GERMAN TRIBUTE TO ANZACS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2989, 29 January 1917, Page 5

GERMAN TRIBUTE TO ANZACS

"•NOTHING BUT PRAISE"

BRAVERY AND INITIATIVE

Vanoouvor, January 26. Carl von Wiegand, the most famous American'correspondent in Germany, is on a brief visit to New York. In an exclusive interview to the Australian Press Association, he said: "We have seen the Anzacs in action on tho West front, and have nothing hut praise for tbeir bravery and initiative. -The German officers speak in terms of unqualified admiration of tho Australians. Tho Crown Prince Rupprecht told me that the Australians and New Zealanders were the most daring of tho British troops. Prince Rupprecht, as a mountaineer:, appreciated the colonials' contempt for obstacles. Yet, ho said, the recklessness of the colonials sometimes led to unnecessary losses. Whereas other troops utilised all available cover, the Australians charged in the open indifferent, even contemptuous of danger. During the advance at Loos a Bavarian General spoke in admiration of the perfection of every detail of the Australian plans for taking trenches. Von Wiegand met many. British prisoners at Gufllomont. "The Tommies," he says, "willing sold me liclmets and other souvenirs. T lfoticed twenty or thirty men standing aloof, who contemptuously refused to sell anything. They wcro Australians. T did not see many Australians in the prison camps. Prince Rupprecht asked one how bo was faring, and he replied: 'Not had. T. do not expect beef steaks every day.' "—Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn. LORD NORTHCLIFFE- AND THE NEW ZEALANDERS CHEERFULNESS IN WINTER'S ADVERSITIES. London, January 26. Lord Northcliffe, writing from"British Headquarters, says: "Before the days when the Strand began to be decorated by tall young men in khaki from tho Dominions, we thought the New Zealand footballers picked men. But the day we spent with the New Zealand Army in France showed proof of the wonderful physique of the ordinary New Zealander. There is something in tho climate of New Zealand which makes things grov. The .New Zealand Army is a compact, well-equipped family. Mostly open-air men, perhaps they have had an advantage by their fighting instincts being kept alive by the Maori Wars. I found the New Zealanders in the muddiest and iloodiesfc scene imaginable. Streams had swollen into rivers, and rivers into lakes, making cold, drab, and cheerless surroundings. General Russell's headquarters were partly submerged. General Russell is a typical Now Zealand gentleman; a sheep farmer with harsh ways for Prussians. After lunch wo travelled miles in the snowy slush of the' Flanders roads, where the Maoris are doing excellent work as a Pioneers' Battalion. Sir Dougles Haig had just reviewed the New Zealanders. He praised the men enthusiastically to me. hut I was not prepared for the size of theso handsome fellows."

Lord NbrthclifFe adds: "General Godley told me that their good health and physique enables the New Zealanders to stand the rigours of a northern winter. The Anzacs miss the sunshine, but do not grumble. The New Zealanders occupy a fair front-line stretch. Billets, rest camps, and lines of communication go back a long way, forming : a little New Zealand world in Francp. War lectures are a great feature behind the lines, .where the New Zealanders closely follow the technical expositions of tho use of complicated weapons and all subjects on modern warfare. If anything could have saved Gallipoli it would have been "the fne work of tho Australians and New Zealanders and the 29th Division. But it was not until they reached the Sommo that the Anzacs received a chance of participating in a great success.

Home-Training too Long. "Some experts.regard.the preliminary home training of the New Zealanders as too long, and think that it might wisely be curtailed, the men finishing their actual training in tho war none, where the troops learn quicker, and ate also taught the newest devices in manoeuvres. Tlie Dominion troops have fourteen weeks' hard drill in England before they leave for Franco. The teachers' only complaint is that the j Anzacs aro not taught the right kind of bayonet practice. The New Zralanders' organisation in France is like unto a well-oiled machine. Although the New Zealand Army is only a microcosm of Sir Douglas Haig's wonderful force, it gives an excellent idea of what a model British 'Army should be. The New Zealandcrs told me they wore satisfied with all arrangements, particularly the training in Fnaland, rind fhe Biwkenliursf. Now Forest, and Wn'U'ii TTosnitals. where there are tuv. I lionsand patients. "A high-placed British offer (old me that the New Zcalanders as individual lighters were the cental of any in France. He particularly praised their inir'c on (lie S-nun-'. The New Zealand Tunnelling Couuinnv. .v.<,nt-ing in a special area, outwitted the Germans every time, not permitting in a single, instance the Gen-nns to >,»'- prise the British. When New Zealand's Miiall pomilation is iemeinLered, we ate,] better, able Jo realise the splendid *ofc«<

trasfc rletween. these fiuejy organised antipodean' crusaders and the levied masses of unwilling Poles, Czechs, Turks, Ruthones, and Slovaks whom Prussia has bullied into the trenches.' 1 —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.