EASTER MANOEUVRES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 481, 14 April 1909, Page 4

EASTER MANOEUVRES.

BUILDINC A LINE OF UATTLE. .AN KXIIIIIITION. (UVHN lIV TWO LIKUTKNANTS. Kiiklol'V "lilt"' in niiiokv llllil Inith'llliV. Is iMinMM'i|iliim lo wine i\l'li>rl' Well, »p iloii'l kmiw wliiiV ii-]mil||ii' «f Iho strings Wk aco Duvon nf IVnw nil I'lahl, i-lr, Willi II lli\|; nf p.-i\eiM'lll while, nil', Ami fiiimo i4.\=ineli li'iiiiMo-pi'cUovfi 'N'imlli imr iviii(i«i, Foolish I'iiltn luivo fiinllsh liulliiiii, Dij: as I'iuilhiiMiln mill ni'i<nll!>, llnl Ihn Ivoi'iii-I'rt Jest. bwn pii.vlhh Hiliikh In me - ".rones," sew he, "when you ilolpi'liilinw For to slmly up I hem llormiiiti, '• Thou you won't join rllle elilli-i," tms ho,

Only ono army in hiiiliiry hmi onioi'Hoil I'l'ion a campaign with no ilnfj buildup, uf if, Need it bo said which itciu.y, from which <'inii|iiti|,;iir' If comparisons aro odious, mid iiilVronlinlly ho who '."institutes thorn, iwilhiiiji onrllily merits such odium ns tho (lonium Army system So very coinploto—• not it misfit., not a misprint, not a button missing; fin much better than any other in tho world, so very much better than our own. Not a theorist in the club, or one's periodical, but can point out a thousand things in which tho British Army would do well to imitate its big sister GretehanA Especially in tho matter of deploying an attack. Of all tho hundreds of Sangreals which are being sought by mili-. tary men,-it is admitted that the battle of Mars-la-Tpur, August 16, 1870, was tho real and perfect thing. If a man only had book knowledge of how Von Alvenslcben handled his Brandenburgors that day he would be worth a seat on tho New Zealand Dpfenco Council; though, to bo sure, ho might not Ret it; If he could bo Sure of actually handling them as A r on'Alvenslel)en did he could perhaps reduco New Zealand with 1000 men. Or loss. ■■ But lest one should ■be inclined to put up tho white, handkerchief too soon, it is reassuring to find that even subalterns ill local garrison artillery companies aro by no means tyros at handling "the three arms combined." It is true that the two lieutenants, to be presently mentioned, havo not this Easter handled anything more terrible than the little coloured blocks of tho war game, but then a man locked up in a kreigspiel encounter may bo just as surely doomed by the umpire, as, in actual war, he would bo beaten by an educated adversary. In Neiv-Zaeland, whoro there' are neither fully trained troops to manoeuvre, nor proper staff machinery to move them, the war gamo is tho only' means wo have of judging how somo young New Zealand officers could deploy troops on a given theatre of war, if they only had them. The Theatre of War. On Friday. evening, theory had it that two cruisers and two, transports wero off tho heads, staring up harbour at Petonc, gemmed with pin-point' bits of light, and hungering after the great city, whose banks and shipping wero the chief objective. I For tho purposes of tho I game, theso peoplo wero Blue; to Red fell tlio. task of defending AA'cllington. Bush ambuscades, and all that trumpery kind of stratagem, which includes dongas and spruits and so forth wero tacitly dropped, and,tho attack and defence wero carried out on real Continental lines. Indeed, the three-days' game which followed was German in complexion. ■ The First Move. That being''sb, : the first business of Blue was-to make a great rattle and noise all lover'the little theatre of war, front and back -of- We-jlington, and' then, having drawn Red in,, one* direction, to put in the blow from .Somo different quarter. In pursuance of this idea brio. of. Blue's cruisers engaged the forts .at long, range-,' while his transports mado a feint-at landing in force between M'Meiiamiirs .station, and- Oterangi Bay. Red, however, kept his head, declining to be drawn west by the feint, whilo, as for-the cruiser,-the best that can bo said of her is that she was grievously hulled by tho shots' from 'the forts. Tho' infantry /descent on tho coast, near M'Menamin's station, was duly reported to Red at Mahang.i Bay, but to have gone out to repel it would have meant throwing away.his solo advantage of eohtral position, 'arid; interior lines. So ho stayed' where he was. This phase lasted up till 7 p.m. on Friday: Tho First Battle Line Formed. Still unaware as to how far 'he had "drawn" Red, tho Blue commander now played his next card. He landed a small party at Porirua, and severed the railway in that neighbourhood. This tended to shut olf the city from up-country succours, and was good .as.far as it. went.- .At day-break on Saturday 1400 Blue infantry were put ashore near Olmriu Bay, and then, for tho first time, Red showed his hand a. little. Ho dispatched 300 infantry and two guns to take up tho big ridgo between South Karori and Makara, holding it in caso the whirl of events should show that it would be necessary to form up in that position in line of battle. Ho was still apparently unwilling to throw away tho advantages of his line central position, but ho know tlio gamo well enough not to leavo isolated his van (now on tho ridge as mentioned). With fine insight he threw some mounted infantry into Johnsonvillo-to cover his Hank, and drew his main body forward to Newtown Park. All these moves by Red wero exceedingly skilful. His main position at tho Park was still central, while,, at the samo time, he had built tho nucleus of a-battle-line north • of AA'cllington. No grizzled old warrior, ■ hailing from Berlin, could.havo done better \ I

Quite cerman in v Style. As Saturday dawned, Red became gradually convinced that the landing of Bluo at Ohariu was tho. "real thing," and ho sent forward another 600 infantry to the south Karori position, and two squadrons of mounted infantry to his Hank position at Johnsonville. In pursuance of these movements, some slight breaches of the peace occurred, but nothing sutlicient to alfect the general plan, lied still- sent forward a steady! stream of reinforcements to tho position so far held "in skeleton," sending also 400 infantry and two guns to Johnsonville. Tho effect of these additions was to establish a strong lino covering the northern approach to Wellington, and extending frqm Garrett's farm (north of Johnsonville) far out into Hho dim, bluo west. f

Out-generalled. , Bluo was now checkmated on this front, but lie was far from dono with. His ships gave him a certain facility for moving quickly from point to point by sea, and at no stage of tho operations did ho throw this advantage away, ■ it being his ' compensation for tho disadvantage of exterior lines. So not liking the look of things at and about Makara, he "folded up his tent liko tho Arab" and stole silently away into the night. His next move took him up tho coast towards Wangamii, and then out to sea. From some points of view this was the one uselesslooking move made by Blue, but "demonstrations" havo their valuo in obscuring the situation with the "fog of war," and it was possibly best not to "lot the ship sink for want of a pennyworth of tar." At all events, tho fall of night on Sunday brought his ships off Lycll Bay, whero ho landed in force, dispatching, incidentally, a small party to go to Island Bay, seize Mount Albert,' and so threaten .Bed's central position at Newtown Park. Blue was now favnurablv placed for a dash at the forts, and the Bed position not nearly so good as it had been.

A Very Skilful Movo. Ultimate victory in war is said to fall to the tactician who can produco tho last reserve, and, although Bed's position was now far from comfortable, it transpired that he had left reserves of infantry at tho ■ reclaimed land hear tho railway station. Whether ho had dono this by plan or by luck is hard to say, but he certainly kept his head when it came to using them. They presently camo into lino on Mount Crawford, and the forts, almost in Bluo's possession, were once more denied him. Tho Last Card Played. Blue now played his last card, and it was a card of such hkh value that tho

eliipf umpire ruled iliat only real bullets could have decided whether lio won or lost. His infantry was on shore, held by Red but not beaten. To their aid ho now brought in his cruisers to shell Urn forts, and simultaneously sent six siTond-elnss torpedo boats into tho harbour. Tho idea behind tho torpedo boat movement was to rush up harbour, seize some, of tho furls high up by a landing party, and then turn Ihe guns of tho captured work on to I'orl, Jlullnueo. ft was here that tho chief umpire (Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell), whoso I bought fill umpiring no doubt had" a good ileal Id do with the realistic aspect which the l/ico of omits had worn all through, gave I bit verdid which closed the operations with honours fairly easy. Mo ruled that tho torpedo boat crews might have dono damage to tho shipping in tho harbour, but held that I hey could not have materially assisted in tho rupture of the forts. What might have happened in real war ho prudently declined to Kiioss at.

The Two Tacticians. And so things closed, not without distinction to Lieut. Somomlle, who commanded the defence-, and to Lieutenant Micklc, who undertook tho attack. The latter proved himself a slippery tactician, full of originality, and skilfully shifting from one front to another. On the other hand, Lieutenant Somervillo never let go his grip of his* initial advantage of interior lines, and tho masterly manner in which ho slowly built up his various lines of defence was perfect. It was possibly tho host war game that has been played by Now Zealand officers. Assisting each' commander were his own company officers acting as staff, while tho umpires for liluo and lied respectively wero Jlajor Hunlo and Captain Symon. * Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell made a splendid "umpire-in-chicf. Incidental to tho operations by land wero a series of cannonades from tho forts. Somo of these, havo already been described, and tho full'list of them is as follows: — Gun. Rounds. Hits. Saturday ... G-in. 8 7 8-in. 'S 3 12-poundor 1G 3 Monday ... G-m. 8 6 8-in. 2 1 • . 6-pounder 40 10 12-pounder 13 6 For tho various scrios' Lieutenant Somcrvillo usually acted as battery commander, with Lieutenant M'Kellar as assistant B.C. Lieutenant Meredith, in his post behind tho six-inch gun, showed very little mercy to the targets, his guns doing splendid work. The various gun group-commanders at different times were: Petty Officers Cainan, Mackay, Francis, Brindlo, and Howard. Tho ranges at which tho shooting was carried out varied from 1650 yards up to about 5200 yards according to the calibro of the gun. A word is duo to the. Electric Lisht Company, in whoso eliargo wero placed tho two 25,000 candle-power projectors. They aro, of course, all practical men in their lino, but, perhaps, -the finest feature about them as a corps is thoir excellent discipline One of tho . G.A.V. _ officers, alluding to this prior to breaking camp on Monday, expressed tho opinion that a hundred or two of these men would bo as fino a command as any volunteer officer could wish to havo.