probably not weighing over 8001b or 9001b. Their long, shaggy hair and even dispositions seem to make them unite comfortable in the most inclement weather. I have seen caissons standing with their teams in a driving snowstorm, with both men and horses covered inches deep in the soft fluff of falling flakes, and all sound.asleep, though their guns were belching forth flame and steel less than a mile away. The.«e little ponies seem extraordinarily strong, and drag these field-pieces and caissons about the muddiest country with apparently little effort.

HARD HIT BY THE WAR. Few families have already been harder hit in the war than that of the Due de Stacpoole, who belongs to a family which has done good work for Ireland. At the very start of the war his son-in-law, Major McMicking, who commanded the Royal Scots, was wounded in six different places, left on the battlefield and picked up by the Germans. He is only just recovering at Torgau after a long illness. His second son, Robert Andrew, was killed in the battle of the Aisne while serving with the Connaught Rangers, whilst the youngest, Roderick Algernon, who was in the Royal Field Artillery, was killed in the fighting near Ypres* He was only 20, and had just come out of Sandhurst. The eldest son is now in hospital at Rouen with influenza and a general physical breakdown, due in great part to his participation in the re- ■ treat from Mons