AN APPRECIATION OF GENERAL RUSSELL

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 14

AN APPRECIATION OF GENERAL RUSSELL

[By J. L. HAY]

In the passing of Major-General Sir Andrew Russell, generous tributes have been paid to his high qualities as a soldier, particularly to the brilliance of his command of the New Zealand Division in the war of 1914-18. There is another and equally important side to General Russell not so well known but which further enhances his greatness. I write of a man who combined in a unique way, military leadership of a high order with an acute awareness that the 20.000 men under his command were human personalities, their wellbeing regarded by him as a great trust and his constant concern. He also knew, better than anyone, the closeness of the relation between contented and well-cared-for troops and their efficiency as a fighting unit. When I arrived in France from Egypt at General Russell's urgent request to establish the work of the Y.M.C.A. with the New Zealand Division, I immediately became aware of the wholehearted backing 1 could count on from him. I outlined a programme of social, educational and spiritual activities, closely co-operating with the padres and reaching from front line troops to the billeting areas, that I believed was possible with the support of the division. General Russell’s reaction was immediate and I was told that any men we wanted would be released from their units, transport would be made available and the engineer companies would erect huts and construct dugouts to make the programme outlined possible. From this beginning and with General Russell’s constant encouragement, there developed the large scale Y.M.C.A. organisation it ultimately became, with its many ramifications.

Thus began a personal association with one of New Zealand’s great men which continued throughout the war and since. It highlighted the personal qualities of a divisional commander who not only built a force that became legendary for its efficiency and fighting capacity, but . also there was developed within the division a range of cultural and welfare services which became the envy of other divisions with whom we were bracketed from time to time. Indicative of this broad humanity and concern for the welfare of his men, are these few incidents from the crowded life of this famous divisional commander. Throughout his life General Russell had been a keen student—the magnificent library he built up at his farm home in Hastings, bears witness to that. He knew how men’s minds could atrophy under the deadening influence of war but he did his utmost to arrest this easy fatalistic drift. When he knew that I could arrange to bring to the division for short lecture periods, outstanding personalities mainly from the universities in the United Kingdom he gave the scheme his greatest encouragement. The imaginative N.Z.E.F. educational scheme which became fully operative after the armistice—the director of which was Colonel H. E. Stewart, a former Canterbury University College professor—was his conception. The problems of India were always a matter of much interest to General Russell. He had studied closely the famous Montague report on the future of India, and when I told him that there was in France a distinguished Indian with an intimate knowledge of India’s problems through bis work in the universities of India, he immediately said: “Bring him here to tell the men about the inevitability of changes in India.”

Dr. S. K. Datta came in August. 1918, but the timing of his visit was unfortunate. The day of his

arrival marked the opening of the great Somme offensive which culminated in the armistice a few months later. The New Zealand Division was heavily committed as one of the spearheads of the attack and General Russell had the great responsibility of directing the operations from dawn on that fateful day from his forward headquarters. I was therefore surprised when I received a signal to say that he would like Dr. Datta to dine with him that night at his rear headquarters. When Dr. Datta was returned to my headquarters after 11 o’clock I could see that he was under deep emotion. With tears in his eyes he said something like this: “To think that General Russell should spend four hours with me, discussing India’s problems so tired as he must have been with the tension involved in directing a crucial -battle, is an experience I shall never forget.” Early in that same August when most of us felt that the war would never end and when the morale of men tended to slip, I asked General Russell for a message which we could print in a booklet and circulate to every man in the division, with a gift of chocolate from the New Zealand people to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the war. In his own handwriting he sent this prophetic message in a typical farmer’s idiom: “The last furrow will soon have been turned, get ready for the sowing. On what we sow in a world ploughed and worked by the war, depends the crop of happiness or sorrow our children will reap.” We all thought he was a superoptimist, but how right he was. Had the statesmen who drew the Versailles Treaty heeded such words the world may have been a happier place than it is today. There is much more I could write about this man who, to me, and to hosts of others who knew him. bore the marks of greatness. Like all big men his outstanding characteristic, stemming from a deep religious faith, was his humility. It is not surprising when twin sons were born in our family, that one of them should bear the name of Russell.