GEN. BOTHA'S REVIEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15914, 11 May 1915, Page 9

GEN. BOTHA'S REVIEW.

A STRIKING SPECTACLE.

The recent review of the Union troops at Chaukaib, German South-west Africa, by General Botha, is described as a most striking spectacle: — "' Only in the British Empire could this thing come to pass,' said a Dutch officer, once a Cambridge -blue,' when the ceremony was over. He had seen these British-trained troops, artillery, mounted infantry, and riflemen, English and Dutch, mingled in tho commissioned and noncommissioned ranks, march past, all hard as nails and darkly bronzed after half a year's exacting service. He had seen General Botha's face light up with satisfaction as he marked the soldierly bearing of regiment after regiment passing the saluting point, and as, one by one, he congratulated the corps' commanders. Ho had listened while General Botha subsequently delivered his short impromptu address in Dutch, which the military secretary interpreted to the officers of all grades, thanking them for enduring these many months in this region of sand, wind, scorching heat, and waterless wastes, telling them to blame him only for keeping them back, and finally giving them the welcome hint that they might expect to advance against the enemy very shortly. " It was an event to be remembered, this review in the heart of the desert, in sight of the enemy's outposts, under a blazing African sun, and amid an apparently unfathomable expanse of sand, save on the east, where by now the ridges of the verdant interior rose high above the horizon. There was something unique in such a setting, in the stirring skirl of the pipes as the Highlanders, men of magnificent physique, swung by, and in tho drums and fifes and bugles playing the other units past this Dutch commander-in-chief, who, attended bv a mixed Dutch and English staff, stood under a great Union Jack, the only splash of colour in this, drab patchwork of sand and khaki, taking tho salute, and, when all was over, doffing his helmet and lustily calling for Three cheers for His Majesty the King.'"