GENERAL IRONSIDE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20058, 3 October 1939, Page 2

GENERAL IRONSIDE

jjJA GREAT LINGUIST MAN OF ACTION ‘SECRET; SERVICE WORK i DOINGS; IN AMERICA . . • Seeing the name of-General.. Sir Edmunci"lronside prorxiinefltly -displayed in the press has brought back to memory incidents connected with him which may prove of general interest, writes Lieutenant-Colonel H. F. Trew in thd 'Johannesburg Star, i ■" When I knew him he was a staff captain for intelligence, stationed at Roberts,. Heights, Pte.tOrla, ,V/hen, I say stationed, I mean that- his quarters were there'; •: for. -he was always making mysterious disappearances, and returning very sunburnt, but with nothing to say about his tifdvels. . ■ . t " •

Even in those days he was distinguished. for his knowledge of languages, of which he * knew six and was busy learning a seventh. He fold me. that when at school he had shown no particular-aptitude for acquiring, a. . knowledge ’ of foreign languages. He considered the English method of teaching languages all wrong; slogging away at grammar and syntax made the young scholar lose all interest in his subject. . ,

■His method was first tb learn as large a vocabulary as possible, and then live with a family who spoke nd ' English, but only the language hg; wished to learn. The grammar came to him later with . very little difficulty. > “Big Afrikaner Officer” As soon as he arrived in South Africa he adopted this method to lehrn Afrikaans, and how well he siidc.eeded the following, stbry will prove. I was asked by the British Commander-in-Chief to assist his compensation officer on field manoeuvres in 'the ißronkhorst Spruit district.

pwe had to visit farms in; the area and decide on the amount of compensation to be paid out for damage ddne by the troops We put up for the night in the bushveld, at a farm o\vned by a man I knew. The farm* er asked me'- who -the very big Afrikaner officer was. who had visited the farm with Lord Methuen. I -replied that the latter had no. South African officer on his staff. I must be mistaken, the farmer said, ana proceeded to give an accurate description of Ironside. When I told him that the. officer was an Englishman, he- would not.tbelieve it: fbr, he said, *“Hte speaks ! Afrikaans just like a Boer.” Ironside was that rare mixture of man of action and keen student. Whenever one went into his quarters, he was either learning a . language pr studying the campaigns of the great masters of war. At the same time he was a great sportsman, and a genial companion at a social gathering a big, powerful man. about..6ft 4in in ,height,, with, a fine open face and cheery- manner. Hit A Long Ball

Ironside was by far the best golfer at Roberts Heights. He was on the scratch mark, and off the. tee. one of the longest hitters I have ever seen. ■ 'f/Y : . ...

With all. this he never let games or social engagements interfere with his work.or studies. In a day when a number of. British officers were out to have a good time, he took his profession very seriously. He has acquired his present high position purely by hard work, and merit. , He was very reserved about his secret service work in South-west Africa. I learned more about his activities later on, when I had wbrk to do in South-west Africa and on the Union border.

It was from information supplied by. him that the British military maps were drawn up for South-west Africa. Namaqualand, and the Richtcrsveld and Kalahari Deserts. For a long time he trekked about the borders of South-west Africa on an ox wagon, driving the sp,an himself and with only a native as leader.. Unreliable Guides When the Bondelswart rebellion broke out, I was sent to Steinkop with a column of mounted police to prevent the Union Hottentots joining their brothers across the Orange Rivej\ The Bastard leader in the RiebtersVeid" Desert, “Ryk” Jasper Cloete, was giving trouble. • A message was sent to him that that police' column was going to trek through the Richtersveld, but that he would not be interfered with if his,tribesmen did'not 3how opposition; He sent back the reply: '‘Only a baboon or a Hottentot can live in the Richtersveld; your horses and men will all die.”

I* had Ironside’s map with me, and also two Bastard guides, whom I did not trust very far, as they were both also named Cloete. It proved fortunate that we had a map and a prismatic compass, for on two occasions these guides tried to mislead us. Precious Information The information contained in the map proved to be absolutely accurate, the water holes exactly as Ironside had placed them, and the marginal notes laying down how many animals could be watered at each worked out to witnin a few gallons.

The Bastards remembered Ironside well, although 14 years had elapsed since ..his trek. They called him the ‘‘Boer Smous,” as he had posed as a trader up there. General Botha made use of Ironside's maps in the SouthWest campaign, and it was a continual wonder to us how Ironside had obtained such full information while working as a special service officer, The ,‘torie.s of his adventures in South-West during the Herero cam--03 ign .are well worth telling. lyome he i told me himself, some I learned from Other sources.

j It appears that the (British Government were very concerned at the reports which reached them of the number of trooDS and the amount of war material that the Gcrmans.were

pouring into South-West Africa. The frontier was closed and guarded, and very little information allowed to leak out.

Ironside volunteered to get into South-West Africa and obtain the necessary facts. He received the usual warning that, if discovered, his fate would be in his own hands.

He grew a -beard, dressed in farm clothes, purchased a span of oxen and a wagon, and treKked to the German border. There lie posed as a Transvaal Boer; who knew no Englisli and wished to .ride transport for ,the -German troops. He was duly hired and attached to a column operating in the disturbed area. But even a clever man may make mistakes in this kind of work. After a fortnight with the Germans he made a startling discovery. He had brought with him from Pretoria a mongrel dog to which he was very attached, and sitting at the camp fire one evening he tOund to his horror that he had forgotten to remove its collar, which bore a small brass plate engraved, “-Captain Ironside, Royal Horse Artillery.” Forur.ately, it was a rough-haired dog anc; nobody appeared to have noticed the inscription He carried on his work for some months, but then he began to realise that the "Germans, were getting suspicious of him. One night a German sergeant woke him suadenly and fired at him a question in English. Fortunately he kept his nerve and replied in Afrikaans, and then in tor.oken German, that he could not understand. Placet! Under Arrest Later on an officer tried the same trick, and again Ironside came through the test satisfactorily. He could not understand who or what had given him away, but he saw that it was time to think of escaping. He was too late. The very next day an officer placed him under arrest on a charge of being a spy. That night he was tied to a wagon wheel and a -sentry placed over him. But during the night the sentry slept, and a Hottentot whom Ironside had befriended crept under the wagon and cut loose hfe bonds.

He procured a haversack of food and a water bottle, and set a course for Rietfontein, a police post on the Union border. Ironside would never say muen about his trek, except that “it . was rather rough.” If he found it tough, to the average man it would have meant death. The next news of him was a helio message flashed down the line of police posts from Rietfontein; "European arrived here in exhausted state, alleges name is* Ironside, Imperial officer employed on special service, please verify and instruct.”

At last the Herero campaign came to an end. A party of Gorman officers, on their way back to Germany, arrived bt Capetown. At the same time Ironside arrived here on some duty connected with the Castle, he was invited to dine at Government House, and when he took his place at the table he found .sitting opposite to him the German officer who had placed him under arrest. Much-puzzled German

After dinner the German officer came up to him and said, “l think, captain, that we have met somewhere before?” Ironside replied. “I am sorry, I do not recollect the pleasure of having met you before.” "Oh, perhaps you were at one time an attache at the Embassy in Berlin?” ■‘No,” replied Ironside, “I was never an attache in Berlin, so it ?ould not have been there.” He could see'that the German was not satisfied, and for the rest of the evening kept looking at him, evidently most puzzled. At the beginning of the Great War, Ironside, on account of his knowledge of languages, was appointed to General French’s staff. He himself became a general and was appointed to Command the Army in North Russia, fighting the Bolsheviks. He had a strange mixture of troops under his command, including a number of White Russians.

Some of his trbops mutinied, killed .their officers, and joined the Reds. Later, a number of them were captured by Ironside’s army. He tried them by court-martial, and shot the lot.

Taking Risks

He is an iron disciplinarian, but soon gains the confidence of the troops under his command. Later on he commanded the troops in Persia and Irak, where he horrified his staff 'by the risks he took in going among the rebellious tribesmen without an escort.

Later again, when the risk of war breaking out in the Mediterranean became acute, he was sent out as Governor and Commander-in-Cluef at Gibraltar. It is an open secret n/ow that the defences of the Rock had been neglected, and that Ironside forced the Government to repair this neglect at once. He handed over the defences in perfect order when he left Gibraltar a short while ago to take over the duties of Inspector-General of British Oversea Forces.

It was a happy choice the British Government made when they sent him to Poland for staff talks with Polish headquarters. Polish is one of the many languages he speaks well, and he was thus able to address the Polish troops in their own language.