Best Stories of the 1914 European War

A Petrograd correspondent telegraphs the following: “An engagement at Krinitz, between Lublin and Kholm, where the Austrians lost about 6,000 prisoners and several guns, was decided by a bayonet charge. The Austrians got entangled in a bog, from which, after their surrender, they had to be extricated with the assistance of ropes.”

FRENCH CAVALRY’S FEAT

Quoting from a letter received from a French officer a Bordeaux correspondent tells how a French cavalry division held in check two German corps for twenty-four hours:

“When the Germans were advancing from the north we were ordered to hold a certain village at all costs with a few quick-firing guns and cavalry. It was a heroic enterprise, but we succeeded.

“The German attack began in the morning. A terrific bombardment was maintained all day; shells destroyed every building and the noise was infernal. We had to scream and shout all orders. The church tower was struck by a shell at the stroke of midnight and collapsed.

“Early in the morning we retreated under a hail of shells, after mowing down masses of German infantry. We gave our army in the rear a whole day’s rest and our exploit is mentioned in many orders as a historic rearguard defensive action.”

KILLED AS HIS MEN FLED

A young reserve officer who has returned to Paris, relating how he captured the sword of a Bavarian colonel, said:

“When charging the Bavarians I noticed that their colonel was striking his own men with his sword to prevent them from running away. He was so occupied in this that he forgot the approach of the French and was shot dead.”

THINK OF KAISER AND GOD

A Rouen correspondent has obtained possession of the diary of a German officer, who surrendered to a party of stragglers, and quotes the following from it:

“Aug. 5. – Our losses to-day before Liége have been frightful. Never mind; it is all allowed for. Besides the fallen are only Polish beginners, the spilling of whose blood will spread the war lust at home – a necessary factor. Wait till we put our experts on these deluded people.

“Aug. 11. – And now for the English, who are used to fighting farmers. Vorwärts, immer vorwärts. To-night William the Greater has given us beautiful advice: ‘You think each day of your Emperor; do not forget God.’ His Majesty should remember that thinking of him we think of God, for is he not the Almighty’s representative in this glorious fight for the right?

“Aug. 12. – This is clearly to be an artillery war. As we foresaw, the infantry counts for nothing.

“Aug. 15. – We are on the frontier; why do we wait? Has Russia really dared to invade us? Two hussars were shot to-day for killing a child. This may be war, but it is the imperial wish that we carry it on in a manner befitting the most highly cultivated people.

“Aug. 14. – Every night now a chapter of the war of 1870 is read to us. What a great notion! But is it necessary?”

PENANCE, NOT TENNIS

The Daily Chronicle’s correspondent at Amsterdam telegraphs as follows:

“The Cologne Gazette says: ‘A thousand English soldiers are now prisoners of war at the Döberitz military exercise ground near Berlin.

“ ‘It is proposed to give English officers facilities for tennis and golf, but this plan is opposed by the Gazette, which says that men of the nation which plunged Germany into the war will be better occupied sitting down thinking of their country’s sins.’ ”

CROSS ON PRIEST AS TARGET

“Official couriers arriving here from the American Legation at Brussels witnessed a fresh sample of German atrocity toward the conquered Belgians,” says a correspondent in Antwerp. “Passing slowly through Louvain in an automobile, they saw sitting outside a partly burned house a boy 8 years old whose hands and feet had been cut off at the wrists and ankles. The Americans stopped and asked the child’s mother what had happened.

“ ‘The Germans did it,’ she said with spiritless apathy.

“Evidently in terror lest she had said too much, she refused to answer further questions. The child’s wrists and ankles were bandaged as if the frightful injuries were inflicted recently. Details of the shooting down of one Jesuit priest of Louvain were told to the American couriers by another priest who witnessed the affair.

“It appears that the Jesuit kept a diary in which he had written the following commentary on the sacking of the Louvain library: ‘Vandalism worthy of Attila himself.’

“German officers forced him to read the words aloud, then marked a cross in chalk on the back of his cassock as a target and sent a dozen bullets into his back in the presence of twenty other Louvain priests.”

KAISER’S HEAD SAVED HIM

A wounded sergeant brought from the front told a Paris correspondent that he owes his life to a bust of the Kaiser. The sergeant took it from a village school and stuck it in his haversack. Soon afterward a German bullet struck him, knocking him down. He found the bullet had glanced off the head of the bust, chipping off one of the ends of the Kaiser’s mustache.

WHITLOCK SAVES TEN SCHOLARS FROM DEATH

A Jesuit priest who escaped from Louvain before the destruction of that city has written to his father, Philip Cooley, as follows:

“All our people escaped except eleven scholastics. One of these was shot at once, as he had a war diary on his person. The others were taken to Brussels where they were to have been shot, but the American Minister stepped in and stopped it.

“He told the Germans that his Government would declare war if any of those persons were shot.”

SHOULD SHE HAVE LIED?

In one little town near Clearmont we came in for a strange echo of war. A woman in a high cart drove past quickly. I was talking with a woman of the inn.

There was silence, then an outburst from the handsome Sibyl-faced hostess who had two sons at war. “Think of it,” she said; “three of our soldiers were chased from the fight at Creil. They took refuge with her. She is rich and has a garden. She hid them in a hayloft and threw their uniforms in the garden. The Germans came. They slept in her house.

“They said: ‘We are forced to fight; it is not of our seeking. The French attacked us.’

“They found the uniforms. They put a pistol to her breast.

“ ‘We will shoot you if you do not say where these soldiers are.’

“She cried: ‘In the loft.’

“They shot them all – three traitors – and it would have been so easy to lie.”

GERMAN CAVALRY AFOOT

The London Daily Express’s Paris correspondent says that the British captured seventeen howitzers and a number of smaller guns. The German cavalry losses were appalling. A captured German cavalry officer estimates the wastage of horses, especially in the Belgian campaign, at about two-thirds of the total allotted to the army operating in the direction of Paris.

The army was hampered by a shortage of cavalry scouts, and since it entered France many battery horses have been transferred to the cavalry. As a result guns have been abandoned and have fallen into the hands of the British in large numbers. The horseless cavalrymen are now marching with the infantry.

The officer is despondent over the future, but thinks that the German right intends to stand in the positions prepared during the advance and await reënforcements.

AIRMEN DODGE BULLETS

The London Daily Mail’s Petrograd correspondent sends a description of M. Poiret, a French aviator who is serving with the Russian army, of a flight over the German position, accompanied by a staff captain:

“I rose to a height of 5,000 feet,” said Poiret. “Fighting was in full swing. The Captain with me already had made some valuable observations when the Germans, noticing my French machine, opened fire on it.

“A number of their bullets pierced the wings of the aeroplane and others struck the stays. We still flew on, however, as it was necessary to obtain the exact position of the enemy. Then the German artillery began. Their shells burst near the aeroplane and each explosion caused it to rock. It was difficult to retain control as pieces of shells had seriously damaged two of the stays. The fantastic dance in the air lasted twenty minutes.

“The Captain was wounded in the heel but continued to make observations. Finally I turned the machine and landed home safely. I found ten bullet marks and two fragments of shells in the machine.”

GERMAN SPIES RECKLESS