by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

Headlines reported German and Austrian reverses:

GERMAN REVERSES IN FRANCE BAD — BUT IN RUSSIA IS WINNING

FRENCH LINES ARE STILL UNBROKEN ALONG FRONTIER
Claims Retreat of German Right Wing Has Become Almost a Rout
AMMUNITION IS SHORT AND THE FOOD SHORTER
Allies On the Left Outnumber Germans It Is Claimed Two to One

RUSSIA ESTIMATES AUSTRIAN LOSS IN TWO DAYS AT 125,000

Reporting from Aix-La-Chapelle, Karl H. Von Wiegand writes:

America has not the faintest realization of the terrible carnage going on in Europe.

She cannot realize the determination of Germany, all Germany – men, women and children – in the war. The German empire is like one man. And that man’s motto is “Vaterland oder tod!” (Fatherland or death!)

English news sources are reported here as telling of the masterly retreat of the allies. Here in the German field headquarters, where every move on the great chessboard of Belgium and France is analyzed, the war to date is referred to as the greatest offensive movement in the history of modern warfare.

The city is just behind the apex of a wonderful triangle.

This triangle is formed by the German offensive lines, closing in on the British-French-Belgian lines. It is moving with relentless swiftness, hammering at every point. It is driving the allied armies south and west toward Paris.

Writing in a mood and from a perspective belied by other reports, Von Wiegand continues:

From Lille to Belfort the French lines have been thrown back in utter confusion and the Germans are in force on French soil.

French Outgeneralled

French and Belgian prisoners admit that the French have been outgeneraled. Up to tonight there has not been a real French victory. The French forces were trapped in Alsace-Lorraine. Realizing that the French temperament was more likely to be swayed by sentiment than by stern adherence to the rules of actual warfare, the German staff selected its own battle line and waited.

The French did not disappoint.

Upbeat though Von Wiegand’s reports seem, the gains Germany made did not result the victories they sought. The tide was turning, and the German commander, von Moltke would be replaced within the month.

In brief editorial comments, the editor ponders the mood after a month and a half of war:

Just why this protest against the use of dumdum bullets, is hard for the layman to understand. Is it any more pleasant to be killed by a fragment of shell than with a bullet that will not mangle the corpse half so much? Has our civilized warfare reached such a state of niceties that we stipulate the size of the hole in the soldier’s body through which his soul may pass out and up to judgment?

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According to the dispatches today, Austria feels sore at Germany because she went after the French instead of rushing to aid her against the Russians. The same dispatches intimate that Austria has about all she cares to assimilate just now, and would give a glad welcome to any kind of peace.

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War, it is claimed, has caused an advance in the price of coffins. this would be a natural result in Europe, but why war there should make the high cost of dying in this country any higher is a mystery. Maybe it is just to stand off the much-talked-of high cost of living.

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There are three allies that promise soon to be more formidable than the combination of French, Russian and British. Their names are Disease, Hunger and Cold. Any one of these is harder to face than a live enemy and they are more deadly in their attacks.

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There is a common expression about this or that being “the biggest thing on earth.” When the European war is over the debt accumulated in fighting it can walk off with the record in that line.

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China seems rather reluctant to be saved by Japan. She evidently fears that kind of a “lamb and lying down together,” in which the X-rays show the lamb inside the lion.

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Emperor Francis Joseph may find it easier to change the map of Austria than that of any other nation, even that of little Servia.

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Lack of German dye stuffs may make the wearing of white hosiery more a matter of necessity than of style.