BITTER ATTACK

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 89, 10 April 1934, Page 7

BITTER ATTACK

IN A WAR BOOK ALLEGED BAYONET INCIDENT MELBOURNE, March 26. Protests made at a luncheon yesterday by Mr J. W. "Witton, of the Returned Soldiers’ League, against statements contained in the book “War is War,” by “Ex-Private,” condemning Australian soldiers in France, appear to be justified. There aro not more than two or three references to Australians in the book which is a candid one, but they are exceptionally bitter. The following quotations which describes the author’s meeting with a party of Australian troops during an advance in 1918, is the longest of them. “Presently about half a dozen of them paid me a visit and told me that their fellows had already advanced four mile?. . ... . “This was about the silliest lie I had ever heard, but as they were armed and I was not, and as they were six to one, and slightly drunk at that, I held my tongue. “They spent a happy few minutes pointing their bayonets at me and making me say that, they were the finest troops in the world. I don't ■mind owning that 1 said, it, but it was a good job for me that they didn’t read my thoughts. “At the risk of giving offence to the undeserving, I can’t help saying that I am sorry that the Australians were on our side I don’t mean that they, we all TO"t>;rg, for I met some very good ones, but their black sheep achieves an extraordinary prominence. On the whole they were brave mon. but not nearly such fine fellows as they boasted of bemg. “Whining Australians” “But they kidded simple people into believing their brag—including the gentlemen of the Press, who buttered with praise all troops except the English county regiments and, later in the war, the Territorials. “The Australian private drew twelve times as much pay as most English Tommies', until ours was increased late in the war. Yet when I was home on leave the Strand was full of whining Australians, trying to cadge their ■fares back to camp from their poor English comrades, or trying to blackmail belated civilians. “The way they repaid the hospital-

ity extended to them when they arrived in England is still remembered by the parents of daughters and the owners of portable valuables. “Their objection to saluting officers always struck me as funny, for the lower a man was in the social scale and the more ignorant he was, the more his pride rebelled at paying this simple and manly-looking tribute to authority. Still I must say this for them; they did kill a few of our military police.” “War is War” was published in 1930 by Victor Gollancz, Ltd., of Louden.