ARMY FROM ANTIPODES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15884, 3 April 1915, Page 8

ARMY FROM ANTIPODES.

TWO DIVISIONS IN EGYPT.

EFFECTS OF TRAINING.

(Published by Arrangement— "Australia may be very proud of the first Australian division," writes Captain C. E. W. Bean, official correspondent with the Commonwealth forces, under date February 28. It has been through the fire of a, very hard training, and it has come out excellently. The first Australian division camped to-day outside of Cairo i 3 a different force from what it was at the beginning in Egypt. It is a made, manufactured force. Its men are not only soldiers, but one's opinion is that they are particularly good soldiers. The division is not only fit to represent Australia, but one would say that it is a better disciplined, better drilled, and a better organised force than many of Australia's critics believed possible. Of course, there is only one final test by which it must in history be judged, and we have not como to that yet. But it has been through the strain and the selfsacrifice of a very hard training. And so far as any force can be judged when it emerges from that order, the first Australian division is very good indeed-

I have taken the first Australian division, because it is the first large unit Australia has ever sent out. It is the first division that Australia has ever organised, and it has had far more thortugh training than even any smaller unit in the Australian army has ever had. The Australian division was sent out with every part of its organisation providedits engineers, its ambulance, its ordnance departments, its field ambulances, its artillery, its supply column, its police, and the Light Horse regiment for its special needs. Ail the parts of the body were there, and the nerves and muscle's to move them. New Zealand Division. But Australia also sent out several of their units, which did not form the complete part of a division in themselves, but which have since been dropped into place in a second division, in which the units sent over by New Zealand have also taken their place. That second division, which was not organised with all its nerves and arteries specially provided before it sailed from Australia and New Zealand, may roughly be said to have been pieced together out of 'he N»w Zealand contingent

' the second contingent from Australia. That description is not strictly accurate, but it is about as accurate as it is advisable to give it at this stage. Anyway, out of those two contingents lias been made a second division, which, although barely a month has elapsed since our second contingent arrived, l*s already reached an advanced stage of training, and has been manoeuvring as a complete division on four or five- days during the past two weeks. The result is a second division of magnificent material, which has been given the name of "The New Zealand and Australian Division."

To sum up, out of the sand and weariness of the Egyptian desert there has come a fair-sized Australian and New Zealand army, by far the largest and best trained that has ever left the South Pacific. It goes by the name of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and is commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood. It consists of two divisions, the Australian division under MajorGeneral Bridges and the New Zealand and Australian division under Major General Sir Alexander Godley, with the Second Australian Light Horse Brigade acting as corps troops—that is to say, under the command of the army corps commander for any service for which he needs them.

That is the army which has created itself out of the once-disjointed corps which Australia and New Zealand have sent to Egypt. It has had practically nothing to do so far—a few of its units took some part in the fighting on the canal, the New Zealanders being under fire there; but it has done nothing as a corps. It cannot, however, now be long before it is heard of. Australians .vill follow its progress with the most intense interest. Judging from the way they have emerged from the desert, I do not think that either the First Australian Division or the Australian and the New Zealanl Division will uisappoint them. , Fighting Small Campaigns. Describing the progress of training, Captain Been says :— The work often amounted to fighting small campaigns, and what particularly impressed one was the way in which all through, in spite of the heat and dust and fatigue, just as heavy as that of many real campaigns, the men were playing the game. The other day I was watching the third brigade working out a scheme, in which it was supposed to be retiring across the desert upon a defensive position. Behind it the sun was glaring down upon a shivering expanse of desert. Some way in the rear of us three or four .ong columns of red dust were floating slowly up into the sky. Some artillery was pro Bably exercising out in some fold of tne desert. From far on our right came the distant cackle of rifles from some unit carrying out Its firing in another desert valley.

Just in front of us was a battalion extended into a thin single line, and spread out across the edge of the desert rice on which we were standing, and the lower* hillocks to right and left of it. It was the battalion held in reserve. Behind it was a group of figures the brigadier and his signallers receiving reports and sending messages. In a depression just behind them were their horses and the horses of the field telephone—a slender line of insulated wire, which straggled away through the dust to some opening far in the rear. These were all visible, but there was no sign from where I stood of the firing-line, which was supposed to be retiring. Only far ahead the desert shimmered away to a mirage on the horizon. In the mirage were a few dark meaningless dots. Presently they increased, detached, swinging themselves into a constantly extending and enlarging line of dots, swimming as it were on the surface of a line of silver water. And then out of the mirage emerged a line of men, all unnaturally tall, alfrunning. Playing the Game. It was the ninth battalion, all Queenslanders. A message to part of the firingline to retire had gone wrong. Half the words had been left out. The enemy were coming on too closely to allow of the deliberate retirement to be carried out as planned. The brigadier knew that under these circumstances in war he would have had to cut his original plan and get two battalions back as fast as he could. And so here they came—at tie double— a mile of sand and stone, the African sand glaring down on their backs all the time, their feet stumbling on the sand, kicking up clouds of dust out of which the line of figures came running as from a half vieneted photograph. Of course it was all make-believe— brigadier was only playing a game, and they were ready for him to play it. But they played up "to it in a manner which it was inspiring to see. Instead cf taking 15 minutes" to get back to their new position they were back" to it in seven or eight.