WAR NOTES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 861, 8 November 1870, Page 2

WAR NOTES.

The following is extracted from the Times correspondence;We made a most interesting march, inasmnch as we crossed the boundary on to French ground. It was curious to see on the side of the roads the camp fires that had been left by the foe, the ashes of which could scarcely have been cold, with here and there an odd shako, or kepi, thrown on one side in their somewhat hasty retreat after Forbach. A little further and in the far distance could be described the solitary vedette; a little further, and we bad fresh intelligence of the foe—broken telegraph, &c. We traversed many miles amid the most lovely scenery, and soon came to some fallen trees and broken roads, evidences of where the enemy had intentions of making a stand had such been necessary. Very soon our own troops were seen, marching from every road on to the one road which was their culminating point, Masses of infantry and columns of artillery were passed in detail till we reached Saargemund, which is a French town, and which the French had left only twelve hours before it was transferred to the troops of King William. A certain young lieutenant of the Brunswick Hussars had orders to patrol towards the town with only a couple of his men. As he approached it, to his astonishment, he saw no signs of French troops in it; and, with the audacity of youth, he entered into it with his two Hussars clattering after him. He reined up opposite the market place, demanding the nearest way to the burgomaster's house, which was pointed out to him; but in the meantime a crowd had collected, who began to show somewhat hostile indications. He had a revolver in his hand, and one of the peasants, with more courage than his neighbors, said, *< What's the good of that ? He dare not fire at us." M Daren't I? " replied the Hussar, levelling his pistol and firing over the man's head, which, I need not say, so intimidated the valorous townsfolk that they instautly cheered him, which was, of course, tantamount to running away. He then proceeded to the burgo. master and demanded quarters for two infantry regiments and a battery of artiU lery, which he expected would shortly enter the town. This being accorded, he sent one of his Hussars back to his regiment, about five miles off, with the intel* ligence that the town was empty, and in two hours afterwards the Brunswick Hussars, trotting into the place, proclaimed it a captured town. The lieutenant in question, quite a boy, Herr von Kapnig by name, was for two hours entirely at the mercy of 1,000 inhabitants at the very least. When we arrived we found the town —or, rather, I should say, the hospitals, of which I cannot speak too highly—full of French soldiers wounded at Forbach. They were treated with the greatest kindness, as may be supposed, and had all, more or less, suffered from wounds inflicted above the waistbelt, which speaks volumes for the precision of the Prussian troops. Some had hands shot away, some scalp wounds, some were shot through the stomach, and one poor fellow was dying whilst I was there from a ball through the lungs. It was quite touching to see these poor fellows waited upon by the Sisters of Mercy, who, with their black robes and their white crosses, seemed indeed ministering angels from Heaven. Of all horrors attendant on so great a horror as war nothing strikes the observer so much as a hospital. There all the enthusiasm is hushed, there nono of the glories of a victory are evident—* nothing but the poor tool gasping out his remaining momenta in this world, and, from inanition, incapable of thinking of the next. - :i

I rode over to Saarbruck, about eigfit miles from this place, to view the battlefield. If any of my readers happen to know Aldershott as well as I do, they will recollect a certain height called Ciesar's Camp, the scene of many a mimic combat. Well, that is as like the "foil which on the great day was three times stormed before it could be wrested from the French as I can describe it—with.'ha it understood, not quite so bluff a summit, and here and there a tree on it. - This centre hill was flanked on either side a little to its. rear, but two others, thickly covered by fir trees. In short, a stronger position tor a Division to take up it is impossible to imagine. In front of these hills are open plains for at least a quarter; of a mile, which the Prussians had tft traverse under, fire before they- could, coms,

to the charge. To give you an idea of the steepness of the absolute hill itself, I can only say that I was obliged to dismount and lead my horse up it. The whole ground for a mile in circumference was strewed with knapsacks, pouches, helmets, rifles, kepis, and thousand and one .accoutrements that completed a soldier's kit. As I arrived a party of countrymen were disinterring the body of a captain in the Prussian army, under the superintendence of a clergyman of Saarbruck, to whom his sorrowing relatives bad written* begging that his body might be sent home to thera. Three French officers w.exe found to have been interred with him, whose picturesque appearance •even four days in the earth had hardly destroyed. Poor fellows, they were gently laid back in their last resting place, and the little cross with " Three brave French officers rest here" inscribed on it in pencil, was stuck again it at the head of the grave; and so we left them. I should estimate that the Prussian loss must have been fearful, as the ground was strewed with helmets—certainly teu helmets to one kepi—and it only shows with what indomitable courage these troops are endowed, although twice beaten, to be able to carry such a position. Towards the summit of the hill the trees were riddled with shot, all, however, high up, which would be natural from the men firing as they ascended the bill. I then came upou another grave, with a cross and a Prussian helmet stuck on it. On the former were these words: Hier ruhen tapfere Krieger, Preussen und Franzozen. A little further on a grave with the simple inscription, "69 French and 28 Prussians, und drei Schrittsn am rechts Der Franzosische Lieutenant Borman." Then I came to a French tumbril with three -dead horses by it, which render the rea«on of its being there clear enough. Now will it be credited that, amid all these sad traits of human suffering, crowds of countrywomen wandered chattering and laughing, and that I even came upon a party picnicking among the debris of bloodstained uniforms, one of whom bad made use of a stretcher, which had evidently done its duty copiously, as a table ? These people, so long as they are not molested in their own homes, seem perfectly indifferent as to what happens outside them, and, if by chance the blast of war skould pass them oo the one side, look upon an excursion to a battlefield as one of the pleasantest trips that can be made. I saw a little ruffian of a toy walking about with a Prussian helmet on through which a bullet had passed, and he was pointing out to his confreres in a patois half Germ;.n half French what an escape he had bad. Its former owner was probably at that moment forming one of the tapfere Krieger that I before men* iioned.