BY THE MAN WHO DINED WITH THE KAISER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 167, 20 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

BY THE MAN WHO DINED WITH THE KAISER.

ARTILLERY ACCURACY. 70,000 BLIND MEN. FOOD FROM FOODLESS TURKEY

HIDDEN WOUNDED. MR. WU.

(From the London "Daily Mail.")

I have ahead} described how at the royal banquet at Xish 1 travelled with King Ferdinand and his two unprince ly sons in the great advertising BerlinConstantinople train— the Balkan Zug The King and the loutish Primes left the train at Creac.

We reached Belgrade at ten o'clock at night and remained there for an hour and a half. I availed' nr.self of the opportunity to leave the station for a short stroll in the ruins of the- town Of the accuracy of modern artillery fire »mc idea can be gleaned from the fact that the besieging Austrian , unncrs were able to aim so that not one sing> shell should fall in the station. Be it remembered that they were firing from the other side of the Danube, I ere at its widest, and they obviously :ealiseJ that their advancing aimy would afterwards need the railway. Thougn houses within a few yards Mom the jtation were absolutely destroyed there was no sign of warfare within the station itself.

It seems but yesterc.ay that Bi-'grade fell into the hands of the Huns, yet already the river has been spanned by a very wonderful wooden bridge. It' js obvious that this and the manv other bridges must have been in preparation for years. They arj not temporary makeshifts and are ,uite as gr.od as many of t'.ie American trestle bridges in uvo oil '■onio of the best Ameri.-an railways. The German's are prep.-<d for everything. Especially are thev prepared against England, their most hated foe. Let every Englishm >n ponder that fact. They were no; on'v ready for the war but are ee.iseleslv improving their 'materiel' a« the war gees on.

ADVERTISING BY TRAIN

The Balkan Zug did not get ts usual enthusiastic reception at Be'gra !<•. Perhaps because the hour was late, per haps because the civil population of the town is practically non-existent. Belgrade, as I pointed out before, is tlv: Austrian main headquarters m that front.

Next morning, between nine .id ten o'clock, we arrived at Budapest, the Hungarian capital, and here the great advertising train bad a tremendous reception. At the Nord Bahnliof there was as great a* crowd as T have ever s.en in a railway station. The excitable Hungarians tumbled over each other in their anxiety to get ;<ar the Zug. Wine was brought for the e.iginef'river and fireman, and <h" pas- ngor;. with their litt'e Balkan-Zu r flags in their coat button-holes, beean to feel almost like heroes themselves. The crowd in«isted on shaking hands with them as they 'eaned out of the windows. Advertis'ng by tram is not ivw. 1 have se.'U something like u in Canadi and tiie United States, lint advertising v: o,\ h\ tram s i (em ncuig n eth ,->. hard to heat. Everybody who has sem the train will tell somebody else, who again t x !!s another person. Tt :; phot ■- graphed and described in ?o\ ntless journals and on myriads of pcicard s . The people on the platform tried to buv our little flags. When T reached Vienna T was offered 20 kronen—about lCs.— for mine. At Budapest the advertising \:rin Rivaled itself into halves. There vas another heflagged' locomotive and more beflagged wagons. One half of tiv train goes to Berlin and the ot'itr hru.f to Vienna. My object was to get t" Eng'nnd as speedily as inssible 1o giv■■ my account of the Kaiser's realth There were not many ot us gong to Vienna. The officer'; and the rlvin * men proceeded in the Berlin nal" Thos> of us who had come from Co::stan + i noplo were looking forward to ti ■ somewhat improved food to be had u Vienna. The officers and the fly in . men proceeded in the Berlin half. Those of us v. ho had com." 1 from C'onstait.nop"' were looking forward' to the pomewlnn improved food to lie had in Vienna. .\s yet the newly opened line to Con-tain!-noplo has ]iad time merely to td.e tit ■ Balkan Zug aid the military trams carrying Army supplies, men. and m iintions fur the Baghdad, t!te Ca; casus, or the Egyptian adventures.

EMANCIPATED HAREM I talked with a Turkish geruiemai and his wife and daughter, and was amusei. to notice that, although the women left Constantinople veiled an:l dressed iii Eastern costume, as soon ■.:•> they got into Europe both of them put on European clothes and dropped tin veil. Thev . xpressed the opinion that now that tho Germans aad opened tin railway the semi-starvation of Constantinople would vanish. As the Scotmen say, " I line ma doots.'' I had been in Germany during war time and I knew that whatever the German newspapers may tell the world, there is <-■ spare food in any porti.in of the land which 1 have visited. r he old gentleman was shrewd, and he nis regret at the closing of all the Frone-i schools in Constantinople. He said that to avoir! giving his son ic-ssons e Ger man militarism he had packed 1 m off to a school in French Switzerland.

A :c:inn cave the train what the now ■- pipers cal In rousing rot-option. Ev -1 nfhYialdoin gave way heforo \\ anrl the Customs officers and other <-flu:aisparo:" us tlio Customs examination of passports. Knowing th? ways of th? military in tlio war nno. and thai som" tinio la tor on I should ho obliged to prove my arrival in Vienna, T insists on having my papers stamped \r- th > military authorities at the stnt on.

On my way out lo Constantinople 1 had stopped in Vienna tr'ne days perf.'otiiig ii'v plnn<= fn r netting into Cor stantinon'o and Asia \jnorand arranp hip for the verv tedious journey round I'v Rumania. A journey by that roti+e takes five dnvs The openiner of the d ; rcet Hj'ilin-Coastaiit'noii'- line -c----fluc-es th's to two nights nnc two (lav: fiftv-six hours, to lie exact. Evan mw :, i iva- time the train n-riiw with'a five nvnutes of is s-lndiikvl time at ev-v stat'on on rout"

V ; ennn hj"« he?n doserihed <o elten in tha last eighteen nonths that "1 irill trv _ns far -« possible to confine in writing en this subject to facts, not

Litiierto published, tnai i gleaned -y careful inquiry. The pinch of hunger in Vienna an dthe coming into the war of Italy, both the result of English ntervent'.on, have maae the \ icnnes.e much mure hostile to England than they were during my v»sit at the end of last May. Vienna is not dark at nights Lwe London or Pans or Constantinople, but the cafes have to be closed cany, so that the former great gaiety ol the city no longer exists. There, as everywhere else in the Teutonic war zone, the great food 1 question is the clr.et topic of conversation. The humorous side of the situation is that, while the people of Turkey expect to get food from Austria and Germany, people in Austria and Germany expe.-t to get food from Turkey ! You may remember the rotund articles in the Merlin Press pointing out the value if the opening up of the great resources of Turkey and Asia Minor n dealing with the "eternal butter question. The Viennese do not grumble so much a*iout butter as the Berliners. Their chief cause of complaint is the absence of whipped cream with their coffee for the sale of cream and milk is absolutely forbidden, except for children. AH the rest goes to make explosives. Of the sixteen hundred l taxis t.'-at whirled gay parties about Vienna pro' to the war, only forty, and those extremely shabby and with only the remains of rubber tyre;, are still to '■<. had. All vehicular traffic with the exception of these forty taxis, stops r.t eleven o'clock, and the Viennese ladies, famed for embonpoint, will .'ong remember tiie war if only for tin. amount of walking they have been do".\g. I tried to find out as much as I con'd about the i.umber of Austrian worn ded, and my task was dicult. In order not unduly to depress the peblic the vounded are carefully scattered throughout the country, particularly in Bohemia. Germans have told me they have heard the same thing about i'i.igiand, and that the English Government have dispored of their wounded far from the eyes of men in bun: reds d little Red Gross hospitals in provincial towns and villages. The hjdnu of the wounded in Austria is carried out C 3 a system. If, for example, there ;: r :- three hundred wounded able to walk in a hospital only one-third are allowed out to take fresh air in public at the same time.

70,000 BUNDED. The largest hospital in Vienna, and perhaps on. l of the largest in the work".', is the Wiener Allegmeines Krankenhaus. Dr. Robert Otto Rteiner, its head, is ab'e and informative. Chi; 'it the sai'dest sights he showed me were two halls of the-Mind, wounded mo't'y by rock splinters caused by high explosives on the Italian-Isonzo fr.iiit With a sad fsvo he told ni.' that wore alas! the immense number of 70.000 blinded Austrians within s. K months owing to these rock fragments. He regarded the problem of their employment at tint vague tine knewn as "after the war" insuperable. Certain it is that the Kaiser, in addition to the monument that may or may not lie elected to him in the Sjegos-Alleo, will have through", t Europe living monuments in the shape, of the blind and the maimed, the mac and the paralysed who will make (lie name of German militarism cxecrat ! for very manv gem rations to cnm,'.

Rather t.i mv surprise 1 found *...* English play "Mr. Wn" to be a m:>t popular evening entertainment and greatly advertised. I Kent to the Wiener Volkstheater to see it and ascertained that the cause of its popularity is the domination of the principal character, a Chinaman; over an Englivi business man. The play was rapturously received.

There are n good many Englishmen of military age at liberty in Vienna, and, as showing that the Austrian rule is much milder than that of Germany, notices have appeared in the Viennese newspapers to the effect that belli/, 3 -- c-nts are to l)e freely allowed to US'. their own language in pulilic place, us long as they do so in a way which docs not offend." For the rest they have considerable liberty so long as they do v )t leaVe the capital. They ar c expeetel To lie within doors at eight o'clock at ni«rht.

How hungry these Englishmen ai-; for news and how the hate the wr.r bread, which, however, they admit .s greatly improved since last spring, when it was practically inedible. fiu Englishmen thought well of the Actrjan treatment, though they complaine;*l that they could not get Er ; > lish newspapers, as is the case in Bet He. The last newspaper they had was a tony of "The Times" for September : ; . Even though the Austrian* treat them decently the position of a ynmy Englishman in the mills'; of a host >

population, knowing nothing aeeura.e lv as to what is going on ill the home land, eager to be in the trenches uesidhi- fcl'ow-cotintrymen, is sad to con sider.

In Vienna also the talk of the Baghdad and Egyptian campaigns was n.v AUSTRIAN'S AND PRUSSIAN'S. The interest of the Austrians, how ever, iq anti-It liy, anti-Russia, and es P'-cially anti-Serb. The conquest "f Serbia has beyond question immensely heartened the Austrians. There have been periods when I have reason to he lieve the Berlin task-masters have hi :. diflicultv in ma ; ntaining tin- cnthusia>;.i

of tlio : r" Austrian dupes. They have no such difficulty now. it is many, manv long years since the Austrians have <e'ebrated any sort of victory. Their \vh >le history has been a story of retreat and defeat. Now they begin to think themselves the equals oi t lie Prussians w 'n walked over them in a few week- .n l i: Gf). The Austrians are confident '.i-et in addition to their new port of Amivan, on the Adriatic, tiny will so.-u-v Venice and Northern Serbia. Nevertheless the ancient hatred of the Prussian is just as strong in Anuria to-day as it was before the war.

The compulsion campaign in K»i Tlatr,.' has aroused great inten -t in \ is tr'.a and has been the cause of thousands of heated arguments in as many thousands of cafes throughout the la:vj The idea thai luiglisnmen fight only f they are paid, with an extra price for battles, has been sa assiduously spread by the Berlin propagandists that it was very difficult for them to understand the spirit of the men who have so i plen. didly Hocked to the British colours Irom all parts of the Empire. Here, as m other places, 1 was so'emnly assured that only the poor would go to tho front and that the r.eh would remain in their castles playing their customary football and hunting, apparently the occupations of tho British aristocracy, youthful and elderly alike. Xot even eighteen months of the war have dispelled their belief in English Sport-Krankheit (snort disease.)

A captain in the Austrian Po'ish legion, whose name is in my possession, told me one or two things which show the difficulty the Germans have had ii. combining their vastly varied fore, s unde: - one rule. "I am with the Austrians now." lie said, "against the Russians because of the comparatively good treatment we Poles have received from Austria. We are also promised of a Polish Pcpuhl'o under the war settlement, but if it -ame to ficrhtin;' for Prussia against the

Russians I would desert and join t Russians to fight Prussia." In the National .Museum in Vieni there are I'ags ckapod in black Ijehu which is a dramJkc story to which have seen in one'or two pub cations. They 1 the flags if tile 28 Regiment of thPline consistint of B hemians only and of men of Prague, tl capital of Bohemia. These men inten ed to desert to the Russians, and se ing before them what they thougl were Russian regiments, they thre down their arms and held up the hands in" token of submission. But tl Russians were Prussians. The Boher ians did not know that the round ci of the Russian solder is practically tl same as the Prussian. The Prussia officers immediately saw the situatjoi turned on the machine guns, and ma sacred a great many of them. The res were taken pr'soners, and then, as punishment, out of every five men on was shot, and one officer out of ever three. The re*t were sent to the mos dangerous part of the fighting lino an very few remain. The draped flags i the National Mti«eum are the signs c their disgrace. The 2Sth Regiment n longer exists in the Austrian Arm List.