Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1917 — Page 3

IT ISN'T ALL EAREARISM

Human nature becomes brutalized by conflict, but the men in the trenches, both friend and enemy, have their fun and comradeship and kindliness^ — ~~ .

fAR has outwardly lost Its romance with Its color and pageantry. It Is bloody, ugly and horrible. Yet romance is not dead. It still survives, radiant and glowing, in the heroic achievements of our soldiers and in the tender fancies of their hearts.” Thus writes Stephen Stapleton, an Englishman, in the Contemporary Review. And he sets forth with vividness some manifestations of this romance —little twilight pictures, gentle touches of, an otherwise ghastly existence: In the trenches one evening a battalion of the Leinster regiment held a “kallee,” or Irish singsong, at which there was a spirited rendering of the humorous old ballad, “Brian O’Lynn,” sung to an infectiously rollicking tune. The opening verse runs: “Brian O’Lynn had no breeches to wear, So he bought a sheepskin to make him a pair. ‘With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Falx, ’tls pleasant and cool, says Brian O’Lynn.” The swing of the tune took the fancy of the Germans in their trenches, less than 50 yards away. With a “rumty-tum-tumty-tum-tumty-tum-tum,” they loudly hummed the air of the end of each verse, all unknowing the Lelnsters, singing at the top of their voices, gave the words, a topical application: “ ‘With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Sure we’ll wallop the Gerrys,’ said Brian O’Lynn.” Hearty bursts of laughter and cheers arose from both trenches at the conclusion of the song. It seemed as if the combatants gladly availed themselves of this chance opportunity of becoming united again In the common brotherhood of” man, even for but a fleeting moment, by the spirit of good humor and hilarity. A young English officer of a different battalion of the same Leinster regiment tells of a more curious incident still, which likewise led to a brief cessation of hostilities. Two privates in his company had a quarrel In the, trenches, and nothing would do them but to fight It out on No Man’s Land. The Germans were most appreciative and accommodating. Not only did they not molest the pugilists, but they cheered them, and actually fired the contents of their rifles in the air by way of a salute. The European war was, in fact, suspended in that particular section of the lines while two Irishmen settled their own little differences by a contest of fists. “Who will now say the Germans are not sportsmen?” was the comment of the young English officer.

There is, however, another, and perhaps a shrewder view of the episode. It was taken by a sergeant of the company. “Yerra, come down out of that, ye pair of born fools,” he called out to the fighters. “If ye had only a glimmer of sense, ye’d see, so ye would, that ’tls playing the Gerrys’ game ye are. Sure, there’s nothing they’d like better than to see us all knocking blazes out of each other.” But as regards the moral pointed by the officer there must be, of course, many “sportsmen” among the millions of German soldiers; t'hough the opinion widely prevailing in the British army is that they are often treacherous fighters. Indeed, to their dirty practices is mainly to be asscribet) the bitter perjfipal animosity that occasionally marks the relations between the combatants when the fighting becomes most bloody and desperate, and —as happens at times in all wars—no quarter is given to those who allow none. An Interchange of Christmas Presents. Amenities between combatants are very ancient. The Greeks and Trojans used to exchange presents and courtesies in the intervals of fighting, and the early stages of this war seemed to afford a promise that they would be revived. The fraternizing of the British and Germans at their first Christmas under arms, in 1914, will, perhaps, always be accounted as the most curiohs episode of the war. ' The Influence of the great Christian festival led tq a suspension of hostilities along the lines, and the men on each side seized the opportunity to satisfy their natural curiosity to see something more of each other than through the smoke of battlfe with deadly weapons in'their hands, and hatred in their eyes. Each side had taken prisoners; but prisoners are “out of it,” and therefore reduced to the level of noncombatants. The foeman in being appears in a very different light. He has the power to strike. You may have to kill him, or you may be killed by him. -i So the British and the Germans, impelled in the main by a common feeling of inquisitiveness, met together between the lines on No Man’s Land. There was some amicable conversation where they could make themselves understood to each other, which happened when a German was found who could .speak a little English. Cigarettes and tunic buttons were freely exchanged. But, for the most part, British and Germans stood with arms folded across their breasts and stared at each other with a kind of dread fascination. It never happened Again. How could It possibly be repeated 1 The introduction into the conflict by the Germans In high command of the barbaric elements of “frightfulness,” hitherto confined to savage tribes at war; their use of such devilish inventions as poison gas and liquid fire? their belief only in brute strength and, as regards the common German soldiers, the native lowness of morality ehown by so many of them; their apparent inaensitiveness to ordinary humane instincts, inevitabltf tended to harden and embitter their adversaries against them. Even so, British feeling Us extraordinarily devoid of vindictiveness. The Germans, in the mass, are regarded as having been dehumanized and transformed into a process of ruthless destruction. In any case, they are the enemy. As such, there iq a satisfaction —nay, a positive delight—tn sweeping them out of existence. That is war. But against the German soldier individually it may be said that, on the whole, there is no rancor. - - -

In fact, British soldiers have a curiously detached and generous way of regarding their country’s enqmles. When the German soldier is taken prisoner or picked up wounded the British soldier is disposed, as a hundred thousand instances show, to treat him as a “pal,” to divide his* food and share his cigarettes with him as he passes to the base. In the gladiatorial fights for the entertainment of the people in ancient Rome the defeated combatant was expected to expose his throat to the . sword of the victor, and any shrinking on his part caused the arena to ring with the angry , shouts of the thousands of spectators, “Receive the steel!” By all accounts, the Germans have a dislike of the bayonet. They might well be paralyzed, Indeed, at the affrighting spectacle of that thin line of cold steel wielded by a furious Irish- ,■ man; but if the bayonet were in the hands of a soldier of any of the other British nationalities his cry to the German that recoiled from Its thrust would probably be “Receive the steel!” expressed In the rudest and roughest native idiom. The way of the Irish at-Glnchy was different; and perhaps the trenunclatlon of their revenge was not the least magnificent act of a glorious day. “If we brained them on the spot who could blame us? 'Tls ourselves that would think It no sin if it was done by anyone else,” said a private of the Dublin Fusiliers. “Let me tell you,” he went on, “what happened to myself. As I raced across the open with my comrades, jumping in and out of shell holes, and the bullets flying thick around us, laying many a fine boy low, I said to myself: ‘This is going to be a fight to the last gasp fur those of us that get to the Germans.’ “As I came near the trenches I picked a man out for myself. Straight in front of me he was, leaning out of the trench, and he with a rifle firing away at us as if we were rabbits. “I made for him with my bayonet ready, determined to give him what he deserved, when—what do you think? —didn’t he notice me and what I was up to! Dropping his rifle, he raised himself up in the trench and stretched out his hands toward me. What could you do in that case but what I did? Sure, you wouldn’t have the heart to strike him down, even if he were to kill you. a frightened and pleading look in them that I at once lowered my rifle and .took him by the hand, saying, ‘You’re my prisoner!’ “I don’t suppose he understood a word of what I said; but he clung to me, crying, ‘Kamerad! Kamerad!’ I was more glad than ever that I hadn’t the blood of him on my soul. ’Tis a queer thing to say, maybe, of a.man who acted like that; but, all the same, he looked a decent boy, every bit of him. *l. suppose the truth of it is this: We soldiers on both sides have to go through such terrible -experiences that there is no accounting for how we may behave. We might be devils all out in the morning and saints no less in the evening.” Trench Repartee and Trench Favorites. The relations between the trenches Include even attempts at an exchange of repartee. The wit, as may be supposed, In such circumstances is invariably ironic and sarcastic. My examples are Irish, for the reason that I have had most to do with Irish soldiers, but they may he taken as fairly representative of the taunts and pleasantries which are often bandied across No Man’s L’and. The Germans, holding part of their line In Belgium, got to know that the British trenches opposite them were being held by an Irish battalion. “Hello, Irish!” they cried. “How is King Carson getting on, and have you got home rule yet?” The company sergeant major, a big Tipperary men, was selected, to make the proper reply, and in order that it might be fully effective he sent it through a megaphone which the colonel was ae- ; customed to use in addressing the battalion on parade. “Hello. Gerry!” he called out. “I’m thinking it isn’t information ye want, but divarshlon; but ’tis Information I’ll be after giving ye, all the same. / Later on we’ll be sending ye some fun that’ll make ye laugh at the other side of yer _

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND. 1 ——————————————

mouths. The last we heard of Carson he was prodding the government like the very devil to put venom into thelr-blows at ye, and more power to his elbow while he’s at that work, say we.' As for home rule, we mean to have it, and we'll get it, please God, when ye’re licked! Put that in yer pipes and smoke it!” The two names for the Germans in use among the Irish troops are “Gerrys” and (a corruption of the French “Allemand” for German) “Alleymans.” Brief informal truces are not infrequently come to between the opposing forces at particular sections of the lines, so that one or other, or both, may bring in, after a raid, their wounded and their slain. One of the most uplifting stories I have heard was told me by a captain of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. . Out there in front of the trench held by his company lay a figure In khaki writhing in pain and wailing for help. “Will no one come to me?” he cried, in a voice broken with anguish. He had been disabled in the course of a raid on the German trenches made the Hight before by a battalion which was relieved in the morning. These appeals of his were like stabs to the compassionate hearts of the Irish Fusiliers. Several of them told .the captain they could stand it no longer and must go out to the wounded man. If they were shot in the attempt, what matter I It happened that a little dog was then making himself quite at home in both the British and German trenches at this part of the line. He was a neutral; he took no sides; he regularly crossed from one to the other and found in both friends to give him food and a kind word with a pat on the head. The happy thought came to the captain to make a messenger of the dog. So he wrote: “May we take our wounded man in?” tied the note to the dog’s tail, and sent him to the German trenches. The message was in English, for the captain did not know German, and had to trust to the chance of the enemy being able to read it. r In a short time the dog returned with the answer. It was in English, and it ran: “Yes; you can have five minutes." So the captain and a man went out with a stretcher and brought the poor fellow back to our lines,— 27 ; -. ■

Then, standing on the top of the parapet, the captain took off his hat and called out : “Give the Germans three hearty cheers, boys.” The response was most enthusiastic. With the cheers were mingled such cries as :“Sure, the Gerrys are not all bad chaps, after all,” and “May the heavens be the bed of those of them we maF kill.” More than that, the incident brought tears to many a man’s eyes on the Irish side; and, it may be, on the German side, too. Certainly, answering cheers came from their trenches. I have had from a French officer, who was wounded in a cavalry charge early in the war, an account of a pathetic Incident which took place close to where he lay. Among his companions in affliction were two who were far gone on the way of death. One was a private In the Uhlans and the other a private in the Royal Irish Dragoons. The Irishman .got, with a painful effort, from an inside pocket of his tunic a rosary of beads which had a crucifix attached to it Then he commenced to mutter to himself the invocations to the Blessed Virgin, of which the rosary is composed. “Hall Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the .fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” The German, lying huddled close by, stirred with the uneasy movements of a man w’eak from pain and loss of blood on hearing the murmur of prayer, and. looking round in a dazed condition, the stghtTjF the beads tn the hands of his fellow in distress seemed to recall to his mind other times and different circumstances—family prayers at home somewhere in Bavaria, and Sunday evening devotions In church —for he made, in his own tongue, the response to the Invocation: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death. Amen.” So. the voices Intermingled in address and prayer—the wrapt ejaculations of the Irishman, the deep guttural of the German—getting weaker and weaker, in the process of dissolution, until tl ey were hushed on earth forever more.

Battles Which Hade the World

THE DEFENSE OF SYRACUSE Tk« Siege Rainie* Which Made Poaaihle the Roaaaa Empire aad I Wrecked the Early Exponents of Knltar oa Their Owi AmblUom.

When first report came to ancient Syracuse in Sicily that Athens was preparing for her conquest there rose up prominent folk to deny the possibility of war and to assert that the existence of the sea furnished all the protection necessary, exactly as prominent folk in our own midst, in the days before U-boats became really scaring and when the German military power seemed unutterably remote, were wont to assure the United States that there could be only folly in military preparation. Said one of the Syracusan orators reported by Thucydides: “Even were our enemies to come, so distant fromtheir resources and opposed to such a power as ours, their destruction would be easy and inevitable. Their ships will have enough to do to get to our inland. They will have no fortified place from which to commence their operations, but in truth I do not believe they would even be able to effect a disembarkation. Let us therefore set at naught these reports and be sure that if any enemy does come the state will know how to defend Itself in a manner worthy of the national honor.”

He talked, one perceives, as certain American congressmen used to talk; as talked those statesmen serenely confident in the protection afforded by a million patriots springing to arms overnight. The- Athenians- did - corner of course. They nearly won. Had they won there might never have been a Roman empire. That is why the siege of Syracuse takes rank as one of the momentous battles of world history. Athens which had fought for liberty at Marathon In 490 B. C., had become in 413 B. C., a great, rich and powerful state, eager to extend its sway over all the western world. All republics of the past which acquired supremacy over other nations ruled them selfishly. There are no exceptions. Where Athens conquered she Imposed her laws, her customs, her taxes and her kultur. She kept her conquered peoples as vassals and did not permit them citizenship. She pleaded the “eternal law of nature that the weak should be oppressed by the strong.” She sometimes complained that the Injustice of Sparta compelled her to be unjust to other nations. She might even have spoken of “scraps of paper” had the expression been known in that unenlightened age. She wanted Sicily and the rest of the world. Had she gained it Rome, if it ever came into being, must have located itself elsewhere than on the eternal seven hills. “Syracuse,” said Arnold, “was a breakwater which God’s providence raised up to protect Rome.” And he argued that but for the destruction of the Athenian fleet in Syracuse harbor, Athens and not Rome would have conquered Carthage.

The Athenians came to Syracuse In force. Their war galleys numbered 134, with a multitude of storeships and troopships. A powerful force of the best heavy armed infantry was supplemented by a smaller number of slingers and bowmen. With all that wealth and skill could provide of efficiency the fated armada tyegan its voyage in the summer of 415. The Athenian force accomplished its landing with success. It invested the city. It might have taken Syracuse then and there had it not wasted a year desultory operations elsewhere in Sicily and had not treachery caused the removal of one of its two really able generals, while death claimed another, leaving the supreme command to rest with the incompetent Niclas. Lamachus was the general who died. He fell in an early skirmish. The traitor was Alciblades, that most complete example of surpassing genius without principle afforded by all history. Summoned home from Sicily to stand trial before the Athenian tribunal he fled to Sparta, where with the utmost rancor of a renegade he exhorted the Spartans to renew the war with Athens and send Instant aid to beleaguered Syracuse. It is interesting to read in Aldbiades’ speeches as recorded by Thucydides the revelation that Athens planned the conquest and absorption of all the western world and that she meant to accomplish this without serious expense to herself. Athens intended to take the islands first, he explained, then with ports blockaded by her fleet to assail Peloponnesus with all her force. • “We reckoned,” he said, “that each conquered state would give us supplies of money and provisions sufficient to pay for its own conquest and furnish the means for the conquest of its neighbors.” Similar ideas seem to have found acceptance and popularity in certain high quarters just previous to August bf 1914.. . ■ .

urged the immediate dls-_ patch of a Spartan force to Syracuse. If the force could not be large let there at least be sent a competent general to organize and lead the Syracuse battlers. Sparta sent only four galleys, under Gyllppus, a soldier and statesman of remarkable sagacity, although debased by the meanest and most sordid of vices. His arrival occurred just in time to prevent surrender on the part of the Syracusans. Nicias had *b j n hemmed in. They were desper-

By CAPT. ROLAND F. ANDREWS

(OopyrtfM, 191?, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate)

ate. Easily eluding the negligentNicias, GyHppus and his re-enforcements marched fairly into the besieged town. A little later Corinth and Thebes sent aid. The unfortunate Nicias was driven out of position and himself hemmed in on low ground near the harbor. Discouraged, Nldas urged his countrymen to abandon the expedition. But Athens did not thus easily yield. Instead of recalling Nldas she sent another fleet of 70 galleys, under Demosthenes, as able as a general as was his great countryman in the field of oratory. He arrived just as Gylippus, with the encouraged Syracusans had won a minor success, and was about to follow it up. Demosthenes, with Ms great galleys and 5,000 picked men, rowed round the harbor, his trumpets sounding and his men at arms cheering. The hopes of Syracuse turned toi despair. Gylippus labored feverishly; to prevent surrender. Then Demosthenes launched an attack. Advancing in the night he< scaled the cliffs at the dty’s edge, captured the Syracuse outposts, drove the more exposed troops before him and swept down upon the town in the full? flush of victory. In vain Gylippus sought to rally his men. With-her troops broken and flying Syracuse was like to fall, but for one body of gallant men, the brigade of Boeotians. These formed line and, undismayed by .th® rout about them, advanced. The Athenian advance had become demoralized and disorganized by its own success. Against this was hurled the unexpected charge of troops in perfect order and possessed of obstinate courage. There was confusion. Beholding it the mercurial Syracusans rallied and charged themselves. Thousands of combatants were pent and whirled together in a narrow, uneven area. In the darkness Athenian troops assailed each other. With closed ranks the Syracusans and their allies pressed on. Over the cliffs which a few hours before they had scaled in triumph the Athenians were hurled. ' Never was vengeance more terrible. The Athenians were slaughtered. In a series of sea fights their galleys were destroyed. Nicias and Demosthenes were put to the sword. Their soldiers were penned in dungeons or sold into slavery. Thus did Athens’ dream of dominion! in western Europe end at Syracuse:

Farmers’ Telephones.

A telephone is not an expense. It is a means of reducing expenses. It is a time saver, a social help and an economy that no household should be without. It has no substitute on the farm. It is to the farmer-even more than what it is to the merchant It keeps him in touch with the markets, the physician, his neighbors and the city, says an exchange. “ When he buys a telephone he wants the best for it is the cheapest in the end. "Good equipment and good service” should be his motto. And It is if he be wise. If your telephone service is poor, make a kick to those in authority. If there is something wrong with. the equipment see that It is righted. There Is no excuse for « ' poor telephone service.

When Keats Won the Critics.

There will doubtless be keen competition for the MS of Keats’ "Isabella or the Pot of Basil,” for the poem is specially prized by all true lovers—and their name is legion—of this rare and richly gifted poet It is not only the most perfect setting of Boccaccio’s perfect story, but on its first appearance it was greeted with enthusiasm by cotemporary critics who had hitherto been so cruelly unjust to the author. It llshed, side by side with that unfinished masterpiece, “Hyperion,” which, if Keats had not been overruled by his publishers, would never have been given to the world.—London Chronicle.

Where Flag Flies.

The United States flag always Is hoisted over the senate or house of representatives when in session. The flag floats from a flagstaff on the White House while the president is In Washington and its absence indicates the absence of the president from the capital. It is displayed over the department buildings in Washington from 9 o’clock a. m. to 4:30 p. m. every week day. At all military posts and It is hoisted at sunrise and lowered at sunset with appropriate ceremony* Army and navy regulations direct that “The Star-Spangled Banner” be played by the band at the hoisting and lowering of the flag. • ...

Duties of Nations and Peoples.

Wbat can be of more transcendent dignity or better fitted to employ th® highest faculties of genius than the development of those important truths which teach the duties of magistrates and people; the rights of peace and war; the limits of lawful hostilities; the mutual duties of belligerent and neutral powers; and which aim at the introduction in International affairs of that benign spirit of Christian virtue which tempers the exercise even of acknowledged rights with mercy, humanity and delicacy.—Justice Joseph Story. . ' p