IN TIME OF WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 2, 4 January 1937, Page 7

IN TIME OF WAR

VALUE OF INFANTRY

SIR P. CHETWODE'S WARNING

A warning that even in this age of air power and mechanisation the infantry were vitally necessary was given recently by Field-Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, states the "Daily Telegraph." Young men, he "said, would have to be re-educated away from the idea that in another war only aeroplanes and tanks would be needed. He was speaking at a meeting presided over by the Duke of Gloucester at the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall, to inaugurate a fund to endow the Allenby (Services) Club as a memorial to the late Viscount Allenby. Mr. Duff Cooper, Minister of War, addressing the same meeting, urged that old soldiers would have to be better treated if new recruits were to come forward in sufficient numbers. "FALSE GODS BROKEN." Sir Philip Chetwode, who is president of the club, said that Lord Alienby, in common with most old soldiers, regarded with grave disquiet the'course taken by various Governments since the war. "He lived," Sir Philip continued, "to see the young men of today told that war was not going to happn again; that instead of war they would be able to arrange things by one or other of the false gods which are now lying broken on the floor of the great Peace Palace at Geneva. He lived to see the leaders abused by all sorts of people who knew very little about them. "He lived to see the young men of today told that if war came again there would be nothing wanted but air forces and tanks. But he also lived to see Mussolini put 220,000 infantry into Ethiopia, and the whole of the British Empire skimmed to find enough soldiers to protect Egypt when we got frightened. He did not live long enough to see the whole Empire scraped again for sufficient infantry to go to Palestine." After a tribute to the great efforts made by Mr. Duff Cooper to foster recruiting, Sir Philip added:— "It is not a question of money. It is not a question of young people disliking India, but it is a question of the young man of today being too well educated. "He has had it rammed into him that the infantry are no longer wanted, and you have got to re-educate him. He realises that the Army does not offer the same career as the Air Force and the Navy. If we wish to avoid some form of compulsion we will have to do as they do in Germany, where every man who serves over two years is guaranteed a career afterwards."

FITTING MEMORIAL. Mr. Duff Cooper said that it was often a difficult problem to decide in what manner to preserve the memory of a great man. Frequently, when looking at memorials, the doubt crept into our minds: "What would he have thought of it?" "Often when I pass near the memorial to Nelson, I feel it is the one that he would have liked," Mr. Duff Cooper continued. "He never feared to be conspicuous, and I think he would have loved to be on that eminence looking down as from a quarter-deck on the Empire which he did so much to preserve. "But I cannot think of a position that would have pleased Lord Allenby less. I cannot think of anything he would have hated so much as to find himself on : the top of a column. He was not one who sought a conspicuous position. But before he died he was able to give a very clear indication of what he would like to have done for his memory. "The club in which he took such great interest is not for serving soldiers, but for old soldiers. I can think of no sight more satisfying than that of the old soldier sitting by the fire with a glass of what he likes, and an old comrade beside him. "We have not treated our old soldiers too well in any period of our long history, and it is sometimes surprising to find that the new soldiers are still coming along when we see how old soldiers have been treated by previous generations. It is certain that we have got to improve that treatment if they are to continue to come along in the numbers that we require."" Mr. Duff Cooper emphasised that one of the objects of the Allenby Club was to give men a better chance of finding employment when they left the Services. They often found themselves cast on the labour market with no means of getting into touch with those institutions, which existed to help them find employment. That was one of the things "the Allenby Club would do for them. "You could not have a finer monument to a finer man," he added. "It is a worthy memorial to the last of the Crusaders, who marched at the head of his victorious army into the Holy City." (Cheers.) The Duke of Gloucester said that no servant of the Empire had better deserved commemoration than Lord Allenby, and no more suitable memorial could be devised than the perpetuation of the work for ex-service-men in which he had so keenly interested himself.