Loading...
The Brussels Post, 1915-7-1, Page 6FEATS OF WAR AIRCRAFT AIDS COMMANDERS TO SEE AS WELLINGTON WANTED TO, They Have Made Raids on Alumni - %) tion and Supply Depots with • Great Effect, One of the things demonstrated by the present war is the military value of. aircraft, The oeauting aeroplane has enabled commanders to see, as Wellington longed to see, what is "on the other side of the hill," Several times its work has boon of supreme importance. Tho co-operation of aero.. planes" with artillery in directing he fire of long range guns has proved highly effective. Aeroplanes have made raids on airship stations and ammunition and supply depots which have had a definite Effect on Military Operations, , On the other hand, large airships like the Zeppelins have proved disappoint- ing. Tho seaplane has an achievement to its credit in the British raid on Cuxhaven.• The first test of•the scouting aero- plane came soon after the arrival of the British expeditionary force in France, and in the words of Sir John French, the Briish commander, it ren- dered services of incalculable value, helping to save the army from anni- hilation. It was on the evening of August 28 that quite unexpectedly Sir John French learned by telegram from Gen. Joffre that the Germans—having battered Namur into submission at amazing speed—had thrust their way across the Sambre and were forcing the French to retire. The two Bri- tish corps were, it said, threatened by three German army corps on their front and by a fourth which was stealing round them for a flank at- tack. The Position Was Critical. ...The French, falling back, left the English army exposed; on neither flank had it protection. And the Ger- mans, pressing forward irresistibly, were on the eve of a crushing attack. But before he could retreat it was necessary for Gen. French to have definite information concerning the positions of the enemy. Here, made for them by circum- stance, was just the opportunity our flying men required, Not only was scouting needed, but it was needed in haste—in' such haste ,indeed, that no craft, save the aeroplane itself, could have brought back the news in time, In a flash there want .a message to the aircraft base, and out upon their errands flew the fastest scoute,. 'At twice thepace of an express train, rushing smoothly through the Aix, wont these high-speed craft; and their pilots, peering down on the land below, had. a view as •from -a moun- tain top. And in an Hour, thanks to their tremendous aimed, they had gleaned news that could have been procured only in a day by any other means. They found the hostile forces that were destined for A Main Attack, marked their positions on their maps, made estimates of their strength; they located also, with accuracy, the flanking movement that was so grave a menace, And this work was done, as it needed to be done, at lightning speed. e,•The aircraft had leaped upward and disappeared; then, in a space of time that seemed incredibly short, they were swooping earthword again, their mission clone. Sir John French, given the news he sought, and by an instru- ment of which he, of the great com- manders in war, was the first to make striking use, was able to frame his plans that night with swiftness and precision; and next day at dawn our little army began its retreat. The strategy of this war, owing covers' in eaoh eecond a dietetics) of more than 170 feet, while a projectile from the ground, fired at such A graft when it is 0,000 feet high, takes sev- eral seconds to reach this altitude.. To aim directly M the machine, there- fore, is hopeless. The gunner must point his weapon, at the moment of firing, at a point some distance in ad- vance of the aeroplane; and this pre- Oise point, unless he knows the speed of the craft, can be found only by trial and error. Sometimes aeroplanes are disabled by the enemy's fire; again engines balk or other mishaps occur while aviators are over hostile territory; in either case it is necessary to descend, and lively adventures have come about in this way. Aeroplanes of the allies have re- peatedly tried to drop bombs on the headquarters of the German General Staff, They have been more success- ful in attempts to interrupt German Lines of Communication. One such feat is described to illus- trate this phase of the aviator's work: By using large bombs and sending out several armed craft to co-operate with each other the French obtained more than once surprising results in their air attacks on railways. In pne instance, during that stage of the war which followed the deadlock on the Aisne, a French pilot in a single seat- stablllar The Cross was awarded ed machine, returning to headquarters Y• line, as around Belfort and Epinal,. after a flight above the enemy's flank,for ministering to a wounded man, strongly -fortified areas render the observed two Gorman trains which, And also an officer; under heavy fire passage of the Germans almost Un - bringing up stores and ammunition, at Vlakfontein• while engaged in this possible, and the task of the French humane task, he himself was shot largely to the use of aeroplanes, and were moving along a branch line. is correspondingly easier. At other three times. The clasp, which is as it has been studied in Belgium or He alighted at his base and gave points, as in the Vosges and the France, may be illustrated perhaps as the news, and the commandant saw equivalent to a second Cross, was Argonne, French and Germans op - follows. The Germans move up the chance for an aeroplane attack. awarded for conspicuous bravery and pose one another only at certain devotion to duty during the present troops, say, to their right wing, but He ordered out three of the bomb strategic points, and in such places this is observed by British air scouts, dropping biplanes. They flew one be- campaign especially near d, Oct b e, there is no connected fighting line, through the trying period, October and so the latter strengthen the point hind the other toward the point where 29th to November 8th, 1914, when, but only a discontinuous" line of small menaced. Then the French, perhaps the German trains were passing slow- although exposed to a constant fire detached bodies of troops struggling WHAT BRITAIN IS HOLDING HOW IT COMPARES WITH OTHER. POWERS.. 30,800 Miles of Sea Frontier and 31 Miles of Battle Line, Britain's participation in the war by land means much more to the allies than the number of miles she is holding at the front would indi- cate. The various land fronts of the belligerents in the great war make a total mileage of 1,867 miles, of which the British army occupies a front' of 81 miles. The Germans have the longest land front, of which part is opposed to the Russian and the remainder to the French, British and Belgian armies. The Russians, who come next to the Germans in First Double V.C. point of, mileage, maintain contact Lieutenant Arthur Martin Lealce, with the enemy for 1,056 miles, and of the Royal Army Medical Corps, is are opposed to all three nations in the first man to be granted a clasp combination against the allies. to his Victoria Cross since the order "For Valor" was instituted in 1856. He gained the coveted distinction during the South African War, through which he served as surgeon - captain in the South African Con - Things to Consider.. In considering the 31 miles held by the British force, the nature of the country held and the character of the fighting must. be considered. Along certain parts of the French at a point to the eastward, assemble ly along a single line of inetals." two army corps for a flanking move- ment; but this, in its turn, is detected by German aviators; and so, again, it is a question of move and counter- move. There is only one result to such constant checkmating: the opposing battle fronts, stretching mile after mile until it becomes .A Journey of Days from wing to wing, are bound in places to grow weak. The problem is one of men, of endurance, and of stanchness in ressisting attack. So far gunfire has not been effective against aeroplanes. A high-speed scout, travelling at 120 miles an hour, PURE ICE C EA Your Doctor WIJLIa tell you is a very nutritious and highly food—but it must be pure—Ice Cream to be safe must be made in a perfectly sanitary Dairy. When you eat City Dairy lce Cream you get the benefit of the inspection of Toronto's Health Department. The more Ice Cream you eat in summer, the better health you will Have,. if it is City Dairy Ice Cream, because, "If it's City Dairy It's Pure that's Sure." For Salo by, discrlminating shop:caepsrs evarywhoro. Look fo r the Sign. TORONTO. We want an Agent In every town. Disdaining a splutter of machine gun and rifle fire directed against it by the soldiers travelling with the first train, the leading biplane dived swiftly, discharging a bomb at the en- gine. The range was short and the bomb fell true; the engine was hit. With a rent torn in its side and the sound of a shattering report, it rolled sideways, and crashed from the me- tals, dragging several trucks with it, and spreading a scene of ruin all around. Meanwhile the second biplane, also flying low, had dropped its two bombs on the permanent way, which was up- rooted and flung in ail directions. The third bomb dropper, flying toward the second train, missed with his first bomb, but placed the other in the mid- dle of a row of trucks, with the re- sult that the train was set on fire. In five minutes, appearing without warn- ing out of the sky, the se machines had brought about a complete disas- ter, both trains being damaged, one of them on fire, and the permanent way broken. ti! WOMEN AND THE WAR. They Are Working to the Verge of Breaking Down. The society women are active in benevolence and nursing up to the very verge of breaking down, says a writer in the Liverpool Post. Doctors will tell you that they have a greater number of genuine nerve cases than ever before, but that the malade im- aginaire has ceased to exist in this time of stress. No one has leisure or burn London as they have always patience to listen to the recital of threatened to do. her trifling ailments, and so she has risen up and taken to good works as an alternative recreation to fostering her own symptoms. Many of our fully qualified nurses Who have been on the Continent have returned for spells of .essential re- pose; their emotions have in some cases been so .overwrought that they will not trust themselves to allude to the scenes they have witnessed. Some of the horrors of the French typhoid hospitals in the early months of the war need a Russian novelist to de- scribe them adequately; it is good to he succeeded in rescuing a number for points of vantage. of men who had been badly wounded. British Face Great Odds. With the British force, however, this is not so. Every inch of, the ANTI -GERMAN PROGRAMME. ' ground is held only by the severest _ attack and counter-attack. The Can Their Treachery and Awful ground is quite open and exposed, Crimes Be forgotten. and is constantly swept by artillery and machine-gun fire. Also, a short The following letter, referring to time ago the German attempt to such an extremely important matter, break the opposing line was made which appeared recently in the To- and repulsed along the British front ronto Daily World, is given in full: at Ypres, and before that the British Editor World: Your article "Never had held, in the face of overwhelm - Again Must Germany Come Back," is ing numbers, the positions along the most opportune. The notorious Dern- Aisne, where the Germans were ex - burg is already talking peace and pecting to retrieve partly the rush says their hate is only artificial, and thinks that mutual interests will make us forget their treachery, their abomi- nable crimes, cutting off the hands of women and children, murdering the wounded, roasting captives alive, cru- cifying Canadians, and committing outrages too horrible to print. Germany must be so dismembered that she and her kultur shall never again menace civilization. Her great prosperity and resources are largely the result of England's trade policy. England has permitted Germany to buy at the same price as English con- sumers 12,000,000 tons of coal (1913) annually, which supplied her factor- Austrians. les, warships, and forged Krupp guns. Austro -Russian front 218 England also sold her (1913) £15,000,- Servian front 356 000 worth of raw wool and yarns. Germany prospered by selling finished goods to England for twice the amount .of her imports from Britain. If we give her another chance to• recuperate and snake other alliances, in a few years she would repeat the Belgian atrocities in England and France. South-east France 300 Morocco, Tunis and Algiers ... 1,800 Madagascar 2,100 Annam and Tongking , ...... , 1,200 5,400 Russia. Russian Coasts in the Baltic • and Black Seas 2,000 Germany. German Coasts in North Sea and Baltic '700 Austria. Austrian Adriatic Coast 390 Look To The Future Canada can benefit by hearkening to the recommendation recently made by the British Board of Agriculture, in a notice issued to 'farmers. It strongly urged them to raise as much stock as possible during the ,war, and gives the following advice: , Do not send breeding and immature stock to the butchersimply because prices are attractive now. Do not market unfinished animals; it is wasteful of the country's re- souces and is against your own inter- ests. Do not kill calves—rear them; it is well worth it. Do not reduce your stock; when you cannot buy stores, buy calves. Maintain your flocks and breed your sows; it will ,pay you to do so. The board adds that the above re - back from Paris. So that it will commendations are made not only in readily be_ conceded that the holding the national welfare, but because it of this 31 miles means the holding of believes them to be for the ultimate a storm -beaten bastion which meets benefit of British agriculturists. the full force of the gale. 1' Land Fighting Lines. 3200,000,000 Missed by Germany. The following table shows the ex- The Prager . Tageblatt of recent tent of the land fighting lines of the date says it rias information that the warring powers: governmentofthe United States Germans. soon will refuse to issue.. any pass - Miles. ports to Americans desiring to go Western" front 592 abroad, in order to guard against any Polish front 500 'b'i't f 'f ` entanglements. • 1,092 SEES DARK DAYS AHA ALLIES ARE BADLY IN NBEi of ARMs AND SWELLS. , ;j ' That Will Be Ended Just' As See* As the Problem Is Settled. ;t; la Sir William Robertson Nicoll, t 6 veteran editor of The British Weep `I and one of the most competent a broadminded observers of contempo ary English life, has summed up' cent developmente and future p specte of a situation which he gards as marking a crucial period Great Britain's proseeution of t 9' war. Sir William said: I1 "The Allies in the next three months will ease through the mo'p's discouraging period e,1 the war, will be 'discouraging simply becatii : the Allies lack ammunition eufficiel'r for new needs, while Germar`" through her years of secret preparai; tion for, this war, has not Only i4 millions of men, but ample ammuii f tion to hand. The Allies, although they have sufficient mon, are w' fully in need of arms and shells. T. failure of the Russians to he 51 Przemsyl because they lacked steel is butoneinstance of what the ins an t inadequate supply of ammunition id costing the Allies. • i , "In the next three 'months the Allies must .face tremendous odder without flinching. They must keen hard at it while fresh ammunition -is being turned Dirt. It is to be a, trying test of endurance, and the Allies will go through it as bravely and unhesie tatingly as they went into the wai. at' the outset. During this 'period the Allies must expect to stand the with- , ering fire of the enemy, and rely largely on strategy to make a potent use of what ammunition they can get:,' In nine months of war the Allies hav magnificently' shown what they coup do under almost overwhelming odds; and they may be depended upon to emerge from this new crisis as vali+' antly as they already have in the dark hours of the conflict. No Fear of the Outcome. 'c "As for the outcome of the next few months, I have' not the slightest fear. The spirit which animates Eng. land and her Allies in this war is one' that cannot be crushed. Even if the Germans bring all their.ammu- nition into play and, turn all their hordes of men upon the battlefield, the Allies will.surely resist until the tide is turned. "The problem of ammunition is the one grave thing that has faced England since the war began, and there is no denying that it has been a desperate one to work out. Now we are beginning to see our way through, but it :will take.all the en - In this connection it quotes an article it. Lloyd George is the man of the in the Berlin Confectioner, which hour in this sphere of activity, and says: "Every spring the floating hotel palaces brought thousands of Ameri- cans' to our shores. The destination of most of these Americans was the health resorts in Germany and Aus- tria, but they spent a great deal of their time also in seeing the cities and especially Berlin. The money these Americans spent for hotel bills and in amusing themselves has amounted as •high as 800,000,000 marks ($200,000,000) in a season. These very welcome sojourners whom we,have seen in such large numbers in Berlin streets and in the corri- dors of our hotels we certainly will miss very much this year." Where Fish Climb Trees. - John Bull, an influential London weekly, with a circulation of nearly a million, has sounded the tocsin: After the war the Vendetta. We must have a Solomon League and Covenant, to which every British subject should subscribe for the protection of himself and descendants:— Never to have any intercourse with a German, either social or commer- cial. Never to buy froth or sell to a Ger- man. Never permit a German article in know that practically all the errors his house. have by now been rectified. Never to deal with a merchant who Other women seem to find nothing keeps a single article of German man - to lay their hands to, and irritably re- ufaeture in his store. sent the impotence due to their lack Never to travel in Germany nor per - of previous training. One girl, at mit any of his family to visit there. least, has made a vigorous effort to Permit no Germans to enter Canada enlist. She has many friends, and is except on higher terms than Chinese— highly connected. Donning her bro- ahead tax of $1,000.` there' clothes and cutting her hair, The British Empire can do without she drilled regularly.with one of the The trade; the loss to Germany of unrecognized volunteer corps, in the British Empire's trade will be which her efficiency was particularly worse than the loss of her whole fleet noted. She hoped thence to be trans- annually. ferred to the regular service, but the For 43 years the French refused to medical examination proved unavoid- list German securities on their mar - able, and so the patriotic intention of kets, have abstained from visiting or this ardent anti -suffragette was frus- trading with Germany, and wo can ilo trated. the same. In the Russian Army quite a num- Let us follow the example of our ber of women are said to be serving gallant allies. "Delenda Est Ger- in a male capacity, it being not un- mania." common for an officer to have hie wife or sweetheart as his efficient orderly. No such case has yet be- come known in France, though the novelist of the future is likely to util- ize the theme. Meaning of the Barber Pole. J. ENOCH THOMPSON. Toronto, 14th June, 1915. 1' Doubtful. "When do you expect to see Mr. Green again?" "I don't know." • "But don't you usually see him In former times the barber served once or twice a week?" his customers in the capacity of sur- "Yes. But yesterday I loaned him geon, and when the operation of bleed- five that he was surely to pay back to- ing was extensively practiced he was morrow, and it is doubtful now that I in the habit of performing in that shall see him for a month or two." line, The spiral red stripe so fre- P _� quently seen on the barber's pole is Admiral Beatty's flagship, the Lion, said to symbolize the winding of a which is an eighth of a mile long, and ribbon or bandage round the arm is half as heavy again as the Dread when the blood-letting operation was nought, was the first British warship resorted to. to cost over two millions sterling. In five minutes' continuous firing she can To make night on earth as bright discharge 100,0001b, of metal, and her as day, there would have to be over shells leave the muzzles of her guns 800,000 moons in the sky. at rate equal to 1,841 miles an hour. 574 Russians. Polish, and Austrian front 856 French • Western front 543 Servian and Montenegrin. Austrian front 218 Turks. Black Sea territory near Erze- rum . 200 • British Western front 31 Belgian Western front .., `17 Britain's Value on Sea. The great value of Britain's parti- cipation in the war is more readily appreciated when the extent of the sea fronts defended by the allies are considered. The British fleets alone protect a sea frontier of over 80,000 miles. France, which comes next, has a total—with her colonies —of some, 5,400 miles. Keeps Open the Oceans. In order properly toy visualise the great part the British Empire is playing in the present war, however, it is necessary to bear in mind that not only does the British navy pro- tect our own sea frontiers, but it also keeps open the great ocean trade routes by which the ships of all the friendly and neutral nations can bring the supplies 'necessary for their well-being. Have Small Sea Fronts. Germany and Austria have rela- tively very small sea fronts to pro- tect -700 and 390 miles respectively. The Austrian sea front is, of course, confined to the Adriatic Sea, whilst the German colonies having, since the beginning of the war, been aban- doned by the German naval authori- ties, the sea front to be protected is correspondingly reduced. Sea Fronts of the Powers. The following figures represent the sea fronts of the belligerents: British Empire. Miles. British Isles 2,500 Australia . 7,250 Canada . 6,000 India and Ceylon 3,700 New Zealand and Tasmania r , , 2,800 South Africa 1,500 Egypt and British.East Africa1,000 New Guinea 800 North Borneo 900 Aden and Somaliland 900 Straits Settlements 600 Solomon Islands , 500 400 .11 Gold Coast and other territor- ies . • 1,900 50,800 Fish that climb trees are not an un- usual sight in India, as mud skippers or jumping fish are numerous in the large rivers and along the sea coast of 'that country. The fish literally climb the trees, they do not jump into them. At ebb tide these little fish. leave the treesto hunt for tiny eralis, flies, etc., and their strong pec- toral and ventral fins, aided by their tail, enable them to move about eas- ily and to climb upon trees, grass and leaves. X' There are three million officials in Germany—one-twentieth of the total population. Buy Safe Securities While the Market is Low. OurPP Approved I PARTIAL PAY IT PLAN enables you to buy sato dividend - paying Issues in any quantities— one, five, ton twelve, sixteen thirty, by making a small flret payment and balance in monthly instalments as you can af5ord— $5 110, 120 530, $i0, You re- ceive all dlvidende while making payments, and may sell secarl- tles at any time. litany securi- ties aro selling at below their normal leveland at present prices yield a most attractive in- come, Copy Of FREE BOOKLET MAILED Oil REQUEST. 1. 11 contains valuable information, which will appeal to Lhr1Ety peo- ple desiring toaccumulate in- vestnient securities. DRYANT, DIJNN & CO I 84 St, Traacoi,i Gravies Street, llsolitresl. hl4'h 2 Inert S CONSOLIDATED STOOK EXCHANGE I OF NEW YORK, I I firmly believe he will be able to solve the vexatious problem. The whole nation must give him unyield-' ing support, and this the nation will do. The task laid before him is not easy. Ready for Conscription. - "Right there comes the advisability of conscription to force them either to work in the factories or go into the battlefield, just as the Govern- ment considers to its own advant- age. England wants to avoid con- scription if she can,, and up to -now there has been no actual need of it. Her hundreds of thousands of loyal men have gone to the' front willingly, yes, eagerly, while hundreds of thousands more are recruiting. It is a glorious sight that sends a thrill to the heart of Great Britain. Under the amazingly capable leadership of Lord Kitchener. this recruiting has been going on ever sine the war "be- gan, until to -day there are actually more then ready to go into the field of� battle than ammunition with which to equip them. So conscrip- tion now ie not needed, and I' hesi- tate to believe that the time will come when England will have to re- sort to it: But if the time does come I agree with Mr, Lloyd George that England will take it up quickly, so that there may be no delay in put- ting men into the firing line to fill gaps." No Peace Within a Year. "How long do you think the war will last?" asked the correspondent. "I can only repeat what Lord Kitchener said at the beginning of the war, that it would last three years. Later he amended that by saying it might be ended in two years. My idea is that the war can- not by any conceivable chance be brought to an end, so far as fighting goes, within twelve months. That I put as the minimum time in which arms may be laid down. If we knew how fast our output of ammunition would come we might perhaps be better 'able to judge when the war would end, but in any event the al- lies are going to win. They cannot stop until they do. It means bloody days ahead, and a terrific strain of ail. their fighting resources; but the allies are alive " to it. England is awake now to what this war mels if the allies are to win, and England will rio her part in the work." Sir William, while expressing his belief that America wee on the verge of tear with Germany, hesitated to make, any comment. Queen Mary prefers China tea, and nearly always drinks it when elle can obtain it.