GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1788, 12 February 1918, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

UNBELIEVING PARMER. The farmers have been greatly helped by the tractors of the Food Production Department of the Board of Agriculture. Prejudices against their use are being gradually overcome. In Lincolnshire the matter has been settled by a public trial. A farmer made a bet of £lO that he would plough with horses more quickly and more cheaply than the work could be done with tractors. He was beaten* and like a sportsman, he paid up, the money being applied by the winner to local war charities. A COLONEL ON LEADERSHIP. A colonel was speaking of the groat essentials in leadership, and he gave them in this order: —(1) (Pre-eminently) being human, getting in touch with the men, and taking a personal interest in them, treating them as men, and not as mere machines; (2) knowing your jol), self-confidence inspiring coni lidence and courage in others; (3) determination and concentration, intensity of purpose; (4) a sane optimism, looking on the bright side, but with a due sense of proportion. THE TALLEST MAN IN THE ARMY. For many years (says a writer in the Evening Standard) Major Os'wald Ames, of the Second Life Guards, held the distinction of being the tallest 'man in the army. His exact height was Oft Oin., and as everybody knows, he rode, at the head of the Diamond Jubilee procession. Later he was easily surpassed by a private in the Grenadiers, who stood Oft. Sin. Now all records have again gone by the board, as it is understood that the son of the late lamented General Stanley Maude is exactly Oft. XOin. He is in the R.H.A. IMPERTURBABLE RATS. “Gunner,” writing in the Spectator, says there must be millions of rats destroyed on the battle front; in ■Prance by the gas. Apparently they rush to the surface when they smell the fumes, and die by thousands, yet before twelve hours are over the beggars are swarming just as thick as ever. One captain tells a story' of being out on a listening patrol, and not daring to move owing to the proximity' of an attentive sniper. All the time a huge rat was nibbling his packet of bread and cheese, and making indignant remarks to another rat that wanted to share in the feast. NEW SYSTEM OF OFFICER’S LEAVE. The military authorities are said to be contemplating the introduction of a new system in regard to officers’ leave from the western front. The scheme is to reduce the amount of ordinary leave granted in England and to extend the amount of ■ leave granted to camps and areas in France. The proposed change would not save transport accommodation, but possibly the authorities have come to the conclusion that a rest in France is better than a week’s feverish gaiety in England, and if the scheme is adopted, West End restaurants and theatres will suffer. WITH RIBBONS ROUND THEIR HATS. In the training of young American officers at a special camp in France each company is split into two classes of about 75 men each, and to facilitate identification in instruction every man wears a broad band of ribbon around his service belt, these ribbons denoting the particular branch of warfarq in which he is specialising —for there are special as well as general classes. Mach-ine-gun-to-bc-specicnlists wear a yellow ribbon, hand-grenade men an orange, ride-grenade men a red, bayonet experts a white, liquid-tire men a blue, and so on; while the good, old-fashioned, tried and true American rifleman have a band of green.

AN AMERICAN MAXIM. They have a way of putting things on the other side of the Atlantic, says the Westminster Gazette, that is sometimes inelegant, but always very much to the point. A maxim that is popular just now in America runs: “Don’t stuff your husband —'husband .your stuff!” The suggestion is above approach, and it may be useful to the next “publicity agent” who is mobilised for service in the food economy campaign. HARRY LAUDER’S HYMN. At. Camp Tupton, Long Island, New York, Mr Harry Lauder sang and made a speech to the officers and men. In the midst of the programme the soldiers shouted, “Sing us the “Wee House Among the Heather.” Lauder replied, “Aye, I’ll sing it; but it’s no song to me, it’s a hymn. I sang it to the boys before the battle of Arras. There were 15,000 Scots there then. Many of them are gone now.” 'When he sang the whole camp gathering joined in the chorus, FIRST AMERICANS TO jFALL. Corporal Gresham, Private Enright, and Private Hay,, were the first American soldiers to fall lighting in Europe in Hie cause of justice and liberty. The French general commanding the division to which the Americans in the French trenches’are attached made an eloquent speech at the graveside in honour of these gallant volunteers who’ gave their all to help France and her allies. Since then some American volunteers have fought side by side with our men near Cambrai. SOLDIERS’ ATTITUDE TO GERMANS. “Mark my words, sir, there’ll be lots of crime in'England when the boys some back from France.” Thus an invalid soldier to his host. The host, says the Daily Graphic, professed astonishment — “What do you mean?” “I mean that the things we have seen with our own eyes have made thousands of us vow that if, when we get home, we ever meet a German in England, we’ll strangle him on (he spot. “What have I seen? Well, I could tell you —no, 1 simply couldn’t describe the horrors I have witnessed. Weak as 1 am to-day, if I knowingly met a German out in the streets of London I’d do my best to kill him.”