“MEREST MARES’ NESTS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 171, 10 October 1927, Page 1

“MEREST MARES’ NESTS”

STORIES OF INSULT TO ANZACS SENSATION CAUSED” IN ENGLAND THOUGH they are now described as the merest mares’ nests, the stories from Australia of official belittlement of the Australians at Gallipoli have aroused a great sensation in England. The English newspapers are seeking the source of the story. It is pointed out that, far from belittling the Anzacs, the War Office history gives them more praise than does the Australian record of the war.

By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright.

Reed. 9.5 a,m. LONDON, Sunday. Brigadier-General J. E. Edmonds, Director of the Historical Section of the War Office, interviewed by the "Observer,” said: “General Sir John Monash must have been misrepresented. I have read practically every book and magazine article dealing with the war which has appeared. There is nothing to justify what he is represented as saying, namely: ‘This is just another of those depreciations appearing periodically in England about the Australian soldiers.’ “The alleged extracts such as ‘The Australians were a disorganised • rabble’ have not

the slightest resemblance to anything in the official history. It is incomprehensible how such an extra ordinary miscon c e p t i o n could have arisen and it should be ‘scotched’ immediately.” The history of the Gallipoli campaign was writter by Brigadier-Gen-

eral C. F. Aspinall, a member of Sir lan Hamilton’s staff, and Chief of the General Staff at the evacuation of the Dardanelles. A copy of the first draft was sent to Australia for the senior participating officers to see If it contained anything objectionable or disagreeable. The official says he had a letter from Mr. C. E. W. Bean, official war correspondent for the Commonwealth, in which the writer expressed satisfaction with the draft and called it fine, frank and clear. Mr. Bean added: “Any amendments of mine would be too small to be worthy of notice.” The director continues: “As a matter of fact, the British narrative is far more laudatory of the Australians than the Australian narrative.” BRITAIN A PROUD FATHER "The attitude of Great Britain toward Australia is that of an intensely proud father, who is far prouder of the deeds of his children than of his own deeds,” says the “Observer” editorially. “Any Australian who can imagine that the Anzacs’ part in the Great War has been a subject of depreciation here must be extraordinarily out of touch with British opinion. The statements of General Sir John Monash and Major-General Sir John Gellibrand make the readers here rub their eyes. “It is impossible that such disparagements as they indicate could have appeared even in the roughest of drafts. It is astonishing that any responsible person should not immediately have detected the absurdity of the story. It is most regrettable that inflamed comment should have passed without investigation of its origin.” “TWO AND TWO TOGETHER” Sir lan Hamilton says: “My opinion of the Australian troops stands open

to all in my official cablegrams and dispatches. General Sir John Monash knows it well. I have no second thoughts. The Melbourne “Herald” is quoted as having started the rumours. “I would like to point out,” continues Sir lan, “that an Australian civil' journalist was once given. my permission to visit: the Dardanelles. After a remarkably brief stay he went to London and there, under Lord Northcliffe’s direction, he wrote a letter .for submission to the Prime Ministers of Britain and Australia. “In 'this occurred such phrases as the following: ‘Sedition is talked around every tin of bully-beef on the peninsula,’ and ‘after the first day at Suvla an order, had to be issued to officers to shoot without mercy any soldier lagging behind or loitering.’ Let me leave it at that. The Australians may be trusted to put two and two together.’ ’’ The extraordinary outburst from Australia has frankly puzzled some of the newspapers, which publish under the heading of “War History Sensation” interviews with General Monash, Mr. Bean, Major-General Sir John GelMbrand, Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, Mr. Stanley Bruce and Mr. Wm. Hughes, cabled from Australia. “UTTERLY ABSURD” Wherever the trouble has arisen. how;ever, it is clear that official and newspaper opinion in England dismisses it as utterly absurd. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” who is in very close touch with official quarters, says it is most difficult to understand how the statements, quite wrongly attributed to the official historian, have been disseminated.

It is hoped that inquiries will throw light on the source, for such explosions of indignation are none the less harmful even though they are groundless. Any mention of straggling in the official draft, hardly goes as far as Mr. Bean himself. The correspondent proceeds to quote a passage from Mr. Bean’s story. He concludes (hat in any case the Australians established, such an unassailable record :ln the four years of the war that they, least of any, should wish to pretend that the moral exhaustion of a percentage of stragglers was unknown on the battlefield even among the Australians. —A. and N.Z.Sun.