PHANTOM BRITISH GUARDS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 9 March 1917, Page 5

PHANTOM BRITISH GUARDS.

SPECTRAL RESERVES ON THE AISNE. That the poetic but wholly fictitious story of “the Angels of Mons” has a serious rival in the tale of “The Brit* ish Dragoon Guards Reserves’’ is dis* closed by, Captain Norman G. T-hwaites, M.C., late of the 4th Dragoon Guards, and formerly of the New York World staff, who was wounded at the battle of the Aisne, and is now oh leave in the United States. The captain, in describing his remarkable interviews with German officer prisoners of war in'ah English' camp, states that he talked with the senior officer, whose rank entitles him to rule the camp under the British •ommandant.

He had been taken near Ypres, says Captain Tbwaites, during the terrible five days when little army,” depleted by one-third, faced the flower of the Gorman army urged on to by the War Lord himself. The culminating attack by tw r o whole , German divisions was made against | one cavalry brigade, which lost 40 j per cent, of its total in five days, j I was greatly interested when this Prussian officer informed me'That he had been separated from his comrades and had run into a trench full of Br: - ish cavalrymen, for from the date of his capture and the account he gave of the events of the day I gathered he and I must have be°n very near to each other that noisy November day. | I was eager for a piece of infonni ation. I I “How was it,” I asked, “That the | Germans did not got through that day? , The British were retiring slowly and j stubbornly, and a vigourous pursuit; I would have made a sauve qui pent of it. j We thought we were scuppered, sure.” | ‘Well, I’tell you.” lie said. “When , the British occupied the prepared treni ches outside the town we advanced in j force, but the Dragoon Guards held us | up a long time. They had a good field { of fire and we could not make headway, j They spoiled our game. Then when we j did manage to get some of the French | trenches on the right of the cavalrymen | we saw your enormous reserves and had i to wait for our supports to come up.” STILL A MYSTERY, j I was amazed. “Reserves!” I exj claimed/- “Why we had no reserves. 1 We had . not even any supports that i amounted to anything. Several days passed before any considerable number, i of troops were able to assist us.” ! Now this statement of the prison I ♦' i i commander was of rather weird interj est. After the pretty but wholly fictitious story of the angels of Mons, j which originated in a poetic concepj tion of Arthur Machen, there went from mouth to mouth the story of the heroes of Agincourt who -har arisen from the ancient battlefields where their bones, had lain, these 500 yea ) rs, and in their thousands had faced the invaders of Prance and Flanders. The wise and unpoetic sneered at the fantastic conception, but some sort of explanation for the German halt in the midst of their victorious stride during those early days of November, 1914, has still to be offered. My friend the prisoner of war was merely confirming the evidence given by numerous prisoners of those strenuous days who persistently talked of reserves described behind our thin and tortured lines. Whatever the explanation, th e fact remains that by some optical illusion the Prussian commanders were led to believe-that the further advance of their troops were fraught with danger and th£ trenches held that day by the British are still in their possession.