MONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1918, Page 2

MONS.

v/tKD. THE "OLD CONTEMPTIBLES"; - THEIR QUALITY AA T D STORY. THEY TURXED THE SCALE. (By "Criticus, 1 " in Dunedin Star.) Speaking of the closing scenes after the order to cease firing had been given, Mr. P. Robinson writes: <I A great silence descended* at 11 o'clock ou a historic scene at Mons, when 'Cease firing 1 was aonnded. A greater power than ours Willed that we should finish the war llhere." It is indeed appropriate that fighting should have ceased after the recapture of Mons, for that is the town where the ''Old Contenitible3" commenced their historic career. The reoccupation of tlli'e town represents the final ebbing of that terrific tide, the flood of which those men laid down their lives to stem during the opening days of the war. Then, for a time, the Allies wore on the verge of complete and overwhelming disaster, and the fate of the whole world trembled in the balance. To-day Germany and her Allies have been humbled to the dust, the Hohenzollerns have been deposed, the Kaiser is a fugitive, and Germany ig a republic, or promises to become one. This result is in no small measure due to that body of men wlione superlative efficiency and fighting quality enabled them, in spite of their paucity of numbers, to turn the evenly balanced scale in the battle of nations which culminated at the Marne —a battle in w.'iiich between two and three million men were engaged. For the soldiers who took the field under Sir John French were of exceptional quality, though, in the first instance, less than 100,000 strong. Like ■Wellington's anny on the Peninsullti, tihtey were a long service army, and were enabled to develop a fighting efficiency far beyond what their numerical strength would have indicated by the perfection of their training and discipline, the thoroughness of their tactical knowledge, and the excellence of their shooting. At the close of the fighting, and following upon our re-entry into Mons, it will not be inappropriate to sketch the character and achievements of this army, which will take rank in history with Caesar's choicest legions, with Napoleon's Old Guard, and Wellington's veterans of the Peninsula.

A TOUCH OF THE DEVIL IN THEM. Wellington once described his men as the scum of the earth. George Bernard Shaw, on the contrary, has characterised the modern British 1 soldier as "a depressed and respectable young man." Neither deaoription is appropriate to the men who made up the strength of the '"Old Contemtiiries." Black sheep were among them, and, it may be, here and there a young man w'ho suffered from nervous depression; but the scum of the earth they certainly were not, while "respectable" is n ludicrously inaccurate expression with which to describe them. It must be admitted that a, vast proportion of t'iiem had a touch of the devil in them, for they were volunteers and necessarily drawn in the main from those who did not take kindly to a peaceful and sedentary career. They were men who desired to see the world, and who were ready to drink the cup of life, if need bo, to t'lic dregs. "Respectability" is a a attribute which they would have scorned, and scorned in language which, had Bernard Shaw been witliiu range, would speedily have disabused him of all illusions on t&at score. Expression had been cultivated us an art in the British Regular Army. Our ancestors are said to have sworn terribly in Flanders during a previous historic retreat, but they would have paled their ineffectual fires and hidden their diminished heads at the sound of the language used by their descendants. The vocabulary of the Tommies had been enriched by a variety of adjectives drawn from contact with races in all parts of the globe, and in vividness and picturesqucness of expression they could rival a pyrotechnic display.

SELF-RELIANT ADMY, If to call tiiio British Tommy respectable is to be guilty of iuappropriateness of language, to call him depressed is still more so. A devil-may-care outlook on life and a vin'ittl.v of experiences in all parts of the globe had equipped him with a philosophy equal to all emergencies, and the self-reliance which comes wit'.i efficiency and knowledge. The British regulars who took the field during the opening' days of the. war were men who had skirmished with the toug'.i and wily l'athans anion,;; the rugged foothills of the Himalayas, who Svad routed wild dervishes oil the desert plains of the. Soudan, who during three years had learned lessons in tacties from the Boers on t'.ie veldt of South Africa, who had fought in the African Imsh and the jungles of Burma, and who had beaten Boxers in China and a multitude 01 enemies in ots;er remote parts of the world. Add to this wide experience the fact that ever since the .South African war lhs tactical i raining of the British Army luul been deliberately desianed to develop to the full tSie initiative and self-reliance of the men. They were trained to light in extended order, with several paces between each man, to take cover skilfully, to skirmish and scout alone, and to shoot with care and accuracy. They were, in s'liort, the most self-reliant army and the best shooting force, in tins world—-the only body able to rival them in these respects being the small American regular army, which was trained upon luuc'.t the same lines.

>IOX3 TO TUK .MARX 15. Every quality tluit the British troops possessed was tried to the utmost during the retirsmont from Moqs to the Marne, of which, however, wily tho briefest outline can bo given. By August 22, 1014, ti'ue First and Second British Army Corps had been .concentrated on it lino extending from ihe fortress of Conde to the north of Valenciennes, through lions, to Binchs, in the east. The First Corps was commanded by Sir Douglas Haig, and the Second Corps by Sir Horace Smtth-Dorrien. We First Corps formed the right wing of the army and the Second Corps the left wing. The Fifth Cavalry Brigade, under Sir Philip . Chetwode, was placed at Binphe to cover i«t# right. On Sunday, August 23, the battle began, and the fiermans met with their first surprises. Attacking in dense masses and in overwhelming numbers, they were literally mowed down by the cool and accurate shooting of the British infantry, although" their artillery was greatly superior in strength. At the end of the day the British positions were substantially intact, and the enemy everywhere repulsed with heavy losses; but «t •: m Sir John TYench received compelled hi(» to take

prompt decisions. Our allies on our right had been forced bade, leaving our flank exposed. The enemy were threatening our position on both wings, and 'there was nothing for it but immediate retreat. But before retiring Sir John French launched the Second Division of t'He First Corps in a counter-attack to check the enemy and conceal his own intentions. It was during the great retirement which followed that the tactical skill and self-reliance of the British force were fully developed, and these qualities proved its salvation. We Iliad to keep touch with the French on our right and defeat the persistent endeavoi's of the enemy to get round our left, and until the time came for the grand counterattack these things could only be accomplished by continued retreat. The Germans endeavored to push their advantage to the utmost, and hurled their masses at our troops again and again. But skill in skirmishing and open-order fighting and deadly shooting kept them at arms' length, and they scarcely ever succeeded in getting to close quarters. Indeed, tilre ease with which the enemy's frontal attacks were repulsed by mere rifle fire inadequately supported by artillery and machine-guns, stands in striking contrast to the way in which during recent advances our troops have broken through the enemy's lines again and again, in the face of machine-guns placed almost axle to axle. Our thin skirmislbing lines completely baffled the enemy, who afterwards compared their experiences to striking at a fog. For the rest the retreat was one long story of attacks and counter-attacks, of fighting by day against overwhelming odds, and marching by niglht, but always keeping the enemy at arms' length until the Marne was reached. Then the coming into action of additional French armies on our left protected our flank, and enabled the Allies to take the offensive and drive the enemy back to the Aisne.

"THEIR BONES ARE SCATTERED NEAR AND FAR." Few of tlie original British force remain to-day. After surprising Von ICluck when, regarding them as practically out of action, lie attempted to march across t'hcir front, and after driving back the Germans to the Marne, they fought one more great battle. Shifted during October to the coastal sector in the neighborhood of Ypres, they arrived t'irere just in time to assist in stemming the second great German rush for Paris. They again fought with their visual success against overwhelming odds until the enemy's effort was spent; but then their scanty numbers were almost exhausted. Nevertheless they still served as the nucleus around which Kitchener's new army was built up. It was they who provided the professional knowledge and skill which rendered the upbuilding of tlire mode! army possible, and it is.the culmination of their labors which we are witnessing now. The wheel has come full circle. Today the armies which, by a marvellous feat of organisation, have been built up around the remnants of the old, have forced back the enemy in defeat to the point from which the epic story started. Complete and overwhelming victory lias been won. The new armies 'iravo proved theniselves'worthy of their predecessors. Hons is in our hands again, and the town will be forever famous from its associations with the men who lajd down their lives for liberty at the crisis of t'lie greatest struggle of the world's recorded history. It is a quaint oid town, full of ancient buildings and historic associations —just one amid a hundred similar places dotting northern France and Belgium, through the soil of which lie scattered the bones of the "Old Contemptibles."