THE WAR IN EUROPE.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 793, 10 February 1871, Page 2

THE WAR IN EUROPE.

NOTES AND INCIDENTS. Places of shelter have been erected on on the ramparts of Paris, at short interrals for the National Guards, on dnty. these places have fires, and are protected overhead by a sloping roof of iron bars, Btrong enough to resists the fall of a shell. Several fatal accidents to National Guards on duty are reported in the journals, in most car.es caused by falling down the steep faces of the earthworks. • The balloon post is threatened with a new enemy. The Cologne Gazette mentions the passage through the town on Saturday of a balloon cannon, constructed by Krupp at Essen. It consists of a platform resting on four wheels, movable in all directions, from the centre of which an iron cylinder five feet high, rises obliquely. In the upper part of this cylinder a tolerably short gun is inserted, movable in all directions. The arrangement is something like chat of a large stationary telescopes. The range of the gun is 1300 or 1500 ft, Achille Bizzoni, writing from Bourg on the 10th November, thus gives his first impressions of the Garibaldian camp : — "We seem here in the midst of a bal masque. Thousands of different costumes . are to be seen. Children, at most sixteen years old, are camping in tbe mud of the fields, scarcely covered with a thin blue blouse, like those worn by our carters. The Bretons and Frenoh Garabaldians wear low broad-brimmed hats, like those in the opera "Dinorah." The Francstireurs all dress -unlike each other. The Mobiles, intermixed with the last remnants of the line, a few hussars between tbe dragoons and Chasseurs d'Afrique who escaped from the Prussians at Sedan and Metz ; hospital attendants, with the red cross od a white field, and amid this mass of soldiers, who are not serious, but careless, a number of women and children, who wander through the field in order to avoid the terrible enemy — such is the picture which, presents itself to me." :

A letter from Toulon, in the Messager dv Midi, communicated by Mr Reuter'a express, says : — " A ballon monte, which had been signalled by telegraph, was noticed in the clouds as it crossed over the Department of . Yaucluse, rushing towards the south with headlong speed. The instructions sent to tbe Departments bordering the sea ordered everyone to follow its course carefully, and to help it in case of need. It seems that it struck on the mountain top of the Sainte-Baume where the aeronauts at last were able.to alight, not on the ground, but in the mow, having travelled over 200 leagues in less than fifteen hours. This balloon had left Paris the day before, and in its flight had met with a whirlwind from the north-west, which earned it away like a feather, and prevented its conductors from descending, and thus avoiding the overwhelming * current- of an?. The travellers were at last able to fasten their grapnel on a rock, about a thousand metres above the level of the sea ; and it was high, time to. do so. At the first dawn of day they found they were in sight of the blue waves of the Mediterranean, where they would have run every risk of being drowned. The travellers and a hundred kilos of messages are already on their way to Tonrs."

There are in the ambulance both French and German soldiers, and it is carious to observe the different manner in which the French and the Germans support pain and bear the approaches of death. -It is natural that this war should often have raised the question which of the two nations- the- French or the German — is the bravest ? for, of course, the- reverses of the French and the facility with which they have sometimes given way in the battles of 1870 cannot be taken as decisive argument against them. There can be no doubt that ail northern nations, and perhaps the Teutonic race more than others, have a more gloomy idea of death than the southern races. The southern races either never think of death at all or thiuk of it in a more smiling light than the people of the north. It is difficult to understand, therefore, why the German should |tand with more firmness than the French^ and it would seem that it cannot be ascribed to the intrinsic bravery of the people, but to their training and to the presence of discipline. What one observes in hospitals, where wounded and dying soldiers of both armies are lying side by side, is very singular. The French do not- bear pain so well as the Germans. They scream and howl where the Germans will not utter a sound. The German soldier's fortitude in this, instance is owing, again, to the awe he .stands in of his superiors. But when the overwhelming terrors of inevitable death are upon them the German's training breaks down, and they give the most unmistakable signs of terror. The Frenchman, on the contrary, generally shows the greatest coolness and unconcern. This contrast was shown very powerfully the other day. A priest who had been administering a Bavarian soldier who was dying, stopped in another room at the bed of a Frenchman, who was in an equally hopeless condition, and told him that he was about to die, asking him if there was nothing he would like to do to make his way clear to heaven by confession and the viaticum. The French soldier, turning his eyes to the priest, answered with, the faint voice that remained in him, " I should like some beef tea."

A French paper gives the following account of the experience of one of the inhabitants of Strasburg during the siege : — " I had been established in Strasburg ' for many years, and my affairs had never been so prosperous as they were when the war broke out. On the approach of the enemy I sent away ray wife and family, but could not leave my warehouses and shops, lest when the town was taken they should be given up to pillage. The firii eight days all went well, the quarter I inhabited seemed to be spared; but on the ninth day a shell exploded in front of my house and broke all the windows on the ground floor. 1 thought it very prudent from that time to take refuge in my cellar. 1 had some provisions there, so that I seldom went out of it. I spent my days and evenings in reading, little thinking of what was about to befall me. On Saturday, the 10th, about midday, ivhile I was taking a meal, I heard a tremendous noise overhead. I ran to the stairs to ascertain the amount of damage doubtless caused by a shell falling into my house. I drew back terrified. The entrance of the cellar was stopped up by por« tions of the wall. The house had falitn in, and I was buried alive. What \» n •'*

through my mind in the first hour of my captivity I cannot adequately describe. I had fits of dumb anger, to which general exhaustion succeeded. By degrees I came to myself, for I must confess 1 completely lost my head ; I collected my ideas, and thought I remembered having during the day brought down a petroleum lamp. 1 felt my way to the piece of furniture on which I believed I had placed it, and by good fortune there it was. I lighted it instantly. It was then that I realised my fcrne situation ; all around me there were ruins ; the staircase no longer existed ; I could no longer deceive myself ; the house had fallen in, and this cellar wsts t>be my tomb. To clear the rubbish on that side was my only hope, and I b'^ran it with the fury of despair. Every br ck I took away made others fall ; the walls crumbled continually, and I was from one moment to another threatened with destruction by the ruins. Then my lamp went out for want of oil, and for a time I gave np all hope ; but the instinct of selfpreservation prevailed, and I set to work * rain in a sort of rage. 1 had been working, as it seemed to me, tn^re than two days, when the ceiling suddenly fell in ; a brick struck me on the head, and 1 fainted. How long I remained insensible 1 cannot tell. When I re-opened my eyes I perceived an opening above my head ; the stars were shining ; it was night. I suffered horribly, and dare not move for fear -of producing a fresh fall of masonry. J waited for day in mortal anxiety. As soon as I could realise my position hope returned. I made a heap j all round me, and clinging to a beam of the ceiling, I raised myself out of this cellar which had so nearly been my grave. Once ont of it, I again gave way. When I came to myself once more, I crouched down among the ruins of my abode, and wept for more than two houra. I had spent four days in that cellar. 1 went into it without one grey hair, and now. it is quite 'white. I. have aged more than twenty years in four days. As for my shops, all are burnt. I had worked for ten years to set up my family in tolerable comfort. My wife and I looked for an old age exemp^ from care ; now all must begin over again, and I see no prospect of anything but misery for our future days."