GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1915, Page 5

GERMANY.

On'JiiU FROM IRONMASTERS. Copenhagen, Dec. 17. German ironniakers have offered the Chancellor enough ammunition and war material to end the war if he will guarantee that the frontiers will be extended. The Chancellor naively regretted that he could not make any promise. Seventeen million iron pfennig coins were distributed in November for home use. Nickel and copper coins are kept for war purposes. THE DARDANELLES. SUCCESSFUL BOMBARDMENT. Geneva, Dee. 17. British ship 9 at the Dardanelles destroyed three fortresses and 'batteries, including five German guns and four guns supplied by the Bulgarians. Two munition depots were blown up at Sari Batir. ON THE SEA. BELGIAN SHEP STRUCK. London, Dec. 17. The steamer Liverpool, bound from New York to Rotterdam for the Belgian Relief Commission, was found sinking off Kentish Knock. It is supposed she was mined or torpedoed. The crew were saved. The Italian steamer Porto Said, formerly the Arawa, has been sunk. PERSIA. CAPTURE OF lIAMADAN. Petrograd, Doc. 17. Official.—The Russians have occupied Hamadan. The discomfited enemy is now spreading rumors of a Turko-Gorman march to Bagdad, Persia, and India. The chief centre of agitation is Kum, which the victorious Russian troops at Sultanbulak are now approaching.. The enemy at Kum cut the communication with south Persia. Later information states that the inhabitants of Kum are in a state of panic and fled towards Ispahan. IN THE AIR. A ZEPPELIN EXPLODES. Amsterdam. Dec. 17. Travellers from Brussels state that a Zeppelin exploded on Wednesday near Namur. It was travelling towards Ypres with a heavy consignment of bombs. The crew were killed. The explosion was due to a motor defect. Three peasants who witnessed the occurrence were arrested and taken to Germany lest tliev reveal the disaster.

THE BALKANS. THE AGONY OF SERBIA. MORE RELIEF YVAXTED. AID FROM AMERICA. London, Dee. 17. The Serbian Minister in London, in a special mesage thanking Australians and Xew Zealanders for their generous help, including .-C3700 from Xew Zealand, says that nevertheless the need is supreme. Those in charge of relicT funds depict horrible suH'crings and pitiful scenes. Those still in Serbia are desperate. Mothers are frozen with their children, hundreds of thousands of refugee? are in the Albanian desert and in tlm rocky hollows of Montenegro, homeless and foodless. The Minister concludes: '-Help is real only if it comes quiekly." The Jiriti-sh Commission to aid Serbian refugees has arrived at Salonika. Rome, Ue". 17.

A telegram from America has instructed the Ambasador at Rome to charter all the steamers available and send them to the assistance of foodlci.s women and children in Albania and bring them to Italy at America's expense. ATTACK ON MONTENEGRO. Paris, Dec. 17. The Austro-Germans, under General Kovess, are simultaneously attacking Montenegro in the cast and west.