Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1917 — FRENCH IN ALGERIA [ARTICLE]

FRENCH IN ALGERIA

Have More Troops in Oran Than Any Town in France. Streets Are Full of Soldiers In Picture esque Costumes, Including Arabs In Their Flowing White Garments. There■ are more French soldiers to be seen in Oran than In any town in France. Those in France are at the front or In the points of concentration near the front. They are there right enough, but one does not see them — at the front —because they are in the trenches. But in Algeria It is different. The streets are full of soldiers; so the cases, the street cars, the .stores, the docks, the public gardens. The official figures give the population of Oran at 130.000. To the casual visitor there seem to be at least half as many soldiers besides.

And thej' are all French—French or French colonial, not allied troops. Besides, the casual, familiar army types, there is every kind of exotic fighting man, including native troops from Indo-Chlna. looking more like Japanese than anything else, and uniformed as ordinary French colonials of the line. There are the zouaves, with their baggy red breeches and khaki puttees now o’ days,. Instead of the white gaiters of the old parade days before the war. Their short, black-braided jackets, sashes and blouses, however, are unchanged. There are the Chasseurs d’Afrique — the African light cavalry—with skyblue uniforms and red fezes, the most elegant of French military horsemen. More gorgeous, however, are the “tirailleurs,” the sharpshooters, equally In sky-blue uniforms, faced with yellow, and also wearers of fezes. On active service this magnificence is supplanted by khaki and khaki fezes upon which a star and crescent Indicate that the wearer is a follower of the prophet. More characteristic of the country are the “spahis"—Mohammedan troops, officered by Frenchmen. They wear flowing scarlet cloaks and the soldiers wear turbans and native costumes; the officers, unequal to coping with the turban, content themselves with fezes, but sacrifice nothing of the resplendent scarlet cloak. The most picturesque, and the most numerous, are the “goums,” the Arab cavalry regiments raised by the Arabs themselves. They wear the flowing white garments, the “bournous” of the desert. At tea time any sunny afternoon the Boulevard Seguin, the principal street of Oran, is crowded with these uniforms, and more besides. The terasse of the Case Continental hasn’t a vacant table, and the tables cover the sidewalk almost to the curb. There are no regulations about the hours at which drinks may be served in Algeria, for the war is far away and the garden of Africa Is for those who are sent to rest, to forget the war for a while, for the convalescents and for those who stop a few days or a few weeks between service in Macedonia or Egypt or wherever else the world of war may send them. There are French sailors in Oran, too, for Oran is France’s nearest naval port to the Straits of Gibraltar, and the great amphitheater" harbor so full of ships of commerce, whose enlarged wharves are piled with stacks of grain an<F acres of wine casks, is also an important naval base.