WAR NOTES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 65, 19 March 1915, Page 2

WAR NOTES.

A DEMOCRACY OF ARMS. An enthusiastic account of new British armies, is published in tho American Field by a journalist who was afforded full opportunities of studying them by the War Office. “Englishmen,” he says, ‘cab it Kitchener’s Army, hut what 1 have seen is something far greater than an army. It is a democracy in arms.’ The writer continues: Here is tho village blacksmith, village parson, squire’s son, young farmer, miner, mechanic, factory hand, city clerk, artisan. college graduate, business man, doctor, lawyer, and tradesman. They have come of their own free will from cottage and castle to offer their lives to their country, for they know England’s cause' is just. These are the men who are going to crush militarism. When the task is accomplished those who are left will lay aside their khaki and guns and go back to their work just as quietly as they came. Yes, you will say : But what kind of soldiers do they make? The answer isy They are equal to the finest regular troops that England has over put in the field at any period of her history. That is not the snap judgment of a newspaper man; it is the deliberate opinion of professional soldiers, of white-haired generals, who have fought in, or seen, every war in tho last half century. Y r ou do not have to be in Aldershot long to realise that Kitchener's Army is as clean-lipped as it is clean-limbed. These men can be turned loose on Germany without fear of their doing anything that will tarnish their country’s name. They will outrage no women, plunder no property, nor will 1 they set houses on fire except as military necessity dictates. But God pity the men who have to face them with arms in their hands.