WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 157, 9 December 1914, Page 6

WAR NOTES.

FitCNCH PRISONER'S EXPERIENCE A distinguished French artist, arrested by the enemy at St. Gerard, near Nanmr, gives the following description of his inarch with the German Army;— "After sleeping in a barn with Zouave prisoners, a soldier standing over us with fixed bayonet, we were called at five the next morning. The prisoners were told to peel potatoes for the field kitchen. I made my toilet while a guard followed mo about. At six all the soldiers began to form up. Orders came from the officers like pistol' shots, the click of heels and the thud of 3houlder anna coming as from one man. Woe to the man slightly out of line ? The closecropped officer spat at him, a floiv of expeltives, showing his teeth like a tiger ready to spring. "I was placed in the middle of a marching column, and as Iwas loaded with my knapsack and coat (a soldier near me carrying my papers) I could take part in the sensations of the men under the iron discipline of the .officers. The road lay inches thick of chalky dust, which rose in clouds above our heads. Never were v.'e allowed to open out as 1 had seen the marching Belgian soldiers do, and let the air circulate. We ploded on the whole day, the only rest being when there was an occasional block in the road. The march was as if on parade. Should one fall out of step, the shouts of his superior soon brought him up. "Now and then men were waiting with buckets and as the column swung by, the soldiers dipped in their aluminium cups. Another man would be holding a biscuit tin full of sweets, or it might be a handful of prunes, but still the inarch went on. It was remarkable to see the field post office at work; the armed blue-coated postmen stood bv the marching column receiving the postcards handed to them. Sometimes an officer would hand over a fowling-piece or antique witii the address hanging to