THE WAR IN EUROPE.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 809, 1 March 1871, Page 2

THE WAR IN EUROPE.

NOTES AND INCIDENTS. We have been favored with ihe follow ing narrative, dated Christiania, Dec 6th :— " On the 25th November, it wai reported that several papers, including i protocol in French, together with son* copies of the Gazette de France of th< same date had been found on an islan< about a quarter of a (Norwegian) mill fa.m, M&nclai (a seaport on the southern most extremity of Norway), and it wa! also reported that a, balloon had beer seen in the forenoon passing over the place in a northerly direction. The tal< is thus related by the balloon passengers themselves :— They went up from Paris in the balloon at 11.45 p.m. on the 24th November, with the intention of going south towards Tour 3. They passed the Prussian lines at a height of 800 metres, but still kept rising in order to get a different current of air. After the lapse of some time, having again descended, they heard a noise as of many locomotives, but soon found out, to their utter dismay, th-it they were drifting over the ocean. They saw several ships, and endeavored, by letting out a long rope touching the sea to check the speed of the balloon, and also hoping, possibly, to get help from some vessel, if they in their sight let themselves into the sea ; but they soon found this attempt to be fruitless, and they had to cut the line and rise again. They now let out a pigeon with a message of their distress, but with no hope of being saved. About 12 o'clock they say they seemed to perceive some fixed outlines looking like land covered with snow, but were not certain, and it soon vanished in the fog and clouds. Fancying again they heard the sea, they pulled open one of the mail-bags, and threw out some newspapers in order to rise higher vp — these were the Gazette de France found near Mandal — but a couple of hours after (cr about three in the afternoon), they felt as if something touched the car of the balloon, and on looking out they found themselves mov ing over and skirting the trees. At once they made up their minds to try and escape, and coming within a few metres

f the ground they let themselves out, nd, thanks t6 the deep snow, they were ot much injured, although one of hem gob rather badly torn in his and. Tired and exhausted both in iody and niind, one of them fainted, nd had to bo camuJ uider a fallen tree or shelter; the other then r jamed about, mt the dark soon setting in they renamed here during the night, and lept without any covering except heir rather thin clothes. The temleralure was five degrees freezing Reaumur), or 20 deg. Fahrenheit. Next uorning, after light broke, they comaenced roaming ab jut in the snow, not ;nowing in the least where they were, but npposed it to be Iceland. At leagth hey found to their joy a dilapidated touse, in which they kindled a fire, in irder, they said, to attract attention. Phis succeeded, and some people felling imber in the forest came and brought hem home, aud, of course, cared for hem, as best they could, but yet, not mowing the least of the language, they •emained utterly at a loss as to where ;hey were. At last one of the men proluced a match-box, on which ' Christiania' ,vas printed, and this told them they ,vere in Norway. By gesticulations they sxplained who they were, how they had' ;ome, and where they would go to ; and won the clergyman, and one or two others who could speak French, came to help, and, after seeing them properly slothed and provided for, sent them on in sledges, first to Konysberg and then to Dram men, where the occurrence was already known It was now all triumph, and about 200 of the good people of Dram men met the Parisians at the railway station, and brought them at once to the hotel, where everything was prepared to greet them. Next day they came to Christiania, where, likewise, numbers of people expected them, where a fete was arranged for them in the evening, attended by fully 1000 people. The extraordinary- risk the balloon passengers from Paris had run made their arrival here quite an event. Neither of the two had ever before made a jjnrney in a balloon, but one of them had once before been in a captive balloon. The place where the Frenchmen alighted was Lidfjild, a mountain about live Norwegian miles south-west of Konysberg (<»n the map marked 'Seljord.'). The distance from Paris to this place is about 840 English miles, and the time of the journey from a quarter to 12 Thursday evening to 3 next afternoon (15£ hours) make this the quickest and most extraordinary journey yet made by any one. The balloon travellers are now back again in France, and may be at this moment in the midst of a horrible battle. The names, 1 should mention, were given as M. Rolier, Captain in the Artillery, but formerly civil engineer, and the other Dechamps, and the carrier of despatches from Trochu to Gambetta. Both of them were young and pleasant but determinedlooking men." At Neuville and This, little villages near Warq, a terrible revenge upon the French was manifested by the enemy. A shot having been fired in the vicinity of the village — believed to have been fired by some Uhlan as a pretext, with a view to prove that he had been attacked— a large body of troops, commanded by a superior officer, a lieutenant-colonel, came to the spot, and committed excesses unworthy of any civilised people. The Gazette describes these cowardly acts at some length. The mayor, an old man of seventy-nine years of age, was tied to a horse's tail, and compelled to run after the animal until he fell senseless to the grountr. tuv— hicai nr*giatrraTß~assoctate(r with the mayor \ra3 then brutally beaten with a stick not in a way to be described. He was then stuck up against a wall to be shot, but succeeded in buying off his life for lOOOf ; and SOOOf more were exacted from the inhabitant! of this unfortunate village. The mayor's house was then burnt down, and the men all driven into the church, whilst the. soldiers ill-used the women and girls, who defended themselves with the energy of despair against their brnUlities. When this outrage had lasted for some time the officer gave the signal for departure, and the " brigands " all went away. It is satisfactory, however, to hear that a court martial took place afterwards, at the instance of some of these miserable people, and that, to stifle the affair, five of the Prussians were shot. Dr Russell, in one of his recent letters, asks what the garrison of Paris can mean by such constant firing from the forts? They often, he says, discharge a hundred projectiles without injuring a man or inducing the Germans to tire one shot in return:— "The other day some officers from each side had a friendly chat between two of the opposite outposts. The Prnasians asked the French why it was they fired so constantly with no apparent motive. The reply was, 'It is not we, the regular army ; it is those cochms les Guardes Mobiles.' These demonstrations from the forts, whether made by Gardes Mobile or regulars, have been useful to the enemy. German Generals know now the range of the guns on every fort, and they confess that the ordnance is not to be despised. Some of fche guns have an unexpectedly long range. They carry not only to the outposts but to the reserves. Projectiles fail in villages occupied by troops on the northern line of investment, but only now and then. They do little or ao damage, because their limits have been issertained and measures taken accordngly." General Ohanzy, in an order of the day o hia troops, communicates the text of a >rotest sent by him on the 26th Decem>er, under a fla? of truce, to the officer somniandiug the Prussian force at Venlome. General Chanzy adds that he is ure every one will share his indignation nd his desire to take revenge, for the nsults heaped upon the FreatSh "nation. he following is the protest :— " To the Russian Commandant at Vendome. I m informed that violence, for which I an find no language suitable to express \y indignation, has been resorted to by he troops uuder your command against n innocent population at St. Calais, otwithatanding their good treatment of our sick and wounded. Your offictr* aye extorted money and authorised piligo. This is an abuse of power which ill wouh against your conscience, lough patience may enable our couutrylen t » bear. it. But it cannot be perlitte 1 th.it you. should add to this injury gratuitous insult. You have alleged lat we are defeated. We have fought id held you in check since the 4th ecember. You have dared to treat as •wards men who could not answer you, that they submitted to the i

will of the Government of National Defence in resisting when they really wished for peace. I am justified in protesting^ against the statement by the resistangs^r of the whole of France, and by the resist- ' ance of the army whicb, up to the present time, you have not been able to conquer. We reassert what our struggle has already taught you; we shall struggle on, conscions of our good right, and determined to triumph at any cost. We shall struggle on a outrance, without truce or mercy. It is now no longer a question of fighting against a loyal enemy,, but against devastating hordes, whose sole object is the ruin and humiliation of a nation fighting for the preservation of its honor, its inde- ' 9 pendence, and the maintenance of its* rank. You reply to the generosity with which we treat your prisoners and wounded by insolence, by arson, and by pillage. I protest with indignation in the name of humanity and the law of nations which you trample under foot." This order of the day has been read three times to the French troops on parade. Whenever a great battle is fought, the historical name of the engagement is seldom immediately settled. Sadowa had at tirst another name, and Solferino only gradually eclipsed the pretensions of other localities. Bacon, or Baccon, according to the right spelling, is already dethroned; at any rate, General d'Aurellesde Paladin, in a telegram to his wife, designates the victory he gained under the walls of Orleans the battle of " Coulmiera," and that is now the generally accepted name. A letter has been received from Lady Pigot, who is now at Metz for the purpose of attending to the wounded, in which she states that there are no other English ladies at Metz. She adds that aha has to "rough it," but is well and happy. The Prussians she describes as " loud and consequential," the French as "pale and haggard." The Prussians seem to her ladyship, however, to be weary of the war. . Herr Wachenhusen states the Bavarians and Prussians fraternise most cordially, and during the whole campaign he has not heard of a single misunderstanding between them. The Bavarians pay great attention to the material side of life, and with their anxiety for. the menage they are a terror to the French peasant. "In % village lies, perhaps, already a battalion of North German troops. All is still and quiet in the peasants' cottages. The soldiers are polishin" their boots, stand in the open kitc.h§n and wash their shirts or peel the potatoes, A Bavarian column comes along the road, and suddenly there is a great commotion in the village. . The hens cackle, the cocks crow, the ducks and geese cry out for help. A few minutes afterwards all is again still, but no cock crows, no duck quacks any more, the inhabitants wring their hands over the cut-off heads, of their fowls which the column has left behind. 'All hope abandon,' l exclaim whenever I come through a village in. which I see the Bavarians cantoned. Their philosophy, however, is the right one, and I expressly guard myself against the suspicion of meaning any dispargenient. The Bavarians are the true war philosophers. Ala guerre coyvme ala guerre. People should not begin a war if they do not like its disadvantages. Since the cold has set in we see the Bavarians marching in their winter costume. Every garment that gives warmth is welcome to them. They hare discovered an excellent hood in the grayish blue capotes of the fallen Zouave and Jager, whose heirs they have thus become. One fancies it is a French battalion on seeing the grey hoods. The French woollen horsecloths, flhawls^jugs^ and plaids, whenever found, are valuable articles to wrap themselves up in ; a handkerchief tied round the head or ears is an indication to our people that their Bavarian comrades suffer much from tooth and ear-ache, Soni sovtqui malypeme! The soldier who in bitter cold and in storm and rain has to make marches, then suddenly to stand for hours at the rendezvous in the road, the soldier in all weathers and every condition must face the enemy, may well use care for his preservation on the march, and God knows many have been obliged to think of such things." With regard to the Garibaldians and the night attack on Dijon, a correspondent says :— " The Garibaldians advanced with quite theatrical effect. The beating of drums and ringing of bells formed the chief music, and Garibaldi's Hymn was also sung. • The well-aimed rounds of the Badeners soon silenced them, and they retired with considerable loss on finding that we were well prepared to receive them. Night favored their, retreat, and next morning showed that they had suffered much more than we had supposed. The road was strewn for miles with knapsacks and weapons. The finest weapons of precision were lying about, of almost the new system— Sniders, Remingtons. Peabodies, &c. At the beginning of the fight they showed signal bravery, and made several attacks ; but they were badly conducted, and the assailants were exposed to the destructive fire of our artillery. The corpses were thickly scattered up to Dijon. Garibaldi's cavalry, about 80 men, in fantastic dress, with red shirts and white burnous, veutured on a feeble attack, but were well received by our infantry. Some of the prisoners were brought in, Garibaldians and Mobiles. Among the latter 1 saw wild and defiant Paces. According to a captured officer, a Nizzard, Garibaldi commanded in person, and in spite of his gout was an hour on horseback ; but when the affair began to go wrong the staff and the general Trent off." Another account in the Carlsrvhe Gazette states that the Garibaldians were 3t)OU or 4000 strong, and had 400 killed and wounded, besides losing 200 prisoners. These represent Garibaldi as having been present in a carriage, the horse attached to which was killed by an exploding grenade, so that had not his men drawn away the carriage he would have been captured. The German loss was 65. The inhabitants of Dijon, while the fight was going on near the town, plundered some waggons, and were punished by a fine of LBOOO. Six Garibaldians who escaped were discovered in a muddy canal in the town, where they had passed the whole day. Amid great merriment they were drawn out. A curious report comes from the army be3ieging Paris. It is said that, in order o stop the exit and ingress of French carrier pigeons, the Germans have procured a large number of hawks, which they turn loose whenever a suspicious bird is seen upon the wing. These feathered Uhlans of the . air may do Moltke great service ; for almost the only chauce of sending official communicationi into the capital is by means of pigeons

brought out in the car of a balloon, and the very- sight of a hawk would be enough to tiiK. these flying messengers. To what aWfiuge pass have we come, when Ministers of State pass through the clouds, and Prussian kestrels chase French doves up and down the sky? There will hardly be a resource left to the beleagured city, unless the Parisians catch the fish of the Seine, and make water postmen of them, to be hooked or netted lower down the stream. Stories are told of despatches passing during the war concealed in the works of watches, and other unheard-of hiding places. But nothing can be more significant of the rigorous imprisonment of Paris than this novel hawking, where the German and French birds are to struggle in the atmosphere while the armies fight below. The Pali Mall Gazette has a letter from inside Paris, giving a vivid picture of the state of the city. At the Palais Royal and around the Bourse the money changers were either closed or refusing to do business, and even the Bank of France itself declined to change its larger notes for smaller ones ; as for getting coin for them, that had long since been impossible. As regards current gold coin, almost the only examples believed to b » in Paris are the pattern pieces at the Hotel des Monnaies. Should you stroll into the Bourse during the hours of business, you will find there a few agents de change in halfuniform of the National Guard, surrounded by some twenty clients who are doiug there utmost to emulate the familiar din of former days, by shouting out all together at the highest pinch of their roices the price of stocks, for which there are no buyers. The new Opera House has been utilised by the military authorities, who have converted it into a provision depot, soup-kitchen, an ambulance, and a magazine for equipments and noncombustible stores. Where the Boulevards are most thronged the kerb is lined with hawkers of canteens and kepis, sacs and centures, brandy flasks and breastplates, sword-sticks, and knapsacks, telescopes and gaiters ; and of caricatures a propos of the war, the revolution, and the siege, too commonly offensive to public decency, which are strung like clothes on a line running from one tree to another. The vendors of these miscellaneous wares invariably sport the kepi, and occasionally the full uniform of the Garde Nationale, to give a kind of character to their c&SJS»g f A caYifcfc&we fa vr&icfc. the Pope figures offensively has been several times burned in public in broad daylight, out of consideration for the Bretons, who are our best soldiers, but very bigoted, and for whom their compatriot General Trochu reserved all the pigs in Paris, because of their unconquerable repugnance to horseflesh,

The Boulevards of Paris are dreary enough promenade both in the daytime and at night, the flaneur has disappeared in the soldier, the Parisienne in the hospital nurse ;-!-" Sombre toilettes have become the rule, sackcloth and ashes are the mode; an elegantly-dressed woman would incur the risk of being -mobbed : even pianos are no longer permitted to be played by our censors of ■ the hour, the Gardes Rationales. The correct thing to do now is to have yourself weighed once a week, to see how many pounds you have lost on a low and limited diet ; and the individual who set up the first weighingmachine on the Boulevard Montmartre to register the Paris lightweights has had a profitable time of it. In front of the steps of the Madeleine is one of the stalls draped with tricolour flags, at which subscriptions of money or jewellery are received ■ for the casting of the 1500 cannon that are to relieve us of the hated proximity of the Prussians ; and in Goupil's window, Gustave Bore's new drawing of 'Let us save Paris' is exposed, and, of course, attracts a sympathetic crowd ; but the printsellera generally have given themselves up to selling nothing but maps of the fortifications of Paris. There being no new books, the booksellers have brought forth the various publications suppressed under the recent regime, which they expose for sale beside military treatises. Possibly the most seductive exhibition in all Paris is one that burst upon the population a few days since, when a provision shop near the Place de la Bourse actually exposod three whole York hams in its window. Such a thing had not been seen in Paris for six weeks, and people congregated in front of the shop just as they are in the habit of doing outside Siraudin's bon-bon establishment on New Year's Eve. At the pastry-cooks, where, owing to the want of butter, cakes and tarts are rare, mysterious patties are exposed for sale, the contents of which none butthose possessed of strong stomachs dare inquire. Some of these establishments, with the view of reassuring their customers, display a morsel of rump-steak on a small dish in the midst of these dainties, as a kind of guarantee of their internal composition.

Accompanying a contribution to the association composed of members of the Society of Friends, who are striving to relieve the sufferings of the peasantry in France, Miss Nightingale writes as follows : — " I wish it was ten times as much ; for in this most terrible of all earth's wars — in the countless horrors of this most horrible of mankind's historics — I believe the sufferings of the starving, stripped, and burned out peasantry are the greatest horrors of all."

Immortal hate will, 1 fear, be the miserable legacy of this war to France. The animosity which has long existed between the races is almost, nay quite, diabolical now on the part of the French towards the Germans, and is only abated in the case of the Germans to the French when the strife is over, and the Held is left to their undisputed control. There is no use in arguing with angry, very angry men — no use in asking them to regard the bearings of their acts on the opinion of the world. The Germans regard FrancTireurs assassins ; the French esteem them as heroes. The Germans will burn towns wherever they find Franc-Tireurs. The French will send them out to shoot and 'destroy wherever they can. lam a believer in the power of what is called persecution. Even in religious controversies, long continued, rigorous, persecution has stamped out the life of Churches. But the intense agony and fury of the strife before the conqueror can get his foot on the body of his enemy in such a fight as that between Germany and France are inconceivable, and cannot be appeased by any sermons. He must be a sanguine German who believes that peace will be for ever secured by the possession of the Vosges and of certain points in Lorraine. "1 will lento it as a testament to my children ;"

writes a young officer to his sister, who is in charge of his motherless sons, "never to think I am at peace till the land which they will lake from us is restored. Yes ; Alsace will be our bond of union. At this word all feuds must cease and factions die out." These may be the passionate words of the hour. Butborderfeudsand boundary questions live long. The sea washed away a good deal of the ill blood which existed between France and England after 1815. But suppose we had re-occupied Calais ? Germany may fortify her frontier, but unless France ceases to be a nation of more than 30,000,000 of a very war-loving people, the fortresses will not secure peace.