GENERAL IRONSIDE

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14536, 7 December 1920, Page 6

GENERAL IRONSIDE

JUNIOR COMMAND IN MESOPOTAMIA. It is announced by the War Office that Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside is to go out to Mesopotamia in a junior command under General Sir Aylmer Haldane, the Commander-in-Chief there.

General Ironside, who was in command on the Archangel front last year, has been'lately in command of the British troops at Ismid, south-east of Constantinople, acting against the Turkish rebels.

Sir Edmund was a captain when he went to France as a staff officer in 1914; he became a major-general in 1918, before he reached the age ot 40. Physically and intellectually he is one of the -lines't soldiers in the British Army. He stands Gft 4in, and speaks six languages fluently. He is the only British officer who holds a decoration gained for service In the field with the Germany army. When he was a subaltern in South Africa he disguised himself as a Boer and joined the German field artillery as a driver during von Deimling's campaign in South-West Africa, so that he might supply the War Office with first-hand information.