WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 149, 19 November 1914, Page 7

WAR NOTES.

THE BRITISH BAYONET. WHAT THE GERMANS FEAR. ' Throughout the war, the Germans, in 'spite of their enormous formations, the fatal magnificence of their operations, the 6ize of their armaments the capacity of the destructive engines, the rapidity and precision of their movements, the gigantic surprises of their terrific guns, have never really "got home" in their furious attacks upon the British. Why ■was it that the Germans were ever foiled of what constitutes victory? The answer, given by a London newspaper, is "the bayonet." The telegrams of the Kaiser to Potsdam were not so very much exaggerated. He had well nigh encircled the British force, his numbers were overwhelming, by all the rules of war he had done what he had said, of it was just being done; but he omitted one factor, the bayonet. Military science, muniments of war, the precision in their use did all that they could, all that they ever claimed to do, yet with suc- , cess in reach, they did not put out their I* hands to seize it, because they would not come to conclusions with the bayonet. What the short-pointed sword was Ito the Romans—the most deadly of all their weapons, as former German tribes j realised to their cost—the bayonet is to the British.

A corporal of the South Lancashire Regiment said: "They (the Germans) have a trick of throwing masses of cavalry at our infantry when they are advancing in an exposed position or in a retreat. They tried it on as often as they could, hut what they don't seem able to get over is the quiek way in which the smallest part of our infantry will turn round and give them the bayonet. At first they come on all swagger, thinking they arc going to cut our men down, but when they began to see what our chaps were up to, they weren't so keen on keeping it up. I have seen them coming with great bluster and bounce until the order, 'Prepare to receive cavalry,' was carried out in the old British way, and then they took to their heels as fast as their horses could carry them."

The present struggle has witnessed more bayonet work in one clay than was seen in one whole campaign in the Napoleonic days. Even military theories do not always take into account the whole anatomy of man. There is the old Adam in him, an overwhelming thirst to come to close grips. However done up a Britisli soldier mav be he can always raise a cheer at the words, ."Now lads, give them the bayonet."