MAN WHO IS TO LEAD CANADA’S NEW ARMY

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 303, 23 December 1939, Page 8

MAN WHO IS TO LEAD CANADA’S NEW ARMY

Shells Are Price of Victory, Not Lives NO “BRASS HAT” No hard-boiled militarist, Canada’s first soldier believes in paying for victory with shells before lives. The following pen picture of the man who is to lead Canada’s Army in the war against Nazi Germany, is written by Grattan O’Leary i& Maclean’s Alagazinc. To the military world he is MajorGeneral A. G. L. McNaughton. C. 8., C.M.G., D. 5.0.; Commander of the First Canadian Division; Commanderelect of any Corps that will take the Maple Leaf to the second World War. To his friends he is just “Andy,” a gallant, engaging, companionable figure, as unlike a Prussian militarist as sunshine is unlike shadow; a simple, unassuming, kindly man who is a civilian and a democrat to the core of him, hating fuss and feathers and gold and glitter, taking his recreation by building for his children the latest in mechanical toys. It is not that he lacks that indefinable thing called “colour.” Met in the street, or in a club, or at a dinner party, “Andy” McNaughton compels attention; not through affectation, or practiced showmanship, or superficial cleverness, but by the very simplicity and intensity of his nature. Here, one is made to feel, is someone who is different, someone who has knowledge and convictions with power to express an courage to maintain them, plus a penetrating understanding of his fellowmen, a great compassion and pity. Soldier, scientist, mathematician, inventor, author, he is entirely without “side”; hates posturing, despises humbug. Thirty years a soldier—he joined the Militia away back in 1909—he has never been professionalised. To the Great War he went as a major (at the age of twenty-seven). No “Brass Hat” or Chocolate Soldier, he was in the thick of the fighting, got wounded, got decorated for bravery—was given a C. 8., a C.M.G., a D. 5.0., made a :rigadier-general while but thirty-one. Sir Arthur Currie, who knew a soldier when he saw one, admired him; gave him the “shows” which called for brains and courage; spoke, in after-war years, of the good work of “Andy” McNaughton. Adequate Preparation Vital. It is the clue to McNaughton’s character to his philosophy as a soldier. What it means—or once meant—in practice has been set down by McNaughton himself in a memorable article which he wrote for the Canadian Defence Quarterly in 1933. Telling of the capture of Valenciennes, and describing it as the last major prearranged attack of the Great War in which the Canadian Corps was engaged, he wrote of the battle as “one of the best examples of the employment of masses of artillery in support of infantry,” adding that the purpose was: “To pay the price of victory, so far as possible, in shells, and not in the lives of men.” Again and again, in the course of his brilliant narrative, McNaughton returns to this thought. He stresses that attack without adequate preparation (as some urged) “would have invited failure,” and adds: “Even had success attended our troops, inevitably a bloody price would have been paid.” McNaughton, humanitarian first and soldier afterward, would not pay in blood. Instead, as General Officer Commanding Canadian Corps Heavy Artillery, he insisted on complete, overwhelming artillery preparation; years afterward could look back on the scene in memory and write: “The task laid on the ability of the Corps Commander had been discharged; the Canadian Corps had paid for victory, decisive, farreaching and complete, as he had ordered —‘in shells and not in life: ” Counter-Battery Tactics. And McNaughton, in France, was more than the heroic, brilliant, humanitarian soldier. He was the scientist, the mathematician, the inventor of a device which all but revolutionised artillery warfare. Let one of the volumes of “Canada and the Great War” tell the story: “Probably the most remarkable feature of the Canadian Corps Heavy Artillery was the counter-battery work, in no corps of the British Army was this feature so fully developed . . . The credit must go to BrigadierGeneral A. G. L. McNaughton, who organised and developed the counterbattery office at Canadian Corps Headquarters. No other corps had such effective machinery for employing its neavy artillery in robbing the enemy Df the effective use of his artillery, and all this machinery was created by General McNaughton. For each enemy battery a crime sheet was prepared, which gave its position, the targets which it generally shelled, the number Df rounds it fired, the various punishments it meted out . . . The means used to locate these various batteries were many and varied; airplanes and photographs were most useful, but not always infallible. Sound-ranging instruments were most effective under favourable conditions and were extraDrdinarily accurate. The intersection of flashes was of much value, and sometimes a battery was spotted by direct observations on the ground.” Home from the war, still in his thirties, McNaughton was made Director of Military Training in the National Defence Department; then Deputy Chief of the General Staff; then District Officer Commanding in Victoria, 8.C.; then Chief of the General Staff. Sandwiched in with these posts were attendances at the Staff College Course A Cairo message says King Farouk made a gift of £IOOO to tho Christmas fund for the entertainment of British and Egyptian troops.

tn England during 1921, at the Imperial Defence College in England in 1926-28. It is no secret that the British War Office would have kept him in England. No secret as well that the British War Office would gladly take him to-day. Scientist-soldiers like “Andy” McNaughton do not grow on trees. At Heart a Civilian. Yet McNaughton, a soldier’s soldier, more familiar with guns than most men are with prayers, a student of everything that has been written of war, and of all the great figures of all the great wars of the past, is at heart a civilian. He knows the story of government, the background and meaning of government; knows the history cf liberty; knows—and has a passion for—democracy. It is in science—science for its own sake and for the sake of what it may bring to mankind—that he lives. One to find this out was R- B. Bennett. Bennett couldn’t work with colleagues; he could work with officials who had brains. He admired McNaughton, used him when he was Chief of Staff; praised his organising skill; ultimately made his President of the National Research Council. Ottawa said then that McNaughton was No. 1 man of Bennett’s “Brain Trust ” What Ottawa didn’t know was that Bennett trusted and admired McNaughton because McNaughton was one of the few men who “stood up” to him. The pomp and circumstance of power could never hold terror for “Andy” McNaughton. Thus the man that Prime Minister Mackenzie has selected to lead the Canadian forces. It is not a party selection." Andy” McNaughton, cradled on the prairie soil of Saskatchewan, up to the summits by the right of sheer intellect, is no creature of politics, never will be. There will be no politics under his command. No favouritism or trafficking in promotions. No social caste or class. He will lead hi: democratic army as a democrat; lead it with skill, knowledge and organising genius; lead it most of all as a humanitarian, with understanding and sympathy, resolved to buy victory “with shells and not with lives.”