TRENCH METHODS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 8

TRENCH METHODS.

HISTORIAN'S VIEWS. WANTON KILLING BARE. INSEPARABLE FROM WAR. '"HAPPENED IN EVERY ARMY." London cables have it that 'the question, "Were 'the' Australians guilty of atrocities against their prisoners in the Great War?" has been "brought-to the front" by statements made by, the English poet, Robert Graves, in his recently published autobiography, ■ • Good-bye To All That." The reference to the Australians occupies less than' one page of a, book of '448 pages, and the publication of "extracts " without regard to their context or to the general tone of the book, is misleading. On the .-- subject of atrocious acts committed by individual soldiers in war time, other and more authoritative statements are available in a book published "early this year. ' ' Captain 'C E. W. Bean, in .volume three of the "Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18," referd to the presence in the A.I.F. in Egypt of a small criminal class. On page -.48, in describing the trcncli raids by the Australians at Armentieres, he says: "... Tlio raiders' orders enjoined them, among other things, to inflict as much loss as possible, and their duty was to spend the few allotted minutes in striking at everything around them, killing, wounding or capturing. The primitive bloodthirstiness which to some extent takes possession of most men in fighting, and especially in close lighting, is probably necessary for the due performance of fuch tusks. Consequently the details of some of these grim affairs make no pleasant reading.'' In a footnote he adds: "This applies to both side*, and to some extant to clone flyhtlii'i in almost any battle Lest UiO ( liMonmi lie accused 'of failing to thqiicl will' an li, ik, un instance may be tfivefi from it Intel operation by auVlier' Illiquid The raiders, after a* cheek; on the wire which was not thoroughly cut, lull's! ii to a (ierinnn trench widen was found practically empty. Some of the raiders, in accordance with tJaeir duty,

peering into the dark opening of a small shelter under the parapet, caught oight of a face. A shot was fired at it, and a big German , was then pulled out by the sergeant in charge of the party; the man pluckily resisted until several' more shots had been fired at him ; when he sank helpless to the side of the trench. Three other Germans who had been in the same dugout behind him then surrendered, and apparently were spared; but the brave man who nad fought, was eventually found brained by the knob.kerry of some soldier whose iukt for blood was not . yet satisfied. "Such things," adds Captain Bean, "happened in every, army, and pos-u'ly, 'on one side or. the other, in almost every -lose battle, and are inseparable from the exercise of the primitive ins taints. .... Of necessity men become tamperarily hardened to killing in whl time, .... but however justifiable, and indeed necessary, the killing of. men in war-time may be soldiers seldom care in after days to recall those scenes even in their thoughts, much less to speak of them." On page 2G2, in describing a raid at Arme.ntieres by a party of the 3rd New Zealand Infantry Brigade, on the night of June 25, 1916, Captain Bean says: " t _ The German trenches were f'mnd 1 full of the. enemy . (including some of his working party) who offered practically no resistance. A large number were shot down or bombed (in accordance with the definite orders for this ruid, which limited the numb»r of prisoners''to be taken) He odds: •' An instruction to take only three prisoners, though ' rarely issued in a written order, was on several occasions virtually given to troops. This was not in accordance with the spirit of the rules of war, nor with the general practice of British, Australian or New Zealand commanders or troops." The same historian on page 592 quotes from a soldier's diary a passage written about the capture of Pozieres: "'uittle , he had a wounded chap, and when I asks, "What are you going to do vvith him?" he says—"take 'iin round the communication trench here."~ 'I said, "V ou can't do that —the .man's wounded" —but lie'd have killed him .right enough. " This conversation Captain Bean says, must not be assumed to represent the truth, the men being in a highly overstrained iMiidition after the battle, and, as usual under such circumstances, apt to tulk i 'vildly.