SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

New Zealand Tablet, 28 October 1915, Page 17

SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

"'" "? GENERAL. \ ''• * - ': ■:■ Captain Riddle, V.C., who has had one of his legs amputated,/is a member of an old Northumbrian Catholic family., - Lance-Corporal Angus,. the Carluke Catholic soldier who was formerly a Glasgow. Celtic footballer, attended at Buckingham Palace on August 3, and was decorated with the Victoria Cross by his Majesty King George. ■.■■■/ • . c On the invitation of the War Office, a party of prominent Irishmen have left for a tour at the front. The party includes Sir Nugent Everard and The O'Mahony, two prominent Protestant Home Rulers. ' Anzac,' a term occurring so frequently in Gallipoli reports (says the Glasgow Observer) will be sought vainly on most-maps.. It is new," and derived from the initials of .' Australian (and) Now Zealand Army Corps.' Such a method of word coinage is, of course, not new. ' Cabal' came that way, and there are many other modern examples in commercial and financial terminology.

WIPED OUT TWICE. Mr. James O'Grady, M.P., who has lately returned from the front, says that Sir John French is emphatic in the statement that our men are better fighters than the Germans. The mention of the Royal Irish Regiment caused the Field Marshal's eyes to glisten as he remarked: ' The Royal Irish have been wiped out twice —I am their Colonel.' As one writer aptly puts it, the casualty lists are the best contradiction of the calumny that Irishmen have failed in their duty to the Empire. ' From the day the Munsters saved the gun in the retreat from Mons up to the latest exploit in Gallipoli, the Irish soldier has been where the fighting was fiercest and the issues involved most vital to the Allied cause.'

HEROIC JESUIT CHAPLAIN. Father Frank Devas, S.J. (son of the famous writer on Political Economy, Mr. Charles Devas) t who is acting as a chaplain with the Expeditionary Force in Gallipoli, has attained a wonderful reputation for coolness in the most trying circumstances. On one occasion recently, while a Turkish Taube was dropping bombs over the firing line, Father Devas, who was engaged in prayer, never so much as hesitated in a single word nor even looked up. His coolness is making a tremendous impression on the troops. Father Devas cannot be held back from the performance of his sacred duties. His great desire is to get into the thickest of the fighting, where he can be of real service to his soldier charges.' Chaplain with the 29th Division, he succeeded in hearing the confessions and giving Holy Communion to all the Catholic soldiers before that famous encounter on June 20. Few of the soldiers in that gallant charge came out unscathed.

ANOTHER CATHOLIC CHAPLAIN KILLED. In the list of casualties there appears the name of Father Leclerc, who has been killed, having met a heroic death on the western front. Father Leclerc was, before the outbreak of war, stationed at Kingston-on-Hull, and after hostilities had commenced he was appointed chaplain to the 3rd Battalion, 13th Regiment, of the French Army. It is reported that Father Leclerc was actually in the act of assisting the stretcherbearers in removing the wounded in a wood when a German shell exploded, killing him instantly. CUT COMMUNICATION WIRE WITH RIFLE SHOT. - A Jarrow Catholic soldier, Private Thos. Joyce, 2nd Durham Light Infantry, has rendered signal service to the country, and has given his life' in the cause

of freedom. He was a crack shot, and was presented on the field with a" certificate for distinguished - conduct-, this being a preliminary to his name . being gazetted! On the following \ day he was numbered -among thofie killed in action. Private Joyce, during the battle v tff Hooge, was, with an officer, separated from his comrades, and was for three days without food or water. During this time he saw v a German officer laying a communication wire to signal for the Germans to advance. He shot the officer, and with another shot split the wire, and thus probably saved many lives in the British lines. " . / '

A BRAVE SEMINARY PROFESSOR. Only the other day, at the ' Invalided, Paris, Commandant Parreau decorated a number of soldiers who had distinguished. themselves by their deeds of valor. Among those recipients of the ' medaille militaire,' which, like the Victoria Cross, is bestowed only on our heroes (writes the Paris correspondent of the Catholic Times), was a soldier, no-longer very young, who had lost his left arm and on whose faded uniform might be seen another decoration, earned, during the campaign, 'la croix de guerre.' This crippled soldier, twice honored by his country for distinguished service, was in times of peace a professor at the Seminary of Baltimore, U.S.A. M. l'Abbe Baisnee is a member of the Society of St. Sulpice, which directs the ecclesiastical seminary of Baltimore. When the war broke out he hastened back to France, being of an age to serve as a soldier in the ranks. He took up his new duties with a degree of energy indicating the excellence of the ecclesiastical training of our French priests. Instead of enfeebling their spirit, the severe discipline of St. Sulpice seems to bestow upon them extra strength and endurance. The Abbe Baisnee, who was wounded last October, has since lost his left arm; his fighting days are over, but his two decorations remain as a lasting honor to the Church to which he belongs.

MANY MEMBERS AT THE FRONT. An instance of the heroism of Catholic mothers is noted by an English daily paper. Remarking that English Catholics generally had responded nobly to their country's call, the writer points to the parish of St. Mary's, Grangetown, which has 200 members in the army; a third of the members of the Catholic Thrift Society are on service; and the majority of those associated with the Grangetown Irish Nationalist organisation are in the ranks. Three widows, who are members of the Catholic Church, have among them fourteen sons fighting,' says the writer; ' Mrs. Lagan has five, Mrs. Cowling five, and Mrs. Leneghan four. Not a few Catholic families in Grangetown have three sons in the service.' DISTINGUISHED CATHOLIC AVIATOR'S DEATH. Killed in his country's service before the completion of his 23rd year, Captain Gilbert William Roger Mapplebeck, D. 5.0., of the Royal Flying Corps, was the subject of a German proclamation issued some months ago. He flew to France on August 13 last year, and had been almost constantly engaged with our armies ever since. . The Daily Telegraph says : He joined, to his many excellent physical qualities a courage beyond compare and a very perfect chivalry, so that he came to be known in France not only as one of the first of our flying men, but also as one of the first of our gentlemen. His colleagues loved him.' He was the first British airman to carry out a reconnaissance over the enemy's lines, and later, was the first airman to drop bombs from an aeroplane. All through the dreadful retreat from Mons he flew over the harassing' hordes of the Germans, and to his stubborn friends below carried the message of the foe's movements. On September 29 he was shot in a duel with German aeroplanes while 6000 feet in the

air, yet managed to reach the British lines, though he was unconscious when he landed, and his machine was spattered with his blood. For three long months he lingered in hospital. Sir John French being one of his most frequent visitors. v He was awarded the D.S.O. in the New Year Honors, and after leaving hospital continued his gallant work in France. During the evening of March 11 ‘he was shot down just outside Lille. He set fire to his machine and lay three days in a wood, living on chocolate, which he carried with him. As he spoke good French, he made friends with the peasants, and by their aid steered a course for Holland, for to get to our own lines in France was quite impossible. Most of -the way he was in the very midst of German soldiery, only loitering at Lille to tear down a proclamation which the German commandant had posted respecting himself and a comrade. The proclamation, which was in French, ran as follows:

‘ Two English aviators, obliged to come to ground near Lille, on March 11, 1915, are still lying hid in this district. Anyone who has knowledge of their hiding-place must lay information immediately before the nearest military authority, from whom he will receive a reward proportionate to his information. Anyone who hides the above-mentioned Englishmen or assists them to escape will be condemned to the penalty of death. The commune will also be punished with equal severity.’

A description followed, and the proclamation was signed by the District Commandant. Captain Mapplebeck reached Holland, posing as a French peasant, and reported himself at Farnborough on April 4, aftercoming to England. ‘ Soon afterwards,’ says the Daily Telegraph, ‘Captain Mapplebeck returned to France with the rank of Acting Flight Commander, the youngest on record. And now he is dead, leaving behind him a stainless memory as sweet and pure as the air he loved.’

LEVELLING CLASS DISTINCTIONS. r The following interesting instance of the war's effect in lessening class distinctions in France lias been published in an English paper: Some days ago a luxurious motor car drew up in front of a restaurant in a town in the Midi, and a beautiful girl in white—a bride obviously—got out, and gave her hand to a young soldier, the bridegroom, who bore the military medal on his breast. He was a tall, handsome, robust young man, but his steps faltered, and he leaned pathetically on the arm of his charming bride. For he was blind. And this is his story:

The bride is the only child of a great landowner. The bridegroom is the son of a farmer on the estate. And they had met and loved each other in the days before the war. Two years ago even, the farmer, greatly daring for his son’s sake, had put on his old frock coat and coeval top hat and gone up to the big house to urge the boy’s suit. He was met with a blank refusal and told none too kindly that what he proposed was an impossible mesalliance. And then came the war. The young folk—in spite of their parents — kept up a correspondence. : On the eve of mobilisation the farmer’s son wrote ‘ I leave to-morrow and may never see you again. If I die you will be free. You will forget me, perhaps, xrrarry in your own rank and be happy.’ But the girl would not have it thus. ‘Do your duty, and your whole duty,’ she wrote, ‘ but do not expose yourself madly. I shall wait for you. Your death would mean ray death, too.’ At the battle of the Marne the young soldier, by that time a sergeant, distinguished himself by an action of conspicuous bravery, and his name was proposed for the military medal. A few days later he was struck by a fragment of shell and sent to a central hospital.

Three months later he was convalescent, and returned to his home—with the military medal, but

without his sight. • He dared no longer think of marriage, and wrote to release her he loved. Then it was she found the courage to approach her: stern father. ..* Father/ she asked, ‘do you still oppose our marriage?’ The old.man kissed her,. ‘No, my child,’ he said. ‘I withdraw my opposition. Your lover’s noble wound is a dowry which equals yours in my sight.’ A few days later they were married. What a pity,’ said the bridegroom’s mother to him, sadly, ‘ that you cannot see your wife’s beauty.’ ‘No,’ replied the young soldier, ‘ do not pity me. I can see her as I used to see her, and perhaps better than any one else. • And there is this, too. Years may pass, and white hairs come, and the cruel inevitable lines of age, and I shall always see her the same as she was when ,we first confessed our love,' with her brown, heavy hair and her clear young eyes, and all her dower of freshness and of youth.’

RHEIMS CATHEDRAL. The Rev. H. B. Chapman (Anglican), rector of a London parish, visited the front recently, and made a special pilgrimage to Rheims. Here is a part of the account of what he saw: —' A large part of the city is in absolute ruins, and many of the streets are on the ground, while in those still standing isolated houses have been blown to pieces. The Rhemois must be brave folk, when one considers that out of 120,000 inhabitants 10,000 remain whose affairs keep them in the town in spite of the daily dangers to which they are exposed. It is computed that some 2000 civilians have been killed and wounded, but what to me was phenomenal was the calm of the people, who go about their ordinary tasks without a sign of fear or excitement.'

As to the frightful desolation and destruction wrought on the unique fabric of the Cathedral, Mr. Chapman reports: —‘If all roads lead to Rome, all streets seem to end in the Cathedral at Rheims, and as our car drew up in the open space outside I remembered how more than once I had drunk in its beauty and pictured the ceremony of the coronation by the Warrior Girl. The pity of it touched my heart, and I understood that no peace could be signed till such wrongs were expiated. The large doors, where many of the figures have been defaced, are propped up by sandbags, and the scene breathed a. desolation all its own. The Cathedral itself is standing, and, in the opinion of experts, is as yet capable of being repaired, out of, I sincerely trust, a German indemnity. Most of the exquisite glass is gone, and we collected plenty of fragments to remind us of our visit. There is only a trifle of the glorious rose window left, the chancel seats are burned, and a great oak door near the sacristy is bent almost into a semi-circle by the draught of a shell which burst in the passage immediately behind. Fortunately, all the capitals are intact, but it is early days to prophesy what further damage may de done. A hanging figure which remained uninjured where the mischief had been worse moved me to tears. The whole question of the outrage pivots on whether the French used the tower for a look-out, but the evidence to the contrary is irrefutable, though tire apostles of culture would certainly have done so themselves, and naturally credit their foe with their own lack of reverence.’