WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 14 July 1917, Page 5

WAR NOTES

SALONIKA. AN AUSTRALIAN'S IMPRESSIONS. [ Lieut. Sic Rupert Clarke, the milHonaire landowner .of Victoria, has ' been invalided to Australia afteF two years' service with the army, nine months of which he spent in sight of the enemy's guns at Salonika. Asked for his impression of Salonika, he said. "After being in Salonika I can sympathise with St. Paul, who was there a bit before my time." (Pause). "St. Paul had to walk. There was no other means for him to get away from the city. The first edition of his Epistle did not sell well, and there were no advertisements in those days. I managed to get away in a steamer. That, is a decided advantage. People who doubt it should try Salonika for themselves. Salonika is like all other Eastern towns—only more so—it is more than decidedly dirty and insanitary—it is the real thing in dirt and bad sanitation. The population is most cosmopolitan; but the most picturesque people oh the landscape are the Jews. In the days when the Jews in Spain were persecuted, they managjed to get away in large numbers, and 1 found a refuge in Salonika. The Spanish language is still spoken there, and the Jews go about in their old costumes, which the law compelled them to wear. Of course, we were outside the town, and only went there when business tboTT us that way. T\ie country outside is pretty. It is one of the most fruitful countries I have ever seen. Plums and peaches grow wild and can be had for the pidking. The chief means of locomotion %vas by pack donkeys. Now and %gain we had a few bullocks to work for us. The rations at the front are excellent, and there is no stinting."

BERNSTORFF'S POST. DIRECTOR OF PEACE INTRIGUE IN SWEDEN. THE HAGUE. I understand that the German Government intends to send Count John Bernstorff, ex-Ambassador in Washington, to Stockhosm as " Ambassador Extraordinary." This step has been contemplated for some time, the Wilhelmstrassc being unwilling not to avail themselves of Count Bemstorff's world-famous talent for intrigue, and Stockholm having become a centre of intrigue by German pacifists.

The appointment lias not been finally settled, and much, depends on the decision of the Swedish, Government. The first overtures made by Baron von Lucius, the present German Minister, regarding Count Bernstorff succeeding him were coldly received in diplomatic circles in Stockholm, where Bernstorff's reputation had proceeded him, but Berlin decided to employ gentle pressure, in order to force her "most enterprising" Ambassador" on the unwilling Swedes.