BEHIND THE SCENES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 196, 20 August 1934, Page 11

BEHIND THE SCENES

END OF THE WORLD WAR HOW IT CAME ABOUT WHAT FOCH SAID TO "RAWLY.” The Countess of Oxford highly • recommends her late chauffeur, Mostyn, who has bought her Phantom Rolls-Royce car, for hire on contract or short periods. Behind this advertisement lies the story of a man who has seen behind the scenes in the lives of the great, writes a representative of the Daily Express. In 1910 Robert Mostyn called at Criccieth to ask Mr. Lloyd George whether he needed a chauffeur. Mr. Lloyd George did, and from that moment Mostyn’s adventures bc>an. “It was the time of the suffragettes,” Mr. Mostyn said. “Many times they offered me bribes of hundreds of pounds to cause a breakdown on a lonely road so that ‘ something* might happen to Mr. Lloyd George. They tried to bribe me to smash the car. Once in the Mile End Road we saw that the way was blocked by an angry crowd. There was only one thing to do . . . Mount the pavement at full speed and run the gauntlet of an angry mob.” But there were greater days in store. The war came, and Robert Mostyn was chosen to drive for Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army. “He was like a father to me,” says Mr. Mostyn. “I drove for him for three years on the Somme. Often the windows of the car were blown out by guns. General Rawlinson was fearless “Sometimes 1 waited with the car for ten hours behind the trenches, a fine target for gun fire, while the general toured the lines. When the enemy were within five miles of Amiens and the town was deserted, barred to troops because it was under shellfire night and day, the general insisted on driving through the bombarded town every’ dav. That was how I won the M.S.M.”’ In the same car Corporal Mostyn heard the words spoken which pronounced the end of the world war. Seated in the back of the car were General Rawlinson, Sir Henry Wilson and Marshal Foch. It was June, 1918. Sir Henry Wilson wanted the British and French forces to dig in for another winter. General Rawlinson wanted to finish the war. “If I can have the best troops to make a push on my part of the line,” he declared, “we can end it.” The last word was with Foch. “Rawly,” ho said, in broken English, “you ran have your own way. fake the pick of the British Army.” “And those words, spoken in the back of my car. which I eouid not help hearing/* Corporal Mostyn said, “meant the end of the war. The reason General Rawlinson spoke those words was because for the previous four months he had been secretly making flights in a slow photographing aeroplane over the German lines. He stayed over the lines for two hours at a time. “During one of Mr. Lloyd George’i visits to France he came to the Fourth Army" headquarters. Ten generals stood outside saluting him, and, to every one’s surprise, he noticed only me. > corporal. “‘Well, Mostyn.’ he said, ‘fancy seeing you.’ And in front of an astonished general staff the Prims Minister walked up to me, a humble corporal, slapped me on the back, and shook hands’”