BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18447, 7 January 1922, Page 2

BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY.

SOME MEW ZEALAND RECORDS. By Constant Reader. History is an important branch of literature, and the impartial historian is a valuable asset to the nation, an accurate and unbiassed record of the past being essential to the proper development of any people. Mr Owen Wister emphasises a weighty truth, when, in “A Straight Deal,” he writes:— I suppose that the school histories of every nation are partly bad. I imagine that most of them implant the germ of international hatred in the boys and girls who have to studv them. Nations do not like each other, never have liked each other; and it may very well be that school text-books help this inclination to dislike. Certainly we know what contempt and hatred for other nations the Germans have been sedulously taught in their schools, and how utterly they believed their teaching. How much better and wiser for the whole world if all the boys and girls in all the schools everywhere were henceforth to be started in life with a just and true notion of all flags and the peoples over whom thev fly! The League of Nations might not then rest upon the quicksand of distrust and antagonism which it rests upon today. It goes without saying that the future of the* world will be materially influenced by a right appreciation of the causes of the great war of 1914-1918,'‘and by the nossession of a correct record of the events of that titanic conflict. The History of the War, now in the making, will be international in its scope. . No merely national view can prove adequate to its far reaching influence. And in the preparation of that history New Zealand must. take part. The beginnings are already in sight in the volumes already published in the press, or in contemplation. It would seem that while the young New Zealanders may not be distinguishing themselves as poets or novelists, they are forging to the front oe competent historians, and it is gratifving to note that the boys of . Otago birth and breeding are showing their quality in this respect. The fact may bo recorded with some degree of satisfaction that at least three of these budding historians graduated in one capacity or another in tho service of the Otagd Daily Times. .Major Fred Waite led the way with that stirring volume “Tho New Zealanders at. Gallipoli,” now in its second edition; Lieutenant A. E Byrne followed with that comprehensive record and painstaking piece of work, The Official History of the Otago Regiment, which also has attained a second edition. And now comes Sergeant C. G. Nicol with " Tho Story of Two Campaigns,” being-the “ Official War History of the Auckland Mounted Rifles, 1914-1919.” I.—A HUMAN HISTORY, The highest compliment which can be paid to Sergeant Nicol’s book is to say that, onoe taken up, it is difficult to lay it down until the last page is reached, and this although the events it records have been passed under review, officially and serially, tides almost without number. To cite only two examples out of many, it might be thought that Major Waite had so exhausted the story of Gallipoli, pud that in “ Tho Mounted Rifleman in Sinai and Palestine.” Lieutenant Briscoe Moore had said all there was to say, that nothing was left for Sergeant Nicol but to repeat what had already been written down. The most amazing feature of " The Story of Two Campaigns” is the amount of freshness which the author contrives to. impart to an oft-told record. The book is much more than an official history—it is a veritable human document in which the most terrible tragedies are seen cheek by jowl with the most farcical comedy. Indeed, the way in which the lights and shades of the war are cleverly contrasted reflects the greatest credit upon Sergeant. Nicol’s verbal facility. The book gives evidence of something pibro than skill in sentence-making; It reveals the historian as possessed of a feelin tr heart and a lively imagination together With a sense of the poetic which at times lends to his narrative a rare distinction. Sftrgeant Nicol is naturally proud of his regiment, and his opening reference to tho quality of the men of the A.M.R. is characteristic of the tone pervading the hook:— No regiment of the force contained ,so many typos and’ represented so many widely-divergenfc walks in civil life. There were lawyers, and schoolmasters and students; there were bushmen and farmers and stockmen; there were tradesmen and labourers and clerks; one single tent in the Epsom camp included a schoolmaster, a barber, a coach driver, an accountant, a carpenter, a farm labourer, a commercial traveller, a farmer, and a lawyer. But a rare spirit of comradeship grew up within a tew days in tents, in and in squadrons, and so was born the Spirit of the Regiment which became more and more a living reality as the weeks and months went by, and flourished in glorious maturity in the crags and crests of- Gallipoli, along the desert ways of Sinai, and throughout the waterless tracts of Palestine, where was enacted the last and i greatest crusade. It was the spirit of the men who. upon the outbreak of hostilities, travelled fast from far back stations by horse and coach and launch and train to bo ‘‘in time for the war”; it was the spirit which gave the last drop of water; the spirit which does not know when it is exhausted nor when it is beaten. The departure of the Auckland Contingent bn October 10, 1914, gives occasion for a sad comment: ‘“.lt was well for the city and the relatives of the men that the extent of what the sacrifice was to bo was not then realised. ‘lt was well that no one could know that within a few short months fully one-fifth of these cheering young men of the Auckland Mounted and Infantry units were to give their lives in tho cause of humanity, and that almost all the remaining four-fifths /were io suffer wounds or the health-wrecking sickness of the Gallipoli campaign.” The passage of the Suez Canal on December 1 is rhe opportunity for Sergeant Nicol to give expression to his innate poetic instincts: “No trouble had disturbed the peace of that extremely peaceful night, and the voyagers were able to drink in the wonder of the scene.” This is the preface to a passage which shows that the young New Zealand historian has been sitting at the feet of John Masefield and'drawing inspiration from, the sonnets of Rupert Brooke: — Tho ships, with searchlights at their bows, sending a path of blazing light down the narrow strip of water which is the gateway to half the world, steamed slowly through. The constellations, then strange, but to become so familiar to these men from Britain’s farthest outpost, blazed with a splendour that intoxicated tho senses; the splendour' of the Orient sky, the eternal desert, so. quiet and still and mysterious, so alluring in that grev light which hides more than it ■ reveals, whispered its seductive enchantments to these men from the distant green southern islands, and filled their hearts with a strange yearning and longing to go out into that sandy waste and seek the Thing that called. They were often- ards to know that the soft voice of the moonlit desert was as false and cruel as the.mooking mirage when it woos and beckons the thirst-tormented, warrior. Perhaps the brooding spirit of the old. old land hod wakened again at tho sound of the gathering armies, and was pondering tho stirring days of yore. Maybe it numbered again the legion of its dead and there was a stirring of the countless bones which lay boneatn tho all-effacing sand. Perhaps it was the voice of tho past telling the tale of history—how the Persian and tho Roman had passed that way. how the Crusader in his mail had clanged onward to the battle of the Cross. It may have been that the spirit of the desert whispered of tho flight to Egypt’ of a father and a mother and a Babe. These soldiers, so unlike the warriors who once went that way, gazed in thrilled silenoo at the scene, but felt more than they saw. It was a wondrous night. Since then they have learned the moods of tho mocking, pitiless desert; they have suffered its thirst, endured its angry heat, and choked in its etorm-lifted dust and sand. They sometimes curse the desert, hut, tho beauty, the charm, tho lure, the haunting whispered appeal of that night will always remain with them, for that night they stepped on to tho famous stage wherein tho greatest drama of all vrtis to lie ’ created. Sergeant Nicol is ever on the qui vive to paint the humours of the situation as a setoff to the dork colours in which the story he has to tell is enveloped. The obedience

of thq New Zealand troops on the day of disembarkation in Egypt is illustrated in tho Case of tho man who came up the gangway of tho Star of India and sought to go on board. Tho way was barred by a trooper of the A.M.R.. “But I’m the pilot,’ exclaimed the visitor, “ 1 don’t care a d —- if you are Pontius. Pilate.” calmly returned the trooper, as he held his rifle horizontally across the gangway, “my orders are to,let no one aboard.” On which Sergeant Nicol comments: “The trooper in question was hot a member of tho guard at the Otahuhu camp which ‘ arrested ’ the hot pie on its way to the officers’ mess.” Sergeant Nicol is careful to uphold the reputation of his regiment during i these waiting days in the desort. “In times of freedom,’ - he writes, “ most of tho men became tourists, and all the - wonders were thoroughly explored, even if time was found to taste tho entertainments that Cairo offered. Despite the fixed conviction of many folk who were not there, the nigh to in Cairo were not wild orgies of dissipation in tho realms of vice. Most of the gaiety was of a perfectly innocent character, tho soldiers behaving just as well, if not a great deal better, than the generality of tourists who go to Cairo.” One much advertised epiaixie is dismissed cursorily in the following paragraph:— In tho one riotous incident the Colonial troops ware responsible for—the “battle of the Wazza,” on Good Friday, which may or may not have had a real cause —A.M.R. men doubtlefs participated, but the Regiment was able to assume a very virtuous pose, seeing that it was called upon, to gallop a squadron or two, comprising all the men in camp, into Cairo to line the street at strategic points. Any other regiment might have been detailed for the duty, wit seeing that it was the A.M.R. that the order fell on, the men are still persuading themselves that they must have been the only reliablemen of the hour, despite their own doubts on the question. \ What they would have done had the riot continued and they had been required to quell it, no one knows; but there is a legend that “Hassan” Ham- ■ robnd. of ' the 3rd Squadron, was to be asked to address the rioters after the manner he used to address a team of bullocks which once had the misfortune' to labour with him along the bush roads of Te Matakauri. It was considered that no riot could continue, in the face 'of “Hassan’s” reasoning. The events of the fateful Gallipoli campaign are faithfully arid vividly harrated, and always from the standpoint of “the regiment.” In tho chapter Headed “Fateful August” Sergeant Nicol writes: “Many good men had been killed and' invalided through wounds arid disease, but the spirit of the Regiment, its initiative and resource, its wonderful confidence and its cheerful heart, remained the same. One would like to speak of the splendid men of the rank and file who died during this three months’ struggle. Many names rush to the. memory, blit it is not possible .te mention some without doing an injustice to the memory of others. To record the names of men who had the temperament and tho opportunity to do spectacular things, would be unjust to the many who performed tho daily and ‘ nightly task faithfully and uncomplainingly until death claimed them. They did their duty in the place, assigned to them, and if they did not achieve spectacular deeds, their service was none the less true and their sacrifice none the less good.” One among the many vivid passages in tho book describes a phase of the “Struggle on the Crest,” “the coveted crest from which men of the New. Zealand Infantry were the first to behold the Narrows. It was a tense moment, but how few lived to tell of it! They had penetrated farthest into enemy territory—but to die.” Continuing, Sergeant Nicol writes:—. ■ The day was as hot as the one before, and water was as scarce as ever. The wounded lay exposed to the sun at the rear of the trench, and many there died. One man went raving mad, and ppn along an exposed place with a tunic over his head, but he fell into the trench before ho was hit.' Sleepy, hungry, and thirsty, the forlorn hope clung to their 200 yards of line. Some biscuits were available, but the men hardly dare eat them for fear of accentuating their thirst! Long before this the remnants of the regiments in the ridge had lost all cohesion. The few remaining officers commanded little groups, composed of men of half a dozen units. . They had long passed , tho stage when men are strengthened by- the presence'■« their own comrades and. when the spirit of the regiment counts. They had become individualists, but the strangers around them -were not mon to be watched and weighed in the balance. Everyone knew that everyone had been tested. Death itself bad lost its horror. They were too tired to think, too exhausted to care. A fierce fatalism seemed to possess them., A blind indifference to ■what fate’ held, for them gave a wonderful quality to their courage. Nothing mattered save the holding of the line. No longer did they have any realisation of the fact , that their fight was merely a fraction of tho battle, that they were \morely a link in the chain, a pawn in the game. That little piece of trench was to them a world, a universe, their task the teak of a lifetime. Every man had reached the point when self was utterly thrown off, when neither life nor death mattered, so long as the task did not fail. They were souls in torment, but it was tho torment that ‘comes from failure. Tho moral of the Galipoli campaign, is summed up in. a few wise and admirable words: “Of the causes of failure,” Sergeant Nicol says “ history will have much debate. This record is not for tho purpose of considering the question, but it is to be hoped that the historians will not overlook the all-important -fact that on Gallipoli men had to be used instead of shells. Never onoe did a regiment advance with the help of a real bombardment. Units were practically , annihilated in doing the work that in France would have been done by guns. - ' Tho story of Gallipoli occupies barely tho first hundred pages of the book, but it is by far the most fascinating, despite its dire tragedy. The remaining 140 odd pages are devoted to the Palestine trek, of which a careful record is given, but. the telling of it does not give Sergeant Nicol the same chanco of showing his special quality. Nevertheless, this part of the book will he eagerly studied for its clear, connected account of the operations, and it is not without its purple • passages. The visit to Bethlehem on February 18, 1916, is thus alluded to —

The great centre of interest was the Church of Nativity, which is built on tho site of the Manger. Who would have dreamed, when the regiment left Auckland. that men of it, before they returned, would stand in the accoutrements of war on Christendom’s holy place? Who could have imagined that the payed streets of Bethlehem would resound with the march of New Zealand horsemen as they moved forward to the conquest of Jericho, The publication of these regimental histories is made possible owing to their being subsidised from the accumulated surplus of the canteen funds. The mounted regiments have a dis'tinct grievance, because the powers that bo have, decreed that their subsidies shall be only half the amount allocated to the infantry regiments. Consequently “The Story of Two Campaigns” is shorn of some of its glory in the matter of binding and the quality of tlie naper on which it is printed, and the book" will not compare in appearance with Captain. Ferguson’s ■“History ‘of the Canterbury Regiment,” or with Lieutenant Byrne’s “History of the Otago Regiment.” What is lacking in tho outer showing of Sergeant Nicol’s volume is, however, more than atoned for by its literary quality, which places it in the forefront of tho New Zealand histories of tho war. Mention should bo made of the numerous photographs and the excellent maps which illustrate tho letterpress. lI.—AN OFFICIAL RECORD.

When Sir James Allen planned the issue in four volumes of an official history in popular form of New Zealand’s effort in the Great War, it was intended that they should be issued„ aa speedily as possible after the termination of hostilities. Tlio initial volum*, Major Fred Waite’s “The New Zealanders at Gallipoli,” published at the end of 1919, met with a handsome reception, and the first edition was rapidly exhausted. Owing to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, two years were allowed to elapse before the .second volume. Colonel Stewart’s “The New Zealanders in FVance,” made its appearance; nor is there word as yet of Volume 111, “The New' Zealanders' in Palestine,” while volume IV, “The War Effort of New Zealand,” is likely to be jettisoned altogether. It was an original condition of publication that each volume should be produced to sell at the low price of 6s, and in the case of Major Waite's volume this was possible because it run into little more than 300 pages. Colonel Stewart’s manuscript was twice" as bulky, necessitating a book of over 600 nnges, and since the price, like the law of the Medcs Tmd the Persians, was fixed, a regrettable deadlock was reached. Ultimately the matter was or-

ranged, the Government footing the bill fo* the difference. The purchasers of copies of this first edition certainly get a cheap hook tho price of the second edition will be 15s—but the taxpayer “carries the baby” every time.. The delay in publication, is most , unfortunate both from the point of view, of author, end reader. , In the interval many war histories have l»en circulated, and, whatever degree of rtoshness', or novelty might have attached itself to Colonel Stewart’s record, has been entirely. disai pated. Henceforth it will take its place mainly as a ■ useful and authentic work of reference. For this purpose it is admirably designed, and Colonel Stewart is entitled to high praise for the infinitude of pains displayed in compiling a record so complete and exhaustive of the movements of the New. Zealand Division from its departure from Egypt early in 1916 until the armistice on November 11, 1919. The narrative throughout is so packed with details as to give no ropm for fine writing even had the author been inclined so to indulge, and tho book becomes of greater interest to the student of the campaign than for the general reader. Many of Colonel Stewart’s comments' are highly ; illurainatipg and reveal an observant mind and a memory for what ; at the time may have .appeared urn important particulars. .The contrast between conditions on Gallipoli-and conditions in France are strongly emphasised:—■ Unknown at Anzao were the ducki walks at the bottom of the trenches and in the dugouts where, covered, with-sand-bags, they made- a rough bunk. Therewore real tables and chairs inheadqiiarr tors, borrowed from the'deserted houses, . and oven in the front lino system there were carefully . screened and protected ■ dwelling huts of solid timber. The machine dugouts in particular were roofed massive baulks. The, accommodation generally, though not so luxurious as tn the German lines, was of an incomparably higher level of civilisation than the primitive stone-age dwellings at Anzac, Similarly the unfailing quantity and variety of rations rewenjed in the strongest possible light tho British capacity for organisation. ' No untoward occurrence was too minute to be overlooked by Colonel .Stewart. He writes for instance; ‘‘Towards the end of June (1916) the .Mushroom, was the scene of . the one and only case in the history of tbt© Division of desertion to the enemy. Private W. P. Nimot crept unnoticed from the Mushroom across to the German linesv He was actuated mainly by a feeling of soreness over a recently , award™ punishment and by an acute dislike of shell-fire and other dangers incidental to the trenches, but German blood was in his veins. It is worthy of note that later he wrote to, tho High ’ Commissioner requesting his share of the parcels despatched to New Zealand prisoners in Germany, On the oame day and at the same place Ist Wellington, received in exchange a German deserter. In a preface Colonel Stewart points out that his narrative deals almost exclusively with movements and engagement; at the same time he has given deserved prominence to individual acts of gallantry. The difficulties of an historian arc thus referred to:With a small self-contained, unit like the New Zealand Division it is possible to see how / a complete, accurate, and vivid record’ might have been compiled by a “Historian,” as distinct from a press correspondent, writing . contemporaneously with the Division’s actions. Endowed with the necessary qualifications of tact, energy, patience., sanity, technical knowledge’ and a passion for accuracy, and living at Divisional headquarters, be would bav<? been able to interview participants, down to section commanders if 'necessary, and, thereby check statements, amplify official narratives, elucidate obscurities, catch, the atmosphere of the -■- time, describe the country at leisure from actual observation. He might have produced a picture unique for truthfulness and interest. But as Colonel .Stewart points out the opportunity for producing the ideal history was lost, and he deserves the highest praise for a hook which approximates as nearly to the author’s »ideal as circumstances rendered possible. Tho volume .is substantially bound, well printed, and replete with illustrations and reflects credit on the publishers, Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs.