WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, 5 November 1917, Page 6

WAR NOTES

THE RUSSIAN TEMPERAMENT. A British journalist who has just returned from Petrograd, where he was during the most troublous times of the revolution, writes:—■ There is a humorous side to the bubbles that appear on the surface of the revolution. Who could help but smile at the screaming farce of the Russian burglars meeting and solemnly passing a resolution that they should be recognised as followers of a legitimate calling! Sometimes it is easier for the outsider to appreciate the numour of revolutionary ebullitions than for those who are its victims. For instance, at the hotel in Moscow where I was staying the staff struck and we all had to make our own beds, wash our own plates fetch our own plates of veal and cups of coffee, etc. EveD the guests who had brought their own servants with them were forbidden to use them. <. After being out three weeks the staff returned on condition that they were paid their wages for the strike period and were given for the future 15 per cent of the amount of the bills, which charge the hotel proprietors pass on to the guests. At Helsingfors the sailors imprisoned their officers. "If you do not want us," said the officers, "let us go." "No," replied the men, "if the Germans come we shall want you to take charge of the ships!" How would you answer such children, A brigand under sentence of death at the time of the revolution was released when all the prison gates were thrown open. To the surprise of his liberators he refused to leave saying that he was well content with his lodgings. Finally he was only persuaded to come out on condition that he was allowed at night to sleep in his cell. In the daytime he orated on the merits of the revolution, and in tie evening he resumed his quarters in the prison. One afternoon to help the revolutionary funds he sold his chains publicly for 5000 roubles_ Truly, the Russians are delightful people! GERMAN CUNNING. A good story illustrating tie cunning of the German solaier comes from a section of the French front. Tne position on both Sides is one perpetually subjected to the "hammering" tactics. Violent gun fire directed on the works destroys them almost as soon as they complete, but the Germans, following their usual mechod have a perfectly organised city of fortifications underground. Ihe French company were ordereu* to advance and take the labyrinth. The guns commenced pounding away, and in the space of a few hours the place was reduced to a mass of-ruins. .But, much to the astonishment of the victors, they found only a few feeblelooking Huns, who quickly surrendered, without any sign of fight. Tfiree days later, the observation patrol perceived rising out of the ruin a "ventilation chimney." Presently the head of a tall young German issued from its mouth, and looked cautiously around. The French lost no time in seizing their prisoner who then turned upon them a bland smile_ "I -have a few comrades down there, too," he said. The resulting search discovered no less than three hundred officers and men. Their object had been to maintain themselves in the deep underground" pasSges until some means of escape offered; but, food running low they had been obliged to send out a scout, and this was the result.

A PURE V.C. SHOW. From some English sailors comes the following: —One of our Seroplanes was fetched down in the sea by the Huns a couple of miles off the Belgian coast, and was being pounded to pieces by the guns ashore when a couple cf French seaplanes, having been told of the trouble, put out from harbour, hew out to the wreck and calmly landed alongside it in a sea that was simply being whipped into froth by flying shot and shell. One of the French machines picked up one British aviator and got away with him, being itself pretty well shot to ribbons in the process, but the other was hit before it could get off, so it and its crew and the rest of tES British crew were towed ashore by the Huns. Qur people seem to think that landing next to the bull's-eye of a target would be a safe proceeding alongside what those Frenchmen did, and yet when the successful French pilot was congratulated on his gallantry, he merely remarket!: "Oh, II was nothing! You will do as much for us when we want help."