WAR NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15444, 5 September 1914, Page 9

WAR NOTES.

GERMAN ARTILLERY. MOST EFFECTIVE ARM. "Times" and Sydney "Sun" Serves. Press Association—By Tel.—Cody right. LONDON, Sept. 3. A correspondent who has returned from tho front states that tho marksmanship of tho Gorman artillery is extraordinary. In range-finding and shelling trenches they aro past masters. They excel in preparing for an infantry attack by vigorous gunnery. With shrapnel they literally clear out the trenches, the firo being directed bv acroplanes, which are superior to the French, because they arc able to remain longer aloft. DISREGARD OF RED CROSS. Among the returned wounded aro a number of members of tho Medical Staff, who declare that the Germans deliberately subjected them to a fierce firo at Mons, and tho staff were compelled to pack up and leave the field.

BRITISH CASUALTIES. OFFICIAL RETURN. Received 10.25 p.m., Sept. 4th. LONDON, Sept. 3 (p.m.). 1 ho War Office has issued a further list of casualties—Officers. eighteen killed, seventy-eight- wounded, e'ghtysix missing: other ranks—fifty-two killed. 312 woundedj <1672 missing—of which 2GS2 worn sent to the hasc 3 unfit. The remainder includes imwounded prisoners and stragglers. VALINES BO^IRARDED. AMSTERDAM. Sept. 3. Tin- Germans bombarded on A\ cdnesday. Tho Cathedral was reduced to ruins. Saint RuinbukL's shrine was rescued aaid conveyed to Antwerp, with many ■fttlier ivories of art, including two Rubens pictures. A GOOD STORY. i IF IT IS TRUE. Received 11.20 p.m., Sept. 4th. LONDON.. Sept. 4Advices roach Ostend that an American attached to the Consulate at Brussels narrates that seventeen English soldiers captured near Waterloo wt-ro marched to tho nearest restaurant and compelled to act as waiters, while their captors were outing. The Germans were tuou ijitfiieated, and the

British, seizing the Germans' arms, slew several of them and escaped. NERVE-RACKING ROW OP CANNONADING. Received 1.5 a.m.. Sept. sth. LONDON, Sept. 4 (a.m.) A sergeant-major, in a letter from the front, says :—" The worst about this war is not the fear of losing life, but the hellish nerve-racking noise. Townsmen accustomed to street traffic stand it much better than countrvmen. Those recruited in big cities, are far the fittest. A Lou don la<s told me it was no worse than the roar of omnibuses."

DUEL EST THE AIR, THE GERMAN FALLS. Received 1.5 a.m., Sept. sth. LONDON, Sept. 4 (a.m.) A French airman, whose- thin polished wooden planes are armoured lelow, sighted a German air scout at Cliantilly at a great height. He soared and raced him, and when abreast opened fire, over Compiegne forest. The German machine was seen to stagger, droop limply, and tall into the tree-tops. , Colonel De Bonhomme recounts tliat despite the rapidity witli which tlici French guns changed their position, it was immediately known to the enemy. Subsequently it was discovered that a railway crossing keeper by secret telegrams kept the Germans informed. The keeper was instantly executed.