Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JUNE 8th, 1917. A FRIENDLY CRITIC.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 June 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JUNE Bth, 1917. A FRIENDLY CRITIC.

Tub American correspondent,. Mr. Frank H. Smionds, writing to a State journal on \\ nr Aspects lie has seen, indicates that ho was intensely impressed by what ho saw of'tho llrit- . ish Army, “in all things that are ' considered the machinery of an army the British have now passed both the Germans and the French. Their equipment, their armoury of heavy artillery, their stocks of munitions, are unequalled, and the soldiers a.v, eared for and provided lor as are no other troops about whom I know anything. In tlie first battles the. British faced heavy artillery and ma'ehine'gmis with held artillery rifles, they were destitute of all utensils of trench war and the Tommy was eompellen m manufacture his bombs out of meat tins. To-day the British have <i« many trench weapons as the Germans, and many of their best weapons, the products of 'American invention, surpass those of their opponents.. Nor can one fail to realise how many thousands of motor trucks have been brought over, and what a wealth” of transport has been assembled. "Whole new railways have been created ana old Freineli lines have been doubletracked. Calais and •Boulogne nave become industrial cities given over to army work and Havre . out-ranks Liverpool as a port of call for British ships.” On the British army, Mr. Siinonds continues. “One might say that it reminds an American of all that he lias heard of the Army of the Potomac when - Grant came to it in 1861. It is a volunteer army largely commanded by civilian officers, with its high commanders drawn from the >mi regular army, but proven by a long test and representing a survival of the fittest. It represents in rank and file the best of* tlie manhood not alone of the United Kingdom, Imt of Canada and Australia. 1 do mot think that anyone would claim for.this army the" military efficiency that belonged to the German army that entered Belgium in August 1914; I do not believe anyone would claim for its staff and army commanders quite me combination of ability and training which belonged to the army that halted the Germans at the Marne and made the battle of the Marne tho greatest battle in all French history. In the same way one would not have compared Grant’s army with the army, of Moltke which six years later disposed of the French Imperial forces But tho new British army is something of the same thing that Grant's army was; it is an immense sledgehammer. made up of men coming from tlie best manhood of tho nation, and the Germans have already lost’ their best troops in battle. It is a volunteer army, btcause the troops raised by conscription have only just began to cross the Channel, and it is a volunteer army led by men who hav 0 experience of more than two years oi war and its ranks are filled with tho | survivors of all th© battles from Mona to Baupaume; it is a veteran army. I For two years the men in the ranks |

have fought off the Gormans and held on while they lacked all resoiiio ~ oi ' madern warfare wliicji belonged to iGermany; they have opposed bodies i to shells and rifles to machine guns. I Having for this long time successfully j held on, they are now conscious ui j having a superiority ip all that umoi- j inery means in war and there remains the spirit of tho men who died at Ypres when the odds were five to one and the losses approached actual »u----nihilir-tion.”