ARMIES CAPTURED IN WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11756, 21 July 1916, Page 6

ARMIES CAPTURED IN WAR.

SOME NOTABLE SURRENDERS.

A pronounced feature of the present war is that, with, one exception, sensational surrenders of large bodies or" men havo been conspicuously absent. This is all the more remarkable inasmuch as whole army corps havo frequently, been in imminent danger of capture. It will be remembered that early in the present campaign, General' Hindenbnrg extricated his forces from a position within an aco of becoming a ring of Russian steel, and on other occasions, notably at Vilna, the Russians, in turn, were in grave peril of fatal envelopment. In the torrential invasion of Russian soil last summer, despito the fact that some 100,000 square miles of territory were overrun, the biggest bag of prisoners the enemy could' make at one time was the twenty odd thousand,defenders of Novo Gcorgievisk. Again, in the itcent i-ud more striking instance- afforded by Serbia, it might have been thought that if ever sensational surrenders of men in this war were to come about it would bo here, but on no single occasion have tho number of prisoners run past four figures, considerably less, indeed, than tho Germans captured by the French in the Champagne district on that famous day of the great advance in September. The one exception referred to, a striking one, was the fall of Przemsyl, when 128.000 capitulated. NAPOLEON'S COUPS.

Very different Jt was with other great campaigns, the fates of nations being as ol'ten as not decided by tho wholesale corralling of lighting men by the victors. Three days after Napoleon entered Berlin, and exactly a fortnight after fatal Jena, the entire army under Hohcnlohe surrendered stock, lock ana barrel, to the Dictator, and a few days later the army of the grim old veteran. Blucher followed suit. Jn the heyday of Napoleon's triumph, the Spaniards did what was an.unprecedented deed for them ; they forced the French army under General Dupont to surrender: but its numbers amounted to less than an army corps. It was in tho same year that Napoleon strove almost frantically by ■ tho aid of the most marvellously ground covering performance ever ascribed to a French army to compel the surrender of Sir John Moore and his army, but he was dealing with men of iron resolution who, though starving and in rags, preferred death to captivity, and to his mingled d'isgust and admiration he failed to hinder the embarkation. No general of modern times fought moro sanguinary battles than Napoleon, and gave so comparatively few men away in prisoners. Even Waterloo, with its panic stricken finish, did nob witness the capituLt. O.i of an a;my, or even an appreciable part of one, though it came*to all the same thing in the end. His " Grand Armee " which invaded Russia melted away, not by surrender, however, but by death, and, probably, tho most serious bag of prisoners his enemies ever took from fiim at one time was the 52,000 men, half of them sick and wounded, which were left in and around the city of Leipsic when it fell. AUSTRIAN DISASTERS. How different was it "with Austrian generals, who frequently gambled the lives of men without any masterly genius to redeem the speculation. The great Austrian army which disputed supremacy with the Prussians at Sadowa was first riddled by death and then scooped up by capture. So, too, was the fate or an Austrian army at Austerlitz, while at the famous capitulation of Ulm, the Austrians laid down their arms to a man. The Russians, on the other hand, have long been celebrated for their skill in coming out of desperate positions with the least possible loss of personnel and material. It was so in tho .great' battles of the early nineteenth century, and they suffered no less than ; twenty, more or less, severe defeats in the year 1812 and still kept their, army intact. This remarkable characteristic is '-largely duo to the grim desperation with which Russian soldiers fight rearguard actions. Even in the war with Japan, the Russians, though they were hopelessly beaten again and again, defied the Japs to capture more than 20,000 of their men in any one of the mighty battles. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. When Vicksburg fell to the Federals in 15.63 the long-drawn-oat American Civil War was viitually decided, though it continued for many months longer, and 31,000 soidiorsjaid down their arms and yielded up 172 cannon. Tho actual end of the war saw a much larger surrender of men, but tbey were not ; n reality prisoners, for the Federal general generously put them on paiole. The fall of Karsto tho Russians in tho year of the Crimean campaign resulted in a losj of 25,000 men to the Turkish army, not-to mention fully -300 big guns. The Crimean campaign itself bad nothing to show on either side to equal these figures, yet it dragged en for over a year. Celebrated Plevna when it succumbed to the Russians after four tremendous attempts, gave tho victors a further unwelcome surprise. Instead of tens of thousands of prisoners they had less than 14.000. A more impressive phase- of war than a brave but stricken army lining up for surrender cannot well be pictured. France was fated more than once during fatal 1870 to fill such a picture. At Sedan the army of Marshal M'Mnhon. comcied, hard up against the Belgian frontier, laid down its the .surrender embracing fully 120.000 soldiers, among them forty generals and an ernperort Metz, though not so sensational a capitulation, was much more d'jastrous, almost three times the above total of prisoners falling to tho Germans.