CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 46, 29 May 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

The enormity of the slaughter at Verdun is almost incomprehensible to the average man not versed in th( cruel arts of war. We read of the Germans suffering in the ratio of three to one of our staunch Allies, the fighting Frenchmen. Half a million men are engaged in the struggle, which now is termed a deadlock. The news makes sickening reading, and nothing like the carnage of battle ever was seen. The cannonade at Waterloo, compared to the artillery “hell storm” at Verdun, is said must have been an exhibition only of fireworks. There is fresh hope for us, however, in the conclusion of the story of the most terrific pitched battle of history, when the narrator saysr “Every bombardment has been withstood and every rush checked, .bringing nearer each moment the inevitable exhaustion. Then will come bur recompense for the days of horror.”

The death of the French soldiercommander, General Gallieni, will bo leceived with regret by all who have known his past history. What the French Nation as a whole think of their dead hero is shown in the fact that his remains are to be accorded a State funeral, and will find a resting place in the historic Hotel des Invalides. We may bo sure theie will be representatives of the British Army present at. the obsequies to represent the Empire’s mourners at the passing of a great homme d’aimes. Joseph Simon Gallieni was born at St. Beat in 1849. and after serving in the Franco-Ger-man war, and with the French expeditions in the basin of the Upper Niger in 1877-81, was fiom 1896 to 1905 com mander-in-chief in Madagascar. He has published several books on the campaigns. In the golden copula of the Hotel des Invalides, erected by Louis Xl\ is the tomb of Napoleon I. One part of the hotel is occupied by army pensioners and another by a historical collection of arras, accoutrements and pictures.

There has been some trouble in the Sudan, but the forces of the Sultan of Darfur appear to have met with disaster. About two thousand were firmly entrenched and attacked the British forces with great bravery, but were compelled to retire after suffering losses estimated at 1000. Mention of the Sudan will recall to many sorrowful recollections of the fate of General Charles George Gordon (“Chinese Gordon” ) who early in 1894 was sent by the British Government to the Sudan on the occasion of a rebellion of the Moslem population under the Mahdi. His death two days before the relief of Khartum, the capital, after an heroic defence for several months, will never cease to be deplored. Gordon was a man of profound religious belief, and his memory is perpetuated in the Gordon Boys’ Homes, and in the Gordon Memorial College at Khartum.

Sudan, or Bilad-es-Sudan (“Land of the Blacks,” or Nigritia), includes a large belt of Africa Soucn of Egypt and the Sahara. The French Sudan is the country of Upper Senegarnbia and the upper Niger, and the country east of the Niger is often spoken of as the Central Sudan; bub at the present time the Egyptian Sudan is the only political division properly distinguished by the name. It extends over the Nile basin from Wady Haifa nearly to Gondokoro on the upper Nile, and borders on the Bed Sea. The area of the Egyptian Sudan is about 950,000 square miles. In 1819 Mehemet Ali of Egypt sent his son Ismail to annex Nubia; and in subsequent years Egyptian rule was extended, chiefly by the efforts of Baker, Gordon, and other European;;, to the Albert Nyanza and the water-

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shed of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. In, 1882 Mahdiism broke out, and the last Egyptian governor, Emin Pasha of the Equatorial Province, was rescued by Stanley in 1889, Nine years later the reconquest of the country was practically completed by Lord Kitchener atthe battle of Omdurman (1898), and the following year the Sudan was constituted a condominium of the British and Egyptian governments.

A wonderful work is reported in the Australasian as follows:—Australian art-lovers will not have forgotten tire 3rd London Hospital at Wandsworth, where Private A. Streeton, Lance-Cor-poral George Coates, Private Fullwood, Private Tom Roberts, and a gate band of artists from the Chelsea Arts Club are working for the R.A.M.C. With the Australian group is Sergt. Derwent Wood, A.R.A., the sculptor, who ranks as an Australian by virtue of marriage with an Australian wife. Derwent Wood was at first employed in making plaster splints for the worm ded ; but he has now devised a new outlet for - his talent. While in the wards he was moved to a great compassion by the horrible disfigurements of some of the patients. Going to the colonel, the sculptor asked to be allowed to see what he could do for the poor smashed faces. Colonel Bruce Potter made a small grant, and gave Derwent Wood the temporary use of a small scullery as a studio. There was a trooper in hospital, a married man, whose face had been broken by art explosive bullet. The ruin of manly grace cannot be expressed in words. That trooper said himself that to live in that condition was impossible. Derwent Wood set to work, and in a few days the trooper’s disfigurement h id almost disappeared. At a dozen paces one could only detect a s' ar across the cheek. He was ready to go home, ready to meet his loved wife.

What Derwent Wood did was to make a little, light metal mould, which could be painted an exact imitation of human flesh, and this was placed over the wounded section of the face. The moulding of the mask was as perfect as one of Derwent Wood’s bronze busts—in fact, it was life-like. Sir Alfred Keogh, the director of the tt.A. M.C ~ was so delighted with the first efforts that -he supplied Mr Derwent Wood with a full equipment, and a proper studio, and ordered that all cases of facial damage should be sent to the 3rd London Hospital. The sculptor is to have a commission, and be set : t the head of a new depaxtment of the R.A.M.C. Who will say after this that art has not a use, even in the days of Armageddon? Some of your own lads are profiting by Sergt. Derwent Wood’s skill. He himself told of an Australian mother who gave three sons to the armv, all of whom weie wounded, and one terribly disfigured. The sculptor went on:—“lt’s hard for her but we’vo patched the worst of them up, and are sending a photograph on ahead, to lot her down easily. When you can do something in cases like that, it’s—it’s—well, it’s worth while.”