A DEMOCRATIC ARMY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 98, 20 January 1920, Page 8

A DEMOCRATIC ARMY

TEE "DIGGER" AND DEMOBILISATION. General Monash was asked by an "Arms" reporter on his arrival at Melbourne if he had any further comment to make unon the Australian as a fightine man. "About the A.1.P.?" he replied. "What more can I say than I have said already? Its outstanding feature was the complete sympathy and uiuierstaiulimr between officer and man. The whole war never produced anything like it They moved. together like the piston and the piston-rod of an engine, and we would never have achieved such results either during or after the war but for this fact. We were a democratic, armv. and our officers were promoted bv reason of their proved capacity to load. Personally, I attribute much of our success to the stimulus of these men who had risen from the ranks. Look at mv eood friend Colonel Murray, V.C.. who landed to-day He left Australia, as a, wivnto in the 13th Battalion of mv old' Ith Brigade. Step by step he won his promotion, and sow he lias come back an colonel. All this was due to his personal qualities—it didn't matter to us who an officer's father was, or what, was his social rank. The same mutual confidence that existed between officer and man'in the A.I.F. could be found between units, and between arms of tho service. If an Australian battalion knew that it. had another battalion of 'diggers' on its flank it was liappv. If our infantry were told that thev had Australian artillery behind them, thev went over the top confident that thev would not get their own barra"e in their backs. And if our artillery knew that their own infantry were holding the lino in front of them, they would come up within 200 yards ot that line and know that they would not be snined. In fact. lam of opinion that although the Australian, public is fully alive to the individual prowess of the Australian soldier, it does not sufficiently realise how gieat was the collective elhcienav of tho A.I.F. 'Team work does not adequately express the situation. 11 is too small a term to npply to the work of 150.000 men. But that is what Australia has to be most proud of—its army was so efficient that it could carry out 'stunts' at. 24 hours' notice. Nobody else could have done that!" With regard to demobilisation, General Monash said that people in Australia never realised the gigantic nature of the problem It was like bodily transporting a citv of 150.C00 inhabitants except that instead of being concentrated on tho one tDot. the inhabitants were all over the world-in Trance, in Egypt, and in Mesopotamia. The ' situation was complicate! by the fact that the railways of Franco became utterly disorganised. The A.I.F. was a huge machine, and one could not dismantle a huge machine .-imply by putting a plug ot dynamite in the works. It bad to be taken to pieces screw by screw, and, what is more, >t had to bo kept running until tho last possible moment. RiffM from the start," said General Monash ?Chad to teach, the "Digger a w doctrine-tho doctrine of recon,ti ueti*n. Up till the armistice we had been training him to kill Germans. But soinethinir else was- wanted afterwards. Wo pit* outour difficulties to the 'Dig«h' and thenceforth the men of the I i if. were their own police. They realised that if they ran wild and missed t ate thev were only holding up those behind them. And when others enme to tho Australians, inciting them to bleak loose and burn down barracks, thej were drS-ou away with st eta-andstone . 'Burn down the !»™ ta ten bers, 'Noth ng roing! . A lot has ween sad about Army discipline among tho A. straUans. Most of the stones came "m ople who were either unsympatUtie or jealous. Unco, the uncsl ihinirs in the record of tho A.1.1'- *» s o chi airy shown by the Australians tower s the women of France and BeriSm They wero loved by the people o g ftose countries, and when wo moved off nt last tho Belgian women said, Ah, ?hesomen Do they behave towards eir own women as they be laved to us?' The Australians so helped tow aids the rapid demobilisation ot the A.i.i. hat «vea months after the arnnshce ev rvono who mattered was out. of lagta 1 Yd we wore told that it would take two years!" General Monash added that at the moment there wero only about SOW Australians left » Bnglen. - chieflv■men fmisliins educational (raining! men still in -hospitals, and member* « own movements, Generaf Monash shrugged his shoulders Mid sailed. "What am I going to do? he asked "I am B°™« to <to exactly what 111 counselled every 'Digger' to-do. That is-'Get back to your oldjob .and don't bother tho State.' Kfe » .i;n ...-niv mv services, the State knows r to fimV ZV He, added that ho id Urd rumours of tho offer ot the Railways Commissionershin, tat that ho know nothing definite. As for poll cs 'said that his taste did not he in that irection. Ho was not a 6 roinr party i ami preferred to see a happy * promise 1 among the best leader*. But still " laughed General Monash, If there re a sfrong demand for me to enter JoUlieal We I would try to go, through the political barrow as I have had to go through a great many others!