ARMY ON THE RHINE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 September 1924, Page 8

ARMY ON THE RHINE.

CHANGED LIFE AT COLOGNE. Few among the troops who marched through pouring rain into Cologne and across the Rhine in December, 1918, when “Plum,” as every one knew Lord Plumer, commanding the Second Army, took their salute by the pedestal of the Kaiser’s statue on the Hohenzollern Bridge, anticipated that the passage of five years would still find a British Army on the Rhine (writes the Rhineland correspondent of the London Times). The majority of officers and men thought, that peace would be arranged in a few weeks and then the Army would withdraw from Germany and dissolve into prosperous civilian individuals. But Lieutenant-General Sir John du Cane, who has just taken over the command of the British Army of the Rhine from General Sir Alexander Godley, is the fourth successor to Lord Plumer. Life on the Rhine has become a | hum-drum affair -in comparison with that of those early days of carnival. There is little wonder that, when it was realised that the long strain of war had been relaxed- and that, though quartered in the “enemy country,” there was little hostility to be was realised that the long strain of anticipated, the Army' of the Rhino frolicked when off duty or that the populace, whose relief at the end of a the slaughter enabled it to put a cheerful face on defeat and occupation, looked on almost approvingly and even evinced a desire to share in the merry-making, which had to be repressed by solemn routine orders forbidding" “fraternizing” wit! the enemy on the one hand, and exhortations to remember “Germar lymour” in the local Press on the other “BEST FOREIGN STATION.” With , the German acceptance of. tin terms of the Versailles Treaty, am its subsequent ratification, the Bri tish Rhine Army began to settle dowi to normal garrison life, sonscious that with the low cost of living consequen upon a depreciating currency, th privileges involved in occupying ter ritovy on its own terms, and thenatura charm of the Rhineland which made i for so long one of Europe’s playground I ever to hand, it was quartered in “th best foreign station.” The Germa population settled down to make th best of five years’ occupation, an gradually the relations between troop and civilians adopted much of th stereotyped form of those obtaining bt tween any military garrison and th townspeople. The circumstances of the oceupatio rendered points of contact naturall fewer; publicity, at least, there ’wasand is—no social intercourse, but n conflict, between victors and vanquisl ed. In private life, the “billetors sometimes led to friendship and eve to international marriage, whilst in number of cases the four walls of on home proved too narrow to contai two nationalities —such cases were pa ticulary noticeable when regiments were relieved by others fresh from home — and the resulting strife had to be dealt with by the British Summary Court. Now that the large numbers of villas have been built by the Germans for British Army families, billeting has greatly decreased. More than ever the British Army goes on its own way and the civilian his, and the Summary Court has little to do but punish the sellers of “Kognak” ' to the troops and the illegal possessors of sporting guns, “souvenir” swords, and, among the criminal classes, an occasional revolver or murderous “gummi Knuppel.” When the Rhine Army had settled clown to the routine of drill, musketry, summer camps, and annual manoeuvers, lightened by polo, racing, dancing, and the usual sports, and appeared unlikely, to have any more serious task thrust upon it than that, of reach- . ing the highest military standard, it was thrust into the limelight and into political activity by the occupation of the Rhur. Cologne suddenly became a little island of law and order, surrounded by bitter strife, with the added difficulty that the contending parties met on its neutral territory, there to maintain the peace that did not exist outside. A DIFFICULT TASK. The instructions of the Home Government were —and still are —simple enough. “Allow" no breaches of the Treaty of Versailles and the Rhineland Agreement by anyone”; it was their execution wlucli was a matter of great delicacy—so great that at one time it seemed an impossible task, and that the wisest thing to do would be to with, draw the Army and turn her back on the conflict. The Aimy Commander of the day, General Sir Alexander Godley, and his Staff proved themselves capable, at a moment’s notice, of adding sue-

cessful diplomacy to military distinction. The main burden of steering a middle co '.rse fell on, after the Army Commander, the British representative in the constested area of Cologne of the Rhineland High Commission, which body of the Rhineland Agreetaent is constituted the “supreme representatives of the Allied Powers.” In Mr. Julian Piggott, the British Commissioner at Collogne, Great Britain found a representative who in the face of almost insuperable difficulties, succeeded in a task where many a man might well have failed. Prom both protagonists in the Ruhr struggle all possible pressure was brought to bear to force Great Britain to deviate in Cologne from the path of neutrality on which her Government had decided; the task of keeping on that path was not made easier by the fact that certain British influences endeavoured continually to in solve ns in the Ruhr struggle oil the side .of the French. Tt is largely due to the tactful handling of. the situation in Cologne that Great Britain, having kept dear both of the Ruhr disaster and of the Separatist adventure, is in the position which is hers to-day of being able to co-operate with a new France in a policy of real European reconstruction. The attraction of Cologne as a foreign station has largely vanished with the attraction in the exchange. One may often make a round of the German restaurants and places of amusement in Cologne without seeing a single British officer, though here and there the rank and file still patronise the cheaper resorts in much diminished numbers. Alone, the opera, where British military personnel pay" "special reduced prices, has a small regular British clientele, which wisely takes advantage of the magnificent opportunity which Cologne provides. When the time comes for the evacuation of Cologne there will be few regrets from the average officer and man who, two years ago, certainly never Avished for any pleasanter life than that afforded by “the best foreign station,” now transformed ■to “the clearest billet in the Service.”