BRITISH ARMY’S RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1921, Page 9

BRITISH ARMY’S RECORD.

FORTITUDE AND PATIENCE. WHY GALLIPOLI FAILED. - HISTORIAN’S JUDGMENT. London, Feb. 10. In a lecture before the Royal Institution on “Tlie British Soldier Since the Restoration,” the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, Kinged Librarian at Windsor and Historian of the British Army (at one time in New Zealand on the staff of Sir William Jervois), made references to Mons and Gallipoli that evoked expressions of much approval from his audience. Sir John said the British soldier had faced great disasters at? well as won great victories, and better lessons might be won from our retreats than from our victories, The retreat from Mons was a feat of arms of which any army in the world might be proud. (Applause.) He especially praised the work of the 2nd Corps, which, after fighting the battle of Le Cateau, under SmithDorrien, were able to break it off at three o’clock in the afternoon, and, in 48 hours, were 6Q miles away behind the Oise. The North Lancashires, after a march of 30 or 40 miles, were halted and told they would x march back four or five miles to take the outpost fines, and they went off cheerily whistling. Beyond all question the retreat from Myis was the greatest of our retreats. The greatest disembarkation was that in the Dardanelles in 1015. Sir lan Hamilton profited' by Abercrombie’s system of disembarkation by companies and battalions, but Hamilton’s ships were loaded as they' were in the 18th century -horses in one. their harness in another, guns in tliis ship, ammunition in that—all were mixed up. That was the fault of the General .Staff at Home. Hamilton had to repack his ships at Alexandria.

“Yet the disembarkation of the Australians in the north and of the 20th division in the south of the Peninsula is one of the finest feats that any army has ever performed,” said the lecturer. “I doubt if any troops other than British troops could have accomplished it. The thing, however, was mismanaged at home. It was entirely the fault of the people at home. Had the General had then the troops he Was given later we would have been master of Constantinople in July, 1915. It was a failure, but one that must always fit and high in the history of the Army.”

It was significant that.the Germans had never said a word about the terrible effect of our musketry in the early days of the war. They could not believe that we had not got endless numbers of machine-guns, whereas we had only rilles, which they found much more difficult to face. “Yet had we had machinegunfi,” Mr. Fortescue remarked, “the Mons retreat need not have happened. The British soldier is learning his trade again with those weapons: this, indeed, if he does not cease to exist.”

Mr. Fortescue spoke of the discipline the British soldier had shown in wrecked transports such as the Birkenhead, and said that tradition had spread from the Annv to all of us. as was shown in the wreck of the Stella. He told how, in the Warren Hastings wreck, when the sentries below were called up on deck, one of them, a 00th Royal Rifles, was overlooked. The officer was returning to the deck when the sentry said, “Beg pardon, sir, may I come, too?” He

would not move without permission. “These,” Fortescue concluded, “are the examples which we have, as a race, taken consciously or, unconsciously to heart. Patience and fortitude are the characteristics of the Army and I have never been prouder of my countymen than during the worst years of the war, when thev also showed these virtues.”