BACK FROM EGYPT.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 April 1919, Page 6

BACK FROM EGYPT.

RETURNED MOUNTED MEN.

CAMPAIGN EXPERIENCES.

THE FATE OF THE HORSES.

Mounted men who had seen every ■phase'Of New Zealand's share of the Eastern campaign, from Gallipoli to Jerusalem, were among troops brought back to the Dominion by the Kaikoura, These "five-bar" men fought the Turk during four strenuous years. They took part in battles that are now famous and in scores of minor engagements, of which the Empire at large has heard scarcely anything. They saw the -failure, or apparent failure, of Gallipoli, retrieved by Allenby's decisive victory, which definitely and finally wrecked the military power of Turkey, and left Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia as prizes in the hands of the Allies.

The veterans of the New Zealand Mounted Unmade can tell many thrilling fctorii'S. A certain politician, a yeai- or two ago suggested in public that the mounted men from Egypt ought to be "sent to France to relieve the infantry." That remark, with its implication that the N.Z.M.R. was having a soft time in a safe place, was read in three-month-old newspapers by men , who were enduring heat, thirst, fatigue, «nd malaria as they pushed the Turks back across th e desert and cleared the way for the big efforts of the campaign. "We passed the paper round the squadrons, and wished we had the chap with us." said one of the tropers. "At that time we were well in the desert. We had a bottle of ■water a day for each section —a quart--ter of a bottle per man. Each horse was allowed a gallon a day. Our tongues used to swell and our saddles slipped on our poor, lean horses. There were tremendous marches to be made over the sand, with a poisoned well as the goal of a march. When the Turks stood up to us, there was no question of digging in, bringing up artillery, and so forth. We had pushed on, mounter troops across open country against rifle fire. The wounded generally had to go back on horses or camels, and they might have to be tossed and shaken for days before they reached hospital beds. I am not

saving -that the job was any -worse than the infantry's job, but it most certainly was no picnic. s '

TUKL: HOT A SPORTSMAN.

The Turk has been called by some a clean lighter. The mounted men are i not disposed to endorse the tribute in any general sense. They admit that j the Turk can tight well under his own ! conditions. He often fought well , even in the closing weeks of the cam- , paign, when Allenby's swift-moving : brigades were harrying the scattered remnants of the enemy armies. But | he is more than suspeeted of ill-treat- j ing prisoners and the wounded; he I has poisoned wells and he is villain- j ously cruel to animals.. " The Turk j might be a better man fighting his I own fight than he is fighting for Ger- j manv under German officers," was the I verdict of a group of returned New Zealanders. "We found him Under German rule, and he did not impress us as being a sportsman. Some of the things he did were black crimes. Our men were less inclined" to take prison- I i ers in 1918 than they Mfl been in -19165 though the smashing of the one- j my armies forced us to flood our lines > with prisoners last year," , TfrQ rate of "the Now Zealand horses | <3&ft in Egypt and Palestine is a sub- j ject on which the returned men speak I with anxiety. They are not satisfied ] jvith the official assurances that the 1 future of these animals is being guard 1 od. Several troopers remarked that they thought all horses not required j for Army purposes by the Imperial I authorities ought to have been shot, j If the animals are going to b? sold to I civilians —and it appcais that some of them have been so sold already— j there can be no real assurance thai J they will not eventually find their way j into the hands of the natives. j THE NATIVE WAY. j And the natives' way of handling , horses make a. New Zealand, boy's j ■blcod boil. "The niggers keep their j horses both short of food and water, I and they drive them with the whip j and not with the reins" said a j trooper wearing the 1914 ribbon, "They ! use a long whip, and they can reach I right round a horses's head to the , shoulder. They keep the whip going! nil the time. It is the Crudest thing j I have ever seen in my life, for there j is no end to the pain and fright. I have punched a black driver to mak > I him drive properly, and have forced J him. to abandon the whip fcr a time, j bet the fellows can't drive without the j whip. They have no other system, and | they have got horses into such a spirit- I leS:; and broken condition that the poor i brutes slacken down directly they are Out of pain. I saw in Cairo an Australian trooper shoe* " horse in the s trof>t with his revolver. He said it was his oVI horse, and he had found it beinsr driven by a native in the sort of vr'"- 1 "- +hi, f dors duty for a cab there. j %,,_ . _.,„ <r!ad whenever an ord<r 1 c 1 '"Ot horses the arn:i > v *. it was mi-o able work.