AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 205, 1 September 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE.

Ono of the queerest of wars, not it* its orijr'n, but in the methods employed. v. ;w t|)p. revolt of the Netherlands :iLi;iin>t Span's!) rnli'. A largo ntimhv of t!:i- inhabitant- had been drvon int.) Hifilit liv Alva's repressive measures; many (J', them had taken to :i life if piracy and wore called in derision "tho Water-U. :::;:.is." In ]")7"2 a niini'iOj- of their vrs-els appeared off the mouth < of the Rhine and the Scheldt and suereeded : n c ipturng the important forti •<•• ;s ef Hrlll. Flushing, and Enkhuiv;i. It dd not seem then as if thi> lir.st could be followed up, but

the country was seething with discontent, and the rebellion was destined to destroy the prestige and power of Spam in a war that lasted nearly 40 years. The rebels invited William of Orange, better known as "Wililam Silent."' to take command of their But even \Yill ! anfs military and the tenacious courage of tho Dutch could not by themselves have won success. Tho canals and the proximity of the sea made the country easily defensible. Again and again the dykes were cut and the sea was allowed to flood the country in order to drive out the Spaniards. Nor was this amphibious fighting the most peculiar feature of this queer war. One w : ntor, when the Spaniards undoAlva were b.-sieging Amsterdam, the armed burghers of the city, who, like most Dutchmen were adept skaters, sallied out across the frozen broads and marshes. They were easily able to outmanoeuvre the Span ards, and eventually put them to flight with the lo>s of several hundred left dead upon the ice. It is an interesting fact that preparations were made for similar possilrl:tie« in Flanders during the Groat War of 1914. Both the liermans and the Allies la : d in plentiful stocks of skates, but the comparatively open winters, and the absence of severe frost, ami consequently ice, prevented much use being made of them. And in the same way the flooding of the ba.v'n of. the Yser between Nicuport and Dixmude, which enabled the gallant Belgian arm? to stem the German advance, and save the last little fragment of their unfortunate country, is another example of the manner m which h ; story repeats itself ?'n war just as in otheir spheres of human activity. GRUESOME A&PECTS. Another queer war as regards its locale, and the manners and customs . f the savage peopie aganst whom it was waged, uas the Asiiauti campaign ot 1»00. In March ot that year, after some earlier lignting, a small British force was sent in quest of the "golden stool, "a native symbol oi royalty. Th.» force was attacked by the Ashantis, ind Fort Coomassie was closely invested. Jn July Sir F. and Lady Hodgson, with a iorce of 600 men and 1000 noncombatants managed to break through the rebel hordes, and after heavy fighting and forced marches, reached Accra. Shortly afterwards Col.'Willeocks, in a brief but brilliant campaign, relieved the beleaguered forces at Coomassie This war had many queer and even gruesome features, taking place as t did in the dense undergrowth of almost trackless gloom of tropical forests and being waged against barbaric tribes sunk in a degraded form of fetish-wor-ship. Before long, however, British troops under Colonel Blake destroyed Ojesu, a native fetish town, and by end of September the enemy forces were completely defeated and dispersed.

LOFTY ENCOUNTERS. The campaign being waged in the Alps by Italy against Austria for the recovery of the lost provinces is not quite the loftiest encounter between regular armed and drilled soldiers recorded Mice the times of Hannibal, as has been asserted in some quarters. So recently as 1904, British troops wormed the Gyanlse Jong, a strong I'ibetau fort on the road to Lhasa, \vh : ch is situated at a height of no less than 10.000 feet above the level of th? sea. Jt was while scrambling to the attack up almost perpendicular preci pices thai one weary Tommy was heard to say to another, "I thought as how they told us afore we started that this'ere Tibet was a bloomm' tableland.'' " So it ;s, you fathead,'' retorted a comrade, "and we're climb:n' up the baliy logs/* Another aspect of warfare is the queer ways ana means sometimes adopted to provide the sinews of war. Some of the smaller South and Central American Republics have actually at times raised money enough to wage war on their neighbours by the sale of postage stamps. A notable example of this sort of thing is afforded by the state of Paraguay, which on one occasion completely re-equipped its army l»> tli s means, and had enough money left ore- to provide five million rifle cartrid. ;;es. San Marino is one of the oldest aid also one of the smallest States m Europe—so smalt indeed that a shot from on? of the single batery of guns would almost- certainly fall into Italian terr'tory. When Garibaldi sought refuge n tha tiny Republic, war wasdeclared between San Marino and Austria. The stronger Power did not, how. ever, trouble to put its troops into the field, so that the smaller State's musical-comedy army was saved from extermination.