NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1302, 24 September 1914, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

References have been made in the cablegrams within the last few days to the use by the French of a new explosive. So far, it has not been disclosed what the nature ot the explosive is. In this connection it is worth noting that just before German troops invaded France the Matin published an interview with M. Turpin, the inventor of melinite, in which be declared that he had made an in-

vention of a terrifying character, which would modify all present military tactics, and render all defensive measures illusory. The enemy’s forces, he said, would be annihilated by its use, and general disarmament would be enforced. M. Turpin declared that he had been in communication with the Minister for War, and that it had been decided to use his invention.

One of the finest features of the mobilisation in England was the promptitude with which deserters from both services c-., -r.e forward to do their duty. All over the country men appeared at the police courts who had given themselves up to the police as deserters, and in every case they were complimented on their conduct and sent straight off to their depots. The occasional drunk and disorderly, too, was invariably discharged at once and sent off to his ship or regiment. But on the whole the mobilisation has been remarkably sober. There were few cases of drunkenness, and there was no rioting at all. The men went about their business as the nation is doing, without a symptom of flurry.

According to a St. Petersburg paper, the Vetcherne Vremya, a new Austro - German defensive understanding against Russia and France was concluded last May. Germany undertook to add two new army corps to her effective forces on the eastern frontier, to get adopted by the Reichstag a new law for the retention of soldiers with the colours after their term of service, and to develop the fleet on the basis of two additional Dreadnoughts with subsidiary units. Austria made similar engagements regarding the strengthening of its forces on the eastern frontier. A strategic railway was proposed to be built along the Russian frontier from Czernovitz to Cracow, Transylvania to be fortified and two new military districts to be created in Bosnia.

Referring to the fighting qualities of the British troops in the recent engagements, the Wellington Times says: “Thus did the artillery work in the battle facing odds ; thus the infantry winning through in spite of the roads torn up by the heavy German shells ; thus the cavalry hewing their way through the enemy’s troopers ; thus did all arms batter and rout aud pursue the troops of the Kaiser that have been held up lor a quaiter of a century as picturesque, imposing and unconquerable. Yet they are the troops that the demented Kaiser has called the “contemptible army of Britain.” He has called on his soldiers to march over them. And this is how they have obeyed the Imperial behest. Presently there will be nearly 200,000 more of these “contemptible troops,” and in the spring there will be according to Lord Kitchener —• the severest of all military critics — still 500,000 more ready lor the field, well able to maintain the great traditions of British valour which their comrades in France are so splendidly supporting. The British army that was not to count, has counted already on the greatest battlefields of history, and will count for evermore,”

On the day before Great Britain declared war, Rear - Admiral Mahon, the American naval authority, foreshadowed Germany’s military procedure and the sequel in the following words ; “Germany’s procedure is to overwhelm at once by concentrated preparation and impetuous momentum. If she fails in this she is less able to sustain any ptolonged aggression, as was indicated in the Ftanco-Prussian war during and after the siege of Paris.” As to Britain’s position in the contest, he said: “England must at once throw her preponderating fleet against Germany for the one chief purpose ot maintaining her own position as a world power. For England it was a question, if she remained out ot the war, cf sacrificing her Empire in the next generation to the interest of this generation. Great Britain, as the third member ot the Entente, finds herself in the position of Prussia in 1805, when she permitted Napoleon to strike down Austria unaided, and was herself struck down the following year at Jena, or in that ot France in 1868, when she stood by while Prussia crushed Austria, and was herself overwhelmed in 1870.’ 1