NEW ZEALAND MOUNTED BRIGADE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1223, 12 June 1919, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND MOUNTED BRIGADE.

SPLENDID ACHIEVEMENTS. Much ha.s appeared in English and in New Zealand papers of the glorious achievements of the New Zealand Infantry" Division in France, nut it Is indeed lime, thai more should be knnwn by the people of their own land of "{fiat magnificent body of men, the New Zealand Mounted Brigade. The men themselves need no praise; theirs is the spirit that finds content in the consciousness of hard, gruelling work and of stiflf lighting thoroughly well done. But it seems a pity that NewZealand, who bred and sent these men. should remain so long In ignorance of their splendid achievements, of their personal worth, and of the fame they have won for her.

The reasons for the present lack of knowledge are not far too 9cek. In the first place, there was no New Zealand official correspondent attached to the brigade: secondly, the fact that the Anzac Division consisted of two Australian Brigades and our own undoubtedly made it impossible for the divisional commander. Major-General Sir E. Chaylor. K.C.M.G.. D.5.0., himself a New Zcalander, to give them their full mnrd of praise in official reporls. Thirdly, the value of the campaign and the number of troops engaged were not realised by most people at Home in England, and even less so out here. Students of strategy knew the need for smashing the Turkish pillar of the panGorman edifice, the vital necessity for pressure on all sjdes of the huge domain of German control, but for others, Palestine and Mesopotamia were "sideshows." In point of size, the army was pqual to the British and colonial army that fought the Boer War. The mounted troops comprised the largest body of cavalry that had ever taken the Held undf»r one commander in the whole of England's history. Competent Judges save the palm to the New Zealand Mounted Brigade as the being the best brigade in the whole of that mighty force. And yet slanderous people in New Zealand made reference at times to the "cold-footed Mounteds, picnicking in Egypt!" This or a force that fought in every battle and nearly every pnuagement from the Canal to Aleppo! A force, moreover, that was respected a.s much for Its good behaviour when on leave as it was for Its gallantry and JiKhting capacity in the field. To those who know, it was simply laughable, but it did not make the men exactly proud of some of the people they were fighting for. No one who was not there ran over know just what the conditions were under which they fought and worked for nearly three weary yrars

It is generally believed lhat the weather was " rather hot," that the Hies were troublesome, and that water was scarce, but it is impossible for the stay-at-home to visualise just what that means. And !ho**r conditions were perpetual throughout the summer; wherever you were, in the fleld, or on leave, you never were out of the country, which at times was cursed by the khamsin, the fiendishly hot wind that blew for days from the srorchin.ar sands of Arabia. A furnace blast is the only thing in New Zealand that compares with it. Men bent their heads to avoid its intolerable searinc of the eyeballs. And through it all was the work of feeding and watering the horses, often with one's hands and limbs festering with septic sores that a scire like a bullet's. And the Ashling was no child's play. More often than not cover was non-existent —just great, open, rolling country for miles and miles, with the Turks on the hills. It is not generally known that the Turk hail aerial supremacy from May. 1916, to about June, 1917, which meant that he could bomb us as often and as low down as he chose. Our later machines altered that, but the country was so vast that the scope of our 'planes and anti-aircraft guns was inevitably limited. As mounted riflemen it was part of our function to seek nut the enemy and attack him in bis trenches, which meant that we had no such cover, and because of the distances we traversed we often fought without artillery support of any kind against a stubborn enemy well armed with modern rifles, machine-guns, and heavy artillery. The fighting spirit of the brigade was its greatest stand-by; that and its horsemanship. Going into action you could feel the tremendous punch in the brigade: and the Turk and German knew it, and felt it, too. A German officer taken prisoner at Rafa said, ••We never like to sec you men with the ?oft hats. We don't mind the others. We ran stop them by killing their officers, hut you people come on just the same."

And their comrades in arms knew tiifir worth. "Hullo, choom. There's something doing I There goes the Fiehting Brigade!" was a frequent sort of comment amoni? the Tommies when the New Zca landers moved out. Through, all their vicissitudes the men up the cheery, determined spirit and pride in their country and in her pood name. Egypt is known as a land of many temptations, and much rottenness. Do the New Zealand people take prid*» in the fact that of the thousands of th«Mr mounted men in Egypt and Palestine only 2 per cent, contracted venereal disease? Do they realise the self-respect and self-control, the thought and care for the future welfare of New Zealand that those figures stand for?

Returning drafts of mounted men come straight from Egypt, calling at Colombo and Australia on the way. Every man has lived for the period of his war service among natives, which means that every man has realised something of the "white man's burden," lias ffill ;md lived in the pride of his race and the pride of his country: Every man has contributed his share towards the prowess and renown of Now Zealand and the »Jew Zealanders. They step ofT the transport with feelings like that, plus one. of unbounded joy and goodwill al their return—to be met with the cool indifference of the average man who stayed at home. The mounted man says "Maleeshl" (i.e., "What does it matter?"), and smiles at the people who tell him what a soft time he has had. ami who probably call folk, who have formed some idea from his b-tters of what he has been through. I.at'*r. the history of the Mounted Brigade and of the New Zealand Camel Corps companies will doubtless be published, and become familiar to the genend public, who al present know so little of the honour and renown w««n Tor them by the splendid men of the N.Z.M.n. and the N.Z.I.C.C.—(By "\ke Ake" in Wellington Dominion.)

NEW, ODD, INTERESTING There is no wax in sealing-wax. Cleopatra's Needle weighs 180 tons. Short si«*it is very rare in savages. Mexican <ndians use fire-flies for lighting purposes. The highest altitude ever reached by an airship is 10,600 ft. Telegrams to Benguela cost ten shillings a word. Assassins were first heard of in Persia about 1090. From ten to twelve miles is the range of a 15-inch gun. Mr. Hall Caine began life as an architect Easter Day cannot fall earlier than March 22nd or later than April 25th. The general management of the Suez Canal is conducted from Paris. Farthings used to he made of silver. Newfoundland is the oldest British colony. Egyptians in the third century used to burn butter in their lamps instead of oiL Snow which appears to be red — cwing to the presence of minute vegetable algae—is found in the Antarctic. Gingham is so called because it was originally manufactured in Guingamp, In Brittany.

If the sun were made of solid coal, It would burn out in less than 6,000 years. Dettlngen was the last battle in which an English King commanded in person. "Khaki" is a Hindustani -word, derived from the Persian word "khak," meaning earth, or dust. Phineas Barnum began his career as a showman by exhibiting George Washington's nurse. It is the custom In Turkey for a hostess to put her entire wardrobe at the disposal of ber feminine guests. Branding for crimes is still performed in some countries, and was not abolished in Great Britain until 1822. Buttons covered with cloth were prohibited by a statute in George I.'s reign. Of all animals, the whale possesses the thickest skin. In many places its pelt Is fully two feet in thickness. The five highest mountains in the world are all to be found in the Himalayas. In spite of the length of the giraffe's neck, there are only seven joints in it, as in that of a man. Ten thousand of the threads spun by a full-grown spider would not be equal to substance to one hair in a man's head. The population of the British Empire exceeds one quarter of the population of the world. Allah, the name of the Mohammedan "tity, means "the one worthy to be adored."

Dartmoor Convict Prison was originally built to receive prisoners of war during our struggles with Napoleon. General Joffre only became Generalissimo of the French Array in 1911, on the refusal of General Pau to accept that office. The room in which the Kaiser transacts his business in Potsdam has been nick-named in Germany "The Spider's Web." Shakespeare had a vocabulary of about 15,000 words. The average man gets along with three or four thousand. The time which elapses between the utterance of a sound and its return must be more than one-twelfth of a second to form an echo. Sixty per cent of English words are of Teutonic origin, thirty per cent are Greek and Latin, and ten per cent, come from other sources. The Distinguished Service Order, Britain's great military decoration, was instituted in 18S5; the ribbon is red, with a blue edge. The term "capital punishment" refers to the obsolete punishment of beheading, which effected the head, or "caput" of a person. Buildings in J«»w& are very slight in structure because Japan is more subject to earthquakes than any other country. King Cfeorge has the constitutional right to make a treaty with any Foreign Sovereign or Power without the consent of the Houses of Parliament. W6men porters carry the luggage of tourists on the Island of Capri. The men are occupied as fishers, coach■mo. and coral sellers.