A brilliant charge by French Alpine troops on skis down the snow-covered slopes of Bonhomme, on the Alsatian frontier, is the latest thing in warfare. Under a heavy fire from the Germans the Alpine troops climbed to the summit. Then they charged down the side of the mountain with the speed of the wind, firing their rifles as they sped along. These Alpine men are so skilful on skis that they can fight as they slide along at breakneck speed. Many of them were dropped by German gunfire during the charge, but as the outrunners drew near the Germans broke and fled.
That the Kaiser has Breton blood in his veins is the latest assertion of Paris newspapers. To prove their assertion the Kaiser's ancestry is traced back to 1547 to the head of a princely Breton family.
Five dollars for officers and $2.50 for non-commissioned officers are the bounties placed on the heads of French leaders, according to German prisoners. The soldiers receive these amounts for every officer killed. Many bounties have been paid.
General Grossetti, whose name matches his physical proportions, has won fame by his habit of sitting in an armchair when duty calls him to the firing line. His contempt for death has become proverbial and won for him the admiration of a Japanese journalist, who compared him to the Samurai. Once he rallied a wavering regiment by taking a seat, amid a hail of shells, before the trenches the regiment was defending.
There are two plausible explanations of the mystery that still surrounds the deposal of General von Moltke, former Chief of Staff in the Kaiser's war council. One story is that when von Kluck was making his fierce drive to the very gates of Paris, von Moltke was for having him continue on to the coast. The Kaiser flatly decided against von Moltke's strategy—which was thoroughly justified by subsequent events. It places von Moltke, however, in the untenable position of one whose mere presence is the silent reproach of "I told you so." The other explanation is that von Moltke was too lavish in squandering the lives of his men for petty gains, paying fancy prices in blood for a few yards. The Over War Lord finally called a halt.