BRUTAL WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 115, 8 October 1914, Page 2

BRUTAL WORK.

PRESENT WAR CONTRASTED WITH THE PENINSULA WAR. The German brigadier who—if cable speaks truly—has issued an order to his troops to take no more prisoners, but to put all who fell into their han;l« to the sword, whether armed or unarmed iv an, iiUerceting reversion to the savage man type (says the Lyttelton Times). After all, though, his order ia but carrying the stern business of war to its logical conclusions. Like the old American plainsman who believed that "the only good Indian is a dead one," and the Maori who could never understand the curious white map's fashion of knocking a foe down and then failing to finish him off, his methods would bring a war to speedy conclusion if they wore universally adopted. However, civilisation has other ideas on the ethics of warfare, and General Stringer's battle modes will be regarded by most people, combatants or stay-at-homes, as a relic of the Dark ( Ages scarcely fit for imitation, at any rate not by the Allies, to whom the mediaeval Prussian ewears to give no quarter. There is very little of chivalry in this war, certainly none on the side of the Germans, to whom the kid-glove fashion of fighting appeals not at all. By way of contrast to the brutal work of today it is a relief to turn to records of the great Continental wars of the past—those in which the Germans did not figure. In "The Soldiers Whdm Wellington Led," a companion volume to "The Sailors Whom Nelson Led," Mr Edward Fraser gives numerous instances of chivalry in battle o» the part of both British and French. The grim Wellington himself paid many courtesies to his gallant enemy, and it often happened In the Peninsular War that the outposts of the antagonists fraternised in Borne sort whon the hot day's work was done. This story is told of the fighting at Talavera: —"Frenchmen and Englishman mingled in frar'i goodfellowship without fear of suspicion, seeking shelter tp;, gethcr under the mulberry trees from the burning heat at Talavera. r The stream was muddy; in places it was bloody; at one place it formed a small, 1 stagnant pool. But that did not matter. The soldiers on both sides' were 1 hot, and parched with thirst. They laid aside their muskets and mixed together; 1 stooped down and drank Bid<» by side, helping one another hero and there, lending one another tin cups and panniI kins and exchanging flasks. 'A votrc santc, Anglais!' said some. 'Here's to you, Crappo!' was the reply." A num--1 ber of the foeman, it is narrated, were ab'e to talk to one another after a fashion, in a camp patois or lingua franca, used in-, both armies im dealing with the natives, about what had happened or would probably happen. For over two hours the men mingled, until suddenly the French bugles sounded the order to stand to arms, and the British bugles the recall. The French, our gallant enemies of

that day, our gallant comrades to-day, eould be chivalrous in tho fiercest fight. In the cavalry affair at Aideaponte, at the time of the El Boden action, near Ciudad Rodrigo, Captain Felton Harvey shared; ine had lost his right arm while leading his squadron in the brilliant charge of the 14th Light Dragoons at the close of the battle at Oporto. "As he now charged into the enemy well ahead of his men, a French Dragoon came at Ihim with his sabre raised on high to strike. The two met. and instinctively, to ward ofT the coming blow, Harvey raised th# stump of his right arm. The noble-hearted Frenchman saw the action and the maimed limb. Hold-

ing back his sword with a hasty effort, he lowered his sword to the salute and passed on." Such a measure of consideration need not be expected by any disabled British dragoon who may chance Uo encounter Scnoral Stringer's Pnis gians.

And this is a tale of Torres Vedras: Some of the French troops were about to kill a bullock. "The outposts," says Mr Fraser, "were bo near that we could see the French soldiers clearing their arms and lying about. The bullock broke loose and scampered towards the 92nd, one of whom Bhot it, whereupon the 92*<1 cut up their prire, in full view of the hungry and disappointed foes. Two French soldiers on that, waving white handkerchiefs by way of truce, cam* over with a message from their officer that he was sure the Scottish soldiers i were too generous to deprive his men of their only provisions, on which half the beef, witi some bread and a bottle of rum, was sent back." A very similar deed of generosity is recorded of the Maoris in the Waikato War, when a chief sent a canoe-load of potatoes and pumpkins and melons down the river to General Cameron, with some pretty compliments as from one warrior to another. The Maori like to see his "liglitmg friends," as he called him, in good fettle for the warpath. His enemy hungered and he gave him to eat. This again is not General Stringer's method.