A Veteran Recalled

Southland Times, Issue 24233, 17 September 1940, Page 4

A Veteran Recalled

Major-general Sir Andrew Russell is one of the most popular and distinguished figures in New Zealand military history. His outstanding services during the Great War, in which he commanded the New Zealand Division from 1915 onwards, were widely recognized, and in the years of peace and disarmament he retained the respect of the whole community as an authority on military affairs. In the period before the present war, as one of the founders of the New Zealand Defence League he helped to rouse the nation to a sense of its unpreparedness. If experience and length of service , were the only considerations, there could be no betterchoice for the position of InspectorGeneral of the Forces. But age is also a factor; and the public will learn with something of a shock that to fill this new position the Government has found it necessary to recall to the Army a veteran of 72 years. The authority that will be vested in the Inspector-Generalship has not yet been defined, but evidently it is to be a high, if not a supreme, position. Has the period of disarmament left such grave gaps in the Dominion’s military organization that no younger soldier can be found to fill it? Or is this the explanation—that a Cabinet which includes not a single returned soldier has found itself incapable of judging the qualifications of the younger men and has been forced to take refuge behind a name and a reputation? The answer is disquieting, whatever it is. For if there is one fact which has emerged plainly from the first year of the fighting in Europe, it is that this is a young man’s war. The last battle will be won by young men trained and directed by young officers with the abundant energy, adaptability and physical fitness that mobile warfare demands. It is a disturbing thought that in this country one of the major lessons of the war is being ignored and a veteran who should be able to continue living in honourable retirement has been recalled to active service.