STRANGE BATTLE-CRIES.
MADE FROM INITIAL LETTERS OP
SENTENCES,
The practice, peculiar to wartime, of forming jrords from the initial of sentences, has one great disadvantage. It is almost always possible to make up from letters in question another phrase having an altogether different meaning. Tii us the new German battle-cry, "Hidekk !" is made up of the first letters in the phrase: " Hauptsach© is* das England Kei'e Kriegt," which freejy translated, means, "The main thinji ii/that England shall get a good hiding* But Tommy has cvoHod a new reading, as follows: "Huns, if defeated, ejaetf-, late 'Kamerad, Kamerad'!" This is on a par with the battle-cry invented by the Austnans for the war of 1866, and which consisted of a word made fn.m the five vowels—A X I 0 U —and pronounced like "Yeoy." The cry was mado up from the initial letters of the sentence-. "Austria esi impernre orbi univen>o" : a free rendering of which is, "Austria's empire .'a over all universal."' Unfortunately, however, tho war resulted disastrously for Austria. Whereupon her enemies promulgated an entirely new meaning: "Austria's empire is outed utterly."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19190515.2.50
Bibliographic details
Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17571, 15 May 1919, Page 5
Word Count
183STRANGE BATTLE-CRIES. Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17571, 15 May 1919, Page 5
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