A CORRECTED VIEW.

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 78, 1 April 1916, Page 14

A CORRECTED VIEW.

The Australian Journalist from the French front, Mr. Harry Gullet, in a lecture in Sydney, paid to the French a glowing tribute. It was, he said, their indomitable courage that stemmed the onward rash of the Germans in the early happenings of the war, and not the British, as was erroneously believed a year ago, though few people entertained it now. The French did nearly all of that work. Two million Germans had been poured into France, and at that time the British Expeditionary Army abroad numbered only 80,000. "That fact in itself," said Mr. Gullett,. "shows that the part played by the British in the first phase of the war was comparatively small." It was in closing up the long Allied line in tho vicinity of Ypres that the British regulars distinguished themselves, though at a cruel cost. "I wish the censor woulcj' let me tell you how many of those regulars there are left; but I cannot. This I can say, they have practically all gone.

"The retreat from Mons remains as one of the most glorious of the British achievements. Once during that retreat, when the fate of the world hung by the all too thin tiread of our regulars, the Prussian Guard broke through. When they did stream through, who do you think," asked tho lecturer, "repulsed them? Regular troops, held in reserve and fresh, rushed to the scene to stem tho rot? Tired, but still unbeaten men from some other part of the! line? None of these, but the British camp followers—the cooks, the grooms, the officers' servants, the ragtag of the army—every man, in fact, who could hold a rifle. And highlyplaced staff officers fought side by side with them."