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Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1142, 6 May 1885, Page 3

According to the leading French military journal (the Paris Avenir Militaire), the chief military adviser of the Mahdi is the ex-officer of the French army who blew up the powder magazine in the citadel of Laon during the, Franco-German war of 1870. As the German armies advanced on Paris the fortified town of Laon surrendered after a brief negotiation.. The Duke of Mecklenburg, who commanded the German column, entered the citadel with a battalion of rifles, when; as the last man of the Mobile Guard forming its garrison marched out, a terrific .explosion took place. The powder magazine had been blown up, according to the Avenir Militaire, by a Captain Verat, and by the explosion the Duke of Mecklenburg was wounded, 50 men of the rifle battalion were killed, and 45 more were injured. After the war Captain Verat is stated to have entered business as a money-lender ; but 'some discreditable actions in which he was implicated having been exposed, he was sentenced to a nne of 30,0C0f M and his name was struck off the roll of the Legion of Honor. Upon this Verat quitted France, and after some wandering found his way to Egypt, and ultimately, about, three years ago, entered .the service, of the Mahdi.