Iditarod pioneer., 1915-01-16
WAR LETTER FROM PARIS

PARIS. Nov. 5-If you have been fol
 lowing the statistics of the war, ii you have been reading the complete list of killed and
 wounded, you will have seen what large
 proportion of the dead, wounded and miss 1 ing consists of officers This proportion was much greater at the beginning than at the present Now the French have left the l heroic period behind them and have started on the practical period.
 In those first days each man thought he was doing his duty to offer his breast to
 the enemy and to spill his blood for his country. Now the officers realize that the i hardest and most necessary thing tor them
 to dc is to protect themselves at all costs
 During the first days of August down at l Dinant, at the very beginning of the war,
 the Trench charged with schoolboy lmpetu, osity over the hills and through the under | brush The German officers, posted far ott with glasses noticed with amaZement that | the young leaders wore white gloves. They simply signaled to their sharpshooters to 1 kill the men with the white gloves, and more than three-quarters Of those French 1 officers were killed.
 l Poor young enthusiastic fellows, all of them young officers from St. Cyr, who the day of the declaration of war pledged one another to go into their first engagement with white gloves Why? Just charm 1 ing fantasy of youth-to wear the lmmacu- l late white gloves that they had been ac. | customed to wear on drill at their military academy. And this oath cost most of them | their lives.
 | Whereupon the order went out from Jotfre--no mere white gloves. And still the 1 officers fell out of Gll proportion to the number of soldiers killed
 i Another order went out; the othcers must cease wearing the short trig coats and put on the long unwiedy overcoats of the l soldiers. The enemys marksmen could eas, i fly tell the difference in the length of red trouser leg that showed.
 Still the officers fell.
 Again Jotfre, who is above all practical man and cares not at all for show and sen t;ment, demanded that the officers should wear clothes exactly like the soldiers, with out stripes on the legs of the trousers ol 1 gold bands on the sleeves.
 The only thing that was left was the diff ferent cap In action the soldiers pull on dull blue covers over their red caps, which hide all numbers of regiment or signs. The officers, however, have a little window in the front of their caps, outlined ln gold, with the number of their regiment show ing.
 And now the last order has gone out for them to cover up this sign. Foor officers! Many 8 one with a secret pride in the gold and the trappings, with an affection for the tight smart uniform which has really cheered him through many trying times. Now he has to dress himself just like any of his soldiers. The only thing that Is spared him is carrying gun. And if this last order doesn't prevent the enemy from spotting the officers at 300 yards he will | probably have to carry a gun, too. suppose one will have to wait. for the war to be over before one learns the truth 1 about all the legends of fame and fable which appear in the newspapers, and which one hears in the wards of the Red Cross ! hospitals But one which my favorite little corporal at the Val de Grace hospital told me as 8 fact is worth recountlng. ! A Belgian sergeant had been detailed to | a railroad bridge quite out in the open country, where there was only one house | near A train approached one day, full of 1 1eIlldu SIltuSiS dIIt dlItLilllltIOll AilC CIl- l gneer and fireman got out and went to the ! little house, presumably for drink Our Belgian sergeant, who was a mechanlclan, cQt ,ldn't resist the temptation to do little abducting, and he got in the engine and started it off at full speed arriving inside the Belgian line with a train full of 320 unsuspecting prisoners with all their bag gage and ammunition.
 That exploit was met by the boy in the next cot to my corporal with a story some one had read him from an Italian paper
 He is one of the Italian volunteers and from now on some one will always have to read him the news from the papers.
 There was a Cossack prisoner in Aus
 tria," he began, his face turned toward the sound of our voices, land an Austrian gen eral had him called out in front of the
 Austrian troops so they could see he was just an ordinary fellow and not a devil
 Tecause they think the Cossacks are hardly
 human. The general gave him saber and 1 told him to do the stunts with It that all | the Cossacks know how to do
 "The Cossack obeyed, and then of a sud den he gave an awful yell and bounded right
 up on the horse on which the general was mounted He held the general in his arms
 and set the horse off for the Russian camp,
 and of course the soldiers didn't dare fire
 for fear they'd kill the general So the gen. eral was made prisoner"
 A faint smile lowered about the boys
 ips-they were all you could see of his face
 under the bandages he said with a chuckle: q guess that general thinks Cos sacks are devils now, all right"
 A moral little tale entitled Virtue Is It's
 Own Reward" might be made of the ex-
 perence of M and Mme Cyril Rouscadei
 of the Place du Chatelet.
 M Rouscadel was talking to a policeman
 last Sunday evening when soldier came
 limping along, dragging stiff leg. 1 q want to krop., he sstd to the police