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قراءة كتاب The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914
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ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—[PART 21].
MUCH USED AGAINST SOUTH AFRICAN REBELS: A TRUCK OF AN ARMOURED TRAIN, AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
Armoured trains worked by the South African Engineer Corps have done useful service in the operations against the rebels. The truck in the photograph, it will be seen, is loop-holed.
But that was nothing to the Christmas Day feat of seven of our sea-planes—one for every day of the week—which, accompanied by light cruisers and destroyers, with several submarines, made a daring and unparalleled attack on Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, and several war-ships lying at anchor there—unparalleled, by reason of the fact that this was the first "combined assault of all arms" known to the sea—namely, from the air, the water, and from under the water. Both at Yarmouth and Scarborough the German bombarding cruisers were so nervously afraid of being caught in the act that they may almost be said to have only fired their guns and then run away again. But our triple flotilla at the mouth of the Elbe spent a deliberate three hours in the performance of its task, and then calmly withdrew with only one of the daring pilots missing. So far, it was the most thrilling episode of the war, and must give our enemies "furiously to think," in addition to furnishing them with much more for the nourishment of their hate. Of this insensate hatred against us in the hearts of the German people—and all because we have "queered their pitch," or crossed their long-cherished schemes for the destruction of our Empire—the most furious exponent is the Kölnische Zeitung, or Cologne Gazette, as we generally call it—which may be described, on the whole, as the most authoritative organ of the Fatherland—or the Times of Germany, but always with a difference. The curious anomaly is that the seat of this powerful journal should be so far away from the capital—at Cologne. There is an old story—known to tourists who read their guide-books—about the "Three Kings of Cologne," but now this story has just received a pendant which gives anything but satisfaction at Cologne itself or anywhere else in Germany.
[Continued overleaf.
MEN WHO UNDERGO GREAT HARDSHIPS IN THEIR PURSUIT OF REBELS: A BIVOUAC OF SOUTH AFRICAN LOYALISTS.
Our correspondent writes: "After a long chase they find themselves very often forty miles from the convoy, nothing to eat for man or beast, and in a country destitute of food."
WHERE "REGIMENTS HAD BEEN RAISED AS IF BY A WIZARD'S WAND": GENERAL SMUTS SPEAKING AT JOHANNESBURG.
General Smuts, South African Minister of Defence, said recently that there had been a magnificent response to the call to arms. On the Rand regiments had been raised as if by a magician's wand.
THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—[PART 21]—7
AMENITIES OF MOLE WARFARE SATIRISED: A FRENCH CARICATURIST'S SKIT ON THE "LUXURIES" OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.
Both the French and British troops have made the best of things in the siege-warfare of the trenches, and out of an initial condition of misery have managed to evolve a considerable amount of comfort in many parts of the front. Ingenious French engineers, for example, have constructed warm shower-baths, hair-dressing saloons, and similar conveniences, while the British "Eye-Witness" was able to write recently of our own lines: "The trenches themselves are heated by braziers and stoves and floored with straw, bricks and boards. Behind them are shelters and dug-outs of every description most ingeniously contrived." The above French cartoon, which is from "La Vie Parisienne," is headed "La Guerre des Taubes et des Taupes" (moles).
8—THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—[PART 21].
TYPICAL OF THOSE USED BY GERMAN AIR-CRAFT DURING THE WAR: A BOMB RECENTLY DROPPED FROM AN AEROPLANE INTO WARSAW.
German air-craft have lately been active in the neighbourhood of Warsaw, the great objective of the German Eastern Armies. Our photograph shows a bomb after it had fallen into the city.
Photograph by Illus. Bureau.
This was the recent meeting, not at Cologne, but at Malmö, of the three Kings of Scandinavia—Denmark, Sweden, and Norway—who lunched, and dined, and debated together for several days, when it was at last announced to the world at large (and Germany in particular) that "their deliberations had not only consolidated the good relations between the three Northern
kingdoms, but that an agreement had also been reached concerning the special questions raised"—a result which must have been anything but agreeable to the War-Lord of Potsdam, who had been thirsting for Weltmacht, or world-dominion, and casting about to pave the way for this result by absorbing the minor States of Northern Europe—as a shark would open its voracious jaws to swallow down a shoal of minnows, or other small fry. That this was a prominent plank in the platform of German policy must be clear to all who have read the diplomatic revelations of the last few months; but now the "Three Kings of Scandinavia," going one better than their storied colleagues of Cologne, have shown that they are as obtuse to the blandishments of Berlin as the journalists of New York and Chicago.
According to all accounts, the Allied position in the west, especially the British section thereof, is as "safe as the Bank of England," to use the words of one of our officers already quoted; and though the Kaiser, recovered from his illness, has again returned to the front—or, at least. the distant rear of the front—he does not seem to have much refreshed the offensive spirit of his armies. Nevertheless, the French communiqués have suffered from no great diminution in the daily records of sporadic trench-fighting all along the Allied line—fighting of a fluctuating, if on the whole favourable, kind for the strategic plans of General Joffre, as to whom, one German officer in Belgium said that he wished to God his country had such a War Lord, seeing that, apart from Marshal Hindenburg, all their Generals were only worthy of disdain.