MOBILISATION BY MISTAKE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1641, 7 January 1913, Page 3

MOBILISATION BY MISTAKE.

FKENCH FKONTIER"ALAEII. , -, ; (London "Daily Mail.") \\ j /; ' .',"■■..'■ ,'• Paris,' November. 27.;'. In consequence of tho'reported misinterpretation of a French mobilisation order affecting the 20th. Army Corps, staat Nancy, the reservists of nine communes on the Franco-German frontier,- numbering 'about .5000 men, were roused from their beds between midnight ,and one o'clock this morning, and ordered to join their regiments. Not until several hours later did it become known that a general mobilisation order had been issued by mistake. ' ' Less twin half ah hour after tho dispatch wits'" received orderlies were hurrying on' foot, on horse, and on bicycles to call up officers, civil officials, telegraph operators and railway employees. 'At one o'clock a detachment of military tele-' naph operators took" possession of the head,post office and'placed two squadrons on guard at the entrance. Other, sections were ordered to protect bridges, railwny lines, and public buildings. '• Railway men took up the positions alI'lotted to them,'and patrols of gendarmes and Customa officers marched to the frontier villages and stationed .themselves at the points-assigned to them. AH night lo\g the, tramp of armed men resounded in the streets, and regiments of infantry, cavalry,, and artillery left for the extreme point of St. Genevieve and the fort in the vicinity. ■ At five o'clock this morning, less than five hours after the order had been issued, ;the_ general mobilisation was. complote. Owing to some confusion a telegram relating to the mobilisation of the garrison of Nancy. reached a brigadier of gendarmerie named Blion in the town of Avricourt, near the German frontier. Ho at opened his sealed instructions and carried out the mobilisation orders. WIVES IN TEAKS. Church bells rang the alarm. Town I criers, at the bidding of the mayors, went round the villages waking.the reservists by beat of drum. Posters summoning to the .colours all men between twenty-five and''forty-five years of. ago were hastily pasted on tho .walls. Shortly, afterwards groups of men, most of them carrying little bundles containing a few porsonal effects, were hurrying along dark roads to the nearest railway station. In many cases they wore accompanied by their weeping wives and children, who were convinced that war-had at last broken out. Before it was realised that tho brigadier had been over-zealous some of tho reservists had reached Nancy and others had walked seven or eight miles to their posts. When at last the mistake was discovered gendarmes were dispatched along the main roads to send back the reservists. In several cases- the frontier peasants refused to believe that they were victims of a blunder, and it was with great reluctance that they Returned Id'their homes.' ;. This evening an official communication from tho War Office states that tho general mobilisation on the eastern frontier was due to the error of a gendarmcrio official, and'that no reservists had been called to the colours. Tho officer Blion who called up ; the reservists has heeu placed under arrest. 110 protests that tho telegram he received was explicit and precise, and that ho.only carried out his | orders. :..:'"'