Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1915 — PART RIVERS PLAY IN WARS. [ARTICLE]

PART RIVERS PLAY IN WARS.

History Full of Great Battles Remembered by .Name of Some Stream. Rivers have always played a great and sometimes a decisive role in the great drama of war, and the colossal European struggle is no exception to the rule. On the contrary, the greatest battles the world has ever seen, both by reason of its duration and the numbers engaged, is not unlikely to go down to history as the Battle of the Rivers. These are the Aisne, the Oise and the Somme, all of which, during that interminable battle, literally ran with blood.

What a role, too, has the Meuse played in this war! It was the difficulty of crossing it in face of the fire of the Liege forts which caused that fortnight’s delay in the carrying out the kaiser’s program which saved France and, perhaps eventually, the British empire. During that fortnight the waters of the Meuse were choked with the bodies of the slain. The River Nethe, a tributary of the Scheldt, formed one of the main obstacles to the Germans in their great assault upon Antwerp. Time and time again the Germans succeeded in getting a pontoon bridge completed and came down to the river bank in solid masses to cross it. As they came every Belgian gun that could be turned upon the spot was concentrated upon them, and they were blown away and the bridge destroyed, until the river literally ran with blood. Similar destructions of pontoon brTdges burdened with their living freight of men and horses and guns have occurred on all the many rivers which this war has brought into the terrible limelight of battle.

Who will ever forget the tragedy of the Tugela? From being an unknown river, except to South Africans, it suddenly sprang into universal fame. Its crossing proved the crux of the Boer war. The attempt to force a passage cost thousands of lives, including that young hero, the only son of Lord Roberts, who dleo in trying to save the guns, and upon whom the Victoria Cross was bestowed after death. Everybody will recall the part which “Father Tiber” played in oldfen days in the defense of Rome, and especially Lord McCaulay’s stirring ballad which tells how Horatlus kept the bridge against an army and then swam back, when the bridge was hewn down, weighted with his armor. That ballad and its heroic topic is but an indication of the esteem in which rivers have ever been held by strategists as lines of defense. -

What were the Germans singing before the palace of their Emperor just before the war started? And what are they singing as they march to battle? The German war song, “The Watch on the Rhine.” They have good reason to sing that song, for the Rhine for generations formed their western boundary, and no foe ever crossed it unopposed. From the days of Julius Caesar, who crossed it twice with an army, to modern times it has been making history. Napoleon crossed it times without number. His most tragical crossing was after the great Battle of Leipzig when his broken army struggled back into France. But on most occasions he crossed it victoriously, and on one memorable occasion his army crossed by moonlight on the ice. A tributary of the Elbe, Germany’s most famous river next to the Rhine, has been made immortal by a great battle on its banks. This was the Battle of Hohenlinden, fought in midwinter between the combined forces of France and Bavaria under that great military genius, General Moreau, and the Austrians. The latter were defeated with a loss of 18,000 men. The victors lost 9,000, but captured 79 of the enemy’s guns and took 7,000 prisoners. Immediately after this battle an English bard wrote one of his finest odes upon it.

Another famous little river, a tributary of the Danube, which itself has seen more fighting, perhaps, than any other stream in Europe except the Rhine, is the Nibel. Upon this stream stands the village of Blenheim, after which the splendid palace of the Duke of Marlborough, a gift from the nation, is called. The river at this point, where it falls into the Danube, is divided into several branches, with marshy ground between, and the French made it their left flank. The attack on the village had failed and Marlborough risked the crossing of this marshy stream, although the withering fire of the Frenoh artillery and the qssaults of their cavalry on the further side mowed down his men like corn. But he not only succeeded in getting his ‘own infantry and cavalry across, but routed the enemy when he had done so. It is recorded that the river literally ran blood.-jr-Philadelphia Ledger.-