A FIGHTING NEWZEALAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 66

A FIGHTING NEWZEALAND.

(By Frank Hudson.)

"Can you fight?" That is invariably one of the first questions asked by school boys or nations on first acquaintance. The new arrival may r never have given the matter a thought, but at once realising the possibility of existence made tolerable by a ■straight right and a "nasty left," he sets about reviewing his abilities, or limitations, in that direction. Nothing is more miserably inglorious at the time to the participants than a modern battle. The day dawns greyly in damp discomfort, as the dark-coated outposts come in like bite of a funeral. Having rolled and strapped your clammy blanket, and cleaned your rifle, you gulp down tea tasting of rusty tins. It has been brewed in an unwashed camp kettle that' last evening contained an alleged stew. The mixture is hot, however, and munching at a ration biscuit you try not to think of porridge, omlettes, or eggs and bacon. You are still battling against visions of the flesh pots of civilisation when the artillery open fire from the rear, and you and your company -extend and advance in a thin drizzling rain. There is something especially revolting in the idea of being shot or speared in cold or rainy weather. Suddenly a man ahead of you throws up his hands and falls on the rocks with a clatter. First blood. Nerves tighten, and morbid fancies vanish, with the knowledge of the business of the day begun. The effect is always the »ame whether the enemy is an Afridi hillman firing hits of iron telegraph pole and rusty nails from a Jezail, or a scientific slaughterer with a magazine rifle. Bullete spit spitefully about your legs, or wail in your ears as they speed to their billets; but what does it matter? Nothing matters; not even the captain, who jumps into the air with a sob, and then falls over and qver like a shot rabbit. You are advancing; first at the quick, then at the double, leaping over the dead of other regiments, taking cover automatically, firing carefully and steadily with a coolness that surprises you. The long lines of khaki that were in advance have melted away, and you and yours form the first wave of a great brown sea surging towards the enemy. Men drop from unseen agencies, and bursting shrapnel seems to blot out whole companies. Then the scene changes; your regiment changes direction, and the men lie down beneath a hill with orders not to fire. The enemy evidently has no such order, and, having found the range, proceeds to put in some pretty shooting. There is a dull familiar thud, and a young lancecorporal is hit. He laughs: '" Only a flesh wound," he says. Then the whites of his eyes turn yellow, and he rolls over on his back, <!ead. Some Highlanders pass just in Tear with, a Maxim, and draw a perfect hail of bullets upon themselves and you. They have a terrier with them, who, oblivious of battle, murder, and sudden death, hunts estatically among the bullet-spattered stones for rats. Your helmet k knocked off as though from a blow with a walking-stick, and you pick it up to find it perforated with a neat little hole such as a pencil might make. The young Tommies gefc anxious, and fidget witih bolt and trigger guard. They want to shoot back, and are positive that th<^ regiment has been left here to be scuppered by some expletive staff officer. The old hands flatten themselves against the earth., and growl and smoke, and someone with a red cross on his sleeve crawls on hands and knees with a water bottle among the wounded. It is impossible to tell where the battle is raging; the crackle of rifle fire ifi everywhere, punctuated with, the deafening din of heavy guns and the shriek and hurtle of shells. All seems Tuin, chaos, and madness, from which no good can emanate. The slope down which the army has come is strewn with brown clad bodies; surely to-dajr can sjgell nothing but defeat.. At

last the order comes to advance — double.. The air 6mgs with bullets. ' You are certain of being killed in a "second or two, and you don't care. You clamber up the hill you known not how.- Your brain reels in a red 6woon on the summit. You only notice little things. A bearded man in a turban has somehow become transfixed on your bayonet, and tries to writhe along your rifle to slash you with a knife. A corporal stumbles is he delivers a throw point, and in an instant his skull shivers like an eggshell beneath a descending rifle butt. Then a dazed retreat down hill to where the dead lie waiting, and the 'wounded cry in the gathering night. Voices call hoarsely on the names of their regiments, man by man, section by section, the remains of the various corps form up, weary and begrimed, to whisper the tale of those who have gone, and to wonder to what extent the British arms have sustained defeat. Then with the night come the stretcher-bearers with their burdens, burial parties go out in the moonlight, and gradually and mercifully comes the stupor of fatigue unspeakable; - Next morning the general oangratulates the troops on having won a glorious victory, and the army marches on. Obviously war, with its aftermath of desolation, should be confined to an enemy's country, and since the days of the Lord Protector, Britain, though continually fighting, has spilt no blood within her own littorals. True, she has had the sea, an ideal theatre of war. Here axe no homes in 'ashes, or sightless eyes staring to skies of brass. No women and children to be considered e'er the first shell bursts over a beleaguered but -valiant foe. The hostile fleets manoeuvre and engage. The fury of big guns rocks the firmament, and the sky is s^plit with terrific explosions. Torpedo boats dart through water whipped with missiles, and, having delivered their thrust, back out through red-tinged waves. A battleship leaps like a thing of life. There is a spurt of flame and a deafening road as she reels and shudders. Close by the conning tower of a submarine peers above the surface. Suddenly the leviathan heaves her stern into the air, and her boilers burst as she plunges to the depths with propellers still revolving. A few hours of chaotic and indescribable fury, and the battle dies down. Victors and prizes steam away. The grey sea mercifully sihrouds the wrath, the bloodshed, the wreckage of ships and men. ' A breeze blows away the veil of smoke and the stench of lyddite, and the ocean turns to ite slumber tranquil and . innocent, as a little child. Asia amassing engines of war, and her millions drilling qn the most advanced principles, heralds a new era in the world's history, but the world will hardly realise this till some cataclism announces that Asia has • arrived. Her generals and admirals will be automatic calculators, and her rank and file, machines. A battle will be propounded like a proposition in Euclid. Chivalry, generosity, romance, and other emotional superfluities will find no place in the war book of the East. They never won a battle yet, so will be discarded. Mathematical .exactitude and ,. undiluted science will be all in all. Even, the well informed would ten years ago have laughed at the idea of Asia presuming to have a policy, but not only has she had a policy, but, headed by Japan, she has been gradually collecting forcible arguments with which to emphasise tiat policy when the time should be ripe. Japanese statesmen realised that at least tihe moral support of China was essential as a preliminary to an armed alliance later on. Hence the war which taught China the hopelessness of kicking against the goade of progress. Then again Japan was never safe while Russia with her expansive tendencies had naval bases at Port Arthur and Vladivoßtock. Her policy was to drive the Muscovite from Manchuria, and to turn that province into a buffer, liberally padded with Japanese eoJdier settlers. This has been accomplished, and Asia ihas made a good beginning. British statesmen understand Europe, perhaps; but do they understand the East; Does anyone understand that cradle and hotbed of intrigue, compared with which Western- diplomacy dwindles to childishness? There are ugly possibilities. Two modernised Eastern powers at war with, say, the United States; Britain at war with a power in Europe; could Japan be expected to abandon her loyalty to the old wor"d to. range herself in the ranks of the new, where she would be merely tolerated. Would she in the height of her blood madness cease buffetting at the gates of America, at Britain's cry of '"blood is thicker than water"? Would not China and Japan ask in Teturn if their blood wa6 not thicker than water, and go on buffetting? Treaties would go by the board, an all-round game of grab would ensue, the privateersman would come again, and sea boards would be laid waste by flying squadrons from nowhere in particular. Here then is New Zealand with the sea for her frontier, her resources, her magnificent harbours, her intense patriotism, and the glorious vigour of the rising generation. We are essentially a hospitable people, but presumably the line would be drawn at an invading army, or the presence of arrogant foreign cruisers without letters of introduction. As far as being held inviolate by the "silver streak" is concerned, New Zealand is better off than either Britain or Japan; there are no Dover or Tsu-Shima Straits, across which a foe can strike her in the night ; and with the excellent axiom of the Admiralty to find and destroy any hostile fleet or fleets in being, wherever they are, and immediately on their becoming hostile, she would seem to 'be safeguarded from ports held up to ransom, or alien troopships disgorging on a lonely beach. That is if the hostile fleet 6 had been discovered and sunk. To all acquainted with the staying power of the Empire it is obvious that the occupancy of New Zealand by invaders

could only be a temporary affair executed! ih'a'hurryy but &' world of damage can be accomplished in a flash, and it is interesting to calculate the chances of frustrating such a raid. What of the men? Descended from the finest fighting stocks of the world, New Zealandere, as ; proved by certain episodes in » recent !#war, still live up to the standard or their warlike ancestors. We have the Scotch, with .their traditions from Bannockburn to Lucknow; the English, who deNapoieonised Europe by never knowing when they were thrashed ; and the evergreen delightful Celt, always anxious and i willing to participate hugely ih all the?' world's battles. The New Zealander possesses in a very marked degree the characteristics necessary to the success- ' iv) soldier of the future. Self-reliant and accustomed to act on his own initiative, he is also amenable to discipline*. He has keen sight, he is not too. big, his nerves are steady, and, thank Heaven, he is intelligent. * The Bohemian type of* warrior, who only lived ' to drink deep and -fight blindly, is n> longer of use in the , field ; be is a obselete as the bow and arrow, or r feudal baron dad in ironmongery. Excessive use of alcohol has. been shown not only to* impair marching and shooting powers, but to undermine personal courage. A semi-drunken soldiery supposed of old to perform such prodigious ieate of valour would in a modern battle be quickly blotted into , a shambles. - Nowadays wits and brains,^ as well as lead and steel, have been brought into the ! lists, to which drunkenness and pondero sity form an easy prey. In the days of close formations a trooper sent ' out to scout would have ridden rigidly and woodenly out so many miles in a straight line till killed or captured. If. he escaped this he would have ridden straight 'back again, glacing neither to the right nor left, with a report as expressionless as his face. Contrast this with the scouting of New Zealanders in the early stages of the last Boer war. With an eye for country they rode their own line, scouting an enemy on a kopje instinctively, drawing his fire, ascertaining* his dispositions, and galloping away with a comprehensive grip of the situation to their commanding officer. Though the old order has greatly changed, ihe armies of the powers are still cursed with that tactical nightmare, immobility. Column after column the mass of men and baggage — especially baggage — crawls past, an army in fetters, sometimes (the irony of it) believing itself -< to be "in pursuit." Nowadays an army, especially the type of army- that New Zeai land' wants, must be able to move witii rapidity j and to strike like lightning in any given direction; otherwise, like a. bull beset by swiftly dodging toreadors*, it will be literally worried to death. It is futile having quickly moving- troops who can dash to a distant point if they can't hit a haystack when they get there ; or to have magnificent 6hots who can never come within range of the enemy. Mobility and marksmanship must be combined. In time of stress New Zealand would want wiry, active^ men capable of acting independently or in concert, each unit fully understanding toe object to be attained, and having the manner of attainment left to individual intelligence, accordmg to circumstances. It was this method that made the American irregulars so successful in the War of Independence. They learnt it from the Indians, with whom centuries of inter-tribal -warfare had brought it to a fine art. Perhaps of all men New Zealandere are the best fitted for this particular mode of warfare. They can usually b« trusted to do the right thing at the right moment. They do not require to be coddled and carried about by their non-coms.", and they can be allowed away from the commissioned apron strings without a fear lest they should get shot, lost, captured, or drunk at the first opportunity. Give them an. inch, and they do not clamour for the emblematical ell, ' and they do not tafte advantage of being left •unfettered by petty restrictions to become uproariously uncontrollable. The soldier we want should carry as little as possible besides his actual fifrhting kit. Baggage could, and should, be (ruthlessly cut down to the vanishing point. Besides being an expert rider, he should be able to march and fight as an infantryman. His mental equipment should do* as it stands, with the addition of a fair knowledge of the geographical and strategical features of his country and the quickest ways to get there. With even a few handfuls of men like these there would- be little chance of an enemy landing on these shores, or, if he did, of his ever getting away again to tell the tale. There is an old saying "Never despise your enemy," but, with due respect to that venerable platitude, it is better to despise your enemy than to undervalue . yourself. The Asian menace is often trotted on to the stage with lowered lights, while the orchestra plays "Here comes the bogey man." It is getting on the public nerves. To vertebrate Britons the Yellow Peril merely means a sallow nuisance. Even the fighting quality o£ Japan has been enormously over-esti-mated owing to heT having recently defeated Russia! Russia, thousands of miles from her base, with her rotten, panic-stricken fleet, her quarrelsome, vodka-drinking generals, demoralised! troops, and the bombs ol -the Nihilifiis a.H home. The astonishing thing is not thai* Japan should have beaten her, but that' she found it so difficult. But be that as it may. Let them bd Teutons, Bushidos, Mongols, Malays, or a blackmailing pirate fleet, intending invaders will find stouter hearts and men of a sterner calibre in the ranks of 4 fighting New Zealand, LINSEED COMPOUND,' for Coughs and Colds. 01 proven for Bronchial irritatlom.