FAMOUS MEN PASSING

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5466, 26 August 1929, Page 2

FAMOUS MEN PASSING

ADMIRALS AND GENERALS. BEARING OF WAR WORRIES. The death is announced of Lord Horne, commander of the First Army in France in 1916. As those men whose names were household words ten or twelve years ago are joining the great majority one by one, it is but natural to think that they have come to an early and premature end, due to the hardships and worries of the worst-war history has even known (states the “Dominion”). Under the circumstances, it is interesting to see just how the Great War has treated her famous generals and admirals in this respect. One of the first to go was Admiral Fisher, who died in 1920. Although the war may have shortened his life to a certain extent, he died as a result of a serious operation at the ripe old age of 80 year. There were several rleaths of well-known service men in 1925, including Rawlinson, who died of appendicitis, and Sturdee, who succumbed to an obscure disease. Both were over 60 years old; in fact, Sturdee would have had only another five years to go to reach the standard span of three score years and ten. Haig died suddenly of heart failure in 1928, when sitting on the edge of his bed, at the age of 67 years, whilst Foch died after a long illness, after reaching the respectable age of 78 years.

Besides British generals and admirals, a dozen or so well-known soldiers and sailors of other belligerent countries have died since the war. All the better-known ones were over 60, and Kluck had passed even the 80year mark. Sarraill, Falkenhayn, Brousiloff, Cadorna, and the Grand Duke Nicholas were all round about 70 years old when they died. If we take the average for about a dozen well-known sailors and soldiers of all nationalities who have died since the war it works out at just under 72 years.

General Liman Von Sanders, the German Commandcr-in-Chief at Gallipoli, died on Friday last, at the age of 74. A number ■ of well-known soldiers taken at random from various periods before the war, from the time of Alexander the Great onwards, average out at 61 years of life. Alexander the Great died at the early age of 33 as a result of fever. It can be argued, however, that few generals to-day would emulate this greatest of all soldiers and indulge in an all-night drinking bout on the eve of a great military movement, thereby inviting death from fever* a few days later. Napoleon died of cancer at the comparatively early age of 52, whilst Caesar, who admittedly met a sudden end, lived only six years longer. After every war there always seems to be some well-known general who carries on well into the eighties. The first Duke of Wellington, for instance, born in exactly the same year as napoleon, died of nothing but old age at the age of 83. Clive died by his own hands of worry at the youthful age of 49, whilst the average life of men of Indian Mutiny fame, such as Ontram, Havelock, and others, was about 68 years. If any+hing, then, our war leaders shew a distinct advance in their longevity averages over other periods of history. As a matter of fact, the average expectation of life during the post-war period is only some 55 years. Considering the leaders of the last war who have died so far exceeded this by seventeen years or so, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the war period had very little effect in determining the life of most of the famous generals who took part in it. As if to bear this out, a series of statistics covering the postwar period show that physical strain, similar to that borne by soldiers in the trenches, had far more effect in shortening life than even the worst periods of mental stress borne by admirals, generals, mothers, sweethearts, and sisters.