MILITARY LIARS.

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13275, 2 September 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

MILITARY LIARS.

It is a cardinal point in the psychology of deception that it becomes epidemic only when a large body of -dausible liars is able to work with an equally large group of credulous listeners. \Y<> must have vigorous and a fertile soil. Both of these are now apparently present in the realm of Britain, if we arc to credit- '"a medical officer from Franco," who writes on "Credulity and Credibilty," in ''The Hospital," London January 22. Taking together tho remarkable ''flights of fancy," as he mildly terms them, achieved by Tommy Atkins in the trenches, and the "amazing credulity of every one" in England, which ho say.s is very striking to the man returning from the seat of war, it is surely not astonishing that we have some pretty tales ranging from the story of the angels at Mons down to cvery-day lies of a more commonplace character —"ridiculous rumors," the author calls some of them. He says:

"The Dardanelles were conquered throe times a week and Lille was taken once a fortnight by London gossip: and the discovery that c-ach rumor is a lie never seems to depress tho stoi'y-mon-<*ors nor to imbue them with any sense of scepticism. Many of the stories repeated with childlike faith by all classes of the community are themselves so self-contradictory, so inconsistent on th very faces of them, than one wonders how any educated man or woman can be got to repeat them or to believe them for a moment. In France, goodness knows, there are plenty of lying rumors to be heard in the trenches; but they are treated at their true value as idle gossip.

"Given this extraordinary, unreasoning:, indiscriminately credulity of the average Englishman about the war—and that of the Englishwoman is even greater—it is not surprising that that prince of raconteurs and very splendid fellow. Mr T. Atkins, has achieved some wonderful flights of fancy. Possibly one reason for the cautiousness of the average officer in France in accepting for revealed truth every yarn that coes the round of the mess i? the insight which he gets, while censoring letters, into the romancing tendencies of the private soldier. It is not onlv that a percentage of the men in the ranks retail to their friends all the reports that they chance to hear, and even embroider them for home consumption: just as often they narrate incidents that are purely imaginary. apparently for the purpose of giving their womenfolk thrills of horror and anxiety, or of extorting the admiration and envy of their male friends. Thus on one occasion, to give an instance which any officer could cap without difficulty, a soldier arrived fresh out from England in a reinforcing draft and was duly posted to a unit which happened to be about four miles behind the trench line. Tie was alloted certain clerical duties which kept him fairly well employed indoors, and certainly gave him no chance of exploration nearer the fire-trenches. Four days after his arrival, during which time no shell had fallen two miles of him, he wrote home as follows. "We are now in the trenches, seeing the bullets doing their ghastly work and hearing the constant scream of thf 1 shells overhead. But I am a soldier and no coward; and I do my duty just the same.' "It would not be fair to suggest that all the wonderful stories told in letters from the tiVnic-hes have as little foundation as this case; for even tfe most extraordinary have generally some basis in fact, though the men who do the X

Soptomber. From flic name and number ol the battalion to which lie belonged it v. as quite certain ihat In; waserving in a. eeitain division which lost V"iy iseal i> - A, 1 lie tilllc IvlelTod I' iii ihe narrative l 1 •>• re were (across the i'leef) i.lil l-.v.l ||>, the win !i• <il this (I;vision : one was a small one in a barn, the other a ver\ larue ~,ne in a hi-; chui'i h and certaii adjacent buildings. The s<»l(liej- Willi, a graphic and manly aceoum of tin fiuhting, ol his sensations when wounded, and of his advenituvs while munieyilitrom lhe trenches to the . drcs.iiii.u--i a 1 ion. lie gave a pood and e'e:' i' acconni ol the -cene ni a church, and ol \arions topographical points c'nineei ed wll h ii : 11 was evidcni thai lie liad Ih'eii admitted as a patient t< the particular church, which was tin ooiy one in use lor that division. 11. then described how he lay on a mat t rt'ss <ui the altar-steps : this, auain is 'Utile credible, fur the church was so clouded with wounded that of lieces sity several mattresses had to he laic * he"". !'iiiajly. he siaje<| that a Get man shell struck the other end of th cnuich, blew a hole through the wall, and killed iilty oi the wounded as they l ; t>- Ibis was where the inaccuracy ctept in. A shell did cuter the west cud ol ihe church, made a big hole in lll >' wall, and tilled the building v.ith •-moke and dust. Hm ; , s luck wouid have it. that end of the church had just he, ii cleared oj the wounded, and not n single mail was hurt by the explosion \ et any critic, judging on internal evidence alone, would have been justified in dceiariiiu this letter to be an honest and credible account of facts within the soldiers actual knowledge and expert' (■ttce: that one detail about the liftv lives lost was the only inaccuracy in a' \eiy vivid and very stra iglit forward storv.

"Ihe lesson is that the undue erf did ity ol those at home and the overrate? credibility of the soldier abroad liavi resulted iu some strange stories. Takf the celebraied angels, or bownif.n, oi

whatever they are asserted to lie, o: Moils. This story invented as a piece o' pure fiction hv Mr Mar-hen, is now he i»S repealed in many versions by vari oils private soldiers, who may or ma* not have convinced themselves ],y rove tition thai lhev did actually see certaii Hipr-nintui'a! things. Angels in themselves are credible enough, ;md for main people at home the fact that they believr in angels seems sufficient reason tha 1 they_ should therefore believe in these particular angels. There are, however. I certain points which the unthinking an 7 the overcn duloiis seem to overlook First, they accept as literally and absolutely true, certain vague and niutualh inconsistent statements made months after the battle by private soldiers: they make ro attempt to estimate the credibility ol the witnesses. Xext. thev overlook the fact that no one ever heard of these interesting occurrences before the publication of Mr Mac-hen's story ncr indeed, until long after. Vet surely a raconteur of Mr Atkins' ability would liever have neglected to tell his friends about them while they were fresh in hi« mind? Next, they pay a poor compliment both to the British Artnv and to the hosts of heaven if the two could not stay even for a day the victorious German advance. Contemptible, indeed, must Sir John French's gallant command have s"emcd to the Kaiser if such were the case. Xor were the angels detea red once onlv, according to the 'evide nee' which the credulous accept without stopping to examine it."