THEN—AND NOW.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 29, 14 November 1939, Page 8

THEN—AND NOW.

PERSONALITIES IN THE WAR. It is' interesting to trace back leading figures in_ the present situation to their 1914 status. Mussolini was editing a small Left Wing paper in Milan, and a fervent apostle of Italian neutrality. Hitler was a full Austrian private in a Bavarian infantry regiment. King George VI. was a middy aboard H.M.S. Collingwood at Scapa Flow. Mr Chamberlain was a Birmingham town councillor and director of a firm manufacturing ships’ berthing equipment.

Queen Elizabeth v r as celebrating her fourteenth birthday with a party at her parents’ West End house, and in the evening a special treat to the theafire. Mr Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty then as now. He has given ns a. vivid account of sitting in his Admiralty Office room watching the clock on the mantelpiece tick off the last few minutes to midnight and a state of war with Germany.,

M. iDaladier, a 30-year-old schoolmaster on holiday, vms recalled to serve as a sergeant of tho 158th Infantry Regiment. Lloyd George was a minor member of the Asquith Cabinet, and extremely dubious about Britain entering the war.

Stalin, the former Georgian bandit, was a refugee from Czarist Russia on account of crimes committed. He was living in London, being a member of a Nihilist group of anarchists.