At some points during the German retreat toward Strykow, the German dead were piled not less than a yard high. Polish peasants spent days burying the bodies. Most of the dead were frozen. Thousands of wounded Germans froze to death before help could reach them.
The State of Georgia has been stripped of mules for the British army in France. Every negro who has a long-eared mule, not too antiquated, has offered the beast for sale to the agents of the British Government. Some Southerners foresee danger in the heavy draft of mules from the South.
A French infantryman writing to a friend in this country says: "At night we crawl forward and dig ourselves in. During the day we hide behind the mounds of earth we have thrown up and we fight foot for foot any attempts they make to advance. They do not like our cold steel, and many times we must give it to them. I cannot write any longer; I must relieve a sentinel."
The Belgians adore their brave King, and he adores them. The democratic friendship between King and the common soldiers is amazing. It is quite customary for him to hand his cigarettes to them and take a light from them in return. He spends a portion of each day in the trenches with them.
A cigar presented by the German Emperor and by him to a gentleman living at Hambledon, England, was sold by auction in aid of the local Red Cross Hospital. The cigar brought $72.50, and is now the property of a firm of local butchers.
Wounded Russian officers in the Tiflis hospitals describe the extraordinary endurance of the Turks, who march barefooted through the snow and shoot standing and kneeling, but rarely from trenches. They only dread bayonet charges. The Turks are said to have lost very heavily.
Great Britain is provisioning Gibraltar on a large scale. The shipments from this port of late include 141,265 bushels of wheat, 2,240 bags of refined sugar, and 1,400 bags of wheat flour. As yet, no explanation has appeared why England should make such plans.
A court-martial in France sentenced Louise Zach, a German woman, to serve six months in prison and pay a heavy fine, on the charge of using an American passport, which was obtained by a fraudulent declaration. The woman was a governess in the employ of an American family. She got a passport at Geneva by representing herself as the wife of an American named Appel, and on the strength of this came to Paris.