PRICE ON OFFICER'S HEAD

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2367, 25 January 1915, Page 6

PRICE ON OFFICER'S HEAD

i KAISER'S £1000 OFFER. ; YOUNG VICTORIAN'S PROWESS. \ The highest compliment that: has been >aid to any of the combatants'during he war was bestowed by the Kaiser on i young officer who is fighting on the ide of the Allies. "Almost incredible is it may seem," wrote the special corespondent of the "Daily Express" on November 22, "the Kaiser has offered i reward of £1000 for the body, dead .r alivo, of the officer commanding or iirecting the armoured trains which iave done so much to hamper tho oper.tions of tho Germans in ' Northern iVance and Western Belgium."

'. The chief interest of this statement or Australian readers lies. in the fact hat t'he officer thus singled out is an Id Melbourne boy,. Lieut. Lionel F. lobinson, R.N., eldest ' son of Mr. \ Robinson, managing director of the [ustraliau Knitting Mills-tit Richmond, nd nephew of Mr. Arthur Robinson, I.L.C. Lieut. Robinson was put on a übmarine at the outbreak of the war. lis gunnery record, however, was so ;ood that ho was transferred to Chatani for a time, and was instructor to DO men in gunnery. He was in charge f a portion of the Naval Brigade at Lntwerp, and fought for several days a the trenches there. He go>t his men way safely, and took part in further iiid fighting at Ostend. Then he was ut in charge of-an armoured train :at 'pros, where liis .work .attracted''much salted notice.. At. Christmas. he was iven a few days'-spell,-and-spent-the-olklays with his uncle at Old Buckenam Hall. Lieut. Robinson is 25 years f age. i "Large as the. amount may appear," iiys the correspondent, "it is small in omparison with the damage—moral as 'el! as material—done to the German roops by the armoured trains, and the iaiscr would, doubtless, consider even 0,000 marks well spent if it could rid im of such an obstaclo to his advance, 'he very fact of. so largo a reword beig.. iffejed shows to what an extent ho good shooting from the trains must avo affected the German operations; nd tho apparent impossibility of ever oing any serious harm to so mobile an ncmy nrest be exasperating to the : erman generals.

; "So far, tho trains themselves and Heir gunners have escaped almost unijured, but the damage they have done i known to their cost, by the Germans ho, have come within range of the rains' guns.

; "When I asked the commander how o liked having a price put on his head e merely smiled —he is a man of few lords. Presently though, in a burst f expansiveness, ho said, 'That's all !ght—l've. sent for three more guns.' " A paragraph in the "Daily Mail," ; om its special correspondent in Nortli-

rn France, confirms the story publish--5 in the "Daily Express." Five German rkoners vouched for its truth. The adds: — "I understand that His Imperial Ma•Siy is particularly exasperated at tlio jstruction caused among his crack reimenfa by this novel and highly or■inn? method of warfare. The comutrider upon whose head such a high rice has oeen fixed may well feel flatwed by this genuine if grudging apreciatibn of his work on the part of jo enemy."