Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Clinton New Era, 1914-12-24, Page 3Tlitixday, December >24, 1914, it 14as CIIu[lfltiOW i !lam PAGE THREE WIRE CZAR OF RUSSIA IN UNOFFICIAL ROLE Absolute Master of Millions of Subjects Has Kindly Nature Which He Exercises When He Gets a Chance to Move Among His People. The Czar of Russia, unlike his arch- enemy, the German Emperor, Is a man whose lits is largely shrouded in mystery. With the Kaiser. it is a ease of "power and publicity." With the Little Father of all the Russias It is a case of mighty inSueeee, sway- ed by a man whoee personal side is Seldom revealed. One of the officers .closest to the Czar is his personal bodyguard. This position was held • .two years ago by Count Simon Rodia-. noff, and after he ,relinquished it he gave to the world many personal stories of his Imperial master which otherwise would never have become public. On one occasion his Majesty an- nounced his desire to have a droshky brought, so that he might go for a drive In the country incognito. While Count Rodianoff went to inform the _accessary members of the Household of the Imperial wish, the Czar strolled in the park. When the bodyguard came upon him, about half an hour. later, he was helping a gardener to lop off the dead limbs from a tree. In civilian attire the Clear and his bodyguard walked past a wing of the ,palace, and, through an open window, :heard voices. They approached, and, looking In, saw about a dozen sem tlnele seated at a round table, drink- ing vodka and playing cards. One of the men was telling his compan- ions of a love affair, at which they all laughed heartily. The sentinels sprang to their feet, saluted, and presented arms. The Czar smiled. "How do you do, boys? Go ahead, and don't be disturbed by me," he said. When the droshky name they drove -into the eountry, enjoying the sun - +shine and the delightful rural scenery, until they came to a typical Russian inn, where the Cigar stopped the horse, and, announcing that he was hungry, entered the hostelry. Mine host was deep In a discussion: of polities with a number of peasants that had stopped on the way to mar- ket with their produce to drink vodka. "We want something to eat," said 2 the Czar. But all the innkeeper had in the house were some old, dried -out ham. herrings, and eggs. However, one of the peasants hada cartload of crabs, and the Czar asked the innkeeper to buy a couple of dozen and boil them. I have no time to boil you crabs," quoth mine host. "If you are' hungry eat herring and drink vodka." "But suppose 1 pay you ten roubles?" persisted the Czar. The innkeeper looked at the speak - "I'm sure your money doesn't grow on trees," he replied. "You buy the crabs from the man and pay me fifty copecks for boiling them, and I shall. be satisfied. l . don't wish to be too greedy.' Half an hour later his Imperial Majesty and his liodyguard sat down at table with the peasants and par- took heartily of a repast of boiled. crabs and tea, of which the Czar after- wards said that he had never en- joyed a meal more. Later in the day the Czar and the count took part in a wedding they found in progress in the cottage of a humble fisherman. "I know people pretty well from their appearance," said the old pea- sant, smiling shrewdly. "I know from your face that you are either a com- mercial' traveller or an agent for a drapery house." , Nevertheless, the two distinguished tourists attended the wedding, and drank with the bride and bridegroom; and the next morning the Czar sent a present to the bride, consisting of a fine service 01 silver, a five -hundred - rouble note, and a personal message, which ran: "I congratulate the newly-weds, and send my wedding present. Nicholas I." Though the Czar enjoys a stroll in- cognito, he is guarded at his various residences in the closest possible man- ner. - THE SAUCY ARETHUSA Signal Honor Pald to the Present-day Craft of That Name The Arethusa, the ship wbieh play- ed so important a part in the fight off Heligoland, bears a famous name, In the great French war there was a famous frigate, "The Sauey Are-' thusa." which fought an action with a ..French vessel which was immor- talized in one of Dibdin's most cele- brated sea songs. The Admiralty ordered the following verses from that song to be engraved upon a brass plate and fixed in a conspicuous place in the H.ALS. Arethusa of to -day: ' Come, all ye jolly sailors bold, Whose hearts are cast in honor's mould, While English glory I unfold, Huzza for the Arethusa! Her men are staunch To their fav'rlte launch, And when the foe shall meet our fire, Sooner than strike we'll all expire On board of the Arethusa, And, now we've driven the foe ashore Never to fight with Britons more, Let each fill his glass To his faveete lass; A health to our captain and officers true And all that belong to the jovial crew On board of the Arethusa. Turn About Is Fair Play Russia notified Germany that in all the towns occupied by the Russian army a war contribution would be levied amounting to double the sum exacted by Germany from Belgian towns, it ereekee x• ,.• AREA OF WAR ZONE GREATLY WIDENED BY TURKEY'S ENTRANCE IN'rO CONFLICT SEMLIN ROU MAN dA 'N• $UKHAFEST SOFIA 13TJLGARIA (fig Of , eATTARO SCUTARI ADfIAN 0PLE \, CONSTANTINOPLE • SEaNOpA MP SA-Ot4 CORFU % IONIAN SEA i rzl SKUTARI 0 BARD al.e5 AEGEAN SEA 4i v C� eLS ANDRIA PORT SAID ,TRIPOL2 The Sublime Portebholds a strategic position in the present war, as Is shown by the above map. Not only does it command the Dardanelles, which is strongly fortified, and se bottles ug whatever war vessels Russia may have in the Black Sea, but it is within striking power of Egypt and, the Suez Canal. The British pos- sessions, Cyprus, in the Levant, is now in the new zone of war: The, attitude of Turkey has been closely watched by both France and Gr'dat Britain since the commencement er the war and a large force of war- ships of these countries is already stationed between the Aegean kleat; and the Suez Canal, Large bodies of Egyptian and Arab troops friendly to Britain have been n3 seed in the neighborhood pt the canal in 'order to protect it from any possible/rising of Moslem sympathizers with Turkey. GYPx CAI A Little ell and is Paying Dearly ,,, . 1 or Its Geographical Position � 1 Holla• d is learning in this war time the disadvantages of being a neutral country, says a London correspondent in Holland. Perhaps the advantages aro as em- barrassing as the -•.disadvantages. With war all around her, she has be- come a place of refuge, a clearing- house for telegrams and letters that cannot pass direct from England to Germany, a common platform on, which men whose countries are in bitter enmity may meet on the terms of old friendships. Her neutrality has made the arrival within her southern frontier of Ger- man or Belgian soldiers, 'flying from. their respective enemies,. a rather trying form of - enfor'eed , hospitality. - A concentration camp at Alkamaar GERMANY'S CRACK -CORPS' Sons of Royal Family Reoelve Military Maiming In Guards The. German Guards Corps—the flower o8 the Kaiser's troops—com- prises, the very finest regiments In the Prussian service. The corps includes four -regiments of Foot Guards, the 'Emperor' Alexan- der and Emperor Franz Grenadiers (each with the Czar and Austrian monarch as its titular chief); .the Queen Elizabeth Guards 'Regiment, named after • the widow of Frederick William IV. of Prussia; `and the Queen Augusta Grenadier Regiment, which received its name when the wife of the first Gei'ntan l3mperor was appoilnted to its head. In the corps arealso the Guards 'Fusilier Regiment, knpwn 111 13erlin as 1"e Mai Ka•tfer" ( May Beetles"), X73 taco b.own ci rt black shouldat. I; ,;:a G, 'e As° the e ..rch :l in Regiment, SUICIDE Cr THE GERMAN EMPiRi(I 4b a Guards, ., �,tl the Masseurs of the Cuar.l-, , -Bert Thomas, ILI Leaden.' Oseale1'- .12 these crack regiments the 1.st has its nucleus of men from both armies, and there is the constant fear that this involuntary hospitality may lead to international complications. No wonder that little Holland is massing her troops to drive back the soldiers who, in the' heat-' of flight from battle, seek to be her ,guests. • But Holland is .paying' the price. It is not for nothing that a - little nation, with millions less people than London put over 400,000 men under arms. At all. costs she will fight for her independence, and among these stolid, silent people there is never a murmur at the sacrifice. It is not only the men who have been palled to the colors and the families that are left without breadwinner who 'are paying, the price. All over Holland men and women are being turned out of doors, and seeing their homes pulled down, be- cause the buildings, set up under the shadow of forts, interfere with the all-round .range of the guns. The correspondent says: "I met a man who had disappeared from Am- sterdam for a couple of. days. He toldme quietly that he had been into the country ^ south. of 'herb to see -how' his old parents were=getting:ons-^They' were farmers. Suddenly at _midnight: they and their neighbors had notice that within an hour their homes must bo pulled down. - Imagine what it meant, in the ramp and darkness, to pack all the household goods on carts, to drive horses and cattle along the narrow road that tops the dyke, and to find the best' shelter that can be had at a safe distance from the forte,"' Foot Guards have served as the mili- tary cradle and training schoolof practically every male 'member of the Hohenzollern family from the Kur- prinz Frederick, afterwards. King Frederick I., to the present Emperor, who was gazetted to it as a boy of ten, What Caliber Means Caliber means the diameter of the bore of a gun -thus a gun of 12 -inch caliber has a bore 12 inches across, taking a 12 -inch projectile. Caliber is used in plural to express the length -of the gun; thus a phrase often heard is a ''gun of forty or fifty calibers," which means that the length of the gun is fort' or fifty times the dia- meter of the bore. Thus a 12 -inch gun of fifty calibers, the type mounted in the British Dreadnoughts before the 13.5 -inch gun was introduced, is a weapon 'fifty times 12 inches long, that is, 50 feet in length, The longer a gun is the greater is its power, Birmingham provided six itnuilred rear+ -uta from tramwaymen ale;: e• 6 lased { KAISER'S LUCKY RING Has the Kaiser lost the ring where- in legend says lies the luck of Hohen- zollern? • Mftny Royal houses have some jewel among - their treasures around which rumor' has woven strange and mystic tales. The Kaiser wears a plain gold ring, with a black stone, by which he sets great store: Freder- ick the Great received it from his dy- ing father with the assurance that so long as it remained'- in the family the race Would prosper and multiply. The Countess Lichenau stole the "Luck" from Frederick WilliamiI. In 1790, and the next few years were full of disaster for Prussia. Suet be- fore the great war of liberation In 1l13, the ring was recovered, and its new advent saw the fortune of the Hohenzollerns firmly established. Rumor has 2t that the "Luck," ages ago, was dropped from the niout1P of a large frog on the bed of a beautiful Hlohenzollern princess. CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS NOT OW[ST N FRANCE AN EXPERT ON EXPLOSIVES The greatest living authority on ex- plosives to -day is Sir Andrew Noble, chairman of "the' great firm of Arm- strong, Whitworth, and Co., to whom the' war has brought hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of work, Entering the army, he became a cap- tain in the Royal Artillery. The Government recognized his ability. first by appointing him to a technical committee on armor plates, and secondly by making him assistant in- spector of artillery. When the late Lord Armptrong added an ordnance manufactory to his works at Elswick he called young Noble to his side. Together they made Armstrong's one of the greatest concerns in the coun- tr7, with a wage bill in Newcastle alone of over 5100,000. To Sir Andrew Noble the Navy owes some remarkable inventions. The chronoscope, which ' measures the speed of a shot at different parts of the bore of a gun, is his. An in- genious arrangement causes the shot automatically to make a record in an instrument worked by an electric current which the shot in passing releasee. Along with Professor Abel, he prepared a table which provided the means of determining the total work perforated by any charge in ani gun. RED CROSS WORK International Body Came Into Exist`' en ce Half Century Ago Before the end of the 18th century ambulance service in war was almost unknown. Wounded soldiers were left on the field unattended until after the fighting—it might be the day after the fight or later before surgical help or any help reached them. The French army was the first to organize a system of flying ambulance carriers. Other nations adopted a similar system, and in the British - Indian army a special caste of bearers did the work. The army organization of the various nations advanced rapidly in efficiency, but complaints and charges were frequent of treachery and attack on the ambulance and medical staffs of the armies. It was not until 1804 that an attempt wggq made by the Geneva convention. 'to fits a code (-4international rules -governing t��44 treatment of sung%al and ambl ge corns o9 op sing armies. Mn ny cou- ventitona,, dere held afterp this date until the final one in X 6.7 at which 35States 'were repry.ented and rules adopted governing the treatment of bo theth woundedon d. and a sea. i their attendants, an 1 The Red Cross Society is not S. military organization, but works with Lae unsjer, the Arlo_ y in the field. Every nation has, l of ooiirre-,it& wn medlca.l state and a' bulance coi11ii' as part of the army equipment, but 4.1jj now wear the badge of the Red Cross of the Geneva convention—the Red Cross ort a white band' on the left arm. . It is not necessary to elaborate on the details of the work. First aid on the field, carrying away the wound- ed to the ; rear, bandages, stimulants, water; -medicine. Then the field hospital, the hospital trains, the home depots. All nations have a very per- Sectsystem both .on sea and.land. Notre Dame in Paris Surpasses it in Matter of Age if Not in Historical Interest and Others in the Country Are World- famous. Well might the world stand aghast at Germany,'s crowning infamy, the destruction of Rheims Cathedral, for our Teuton foes reduced to ruins a sacred edifice which all other nations venerated. Rheims Cathedral was the Westminster Abbey of France, °but although not quite so rich in historical and Royal' interest, the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris 1s more ancient than that of Rheims, the main build- ing having been begun in the twelfth century. It is said that if the pillars - of Notre Dame could speak they might tell Cho whole history of Franco, al- though the only coronation celebrated there was that of Henry VI. of Eng- land in 1431. ;Perha'ps the finest feature of the NotreeDamo Cathedral in Paris is the Sainte Chapelle, built by St. Louis in 1245.8, for the reception of the various relies which he brought from the Holy Land. This chapel is, per - baps,; the greatest existing master- piece of -Gothic art, and was restored by Napoleon III. at a cost of $250,000. Amiens Cathedral is another of - France's thirteenth -century churches, to which the world pays annual. visits. This was the church which sent Rus- kin into raptures, and which he and other people have described as "the finest existing medimval structure." Its incomparable facade, galleries filled with the statues of kings, its - superb windows and tapestries, and above all its beautiful choir -stalls and chapels, make the Amiens Cathedral incomparable in many respects. Of special historical interest to British people is the cathedral of Rouen, for it was there that the heart of Richard Cour de Lion was buried prior to its being removed to the ex- tensive Museum of Antiquities. An• other interesting fact regarding the Rouen Cathedral is that' theuotabie south tower was built at the end of the fifteenth, century with. what was termed 'Sfgddlgej�tt'money, received by theABsh tr 'for permission to eat butte dor ng Len1 The splendors of t1'a south tzrarisap , its rose w�in,.d.�2ws and wonderful acu-lptitre, have'exclteu the admiration of all lover9 03 the beautiful. ''""-4.17 :: r .03511 Neither should one forget the glor- lons cathedral of Chartres, built chiefly between 1194 and 1260. It is noted for its solidity al well as beauty, one of its spires—there are two—be ing See Y n rail regarded as the most beautiful on the continent. Like most oilier i'-aut'iius French cathedrals, rk hints once magnificent rose win- dows, t 6a irfiRria;;fete-Fgiafn a d•ir°thirteenth-century glass forming fsplai f jewelled color unequalled elsewhere. - A, series of magnificent sculptures pf th9 1lPg, of Christ and the Virgin rovide a fascinating sight, while the great triple porches of the transepts, covered with sculpture, are matchless, A civilian in Great Britain is liable to a sentence not exceeding three months' imprisonment for 'breaking military regulations in regard to lights. - - Aged Leal an •Cheval i-er ... .. ., iw...�" a ,Nt Fought Germans Thrice There are not many people who can oast that they have fought to three wars agatnet the Germans, but that is the proud boast of the Chevalier Luigi' Ricci, the famous Garibaldian; and at the headquarters of his Foreign Le- gion in London he talked to a repre- sentative of "Answers" of his long life. The chevalier has, for the last forty- four years, lived entirely in England, and is the leader of the Italian colony in London. He is now contemplating the publication of his memoirs, while his son, aged twenty-three, is fight- ing the Germans as a senior wireless operator. Besides being an intrepid warrior this gallant old gentleman is also a great scholar, and founded the Dante Society for the study of that poet; he is also a member of the governing body of the City Polytechnic and a Professor at the University of Lon- don. ' Sincet by his extreme age he is unable to talte up arms, he started the formation of the King's Foreign Legion. "I suppose my life has been un usually full;" said the veteran. "At the time of the Italian War for Inde- pendence I' was at the Royal Military College, which I left in oilier to rales and equip a corps ,of -.Guides. That was in 1868, and I .thenmimbered among my friends Garibaldi, 3/Laszlo', and our great national poet, Carducci, who was my tutor. 1 In 1870, during the Franco-German War, I was at Paris. I went through the siege and served as captain in the 238th Battaillon do Guerre. I was wounded at the battle of Le Bourget, and my name was mentioned in de- spatches. "After the siege I came to London, where I have been ever since. It is the city that I love, in the land that I love next to Italy, It is because 1 love it, and because I have learned to hate Prussianism in every form that I resolved to form my Foreign Legion. "So great was the response from all the foreign colonies in London that we had to close our acceptances having raised the full complement of 3,000 men and 200 officers. We have Russians, Poles, Armenians, Italians, Servians, Americans, Colonials, and Britishers in this company. In one week, from the -day on which 2 ap preached the War Office, I was sht,,, to offer them these 3,000, and. another British Legion, formed in F'i'algte, V, at tate very least, 500 men,'a :enc.,°.0;.xn..,nnerremn. m,c„a..m,,.,",,.wew ,ecn,=ma,m,n.,,FIrw,.. ..