LEVY OF DESPAIR.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1916, Page 3

LEVY OF DESPAIR.

AUSTRIA'S LAST CALL The information that Austria had closed her Swiss frontier at the end of July and was proceeding to levy en masse was soon confirmed. Not all her reserves drawn from the Italian front or from Serbia, nor Turkish troops from Bulgaria sent to Lemberg, suffice, and Austria is calling out her very last men. This last call many be described as a levy of despair. Orders were issued that on August 3 all the exempts of 14 classes, from 1885 to 1898, who had been inspected the previous month and declared fit, must present themselves to be sent to their respective bases of equipment. These men since the beginning of the war had already been inspected and rejected on 12 separate occasions, and their physical ability must therefore have been very low indeed; yet they are now all impressed into service as Austria's last hope.. Their inspection was begun on July 0 and closed on July 24. Each of these recruits —limping and lame, or half dumb or half blind though he may be—will be sent to join his regiment, and whether of the younger or oider category, he will go to join his comrades of the same age who may still be alive and who never expected to see them under the colors. The above order was published in the Tyrolcr Anzeiger under the headline "Frpsh Troops for the Fatherland." Tlie paper mendaciously declared that this last call aroused indescribable enthusiasm in the Tyrol, and that young and old were delighted to contribute their strength to the Fatherland. Another paper, the Risvcglio Austriaco. published a new order for the benefit of the Trentino inhabitants. The Vienna Fremdenblatt stated that among those now called out will be men of eminent station, and added, to quiet the fears of the public, that this levy was only to replace younger troops in barracks and garrisons who have to go to the front. The Reichpost admitted that this call was liable to cause some uncasines?, but all would do their patriotic duty.