THE LAST OF DONOP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1673, 10 February 1917, Page 4

THE LAST OF DONOP.

A HALDANE APPOINTMENT

Home files recently to hand give some particulars of the resignation of Major-General Sir S. B. Von Donop, Master-General of Ordnance since 1912. This much-criticised individual with the German sounding name was appointed by the Kaiser’s bosom friend, Lord Haldane, as Mas-ter-General of Ordnance in December, 1912, two years before the outbreak of war, having joined the War Office as assistant director of artillery in October’, 1910. When Mr Lloyd George became Minister for Munitions, Mr Henry Dalziell, in the House of Commons, proposed that the Ordnance Department should he placed under Mr Lloyd George’s control, and declared emphatically that the blame for the shell shortage that nearly lost Britain the war lay with Von Donop. It is worthy of note that no Minister in the House denied the statement. Subsequently Lord Haldane went out of his way to praise Von Donop as one of the ablest men in the army, and declared that his loss would be irreparable. Lord Haldane backed up bis argument by professing to disclose some of the confidential proceedings of (he Munitions Committee of the Cabinet.

Mr Lloyd George promptly declared Lord Haldane’s statement to be “incomplete and inaccurate..” Matters were smoothed over later by the office of Master of Ordnance being subordinated to Mr Lloyd George—and the country got the shells. It would be interesting to know something more of the antecedents of General Von Donop, and also some particulars as to bow lie came to be pitchforked into the important position of Master of Ordnance by Lord Haldane. Von Donop’s successor, General William Thomas Fur.se, was an aide-de-camp to Lord Roberts during the Boer War, and has been at the front since the commencement of the war, and is one of the greatest authorities on artillery that Britain possesses.