United States or Vanuatu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thus the work of destruction went on all the afternoon, while men, of course, fell fast on both sides for the deadly game of war cannot be carried on except at fearful cost. Even in the secondary matter of materiel the cost is not small.
A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist and his materiel. "I vil begin at vonce," said the eager man, on taking possession. And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous position, so that it could be well seen from the outside.
The dynamos are completed, and were put in place on the 20th October, when M. Deprez carried out some preliminary tests in the presence of a commission consisting of MM. Collignon, Inspector-General des Ponts et Chaussées; Delebecque, Ingenieur en Chef du Materiel et de la Traction of the Northern Railway of France; Contanini, engineer in the same company; and Sartaux.
It was a sight worth seeing though we cannot afford space to describe it in detail the hundreds of camels, horses, mules, and donkeys that trooped daily into the city with provisions and materiel of every kind; the thousands of Arabs who by command flocked in from the surrounding country to defend the city, and the hundreds of Christian captives who, collected from the quarries, as well as from the fields, gardens, and stables of their respective owners, were made to swarm like bees upon the already formidable walls.
There are five methods of arranging a retreat: The first is to march in a single mass and upon one road. The second consists in dividing the army into two or three corps, marching at the distance of a day's march from each other, in order to avoid confusion, especially in the matériel.
To a question on the subject, the young officer added that he had seen nothing of the American flag of truce, either in going or returning. That night orders were issued to the heads of the different departments, immediately to prepare materiel for a short siege; and, an assault at the termination of the third day.
Father Fourcade complacently recalled the first pilgrimage which he had organised and led, in 1875; the terrible endless journey without pillows or mattresses, the patients exhausted, half dead, with no means of reviving them at hand; and then the arrival at Lourdes, the train evacuated in confusion, no materiel in readiness, no straps, nor stretchers, nor carts.
The fortifications, when the British first landed their 'materiel', were in a dilapidated and unfinished state, and, at that time, the defenders, apart from the citizens, scarcely exceeded eight hundred men; while the small pox, making its appearance within the walls, for the first time for twenty years an enemy much more dreaded than the British, effectually discouraged the country militia from coming to the assistance of the citizens.
But besides all this, there was a world of materiel disposed on the black rafters above old farm implements, broken furniture, an old musket, an old claymore, a broken spinning-wheel, etcetera, all of which were piled up and so mingled with the darkness of the vault above, that imagination might have deemed the spot a general rendezvous for the aged and the maimed of "still life."
Not only the personnel but the matériel came far below what was expected. General Leboeuf, the War Minister, ventured to declare that all was ready even to the last button on the gaiters; but his boast at once rang false when at scores of military depôts neither gaiters, boots, nor uniforms were ready for the reservists who needed them.
Word Of The Day