IMPORTANT CHANGES IN BRITISH ARMY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 60, 4 December 1937, Page 11

IMPORTANT CHANGES IN BRITISH ARMY

Younger Officers To Take

Senior Positions

“TO COPE WITH PRESSURE OF RAPID REARMAMENT”

By Telegraph.—Press. Assn.—Copyright. London, December 2. The War Office announces revolutionary army changes whereby younger officers will replace senior'members of the Army Council, of which three of the four military members are resigning. One effect will be to reduce the average age of the military members of the council from 03 years to 52. The War Office states that it is intended in future to bring the principal home commands into closer association with the central direction of army policy. Two of the principal changes are that Field-Marshal Sir Cyril Deverell, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, is resigning in favour of Major-General Viscount Gort, and that General Sir Harry Knox, Adjutant-General of the Forces, is resigning in favour of MajorGeneral Clive Gerard Liddell. Under the reorganisation Engineer Vice-Ad-miral Sir Harold A. Brown, who retains the title of Director-General of Munitions Productions, is to take over the duties of Master-General of Ordnance from Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh Elies. The post, of Deputy-Chief of the Imperial General Staff has been revived, and Colonel Sir Ronald Adam has been appointed to it. The changes were announced exactly six months after the appointment of Mr. L. Hore-Belisha as Minister of War. Fresh Minds for Problems. “The Times,” in a leader, says: “To the army itself, which has long suffered from the effect of depressingly slow promotion, these far-reaching steps may well carry new hope to the public. They also offer the hope that new problems of Imperial defence will be met not only with fresh minds but with a resilience as much physical as mental that is needed to cope with the pressure of our present rapid rearming and with the still more intense strain that would ensue if war were to come to the world beyond our borders. “The changes are witness not only to vigour of purpose but to the capacity for adaption" to changing conditions. They refute the assumption that in dictatorships alone there are the vision and courage to give the rising generation its chance.” The “Dally Telegraph” says in a leader: “The Minister of War has had serious disagreement with many of his military advisers on important matters of policy relating to the reorganisation of the Army Council, but: it would be a great mistake and a national disservice if the changes were represented as an indication of a crisis in the British Army. They are the inevitable sequel to tiie policy of appointing younger men which is necessitated by the growing anxieties of the present time. We are glad to have again at the War Office a Secretary of State who is prepared to act boldly. There is more than a touch of audacity in the appointments which may well be justified by complete success.”