The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1914-12-05

gineer well acquainted in Goldfield,
but who is a French subject and now
In France, which The Tribune be-
lieves will be of great interest to
its readers. We quote a portion of
the letter.
We'll, you may be surprised to
hear that / am still a civilian, and
it has been also a surprise to me to
find, at my landing in France, hat
my services were not being required
at least for the present. Accord
ing to the instructions of our con-
suls in America, l thought l would
have to join the army right away;
but when l came to Paris / found
that all of the men of my class had
been sent back home and that no
men above forty were taken; in
there was no room for them all.
This is rather a good sign. AS !
did not want to remain idle, 1 ASK
ed to enlist as an interpreter with
the English troops, or to be employ
ed in the technical corps. My de-
mand has been acknowledged with
thanks, but they told me to wait, as
there was no vacancy at the time
being. l am still waiting and am
afraid will not be called yet for
some time to come.
The call to arms has been an
swered in France IN a wonderful
way and the mobilization has been
-, rorflnk A,Iar nf ounce ~,
have seer that in the papers, but to
show you by concrete figures how
well the thing worked out, l may
tell you that the general staff was
estimating, according to previous
statistics in similar circumstances,
available men would be missing for
various reasons on the first day.
Well, the figure reached hardly two
nd one-half per e II and this APP
plies to about 100000 men. AS
the same spirit vas prevailing in
England and Russia, not to speak
of wonderful little Belgium, the
Germans must have see from the
start that they had a hard nut to
crack.
OF course it is useless to tell you
about the progress of the war as you
are kept informed by the papers, in
spite of the lies which are dissent
mated by the Germans throughout
the world. The bluff" is an Amer
lean invention and you are too mucn
used to it to be imposed upon by
Teutonic tales, too clumsy general
to be otherwise than amusing.
When 1 landed in France on the
third of September, with some delay
due to the difficulty of getting a
ship in New York, you would hear
plainly the reports of the guns in
Paris, and the Germans were only
thirty miles away. Still everything
vas quiet in the old town and there
was no excitement to speak of. 1t
vas because everybody knew that
the skillful retreat from Belgium
was a %strategical move and that we
were drawing Germans where we
were ready to receive them. They
were preparing in secret to invade
France since several months, and
they came at once in such over
whelming numbers, more than O.
100000 on the Belgian frontier on
ly, that it was useless to try to stop
them before being through with our
mobilization. S o we let them come
to gain time, but we were fighting
all the same to wear them down
and they had to pay for their ad-
vance with enormous losses. They
were exhausted when they came fl
nally to the chosen spot on the
Marine, and there they met with a
warm welcome. 1t is difficult to
realize how we'll they have been
beaten, and the slaughter which
took place. In three days they
we're in full retreat, leaving behind
them any amount of killed, wound
ed and prisoners. Even champagne
wine was fighting with us. and a
large number of Germans, mainly
officers, have been made prisoners
when found stiff drunk in cellars
and similar places.
Since then they buried themselves
like gophers and we had to fight
them back on a front nearly 400
miles long. On such a front the
progress is necessarily slow, but
we are eventually wearing them
down, nibbling them as General
Joffre says. The ~nibbling has been
particularly good lately between
Arras and Ostend, on our left wing,
where Germans lost vel 100000
men in less than a week. Our own
losses are far smaller; it is reck-
oned that at least five Germans fell
for ally in the battle of Marine.
and since then the proportion has
been about four of them for one of
ours.
Meanwhile the Russian steamroll-
- g. 5000