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New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17270, 20 September 1919, Page 9

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THEIR WORK IN PALESTINE. SPEECH BY LORD ALLENBY. ALLEGATIONS OF A SLIGHT. By TeleeTach—Press Association—Copyrieht (Received 9.30 p.m.) A. and N.Z. SYDNEY, Sept. 19. Mr. Harry Gullet, who was the official correspondent with the Australian Imperial Forces in Palestine, writes to the Sydney Sun with reference to a statement recently attributed to Field-Marshd Lord Allenby. Lord Allenby was reported to have said that his army was cosmopolitan, and to have mentioned various nationalities, including the New Zealanders, but failing to mention the Australians. He is also said to have declared that towards the close of the campaign two-thirds of the British Army in Palestine consisted of Mahommedans. Mr. Gullet says that the suggestion of the Sydney Sun that the omission of mention of the Australians was an unintentional slip may be right, but he doubts it. The omission, he asserts, would be characteristic of Lord Allenby's attitude towards the Australian Light Horse. " Without the Australians and New Zealanders," says Mr. Gullet, "Palestine would never have been won. Nobody knows this better than Lord Allenby and General Sir Archibald Murray, but neither of them is big enough to forgive the Australians and New Zealanders their relative slackness in ceremonial discipline, although in almost every fight they gambled on the fine discipline of the Australians and New Zealanders to carry them through, and it did." The correspondent gives instances which he cites as proof of Lord Allenby's failure to recognise the work of the Australians and New Zealanders and of British truckling to the Moslems, which, he declares, was carried to stupid extremes. He claims that with the exception of the British, Australian and New Zealand troops, the other nationals mentioned by Lord Allenby took an insignificant part in the campaign. Mr. Gullet describes the Arab as one of the most cowardly and cruel fighters who ever made a pretence of going to war. He says that the magnificent New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade could clean up all Arabia provided the Arabs would come near enough to fight. He concludes that the Australians need no defence. Time and impartial military students ' will probably estimate the part they and the New Zealanders played in the overthrow of Turkey and the conquest of Palestrae.