MAGNIFIECENT FEAT OF ARMS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 225, 2 March 1915, Page 6

MAGNIFIECENT FEAT OF ARMS.

; COVERING BELGIAN RETREAT. ANOTHER THERMOPYLAE. History will one day do justice to the magnificent feat of arms accomplished by the 25,000 British troops under Major General Bawlinson, who was sent to j Ostend just before ihe fall of Antwerp. It was not their fault that they woe too late to save the Belgian fortress. To them it fell to cover the retreat of the Belgian Army and the remnants of our naval brigade. The story of their deeds is probably unknown to DO per cent, of the British people', but it is one that rivals the deathless epic of Thermopylae. They fought a rearguard action" with 80,000 Germans on their sea Hank and about 300,000 pressing on their heels. They made a forced march of 2S miles one night after fighting' and retreating all day. The overwhelming German artillery shelled them out of two successive lines of trenches. But the third they held against all odds until the recent advance began. They lost 00 per cent of the'r strength, 80 per cent, of their indomitable infantry. Itiit they are officially estimated to have nut 200.080 Germans out of action. That is the bald story of a feat of arms that .challenges comparison with anything in the records of war. It deserves to be better known than the retreat from Mons. The heroes who died hard in that episode of the western cat-paign are the men who held up the German advance on Calais, and they, sacrifice'] their lives as truly in the defence of English hearths and homes as though their valiant bones were interred in battlefields on the Southern. Downs. Some vivid details'have been given by one who' tool; a modest part in the "rim adventure. He is a city man with a university degree, who was ten years with a commission in the Territorial artillery. When the war started, and the Stock Exchange closed, he joined Kitchener's- Ar""'', end was soon a w-geant-major. He sacrifice'! two stripes to go out with Rawlinsnn's Seventh Division, as a corporal. He came through unscathed, except for an injured arm. due to a horse falling and rolling on hi in.- The doctors said it was only bru'sed, but an X-rav nhotograph taken while home on a week's leave showed a broken bone. He left for the front again the same night that he learnt, this. These simple facts seem worth stating. Just as one example of our decadent British middle-age, because this city man had to lie about, his age in order to get into khaki. The ace limit for men who have served has been extended. He made one very emphatic point | in talking about, the war. The sooner we realise that the French soldiers have done every bit as .well as the .British, fought just as bravely against such tough odds all al'---' the line, the better. The spirit and determination of the French to-day. he asserts, are invincible. He says that everyone is now confident of .the result, but argues from the German fa'lure with 'over\V.i«lminjs odds asjainst Rawlinson's Division that the Allies, no matter wdiat their reinforcements, ' will be able to drive the Germans out of Belgium only at terrific cost. He looks confidently for a strategic point that will draw them out. On Christmas Day his captain went down to tiie infantry trenches and had a long and friendly talk with a German officer. The latter expressed amazement as to how the British got their supplies "now we hold Calais." Mv | City friend's account of the way our troops are looked after fully bears out the ronorts. He had never tasted bullv beef. Tliere had been fresh nieat every day. Any man who wants a Cardigan 'jacket, a sheepskin coat,, or anvthi"L' in the wearing line, has only to say so. and it is at once'supplied.

The German artillery has latterly ii?otl a good deal of defective shell. German prisoners of intelligence, university men anil the like, are depressed. They sneak latterly of German victories in Poland that cost a quarter of a million lives every time, r.nd the. Pyrrhic victories of this war. The confident opinion, at the front is that the war cannot survive another autumn. Thi't phrase, "At the front," is never used there, and the war is a niuch more engrossing topic in London than "at the front." My friend had a seventy-mile motor omnibus ride from Bordeaux on his way home. The 'bus was khaki outside and Sol fridge's advertisements inside. Two drivers go with the 'bus sleeping and,, driving alternately. Outside Bordeaux tliev slowed down, not to spoil a beautifully fresh Highland regiment marching out after refitting, and filling up with drafts. i.\n indignant sergeant asked why the driver did not salute the colonel. "I'm out 'ere to drive the 'bus," sakl the Cockney mechanic, "not to wag my arm about."