Best Stories of the 1914 European War. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ men shooting without aiming; rather it was the calm and careful marksmanship of men one sees on English rifle ranges firing with all the artificial aids permitted to the most expert.

      “When quick action was necessary the men showed no nervousness; they showed the cool, methodical efficiency for which the British army is noted.

      “If the British lost heavily, the Germans must have lost terribly. One of the German prisoners said: ‘We never expected anything like it; it was staggering.’

      “The British troops went to their positions silently but happily. There was no singing, because it was forbidden, but as the men deployed to the trenches there were various sallies of humor in the dialects of the various English, Irish and Scotch counties. The cockney was there with quips about ‘Uncle Bill,’ and every Irishman who went into the firing line wished he had money to buy a little Irish horse, so that he might ‘take a slap at the Uhlans.’

      “As for the cavalry, the officers declare, their charges against the Germans were superb. They charged as Berserks might have done. They gave the Uhlans the surprise of their lives.”

      5,000 GUESTS IN SMALL TOWN

      This story of a thrilling trip by a party of American tourists in Finland is told by one of them after their safe arrival in Stockholm:

      “Our party left Stockholm on July 31 on a steamer for St. Petersburg but was stopped by a Russian warship and compelled to return to Hango, where we were lodged in a hotel. The steamer was taken in charge by a Russian warship and blown up in the harbor channel. At the same time several cranes and other harbor works were dynamited to block the channel to the Finnish harbor. The explosions made a spectacular sight for the Americans.

      “Our party was unable to leave until August 3 because the roundhouse and other buildings near the railway station were in flames.

      “Starting for Stockholm by train, we traveled in cars already overcrowded with refugees. Arriving at Hyvinge we found at least 3,000 persons waiting for the next train north. The town was already filled and people were sleeping on the staircases of the overflowing hotels and in the parks. We finally found lodging in a sanitarium outside of the town. The next day we continued our trip in a train loaded with Germans who had been expelled from the country.

      “We next arrived at Seinajoki, a hamlet near Tammerfors, which boasts of only one hotel but was trying to entertain 5,000 strangers. Every private house was filled to its capacity, and we would have been compelled to spend the night in the streets had it not occurred to the manager of the hotel to suggest that we proceed to Nicolaisadt, a seaport fifty miles to the west.

      “We took this good advice and found comfortable lodgings in that place. We also had the good fortune to discover an American freight steamer, on which we were permitted to sail on August 5. The voyage was dangerous, as all the beacon lights had been removed from the passage outward, which is narrow and made hazardous by shoals.

      “Two other steamers left port at the same time. The first was commanded by a Russian pilot. It ran aground and was wrecked. The other vessel narrowly escaped the same fate. Our steamer, however, got safely clear and we arrived without accident at Hernosand, Sweden.”

      CHARLEROI A CITY OF DEAD

      Describing the entry of the French into the unhappy town of Charleroi, whence, after previous fighting, they drove the Germans across the Sambre, a Times correspondent writes:

      “Outside an inn was to be seen the dead figure of a German officer with his head bowed over a basin and soap lather dry upon his face, where he had been shot in the act of washing.

      “There was another who lay across a table, while a cup of coffee which he had been in the act of raising to his lips at the moment when death found him lay broken on the ground.

      “In every part of the city houses were smouldering or in flames. Every cellar was occupied by the terror-stricken inhabitants. This is the account given of the struggle for Charleroi by the French troops which took part in the operations.

      “After listening to these accounts the correspondent heard the town was surrounded by German troops. Anxious to ascertain the truth of this report, he started in the direction of Namur. A few miles out of Philippeville he met a Belgian officer and the paymaster-general of Namur, who told him that the town of Namur was occupied by Germans. It had been subjected to a furious bombardment, and the fire of the enemy had been so well regulated that the first few shots had silenced two of the forts.”

      HANSI REBUKES HIS CAPTOR

      Hansi, the Alsatian caricaturist who was arrested by the Germans some months ago because of his pro-French sentiments, escaped and fled to France to avoid imprisonment. He is now in a French regiment acting as an interpreter. The German officer who had caused his arrest was the first prisoner brought before him. The officer complained of the treatment he had received and Hansi replied:

      “It was certainly better than you gave me at Colmar.”

      “GAVE GERMANS WHAT FOR”

      Philip Gibbs, the London Daily Chronicle correspondent, describing his railway journey from Paris to Boulogne, says:

      “On the way we fell into many surprising and significant scenes. One of these was when we suddenly heard a shout of command in English and saw a body of men in khaki with Red Cross armlets suddenly run along the platform to an incoming train from the north with stretchers and drinking bottles. A party of English wounded had arrived from the scene of action between Mons and Charleroi.

      “We were kept back by French soldiers with fixed bayonets, but through the hedges of steel we had the painful experience of seeing a number of British soldiers with bandaged heads and limbs descending from the troop train. They looked spent with fatigue and pain after the journey, but some of them were sufficiently high spirited to laugh at their sufferings and give a hearty cheer to the comrades who came to relieve them with medical care.

      “I had a few words with one of them and questioned him about the action, but like all British soldiers he was very vague in his descriptions, and the most arresting sentence in his narrative was the reiterated assertion that ‘we got it in the neck.’

      “I understood from him, however, that the British troops had stood their ground well under terrific fire and that the Germans had been given ‘what for.’

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