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Read Ebook: The Illustrated War News Number 21 Dec. 30 1914 by Various
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INTRODUCTION BY W. B. YEATS, 7
"BY THE CANAL," 17
"CHATEAU ULTIME," 19
"THE OLD PIER," 21
"NOTRE DAME DE PARIS," 23
"TREES WALKING," 25
"LA RUE DES PETITS-TOITS," 27
"LONELINESS," 29
"THE WAVE," 31
"NOCTURNE," 33
"THE GAP," 35
"THE VIADUCT," 37
"THE PATH TO THE MOON," 39
"DIANA," 41
"ALL THY WAVES ARE GONE OVER ME," 43
"MAMMON," 45
"ST. GEORGE," 47
"TEMPTATION," 49
"THE ANGEL OF DEATH," 53
"ASCENDING INTO HEAVEN," 55
"ROSA MYSTICA," 57
"ASSUMPTIO," 59
"BE STRONG," 61
INTRODUCTION.
Wagner's dramas, Keats' odes, Blake's pictures and poems, Calvert's pictures, Rossetti's pictures, Villiers de Lisle Adam's plays, and the black-and-white art of M. Herrmann, Mr. Beardsley, Mr. Ricketts, and Mr. Horton, the lithographs of Mr. Shannon, and the pictures of Mr. Whistler, and the plays of M. Maeterlinck, and the poetry of Verlaine, in our own day, but differ from the religious art of Giotto and his disciples in having accepted all symbolisms, the symbolism of the ancient shepherds and star-gazers, that symbolism of bodily beauty which seemed a wicked thing to Fra Angelico, the symbolism in day and night, and winter and summer, spring and autumn, once so great a part of an older religion than Christianity; and in having accepted all the Divine Intellect, its anger and its pity, its waking and its sleep, its love and its lust, for the substance of their art. A Keats or a Calvert is as much a symbolist as a Blake or a Wagner; but he is a fragmentary symbolist, for while he evokes in his persons and his landscapes an infinite emotion, a perfected emotion, a part of the Divine Essence, he does not set his symbols in the great procession as Blake would have him, "in a certain order, suited to his 'imaginative energy.'" If you paint a beautiful woman and fill her face, as Rossetti filled so many faces, with an infinite love, a perfected love, "one's eyes meet no mortal thing when they meet the light of her peaceful eyes," as Michael Angelo said of Vittoria Colonna; but one's thoughts stray to mortal things, and ask, maybe, "Has her love gone from her, or is he coming?" or "What predestinated unhappiness has made the shadow in her eyes?" If you paint the same face, and set a winged rose or a rose of gold somewhere about her, one's thoughts are of her immortal sisters, Pity and Jealousy, and of her mother, Ancestral Beauty, and of her high kinsmen, the Holy Orders, whose swords make a continual music before her face. The systematic mystic is not the greatest of artists, because his imagination is too great to be bounded by a picture or a song, and because only imperfection in a mirror of perfection, or perfection in a mirror of imperfection, delight our frailty. There is indeed a systematic mystic in every poet or painter who, like Rossetti, delights in a traditional Symbolism, or, like Wagner, delights in a personal Symbolism; and such men often fall into trances, or have waking dreams. Their thought wanders from the woman who is Love herself, to her sisters and her forebears, and to all the great procession; and so august a beauty moves before the mind, that they forget the things which move before the eyes. William Blake, who was the chanticleer of the new dawn, has written: "If the spectator could enter into one of these images of his imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if ... he could make a friend and companion of one of these images of wonder, which always entreat him to leave mortal things , then would he arise from the grave, then would he meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be happy." And again, "The world of imagination is the world of Eternity. It is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. The world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation or vegetation is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in the vegetable glass of nature."
Every visionary knows that the mind's eye soon comes to see a capricious and variable world, which the will cannot shape or change, though it can call it up and banish it again. I closed my eyes a moment ago, and a company of people in blue robes swept by me in a blinding light, and had gone before I had done more than see little roses embroidered on the hems of their robes, and confused, blossoming apple boughs somewhere beyond them, and recognised one of the company by his square, black, curling beard. I have often seen him; and one night a year ago, I asked him questions which he answered by showing me flowers and precious stones, of whose meaning I had no knowledge, and seemed too perfected a soul for any knowledge that cannot be spoken in symbol or metaphor.
Are he and his blue-robed companions, and their like, "the Eternal realities" of which we are the reflection "in the vegetable glass of nature," or a momentary dream? To answer is to take sides in the only controversy in which it is greatly worth taking sides, and in the only controversy which may never be decided.
The sea-planes came into great prominence, for the first time during the war, on Christmas Day, when seven of them attacked German war-ships lying in Schillig Roads, off Cuxhaven. The attack started from a point in the vicinity of Heligoland, and the air-craft were escorted by a light-cruiser and destroyer force, together with submarines. The enemy put up a fight by means of two Zeppelins, three or four bomb-dropping sea-planes, and several submarines. Six out of the seven pilots returned safely--three were re-embarked by our ships, and three were picked up by British submarines. Flight-Commander Francis E.T. Hewlett, R.N., was reported missing. In our first photograph a sea-plane is being conveyed to her parent ship; in the second and third, sea-planes are being hoisted aboard.--
This was the recent meeting, not at Cologne, but at Malm?, of the three Kings of Scandinavia--Denmark, Sweden, and Norway--who lunched, and dined, and debated together for several days, when it was at last announced to the world at large that "their deliberations had not only consolidated the good relations between the three Northern
Both the French and British troops have made the best of things in the siege-warfare of the trenches, and out of an initial condition of misery have managed to evolve a considerable amount of comfort in many parts of the front. Ingenious French engineers, for example, have constructed warm shower-baths, hair-dressing saloons, and similar conveniences, while the British "Eye-Witness" was able to write recently of our own lines: "The trenches themselves are heated by braziers and stoves and floored with straw, bricks and boards. Behind them are shelters and dug-outs of every description most ingeniously contrived." The above French cartoon, which is from "La Vie Parisienne," is headed "La Guerre des Taubes et des Taupes" .
In a telegram to his aunt, the Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, only daughter of the old Emperor William, the Kaiser gave "God alone the glory" for a grand victory which was supposed to have been achieved by Hindenburg over the Russians in front of Warsaw--a victory which caused Berlin to burst out into bunting and braying and comparisons to Salamis and Leipzig in its momentous results. But this acknowledgment of the Kaiser to the Lord of Hosts, "our old ally of Rossbach"--which must surely have inspired Hindenburg himself with a feeling of jealousy and sense of soreness--turned out to have been altogether premature, and of the nature of shouting before they were out of the wood.
For a fortnight or so the fighting in Poland continued to be of a very confused kind, the telegrams from both sides being most contradictory, but on the whole the advantage seemed to remain with the Russians, who recorded their victories in very striking figures of killed and captured during their defence of several rivers tributary to the Vistula on its left bank. Hindenburg the redoubtable--the only General worth a rap , according to the German officer already quoted--promised to let the Kaiser have Warsaw as a Christmas present; but, according to all present appearances, he is no nearer the capital of Russian Poland than his comrade von Kluck was to Paris on the day of his being tumbled back from the Marne.
The new Sultan of Egypt, Prince Hussein Kamel, is sixty years of age and the eldest living Prince of the family of Mehemet Ali, the historic liberator of Egypt from Turkish domination. For years past, as head of various administrative departments in Egypt, he devoted his energies to improving the lot of the natives, by whom he is called "the Father of the Fellaheen."
General Oscar Potiorek commanded the Austrian Army invading Serbia. Elated at occupying Belgrade without firing a shot, he promised his Imperial master at Vienna that in a fortnight Serbia would be conquered. A Field-Marshal's baton and the highest Austrian military decoration were bestowed on him. Within a week Potiorek's army were fugitives. The Field-Marshal is to be court-martialled.
On September 15, the Prime Minister announced in the House of Commons that he had asked the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General to take such steps as seemed best adapted to provide for the investigation, from evidence obtainable in this country, of accusations of outrage and breaches of the laws of war on the part of Germany, This Committee is constituted of the Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M. Chairman; the Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Professor of Jurisprudence; the Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke; Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, Manchester, 1900-1913; Professor H.A.L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University; and Mr. Harold Cox, Editor of the "Edinburgh Review."--
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We know the number of men who landed at Cocos and got away.... They cannot have lost less than 180 men killed, with 20 men badly wounded, and about the same number slightly." As regards the fate of the German landing-party, he says: "Early in the morning we made for the cable-station, to find that the party landed by the Germans to destroy the station had seized a schooner and departed. The poor devils aren't likely to go far with a leaking ship and the leathers removed from all the pumps." It may be that the vessel seen on the right in the right-hand photograph is the one in which they escaped. They had broken up all the instruments at the Eastern Telegraph Cable Station, but those in charge of it had a duplicate set concealed.--
We illustrate here a system of submerged lamps for guiding vessels into port, invented by M. L?on Dion. It consists of a chain of electric lamps laid under water to mark the navigable channel, connected by an electric cable controlled from the shore. In time of war, of course, the light would be switched on only when a friendly vessel was signalled.--
This method of stopping the inrush of water was tested on the U.S. battle-ship "North Carolina." An American naval officer wrote: "Its use will permit us to repair from inside all holes made beneath the water-line. Strong pressure is exerted in the holed compartment; slighter pressure, graduated, in those adjacent ."--
Much has been heard of the plague of German spies at the front, and for excellent reason: they have been as daring as they have been ubiquitous. Here we see a suspect being brought through the French lines after having been found in a suspicious position near our Allies' artillery. He is blindfolded, by means of a sack placed over his head, so that he may gain no information en route.--
The British officer, who is once more showing what a magnificent sportsman and fighter he is in the field, is not altogether neglecting sport as he knows it at home while he is at the front. Already we have heard of hare and partridge shooting near the firing-line; and a pack of fox-hounds have joined the forces, for the benefit of the Battle Hunt Club.--
This impressive photograph was taken during the bombardment of Tsing-tau, Germany's cherished possession in the Far East, which fell to the Japanese and British arms on November 7. In the distance the smoke of her burning is seen going up to heaven. The blockade of Tsing-tau began on August 27. The Japanese troops landed in Lao-shan Bay on September 18, the small British force on the 24th. On the 28th they carried the high ground 2-1/2 miles from the main German position, and fire was opened on the fortress during the first week in October. The general bombardment began on October 31 and lasted till the night of November 6, when the Japanese stormed the central fort. We illustrate on another page one of the Japanese heavy siege-guns used at Tsing-tau.--
We see here one of the heavy siege-guns which the Japanese brought up for the bombardment of Tsing-tau when about to open fire on the German fortress. The gun-team of artillerymen are standing in rear of the piece, and in the foreground, to the right, is one of the detachment receiving orders by telephone from the battery-commandant at his post of observation. Profiting by their experiences in siege-warfare at Port Arthur, the Japanese were fully prepared with a very large and efficient siege-gun train to undertake the attack on Tsing-tau immediately war was declared. The Japanese employed 140 guns in the bombardment, including 28-centimetre howitzers and 21 and 15 cm. siege-guns, firing respectively, 11.2-inch, 8.4-inch, and 6-inch shells.--
One of the features of the present war which have been drawn attention to by "Eye-Witness" in his letters from the Front, is the resuscitation of fighting with hand-grenades on both sides. Particularly has this been the case during the battles in Northern France and Flanders, wherever the trenches approached one another within flinging distance. There also, on occasion, where the troops facing one another were further apart, and beyond reach of a throw by hand, an improvised catapult of the classic type has been devised by our men for slinging hand-bombs; utilising a metal spring bent back and held fast in a notch, to be released on the lighting of the fuse. An illustration of a catapult appeared in the "Illustrated War News" of December 23.
On the page opposite we give a photograph of a Danish experimental gun, designed at Copenhagen, for firing Aarsen hand-grenades. The grenades are shown in the act of being introduced into the breech of the weapons, and the apparatus for holding each grenade in the hand is clearly shown. In the photograph above the shells are seen bursting at a certain distance from the firing-point. Our soldiers in the trenches in Flanders, according to "Eye-Witness," have made improvised hand-grenades for themselves, utilising empty jam-tins. These are charged with gun-cotton and fused, and on being lighted are flung across among the Germans in their trenches. What the jam-tin hand-grenades look like the "War News" illustration referred to shows, and how they are used with catapults.
There has just died upon her little farm at Clarens, Switzerland, "La demoiselle Juliette Dodu of Pithiviers," forty-four years ago a telegraphist who outwitted the German invaders, was taken prisoner, threatened with death, treated chivalrously by the "Red Prince" Friedrich Karl, released on the proclamation of peace, decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and retired to the little farm, where she ended her days. The spirit of this romance of the Franco-German War of 1870-71 lives in the picture by E.J. Delahaye. Chivalry was not then dead, and the "Red Prince," father of our popular Duchess of Connaught, although Juliette Dodu had hindered the German advance on Paris, shook her by the hand and said that it was "an honour to meet so brave a woman."
The retreat of the Austrians after the recent great victory gained over them by the Serbians has been described as one of the most disastrous in history. It was stated unofficially in a report from Budapest that the southern Austro-Hungarian Army had lost over 60,000 men killed and wounded during the rear-guard actions and the flight, and about 35,000 prisoners, together with a large amount of guns and war material. Of the actual retreat it was said that the Austrian troops were on the march continually for a whole week, while the Serbian
artillery in pursuit shelled them without cessation. Many of the Austrian soldiers, it is said, dropped by the way from fatigue and weakness, as they had had neither food nor rest, and several of the officers did the same. It was impossible for some parts of the army to make a stand, as their artillery had been obliged to remain behind owing to the exhaustion of the horses. Only those of the Austrian regiments which had their supply-wagons with them were able to reach the Bosnian frontier.
The Admiralty announced on September 13 that the Australian Squadron had occupied, on the 11th, "the town of Herbertsh?he, in the island of Neu Pommern , which is an island in the Bismarck Archipelago; this island lies due east from German New Guinea." At Rabaul, New Britain, on the 13th, a British Proclamation was read, with a special one in "pidgin" English for the natives. The German Acting-Governor, Dr. Haber, surrendered on the 21st. Our photographs show: German troops marching into Herbertsh?he to surrender; A German building at Friedrich Wilhelmshafen, now garrison headquarters; The Australian Naval Brigade marching through Rabaul; and Dr. Haber, followed by the German Commander, riding into Herbertsh?he to surrender.
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