AN INDISCREET SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 35, 9 August 1913, Page 9

AN INDISCREET SPEECH

BRIGADIER-GENERAL’S APOLOGY,

HOUSE OF COMMONS QUESTIONS. [»BOM ODB OWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON, 27th June. At a Lord Mayor’s banquet in the City Hall, Belfast, on 7th June, General Count Gleichen, K.C.V.0., commanding the 15th Infantry Brigade, made a speech in which he was reported to have said:

“A good many people were of opinion that this campaign of Lord Roberts’s was being run. with a view to what they called a reprehensible militarism, and he contradicted them flatly. That there were gentlemen who, like Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and various peace presidents, said that because they had a big army they introduced militarism, and he concluded that people of that sort, however well meaning they might be, could only be suffering from softening of the brain." In another form of the speech the Count was represented as saying? “He was delighted to see that the Government proposed to bring forward a Bill for the care of the feeble-minded, and he would commend to their first charge Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Carnegie ; and he was sorry, from a military pant of view, that wars and rumours of wars had died down just now," Mr. Swift Mac Neil, M.P., asked the Secretary for War: "Whether such language contravenes the King’s .Regulations; whether it is in accordance with the rules of the permanent military and civil services that a paid official should indulge in political invective of a partisan nature; and what action is, contemplated in the matter?” Mr. Harold T. Baker, Financial Secretary to the W'ar Office, who replied, said the officer had submitted a statement in which he said that the published accounts of his remarks conveyed an erroneous impressiori of what he said. He had expressed regret at certain injudicious references, and appropriate action would be taken. Mr. Swift Mac Neill: Will the hon. member tell us exactly what he did say, and was the speech made in his official capacity as commander at Belfast at a formal ceremonial banquet, and are these remarks justified having regard to the time and place in, which they were uttered?

Mr. Baker: I can only tell the hon. member, that the officer has apologised for any injudicious remarks. Mr. Mac Neill: If this gentleman had not been a German Count would lie have been a British General?

To this no answer was given. The Brigadier-General holds the D.S.O. and is an extra-equerry to the King. He >vas bom ih London in 1863, and is the eldest soh of the late Admiral Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Miss Laura Seymour. He was educated at Cheam. Charterhouse, and Sandhurst, and joined the Grenadier Guards in 1881. The Count has served in various campaigns and missions, including the Nile Expedition (in the Guards Camel Regiment) 1884-5; Sir West Ridgeways mission to Morocco, 1893 ; Sudan, 1896; RrfWd’s mission to Abyssinia, 1897; and South African war, 1899-1900 (wounded at Modder River, twice mentioned in despatches, D. 5.0., Queers Medal, and five clasps). From 1886 to 1888 and 1894 to 1899 he was at the Intelligence Department of the War Office; and in 18901891 at the Staff College. He has also been director of intelligence in the Egyptian Amy; military attache at Berlin and Washington; and, besides magazine articles, has written several boots and official works on military affairs.