GALLIPOLI LANDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20702, 27 April 1929, Page 13

GALLIPOLI LANDING

EVIDENCE BEFORE COMMISSION. US PUBLICATION URGED. (United Frees Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, April 23. (Received April 26, at 5.5 p.m.) General Sir lan Hamilton, in proposing the toast of the Twenty-ninth Division at the Gallipoli Day dinner, stated that he hoped that the evidence taken by the Dardanelles Commission would soon be published, adding: “ Only very slowly is the complete story of Gallipoli escaping the censor’s clutches. However, the first volume of the official history, published to-day, looks well. Encouraged by it, we may hope that the evidence before the commission may be allowed to see the light. The public imagines that it has seen the evidence because it has read the commission’s report, It has. not. The report gives us priceless information of a character unobtainable elsewhere.” General Sir lan Hamilton contrasted dining amid all the refinements of civilisation beside the survivors of the incomparable Twenty-ninth with the circumstances of the landing, and cited desperate moments in his long military career. He said that, nevertheless, the landing stood alone as something quite different. “The date of April 24 and the Twenty-ninth Division not only defy but thrive upon time’s passage,” he added. “ This is all the stranger because from the outset forces, political and otherwise, were interested in keeping the landing in a shadow while they turned the limelight from gallantly on to skill and from attack on to evasion from April 25, 1915, to January 16, 1916. J u Yet even while I speak of war as an adventure I may be singing the swan song of that side of its existence. The static wars of the trenches, with barbed wire, flame throwers, and poison gas will never more poison civilisation. Exservice men will not have it. Remarque’s work, ‘ All Quiet on the Western Front,’ has definitely killed it. The author deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for 10 years in succession. When all this immense war literature has been shaken down sufficiently in the sieve of time there will remain one big soft shining ruby caught in the meshes, namely, the landings at Gallipoli.”— Australian Press Association—United Service, HERR REMARQUE’S BOOK. THE AGONIES OP TRENCH LIFE. LONDON, April 26. Received April 26, at 9.57 p.m.) Herr Erich Maria Remarque’s hook, to which General Sir lan Hamilton referred, had a remarkable run, 250,000 copies being sold in Germany in six weeks, ain admirable English translation by the Australian, Mr A. H. Wheen, has been widely read and reviewed in Britain. Herr Remarque was an 18-year-old schoolboy, who volunteered with his entire class, and served for the duration of the war. He saw his schoolmates slain one by one. The book is a stark yet gripping autobiographical record of the agonies of German private soldiers in trench life. It is sometimes revolt ing in its course, simplicity carrying the s *°mp of truth in every line.—United Set vice. •