DOMINIONS' TROOPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1919, Page 9

DOMINIONS' TROOPS.

SECOND TO NONE IN WORLD. STRIKING ENGLISH TRIBUTE. A striking tribute to troops of all the Overseas Dominions is paid by the military correspondent of the London Times. The troops of the British Dominions overseas, he says, whether drawn from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, or South Africa, have by feicir bravery, dash, endurance and steadiness acquired a military reputation second to none in the world. In many theatres and on countless fields they have reaped a harvest of glory, and they have obtained the unqualified admiration of their friends and the wholesome respect of their enemies. No armies, in any war in any time, have so rapidly gained and so completely deserved, a grand fighting reputation. They have accomplished some of the finest feats of the war, and the history of their share in this greatest of campaigns will not only prove of undying interest to us all, but will be handed down in the Dominions themselves from generation to generation as a glorious example of great work finely done. The home administrations of the Dominions have well supported the troops in the field, and in spite of the distances which separated the principal theatres of war from the overseas self-governing Dominions, the writer constantly found their troops relatively the strongest units in the British Annies, and always in excellent condition. Physically, they could only be described as magnificent. Each Dominion force had its own characteristics. One stood over more ground than any other troops in France. Another was lithe, active and quick as a cat. A third was extraordinarily slim, while one and all showed a desire to close with the enemy and a contempt for death which, is ever the hall-mark of the most valiant troops. "THE MOST OPEN-AIR SOLDIERS." The Dominion troops seemed to be, and were, the most open-air soldiers in the field. To this fact we must ascribe their light and easy stride, their splendid manliness, and their remarkable vitality and endurance. Not easily in all cases accommodating themselves at first to# the trammels of discipline, they found when opposed to the best German troops that unless martial valor was tempered by close co-operation and strict obedience of orders the best-meant efforts might fail. It is to their infinite honor that they learnt battle-discipline in this hard school without losing a shred of their natural qualities, and in point of military merit were constantly improving their methods and enhancing their fame till the last days of the war. They gave us great leaders like Monash, Currie and Chauvel. They produced many brilliant subordinate commanders and regimental officers, while in the other ranks it can truly be said that in many of their characteristics they were unsurpassed and unsurpassable. Infantry of the first quality, they were also dashing horsemen, who performed great deeds in a country which favored mounted troops, i and from their own resources they created excellent auxiliary arms and services without which no army can be complete. NONE BETTER THAN OTHERS.

The Dominion troops possessed the quality of combativeness in a supreme degree. Worthily rivalling each other, a.na each chivalrously striving to do best they leave us in the end incapable of deciding which of them did best when all did so well. Great are their achievements, and great the renown which these brave men, living and dead, have won on the blood-stained fields of the war. Their fame has gone out to ajl lands, and their praises to the ends of the earth. They have shown a strength in the British Empire which our enemies never suspected and never knew. Small blame to them for it, for we scarcely knew it ourselves. But when the call comes again and the word goes round that the Empire is in danger we shall know, and our enemies will know, too, that from the British Dominions beyond the seas there will come stout hearts and str. ng arms to carry the flag once more to victory, and tp repeat those glorious deeds which have immortalised the name of the famous Dominion troops.