UPPER SILESIA.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 11 August 1921, Page 2

UPPER SILESIA.

RAGGED ARMY OF BANDITS. (By Leonard Spray.) 1 have motored in the last two days through most of the area of Upper Silesia in. the hands of the Polish insurgents. My original impression has been strengthened that three bandits, scattered in small groups over a vast district, are a military parody that, except for a few larger formations under trained 1 leadership, could not offer resistance to any regular troops. Meantime, however, there they are, patrolling all the roads leading into the industrial cities with their German populations.

Our car was held up innumerable times, mostly by ragged boys whose casual handling of unaccustomed firearms was equally as dangerous to the challengers as to tho challenged.

Conditions in the' more remote countryside are reminiscent of the Wild West, judging by the stories one hears. Here are a few instances. . Two motor cars left Benthen to go across country to Cppeln with some wealthy business men. Their identity somehow was discovered, with tho result that six were kidnapped as by the bandits, who sent the others back to raise the ransom. On the vast.estate of the Prince of Pless, whose wife is English, the insurgents are having" the time of their lives shooting game and felling

The manager and general director of the Pless mines is a bitter enemy o the Polos, because he was head of i e organisation which mobilised over 200,000 German outvoters for tie plebiscite, BO the insurgents have offered a reward of 5,000,000 marks (nominally £250,000) for his capture. They will n«t get him, as I happen to know he escaped through the rebel lines in a motor-car completely disguised as a chauffeur, the other occupants naturally having due authorisation to pass.

Another German mine director, himself in freedom on the right sidle of the line, wished the consolation in exile of 2,000 bottles of wine in his cellar, or at any rate was determined that the bandits should not drink the contents. His well-organised blockade expedition succeeded.

No railway trains are running inside the occupied area,, and an attempt was made to-day to run mails from Kattowitz to Benthen in an armoured car. In the surrounded cities the congestion is becoming worse. Kattowitz alone has increased in population by 15,000 German fugitives from Polish villages. Food supplies, however, are likely to hold out for another week perhaps.

The ifiost serious discomfort in towns such as Kattowitz and Benthen is that of being kept awake most of the night by rifle firing and hand grenade throwing. This is a favorite sport of the younger rebels, who run into tho suburbs and discharge their weapons, taking care, however, not to hit anybody, in case they get caught.