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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Clinton New Era, 1915-01-07, Page 1Thursday, January 7th, THE CLINTON "NBW 10/LE. Ir. access of :} rmy Depends on 'Supm1y f Ammunition Moving it From the Base to the Firing Line is One �f the Most Dangerous Tasks to Which a Soldier Can be Allotted—How it is Done. There is very little glitter about the .business of getting the ammunition to the line of battle, and yet upon the 'certainty and celerity with which the .operation is conducted depends the result of the conflict. No branch of the army is more thoroughly organized than that of ammunition supply. In none does there prevail a more rigid discipline. It is said that Germany In prepar- ation for the war was able to store in Belgium, and even in France, large quantities of war material, including a -munition, but as a rule the supply- ingof the armies with shot and :shell has to be arranged for after the war' has begun. The base of the supply, of course, is the ammunition factories at home. Thence the ammunition is sent by train to the nearest safe point to the army eo be supplied, and this shipment is attended by no more .difficulty then the shipment cf a car- load of pota;»es from cne town to .another. It is when the ammunition rlca%es the •rail and passes• into the 'control of the supply column that the real work begins, It has then to go forward over the tine of communi- cations, a line that it is the strategy of the enemy to destroy or interrupt if possible. The service ter forward- ing the ammunition is divided into three branches, the base, the inter- mediate and the i3vance•eections. Ammuett re.iumn and Train From the base go forward the great :ammunition columns, nowadays for- warded by huge motor trucks. At mertain points along the line they are 'Met by ammunition trains, also com- 'posed of :rotor trucks, and each ready to carry ammunition to a different brigade or division. The ammunition 'train is divided into two ammunition 'companies or battalions, which es- t..blish the various distributing sta- tions. Each company or battalion is 's_bdivided into infantry and artillery 'ammunition sections, which supply their respective branches. The trains advance to within probably two miles of .the firing line, and the division commander's are at once notified of their arrival. At night their location is indicated by red tights, by day by means of little flags. dere again the ammunition passes into other bands, .namely the wing known as the combat trains. Prob- ably in the peesent war it is practic- able in some •.cases to use gasoline .zcombat'trains, but as a rule the com- bat are carts, lightht enough to n strong alio and ata n, be hauledg_ °enough to cross the roughest country. in many cases where it is found im• practicable to forward the ammu- nition to the firing line by means of 'wagons, paclt animals are used, the 'sure-footed mule being the favorite. All. Dangerous Work Often, indeed the ammunition is .carried forward on the backs of the soldiers, Whey reserves are going forward they invariably carry with 'them, in addition to their own supply roe cartridges, enough for those whom they are going • to support. The work •of the combat trains„ whether done by automobile, cart or pack horse, is as dangerous as falls to the lot of a soldier. The enemy is always alert to identify a combat train and fire upon it, for it is calculated that the destruction of ono load of ammu- nition is more important than the wounding of a score of soldiers. The officers in charge of the ammu- nition transport have a more difficult problem to :erform than those in charge of the too,: supplies for in- stance. A smaller eats as much one day as another, and it is easy enough to calculate in' advance just how much food will be consumed by an army on any given day. It is different with ammunition. On one clay an army will need ten times as muck ammu- nition as en 'another day. The prim ciple the ammunition supply expelce go upon is that a soldier going into action will have 100 cartridges in his belt, and probably another 60 in his pockets. In the combat wagon there is always another 1$0 for each man. In the ammunition` train there are 120. In the ammunition column there is as much as has gone before, and at the base there is just twice as much as is in the column. Therefore 1,600 cartridges are provided for each man. Each field gun has 2,000 rounds, distributed in the same way. PARADING PRISONERS THE EVOLUTION OF WAR=1iy Carafe d'Ache "DON'TS" FOR WAR CRTICS Lord Curzon, addressing a meeting at Narrow, Eng., gave the following twelve pieces of advice: Don't "think the war does not affect you individually. Don't be overjoyed at victory; don't be downhearted at defeat. Don't be unnerved by personal or family bereavements. Don't be frightened at the casualty lists, so long and sometimes so dis- tressing. Don't think that you know how to evage the campaign and that the War Office does not. Don't get nervous because the pro- gress of the war is slow; it can only be slow in these stages. Don't believe all that comes from Berlin, Don't underrate the enemy. Don't waste breath in attempting to ascertain what is to happen to the German Emperor in this world or the next. We will endeavor to dispose of him in this world. Don't begin to divide up the German Empire before you have got hold of it. Don't listen to anyone who cries "Halt!" before we have carried out the full purpose' for which 'wc are fighting. When the war is over don't throw away the lessons of the war.. Lord Curzon said the Kaiser's name would go down to history as "William the Bloodstained" and "William the Asss ssin." Germans • Send Them on Merry -go - Round to Impress the Populace It is a relief to extract a little humor out of the war. French and English alike wonder and laugh at the tremen- dous number of prisoners which the Germans, according to their own re- ports,. are capturing, both east and est. If they Look as many prisoners as they say they would have no enemy to fight. But the .explanation is simple enough. Take but one instance. •• A Swiss. who was at Aix-la-Chapelle during the early stages of the war, and who • is now at Basle, explains It thus: "The German Government is very ingenious in its efforts to keep up the spirits of the population. It reports the annihilation of regiment after regiment' daily, and in order to foster the delusion it has to produce formid- able convoys onvo s of French, British and Belgian prisoners. Aix-la-Chapelle is th- spectacular spot chosen. It is the busiest' railway station in the German Empire. The German General Staff sends long trainloads of prisoners through this junction going east every day. You can imagine how impres- sive it is. You can also imagine how industriously the newspaper corespon- dents record the incident in their de- spatches to Berlin, not forgetting the downcaat demeanor of the captives h cheers of the German popu- lace. and the ole s P P lace. "The crowds are unaware that these trains are rwitched onto a loop line at night,,, and return 1n triumph the next day. One morning a Dutchman was watching one of, them go slowly by. He saw a Belgian soldier , ex- citedly gesticulating at an open car- riage 'winlow. He Was shouting: 'This is the twelfth' time we have come through his station,," .Germany bas, all told, on both fron- :tiers, about 2,000 field artillery, and probably the- :same number of guns mounted on her fortresses; Oen:4'J r1.1 ran aa MORALE COUNTS FOR MUCH Long Range Fighting Harder to En- dure Than a Charge • The unthinking are apt to argue that victory must always rest with the big- ger and better -armed force. That is by no means the case. An obvious superiority in numbers or in weapons may, indeed, mean the submission of the enemy, may shake his nerves, and so bring him to the knee; but it is rare for one side to be so vastly ahead of the other that it is bound to win. The matter becomes, then, one e of Morale, in- dividuality.in a word,is everything, A very famoue English leader told once of the bravest man he ever knew. He was an officer, and lie confessed openly that he never went into a fight without fear, :ut—when his men lay flat before.a hail of bullets, he knelt; when they knelt, he stood; and he was ever in the charge. That is the true hero; the man with imagination to know what he faces; and with the courage to see things through to the end. "The assault and the hand-to- hand fight are not what frighten a soldier, whether he be inexperienced or no, Colonel de Grandmaisonwrote: 'What makes most impression on him is the long.range fight, because_ it is still the gnitnown—an enemy one does not see, projectiles that arrive from heaven knows where. One cannot struggle with this • invisible enemy; the rlanger,is immense, and is not to be measured; it .drags itself out into long hours, and is accompanied by the most horrible din, which produces a violent reaction on tee nervous system." 1'. taw t AUSTRALIAN OFFICERS WHO VOLUNTEERED FOR SERVICE L4?ht'Ali war was declared Australia offered an expeditionary force without delay for the aid of the mother coon try, "All' our ,resources are for' the Empire's preservation and security,"'declared the Federal Premier -o doll these officers of various Australian units have seen active sery ice. The late Caren d'Ache was one of the most famous cartoonists ever pro- duced by France. He was the originator of the newspaper "strip comic" in which a story is told in a series of pictures, but he always avoided vulgarity and horseplay in his productions. Huge British Howitzer Match For German Guns It Throws a Bigger Shell and is Lovingly Called "Mother" by the Khaki -clad Artillerymen—Works Alongside "Archibald" the New Weapon For Use Against Aeroplanes Tommy. Atkins nicknamed "Mother" the huge new British howitzer de- signed to out -class the German "Black Merles." ,The London Morning Poet published an interesting letter from an officer in the Royal Garrison Artillery at the front giving a most interesting ac- count of the manner in which the British succeeded in countering the formidableattacks of the German able now ' . w Marian " ' e are 'Black to reply to the German he"vy howit- zers with shell that is even weightier than their much -vaunted "Black Morias." The howitzer I refer to is 'Mother.' She has been so christened by the Tommles, and the name is not inappropriate. She is of matronly dimensions, but comely withal; and has done excellent' work whilst she WHAT GERMANY LACKS lndh ldual' ,Initiative of Kaiser's Sol- diers Piot to be Compared to Allies Tie special correspondent of thg. Lon en Morning Post at Belgian head quarters, communicated to his_ paper some highly interesting - and !l etrtic- tive information regarding the studious war preparations of the German army and the actual efgclency'of that body agtive service. The correspondent "A general impression rf German army war tactics after, some weeks' observation in the field leaves these two points outstanding: (1) the won- derful�thoroughness of preparation on the part of the German nation for this war; and (2) the failure of the Ger- man nation to assert a superiority over, or even an equality with, its Brititsh, French and Belgian antagon- ists in ntagon-istsin unforeseen contingencies call- ing for individual initiative. "In all that could be protided tor by thought beforehand, in all the book -work and routine of war, in the matters of discipline and of equip- ment, the German force was generally above criticism. In those other things which tell of the character of a race, of its native wit, ,and its natural courage the German has taken second Place to the Belgian, the Frenchman, the British man." The Real Union Jack. fiow Only at Sea The name, "Union Jack," is more often than net wrongly applied, "says London Tit -Bits. That name really belongs to 'a miniature union flag, dis- played from a staff at the, end of the bowsprit .on His Majesty's ships, and known for many years past as a jack; whence the name of "Union Jack," which has dome to be wrongly applied to the larger as well as the smaller Union Flag, the correct name when. displayed otherwise than on Hie Majesty's ships. The jack, properly so called, is never flown on shore. Until the fifteenth century Ing• land, Scotland, and Ireland lad separ, ate flags. The English flag consisted of the Red Cross of St, George on a white ground, that of Scotland the white diagonal cross of St. Andrew on a blue ground; and that of Ireland the red diagonal cross of 3t. Patrick, also on a white ground, and it is from a combination of these three flags that we get the "Union Jacx." It was James 1. who first began the formation of the Union Jack, by coin- bining the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew. He laid the cross of St. George on the cross of St. Andrew, and thus formed the U,nton Jack, has been with us, and more than one of her family of field batteries scat- tered round the front owes its •exist- ence to the attention 'Mother' has devoted to the German eight -inch heavy howitzers. 'Mother's' shell weighs 300 pounds, She ranges mpst accurately, and, indeed, she has had four direct hits on German guns in the past fortnight. A direct hit is onlyrecorded bythe o airman when vhen the shell actually Y strikes the enemy's gun. .:Mother' is usually accompanied by 'Archibald; which is one of the new anti -aeroplane guns, 'Archie' is mounted on a motor -lorry, and recent- ly brought down a Taube aeroplane, much to our delight. He fires a 13 - pound shrapnell shell and is daily becoming more expert 1n his atten- tions to hostile aircraft." FIGHTING BY SHIFTS Soldiers Relieve Each Other in Squads For R epiotic,, ,r The whole of the infantry,,of,th British force is not, of course, In the tinipg,. line •manning the trenches, at once. The trenches are'held•by "shifts," changed usually at night so as to save the relieving and retiring bodies of men' from being fired on as they go. Those who have left the trencbee 'march" back to a' :Sheltered position in the rear, where' they ore in comparative security from the Ger- man shells, and can rest in peace until' their turn for duty comes round again. Sometimes this safe resting' place is protected by a rise of ground; some- times it is deep in thick woods that stretch' in places behind the Britieh line. The Cameron were lucky; they found a greatunderground,.sandetone cave, rainproof, windproof and shell- proof, where Half a battalion could sleep and eat and move about as safely and almost as comfortably as in their barrack room at home. The Super -Dreadnought Iron Duke is the, meet powerful battleship in the world. Hler main armament is ten 13,5 -inch weapons, which hurl. a ehell of some 1,400 pounds a dist;,ulls of six miles. 9.9 which was the national flag for 200 years, It was after the Union of 1801 that the cross of St. Patrick was added, though in this case the diagonal red stripes were narrowed down in order that they should not obliterate,the white stripes of St. Andrew's coss. It will be noticed that the latter shows on either side of the cross of St. Patrick, while the narrow white. margin round the inside of the cross of St. George was added to separate the red of the cross from the blue field of the flag, It will be noticed, too, on. looking at the Union Jack that the Scottish and Irish crosses are so arranged that in the first and third divisions, counting from left to right, the white of Scotland. has precedence, while 1n the second and fourth the red of Ireland is uppermoet, The easiest rule to remember in displaying a Union Tack is that the broad diagonal white stripe, the St. Andrew's cross, should be uppermost in the first and third quarters, that is, nearest the staff, and the red diagonal St. Patrick's cross upper- most in the second and fourth guar, tors. The Rem.- rhable Career of Mr. Hilaire Belloc Rose From F rencliArtiilery Driv- er to Member of British Parlia- ment in Ten - Years - Foretold Raid Into Belgium With 11s- tonishing Accuracy, These are the days of unique careers of young men who achieve fame and fortune by originality and mei- Haney. Stich a man is Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose amazing article, Written two years ago, in which he prophesied tie important part Liege would per- form in a European war, and how the Belgian fortresses would retard the Germans in any sudden rush on France, was one of the most sensation- al forecasts ever made. Mr. Belloc's versal1ty is amazing. r s ago he was than twentyg Less Y ea serving as eriver in the 8th Regiment of French Artillery. Ten years later this man, who had gone straight from school to learn how to handle a gun team, was sir. 'ng In Britean's Par.ia- ment as representative of Salford. In the intervening years he had proved himself a literary genius. As a speaker Mr. Belloc has few equals, while he is also one of the greatest travellers of the day. He has written u every phase of s about Y booK and in- his wanderings—geographical tellectual—until one night :ave thought there was no region left to explore. Mr. Belloc, however, alludes to th eeriod he served as driver iu the French Artillery as one of his most valuable and en;oyable experiences. Mr. Belloc's ehicf•hobby ;s walking He has ,tramped over most of Europe at one time or another, collecting and storing the wonderfu flrsteceed know- lh'drge_ which he has imparted to the Vbin fri many books.anerrearrateeZ I. It was on.one of ;'these Continental tramps that he had a narroCviree'pe from an eae i iriig "pe -n: :He was un+A walking• tourrin a i- retain ' art of. 6a1 w sow , lg ier; to a en peasants tui®took him Rot' 'a -spy, and surrounded him With•drawtr knives: Luckily he was able to pacify them by speaking to them in their own language: Slkh's Disc of Death Sikhs fighting in the European war can certainly claim to possess a unique formof weapon. This is a hand - thrown miss"l, composed of metal similar in shape to the discus,familiar in Roman history. Its edge is shar- pened like a 'razor, and the weapon, when thrown with a peculiar circular motion, has ext.aordinary penetrating power. It cuts like a anile through paper when it strikes any .object in its path. At a distance' of a hundred yards the disc is capable of cutting its way through a piece of nand wood two inches thick. It Is the peculiar 'twist given to the weapon when it is thrown which causes'the nutting edge to bury itself so remorselessly in anything that it meets. It ie doubtful whether any but the Sikhs could effectively use this unique weapon. They made' deadly, use of the disc of death at the battle of Dixmude,` • PUNISHING COWARDICE Punishment for cowardice in the German army at the time of the Thirty Years' War was so revere as to be ferocious. In the year 1541 the Swedish General Torstensson stormed Leipzig. A force under the command of the Grand Duke Leopold gave lririia , battle before the gates'+of the city, but during the engagement the tYiad- lonische regiment became suddenly penlc-stricken and fled, _ Punishment immediately followed. When the regiment was again as- sembled, six other regiments surround- ed it and tried it by court martial in the open held. The verdict was that the colons In a d the captains slioul ns P d die by the cworr', and that every tenth man among the non-commissioned officers and seen should be hanged. The stern verdict was carried out to the letter, except that at the re- quest of Leopold the men were shot instead of hanged; Colonel George':: aladlonischo was beheaded, after he •' had sought in vain for a pardon. Ttto survivors were consigned to quarters with other commands, n ds and the regi- ment never regained its name or for- mer pPrestig e. In those days there Was s no alternative but to be brave. Cow- ardice meant either death or ever lasting disgrace. :;J u7Re ;,• Lord Kitchener—Spy The case of the Austrian Field - Marshal Vodinowskf, who was sum- marily shot as a spy reminds one that many famous generals have played "I spyi" in the past. -••' nreear NjYpoleon, whose dream of invading l rid never materialized once pie a its life. on adark night by landing an the south,`, coast nt Eng- land, his ehject being to discover the best site for ;tissombarking is o n . Wellington; hie ao'iiqur „, s gg lit ear .ss: During' tTie-Ikenlosular'War, the Iron Duke often indulged in noc- turnal prowls about the enemy's headquarters, and it is said In France that on- the eve .of Waterloo one of the French sentries sold the pass 'to Wellington, who actually walked aver the whole French encampment. Nel- son, travelling strictly "incog. often visited the French fleet, and got to know much about the methods of French naval warfare. Finally Lord Kitchener jeopardized his life again and again by trotting over to the Ifhalifa's• camp to see things for Himself.' o, Poor Shooting Spoiled the Drink Here is a humorous touch from the letter of a DublinFuisilier: "At one point of the line German and French troops were not more than one hundred yards apart- They could hear each other -talk; • sen sometimes talked to each other. One day a cow strayed between the. lines, Both sides wanted milli. - They agreed whoevr• hit a horn first would be let milk + cow. The first shot came from German linos. Bad as usual, it " the cow." `