SPEECHES BEFORE FIGHTING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 60

SPEECHES BEFORE FIGHTING

(“St. James’s Budget.”)

The fact that he is called the Nelson of Japan has been discussed in the hearing of Admiral Togo, and it is known that he has the highest admiration for his English prototype. This fact, probably, influenced bis mind when he gave his fleet their battle signal. Nothing could possibly have been more effective. “O'ur men seemed filled witb inspiration,” one who fought in the battle has told us. “Short greetings serve in time of strife,” now, as at the battle of Flodden Field. Nearly all the messages delivered to winning navies and armies' oil the eve of battle are short. Nelson's signal had to be altered, because the word “confides” was not in the signalling vocabulary. “Expects” was substituted. On land there is a better chance for oratory, but it is not to be believed that all we read is actually uttered to the soldier. Somebody once asked the Duke of Wellington what really happened as to speeches on the battlefield, and what was their effect. The Duke said, “What effect on the whole army can be made by a speech, since you cannot conveniently make it beard by more than a thousand men standing about you?” Then they asked him if it were not the fact that Napoleon delivered some rather notable orations on the field, but the Duke would not have it. “The proclamations you read of in the French army were much more seen in the papers* than the soldiers—they were meant for Paris.” It was all right, the Duke agreed, to orate to a regiment upon presenting them with colours, and that sort of thing. On the whole, French troops might be more impressed by a speech than the English, who in the Duke's Waterloo army were, lie declared, “the scum of the earth, who had all enlisted for drink.” The French, with their system of conscription, had a fair sprinkling" of all classes. No, all these martial obiter dicta which our histories treasure up for us were for the most part never spoken at all. The “last wordsi” of dying” men, and the speeches made on the battlefield, or the deck of an admiral's flagship, are not to be regarded as having been actually uttered. The famous “Up, Guards, and at 'em!'' was never spoken. Wellington himself denied it. If it had been said.

it would have been, forgotten; for a battle, he used to say, was like a ball, tha details of which one mainly forgot. What did actually escape his lips does not seem to have come to the ear of the historian. He sent an orderly to give certain instructions, during the battle, to an English General, and upon the galloper’s return asked", f< Did you give General — l —* my orders?” “Yes, your grace,” was the reply. “And what did he say ?” rr H» said he’d see your grace d d first.” The Duke swept the field! with his glass, then, quietly muttered, “By ——, he’s right, too!”