AUSTRALIAN TROOPS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 72, 22 February 1940, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN TROOPS.

GENERAL WAVELL’S PRAISE. LONDON, Feb. 21. After inspecting the Australian troops, Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Wav-ell, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the Near East (according to the Gaza correspondent of the British United Press) told them: “1 see to-day a good, hard-bitten lot like the Australians of _ the last war. You are fine men, as indeed Australians always arc. 1 sea you mean business, and J am confident you will acquit yourselves well.” General Wavell stayed overnight and discussed with the commanders the standardisation of all troops in the Middle East whereby units can be rushed to any threatened sector and fight as a single war machine whether they are Australian, English, French, New Zealand, Indian or African. Military circles in London deny the Berlin report that British experts would assist in the extension of Turk- : h fortifications.

A message from Ankara says that the Allies are reported to he massing ’planes in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The national defence decree in Turkey restricts among other things the export of currency, also travel from Turkey. British engineers are reported to have arrived in Bagdad to prospect lor oil in Iraq and Iran.