NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16144, 23 February 1918, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AMERICAN" AIR PLANS.

Tho iirst instalment of tlio va.st American air fleet, which some claim i» to win the war for tho Allies, is reported to he cn route for the West front. That probably means that the machines are already in France, for the American Secretary for War, who makes tho announcement, would hardly seek to stimulate tho tmholy activity of tho waiting U-boats if the aeroplanes wero being transported at this moment. These aro the first all-American battleplanes sent to France, but American airmen have long been on active service at the front, and the training ground the biggest in Europe—for the men who •aro to man the American air fleet has been in operation for months past. Many thousands of men must pass through tho course of instruction there, for more than twenty thousand _ aeroplanes were in course of construction m America a few weeks ago._ L 'AYiiilo it is inexpedient," said Mr Newton Baker, tho secretary for War, "to impart information ol military value, it is permissible to make a partial announcement of the progress of the American aviation programme. Tho work is 1 progressing on the entire number of aeroplanes and motors for which provision was made in the £128,000,000 . Aviation Bill that passed Congress in July last. The types now being made cover the entire range of training machines, light, high-speed fighting machines, and powerful battle and bombing planes or the heaviest design. The contracts call \ for an amiile number of training machines, and embrace many giant battleplanes capable of equalling the work of the Caproni, Handley Page, and similar types. The American Forces in France -will be amply equipped with aircraft. The work of the aviation.section is'thoroughly systematised. The training of the men, the building of motors, and the construction of wings ane proceeding uniformly, so that when the motors are ready the planes will be ready, and when the craft is ready the airmen and machine-guns will bo available. Within a reasonable time this country will send its first aeroplane to Europe; from the tip of the propellers to the engine, machine-guns, and camera it will have been made in the .United States." HOW THE ALLIES HAVE HELPED. More than thirty experts of the 'Allied nations have been in Washington on regular duty with officers of the -American Army, Navy, and members of the Aircraft Production Board. The' best anen of the air services of Allied countries have been lent to the American Government and sent to the United States to aid in getting the American aviation programme under way with the fewest possible mistakes and the greatest economy of time. There has been a remarkably gratifying response to the call for airmen. The United States has an unlimited supply of young men of courage, self-reliance, good judgment, and decision for this service. Twenty-four flying schools have been created. Arrangements wero also made with the Allied countries for the acceptance of American cadet students for final training on foreign soil. These men will be turned over as finished airmen to the forces in France. There is practically no. limit, it is claimed, to the-number of aerial fighters which the United States can and will furnish. | • '/DEFEATISTS." The new word "defeatist,',' now coming into use at Home, appears in to-day's cables for, we think, the first time. The French defeatists who have just been discovered, apparently go to work in a different way from that pursued by their English co-workers. whost> methods were lately exposed oy the Home Secretary in defending the Government's demand for the censorship ot leaflets. "The pacifists whose, literature I have to deal with are who want to force peace by surrender," said ,the Minister; "men who, in order to"get peace, are willing to db their best tc hamper the raising of the Army, to persuade young men not to serve, to interfere with tho manufacture of munitions; who, indeed, are willing in many ' . cases t6 bring us to the ; Russia is to-day. Time after time I find the same leaders coming up in one association or another. It is obvious that a determined attempt is being made to pnsh this propaganda" The literature that he had to deal ■ with contained statements that were perfectly reckless. They exaggerated the numbers of casualties by tens and I hundreds, and sometimes oven by thou-' sands. They put in every case the German view of the origin of the war and of th% position of things to-day. The fault was always Britain's, never that of her enemies. The air raids and murders of the inoffensive civil population were justified on the ground of the

j blockade —a well-rccogniscd war meaj 1 Always, with constant reiteration, it I is the German view which is put tor- ! ward. The moral is always the same |'l>on't join the Army, don't give your I life for the country, get out of it it you I can . These leaflets arc distributed all over the country. They are pushed un- ■ der doors at night. Tliey are given-to youths approaching military age, telling thom how to act so as to become conscientious objectors. Thcy_ are forced on soldiers home on leave in the hope that they will be taken back to the front. They are sent to relatives or soldiers who have been killed or wounded —as cruel a thing as could be done. This is the kind of campaign which was carried on without cessation 1 and without scruple. i Sir George Cave added that he clid not know who paid for the campaign, but the cost must be very great. A statement which would strengthen the suspicion that 8010 was not tho only one of the class at wfcirk among tho Allies. THE IXDIAX CORPS IX FRAXCE. There is a very general impression that tho Indian Expeditionary Force that "went to Franco in the early months of tho war was a failure. As a matter of fact, though it appears to bo true that the military authorities decided that the trench war of the "West was not the kind of warfare best suited to tho Indian temperament, Colonel 'Meredith and Sir Frederick Smith make it abundantly clear, in a book just published under tho titlo of this paragraph, that tho Indians were by no means a failure in France. The Indian Army Corps reached Franco, we are told, just in time to save the British Expeditionary Force from being overwhelmed by weight of numbers. They arrived, that is to say, just in time to take I part'in the first battle of Ypres, where every man in the British Ariny who could stand upright was thrown into the battle-line, and the situation was saved by a miracle. They deserve the gratitude of the British Empire as fully and unreservedly as the _ First Seven Divisions of tho Expeditionary Army. It was an extraordinarily diversified force, composed at various stage s of its career, as the authors say, "of English, Irish, and Scotch regiments, battalions of' Gurkhas, subjects of a foreign State, of units largely formed of Trans-fron-tier men, Imperial Service troops, and even Indian police—medley of religions and customs, in a foreign country, and amid strange and depressing surroundings." Yet the esprit de corps was magnificent. LOSSES OF OFFICERS. In the case of the purely Indian regiments, tnoy suttered later on from a cause which was wholly excusable. • -.As long as each, unit retained a laur proportion of those British officers who naa sailed with, it from India, and who still seemed to alford some connecting , lihk with home, tho battalions retained, [even amid the terrible surroundings or I Flanders, an astonisning degree of selfi confidence, resilience, and esprit de corps." But the losses among tne officers were terrible. "It soon happened that many battalions lost every officer who in tar-away India had instructed them in the military art, and who,, in the eyes of the Indian troops, were all that remained to remind them, with familiar authority, of their homes and their duty. Every ingenuity and every conceivable resource were exhausted in the attempt to supply new officers to take the place of the fallen, but it was not possible to keep pace with the losses, and, even where the numbers were sufficient, there was hardly leisure to establish in the necessary degree acquaintance and confidence.'' Tho force itself lost proportionately as heavily as those first seven divisions with whom it has been compared. Tho casualties from the first battle of Ypres down to Loos wore appalling. "In eight ' months 6000 more troops wero des- ' patched from India for tne single pur- ' pose of replacing the killed, the wounded, and the sick than the force * contained when .it landed. Excluding ' the units temporarily attached, the [ casualties of the Indian Corps amount--1 ed to 4539 killed, 23,661 wounded, and 5373 missing. And then, when it left 5 Franco and i>rocceded to Mesopotamia, ' the,lndian Corps came in for a full share of the mingled glory and heavy | casualties: which attended the cam- ' pnigns on the Tigris before Sir Stanley Maude's victorious advance." As the result of experience with the Indian force the authors arrived at two definite conclusions: — 1. None but the very best class or . Indian troops is fit for European warfare, and then only when led by a sufficient number of trained British officers and stiffened by British units. 2. As a general rule, an Indian sol- , dier of over 40 years of age is unfit for service in the field, and many who can speak with authority put the limit at 3o years. In East Africa, Indian regiments did splendid work right to the end: in South-West Africa tliey would have been of incalculable help, as they proved . to bo in Mesopotamia. But the cold ■ and wet and the long-continued in- > action in muddy trenches in France

were conditions to which they were vmsuited. But they fought and died like heroes. If they did not come u;> to tlio expectations of military authorities who had ]ooked 'for open warfare, it was not their fault, and individually they were ccrtainly not failures.