MEMORIES OF WAR AND PEACE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5427, 30 November 1895, Page 1

MEMORIES OF WAR AND PEACE.

[bt abchibald tobbei.] By nniveral consent Mr Archibald Forbes has no compeer as a war correspondent, and few possibly could equal him as a chronicler of hair-breadth 'scapes by sea or land. His life has been fnll of striking episodes and noteworthy encounters, the full history of which has yet to be written. The instalments vouchsafed ua from time to time have been eagerly scanned, and the last, that' under notice, is replete with moving incidents . of an exciting career. Its atyle is the man: dashing and flexible, fitting itself to snbjeots both grave and gay. Mr Forbes is not far off sixty yeara of age, and he does not appear to have "found his vocation" till his thirty-third year. Before that period he had been dragoon, soribbler, editor. Of the Franco* German war, during which he won hia spurs and received, in the oompany of more prominently-placed personages, jxia "baptism of fire," Mr Forbes has tome striking atones to tell. When at Baar. briicken they were expecting that the Frenoh Army Corps might overwhelm the town at any moment, and a young German girl came to say farewell to her sweetheart, a sergeant ot the Hohenzollerns. Some ot the livelier spirits who knew tho facts SUGOXBTSD TEAT THB PAIS BHOULD Qs)T HABBIED before the farewell ahonld be said. Both were willing, and all waa hurriedly got in readiness for the ceremony, whan the bugle Bounded the alarm :— -"The bridegroom hurriedly embraced the bride, buckled on his accoutrements, and darted off to the plaoe of rendezvous. In ten minutes more the combat was in foil intensity* the Frenoh had carried the heights overhanging the town, and were pouring down npon it thoir artillery and mitrailleuse fire. Our hotel waa right in the lino of fire, and soon became exceedingly disagreeable quarters. We got the women down into the cellar, and waited for events. A shell crashed into the kitchen, burst inside the cooking stove, and blew the wedding breakfast, which was stall being kept hot, into what att American colleague called ' everlasting smash.' It was too hot to stay there, and everybody manotnvred strategically to the rear. A few, days later waa fought, close to Saarbriloken.the desperate battle of the Spicheren, in which the bridegroom's regiment took a leading part. The day after the battle I Was wandering over the. field helping to relieve the wounded, and gazing shndderingly on the heaps of dead. Suddenly I came pn , our bridegroom, in a sitting posture, with his back resting againßt a stump. He was -tone dead, with a bullet through hia throat!" " '' '

A THRILLING EPISODE, ' Perhapß the moßt thrilling episode ia the colossal struggle of 1870 was, Mr Forbes thinks, . the singularly dramatio climax of ; the battle of Gravelotte. The long summer day of was waning into dusk, and the fortunes of the battle still trembled in the balance, when the last reserve of the Germans went forward into the conflict :— " The strain ot the orisiß was sickening as we waited for the issue in a sort of rapt spasm of sombre silence. The old King sat with his baok against a wall on a ladder, one end of which rested on a broken gun-oarriage, the other on a dead horse. Bismarck, with an elaborate assumption of coolness whioh his restlessness belied, made pre* tence to be reading letters. The roar of the olose battle swelled and deepened, till the very ground trembled- beneath üb. The night fell like a pall, but the blaze of an adjacent conflagration Ht up the anxious group here by the churchyard wall. From out the medley of broken troops littering the slope in front nwe suddenly a great shout, that grew in volume as it rolled nearer. The hoofs of a galloping horse rattled on the causeway. A moment later Moltke, hia face for once quivering with excitement, sprang from the saddle, and, running towards the King, cried out: 'It is good for us; we have restored the position, and the victory is with your Majesty 1' The King sprang to his feet with a fervent 'God he thanked!' and then burst into tears." Bismarok, with a great sigh of relief, crushed' his letters in the hollow of his hand, and a simultaneous "Hurrah!" welcomed the glad tidings.

THE IDEAL WAB COBRIBPONDXNT.

Mr Forbes tells us that in the short space of ten years he witnessed the great war in France, the suppression of the Commune, the Servian campaign, the EussoTurkish war, and the campaigns in Afghanistan and. Zulnland. His conception of the functions and qualifications of an ideal war correspondent, as set forth in the following passage, ia a very lofty one: —•" In my day-dreams, indulged in mostly when smarting under the consciousness of my own deficiencies, I have tried to thinkout the attributes that ought to bo conoentrated in the ideal war correspondent. He ought to possess tho gift of tongues--' to be conversant with all European languages, a neat assortment of the Asiatic languages and a few of the Afrioan tongues, such as Abyssinian, Ashantee, Zulu and Soudanese. He ahonld have the sweet, angelio tamper of a woman, and be as affable aa if he were a politician canvassing for a vote; yet, at the aame time, be big and ugly enough to impress tha conviction that it would be highly unwise to take any liberties with him. The paragon war .correspondent should be able to ride anything that ohance may offer, from a giraffe to a rat; be able to ride one hundred miles at a Btretch, to go without food for a week if needful, and without sleep for as long; never to get tired— never to feel the sensation of a ' Blight sinking, you know;' and be able at the end of a ride— of a journey however long, arduous and Bleepless— to write round-hand for a foreign telegraph clerk ignorant of the correspondent's language at the rate of a column an hour for Biz or eight conßecntive houra; after whioh he should, bbb matter of course, gallop back to the soene of action without an hour's delay. He should be a competent judge of warfare, conversant with all military operations from the mounting of a corporal's guard to the disposition of an at my in the field. He onght to have supreme disregard for hostile fire when real duty calls upon him to expose himself to it ; and hia pulse should be aa calm when shells are bursting around him as if he were watching his boßom friend undergoing the ordeal of the marriage service. He must have a real instinct for the place and day of art impending combat; he must bo able to scent the coming battle from afar, and allow nothing to hinder him from getting forward in time to be a spectator of it. He should^ be ao constituted as to have an intuitive perception how the day hath gone; to be able to discern victory or defeat while as yet, to the spectator net so gifted, the field of strife seems confusion worse confounded; and so to rely on his own judgment as to venture, while the turmoil is dying away, . to turn hia back upon it, and ride off tho earliest hearer of tho momentous tidings, To cotter about waiting till the laat shot

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6* fired; to linger for returns of killed and wounded and for the measured reports of the commander 5 to be the chiffonnier of the rags of the battlefield— that is work whioh he must leave to hia helpers, if he he any such. Alas ! there never waa snoh a man as I have ideally depicted, and there never will be such a man." WARRIORS HB HAS KNOWN. Among the long list of distinguished soldiers Mr Forbes has known, ho mentions Moltke— "a singularly quiet and anoatentatioua man ;" the German, Russian and Frenoh Emperors ; Lord Napier, of Magdala ; and many others. Respecting Lord Wolseley, Mr Forbes says that "it seems no unfair deduction from that part to which he has been so often equal that .Lord Wolseley is likely to prove equal to any future that may come to him;" Sir Evelyn Wood he regards as "among the foremost military figures of our nation;" Sir.Redvera Buller as " the strongest soldier of the British Army today;" while Skobeleff, taking him all in all, ' was the moat remarkable man he has over known. .