WEATHER FACTOR IN WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 88, 13 April 1918, Page 9

WEATHER FACTOR IN WAR.

CAMPAIGNS DECIDEr. BY THE BARO-EETER, Somebody has suggested that the weather clerk is in German pay. One can almost believe it. Look at the references Sir Douglas Haid made to the rain in his last dispatch. In seven of our nine pushes in last year's campaign in Flanders our full success was prevented by rain, and the cumulative effect of this has been to render the major operation largely a failure and prevent pur gaining .back the Flanders coast. Bnt for the Flanders mud that clogged our efforts day after day and week after week, we should have had much more to show for our work in the Third Battle of Ypres, and if Germany had loet a considerable portion of Belgium— as no doubt she would—what a different war atmosphere would prevail among the German ma_ses, to whom the retention of Belgium is regarded as the chief symbol of German victory to-day. It was the same in the later stages of the Somme in 1916. Our experience then was equally distressing. Then, again, the German Army was saved by mud. RAINS THAT CHANGED HISTORY. At Vimy and Neuve Chapelle it was the same. We started operations, and so did the rain, and our troops were left to fight both the enemy and the •weather. The weather side of our offensives in France and Flanders is one long record of monstrous ill-luck. It can truly be said that these were rains that changed history.

Rain, too. helped materially to smudge our record in bur Eastern campaigns, for the failure to relieve Kut was rather a victory for the Tigris than the. Turk. It was the rain-flooded river that rendered our advance impossible., Our relieving columns were bogged by "the waters of Babylon," and Kut remained without our grasp. What part the weather in another form—extreme heat—played in the Gallipoli gamble is too well know to be recalled here, but it is timely to point out that close on half of the two hundred thousand odd casualties in that campaign _ were sickness cases, due almost entirely to di_ea_.es caused by the heat. And that great stroke at Suvla Bay that might have redeemed the whole disaster was brought to naught by "thirst almost as much as by the Turk. . - SOME NAVAL EXAMPLES. In the naval campaign also w_ find the weather has had a big 6ay in many affaire—chiefly through the agency ot Admiral Fog; who, for example, decreed that Jutland should be an indecisive engagemeiif, for just when Jellicoe was getting the Grand. Fleet into action, the sea _. as wreathed in. a thin fogwhifeh, at battle * ' range,* hid the greater part of_ the 'Gentian ships from our guns, jellicoe had outmanoeuvred the enemy only to be beaten by the weather.

Our defeat at Coronel was largely due to atmospheric conditions, though it must be admitted that Admiral yon Spec manoeuvred to make the most' of this. Thanks to his superior speed he forced the Monmouth and the Good Hope to fight whilst they lay sharply outlined against the.i setting- sun. His ship* meanwhile lay almost obscure in the increasing darkness. The British cruisers were ultra-conspicuous targets; the German vessels were part of the gathering night. On, that ground alone the issue was a foregone conclusion. A FLEET CAPTURED BY CAVALRY. When we turn to past wars we find equally striking examples. One of the greatest military disasters on record — Napoleon's retreat from Moscow—was due to the weather: Heine's famous joke that Napoleon's geography teacher was responsible for the catastrophe may well be recalled. Of a similar nature was the memorable tragedy of-the retreat of the British garrison from Kabul; in .Afghanistan, in 1842. Four thousand 'Soldiers ' and 12,000 civilians set out for India, and but a iingle survivor. Dr. Brydon, got through tho rigour, of the Afghan winter and the horrors of the Afghan treachery to tell the taleJ The severity of the present winter raised the hope that the freezing of the swamps of Flanders might give our men a chance of pushing the enemy further back during the winter. Fighting on skates might then be witnessed. It has happened before in Holland, and more than skaters have manoeuvred in battle on ice, for there is the famous episode ol 1794-95 in the wars of the French Revolution, wb'en the Dutch Fleet, icebound neat Ymuiden, was captured by French cavalry advancing across the slippery surface. This perhaps is one of the most curious incidents in war. Then there was the time in 1657-5., when the Baltic was frozen, and King Charles X. of Sweeten, then at war witti the Danes, took advantage of the ice to transport an army of 12,000 men with heavy artillery across the S_agge_T_e_ and Kattegat into Denmark. His courageous action was successful, for he beat the Danes, and made them sue for peace soon. One of his successor* to the Swedish throne, Charles XII., tried to emulate the feat by endeavouring to cross on skis. But he was caught in a thaw, and his attempt ended inglorioualy.