NEW ZEALAND'S WAR EFFORT

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10289, 26 May 1919, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S WAR EFFORT

-; —, _'♦ WABM.AAGERIOAN TRIBUTE. The "Christian ScitVioe Monitor," in a recent issue, pays the following warm tribute to New Zealand's war etfort:—: Germany ihas no rival in history as a maker of gigantic "miscalculations. Of all her miscalculations the'gre'atest and the most disastrous was that about the British Empire; and no feature of that blunder is more prominent than her mistake about the Dominions. They were ripe-fruit in her eyeß,' to beshaken off by the first' breeze of adversity, and their military value in a. great war .was nothing," or ' next to'" nothing. _ JThe world knows'well how, in a general way, bow completely this estimate has been falsified, but from time .to time new are published that throw fresh and bright light on. this very interesting phase of the war. Among these is the paper that the New Zealand Government recently issued, giving very full details of the Dominion's war effort, landfrom whioh it is learned that Out of a population of only 1,100,000, New Zealand. mobilised for service overseas 124,000 men, and that of tihe 100,000 who were sent abroad, over 16,000 laid down their lives. Sensible people in the Dominions deprecate much- comparison between the war achievements of these countries: they are ready to give praise where it is due, arid to consider that all the Dominions played as members of a gigantic team, for the good of their side. But Now Zealand may fairly oloim to have a military record which, taken as a whole, Lj not equalled by that of any of her sisters. She is the most remote Dominion, but she mobilised over 11 per cent, of her'population, and, thanks to the supremacy of the British and Allied-navies, sent more than 9 per cent, overseas. _ , -' Nothing could show better than this record;the quality of the.ities that bind the Dominions to the Motherland. The dispatch of troops overwaa was entirely a voluntary act on New Zealand's part. Throughout the war Britain never said "you must" in respect to the raising of armies; when the crisis came, in March, 1918, and men were urgently wanted to

fill the gaps caused by the .German offensive, the Imperial Government issued a request, nob an.order, for mora troops. The quality of the New Zealand troops has been first class, and tiheir fame is world wide and secure. They earned their name first of all on the slopes of Gallipoli, and New Zealandera hare the satisfaction of: knowing now, highest authority, that.the sacrifices there were not in. vain,. With the Australians and the British—the Anzaos never forget the immortal 28th DivisiDn of British Regulars—'lllo7 broke the flower of the Turkish Army, and helped to mako possible the distant victories of • Baghdad and--Palestine. In France they. won new fame—on tb» Somme, near Ypres, in the stopping of the great German rush *of March of last year, and in the offensive that brought the German Empire to the dust. In the last days of -the struggle they won oneof the most romantic and picturesque victories of the war by capturing the old fortified town of Le Quesnoy, linking the most remote Dominion, in this ago of aeroplanes and "tanks," with the time of Vauban. It is known to some New Zealanders on high authority that the British Army High Command ranked the New Zealand Division as one of the best four divisions in the Army. What the other three were one is left *b guess. In this excellent company the New Zealanders' fame will live and flourish. The thing that should enter most deep- • ly into the German consciousness is that these men. who met the best German troops and defeated them, were, like their British cousins, amateur soldiers. They were civilians who. after a fewmonths' training, showed themserW* worthy to be ranked with the finest soldiers the world has ever produced.