Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 276, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1916 — SOME INCIDENTS OF THE WAR THAT ARE STILL UNSOLVED MYSTERIES [ARTICLE]

SOME INCIDENTS OF THE WAR THAT ARE STILL UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

True Story of the Audacious and Fate of the Karlsruhe Remain Locked in Secrecy-Disappearance of Von Rintelen Is Another Chapter That Is Prolific of Many Rumors—The Missing Grand Vizier of Turkey

New York. —So vast has been the extent and so rapid the progress of the European war that a public which sees In the papers the news of greater things than the world has seen in centuries has little attention for the minor Incidents. Behind the great campaigns and the national movements and sentiments which make up the bulk of the war news there is a whole wilderness of dramatic and picturesque and mysterious happenings, which pass by unremarked in the rush of larger things simply because the mind cuunot follow them all. Yet there is much reason to think that the literature and the legends of the war will a hundred years from now cluster for the most part around inci--aents“of"which little has been heard as yet, and that little forgotten. Many things which have been passed over by governments and press and people with- the barest notice, because more Immediate things were occupying the attention, will be taken up later by students and found to possess all the qualities that make for stories and dramas and legends—and it is to be feared that by the time students get down to the minutiae of the war, legends will have all but crowded out the truth on everything exOepf the major events, and a good many of those. Besides these incidents, there are other matters the entire truth about which is known to one or more chancellories or war ministries, but has so far been kept secret by the censorship, for te of exet ttu g "TJopular Turn To FI 7 And there is still a third class of incidents that have never been adequately explained—the truth about which is perhaps known to no one and for which perhaps no explanation ever will come to light.

First Aeroplane Raid. In this latter class Is what was regarded as the firkt aeroplane raid of th© war. On August 2, 1914, the day after Germany’s declaration of war on Russia, but before war had been declared or hostilities commenced between Germany and France —the news came from Berlin that a French aeroplane had dropped bombs on Xurnberg. Now, aerial warfare was still a novelty at that time —the ItaloTurkish war and the Balkan conflicts had seen the barest beginning of bombdropping and air-scouting, and the news of this raid on a Bavarian city aroused considerable interest. But there was so much news from everywhere in those first days that it got only a few lines, with no detailed explanation except that the machine had appeared, dropped bombs, which did no damage, and had been driven off byartillery. The next day came declarations of war right and left, the invasion of Belgium, fighting before Liege; and the air attack on Nurnberg was no longer a matter of interest. The recollection of it persisted in Germany. It became part of the history of the first week of the war; so there was some surprise when German semiofficial'sources, in a passing reference* to the incident months later, called it a Russian aeroplane. Evidently the Germans themselves didn't know where the mysterious flier came from. Now, Hie point of all this lies in the locution of Nurnberg—in northern Bavaria, some 200 miles from the Nearest point of the French frontier and nearly twice as far from the border of Russian ‘Poland. Flights of greater length than this have been made during the war; to attack Nurnberg from either Verdun or Warsaw was not a physical impossibility. But why Nurnberg? It was the only city attacked; the next (lay a French flier was shot down near the German-Dutch frontier, west of Co'logne, but there were no more raids" into Germany for more than a year. And Nuruberg, this city far in the interior, is known principally for the beauties of its medieval streets. It is no military ceuter of importance—or was not before the war. Between Nurnberg and the French frontier, or Nurnberg and the Russian frontier, lie railroad cepters, mobilization depots, munition arsenals, base fortresses innumerable; why should a single aeroplane pass all these by and fly to the very center of Germany to drop bombs on monuments of art? Even the Germans had not begun to destroy historic monuments in those days. -So strange did the incident appear that British and French authorities have been inclined to accuse the Germans of deliberately inventing the whole thing to arouse feeling against France. But apparently many persons saw bombs dropped, and the Germans would hardly, have gone so far as this to build up a story. So the world’s first aeroplane raid is still a mystery, and perhaps it will never be known who was the solitary flier or whence he came. Mystery cf the Far East. Another mystery which offers readymade a plot for a marvelous adventure novel is the fate of the eight Germans who left Kiao-Chau soon after the war was declared on an overland trip through China and Mongolia, with the purpose of blowing up bridges on the Siberian railroad. Already it was apparent that the movement of troops

and munitions along the transcontinental line from Vladivostok might have an important bearing on the war, and in a country much of which was sparsely settled and had few facilities for repair work, the destruction of one or two bridges might have held up traffic for months. But nothing more was heard of the Germans after the news came out that they had started on their adventure; so presumably Russian or Japanese spies found them out, or they were killed by hostile natives in the more uncivilized regions through which their route lay. The fate of the German cruiser Karlsruhe, wKTeH terrorized British shipping in the south Atlantic early in the war and won a reputation second only to that of the has never been established with anything like definiteness, although the Britisli admiralty has stated that it has every reason to believe that the Karlsruhe was sunk in November, 1914. Certainly after, that there were no more captures by the cruiser, which bad taken 17 British merchant ships in the first three months of war. Dozens of British warships, Including two or three fast and powerful battle cruisers, were combing the Caribbean and the south Atlantic for the German raider, and if they had caught her they would itave blazoned the news far and wide. But except for one or two indecisive actions at the very outset of the war, the Karlsruhe seems to have succee(MtHn evft4ing n fight quite successfully. The general belief has been that she was wrecked by a storm, and there came to Brooklyn the tale of an unidentified skipper, who had seen , her hull stranded on one of the Windward islands. Another story, this one from Copenhagen, said that she had blown up while the crew was at sea.

Wild Rumors From India. There are other features of the war’s progress which are quite as much of a mystery to the general public as those already ; but the trutli about them is known well enough to the governments of the countries affected, and will perhaps come out some years after the war is over. For instance, the situation in British India. Wild rumors from German sources told of riots approaching the dimensions of revolution in various Indian cities, and of invasions from the Afghan frontier by tribes stirred up by the entrance of the sultan of Turkey, the caliph of Moslems, into the war. Those were denied vigorously by the Britisli, who pointed to the lnrge Indian armies in France • and Mesopotamia and East Africa as an indication that all was safe at home. Yet there was an iron censorship on any news out of India; Americans were not welcomed as travelers, and those who told stories of fighting on the border were denounced as pro-German liars, until a few weeks ago a member of the British government, speaking in parliainent, admitted that since, the war began there had been seven distinct raids, “.some of them very serious,” on the northwestern frontier. Evidently the danger was over or it would not have been mentioned, but there were still no details. Similar vagueness terer-prevaßetLof-late in East Africa, where the British admitted at least one severe defeat in the fall of 1914. After that all the news was of victory—progress by various columns of British, • Belgians and South Africans operating in various sections of the country. But, despite uninterrupted victories the country is yet wholly conquered, and the fact that there have been two changes in the supreme command is sufficient to suggest that much of the military history of East Africa will make interesting reading when the British war office allows it to be printed. Fate of the Audacious. Another matter with regard to which Britain has been secretive is the sinking of tfie Audacious, one of the newest and most powerful of superdreadnaughts, which was sunk, presumably by a mine, off the northwest coast of Ireland while maneuvering with a squadron of sister ships October 27, 1914. To date, the British government has never admitted the loss of this ship, although American correspondents mailed stories describing it, and months later magazine writers were permitted to mention it in some such phrasing as “if we add the Audacious, which lias been reported from American sources as supk.” Presumably the. Audacious was sunk by a mine laid by a German trawler masquerading under a neutral flag, but at the time there was much talk of a submarine, and even an attempt to pretend that nothing had happened to her more than an accbjept to the machinery, and that' she was eventually towed into port and repaired. From the point of view of present interest th(» chief mystery of the affair is why the British fleet should have been off the northwest coast of Ireland—for that it was there Is Indicated not only by the presence of the Audacious and her sisters, at that time ttie first line of the fleet, but by the reports of passengers on the Olympic, who saw several squadrons of dreadnaughts using

Lough fil willy as a naval base. It waa apparently some time- after that that the hose of the fleet was removed to Scapa Flow. In the Orkneys. The Missing Grand Vizier. Recently reports from allied sources have asserted that Suld Halim, the Turkish grand vizier, has been missing for more than a year, and that he is believed to have been murdered at theInstigation of someone In the party of Enver Bey. This may, of course, be merely one of the picturesque romances such as those which hud the German crown prince u suicide, insane or assassinated a dozen times in the early days of the war. Aguln, there may be truth in it. The intrigues of various parties In Constantinople have been effectually covered up in the last two years. The major military operations on all fronts have been detailed with- considerable fullness for the last year, but early In the war the censorship particularly that of the British and French, was so strict that there was little chance to supplement the bare narrative of the progress of events with any descriptive stories of the things that were actually taking place. The French offensive In Alsace-Lor-raine and the Ardennes In August. 1914, for instance, must have offered a great amount of picturesque material, particularly in the districts where the French forces w-ere welcomed as deliverers, the vanguard of revenge for 1871. But the disasters to the allies at Namur, Mons, and Charleroi and the resultant retreat to the Marne took up the public interest to such an extent that even yet few persons outside of French and German military circles know much about the other French offensives of the earlier w’eeks of the war, except that there were battles ranking with those of 1870 that have since become world-famous, and that the French were everywhere driven back.' . Germans Silent on Victories. A’M the warring nations, as a matter of policy, have said more than was -nceessary about their defeats; but the have snnnrpssed information about glorious victories. This is particularly true in the case of Tannenberg, where Ilindenburg annihilated the first Russian armies invading East Prussia, and won his fame and popularity with a single victory. Tannenberg wfls one of the few specimens of the old-fash-ioned battle —a conflict between two armies, neither of them a part of a long line, but maneuvering independently in the open field and finally coming together for a fight to the decision on ground unhampered by any but the most temporary intrenchments —that this war has seen ; and it was probably the largest. Yet next to nothing is known about the details of Tannenberg, outside of staff circles; the stories that have grown up in Germany of Russians driven by thousands into swamps, where they drowned In mire and stagnant water, have been pronounced mythical in great degree by no less an authority than Ilindenburg himself. On the first anniversary of the battle, an American correspondent wrote a 5,000-word story of it, hut presumably on account of the restrictions of the censorship, he devoted nil his time to descriptions of the terrain. reflections on the historical coincidence of a great German victory on the ground where the Poles defeatedthe Teutonic knights in 1410, and proGerman rhapsodies on the turning 'aside of the Slav peril. Of the men engaged and the men lost at Tannenberg, of the strategy and tactics of the encounter, «of how the battle was actually lost and won, there was almost nothing. Tannenberg was a battle as extensive as Sedan, and as decisive so far as the effect on the particular campaign was concerned. And yet almost all that is known of it, after two.years, is that the army of Samsonoff was annihilated and that of Rennenkampf badly beaten; that the Germans took prisoners in numbers unprecedented up to that time, although since they' have been far surpassed, and that by some sort of maneuvering Ilindenburg forced the Russians Into a position where the swamps placed them at a considerable disadvantage and contributed to the German victory. Disappearance of Von Rintelen. Even this country has furnished its share of mysteries that will perhaps never find a solution* There was Capt. Franz von Rintelen, whom rumor has credited with royal blood, and whose whereabouts have been one of the vest vainly guessed-at mysteries of the war. It will be recalled that the captain fled from his residence, the New York Yacht club, his social haunts, and his prominent friends in New York, when passport frauds' and other deviltry in which he was the prime factor were about to be exposed. He was taken* on the high* seas by a British cruiser and hurried to Falmouth, and there the trail of his ro» mantic (luring ends. There have been those who maintained that in the Tower of London Von Rintelen paid the extreme penalty for the machinations against the allied nat'ons which he er Tied so near to brilliant success in America and Mexico. Again, it has been told with every seeming of authority that because of his and high position Von Rttrtelen has been a* nominal prisoner of war in some comfortable castle not far from London, more served than guarded. TliSre is a third tale that so vital was Rinteien’s safety to the kaiser not only because of his importance in the affairs of the empire but because of Wilhelm’s Intimate personal affection for him, that his return was attained by exchanging for him a largl group of} the most important military held In Berlin.