DEEDS OF HEROISM

Southland Times, Issue 17533, 9 June 1915, Page 2

DEEDS OF HEROISM

2000 LBFT OUT OF 23,000. The deathless story of the 7th Division, which fought four Germaji army corps and kept the British line of Flanders until reinforcements arrived, has been made the subject of a lecture by Sir Conan Doyle. In the twelve days of incessant fighting it was reduced to 2000 men out of 2.2,000. "X do not think that in British history there is anything more moving or more heroic than that," said the lecturer, amid a burst of cheers. Lord Haldane, who presided, said:—lt was only when a war was at an end that things were seen in their proper proportions. But there was one moral which could be drawn already. They saw the enemy in possession of a very substantial part of France, and nearly the whole of Belgium. But these successes were won in the early stage of the war. when they were dealing with an enemy who had chosen his own moment to prepare and to attack. Now the enemy was dealing, in the first place, with a British Army, the Commander-in-Chlef of which—to his intimate personal knowledge—had been studying all the possibilities of such a campaign for five years before it occurred. And he had men under him who, having been trained four of five years, were the finest troops in the world. Nothing but a force of highest discipline, led by a man with a thorougli grasp of the situation, and knowing what ho meant to accomplish, could have brought off that retreat in the face of overwhelming numbers. General •loffrc and Sir John French accomplished their task when they had brought the enemy to the place where General Joffre's famous move took place. it was not too sanguine a view in the present phase of the war to say that time is on our side. But the essential factor was an absolutely united nation determined to use its whole resources, and the energies of every man and woman at the most critical period of our history.