DEEDS OF HEROISM.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 June 1915, Page 5

DEEDS OF HEROISM.

A DEATHLESS STORY. The deathless story of the 7th Division, which fought four German army corps and kept the British line of Flanders until reinforcements arrived, has been made the subject of a lecture by Sir Conan Doyle. In the twelve days of incessant fighting it was reduced to EOOO men out of 23,000. "I do not think that in British history there is anything more moving or more heroic than that,' said the lecturer, amid a burst of cheers. Lord Haldane, who presided, said:--It was only when a war was at an end that things were seen in their proper proportions. But there was one moral which could be drawn already. They m,w the enemy in possession of a very •übstantial part of France, and nearly the whole of Belgium. But these sue- [ eeeses were won in the early stage of tk* war, when they were dealing with an ■Mmy who had chosen his own moment i* prepare an attack. Now the enemy was dealing, in the first phiec, with a British Arnv, the Commander-in-Chief of which—to his sersonal knowledge—had been studying all the possibilities of such a campaign f»r Are years before it occurred. And hj« kad men under him who, having been tnuaed four or five years, were the finut traoss in the world. Nothing but a forte ef kighest discipline, led by a man witk a of the situation, tad kaowisg what he meant to accom»li»k, eeuld kave brought off that retreat i* tk* fa»« of overwhelming numbers. «««ral tfoffr* a»d Sir John French actaaplished tbel* task when tiey kad teeßfikt t*« «i*my to the pla«e where •sxrnfl foffre'g fß*r»«s m.oT? took ptoee.

It was not too sanguine a view in tho present phase of the war to say that time is on our side. But the essential factor was an absolutely united nation determined to use its whole resources, and the energies of every man and woman at the most critical period of our history.