IN THE ARMY

Northern Advocate, 22 April 1921, Page 4

IN THE ARMY

BRITISH FORTITUDE DA RDANELLES AIISMANAGEMENT In the second lecture of his series Defore the Royal Institute in London on "The British Soidier since che Restoration." the Hon J, W. Fortescue, King's Librarian at Windsor and Historian of the British Army, (at one time in New Zealand on the staff of Sir William Jervois), made reference to Mons and Qallipoli that evoked expressions of mucii approval from his audience. Sr John said that the British soldier had faced great disasters as well as won great, victories and better iessons might be won from our retreats than from our victories. The retreat from Holland to Ems under the Duke of York was a terrible rabble—it was difficult to learn how bad it was. Wellington was in it 1 —& young colonel commanding the 33rd— but he never said a word about it. The officering was a scandal. Boys at school were given the rank of lientenant-colonel on their Barents paying for the crimping of a certain number of men. Mr Fortescue touched on Moore's retreat, where officers and men, as was usually the case with the British, strongly objected to retire, and got out of hand. He had to pass through what was 'the largest depot of wine in Spain, and the whole army got '•blind?' while the French cavalry cut them down at their leisure. In Wellington's retreat from Burgos again they did not behave w;ll, yet thai, was regarded by foreign critics as one of the biggest things we did on the Peninsula. The . retreat from Kabul was the most dismal story in I the history of the army.

GLORIOUS MONS On 'the other hand, the retreat from Mons was a feat of arms of v/hif'h any army in the world miglv. be proud. (Applause). He especially praised the work of the 2nd Corps, which, after fighting - tb.3 battle cf Le Cateau under Smith-Dorrein. were able to break it off at three o'clock in the afternoon and, in 48 hours, were 50 miles away behind the Oise. The North Lancashires, after a march of 30 or 40 miles, vveri halted and told they would march bnck four or five miles to take the outpost lines, and they went off cheerily, whistling , . (Applause). Beyond all qu-eston the retreat from Mons was the greatest of our retreats

THE DARDANELLES The greatest disembarkation was that in the Dardanelles in 1915. Sir lan Hamilton profited by Abercrombie's system of disembarking by companies and but Hamilton's ships were loaded as they were in the 18th century—horses in one. their harness in another, guns in this ship, ammuriolton in rthat—all was mixed up. That was the fault of the General Staff at Home. Hamilton had to repack his ships at Alexandria. "Yet the disembarkation, of the Australians in the north and of the —th Division in the south of the Peninsula is one of the finest feats that any army has ;ever performed," said the lecturer. "I doubt if any TiSEj.j.ig, ÜBXfl sdoo.ii :ould have accomplished it. The shing, however, was mismanaged at rlome. It was entirely the fault vf the people at Home. Had the General , ''had then the troops he was given later we would have been masters of Constantinople in July, 1915. (Applause). It was a failure, but one that must always stand high in the history of the Army. ,, (Api plause). i A SIGNIFICANT GERMAN SILENCE It was significant that the Germans had never said a word about the j terrible effect of our musketry in the early days of the war. They! could not believe that we had not j got endless numbers of machineguns, whereas we had only rifles, which they found much more difficult to face. "Yet had we lfad ma-chine-guns." Mr Fortescue remarked, "the Mons retreat need not have happened. (Hear, hear). The British sold'er is learning his trade again with those weapons that is, indeed, if he does not cease to exist." He had been expected to do strange things. There were often wild civilians at the War Offic: —(laughter and applause)—and one of them ordered a force of British infantry to land 3000 men on the east and 3000 men on the west coast of South America and mai-ch some 3000 miles to join each other. Fortunately we were-defeated at Buenos Aires, and I that mad scheme was not carried out. I In the recent war the British soldier I had been sent as far as the Arctic Circle, and into the Dardanelles, Asia and East Africa. We had known better than before how to clothe our men for different climates. When Quebec was captured the Highland soldiers were wearing kilts and had ?t not been that the modesty of the nuns being offended by dress, and that the nuns knitted long stockings for the men-, ,mos>t o.f them would have been frozen to death. (Laughter). All our experiences of clothing for climates other than our own had been gained by the deaths of. our soldiers.

DISCIPLINE IN THE ARMY Mr Fortescue spoke of the discipline the British soldier had shown in wrecked Transports such as the Birkenhead and said that that tradition had spread from the Army to us all as was shown in the wreck of the Stella. He told how, in the Warren Hastings wreck, when the sentries below were called up on deck, ore of them, a 60th Royal Rifles,' wa? overlooked. The officer was returning to the deck when the sentry said: "Beg pardon, sir, may I come up too?"' He would not move without permission. (Applause). "These," Mr Fortescue concluded, "are the examples which we have as a race taken consciously or unconsciously to heart. Patience and fortitude are the characteristics of the army, and I have never been prouder of my countrymen than during the worst days of the war, when they also showed these virtues. (Laud applause).