BOLL OF HONOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16204, 14 April 1916, Page 6

BOLL OF HONOUR.

TWO deaths reported.

MEN ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL.

Herbert Sydney Valentine, -died of bomb wounds, face and right side of face— A. C. Valentino, London.

S. C. P. Smith, died of bacillary dysentery, hospital— Smith, Workshop Road, Masterton (father).

The jollowing hospital and progress import was also issued :— Admitted to Hospital : E. W. Worth.

Out of Danger : W. Horrobin. Dangerously 111: C. Samuelson, G. 0. Dunsford, M. Leanc, J. Price.

THE TIGRIS CAMPAIGN.

STOICISM OF THE TROOPS.

STERILE BATTLEFIELDS.

The country in which the British Mesopotamian force has been operating is described by Mr. Edmund Caudler, a correspondent with the forces, in the following terms:—

Above Amara the banks of the Tigris become even more barren and desohte. The reed huts of the nomads give place to black goat-hair tents. The scenery is easy to describe—hard-caked mud on either side.

At Ali Gharbi, where we concentrated for the advance, the river takes a sharp bend to tho east, and here a new feature lends variety to tho scenery in the Pusht-i-Kuh hills, a low-lying, snow-rim-med range on the Persian frontier, about which clouds hang all day and throw dark shadows on a mauve ground.

The ground between the river and the hills was the scene of the battle of Sheikh Saad. The land is maliciously and fanatically sterile—naked earth in its most depressing form, cracked and caked and nitty without, the rock, gravel, or sand which give colour to the desert. It was over this rutty ground that the transport waggons bumped and jolted with their freight of wounded on the evening of January 7. _ The memory of suffering is mixed up with one's impression of malice in the clay.

"It Is Nothing."

It was evening when our steamer moored near the battlefield. We went out to meet them as they steamed in over tho mudcoloured flat and gave what aid we could. Many were walking very erect, some of them with the stiffness of effort. These were the less serious cases; the stretchers and transport waggons came in later. One was struck with tho hardiness and stoicism of the British and Indian alike. "Beg your pardon, sir," says a Brit.i.;h private, " can vou tell me where the ambulance is?" and he deprecates the support of my shoulder, I though his calf is bandaged, and it is painful for him to put his left foot to the ground. "I am all right, sir; it's nothing serious." He lifts up his shirt and points to a puncture in his stomach. His free is bloody and damaged. "It is noli.ing," he explains, " took off a bit of my gums." He will not rest but mov-s on towards the distant Red Cross flag and the funnels of tho steamer on tho river.

Infantry Like Trees. We have heard the guns overnight and again in tho morning as our paddle steamer with its attendant lighters forged upstream. The evolutions of our troops on land worn cbscured by the mirage. We saw infantry like trees moving and thought them •> transpoi t train. Other masses which could bo nothing but artillery, crossed the pontoon bridgf ahead of us from the right bank to the left. Tho mirage dors not ■iffect the th* height of a bursting shell; we c\h'.i see U. ; shrvnel smoke unfolding two oi three miles h'jni the bank, an<* wondered if it were Turkish artillery or on. own. " Shelling {.he'f advance pot'',." was the generfd verdict. It was not till later that we realised that tho whole force were at grips with tho enemy, End it was not until we moored and met tho converging streim coming in.from the trenches that we knew how costly the day had been. Tho gu is we had heard had played but a, small part in the action, for the mirage had made' artillery preparation for our advance ineffectual, and the bulk of our casualties on both banks of the stream had occurred in frontal attacks on the enemy's position.

DEFIANT LUXEMBURG.

GERMAN OCCUPATION.

INDEPENDENCE OF CITIZENS.

A correspondent, writing to a London newspaper, gives an intei eating description of the state of affairs at present existing between the inhabitants of the small Ducliv of Luxemburg, and the German Imperial troops quartered there. Writing from Luxemburg, ho states that the Grand Duchy, which has a population of a quarter of a million, is garrisoned by 16,000 troops of the German Landsturm', half of which are engaged in guarding the railways, roads, and bridges of tho country. The others are quartered in the capi- ! tal, where there is also a Ducal Guard, consisting of 600 Luxemburger volunteers. In spite of their defenceless condition the citizens keep up a brave, if rather pathetic, show of independence in their dealings with the foreign garrison. The volunteers of the guard, who often march through the streets, singing marching songs in Luxemburg dialect and proudly holding aloft their sabres, make a point of never saluting tho Imperial troops. Pricking the Invader. Proclamations are posted in the town forbidding tho German soldiery to set foot in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace, to which the civil population are freely admitted. If the Germans try to enter it they are promptly sloped by the fixed bayonet of a Luxemburger sentry. If, as sometimes happens, they are so injudicious as to offer any kind of insult to an inhabitant, the aggrieved person or his friends ..are- quick to rotaliato whenever they havo the chance, secure in the knowledge that none of their fellow-citizens will inform against them. A favourite plan is to rob tho offending soldier of his riflo or bayonet, or some part of his equipment, which means, of course, that ho gets into serious trouble- with his officers.

Germans' Conciliatory Attitude. On tho whole, it is evident that the Germans, whoso one object is to conciliate the Luxemburgcrs, are behaving themselves with comparative self-restraint. Practically tho only articles of which thoy have taken forcible possession are gold and horses, of which last there is a great lack in Germany, where ploughs and waggons are largely drawn at present by oxen and overt cows. An odd example of tho condition of affairs in this forciblyoccupied country is that a frontier guard of Luxemburgor volunteers has been formed to prevent the dominant Germans from removing to Germany or Belgium certain articles—the chief of which is horse-flesh the export of which is forbidden by the Ducal Government. Another grievance of the natives, but one for which there is no redress, is that they are forced to work in the factories which produco munitions of war for the German armies.