A GENERAL'S REMINISCENCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23828, 7 June 1939, Page 14

A GENERAL'S REMINISCENCES

SIR ALEXANDER GODLEY HAPPIEST YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND . (From Our Own Correspondent) ■ -■- ':'■'■■: ■':'■' LONDON, May 8. His years in New Zealand were some of the best.in his life, General Sir' Alexander Godley says in his 'book'"'Life'of. an-Irish Soldier." Sir Alexander spent four years in New Zealand from 1910 organising the Dominion's young army. He commanded the New Zealanders in the field—at- Gallipoli, in Egypt, and in France. ■ After thewar'he unveiled the New Zealand memorial on the top of Chunuk Bahr, overlooking the Gallipoli Peninsula, and in 1937 he revisited New Zealand. Sir Alexander has had a long and distinguished career in the Regular Army.' He retired, at 70, having been a soldier for 52 years. He began as a subaltern in the Dublin Fusiliers; the ' last active appointment which he rendered up, on retirement,.was the high honour of the colonelcy of the Royal Ulster Rifles. His reminiscences are lively and interesting. When he was at Westward Ho! in the eighties he slept in the tame dormitory as Rudyard Kipling. "I cannot truthfully say," he remarks, "that Kipling was popular among his schoolfellows. He was too clever for us and rather different from most boys." Godley joined his regiment, the Dublin Fusiliers, at Mullingar, in September, 1886. He was put through " the usual post-guest-night test of parading on the barrack square in busby and nightshirt." He survived it cheerfully. Sir Alexander led the New Zealanders through Gallipoli,. Messines. and Passchendale. After the war he remained in the army. He commanded the army of occupation in the Rhineland—he was at Cologne when the first Socialist Secretary of State for War came out to see the troops, and he tells how this charm-

ing little man (" Britain's Mite," he was called), Mr Stephen Walsh, refused the offer of a horse for his inspection because (he said) he had. only ridden a pit pony, and he had fallen off that. „^„ Later, Sir Alexander was G.0.C.-in-C. the Southern Command, at Salisbury, and after that he was Governor of Gibraltar, during the time of the 1931 Spanish Revolution and the fall of the monarchy, a period when the Rock's hospitality was given to many high-born refugees. In a foreword to these reminiscences of his " right-hand man " at the siege of Mafeking, Lord BadenPowell writes that General Godley knew almost every man of his time in the world of soldiering, sport, and administration. Much of his book

is devoted to happy memories of friends and of various fields of sport. Those who seek criticism, adverse judgment, or even much academic discussion of leading soldiers, and their actions will be disappointed, for General Godley states that he has made no attempt, to write history. He has set out simply to record the daily work, and friendly, pleasant contacts of a long career.