WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 October 1915, Page 12

WAR NOTES.

SPLENDID SUBMARINE FEATS. HOW GERMANS WERE CAUGHT. London, August 3.

Brilliant feats by British submarines are announced by the Admiralty. While the Germans are shelling defenceless trawlers and slow passenger steamers, out Navy is devoting itself to the destruction of shipping of war value. In the North Sea, off the German coast, a German destroyer was sunk; in the Sea of Marmora a large Turkish transport was torpedoed, a troop train was shelled and an arsenal was set on fire; whilst in the Baltic another German transport was sent to the bottom by a British submarine. Count Reventlow, in a boastful article for American consumption, deolar. Ed at the week-end that British' ships of war had been entirely expelled from the North Sea. The answer of our Admiralty was the torpedoing -of a fast German destroyer in her home waters.' There could not be a better proof that our Navy is not asleep, but is actually very much awake.

I Hardly a day .passes without some inoffensive little tramp or some fishing smack being stopped and sunk by a German submarine. Little flsli are proverbially sweet, and, failing to catch the big deep-sea .liners, the Germans are wreaking their hatred on craft which cannot escape them. For weeks and weeks there has been no mention of any German submarine being caught by our Navy and brought to book. Hearing only of our losses, and being ignorant of the success of our anti-submarine policy, the general public 'are disposed to feajr that Great Britain may be getting the worse of the encounter. It suits our Admiralty to maintain silence. If it opened its lips it could tell of many submarines which will never returns to the Emms. lam credibly informed that a very large number of the raiders have been caught and smashed, and German papers bear out this testimony by the new and mournful note which has crept into their comment on the, submarine blockading of England. The number of German naval prisoners in England has not increased. The methods of the British Admiralty are effective and final. A gentleman from a southern port near which a German submarine was recently trapped, assured me with distended eyes that the British warships which rounded her up proceeded to keep her submerged for 48 hours, | and that when She was brought to the surface her Teuton crew were stark, staring mad, and had to be sent to a lunatic asylum for internment in padded cells. It is a pity to have to contradict such thrilling fiction, but search through England mil not discover any German sailors in our madhouses.

Th'e crews of those submarines which have been stopped in their cold-blooded piracy will be found in their steel coffins at the bottom of the sea, where they ought to be. The futility of the German blockade is at once apparent if you take the trouble to study the localities in which ships are still sunk by them. They "undertook when establishing the blockade to ring (Veat Britain with submarines. Admirai Von Tirpitz, with German conceit, believed that he could do this. He must by now be painfully aware of his miscalculations. Shipping comes and goes with gTeater freedom than at the outset of these bencath-the-water operations.

OUR SHELL OUTPUT. 100 TIMES MORE THAN IK SEPTEMBER.

Paris, Aug. 11. An important interview, which throws much light on the present situation regarding the production of munitions in England, has been granted by Mr. Lloyd George to M. Joseph Galtier, the correspondent of the Temps. "Taking the figure 1 as representing the output in September, 1914," said the Minister, "the figure for July, 1915, is fifty times greater. It will be a hundred times greater in August, and fjom then onwards the curve will continue to rise surprisingly.

"Since my arrival at the Ministry of Munitions, I have established 16 new factories, and have decided to open 10 more to work exclusively for war.

"Twelve thousand skilled workmen who had enlisted have been recalled from the front to the factories. Forty thousand new workmen have been taken on by manufacturers in accordance with my instructions."

"Energy and will," says the correspondent, "are radiated by Mr. Lloyd George's personality. It is easy to see also that he does not lack that quality which is often -wanting in Englishmen —enthusiasm." »

THE BRITISH ARMY.

GLOWING FRENCH TRIBUTE. Jean Richepin, the French Academician, in an article in the Intransigeant, Jentitled "The English Miracle," pours the vials of his splendid vituperation on the faint-hearted and cautious who minimise the British effort. _ After paying tribute to the British fleet, M. Richepin turns to the British Army. "England," he writes, "unlike France, has never had but a small professional army—brave, but far from numerous. And now she has raised 2,000,000 men, equipped, instructed, trained them, in less than a year. Think of that, messieurs the fainthearted, messieurs the funks; and down on your knees before the English miracle which has taken but a year to germinate, and will soon blossom like an aloe in the* thunder of the guns. Down on your knees before the coming explosion, you lily-livered gentlemen, you whey-faced loons!" .

SERBIA'S .POWERFUL ARMY. Writing early in the year on the condition of the Serbian army, Mr. Alfred Stead, Daily Express correspondent, said: It may fairly be said that Serbia at the present moment possesses more stamina in a military sense than ever before. At the present moment she has 550,000 men mobilised, as against 350,000 at the beginning of the war, and her forces are being steadily increased, despite her losses. Iller effective army is now well rested, well equipped, and has ample ammunition. She can muster 300,000 bayonets, and 40,000 cuirassiers of the 1014 class are already incorporated in her army, while 40,000 of the 1915 class are now in i depots and ready for mobilisation. She can also count on a great accession of new t'oops, including over 100,000 men formerly exempted. It is no exaggeration to say that within two months an additional 200,000 trained soldiers can be added to the forces now in the field, and the value of this new blood infused into a war-worn army is inestimable. The pause in hostilities has made possible a reorganisation of the supply system, the completion of the equip-

ment, and tlie arrival of fresh stores for the transport service to replace those lost, as well as mwiiy more oxen than those already replaeod. Since this estimate was made, It is known that British and French artHleiy has been sent to Sert)ia, and that her army has been Well equipped by .the Allies

MRACLE OF AIR RAID.

London, Sept. 29. Mr. Shepherd has supplied the American press with an impression of the recent Zeppelin raid on London. He says:—

"Traffic is at a standstill. Seven million people in the 'biggest city in the world stand gazing at the sky from darkened streets. Here is the climax of the twentieth century! Among the autumn stars floats a long, gaunt Zeppelin. It is a dull yellow color in the harvest moon, and the long fingers of searchlights touch all its sides with white tips. ""Great booming sounds shake the city. They are Zeppelin bombs falling, killing, burning. The lesser noise was the aerial guns' reply sending shrapnel to the sky. "'For God's sake don't do that,' says one man as another strikes a match to light a cigarette. Whispers and low voices run through all the streets. All about you are ■beautifully garbed women and men ia evening clothes. 'Ohs!' and 'Alls!' like the cries of a crowd watching a fireworks display greet the brilliantly white flashes of the bursting shrapnel. "Suddenly you realise that the' biggest city in the world has become a night battlefield on which seven million harmless men, women and children live. Here is war at the very heart of civilisation! What a troar of joy' would go lip from the millions of this great city if they could suddenly see the yellow object transformed by an explosion. Men and women, the flowers of the twentieth cen-

tury culture, have become elemental. Killing has been put into their hearts. "If the men in the sky think they are terrifying London they are wrong. They are only making England white-hot mad. We are all brothers and sisters in the streets of London to-night. Wc are ju*t human, outraged and mad, unwilling to die. This is the miracle the great gasbag of the air brings about."