Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-09-16
:SHRAPNEL
Sidelights on the War
-BY-
OLIVER OWEN KUHN.

you are training to kill or be
killed" This is the underlying
motive inculcated in the minds Of all
British soldiers undergoing prelinni-
nary training in camps before being
sent to the fighting lines. 1t seems
cold-blooded thought, but neverthe-
less it is in the business Of war.
Though the Japanese flier is an ex-
cellent one the difficulties that con-
front him in his own land are many,
but the chief Of them all are those
connected with the weather. On six
days out of seven the weather con-
ditions are such as to make it sheer
madness for an aerial pilot to take
out his plane. 1t is well known that
in Japan the higher one goes the
these conditions are accentuated by
the severe storms that perpetually
rage over the country. Huge clouds
of dust coming from the dry clay
soil are raked up by the wind and
form veritable typhoons. resistless
to the ordinary aviator.
The kaiser believes that his his
tory of the war will go down through
the ages as a classic. After the actual
writing has been done by salaried
men, the EMPEROR runs through the
and occasionally adds some matter
concerning his own doings. The
pages then are typed and bound as
flair copy" for the royal printers.
Many of the British soldiers who
have been sent to farms after dis
charge from the army do not relish
the isolated life of the Agricultural.
and do not look forward to the time
of the distribution of land a1lotments
except that they may be able to turn
them into ready cash.
Germans always have placed a
premium upon bloody things. The
letting of gore always has figured
largely in their ideas Of vigor and
manhood. In the earlier days to
maintain the blood-lust and fighting
cut the cheeks Of the male children
with a sword on the very day that
they were born in order to make
them endure the pain of wounds be-
fore they actually received nourish-
ment. The effect Of this custom on all
the age of eighteen they were con-
sidered to be fighting men by virtue
of the fact of their having a scar
upon the cheek. In this manner the
fighting spirit and blood-lust was not
only maintained. but the man with a
This custom, in slightly different
FORM has been kept by the German of
today, by means Of students univer-
sity duels, in which the contestants
are blindfolded and fight with swords.
each endeavoring to cut the face of
his opponent. The German student is
proud of his scars. SO much so that,
in many cases, the face wounds are so
treated as to make them as conspicu-
Gus as possible.
So terrible are the food conditions
in Austria that one Austrian paper
was led to remark:
There will be no next generation.
1t is dying as it is born"
A Danish engineer has recently TAX
en- out a patent for an apparatus he
has evolved and constructed, and
which he calls "the automatic soldier. i"
It consists of steel cylinder which
normally is within larger cylinder
the whole being vertically sunk into
the ground. By means of a very sim
pie mechanism which is set in motion
by wireless telegraphy. the inner cyl
tnder rises to the height of about
eighteen inches from the ground: at
the same time an automatic rife
mounted on the inner cylinder fires
400 shots in any given direction.
These automatic soldiers" can be
controlled from q central position
! some four or i've miles behind the line
of defense. They can only be seen by
| the enemy when they rise from the
ground, and the installing of them In
the ground is a most simple operation