WAR NOTES FROM LONDON

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11254, 7 December 1914, Page 3

WAR NOTES FROM LONDON

'TWAS-ON TRAFALGAR DAY. [Fhom Ovtr Correspondent.] LONDON, October 28. Some unofficial details of the bombardment of the German positions on the Belgian coast between Nieuport and I Middelkerke by a combined British and French squadron ou Trafalgar Day have boon published this week.. The vessels, it is stated, were in continuous action for twelve hours. The 1 action commenced at six in the mornI iug of Trafalgar Day, when the squadron, steaming some two miles off the shore, commenced shelling tho enemy's trenches, situated three miles inland, and the men remained at their posts until six in tho 'evening. Tho firing was incessant, and during that time one British vessel alone fired no fewer than a thousand lyddite and shrapnel shells. Tho firing of tho squadron is said to •have caused the greatest execution in the German trenches and batteries among the dunes, and between them tho vessels of the Allies succeeded in destroying a German battery, of field artillery, dispersed a Germau bridging train collected to force a passage of tho Yser, blew up an ammunition column, killed General vou Tripp and the whole of his staff, and by the fierceness of tbeir fire compelled the enemy to evacuate their position before Nieuport. The firing was so rapid that some 'of the guns discharged fourteen projectiles a minute. The damage done to the enemy was clearly discernible from the vessels.

An attempt on the part of the enemy to get their range by sending up an aeroplane which dropped smoke balls proved ineffective, and so terrible was the result of the squadron's fire that at the end of the day the whole coast for a distance of four'niiles, from Nieuport to "VVestende, which at the beginning of tho action was strongly held by the enemy, had been completely evacuated, and was a dense mass of black smoko and flame. It is reported that in the action the Germans lost at least four thousand killed and wounded, as . a result of the hail of naval projectiles. The composition of the forces operating on the Belgian, coast is kept secret to a great extent, but apparently Rear-Admiral Hood, who is in command, has, in addition to three "monitors," a number of comparatively old-fashioned vessels of light draught which, though as the Admiralty statement naivelv puts it, are "not of great naval value," are just the sort of craft suitable for this particular class of work. Well, after all, the naval value of any vessel consists entirely in the use to which its commanding officer can put it, and if vessels like the old sloop Wildfire—dating back to 1888, and the Myrmidon—a fourteen-year-old destroyer, are not of much value as fighting ships, they are proving themselves very useful adjuncts to our land forces. When we first heard of " monitors being used off the Belgian coast, most of us were puzzled, for none of the usual reference books credited the British navy with possession of vessels under this "denomination. It transpires, however, that the craft in question were three gunboats designed for river work, under construction for Brazil, which were quietly transferred to our fleet. They are exceedingly useful boats of their kind, having displacement of 1250 tons, with an armoured belt two and a half inches thick,, a mean draught of five feet,, and a speed of eleven knots. They carry two 6-incb guns in armoured turrets, and two 4.7 howitzers, besides smaller guns. Their complement is about one hundred. The shallow draught of these vessels and of the other vessels of the squadron makes it difficult for tho German submarines accurately to fire a torpedo at them while the submarines are submerged; and if they were to emerge they would bo exposed to instant destruction. The submarine is designed to discharge a torpedo at a depth of fifteen to twenty feet, at which level it would strike a heavy ship in its most vulnerable place, but when the target is much higher in the water the chances of the submarine gunner ' getting home" are very greatly reduced, not onlv because the target is so much smaller, but because, apparently, torpedoes, fired to hit vessels of such light draught are very apt to go_ wide of their mark owing to the conditions existing near the surface of the ocean. The operations of Admiral Hoods squadron give an interesting example of combined under water, on the surface, and air attack. Presumably the aeroplanes and balloons can give the range to the ships, from whose decks the country beyond the sand-dunes adjoining the beach would be visible. While the ships are bombarding unseen trenches and stretches of,road, they are exposed to attack from beneath the water. It is a spectacle new in the history of the world. Incidentally, it appears that an unfortified coast from the edge of the sea to five or ten miles inland, in the absence of a defending naval force, can be made impassable by an attacking naval force. And. again, it is to be remarked that, although submarines were at first supposed to be chiefly useful for coast defence, they have achieved their success in deep water and have failed, or partly failed, when employed in shallow water against shallow draught ships. Off Belgium our vessels, we are told, were " persistently attacked" by a submarine, but all its torpedoes went astray, and in the end the under-water craft was rammed and sunk by H.M.S. Badger. THE ALIEN'S WIFE. The wholesale "rounding up" of alien enemies "of military age" (a very elastic term this) which is now in progress in the Old Country has very materially increased the dimensions of tho charitable problem already acute, for many of the men seized are heads of families, and their internment raises the questiou of provision for their dependants. Before the new order came in force tho number of Austrians _ and Germans interned was comparatively small, but large numbers of them became destitute, or practically so, from the cessation of _ their employment. Either their particular labour became a drug in the market because the war had greatly decreased demands in certain directions, or they were "sacked " because their employer's had patriotic scruples which impelled them to dispense with the services of aliens of German or Austrian origin. The effects of the new order must, of course, be to greatly augment the number of women and children who must depend for their very existence upon charity. From facts collected by certain charitable organisations which have been dealing with distress caused by the war, it is shown that nearly 80 per cent of the wives of alien enemies who apply for assistance to the various societies in London are British by birth, and their children born in England are British. Over 2000 cases of destitute British born wives have already been dealt with by two societies in London alone. German born wives of men actually tinder arms in Germany or of men interned in this country are being assisted by the German Benevolent So-

ciety, which is dispensing uioney handed over to the American Embassy by the German Government. The wiyos of combatants receive sums varying from 10s to 30s. aecordiug to the -izo of their families, and wives of detained persons 10s to 22s a week. British born wives of Germau soldiers, and British wives of Germans interned in this country are provided for on a similar scalo by the War Fund of tho United Aliens Relief Society. This fund is provided by private charity, and is largely supported by tho wealthy Germans in this country. Tho wives of Austrian reservists who returned to Austria at the outbreak of war, and of Austrians interned in this country, have also hitherto been provided for by private charity. Now, however, tho Austrian Government is understood to have placed funds at the disposal of the Society of Friends working in conjunction with Austrian and Hungarian societies. Destitute wives of alien enemies who cannot for lack of papers or other reasons obtain this help, are being assisted by Boards cf Guardians, and the Local Government Board allows Boards to recover half the cost of maintenance, or of our relief, given to the wives of alien enemies interned in this country.

Many of the women (the greater number of whom are, as stated, British), whose homes are temporarily .broken up by the internment of their husbands, belong to a superior class, who will feel their position very keenly. Such help as is given to them only provides the barest means, of subsistence, and even that is not granted until a state of destitution is reached. And even when that stage conies upon them, they may not be able to obtain immediate relief, for the organisations concerned with its dispensation already find themselves hard pressed to cope' with the distress brought about by the war. .Even thus early, relief workers are faced daily by starvingBritish children, and thrifty, middleclass British-born women, whose homes are being sold -up to pay arrears of rent, or whose furniture is seized by the dealers under hire purchase contracts. The lot of the " alien enemy's " British wife, and children at this juncture is indeed unenviable. As always, "the woman pays." TRAITORS OF SORTS.

Whilst our Press is making great play with the alleged indifference of the authorities to the dangers in our midst in the shape of German and Austrian spies, it seems to ignore the presence ainoug us of people not of an alien race, whose chief occupation seems to be the invention aud dissemination of all manner of disaster rumours. On Saturday, whilst we were still shaken by the news of the torpedoing of the Hawke, a sinister tale began to make its way through the land, and was soon flying north, east, south and west at express speed, growing rapidly in strength and detail as it sped. It was told to me at twelve o'clock on Saturday that the cruiser Terrible, and another big battleship had been torpedoed in the North Sea, and a couple of hours later I was informed by a friend that he had been told that the name of the lost battleship was the Implacable, and that not a tenth of tho crews of either the cruiser or the battleship had been saved. The story as he had heard it was very circumstantial, and included a statement that survivors had been landed at Yarmouth and Harwich. My friend was certainly impressed with tho story he had heard, and left me profoundly disturbed in mind. A little later I h>eard quite a different version of the story, with the Indomitable as the central figure of the disaster and the cruiser left feut. An evening paper bought an hour later made no mention of the alleged catastrophe, nor did the final editions, published in the late evening. But the sinister rumour held the field in spite of the fact that the newspapers gave it no support, and it was not until the Sunday morning journals made their appearance that we could feel any certainty, that this disaster sto7y was pure invention. It would be very interesting to be able to trace the real source of this and other tales of disasters to British forces on land and sea, which come to hand with painful regularity—usually in nice time to give us a gloomy Saturday evening, or a Sabbath s mental disquietude. The ill-fated Antwerp expedition afforded the scare-taleniongers a rare opportunity for the exercise of their inventive faculties, and they made the most of it. The expedition, it will be remembered, included a number of naval volunteers. As a matter of cold fact, these volunteers suffered very few castialties, but it was assiduously put about London, and' possibly elsewhere, that they had been " fearfully cut up," chapter and verse given regarding the alleged wholesale slaughter of certain detachments. I had two friends in one particular section which was said to have been "practically annihilated." One of them was "touched up" by a spent shrapnel bullet, and was the only man of his company touched. The other man assures me that neither he nor his mates even so much as caught sight of a German soldier, and, though they did actually get into trenches somewhere outside Antwerp, they never even fired a shot. So far as can be ascertained at present, it appears that not a siugle naval volunteer was killed, and only a few slightly wounded, the British casualties being practically confined to the marines—a professional force liable to duty on land or sea. The stories concerning the naval volunteers circulated had caused untold anguish among the relatives of the men concerned before tho Admiralty was able to make positive statements concerning the losses incurred in this section of the expedition. Another " delightful" week-end frightener came to hand about the same time as the cruiser and battleship disaster tale. Someone conceived the idea of putting into circulation a report to the effect that General Smith-Dorrien and 20,000 British troops had been cut off from the main army in the North of Franco, and surrounded by a huge German force possesed of untold batteries of heavy artillery. This tale had quite a long innings, and before it was finally squashed the sum total of the troops under Smith-Dorrien was given as 40,000. If tho tale had survived a few hours longer, I have not tho slightest doubt the number would have been doubled; indeed, I am_ told that a version current in the Midlands on Saturday evening had exceeded even that numerical limit. These are only just a few samples of the sort of "news" Dame Rumour expresses all over the Kingdom, usually chooing a time when we are suffering from a touch of nerves produced by authenticated evil tidings. These tales were nicely timed' to catch us jnst whilst we were trying hard to persuade ourselves to look upon tho loss of the Hawke and tho great majority of her gallant crew as just another of those " regrettable incidents " which we must endeavour to accept as an inevitable accompaniment of the war, and not as a disaster over which to brood gloomily. According to some people, tlieso disaster tales are set afoot by Germans in pursuance of a- plan to wreck the British nerve, but no one really seems to be able to trace their actual source. The naval authorities, however, have now issued a warning to the public which amounts to this: "Believe nothing of what you hear or read unless it comes from responsible official quarters." BATTING BRITISH WOUNDED. A Dutch journalist tells a peculiarly revolting story of German brutality towards wounded and helpless British soldiers—a story that in the early days of the war I, for one, should have dismissed with a contemptuous "Don't believe it," but which to-day, unhappily, most of us are only too ready to accept as at any rate mainly true. The Dutch journalist says the incident came under his personal observation at Landen station on October 9, and says that ho is prepared to take the most sacred

oaths that ho has not exaggerated the fact in the least.

His story runs that when a, tram arrived atLanden from Brussels over 200 German soldiers assembled in the front of the open doors of catt.e truck in which, amongst some French, lav three English wounded. This Dutchman was told they had had no food for five days, and they were in a deplorable condition. Though some of the German soldiers wero themselves slightly wounded, xad there wero others in the crowd who had been told off to distribute, soup, they stood there making vulgar noises, and calling the three Englishmen lying in the dirty straw all sorts of offensive names. Those who wero disgracing their Red Cross duty hold the hot soup before the Englishmen and asked, ''Yon want to have food, swine?" Some then cried, '''Death to them. Be?t them to death. That is all they will get from us." Others pointed their rifles at the helpless, starving men, and spat in the faces of the English, being quite unmoved by the fact that the eves which stared at the tormentors had the glaze of approaching deato. "Two of the Englishmen," says the Dutch journalist, " after looking ravenously at the soup, shut their eyes, while tho third moaned and rolled h.s head." He adds:—"The onlookers seemed to think that this baiting_ of dying men was a merry entertainment." _ The Dutch correspondent describes himse't as dazed at'the inhumanity of the scene. His anger blazing, he went to a German non-commissioned officer and said, " What you are looking at is beastly. After all, these English are also men who have to do their duty, just as vou have." The answer he got was, 'Whatl doing their duty? They are swine—paid swine. They get money for their dirty work, these swine I" . Then the Dutchman says he "felt a desire to be a giant," so that he could hold the attackers with one hand help the wounded with the other. His heart " bled for the unhappy English., who lay consumed with fever" and at the mercy (save the mark!) of the callous German soldiery. It is hard for a decent-minded Britisher to believe such a tale as this. even when told against the Kaiser a fighting men. But a worse tale is being told concerning the fate of certain wounded men of the Coldstream Guards. It is a tale which, if true, and if it gets to +he ears of the mer. of that regiment, may easily transform honest fighting men into bloodthirsty fiends. If it is true, and the Coldstreams still at the front get to know it—well—l shouldn't like to be among the men themselves nor the enemy if it conies to hand to hand fighting. It will be a ci.se of "Remember Cawnpore " over again, only if possible more terrible.