military training. They marched through the streets in detachments of
from two to six hundred, grouped together according to nationalities,
bearing French flags alongside flags of their own countries. There were
about five thousand Russians, five thousand Italians, two thousand
Belgians, numerous Czecs, Slavs, Roumanians, and Armenians, together
with smaller contingents of Americans, British, and Greeks. Mr. Arthur
Bles and his second in command, Mr. Victor Little, are busy organizing
the "Rough Riders" in a riding-school in Rue Avenue des Chasseurs.

M. Geissler, manager of the Hotel Astoria, who was recently reported as
having been shot as a spy for arranging disks on the roof of his hotel
to interfere with the French wireless telegraphy, was tried today, not
by court martial, but by a civil judge, M. Tortat, to whom the court
martial had referred the matter for further evidence. It appears that M.
Geissler had been denounced on insufficient grounds by a clerk in his
employment. His innocence was established, this morning, and he was
released from the Sante prison and handed over to the military
authorities, who will probably let the matter drop.




_Saturday, August 22._


Mobilization is now completed. This is the nineteenth day since the
declaration of war (August 3). A sultry day with light northwesterly
breezes. Thermometer at five P.M. 22 degrees centigrade.

"All that I can say to you is that the battle has begun. That is all I