DEPARTURE OF TROOPS TO THE EAST.
I hear that the Guard Corps is also about to be mobilised as a precautionary measure. This will, of course, be followed by similar orders to all the rest of the German Army should France assume a threatening attitude, and the signs that she means to do this are increasingly ominous.
Meanwhile, the armies of the East are pouring towards the frontier with machine-like order and rapidity. All night and all day long, heavily-laden trains conveying the troops of the 4th Corps have been passing through Berlin, one at the tail of the other, towards Thorn; and there was tremendous cheering this afternoon at the Central Station, which is littered about with beer barrels and piles of edibles offered by the citizens for the refreshment and encouragement of the ‘tapfere Krieger’ who are going at last to measure their strength with the Muscovites, when the Bismarck Cuirassiers from Halberstadt steamed slowly up to the platform for a stoppage just long enough to let the couple of powerful engines water. Rolls and sausages were showered into the carriages containing these splendid heavy troopers (in whose ranks, by the way, Lieutenant Campbell of Craignish, a young Argyllshire laird—now Rittmeister, like Dugald Dalgetty, and aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke of Coburg-Gotha—had captured a French eagle at Mars-la-Tour); and when their heavy train again began to move away there arose another ringing cheer mingled with ‘Hochs’ for Bismarck (and I wonder how the exile of Friedrichsruh feels at the contemplation of all this!)—cheers and ‘hochs’ that were responded to by these big, deep-chested fellows roaring out the ‘Watch on the Vistula,’ which has already spread like wildfire throughout the nation, and kindled its heart into a fine warlike glow.