CALL FOR INFANTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1916, Page 5

CALL FOR INFANTRY.

MOUNTED MEN'S EXAMPLE, SPIRITED TALK BY CHIEF OF STAFF, By Telegraph.-.Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Toil all know that our Expeditionary Force, after leaving Gallipoli, was organised into a complete division of infantry and a mounted rifle brigade," said Colonel Gibbon, Chief of the General Stall', when addressing the officers and men of the 11th Reinforcements at Trcnthara camp yesterday. "While the force was on Gallipoli very strong reinforcements were necessary, on account of the nature of the fighting, and even more so because there were few hospitals on the peninsula. Men who were suffering from slight wounds and from minor attacks of sickness could not bo sent to a hospital immediately behind the firing line to return to their duties in a few days; they had to bo sent away overseas to Egypt, Malta, and England, and they came back slowly. This system was forced upon the army by the conditions of the fighting on Gallipoli. It meant rapid wastage and a high rate of reinforcements, but now our forces have been re-organised under different conditions. We are told that a lower rate of reinforcement will aufflco, and the change means that the Mounted Rifles will have their reinforcements reduced doubly—first, because they cease to serve as infantry, and, secondly, because it is expected that the casualties in the future of any arm will not bo as great as in the past on Gallipoli, since the slightly wounded and slightly sick men will be able to return to the firing line quickly. We have been asked to undertake- to provide reinforcements on a new scale, which means a greater number of infantry and a smaller number of mounted rifles. It takes ua four months to get our men and to train them.

"We informed General Sir William Birdwooil of the arrangemcntß wo had made with the men already in camp up to and including the 14th Keinforcoments, who were mobilised before the new scale of reinforcements came into operation. General Birdwood replied by cablegram last week, and suggested that the Mounted Rifles should bo reduced immediately, and that the men already in camp should bo transferred from the mounted arm and sent with the infantry. He oven went so far as to say that too many mounted rifle reinforcements would prove an embarrassment. When that suggestion was received I went to Featherston Camp and simply told the mounted rifles what General Birdwood had said. No order was given. The facts were placed before the officers and the men, the units concerned being the 10th Reinforcements, two squadrons of the Reserve, the 12th, 13th, and 14th Reinforcements, and the officers and N.C.O's of the loth and 10th Reinforcements—in all, some 70 officers and 1800 men. T simply put the position before them, and on the following day I was informed of their almost unanimous decision to serve wherever they were required. There were very few o\'cep[tions. Some of the officers and men who so placed themselves at the disposal of the Officer Commanding have been posted to the infantry and some to a new Cyclists' Company \vc have been asked to find. These men chose the mounted arm in the first instance, and came into camp as mounted men. They have received some part of their training as mounted men, and they have found their comrades in that branch, and yet when the position was put before them they said, almost as a body, 'We will serve where we are wanted.' They did what the original mounted brigade did in Kgypt when they came forward and volunteered for service as infantry on Gallipoli. The action of these men speaks well for the spirit that i 3 in our camp.

"Now, I want to say that I hope the example of these mounted men will be followed throughout the Dominion by the men who arc hesitating to-day,—whether they will come in at once where they are wanted, or will they wait until they can join some particular unit for which they may have a fancy? If every man would come in and say, as the mounted rifles have done, 'I will serve where I am needed,' we would not have shortages in the drafts of recruits. The mounted rifles have shown their readiness to make a sacrifice of personal feeling in the interest of the forces, and they have set a fine standard of duty for the recruits who have not yet come into camp."