THE BRITISH BAYONET

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 76

THE BRITISH BAYONET

STILL AN EFFECTIVE WEAPON. THE TERROR OF THE GERMANS. Throughout the war the Germans, in sort:© of their enormous formations, the fetal magnificence of their operations, the size of their armaments, the capacity of their destructive engines, the rapidity and precision of their movements, the gigantic surprises of their terrific guns, have never really “got home” in their furious attacks upon the British. Why was it that the Germans were ever foiled of what constitutes victory? The answer, given by a London newspaper, is “ the bayonet.” The telegrams of the Kaiser to Potsdam wore not so very much exaggerated. Ho had well-night encircled the British force, his numbers were overwhelming, by all tne rules of war he had done what ho said, or it was just being done; but he omitted one factor, the bayonet. Military science, muniments of war, and precision in their use did all that they could, all that they had ever claimed to do, yet with success in reach, they did not put out their hands to seize it, because they would not come to conclusions with the bayonet. What the short-pointed sword was to the Romans—the most deadly of all their weapons, as former German tribes realised to their cost — the bayonet is to the British. A corporal of the South Lancashire Regiment said: “They (the Germans) have a trick of throwing masses of cavalry at our weakest infantry when they are advancing in an exposed position or in retreat. They tried it on as often as they could, but what they don’t seem able to get over is the qu : ck way in which the smallest part of our infantry will turn round and give them the bayonet. At first they came on all swagger, thinking they are going to cut our men dowm, but when they began to see what our chaps were up to they wern’t so keen on keeping it up. I have seen them coming on with great bluster and bounce until the order, ‘ Prepare to receive cavalry,’ was carried out in the old British way, and then they took to their heels as fast as their horses could carry them.” The present struggle has witnessed more bayonet work in one day than was seen in a whole campaign of Napoleonic wars. Even military theories do not alw'ays take into account the whole anatomy of man. There is the old Adam in him, the overwhelming thirst to come to close grips. However done up a British soldier may bo, he can always raise a cheer at the wmrds, “ Now, lads, give them the bayonet.”