NEW ZEALANDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 March 1917, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS.

LIFE AT THE FRONT. STIRRING APPRECIATION BY LORD NORTHCLIFFE, "A VERY COMPLETE LITTLE ARMY." The following, specially written for the United Cable Service, Australasia, by Lord Northeliffe, appeared in the "Daily Mail" last month Headquarters N.Z. Division, France. It seems a long, long while since the great Imperial highway, the Strand in London, began to be decorated by tall young men in khaki, with queer, bunched-up hats with a line of red in their khaki puggaree. No one knew who they were at first, but they are now a familiar part of the scene—these New Ze_i)Jaiiders whose complexions are as bright as the rod -in their hats. Their average size is more than equal to that of the average Highlanders or Australians.

There must be something in the climate of New Zealand that makes things grow. The ordinary English brown trout becomes as large as a salmon after a generation or two in New Zealand rivers. A New Zealand stag of Scottish origin makes a home specimen look like a dwarf. The modest European watercress develops into an arboreal growth that blocks the streams.

New Zealand soldiers, like Australians, have a distinct bearing and graceful walk peculiar to themselves. The New Zealand football team which visited Great Britain a few years ago surprised our public by their size, but were regarded as picked men. The day I l.ave just spent with the New Zealand Army in France is conclusive evidence of the wonderful physique of the New Zealanders, and makes one hope that after the war, when the agricultural land of England is once again tilled as it was 100 years ago, we shall approximate in size to the Antipodeans, which, except for the Highlanders and the Dalesmen, we certainly do not to-day. I am making no criticism of small soldiers by writing thus, for most Japanese soldiers are midgets compared with these oversea troops. The Japan-

ese are just as good in this new kird of warfare as they were in the comparatively antiquated methods in voguo in Manchuria, as the several specimens in our army have proved.

A FAMILY ARMY. The New Zealand Army is a compact and well-equipped family. It has the advantage of the later British armies in the compulsory military training of its members before the war. It has another advantage that most of its army is recruited from open-air men and, not from clerks and factory hands; for even the clerks and factory hands in it are largely open-air men. A further advantage was that the military spirit was not extinct in New Zealand as in England. The Maori War was fought withiji the memories of living men. The last blood shed in warfare in our fields and villages was in the Stuart days—so long ago that Newbury and Sedgemoor are lost to knowledge except in books. I might even enumerate a fourth advantage of the New Zealanders. They are largely the offspring of picked adventurous souls of the best English yeoman families, the thriftiest Scottish families, and the adveiKircus Irish who crossed the many seas in Victoria's earlv dayß as Queen. Women Suffrage, as at the lime of the Boer War, again proved militant in a just cause. The women voters in New Zealand, whose busy needles have never stopped since they sent forth their men, are as anxious to crush Prussian militarism as the most anxious of the Allies. As a race we are slid not to be gifted with great imagination, but 1 doubt if any other people would have sent so great a proportion of its manhood 13,000 miles to fight for a crusade. AT HEADQUARTERS.

I found the New Zealanders amid the muddiest, floodiest scene imaginable. Streams had swollen into rivers, and rivers into lakes. It was a cold, drab and cheerless morning when my motor-car drew up at Major-General Sir Andrew Russell's headquarters. The river, which Mr Censor will not let me name, had almost swallowed up his garden, and threatened his. drawing-room'office A nail two feet up in the kitchen wall, marked the measure of the last flood. Sir Andrew is from Hawke's Bay. A typical New Zealand gentleman and sheep farmer, who, after a military education at Sandhurst, saw service in India and Burma, and retired to his flocks after a heavy experience of Indian fever. He bade a long adieu to his lambs at the outbreak of war, accompanied the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Egypt, and then to Gallipoli, where he was a brigadier, then a divisional commander. He has agreeably easy manners, though, according to his men, he is by no means as easy with ilie Germans as lie is with his guests.

The floods had so delayed my journev from the G.H.Q. of the British armies in the field many miles away, that the appointed /inch with Lieutenant-Genera! Sir A. J. Godley, the commandc-r of the corps in which the New Zealanders are now fighting, was impossible, and so we joined General Russell and his staff—jargelj composed of name's well known in New Zealand—and one or two British officers. There was also present in the mess a member of the French Mission, who spoke English as well as any of us. It was just as with Birdwood's or with the Newfoundlanders—most ot them took tea with their beef; the Australians, who from my observations in France, even exceed the New Zealanders as tea drinkers—must have the digestion of their native emus.

Captain Malcolm Ross, the official New Zealand war correspondent, was one ol the party. Here again Neiv Zealand, like Australia, set an example by starting out with an official, trained newspaper correspondent. Even to-day Australia and New Zealand are better "informed of the individual deeds of their soldiers than any countries except the German and French. These oversea people have evidently studied the German war book and its prescription of the need for publicity. Al a result the New Zealand newspapors, the best in oui language for a population of a million, keep the people of both islands in close touch with the doings of the New Zealandcrs In France and England.

I have described headquarters so often that I will not inflict any further account of the tapping of typewriters, the tinkling of telephones, and the bendings of man makers. Days in Europe are short in January, and we had to hasten off to meet General Godley. On the way I was fortunate in having a übaA wiu>

a New Zealand officer who was enthusiastic over hig chief, of whose brilliant work I had of course read in Sir DougIns Haig's despatches, and whose Gallipoli record will be read by New Zealand children for ages,

THE MAORIS. We travelled along roads that were r.ot as in New Zealand—for New Zealand is ever green. Hero and there were patches of enow, which on the low lands is only known in the Southern Island—the home of the splendid Alpine chain and the great Tasman glacier. It was in the very south of this Southern Island that the Scotsmen originally settled, but, with a twinkle of the eye, I was informed that they are gradually migrating north—almost the only example I have ever known of Scotsmen going steadilj' in that direction. It should be remembered that the Northern Island of New Zealand is the warmer and more genial of the two. But though the background was mud, flood, and Flanders,' roads and villages were alive with New Zealanders, each wearing some badge in indication of

his home district. It is a Territorial Army—that of New Zealand—and the system by which every man knows every other man in his company is a thoroughly good one. One has not been in this zone long before one finds that the fern is the emblem of the Dominion, for it is everywhere. Mixed with the pakehas (Maori for white man) are a number of Maoris. We found out all about the Maoris' fighting capacities in 1860-18GG, and that they have not diminished in this respect is proved by the good work they have done in this war, particularly in the Pioneer battalion. They are th.ll, well built, and about as dark as Sicilians. They have also the fine free walk and erect carriage. A number of them who were rumbhii 6 along the road in fern-marked motor lorry turned their heads alertly to the salute when they saw the red bands of the hats of the General Staff.

Sir Douglas Haig's pride in his oversea troops—his Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders—his interest in their welfare, his anxiety that the officers they brought with them should be promoted as rapidly as is well known. He had just reviewed the New Zealanders, and I had the opportunity of seeing some thousands of them marshalled in the. very village in which he had seen them some days before. He had returned enthusiastic after the review. He told me so, but even then I was not prepared for the size of these handsome fellows.

In a few minutes General Sir A. J. Godley, long known to British readers by his Mafeking record, arrived with some members of his staff. His record in the British army between the Boer War and the present one is written large, and since then his work at the Dardanelles has marked him out as a skilful as well as a courageous officer. His New Zealanders are naturally the apple of his eye. He has seen many of them grow from youth to manhood, for he waß officer chosen to command in New Zealand when this Dominion and Australia, with a foresight not shown by the Mother Country, instituted compulsory military training.

AN INITIAL ADVANTAGE. How great an advantage has that beneficient law been m New Zealand in her entry into the mammoth struggle in France. Whereas most, of our lstds from farms and shops had to be taught the very elements of drill and discipline, the Anzacs were almost half soldiers before the war began. The scenes of waistcoated squads drilling in the London parks in the memorable hot days of 1914, were unnecessary "down under." These two of the sister nations were skilled not only in drill but in musketry, and not only in musketry but in artillery. All this General Godley, who, fittingly enough is one. of the tallest and most, distinguished-looking generals in Haig's army, pointed out with emphasis and satisfaction.

I asked him how his boys stood the great change in climate "TUey are naturally healthy, and their good physique makes them able to stand what they are not used to, and that is the damp. Some of those from the Southern Mand," he said, "know something about cold, but none of them know anything about the humid fogs of Flanders." Like the Canadians, they all miss the sunshine, but none of them grumble. We sometimes do not realise at home that here are two million men living their lives, and that when they are out of the trenches they need plenty of newspapers, magazines, periodicals, kinematograplis, Y.M.C.A. huts, sing-songs, and football. These they possess. The New Zealanders occupy a fair stretch of the front line, and their billets, rest camps, lines of communication and bases go a long way back. They therefore form a New Zealand world of their own, and the average French peasant, who had never heard of a New Zealaiidcr before, knows all about them now and likes them. For the war has placed New Zealand "on the map,' as the Americans say, with a prominence that could not have been obtained by any other means.

.TEACHERS AND LEARNERS. The New Zealanders like to learn, 1 find, especially if the teacher quickly demonstrates that he is a master of what he is talking about. Lecturing is a greatfeature of the war. Wherever you go behind the lines are lecturers, teaching tlu> construction and throwing of bombs, tlie making of trenches, and the use" of this or thai weapon. I attended a New Zealand lecture on the Lewis machine gun, ja favorite weapon with Haig's armies. The mechanism, use, mishaps, and repair of the gun were being lucidly explained by an expert. The most skilful conjurer would have been gratified if any of his antics had received from a packed audience such attention as this highly technical expositioji of a new weapon. Wo have lately read a groat deal of the fine work of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles in Egypt. If anything could have saved the disastrous expedition in Gallipoli it would have been the fine work of the Australians, New 'Zealanders and the 201. h Division, but it was not until after the Battle of the Somme that the wearers of the fern received their chance of taking part in a great success, and there it was that their preliminary military training at home was so useful.

There are those who think that the training in New Zealand is too extended and that it would be wiser to cutdown the period of training there, finishing it in the actual war zone, where everyone learns at twice the pace, and learns, also, the newest devices and manoeuvres, of which at least several are invented each month.

These Dominion forces do not go straight to France; they come first to England, where they ha"e a very hard 14 weeks' drill, cross the Channel, and attend one of the war schools l have already described, where again they get their practice in real gas, bombs ■and grenades.

The only complaint I heard abouttbeui frou their teachers was that Uitur

had not had the right kind of bayonet practice when they arrived. I should have bought- that this, and quick-loading, could have been taught on the transports. A Scottish instructor, with whom I discussed the Dominion troops—Canadian as well as Australasian—confirmed what

I had heard before, that when there -s anything to be learnt and the man who is teaching is an adopt they are attention itselt, but if by any chance, as in the early days of these wonderful schools of intensive soldier culture, inefficient teachers were provided, they would show their discontent by apathy 'and criticism.

A HOMOGENEOUS FORCE. The whole organisation of the New Zealanders in Great Britain and France strikes me is being a very well-oiled ma-, chine, partly because they are homogeneous in race, principally because of their previous military training, and also because they are led by capable officers, Imperial and other, who mostly knew them personally in New Zealand before they came to the war.

Large as it is, the New Zealand army is of course only a microcosm of Haig's wonderful force; but a student of the New Zealanders gets a very fair idea of what a model British army should be, how it should be provided with a sufficient number of officers trained to the difficult task of Staff and intelligence work, how the officers should to some extent be promoted from non-coms., and how care should be exercised that the ranks of the non-coms, be not entirely depleted of their best men.

Since writing the foregoing impressions I have talked with many Of the men about their general arrangements, and found them satisfied as to food, hospitals, and promotion. Everyone, of course, wants promotion, but obviously everyone cannot get a commission. They are all pleased with what I may call the New Zealand round —r/ie arrival in England, the training, and the New Zealand hospitals at Brockenhurst and Walton-on-Thamcs, which have between them ay accommodation for 2000 patients.

MASTER TUNNELLERS. I asked a • very highly-placed English officer his opinicjiras to the qualities in which the New Zealanders shine. He summed them up by saying that as individual fighters they were equal to any in France. He spoke particularly well of their work on the Somme, which has been described so often that I will not recapitulate it; but he mentioned something of which I had not heard—the New Zealand tunnelling company which was allotted for work in a special area. In tunnelling work they have outwitted the Germans every time. Many of them perfected their skill in the coal and gold mines of New Zealand, and there are well-trained engineers at their head. They can not only outtunnel the Germans, but there is no case on record in which the Germans have surprised the British troops provided with New Zealand tunnellers. What this means in peace of mind to the army can well be imagined by those who, like myself, have been at points in the lino where there was grave anxiety as to whether or not mysterious sounds heard sometimes by microphone, sometimes by the more simple miners' device of placing the head in a bucket of water and listening, were the approach of subterranean Huns.

When it is remembered that the population of both islands of New Zealand is less than that of the London postal district —it is only a little over a million all told—it will be understood that this live and finely organised band of Antipodean Crusaders constitutes an offering which is a splendid contrast to the levied masses of unwilling Poles, Czechs, Turks, Ruthenes, Slovaks and the rest, whom Prussia has bullied into her trenches.