The Man Who Couldn’t Be Killed

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 956, 26 April 1930, Page 20

The Man Who Couldn’t Be Killed

Amazing Adventures of Major-General Seely .. . The D’Artagnan of Our Own Day . . . An Adventure with Ramsay MacDon<dd . .. I DVEN'TURES are to the adventurous and of these Major-General J. E. Seely- has had a rate yTraKT3U banquet —one indeed to ■fr gate the appetite of a D Artacnan. To D’Artagnan, indeed, the Earl of Birkenhead compares him in the introduction which he has contributed to General Seely's book, ’’Adventure,” just published. To some Dumas of the future he com mends the general's career as that of one "as gallant, debonair and often as rash” as the hero of “The Three Musketeers.” Despite incessant efforts to get killed, General Seely is unkillable —long may the charm last. Each of the elements —earth, air, tire, and water —has, he writes, threatened me in turn. I have been drowned and revived by artificial respiration; fallen a greater distance than is thought possible for survival, and yet still live; faced a hostile rifle at 15 yards, when a miss was impossible. and been unaccountably spared; experienced a hurst petrol tank at 1,000 feet in mid-air, yet not been burned to death; and over and over again on the Western Front have found myself alone unharmed when every one of those around me has been killed or wounded. As a schoolboy young Seely fell over the cliffs at Brighstone. At Harrow he tied a Union Jack on the top of the steeple. In Switzerland he was t un away with and saved by a miracle from destruction on the very edge of a precipice. While at Cambridge he joined the Hampshire Yeomanry, worked hard to make himself an efficient officer, and when the vicissitudes of the Boer War took the country by surprise went out to South Africa in command of a squadron of cavalry. He began well by stealing Lord Kitchener's Indian cooks. For refusing to quit a position he was eourtmartialled and reprimanded and congratulated by the court! In the course of the campaign he made one of the bad shots of his life —an historical one—by missing his mark at }5 yards range: [ make this one confident claim to distinction —that I made the luckiest bad shot for the British Empire that any man has made! For the horseman was Botha himself! He was reconnoitring his enemy’s front before making his desperate and successful effort to break

through. It was General Seely who subsequently recommended King Edward to make Botha a general in the British Army, advice that was acted upon. In a dramatic passage he tells how his life was spared by a Boer. The Boer aimed at him at 12 yards range.

Then an extraordinary thing happened. The man lowered his rifle, looked me straight in the eyes, turned round and walked away. . . .

He was sorry for a young Englishman thus surprised, and out of sheer good nature decided not to kill me.

In August, 1914, Geueral Seely went to France as a liaison officer between Sir John French and the French Army. He saw much of the early fighting. German troops were actually in occupation of St. Quentin when he slipped past the sentries, with Sir John French’s gold pencil, which he had recovered from a house in the town. The explanation of his escape was that the Germans were asleep from exhaustion. He was challenged only once. In 1914 Mr. Ramsay MacDonald visited France and, to quote General French, was arrested by some idiot at Dunkirk. The commander-in-chief sent Seely to restore him to liberty, and with the Prime Minister-to-be as his companion set off toward Dixmude. Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a battle with rifle and machine-gun fire flying round them.

Tlie bonnet, wind-screen and mudLiards were hit, but the car kept going,

and by great good fortune neither of us was touched, I stopped the car just short of Liserne Bridge, by a low bank, which just, but only just, screened us from machine-gun fire. I said, "Tumble out, Ramsay, we must get into this ditch on the side of the road,” which we accordingly did in double-quick time. Booking over the bank I saw the French front line about 400 yards in front of us across the canal. The German front line was clearly to be seen about 200 yards beyond. At that moment a number of batteries of French 75’s opened a tremendous rapid fire on the German trenches. Simultaneously the French infantry rose and ran forward. Everyone hates being left alone in it fight, so I shouted to Ramsay MacDonald to follow me, ran across the bridge with him and jumped breathlessly into a support .trench full of French soldiers.

From General Seely we learn that the Labour leader behaved with the utmost coolness, and even rushed to go forward to assist two wounded men.

i instead of retiring. General Seely i records a conversation long after the war with General von Kluck, whose I appointed role was the capture of i Paris:

Von Kluck was altogether charming and paid the most glowing tribute to the valour of our Expeditionary Force that I hate ever heard. "Nevertheless,” he said, "if I had had a blind eye and a deaf ear like your Nelson at Copenhagen. I could have entered Paris, and I know now that had I done so we should have won the war.”

For three years General Seely commanded the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, and gives it as his reasoned opinion that cavalry saved the British Army from disaster not only in the retreat of 1914, but also in the retreat of March, 1918. Here is an amusing story in which General Currie figured. The general was explaining that Seely's mine was in the wrong place.

At this Corporal Foghorn MacDonald (who was i?i civil life a Canadian mining -Xpert) said these astonishing words. "Look here, old man Currie, you don't know the first tiling about mines. I have forgotten more about them that you will ever know. You may say what you like about the rest, but don’t you try coming

it over me about tlie mine, jilst because you are the stud duck in this puddle." To Currie’s eternal honour, instead of placing my eccentric friend under arrest, lie burst out laughing and said, "Well, that has broken the spell, anyway/’

One point General Seely insists upon is that as a preliminary to attack the commander-in-chief himself should survey the ground from the front line. The sacrifices in life paid for slight advances in our front line he holds to have been altogether unjustified. There was too much anxiety to do something without regard to the value of the thing achieved in relation to the price paid. Promotions, honours, rewards, were showered upon General Seely, hut the thing he valued most was the affection of his men, and to them he finely dedicates his book.