NOTES ON THE WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 760, 29 October 1870, Page 2

NOTES ON THE WAR.

The following notes are principally from the Times correspondence : — As an instance of the demoralisation of the French army, it is stated that a complete train of bridge construction materials, consisting of 40 carriages, was abandoned. Reports of great cruelties practised upon the wounded by the French peasants are rife. It is stated by German military correspondents that at Woerth 26 peasants have been tried by court-martial and shot, 18 of them from one village. The Gazette de Francfort of the 10th of August says : — " The inhabitants of Woerth having fired upon the Prussians, and- been guilty of cruelty (exercedes cruautea) towards ihe wounded Germans, their town has been treated in hostile fashion. Twenty of the offenders were shot upon the spot." Are German soldiers made of tougher stuff than their English brothers in arms, or have the latter only degenerated of quite late yean? Before the battle of Weissembourg some of tbe German troops bad only a three hours' rest after a seven hours' march before goiflf into action. Before th<j battU of

Woerth, when the alarm came at midnight, they had to march until 11 a.m. At this time, without pause, they joined the light. No friendly conveyance eased them of a single ounce weight of the load they had to bear. But " comparisons are odious." The Patrie states that at the time the town of Strasburg was invested it had been completely provisioned both in respect of food and ammunition. The number of guns mounted on the batteries is much larger than has been stated. These guns are of heavy calibre and of immense range. Moreover, the powder magazines have been protected, as have also the hospitals and the buildings necessary for defence. Many families had quitted the town before the investment, and during the three days which preceded the arrival of the Prussians a large number of persons, useless for defence, embarrassing to provide for. Strasburg can only be reduced by starvation. «^Yesterday a shocking event occurred in a ilway train carrying prisoners from the Rhine to one of the Eastern fortresses. In a van, containing some 20 prisoners and a Prussian private, acting as guard, the latter was murdered while asleep. The crime, being perpetrated while the train was in motion, was discovered only on its stopping at Wittenberg, and easily traced to a ferocious Zouave, who, it appeared, had stabbed the victim without the participation of his fellowprisoners. The murderer was brought before a court-martial and immediately shot. The placing Prussian and Bavarian regiments side by side at the storming of Weissembourg evoked a rivalry in daring most honourable to the latter. The Bavarians are armed with the Werder rifle, which is said to surpass the needle-gun in precision. The Prussian artillery was splendidly served, chiefly heavy guns fired with IS-pound grenades and 15-pound shrapnel shell, the latter containing from 88 to 92 carbide bullets. The Chassepot, though pronounced equal in many respects to the needle-gun, is described aB not keeping up the intensity of its fire for . any length of time. The story goes that the much-lamented and gallant General Colson, chief of M'Mahon's Staff, who was killed at Woerth, fell by his own hand. It is said that the Marshal had deiired him to explore a wood in which he thought the enemy might lurk, and that poison, having reasons of his own for thinking the wood unoccupied, neglected to do so. In the engagement a heavy fire was poured upon the French from that very spot, and M'Mahon reproachfully called the General's attention to the fact. It is related that Colson shot himself with his pistol, but I do not vouch for the truth of the Btory. The following letter has been addressed to the Maire of the sth Arrondisement of Paris by the well-known preacher, Father Hyacinthe : — " Monsieur le Maire, — The spirit and the law of the Church forbid the priest from taking up arms except in moments of extreme danger to the country. That danger — if France should not be spared from itwill certainly find all those who are not bound by the obligations of the sacred office faithful to their duty as citizens upon the ramparts. In the meantime there ia no reason why we should not assiit in the national defence by use of the pick and shovel. Please to direct me to what place I must go, in order to take part in the earthworks and fortifications now proceeding for the defence of Paris. From to-morrow, after mass, I hold myself at your orderß. — Receive, &c, L'Abbfi Jules Th. Lotson, Professor of Sacred Eloquence ift Paris. — Vive la France I" I think anybody who has attentively read the history of the campaign, so far as it has yet been disclosed, will admit that on equal terms of position and generalship, and even though the odds in number were somewhat against them, the French would beat the Prussians. On this side the war as yet has been a series of blunders. The Prussians have fought where they liked and when they liked, and always with treble forces. This is more creditable to the Generals than to the troops. It may be questioned whether the French have not gathered more real glory from their defeats than the Prussians have from their victories. Greater self-devotion was probably never witnessed in any war than that of certain French regiments which rushed, at the voice of their General,' upon inevitable destruction. The successful strategy of Moltke, and the rapidity and secrecy of movement of which the Prussian armies have set so many examples, teach us to be prepared for any manoeuvre or surprise on their part. The behaviour of the Prussians in eueh inns and hotels as are still kept open, and still devoted to their ordinary purpose, is studiously courteous ; but we are still only seven miles from Saarbrucken, and Forbach has only been in the hands of the Prussians for the last three days. Already I hear of a French peasant having fired at a Prussian soldier ; and a proclamation in the usual form, signed by General Zastrow, has been issued warning the French of the penalty with which Buch offences, and all offences of a leaser degree, but of the same kind, will be visited. Troops are still pouring in, as they have been doing incessantly since Monday; But for the admirable organization of the Prussians there would be a famine both here and at Saarbrucken. But at Saarbruoken everything can be had; and Forbach, now. that troops have passed through the city by tens of thousands, by myriads, has only been exhausted of Seltzer water and cigars. The army carries its own provisions, and I observe that in some cases the provisions carry the clothes. The military butchers in charge of oxen have folded their great coats, after the regulation method, and hung them, like horse collar-, over the necks of the unhappy beasts. . Sic vos turn vobis, indeed ! The Prussian spy fever, as it may be termed, still continues, and «ne duly hears of arrests, for the most patt of entirely innocent persons, which supply the papers with romantic incidents. One can understand spies in the lines of an army, but it is hard to say what so many of them find to do in Paris. Some of toe papers advocate the mo«trJgo£ T

buff measures." t)f "the many person's "taken up, probably the majority are quietly released, with or without an apology for an unfounded arrest, and perhapß with a caution "not to do it again." A foreign appearance or accent eeemß sufficient grounds for suspicion. If you approach the fortifications; you are pounced upon by the police ; if you are seen giving anybody money, you are buying information. If a foreigner wishes to escape annoyance from the police, so vigilant just now in Paris, he had better keep away from ramparts, hold his tongue, and employ a French tailor. By those means he may hope to avoid molestation. From Metz we learn that they continue to arrest spies, and to interrogate all persons not known to belong to the place. " Journalists coming from Paris or elsewhere," says a correspondent of the Debats, " are particularly annoyed, although at the affairs of Forbacfa, Weiseembourg, and Freichsweiller three of them were made prisoners and two were killed when taking notes." This may certainly be called journalism under difficulties. Risk from the enemy's shot, in these long • range days, a newspaper correspondent must be prepared for, but it does seem rather a hard case that, when not under the fire of the foe, he is at any moment liable to be locked up by his friends. The Vienna correspondent of the Times writes : — Every one who is not already drawn into the vertex of war wants to be neutral — England in tile first place, and Austria wants it no less than England. The three years which have passed have, in spite of all exertions, not been sufficient to cure the wounds caused by 20 years of maladministration, topped by a catastrophe. We were only just recovering from these blows when this crisis came upon us. All is as yet in a state ot transition. There are political ■questions pending, our finances only just beginning to recover, our army in a state of transformation from one system to another. A war would destroy all that has been done, and throw us back for years. Cf course, were any one directly to attack us we feel strong enough to make a fight for it, but we must do all in our power to avoid such a calamity. The people and Government of Italy are equally anxious to keep out of it. All is unsettled there likewise, and any participation with France would be the signal for renewed and more powerful action of the Republican party, supported, as it would be, by Prussia. Even Russia wants to keep out. She wants at least two years to complete her railways, and arm and reorganise her army. She has just now given orders in America for 1,000,000 breechloaders, of which she has not more than 140,000 as yet. Krupp was busy making guns for them, and they have no end of trouble with their new levies, who since the abolition of serfdom have become tainted with democratic and Socialist ideas, and are not so easily amenable to discipline. When the news of Prussian victories and French disasters reached Paris, and all frenchmen seemed determined to make a bold effort to stem the tide of military adversity, one name was in everybody's lips. *' Where is General Trochu ? How comes it that he has no high command ?" The reasons for his being passed over were two — first, because he is not a strong Imperialist : second, he had written a book on the French army, in which he dared to tell his comrades that for all their dash and gallantry they had faults of so grave a character as might not improbably some day compromise the success of their arms and the honour of France. He wrote in the best spirit, but he criticised, and at that time (1867) the heads of the army refused to submit to criticism either upon themselves or their subordinates. This determination to keep their .eyes closed to their faults — this exaggerated military conservatism has at last borne bitter fruits. It is only too manifest at present that, while the men have fought splendidly against overwhelming odds, neither the Generals nor the Staff nor the mounted officers generally have known how to perform their duties with intelligence. The cavalry has not fulfilled its phief function, that of being the eyes and ears of the army. It has sacrificed itself most gloriously, mais cc n'etait pas la guerre. The infantry has been led close up to the enemy sheltered in woods. Do not we now for ever hear that old despairing cry of Benedek's foot soldiers, " We can't get at the Prussians; they are always concealed "? The artillery have been thrown away by being brought close under infantry flre. And now at last men exclaim, " Give us Generals who have tried to correct our faults instead of flattering us. Let those lead us who know wherein we have erred." The "Route Imperiale de Strasbourg" on which we were travelling runs through a charmingly-wooded undulating country by fields of corn and hops, potatoes and cereals of all sorts still uncut, now never to be gathered in this year. About the stone which marks the 50th kilometre from Strasburg began tbe signs and tokens of the severe combat of the day before yeste day, which I was not co fortunate as to witness. The fields were all trampled under foot and covered with a prodigious quantity of gutted knapsacks, French laced boots, shakos and cavalry caps, jackets, tunics, and mess tins for miles on both sides. Here and there lay a dead horse, and burial parties were still busy in tbe fields. Overturned baggage cars, empty canteen boxes, broken Chassepots, sabres, bayonets, ac, were strewed by the road-side, and now and then a waggon came along from the south filled with prisoners — men with pale faces bound in cloths stained with blood, broken limbs, ■oiled, arid miserable-looking. In the two or three villages on the road the windows were broken, the doors, walls, and roofs pitted and perforated with shot and shell. Rudeltz is the name of tbe lait place where the French made 'a stand. ■ The houses were shut up. A few women, children, and old men haunted thedoorsof these shattered dwellings. One village Restaurant was a specimen of all. a W« hate nothing," said the.oldmanj "no

breaif^Hb^ wine," n6 v meat7 no corn. All" is gone. God help us !" He said that the French drew the plugs out of the casks when they had drunk enough to prevent the Prussians refreshing themselves in pursuit. Everything confirms the impression that the great battle of Woerth was an accident, and the belief gains -ground that M'Mahon, like Douay, had no idea of the force to which he was opposed when he attacked it. At the Prussian Headquarters it was a surprise, and the outpost firmg } which extended along the ridge over the Woerth rivulet (a few yards broad and a yard deep) was not considered serious till the French displayed a great line of artillery on the ridges, and opened a furious cannonade. Had the corps on the Prussian left kept more in front, and had the Bavarians coming from Wissembourg pressed on more rapidly and come on the French left, their escape would have been almost impossible. As it was, when the heavy cavalry repulsed in their charge round through the battalions in the rear, masses of men threw down their arms. Their fighting at Nechwiller was grand. The Prussian Generals say they never witnessed anything more brilliant. But the Prussians were not to be denied. With tenacity as great, and a fierce resolution, they pressed on over the rivulet, up heights where the vineyards dripped with blood, and, checked again and again, still pressed on with a furious intrepidity which the enemy could not withstand in that desperate fight of six long hours, during which the battle raged in full vehemence. It lasted, indeed, for 13 hours, and at one time the French gained ground and got down on to the ridge on the left ; but the main stress of the day was on a narrow front of some two and a half miles along the stream at each side of Woerth, and the final stand was made by Reichshofen and Nechwiller, from which the French retreated by several roads through a very difficult country, by Neiderbronu, &c, on Bitsche. The Vienna correspondent of the Times writes :— lf then we and Italy went with France, Russia would immediately step in. We should of courae stir up the Polish question as the most vulnerable point ; Russia would take her revenge on the Danube. This would drive in Turkey, and ultimately you. I have proofs that this is not imagination. Since the arrival of Latour, the new French Minister, the French play the part of tempter. " Everyone knows the schemes of Russia," says the tempter ; " you better than any one. You know that all the Slavonic populations have been worked upon for years, and the Muscovite party make no secret of it that Austria and Hungary are the real obstacles to the union of all Slavonia now under Russia. If you wait till Russia is prepared you will not be able to resist, single-handed as you will be. Don't imagine that France, or any one else will make war pour vos beaux yeux. Now is the time to avert this danger for ever. Russia is unprepared, we hold Prussia in check, Turkey is ready to join, Italy will come up in line, we can checkmate the whole PrussoRußsian combination for years to come. You are close to Poland; have means of action; we restore old Poland, which united with you will be a permanent check to Russia as well as to Prussia; we make a Southern German Confederation, and there is an end to all your troubles." It must be allowed that this sounds plausible enough, and if Italy yields we can scarcely do otherwise. Besides Latour, there are other unofficial agents working here and in Italy in the same direction. If they succeed, well and good ; if not, there is another way to set matters going. There are the Polish emigrants in Paris. Whatever we do, we shall not be able to prevent action on their part in Poland. Remember that we are a constitutional country, and that we cannot have a soldier and a policeman all along the frontier line which separates Galicia from Russian Poland. Bands of 20 to 30 men are easily formed and can easily pass the frontier before we know it, and then the row with Russia is at hand. The work at the fortifications of Paris continues, and the papers say that the Ministers have decided to take it in tun to visit them. Every day one pf them will make the round, accompanied by competent professional persons,' and sajtisfy himself that the utmost is being done to accelera c their completion. So far as I can judge, this measure is not supported by public opinion. Nothing could be better devised to alarm the Parisians than the threat thus conveyed of a probable siege. I have not been there to see, but I believe there is not the slightest doubt that the axe was yesterday at work in the Bois dm Boulogne. Now, if so, this really is an absurd and odious proceeding, against which it is to be hoped the Paris Press will lift up its voice loudly. It is ridiculous to suppose that Paris will ever stand a siege. To say nothing of the impossibility of provisioning it for any length of time (how are stores to be laid in for two millions of people when it took so long to collect supplies for an army of 300,000 men ?), how long do you suppose the Parisians would endure a siege ? As soon aB the enemy got near enough to throw shells into the city there would be a panic and a clamour for surrender, and if the authorities resisted a revolution would certainly ensue. Moreover, it is not believed the Prussians will come here, even if victorious. Faith is placed in the intervention of neutral Europe. It is folly to allow the corps dv genie to deprive Paris of its greatest ornament and chief attraction. The Bois de Boulogne, as it now exists, is one of the mott beautiful features of this fascinating capital, and certainly largely contributes — more so, perhaps, than anything else — to attract hither and retain here the crowd of wealthy and pleasure-loving foreigners who annually spend to many millions in Paris. To destroy a thing which it would take scores of years and enormous sums to re-establish in its present state, and of which the destruction would positively b« an annual hear/ lon of re-

venue to -the city and trade of Paris, and to do so for strategical reasons on the chance of Paris standing a siege, is perfectly monstrous. At Strasburg and Metz, frontier fortresses, one can perfectly understand that they are pulling down houses and cutting do wo trees aud making the inhabitants lay in six weeks' stock of provisions, but here the case is very different. When the fortifications of Paris were constructed there may have been reason for supposing they might one day offer effectual resistance to an invader, but none then foresaw the improvements that have since been ma )e in artillery. . . Under the heading " Seizure of Arms," the Figaro gives the following details : — " About 3 o'clock in the afternoon a roan was passing along the Rue Poissoniere, apparently bendiog under the weight of a box resembling a hatbox, which he carried by the handle. Passersby noticed his movements with some curiosity. A police-officer approached, asked him what he carried, and on his hesitating to reply took him by the collar. But the man who was young and vigorous, shook himself free by a sudden movement, and, dropping his load, made his escape, A baker, however, threw himself upon him, and notwithstanding his resistance and a horrible bite on the cheek which the fugitive gave him, succeeded in keeping his hold till the arrival of the police who took him to the station on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, to which the suspicious box had already been removed. This was opened in presence of its bearer, and found to contain 12 dagger?, 12 revolvers, aud 600 cartridges. On being questioned, the prisoner stated that his name was Larguien, that he was 23 years of age, and lived at Belleville. During the interrogatory M. Fouquetol, a peace officer, remarked that an individual who had slid furtively into the station was taking down the name of the man who had been arrested. He was at once asked who he was, and what he did there. ' You are taking the name of this man " the officer said ; 'are you a journalist ? If so, I shall nuroh you back between four soldiers to the office of ttie newspaper.' As he refused to answer, M. Fouquetol gave orders for his arrest, and it then appeared that he was a valet de chamhre who had been out of situation for three months ; that was all that c mid be extracted from him. He was sent with the first prisoner to gaol, and meanwhile, upon a report that other arms were concealed in the same neighbourhood, a rigid search was instituted. In a few minutes afterwards, in a courtyard in the Hue d'Argent, a second case of arms was found, and at the moment that it was being carried off a man said that the box had bean brought out of the house where he lived, 37, Kue d'Aboukir, and there might be others there still. And, in fact, M. Fouquetol discovered before long, in a room in this house, belonging to a lodger who was absent, a third box, filled, like the two others, with daggers and revolvers. These revolvers are of Belgian manufacture, and seem to have been made for importa 1 ion. They are six-barrelled and of the same calibre as the pistols with which the cavalry are armed. As to the da ggers, in a strong hand these would form a most terrible weapon, and it is easy to see that they have been made by clever and exj.ert workmen. The blade, which is triangular and about a foot in length, is one with the h indie, which is round, unpolished, and made with a hollow, bo as to give it a belter grasp. The top is pierced with a hole intended for the reception of a strong cord to be rolled around the wrist. Without other commentary upon the seizure of arms, which shows too well that our most implacable and most dreaded enemies are not those with whom our soldiers are fighting, we shall content ourselveß with reproducing the cynical answer given by the man who was stopped and made prisoner — ' We know well that the National Guards will not dare to cross bayonets with us. With this dagger we will settle them (nous leur ferons leur affaire !) ' " The tables have been turned upon the French. A nation which for two centuries has considered it as a natural right to invade and ravage the divided States of Germany is in turn overrun and defeated by its neighbours, united at last. A race which has long regarded it as one of its legitimate prerogatives to interfere with the concerns of this pacific country finds the scorned foreigner established on its soil and about to dictate the terms of peace. A people whose vanity overlooked the accidental circumstances which at different periods bad given it a temporary preponderance have to encounter defeat as sudden as it is signal and likely to be complete. The consequences of this tremendous catastrophe will probably be no less notable than the primary reasons which have brought it about. If Napoleon 111. is not the strategical genius his uncle was, if the Germans in 1870 meet the enemy in a body instead of allowing themselves to be individually crushed as in 1800, and if patriotism, liberty, and self-government are to-day more potent and inspiriting agencies in this country than in France, it follows that the results of the present campaign must be very different from the a hievements of the French 70 years ago. For this bitter disappointment the French have to thank themselves. Blinded by extreme self-complacency, they have never cared to inquire whether the Germans, whom they affected to look down upon, were not morally, intellectually, amd numerically, to say the least, quite as strong as themselves. Because it Buited their favourite conceits to fancy the Germans a mass of mutually hostile tribes now, as formerly, they have, on the contrary, clung to the traditions of the olden time, ignored all the changes that had happened, and ultimately attempted to hector a great and united nation as they did its petty principalities in periods gone by. They knew little of German literature and nothing of German life as they had developed in the list few generations; they never travelled in Germany to probe the morals and test the general acquirements of tba inhabitant*; thejr solelj relied for their

knowledge of Germany upon the remembrance of the obsolete Rhine-Bund epoch and the reports of a dozen purblind diplomatists who thought they knew the Courts, but could not even pretend to say they knew the people. Ignorance, superciliousness, and the unreflecting lerity of their race at length combined t) create that morbid disposition of the public mind in France which encouraged her Imperial muster to try and amuse his subjects and curry favour with his army by a sanguinary promenade on the other side of the frontier. 8o the trip to Berlin was undertaken. Like other nutumnal excursions, it was to combine pleasure and invigoration. It was to be sport, agreeable and wholesome. Uf course, those Prussians could not prevent it. But what occurred ? To-day the august traveller and those that accompanied and advised him are already arrested in their pro gress, and likely to pay the penalty of the rash journey before long. I say to pay the penalty. Though tie Germans are too sensible to interfere with the domestic politics of their neighbours, and are sure not to imitate the Napoleonic example of attempting to remodel foreign lands, it is probable their armies will not leave France until some sufficient guarantee has been exacted against the periodical recurrence of these wanton attacks.