"TWO PRICELESS GIFTS"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 129, 27 November 1929, Page 7

"TWO PRICELESS GIFTS"

(To the Editor.)

, Sir,—As one who served continuously with the New Zealand Division in Gallipoh and France from 1915 to 1918, I endorse the views of "A.1.F." regarding war literature of the "Journey's End" and All Quiet on the Western Front" type. In both cases the authors in striving for effect have used the common method of exaggeration. Instead of showing the war.in its lights and shadows they have purposely concentrated on its darkest side.

The Stanhope of "Journey's End" was a bad officer, and it is an insult to th<T I .British Army to imagine him as ;. typical officer. The war was. too serious a matter to be messed up. by responsible officers who got their courage out of a bottle. Drunkenness in the line by either officers or men was very rare, and usually ended iiv Court Martial. Setting the example he did could Stanhope have complained if all his company drowned their troubles m drink? If the driver of the Limited impress was found to be drinking as Stanhope was, the excuse that he had to do it or his nerves would not go far with either the railway authorities or passengers, and he would not hold his job for five minutes btanhope would have lasted just as long 1? i r? nce- Hls veering comments to his battalion commander regarding his brigadier for ordering a raid which was a necessary operation prove him unfit to hold a command. His misuse of authority toward young Raleigh on a private matter proves him a. bully. The trouble with btanhope was not due to the war, but to sheer lack of character. The play as a. whole is a complete failure to portray , the spirit in which the war was really carried on.

All Quiet on the Western Front" is a disgusting book, and: is as representative wiv War as a whole aB the sewers under Wellington are of this city. Contrary to what might be expected from neurotic war books and plays, the officers and men who won the war were not of the types of Stanhope or the chief character in "All Quiet on the Western front, but clear-headed, clean-bodied, steady-nerved men with enough character and sense of humour not to be driven to either drink or despair by the tremendous stresses to which they were subjected, who got all the fun they could out of unpromising conditions, and a good deal of solid satisfaction out of a sticky job well done.

Some of your correspondents speak of the future of war. Was all the suffering and sacrifice in vain? Did'we gain. nothing from victory? The same questions were probably asked after the defeat of the Armada, after Trafalgar, and Waterloo, and yet who will say now that the price paid then was too high? Victory gave us two priceless gifts: Present preservation and future security. During the years prior to 1914 our nation desired peace, but our security was menaced by Germany. That sooner or later we would be forced to fight her for our existence was quite well known to those in authority. But for the war that. menace would be more serious to-day than it was then. When war broke out on the Continent we had to decide whether to fight or not, and took the only course consistent with honour and self-preservation. If for peace at any price" we had refused to fight, France would have been defeated, and we would soon have faced a victorious Germany alone.

Having won the war, we and our allies stripped Germany of all power to menace our security. She surrendered her fleet, all her overseas possessions, Alsace-Lor-raine, most of her war material, and merchant marine. .We forced her into disarmament, imposed enormous reparations, maintained armies of occupation on her soil. We dismembered Austria and Turkey. Had we instead of Germany been forced into unconditional surrender we could not reasonably have expected her to show more mercy to us than we did to her. Our fleet would have been surrendered. India, all the Dominions except Canada, all colonies, naval bases, and coaling stations, most of our merchant marine, and enormous indemnities, would have fallen as ripe fruits of victory to Germany. A German army would have occupied England. We in New Zealand may have suffered the fate of Germans settled in West and East Africa and Samoa, who were stripped of their possessions and deported to Germany. At the very least, New Zealand would have passed under the rule of Germany, as Canada passed from the French and Cape Colony from the Dutch to us. The proud British Empire would have followed Rome and Spain into oblivion.

It sounds too fantastic to be true, but as we did to Germany, so she would have done to us, and more. Was the terrible price we paid too high? And if 'hose who follow us into the still greater future of our race have again to make the fateful decision to fight or perish, what will their answer be? —I am, etc.,