Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1917 — WEDS KING GEORGE'S COUSIN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WEDS KING GEORGE'S COUSIN

In the first marriage of royalty since the outbreak of the European war, Countess Naflejda Torby, twenty years old, daughter of Grand Duke Michael Michaelovitch of Russia, became the wife of Prince George of Battenberg, a cqusin of King George of England. Two ceremonies were performed, the first according to the bride’s faith in the Russian embassy chapel and the other in the chapel royal, St James palace. ' - . - King George, Queen Mary and Dowager Queen Alexandra witnessed the wedding; also the duke and duchess of Connaught, Princess Patricia of Connaught and ex-King Manuel of Portugal. The bridegroem is a lieutenant in the British navy, serving on the battle cruiser New Zealand. He is twentyfour years old and a nephew of Princess’ Henry of Battenberg, King George’s youngest aunt. The bride is the daughter of Grand Duke Michaelovitch, a cousin of the czar of Russia.

has given them, they showed themselves thoroughly capable. At every point where the Germans tried to make stands on the Ourcq and the Marne the French artillery cleaned them out by the most systematic fire. They dropped their shells us regularly as the squares on the checkerboard, and blew the German batteries all to pieces, so that immediately after the battle, when I passed that way, the fields were littered with wrecked fieldpieces and limbers and dead artillery horses. ” . v French Superiority. In those days France had one piece of artillery to Germany’s ten. Germany still has three or foqr to France’s one, but, opposed to the French themselves, Germany can afford to spare only cannon for cannon. The fact that the French have consistently gained on a fair field wlth-an even distribution of equipment shows the French to be not only superior artillerymen but better In the infantry attacks. In an article last May I called attention to the construction of the French mobile army under General Petain, made up of divisions and corps which had particularly distinguished them sei vps In attack.. This was the .army which paid so heavy a price in saving Verdun, but was still in shape to make the Somme offensive. Some Of the best of these corps happen to be having just now a well-earned rest. They have not been in either the later successes on the Somme or at Verdun. It has not been necessary to use the very crack troops. The football team, of one of the most distinguished, the Twentieth army corps, recently played a hot match in Paris. It was an'excellent team, hardly a member of which did not wear every possible decortwon, but the rooters of the Twentieth who came along were a sight in themselves. They had been through Verdun and the Somme —eight inonths of continuous attack—but they were the flttest-looking jmen you could ask for. There was not one who to use our own phrase, did not Took as if he could “lick his weight in wildcats.” And men, of this kind, in the midst of two big offensives, are right now taking their ease. It shows that many other divisions have proved their' mettle. . The mobile army of crack troops that numbered, perhaps, 450,000 last May comes nearer being million today. It is not that the —the new men who have gone into action since last May number under a quarter of a million. The growth of the mobile army has come from men who have seen action since the beginning of the war. The whole army is showing a tendency to grow in fighting power, It is something in the French race. Napoleon made himself by developing the same characteristic.