CRITICAL ILLNESS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20815, 25 August 1937, Page 9

CRITICAL ILLNESS

MUCH CRITICISED BRITISH SOLDIER United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, August 23. Brigadier-General Crozier, who has been seriously ill for the past month, is now in a critical condition. A Press Association message from London on August 22, said:— “The Sunday Graphic” quotes exofficers and ex-soldiers as demanding an official inquiry into BrigadierGeneral Crozier’s attacks on the British Army in "The Men I Killed.” They insist he should substantiate or withdraw the suggestion that men were kept in the front line of the Great War, owing to fear of the Colonel’s revolver.

Brigadier-General Crozier’s attack on the courage of British soldiers and the Welshmen and Irish Rifles, has aroused the indignation of the British Legion of Ex-Servicemen, the Welfare Society and ex-Servicemen generally. Possibly the most effective reply to Brigadier-General Crozier is by Beverley Baxter, citing the words of the son of a dead soldier: “My father gave his life, not because he feared the Colonel’s revolver, but for the sake of myself, then a baby, and the womenfolk at home.”

A rifleman is quoted who pungently remarks: “I served six months with a battalion, nine-tentlis of whom were under 19 years. I never saw one turn his back nor a sign of cowardice, nor a brass-hat nearer than the base headquarters. The battalion was led by subalterns, who oftener than not died in the first second.”