THE COLONIAL SOLDIER.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15869, 7 April 1917, Page 5

THE COLONIAL SOLDIER.

TO the EDITOR Of "the press." Sir, —I have just returned from service with the New Zealand Division irom its landing in France until after the Sommo fighting last year, and feel it my duty to reply to Mr W. HI. E. "Wanklyn's letter to your papor of the 3rd inst. I contradict his statement that "history and experience points" to any individual or collective rashness of tho Nov.' Zoalanders inGallipoli, Egypt, or France, or that any rashness has ; been committed, constituting a miscarriage of Army orders. Moreover, our soldiers do not require a "brake," and do require, and are obedient to, "leading," and I defy Mr Wanklyn to name any occasion of rashness, apart from isolated cases of that of tho individual, for tho purposes of just revenge, in the noise and heat of battle. His concluding reference, "When tho history of the war i s written by military experts (not armchair experts), the Colonial will loom large, and not always to his credit, but his faults will be rather those of commission than omission, and we will forgive them, ' might, with all respect to the Army as a whole, tho past and present members of the N.Z.E.F. and their dependants, havo well been left unsaid, and is at best a poor prophecy from our own conntry. . Tho New Zealand Division in Franc© has been held up as an example to the pupils at the Imperial Army Schools, as having never failed to take and hold all objectives it was ordered to talro, which facts are indisputable; can Mr Waoklvn name any division in tho wholo Allied Armies which can show a, better record in the war than this. The "reason" given by your correspondent for his letter is vague, and also incorrect, as tho new brigade is to ' bo i "brigaded" with the original New i Zealand Division, not with the "combinations" of "English comrades ' he mentions. Tho obvious reason for the formation of tho new brigade is to dispose of tho Reinforcements, accumulated m England during tho winter months of comparative quiet, when casualties were light. " . Mr TV'anklyn's promised forgiveness at the conclusion of the war will no doubt-bo checrfully accepted by, the survivors when they return, x ours, CtC "' ~ EX-OFFICER N.Z.E.F.