WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 June 1916, Page 6

WAR NOTES.

ITALY'S CAMPAIGN. One of the correspondents of the Swiss journal N«ue Zurcher %,eitung, who recently returned from following the operations on the Austrian side of the Isonzo front, has given, in a series of lectures in Switzerland, a graphic description of what lie saw. According to liini, guns are active on the Isonzo front, and have fired more than 10,0(10000 shells. The short stretch of coin;, try between Gorizia and Trieste, knowr, as the Carso, is a remarkable ridge of 'barren hills, the most forbidding rocky ground he ever saw. It forms an extraordinarily strong natural fortification; it is entirely waterless, and it is only after great engineering difficulties have been overcome that a certain amount of water has been supplied. The Carso is also without any roads. It is swept frequently by a wind, the "Boha," worse than .- sirocco. The correspondent witnessed .vhat is called the fourth battle of tin isuiizo. He saw some of its phases at . ery close range, and has only visions of horror to-'record. The Austrian losses on the Carso have certainly been more than 100,000. The little city of Gorizia, the centre of attack, is a dead, deserted town. Trieste is hardly better. Its houses are vacant, its streets are dead, and hardly a soul is seen in its onee teeming market place. The battle rages hardly 20 miles away, and the sound of the guns can be heard day and night. The port is without life, no ship ever enters or leaves, the approaches from the sea to be littered with mines, and the inhabitants are subjected to want and distress. The fugitives from Gorizia told him tales of horror during the bombardment of the town, and of ghastly scenes witnessed outside, where the defenders fell in scores, amid horrible sufferings, in the midst of their own barbed wire entanglements. In the height of the battle the heaps of dead were often used as screens for the living.

VOICE FROM THE FRONT. A CALL TO SINGLE MEN. From a New Zealand soldier in France —a man who has been with our troops since the early days of the war —comes an appeal for help which should strike home with great "directness to the eligible men of this country. The appeal was not written for publication, and is simply an extract from a letter received by Mr. Geo. Frost, of Wellington. This is the' extract:—

'ln the war villages in close proximity to the battle zone the aged French peasants are toiling and toiling—people who should be resting—and young boys are doing heavy men's work. And all centred on one object—our emancipation and welfare.

"Look you! Shake up .single stay-at-homes! We want able-bodied men. Th'e single chaps are wasters if they don't rally and stop the married men from coming away. Have our economists considered the matter in sincerity, and thought out the cost and liability to the State of the loss of every mar-l-lied man who comes away, and is killed? ■"I trust the boys will rally. We men are looking for strong, young blood t.i -(Some along ami relieve."

THE BELGIAN ARMY. German propaganda has recently endeavored to give rise to the belief that the Belgian army has become considerably reduced, and that it has been necessary to withdraw it from the front; This"falsehood has already been replied to, and on April 2* the Petit Parisien published a statement of M. de Broqueville, Minister,of War and chief of the Belgian Government, which is a complete denial. To the envoy of that paper; who just paid, n, visit to the trenches of the Belgian army, which extend over a front of thirty-five kilometres (twentytwo miles)," M. de Broqueville declared: —"The Germans affirm that our army h both numerically and morally diminished. But I, on the contrary, definitely state that it is greater in numbers and -better equipped than it was at the commencement of the war. You will understand that I do not wish to give definite figures, but when I say that it is more numerous and better equipped than it was in the month of August, 1914, these words must be taken literally. They are not merely words, but realities. What is the moral, then, to be drawn frmo this? All the officers of the Allied armies, all journalists, whe ther Allied or neutral, who visit our troops remark upon tiieir excellence, and do not conceal their admiration for them. The King, the army, and entire nation have all unshakable confidence in the victory of the Allies, and, consequently in the integral reconstitution of the Belgian kingdom. We have done our duty. We n-oret nothing, and I am confident of being the faithful interpreter of my King, of our army, of the whole of the Government, and of the Belgians who await us in their invaded country."

THE WAYS OF THE SPY. A story from Miss Phyllis Campbell's 'Haek of the Front," a hook of the war:—"We walked to the station for a paper and stood waiting there till the hoy would arrive on his bicycle. While we waited we saw a very familiar figure standing by the pavement—a man with a tray of nuts suspended round his neck. He was a tall soldierly figure of a man —distinguished in appearance., but. shabby and soiled to a degree. Gossip said he was an English officer who had been ruined by a famous 'Paris actress. For seven years he had stood between the chateau and the church selling nutsnever looking one ip the face, never speaking. As we watched him, suddenly from among the soldiers came a typical Paris gamin—ragged, hatless, impudent, and" barefooted—evidently drunk. He reeled on the edge of the pavement and cannoned against the seller of nuts, whose wares were flung broadcast by the contact. Instead of apologising he thrust a hand through' his hair and said something in argot—and there was a roar from the soldiers. The seller of nuts looked wizened with rage—and his retort, when it came, was bitingly satirical.'' The gamin wheeled, round and spat in his face—and, like a flash, the seller of nuts became a soldier—an officer—r. gentleman—a spy! The soldiers closed round Mm—that volley of horrible -.irsings was in pure high German. Iji" ;nmin was a famous French detee- -,' "..ami the seller of nuts a Prussian .. ~niNn, an officer, of high ran> "