The Benson signal., 1916-11-04

Lough Swilly as q naval base. 1t was
apparently some time after that that
the base Of the fleet was removed to
Scapa Flow, in the Orkneys.
The Missing Grand Vizier.
Recently reports from allied sources
have asserted that Said Hahn, the
Turkish grand vizier, has been missing
for more than year, and that he is
| believed to have been murdered at the
| instigatiOn Of someone in the party Of
Enver Bey. This may, Of course, be
merely one Of the picturesque ro-
mances such as those which had the
German crown prime a suicide, in
sane or assassinated a dozen times in
the early days of the war. Again,
there may be truth in it. The in
trigues Of various parties in COnstan-
tinople have been effectually covered
up in the last two years.
The major military operations on all
fronts have been detailed with con-
siderable fullness for the last year,
but early in the war the censorship,
particularly that of the British and
French, was so strict that there was
little chance to supplement the bare
narrative of the progress Of events
with any descriptive stories of the
things that were actually taking place.
The French offensive in AlSace-LOr-
raine and the Ardennes in August,
| 1914, for instance, must have offered
great amount of picturesque materi-
| al, particularly in the districts where
the French forces were welcomed as
deliverers, the vanguard of revenge
| for 1871. But the disasters to the al
| lies at Namur, Mons, and Charleroi
and the resultant retreat to the Marne
| took up the public interest to such an
| extent that even yet few persons out
| side of French and German military
French Offensives of the earlier weeks
of the war, except that there were bat
| ties ranking with those Of 1870 that
have since become wOrld-famOus, and
| that the French were everywhere driv-
| en- back.
Germans Silent on Victories.
All the warning nations, as a matter
Of policy, have said more than was
| necessary about their defeats; but the
Germans seem to be the only ones who
have suppressed information about
glorious victories. This is particularly
| true in the case of Tannenberg, where
Hindenburg annihilated the first Rus
sian armies invading East Prussia, and
won his fame and popularity with a
single victory. Tannenberg was one
of the few specimens of the old-fash-
iOned battle-a conflict between two
armies, neither of them q part Of a
| long line, but maneuvering independ-
emily in the open field and finally COM
ing together for fight to the decision
on ground unhampered by any but the
most temporary intrenchments-tha
this war has seen; and it was probably
the largest. Yet next to nothing is
known about the details of Tannen-
berg, outside of staff circles; the stO-
|
of Russians driven by thousands into
swamps, where they drowned in mire
and stagnant water, have been pro-
nOunced mythical in great degree by
no less an authority than Hindenburg
himself. On the first anniversary Of
the battle, an American correspondent
wrote a 5,0OO-word story of it, but
presumably on account Of the restric-
tions of the censorship, he devoted all
his time to descriptions of the ter
rain, reflections on the historical coin
cidence of a great German victory on
the ground where the Poles defeated
the Teutonic knights in 141O, and pro-
German rhapsodies on the turning
aside of the Slav peril. OF the men
engaged and the men lost at Tannen-
berg, of the strategy and tactics Of
the encounter, of how the battle was
actually lost and won, there was al
most nothing.
Tannenberg was battle as exten-
sive as Sedan, and as decisive so far
as the effect on the particular cam
paign was concerned. And yet almost
all that is known of it, after two years,
is that the army of Samsonoff was an
initiated and that of Rennenkampf
badly beaten; that the Germans took
prisoners in numbers unprecedented
up to that time, although since they
have been far surpassed and that by
some sort of maneuvering Hindenburg
forced the Russians into a position
where the swamps placed them at a
considerable disadvantage and con-
tributed to the German victory.
Disappearance of Won RinteIen.
Even this country has furnished it's
share of mysteries that will perhaps
never find a solution. There was
Capt. Franz Won Rintelen, whom ru-
NOR has credited with royal blood, and
whose whereabouts have been one of
the vost vainly guessed-at mysteries
of the war; 1t will be recalled that
the captain fled from his residence, the
New York Yacht club, his social
|