AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS.
TflE FIRST EXPEDITION LANDED AND ALL WELL . Officially the whereabouts of the 'Australian First Expeditionary Brigade, which set out from the Commonwealth some time ago, is "unknown," but anyone who looked for it in tho neighbourhood of German New Guinea would stand a reasonably good chance of finding it., Regular news of the expedition is being furnished to his paper by Mr. H. S. Targett, the war correspondent of' the Sydney "Sun." His dispatch published on Thursday last, reads as follows: — ■ "I never supposed that I would have an engagement quite like the present one. Usually a pressman has to get past only the sub-editorial staff before he 6ees his stuff in print. But on this job I have a much more formidable personage to contend with—the censor. Personally he is a great chap, as everyone who is acquainted with him will concedo. But as a. censor—well,- I'm neither a cannibal by practice nor instinct, but I would cheerfully eat a piece of him for breakfast. He is one of those irritating persons who, when given a duty, performs it to the last dot at tho end of the sentence. _ ' "Following the King's regulations, ho does not allow -anything to be divulged which could conceivably be of use to the enemy if it fell into their hands. Consequently, I can't tell you where we are, how many guns we carry, how many corps are with us, what we propose to do, what we have done. A host of other tilings I can't even hint at here. There is not very much else to write about except tho .weather, and I doubt if I could say much about that for fear a sagacious enemy with a knowledge perhaps approaching that of Mr. Wilson, your own excellent weather tipster, might deduce from its description our exact location. ; Lieutenant Commander Bracegirdle had a narrow escape from sudden deathon August 29. He was superintending the landing of some troops, and was at ■the foot of the gangway, close at the water's edge, when a block weighing a hundredweight, and used for heaving boats from the water to the boat deck, suddenly descended, and, missing his head by a fraction of an inch ( gave him a glancing blow over the kidneys. Two days' rest liai put him all right again, but our principal medical officer, Colonel Howse, V.C., said to him, 'Hit anywhere else bnt where you were touched, you would have been killed instantly.' > "The first mail from Sydney was delivered. to-day. It was not a very large one, but : one private got six letters, all written in the same handwriting. They were good, thick ones, too. That girl is certainly working overtime. He was chaffed unmercifully, but there was a suspicion of envy in some of the chaff. If I may be permitted to givo relatives of the troops a hint-, I would ask them to write often. There is nothing 60 cheering to a young lad as a letter from home. If no one gets a letter it's all right, but when Smith gets one aiul Brown doesn't, Brown sneaks away 1o a quiet place so that no oue will see the Adam's apple working up and down in his throat. Brown may be of the right fighting stuff, but the horriblo feeling that he is being neglected and deserted hurts, and he can't help showing it. Inoculation for the prevention cf typhoid fever has given most of tho troops something to think about. The doctors give you a sort of stab in the arm with a lance, inflicting a wound about three feet deep—at least you think he does. As a matter of fact ho only goes deep enough to pierce the second skin. Ho repeats the performance a .week later, and theji, with fiue
professional pride, informs you that you are carrying about with you 2,500,000 germs or .microbes or something. Some of the troops who did not get vaccinated during the scare in Sydney twelve mojiths ago have had that omission rectified compulsorily, but no one has suffered more than is usual. As a matter of fact, anxious mothers will bo glad to know that there, is not one serious case of illness: in the hospital."
WAR & THE NAVY
AN EAGER FIRST . LORD. "War, of course, would be greatly popular with the Navy," wrote the London correspondent of an Australian contemporary; just before the declaration. ''The announcement of hostilities would be good news to every officer in the fleet, and would be cheered by all hands on the quarter-deck. For once in a way, too, we have a fighting First Lord. Sir. Churchill would be in his element. Indeed, it -is doubtful if he could be kept on shore. Ho is probably the happiest man in England at this 1 moment, and it is good to be able ,to write that men of all parties believe that he is fully to be trusted with his great office at this time of supreme test. . Indeed, tho whole Cabinet might well feel flattered at tho expressions of confidence it has, had from the Press ■ and the peoplo during tho past few days. There has perhaps never been a Ministry which has engaged more freely in- speeches of bitter controversy. Mr. Asquith's- Cabinet is perhaps the best-hated Cabinet on record. Moreover, it is extremely Radical, and hostile to war upon general grounds. And yet, now that we are on the eve of war, the nation has given it a silent, but deoply sincere, vote of confidence. By general agreement, wo, could not'in this orisis have a better man at the Foreign Office than Sir Ed>ard Grey, a better War Chief and Prime Minister than Mr. Asquith, or a more efficient First Lord of the Admiralty than Mr. Churchill.
The Navy Desired War. "The Navy desires war because it is confident of success. Mr. Churchill and his admirals believe that they can easily overcome the piecemeal fleet which would be put forward by its adversaries. And the nation, as a whole, is equally sanguine. Everybody feels that if we cannot beat Germany and her ,allies now, then God help us 'in ten years' time! Then, apart from the national feeling, the Navy desires a war on .technical grounds'. Everybody interested in sea defence wants to see the Dreadnought tested. Countless millions have been expended in this huge new class' of ship. And yet it has never been to war. Naval experts are intensely curious as to how the modern battleship will shape in action. An engagement lasting over a few hours will settlo controversies, otherwise endless, as to the size of ships, the efficacy of the latest gunnery; and fifty other questions. It is properly felt, too, that a weapon «o extremely expensive and vital to the safety of tho nation as the British Navy should not remain too long out of action. The Navy, as wc know it to-day, has never been tried out. Prolonged peace conditions impair tho fighting capacity of the service. England has far too many admirals who are strangers to bloodshed. Too much promotion by mere seniority or superiority under peace conditions is dangerous for a service which is responsible for the safety of the world's greatest Empire. A naval war would be oxpensive doubtless in both lives and ships, but, looked at from tho point of view of the Empire as a whole, it would probably be the greatest boon wo could have at the present timo."
A Dreadnought is so designed that steaming at full speed she can stop in 1025 ynrrts, nn<l can turn in a ratliuj of 605 yards at t'ul'l
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Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2251, 10 September 1914, Page 6
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1,279AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS. Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2251, 10 September 1914, Page 6
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