MECHANISED ARMY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 38, 14 February 1930, Page 11

MECHANISED ARMY

SIGNIFICANT APPOINTMENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON 7th January.

Major-General Sir Hugh J. Elles, K.C.M.G., X.C.V.0., C.8., D.5.0., late Eoyal Engineers, p.s.c, has been appointed to succeed Major-General H. H. S. Kuox, C.8., D.5.0., as Director of Military Training at the War Office.

"This selection," comments "Attieus" in the "Sunday Times," "is a sign of the times'. It indicates the importance of the mechanical and engineering element in the army of the future. Sir Hugh Elles knows all about military mechanisation, and has a highly expert acquaintance with tanks. He was one of the first officers on Haig's staff to be entrusted with the secret of these appliances, and one of their commanders in the field when they were suddenly let loose upon the amazed Germans in 1917. :

"At the close of the war he was at the head of the whole tank organisation, and afterwards was for a time Colonel Commandant and Inspector of the Corps. Since then he has commanded an infantry brigade and has been on the staff of the Eastern Command. So .he knows something of other units besides those of the sappers and the gunners; and something, too, of the old warfare, as well as the new, for though still in the prime of life he saw service as a young subal.tcrn in the South African War. Ho is obviously destined to play a leading part in the mechanical training of all arms, which is' the programme of the War Office in the immediate future. Formerly an ambitious young officer anxious to rise in his profession had the best chances in the Guards or the Cavalry. Now, I imagine, he will come from Woolwich and [get his first commission in the Royal Engineers."