THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 20, 12 March 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WAR.

WHAT GERMANS THINK ABOUT IT. THE BRITISH " CAN SHOOT ANYTHING."

Germany did not announce her loss of the Scharnhost, Gneisenau, and Leipzig till after ten o'clock in the eyening on Thursday, December 10, while the Dutch papers had the news in their morning editions. I was in one of the large German towns when the still wet slips of paper with the news were-distributed by one of the large daily papers (writes " A Neutral," just back from Germany, in the "Daily Mail"). The slips were torn from the hands of the newsboys and devoured. People jumped from the streetcars to get at the telegram, and everywhere you could see men and women reading the slip by the scanty electric light. They looked as if they had been turned to stone on the instant.

But then they again awoke and gazed bewildered around them. It was very characteristic to notice how the blowsilenced the people. They did not shout, they did not speak, they did not even moan; but their heads bowed silently as if the blow had struck each individual separately. The theatres emptied their audiences just at this moment, but instead of spreading homewards as usual, the whole audience remained on the pavements, each with that fatal slip of paper in the hand. Then, after the news had been read and its significance had sunk into the mind, the audience walked in silence each to his home. It was striking how everybody seemed to feel what grave news this was for Germany. But there was no apprehension; only stolid endurance.

Of course the militarists and the papers inspired by them try to carry the thing lightly by saying: "That's only what we have been expecting. It ?s not of any great importance, and it does not affect our plans." And then they hint mysteriously at something awful to come. They dare not say anything, for that is 'strictly forbidden. And at every railway station and at other conspicuous places are placed posters warning officers and men to be careful of what they say to each other when strangers are within earshot, and still more careful of what they say to the strangers themselves. " The German soldier must not only know how to fight for the Yntorland, he must also knowhow to keen silent for it."

Hut it leaks out what the plans are. There is. first of all, say the Germans, to he a raid on London hy Zeppelins and then the invasion of England. The Zeppelin raid is painstakingly and systematically being planned day by day, and England cannot do too much 10 prepare herself against it. There are many rumours as to how many airships Germany thinks she needs before she considers herself sufficiently prepared for the raid —some mention twenty, others again one hundred. But the fact seems to be that she can turn out one Zeppelin every two or three weeks. And noticeable is it that there is silence about the Zeppelins at the front; they are being kept back for more "noble" purposes. The British air raid on Friedriehshafen was a great surprise to the German militarists, although thev claim that the damage done is very slight. An officer who has just como from there told me that the bombs did not hit any airshios or the hall itself, but fell beside the hall, which was not the least

damaged. But his look proved that he considered the happening very grave indeed. And one of the bombs that were dropped on the airship hall in Dusseldort fell right through the roof and through an airship and into the ground, where it exploded and did much damage. But it appears that the hall was not set on lire. Germany is now beginning to feel how it tastes to have those silent death-machines hovering above unsuspecting towns and their inhabitants. DETECTIVES AT THE STATIONS. Everybody coining into Germany is most closely eyed by a detective in ordinary clothes placed there for the purpose, and the baggage of the traveller is most carefully examined. Every parcel is opened, every letter read. 1 had a gingercake neatly wrapped up, which certainly made it look like a most evil bomb. The lat Custom-house officer carried it ven carefully to his superior officer and together they began to remove the covering of the; bomb. But when the sweet ginger-odour struck their nostrils they both smiled in relief. The scrutinising is, in spite of its carefulness and tediousness, thrownjiv.ay work, for they curiously enough do not search the person. 1 could have had any number of dangerous papers concealed on my person, and bombs too, for that matter. Who will fill his trunk with plans of forts, if he has any? No, he will sew them in his clothing, and an ordinarily bright Custom-house officer ought to know that.

There sat in the train a soldier who looked different from the others. He wore a troubled, tired look, but did not seem to be ill. I asked him what was the matter, and he told me. He lay with his company in reserve at Ypres. One noontide his company received orders to relieve a trench-party. They started off, but just as they reached the trench the British gunners found it out, and in a few minutes it was entirely

cleared out and shot to pieces. He him self got a piece of shrapnel in the small of his back, and there it was still. The doctors had located it, but would not risk taking it out till the wound was ' healed, and now the fellow was going to ! Ids home to wait for this. He was I troubled for two reasons: because the piece of shell was there and constantly hurt him, and because he knew that no sooner should the wound be healed than it would again be cut open. WOUNDS IN THE LEFT HAND. Another soldier who came from East Prussia was wounded in his left hand. And later whenever ] met a wounded soldier from the east frontier his wound was always in his left hand. What is the reason of this? I thought. Is the soldier's left hand more exposed than his right? I should think that if there were any difference the right hand would be the one most exposed, it being held higher. But I learned the reason later. When the soldier is tired of the cold and the wet and the frost in the open and dripping trench and wishes to get back to a warm house and a good bed and good food, he simply sticks his left hand a little above the edge of the trench. Immediately it is fired at by the Russians, and in a very short while hit, and the wounded man is sent to hospital with a maimed left hand received in defence of his country.

"How do the Russians shoot?" I asked one of these soldiers. "They shoot excellently, both their artillery and their soldiers," he answered. "And the British?" I asked of one returned from Flanders. ''The British," he exclaimed, "can hit anything." Yet it is characteristic of how the German bureaucratic system treats the men who are sacrificing so much for their country that this soldier with the: British shrapnel piece in his back, who was returning from hospital and going back to his home to get a much-needed rest, had, as well as his comrades, to pay out of his own pocket an extra charge to the conductor because the first train that came along, and which he naturally boarded, happened to be a "Schnellzug,'" a fast train. The soldiers from the enst firmly believe that the Russians will be beaten in a few weeks, for their officers have told them so. "And then we shall throw ourselves against France and England with all our forces and sweep them into the sea. England may wait; oh, she may wait. She will in time swarm with Germans!"