WAR NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 145, 17 November 1870, Page 4

WAR NOTES.

FiveJib.oiisand.maps of the fortifications' 6F Paris are' being sent to the •German army. 3&e Prussian spy named Hart, taken at-Gien, on the Orleans railway, was sentenced to death by a Council of War, and shot. The eldest son. of Count Bismarck, Herbert, has been wounded in the foot, and the seoond son, William, had a horse killed under him. The Paris journals mention that two Prussian spies, disguised as Sisters of Charity, -were arrested on the fortifications in the Bois de Boulogne. King William, the " Liberty " says, is stated to have said ingenuously to" a friend, who repeats it to us, "I do not intend to enter Paris; victorious, I shall treat wider the walls of the capital." r The "Figaro" recommends that electric lights should be placed on the foriffications of Paris, as their brightness would dazzle the enemy and hinder llieir seeing what was behind. There seems to be no djajfafc that a portion of the Bois deJjfSßogne has been directed to be cuj^fown to open the space^r defensive purposes. This I fact has had a powerful effect upon the I Parisians. i jVjp Gandin, of the Bureau de Longit'.icres, says he has invented a machine which :will throw a million of pixyectiles at qace, so as to fkjill at 1,500 metres, aa'd to injure seriously at 3,000. Several of the Paris journals say that the Empress telegraphed to the Emperor as follows :—": — " They say in Paris that you have placed our son where spent b.ajls fell. I pray you to place him where fall the balls that kill." It is stated that two days after the declaration of war, the French Government discovered* upon examination of their stores of gunpowder, that a great number of the barrels were found to contain a mixture of charcoal and saw dust only. "Le Figaro " relates a story of an old woman, 80 years of age, who begged t) be allowed to go out- as vivandiere. She had; begn out on the same capacity in the Russian campaign, where she was wounded three times, and was also at Waterloo, She says she wants to dismount a few Prussians. It is reported at Constantinople that immediately after the outbreak of the war the Sultan offered to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor Napoleon, but that the proposal was declined. — " Eastern Budget. 9 M. Jeannerol, co*"* r - . Temps, says that th —wear ye. "1"" 1 " - out 10ip. j . '' • ZS^-” cularly, ' *•-. ■..**.-' ' i ?>£*'' """' .^ctar^ lines c ' . districts of "" -. x'he result at which it arrives • is that Alsace contains 876 communities and 500,000 inhabitants, Lorraine 361 communities and 245,800 inhabitants, and French Luxemburg 72 cornmuities and 52,900 inhabitants, who, if language be a criterion, should be included in Germany. The Figaro, having given to every soldier in the army a glass of brandy and a cigar, and having collected above 10,000f., to present a sword of honour to Marshal M'Mahon, has now started a fresh subscription to send chocolate, oranges, and other little luxuries to the wounded. The first French gun taken in the present war was by a sergeant of the Prussians sth Rifles (of G-orlitz). The rewarded he received consisted of 500 thalers offered by the Cologne Gazette, 20 thalers offered by the town of CarlBruhe, 60 thalers offered by a merohant of Breslau, and 100 thalers offered by a councillor of Posen — altogether about £100. Mr. Mundella, M.P., who has returned safely from a short visit to the continent, writes to Sheffield from London as follows - — <J -I arrived here this (Wednesday) morning, by the Calais -steamer. I have travelled for eight days and six nights out of my 13 days' absence. The scenes I have witnessed of butchery and misery make these days seem to me like months or y^ars." General Le Flo has written to the "Count of Palikao saying that he has been separated from the army by political events, but has continued in union with it by hie affections and his pursuits. He says he has also given it to his son, who has fought at Saarbruck and Forbach. " I am," he says, "65 years of age : but age has not weakened my courage or patriotism," and he concludes by desiring active service and permi sion to draw his _ in defence of France. Intelligence was received last week of the death of a Prussain in one of the late battles who had been in a merchant's office in Liverpool, and who left his employment to fight for the Fatherland. It seems that he was engaged to be married to a young lady in that town possessing great' personal attractions." The melancholy news was conveyed to her some days ago, but during the interval she has never once spoken, and is said to be in a state of serai-insensibility. . , ■ •■ . For a sw.ord of honour to be preeeritej to' Marshal M'Mahon,. in tesfcixacray of tb^ootHitfy's approval of his

gallant defence at Woerth and Wissenburg, the contributions are said to have been' nuuverousOand liberal; 2",500f.' having been paid in on Friday. A lady sent a diamond, and another subscriber offers a quantity of lapis lazuli for the decoration of the sword. One very characteristic contribution is forwarded with the following note :—: — " The dead who lived in the hatred of Prussia should also subscribe. I enclose, therefore, on behalf of my deseased father and mother one franc." j Nine military surgeons, who had been taken prisoners at the battle of Eeichshoffen, arrived a few days back ] at the Val de Grace hospital. These gentlemen, who had not provided themselves^ with the armlet to secure their persons, by the terms of the Convention of Geneva, had been treated like common soldiers. The Prussians had despoiled them not only of their purses, sacks, and coats, but also of their bundles and instruments. One of them wore a pair of uhlan's trowsers, and a cuirassier's tunic, another a staffcaptian's cloak ; the others were also most incongruously attired. After three days' rest they are to go and rejoin their respective corps. The Crown Princess of Prussia has come to the assistance of the wives and families of those who are now obliged to serve in the army witlx the generosity and practical tact she always shows when a good work is to be done. Not content with providing remunerative employment for those who reside in Potsdam, she has given orders that twenty families shall be furnished four times a week with good soup and meat from the kitchen from her farm at Bernstadt. For those who have lately become mothers, a special diet is furnished from the kitchen of the .-New Palace. Her royal highness satisfies her.self by personal inspection that her orders are properly carried out. A gr^t number of the French prisoners had with them post-office orders sent by their relatives. They applied to the Prussian authorities to cash them, but were told that the state of war precluded any such step. They then had recourse to the Swiss postoffice, which instantly telegraphed to Paris to inquire whether it could safely do so. The reply was that its interposition would be gr stefully received, and all payments reimbursed. Money can therefore now be forwarded to the captives by the ordinary means. The Turcos just disembarked at Toulon carry a flag with this inscripI tion, " Battillon de la Vengeance." In consequence of the frontier ceasing to be menace' '^- Belgian ' . ..ic and Rod... r -•L 1 ' .. v iVrftl-knowit I'ijr "ir;n : i juurr. . -th. arc with tTifc \ 4^3C^"-'fji"Siflrai Tu.>y have not been ; woufioed. I tfiL n< n -"■. i,- . .\ "i v , Durned. to ashes in a ban \ where it had been placed after death to await interment. A Bavarian physician, writing from before Metz, says that, in addition to the immense number of wounded, dysentery begins to disquiet the t oops. Many such victories as the last, he says, and the Prussian army is ruined. Among the physicians killed on the field, victims of their devotion, is M. Milliot. He was extracting a bullet from Colonel Coloniieu, now in the hospital of Val-de-Grace, and bad just successfully completed the operation, when he was killed on the spot. Mr. George Augustus Sala was seized a few days since as a Prussian spy in Paris, imprisoned, and subjected to severe illtreatment, from which, however, he is now recovering. A correspondent says he was told by a gentleman attached to the French Court, that the Empress is iudignanfc with the Emperor. She says that he is a coward, and never should have been taken alive. It is telegraphed from Berlin that the Prussian Commander-in-chief has announced that all members of the French corps of Francs-Tireurs taken in arms will be shot, or if they had never used their arms they would be sent to Germany for 10 years' penal servitude. Four days previous to M'Mahon's selecting his final position of defence, General Blumenthal, putting his finger on the map, said, " M'Mabon is quite lost. There he must stand and fi<?ht, and there he must be beaten without a chance of escape. They are quite lost. I wonder what they can mean." The French papers ai'e full of apocryphal accounts of the interview that took place between the King of Prussia and the ex' Emperor. The King is generally reported to have treated his prisoners shamefully, and the exEmperor to have been as meek as a mouse. However, one correspondent can confidently affirm that after a long interview, Napoleon so terrified his captor with the "red spector," that King William in the end declared he would set Louis Napoleon on his throne again in a fortnight. The accounts of the conduct and state of the Empress during the list few days of her husband's rei^n are most touching. She is^ 'described as having. 'neither ate nor 'slept, but as . "working. ■■ unre nittingly with the Ministers. We are' also told that for days after the disaster of Woerth the Emperor sat silent and immovable.

An English M.P., who was at the battle of Sedan, says one poor wounded Frenchman asked him, "Are the Prussians Christians ?" " Certainly," said I. I knew he was thinking* of those heathen Turcos of his. " Then," said my poor friend, breathing heavily (he was badly wounded in the chest), " why do we 'kill one another ?" "Oh," I replied, " for the sake of Emperors and Kings. Don't you know the rest of us were made for them ?" But he didn't seem to accept this.

The Emperor Napoleon said to a Prussian officer after the battle of Sedan that it was " to the superiority of artillery, not in numbers, but in weight, range, and precision, the victory was due. It was your artillery won the battle."

The palace of Wilhelmshohe, which has been assigned as a residence by the King of Prussia to the ex-Emperor of the French, was the summer residence of the Elector of Cassel in the vicinity of which town, the capital ot the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, it is situated. The suburbs of Cassel are extremely beautiful, abounding in delightful promenades. That of Wilhelmshohe is especially rich in this respect, containing the Augarten (Meadowgarden), and the gradens which surround the Electoral palace, which are famous for a fountain that sends up a column of water ] 2 inches in diameter to a height of 200 feet. His ex-Im-perial Majesty's new palace of abode will be distaut about -100 miles in a straight line from Paris, 100 from Cologne (the nearest point of the Rnine), aud 300 from Lautcrburnn (the ucarest point of French soil). As some curiosity has been expressed regarding the biography of the Mr Smith who was reported in the last San Francisco summary as having conveyed the Prince Imperial and the crown jewels of France tj London, the fallowing paragraph from a Melbourne paper will prove interesting : — Wiiat'a in a name, is a question often asked, and echo answers, What ? A De Bohun may gaiu a precarious living by billiard-sharping, and a Smith may De the trusted friend of royalty. Mr W. F. Smith, whose name surely henceforth will figure in " Men of the Time," has proved beyond doubt thafc a euphoniously vulgar patronimic is no bar to success in life. The Mr Smith in question began life as a dentist, aud so li^ht was his touch, so perfect his manipulation that he worked his way into the good graces of the Empress Eugenic, and often touched her Royal lips hi his office cura+ z *- 7 dents imjyeriales. P-* *•»"■" •>" ' Mr Smi< (

« - ; . i ..1" "f tin -tie X ■ , •: .n tend the ,\i-<].nn i. - th of trie V>)ii.<vor

• .. v xuli uuntu atrencied to a host of minor celebrities, including. English peers, French vicomtes, German barons, Italian marchese, and Polish counts. Greatness has again beeu thrust upon him, and from practising dental surgery udoii the Empress, he has been appointed a sort of dry-nurse to the Prince Imperial and keeper of Royal jewels, both of which objects of interest to Louis Napoleon he has transferred to the safe-keeping of le perjide Albion. The quarter of the human race who bear the name of Smith need never despair.