BOY WHO STOPPED A WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18332, 23 February 1923, Page 7

BOY WHO STOPPED A WAR.

ROMANCE OF THE CAUCASUS. LONDON, Feb. 8. The newspapers are giving prominence; i : to a story told by Sir T. Bridges, Governor of South" Australia,' at St. Peter's College speech 1 day On December -21. It is' now -revealed, that the name of the school boy who "stopped a war''?is Cap- . tain Archibald Sholto George Douglas. - v ' Sir Thomas Bridges ..stated,? at St.- • 1 Peter's College speech day, in illustrating the effect of the public ; school system, that in 1919 l: he' was in the Caucasus in charge of *• a ■■■ very : ■ large and unruly tract .•■:.: of country "with a handful of British,, officers and soldier?.-; "I was at' Tiflis, 3 the capital," he.said, " and I had officers r in charge of .various> outposts. I ; got ! a telegram one morning from the control i. officer at %„iySn, the capital of Armenia, ;: in sight of ; Mount - Ararat, where a man ; ; f called Noah once ran. aground. The tele--7 gram said that- war : had v broken i out be--3 tween Georgia and Armenia for the posses- ;&:'•• 1 Hon of a large tract of rich country, that I belonged to neither, of them. "\ "T asked the members of :my staff who s had v sent the telegram, and ! they said : 1 they did not -know., much about him. He . e was only .a school boy, who had just come out. He had been; in the cricket eleven at Eton, and had also played for Sandhurst. I had no one to send there, so I decided to give the cricketer a chance. • I sent him a telegram to stop the war and delimit the neutral y zone. He was. alone there with his servant and »n interpreter. I afterwards learned thai;, riding a mule, .he * vent' with * the interpreter > and bis servant carrying'the Union Jack to the opposing armies, and in the name *'. of the British' Empire ordered them to . l ea»e firing. He : then '/■ ordered both > armies back ten miles, summoned the ' chief, and? delimited a zone about the '•' size of Yorkshire, over which lie made I himself Governor. > .He enlisted police, ap» > pointed toifici.als, and ; ran < a first-class State for about six months. • Only when - ' we found that he was getting too much into the life of the people—he was '■ re-r*;'> vising ' the marriage, —did we send an officer of more mature :|: experience.: ;i: That indicates the readiness to take re- < j sppnsibility that a boy . gets in his' last year at school." „-