WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 260, 13 April 1915, Page 8

WAR NOTES.

BARBAROUS BAVARIANS. Mr E. Ashmead-Bartlett, tho distinguished war correspondent, who was one of a party of journalists conducted !iy a French staff officer over tho Frem.ii lines in .Lorraine, gives in the Daily Telegraph a description of the havoc wrought in French Lorraine by the Germans before they were compelled to retreat. " Belgium is bad enough," ho writes, "but French Lorraine looks exactly as if it had been devastated by a giganiic earthquake, which had shaken down all the towns and villages into a mass of shapeless smoke-blackened ruins, 'the civilian population has almost entirely disappeared. They are scattered all over France, staying with friends, or in ?,yiIres provided by the Government. Many of these villages were destroyed by lirtillery fire, or in the course of desperate hand-to-hand fights for their possession; but tho majority are tho deliberate work of destruction systematically carried out by the Bavarian hordes, when, disillusioned, disheartened, and battered, they commenced their final retirement across the Seille.

"These Bavarian soldiers have been guilty, according to French opinion, of by far the worst work of- destruction, especially those rude peasaßt soldiers coming from\tlie highlands of Bavaria. Thev apparently take a fiendish delight In the mere act of breaking anything breakable into its original elements. For Instance, even when they may have to stay a considerable time in a particular village or town, they v ,-ill start by smashing up everything which sp'.-Ps comfort during the period of their occupation. Furnitur." they despise, wovka of art arouse their particular hatred books excite their derision, the sight of themselves in valuable mirrors causes them both pain and dismay, whilst a beautifully laid-out garden blooming with flowers, drives them to a f;uv of frenzy and disgust. The furniture is smashed up into firewood, (he books are thrown out of the window, the mirrors ars smashed, and the flower gardens trampled under foot. Onlv the hare walls remain to shelter these barbarians from the heat or f fum the cold, and when the hour of departure, which is generally retreat, arrives, kerosene is poured on the accumulated rubbish, .and the last of another French home .li<appears in smoke and flame. In Lorraine this has been the work of f]ie name men who on Christmas day insisted on stopping fighting, and who came out of the trendies to greet our own roops with messages of peace and goodwill. Such characters are not cnilv understood 1,1 the twentieth century and no wonder it is the everhvtin- complaint of the Berlin professor 3 that Go',-

TWO BELGIUMS. A correspondent of the Nieuwo Rottedams,he Courant has succeeded in mak.ngexcurs.ons through what he that part of Belgium where the Germans rule and that other part to whth™ey £ e en n fZ. I>enetrated °5 ""• *•«

His description of the land where the tramp of German troops is heard proves Low desperate is the ponton of the people there despite aJI thai neutral orRaTusations have done and a-o doin» for them. Every week, ho says, provisions jrc getting scarcer. Some villages have been absolutely starved out by the troops. There are towns where thousands are without food or means of earning it. On the other hand, where th- Belgian soldiers are still, in their native land, resisting the invader, the situation, though difficult, is different. Here the country has been terribly devastated, but there is hope in the people s sorrow. Each new onslaught may mean to them fresh losses, but each, onslaught, thev feel is curbing the power of the enemy to do them "further harm. Their compatriots in arms are their idols. They learn with surprising accuracy of every yard of territorv"gained and when there is the slightest margin of safety they creep back to their villages. Grief grips their hearts at the Bignt pf the ruins of what they have lick} dear. ' " l

But soon," says the correspondent, 'they come again, and at. the earliest possible moment they begin to reconstruct new homes out of the ruins of the old ones."

■Behind the ordinary range of the shells they work in the fields. Occasionally they lift their heads to listen, and, faith being strong in them, always remark that the sound of the guns is more distant. To the old woman every soldier who comes her way is a son' When it happens that tbe "German ar-' tillery. again makes a Belgian's home uninhabitable, it is sought to continue its hospitality to the troops. Some owners of houses have written on the walls before leaving such messages as, "There is ham in the cupboards and wine in the cellars; wo leave it all for you."

THE RAFT OF THE DEAD. Trench digging along jiart of the Yser in the vicinity of Dixmude offered great difficulties in the winter months because of the oozing nature of the ground on account of the floods. Time after time trenches were dug which filled with water almost immediately. Then the sides would fall In, and the wet and sodden soldiers would have to scramble back to the next cover under continuous lire from the German snipers. But the flood waters, spreading far beyond the hanks of the canal, proved an insuperable bar to any concerted German advance. The Germans tried' again and again to overcome the water barrier, and lost very heavily in the attempt to get across. 'lt has been rckted in the Age how, before Clirist-1 mas, they endeavored to bridge the water with rafts. That attempt ended I in disastrous failure, and it was thought I that the last had been heard of this manoeuvre. But recently the Germans tried the raft dodge agaiii. With matchless courage a number of the German infantry, carrying their rides and machine guns boarded large rafts and propelled them with poles towards the Allied lilies. Such a policy was rank folly. The men on the slow-mo Ting, unwieldy rafts offered the best of targets to the British and Belgian sharpshooters behind their mud walls, and they picked off the unfortunate Germans as coolly as though they had been partridges. One after another the men on the first raft were shot, until the clumsy craft was loaded with corpses, and drifted with her grisly freight down the flooded waters. The sight was too much I for the Germans on the rafts behind, i Some of their number jumped into the ; water, and with feverish haste pushed ' and propelled their rafts back to the German lines. |