The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-12-08
WAR ECHOES

Washington Star: Ever since the Ger
mans pressed their fighting line into Bel
gium and France there has been eA
pectation that aviators of the allies woulf
under take aerial excursions into German
| territory, particularly to strike at th'
great Krupp works at Essen, from when
the Kaiser's war machine is being chief
| ly supplied with guns and ammunition
| Until yesterday no word of such an ex-
ploit had come. Now 1t is reported that
an airman from the English or the French
armies, it is not known which. has sue
cessfully dropped bombs on the cannon
factory at Essen. inflicting damage to
an extent that is not stated
| Essen is about 200 miles in a straight
line from Calais and such a flight is
regarded as easily possible for a large
war plane. At so miles an hour, which
| is not particularly high speed for such
machine, 1t would take only four hours
to reach Essen from Calais and four for
return The chief difficulty in such an
exploit would be that of a resupply OF
fuel. Evidently this problem has been
solved. perhaps by relay at some point
within the German lines For example,
three machines might Start from Calais
and fly half way and land, one OF them
after taking on extra fuel proceeding to
Essen, and then in return picking up
the comrade machines and with a portion
of their fuel returning to base. Serious
damage could be done to tho German
military organization by the destruction
of the Essen works, which are placed
probably nearer the western boundary
than would have been the case IL all
the circumstances OF the present CAM
paign could have been foreseen at the
time of establishment Now that one
aviator has reached Essen probably spe-
cial precautions will be taken there to
safeguard the great gun plant from re-
peated visitation. There is no other sim
gle objective within the German lines SO
attractive to the daring and enterprise
OF the allies.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: The limita-
lions of the English language bear with
particular stress upon the letter. "Y. :"
And especially is this true when that let
ter is the initial Of word. Putting Y
at the head is Like putting x in the
same place-it becomes an unknown guam
tity. And sometimes and W." con-
cludes the old definition of vowels.
There is one American town that be-
gins with Y. Ypsilanti, Mich. is the
unfortunate city, and outsiders call 1t
''Yipsilanti," "Wipeslanti," or "Ipsilanti,"
is a foreigner in our alphabet-it always
hat bp hat II
will remain so until the reformed spoilers
give it place of its own.
All of which is only preparatory to
introducing the subject of Ypres. That
Belgian town got into the war news a
while ago and thereby introduced itself
for the first time to the knowledge of so
Americans out of 100. The testers got
busy with the name; some sentimental
poets wrote about the quiet little Bel
gian town, Ypres, a place that gained
renown when German legions, on their
way to France, poured through let Get
era). And this would have been very
pathetic were it not for the historical
fact that Ypres was once one of the
biggest and most important cities in Eu-
rope.
When Venice was at the height of her
glory, Ypres was her most formidable
rival. When Florence was the queen of
the cities, Ypres was the king. When
| Berlin was a barbarian village, Ypres
was a splendid prosperous city. When
| London was about the size of Toledo,
| Ypres was considerably more populous.
Once it was bigger and more prosperous
than either Client Bruges. Six hun
bred years ago, it was the most impor-
tant distributing center of trade in the
north, as Venice was in the south. Be-
fore the trade routes of Europe changed
into other channels, it contained more
than 100000 people. Now it has less than
a tenth of that; it possesses more his
tory than commerce.
Vincennes was once the capital of In
diana. Albany was once the largest and
| most prosperous city in New York. Cleve-
| land was at one time known as "a pleas
ant village on the lake, six miles from
| Newburg." But of all the transmuta-
lions of municipal Importance, none is
more provocative of thought than that
| of Ypres-once a European metropolis,
now village whose name the paragraph
| ers can't pronounced