ECHOES OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 182, 19 December 1912, Page 8

ECHOES OF THE WAR.

A COR R1 i S PON D E XT\S DAS] r

AUSTRALIANS AT THE FRONT. London,. October 25. Of the war in the Balkans little is. known. For the first time in the kistory of nations, an effective ci'iisniNliij) has been established by the five nations who are engaged in a struggle of extermination. Every morning and every evening the papers are Med with reports of huge successes by Bulgarians, of wonderful victories by Servians, and of great triumphs by Greeks, of irresistible successes on the part of the Turks, with the Montenegrins in the background capturing blockhouses and forts as if that were part of their everyday work. Amidst the confusion of news and contradiction it is absolutely impossible to gain any reliable idea of which side is winning. Until there is an absolute shock of battle and a mighty engagement it would be idle to speculate as to the I future.

Military experts detect in the defensive tactics of the Turks the masterly training of the German war experts, and in the impetuous onsets of the Bulgarians and the Servians the irrcsi/:flble instrument of national enthusiasm. But "Linesman," in the Daily Mail, is the "Daniel come to judgment," making frank confession that in what has neen published there is probably 3 per cent, fact and 97 per cent, fiction. ARMY OF NEWSPAPER MEN, It is not for want of adventurers and special correspondents at the front that the papers are bewildered by conflicting accounts which reach them. One is disposed to think that the English delegation of newspaper men represents the whole of the pen brigade in the field. But France, Russia, Austria, Germany, the Uinted States, and even Japan has sent a legion of enterprising copymakers. In Sofia alone there were 300 correspondents this week. They were shut up there as tightly as if they were doing "solitary" in Darlinghurst.

One of them, <1 junior named Beaumont, of the Daily Telegraph, fretted and fumed, and finally decided to make a dash for liberty. He procured a motor car—lie spent a dangerous 30 hoursclimbing mountains and skimming dizzy precipices, and got within ten miles' of the front. He saw things which nobody else had seen, but which were of little value to him or anyone else, and' there he came to a dead halt.

He was going further. He could hear the sound of +he guns in the distance, and the desire to get a "scoop" upon the assembled press of the world was irresistible, but when he went downstairs to take his seat at the wheel' he found a little guard of six determined men with loaded guns and fixed bayoIfiets who politely -assured him that there was only one road upon which he could travel, and that was the road over which he had just come. He pleaded, he expostulated, and he obeyed. Back to Sofia he had to go, and all that he could make of his plucky enterprise was a long story of the hairbreadth motor race through a country at war upon which there rested the undisturbed repose of peace. AN AUSTRALIAN'S SCOOP. In Constantinople a young- member of, the Correspaondents' Corps made a rather unfortunate mistake. The Reservists were marching to tlie station to entrain. He was in hurry to cross the road, and attempted to pass through their Tanks while tliey were marching. He required medical' attendance •when the angry reservists had finished resenting his intrusion. A regular force might good-humoredly have permitted hiin to Igo through; but an irregular force of | volunteers, fired with tlie sense of their own tremendous importance, were bitterly annoyed by his indiscretion and made him pay a pretty heavy price for it. The life of a correspondent is not therefore a bed of roses.

Necessarily. Australia is represented, at the front. Mr. M. 11. Donoliuc, who was on the Evening News iii Sydney some y«ars ago, is there for the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Donohue made his big coup during the Portuguese Revolution. All the lines through to Madrid were cut. The correspondent had a story fiill of purple patches, but they could not get it away.. Mr. Donohne went to tlie Telegraph Department, asked them how long it would be before the lines were ready, and was assured' that they could not be repaired in less than 36 hours, and possibly 48 hours. He raced' back to the wharf, chartered a small steamer, and started for the nearest telegraph station 011 the coast, 40 miles distant. He took the risk of' the Madrid lines being all rijrlit before be reached bis de-

t Hon. Luck wsis on hi-s i<>. The whole story of the revolution was printed in his paper in London while the less ambitious correspondents were still cooling their heels in Madrid. But to return. Mi*. Frank Cox, formerly of the Bulletin and of the L ono Hand, who has lately been appointed news editor of the Morning Post, was informed by the proprietors on Tuesday morning that they desired him to go to the scene of the war ! on tllcir behalf. The following day he set out for Paris, and is presumably now receiving his baptism of fire. Of course, "Smiler" Hales, whose quaint egotism filled the world, has disappeared from the scene. has written himself' out, or oft'; : which ever it. is, he is no longer numbered amongst the war correspondents. RED' CROSS WORK. Australia also takes a hand in tile arrangements for succoring the wounded; The war had not been three days old before it became evident that no reasonably adequate provision had been made for those sent to the rear because of injuries received ia battle. 14 lias ! devolved upon the rest of Europe, from a sense of humanity, which cities it credit, to repair and 1 retrieve the callousness and the carelessness of the belligerent nations. Amongst others. Sir Ernest Cassell, the great financier;, who was a personal friend of the lato King Edward, has uudeutaken to be.*r the expense of three units of* the- Red Cross organisation far at least six months. This covers, the expense of equipping and despatching nine doctors and forty" two dressers and orderlies. The doctors are paid ,tl a day and all expenses, while the dressers and orderlies receive £2 per week and exposes. Walking the London hospitals. »vas Dr. Mark

Gardiner, one of Melbourne's best-l known athletes. lie applied for one of I tlie nine vacancies, and was sufficiently > fortunate to.be selected. To-morrow lie 1 ) goes off to Constantinople, and all rcgu- j lar routes being closed, the party will I lvavc to entrain for Marseilles and take a steamer there for the City of the Mosques. The expedition will cost Sir Ernest Cassell at least £SOOO, and possibly £IO,OOO. He has very close business interests with Turkey. He floated her last loan. He is persona grata with the Sultan, and maybe the money will not be spent in vain. Be that'as ij; may, there ar» not many countries in which wealthy men are moved to deeds oi charity by the horrors of a war in places far removed from them.