Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1906-02-23

shoulder tnelr ADDED burdens with q
smile, grip the ashen shaft of their
alpenstocks, and scramble up the pre-
cipices and almost perpendicular
crags the best way they can. Some.
times the most daring among them
will reach point of vantage, and
then lower a rope up which his fell
lows are to climb one by one. These
Observation-Disclosures are the most
wonderful rope-climbers l have ever
seen in action. 1t is no small matter
for a man to climb up a rope at all in
the ordinary way; then what must it
be when he is loaded with nearly 60
pounds weight of equipment? Down
at the barracks in the town, all re-
cruits go through regular exercises
in rope climbing, bearing the whole
OF their equipage.
The idea OF the whole training is
that one day it may be necessary to
meet an enemy equally daring and
skillful among these wild Alpine soil
tudes. For the French also have Al
pine troops, and one may see these
indulging in similar strange tactics
on the colossal Mont Blanc itself. 1t
is fact that lightly equipped, French
infantrymen, led by young officers,
have gained the very summit of the
giant of the Alps, which, as every.
one knows, is nearly 10000 feet high
and is clothed in eternal snow.
All these Observation-Disclosures are
crack shots; and it is difficult to see
how one of these forts held by them
amid the great granite powders and
terrible pinnacles and spires of the
Great st. Bernard could ever be forced
by an enemy in the face of these
troops, who would act as scouts, crawl
ing up precipices, and planting them.
selves on wild and seemingly inacces.
sible spots. whence they would pour
an invisible fire which nothing could
withstand These Alpine troops,
when scouting or accommodating in
the mountains, use curious kind of
rifie-rest, formed by three alpenstocks
and one of the pillows they use at
night when they sleep in the snow.
For. strange as it may seem, these
men when bivOuacking at great alti-
tudes do not trouble to put up tents,
but merely dig out caverns in the
vast Sow drifts, and line these with
waterproof sheets and blankets, and
there sleep amid dreary Alpine DESC
lations as comfortably as though they
were down on earth in a comfortable
city bed.
The life of the men is magnificent.
ly healthy and exhilarating, as may
be seen by the bright eyes, rosy
cheeks, and clear compilations of a
party of scouts that came glissading
like lightning down the slopes of froz-
en- snow on their long curving ski,
guided and supported by the alpen.
stock. The troops also carry Arctic
sledges for the transport of their
wounded; and sometimes realistic
demonstrations are given, when one
or several men will lie at full length
on these sledges and be dragged or
glissaded over glacier and snowfield.
Much has been said and written
about aerial warfare mean between
airships provided with explosives.
This may be dream of the distant
future but nothing is more practicable
than a clash between the Alpine troops
of say France and Italy in the ire
mendous mountains of the Haute Sa-
vote, many thousands of feet above
the level of the sea. And just con.
slider what that warfare would be.
No cavalry. of course, no wheeled ar
tillery; but only busy soldier-moun-
taineers clambering by ropes up dizzy
precipices, hoping to pour their fire
from a height.
Officers, too, shouting commands
through megaphones. or using the
field telephones from rock to rock,
and encouraging their men to carry
VI the mountain guns and open fire
with theae until the vast silent domea
and sky-spliutering peaks echo and