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Show I UNRECORDED TRAGEDIES OF WAR. A story comes to The Standard of unwritten phases of the mighty conflict just ended. It is related that a sergeant of the regiment to which Battery B was attached was killed by his own troops in Liver- i pool. The sergeant had gained a reputation for brutal mistreatment of his men and, when his conduct became unbearable blows were struck and death followed. The row occurred in a public place in j Liverpool, but not one of the participants would inform after arrests had been made. A Salt Lake officer, who had become offensive, was to have been shot in the first engagement. These reports explain why troops were shifted to new organiza-SoiU organiza-SoiU and placed under strange officers, after the men landed in1 France and they approached the trenches for real action. In the process of training and disciplining, the officers, unless they possessed unusual tact, stood in danger of incurring lasting, bitter enmities. Many young men, drawn in from private life, never had known obedience, or been subjected to severe restraints Thousands were unwilling to yield to commands, and those who had the task of taking that raw material and making the parts fit in to a great, man-1 ageable machine were bound to create enmities. Army officers are aware of the fact that the enforcing of discipline discip-line brings on hatreds and so when regiments march out of canton-, ments and then proceed to the scene of action, they are transformed. It was freely predicted in Germany before the war that whenever j the rank and file went into battle, there would be a slaughtering of officers, for of all the harsh and galling commanders of armies none were more intolerable than the German lieutenants. But we presume pre-sume the Germans took the same precaution to transfer officers. It was not uncommon in German military circles, in the days of peace, for officers to kick and cuff privates and at times to inflict deep wounds. It is said that much of the ill feeling between the extremes in army camp is being carried into private life today. |