NAMES AND PLACES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 30, 19 January 1940, Page 2

NAMES AND PLACES

Churchill’s Professor One of the men most closely associated with Mr. Winston Churchill in combating the submarine and mine menace is Professor F. A. Lindemann, of Oxford University. The fact that fewer boats have been lost in recent weeks suggests that the Professor’s theories have been put into operation secretly. Professor Lindemann spends many hours with the First Lord of the Admiralty. He has a complete knowledge of the German language and acted as interpreter when the Sudeten leader, Konrad Henlein, visited England. During the last war Professor Lindemann helped to organise London’s kite balloon barrage, on which the present barrage is based. He investigated the deadly "spin" which claimed so many of the Allied aircraft and worked out the solution on paper. His answer to criticism was to take up a plane and successfully demonstrate his own theory. He was the man behind the new system of anti-aircraft defence, When Winston Churchill declared that the control of Germany’s magnetic mines was well in hand, he made that statement only after long consultations with Professor Lindemann. No doubt the full story will be told in the years to come. Hore-Belisha’s Career Leslie Hore-Belisha, who has been the central figure in the recent War Office sensation, is one of the youngest and most forceful members of the British Parliament, and was the youngest member of the War Cabinet until he was replaced. He is still in his forties. During the last war he left Oxford University to fight in France and ended as a Major. Then he went back to Oxford to finish his education. HoreBelisha entered Parliament in 1923 and has remained there ever since, For eight years he asked questions, then success came rapidly, for he became Secretary to the Board of Trade, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and Minister of Transport. This last post made Hore-Belisha famous. His great fight was to make the roads and streets safe, and he succeeded. London was soon decorated with orange globes, white lines, pedestrian crossings and roundabouts. Then he switched to the Army and set out to make it popular by reforming food and clothing and modernising the barracks. It was Hore-Belisha who retired many of the British Army Generals to make way for younger men who are in command to-day. He is a bachelor and comes of a Jewish family. The End of the Radziwills The dismemberment of Poland by Germany and Russia will have ended the power and prestige of the famous Radziwill family, who were numbered among the great land-owners of Europe. A recent cable message stated that some members of the family had been released from prison, but others had died there. The history of the Radziwills is the history of Poland. In the 16th century Karol

Radziwill was the Prince Palatine of Lithuania, possessing estates half as large as Ireland. He was a great physical specimen, loved by everyone on his estates. He greeted high and low alike with a smacking kiss. Although he could neither read nor write he was a great horseman and it has been claimed for him that he could shoot. a dozen eggs thrown in the air without missing one of them. Another prince of the family held court at Wilno. When an ambassador from Queen Elizabeth’s Court paid an official call he was conducted to the palace by 500 gentlemen retainers,

Fateful Words In 1919, when Poland opened her first Parliament, Prince Ferdinand Radziwill played an important part in the affairs of the new State. He was a former member of the German Reichstag and of the Prussian Diet of Poznania. Another of the family, Prince Stanislas, was killed in 1920 in the Polish war against Soviet Russia. Poland’s fear of aggression was voiced in 1931 by Prince Janus Radziwill who stated: " Germany is persuing a policy of blackmail. Such a policy can only lead to catastrophe, not only for Poland but also for Europe and, above all, for Germany." It would seem that his words have come true, Britain’s Military Expert A name mentioned more than once during the recent War Office sensation in London was that of Capt. B. H,

Liddell Hart, military correspondent of The Times and military editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He is a personal friend of Hore-Belisha who has taken his advice on many of the changes which have been made in the British Army. Writers have suggested that the former Minister of War depended too much on Liddell Hart’s advice, and recent English papers stated that the military expert had retired to Wales with a nervous breakdown, Since the last war Liddell Hart has become internationally known as an authority on strategy. He evolved the Battle Drill system and various tactical methods which have been officially adopted since the last war-the modernised infantry drill of forming threes, and

the theory of indirect approach in strategy. He officially visited the French Army and the Italian Army and Air Force and his criticisms were circulated to the British General Staff. Since 1918 he has written a great number of books on military subjects and his " History of the Great War," enlarged from "The Great War," is considered to be one of the most complete studies of that great campaign in all its various and widely scattered theatres, Liddell Hart has translated writings in French, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic and ten other languages, disproving, like General Ironside, the theory that Englishmen do not bother about foreign tongues. The present official manual of military training used in our Army is partly the work of Liddell Hart,

No Pins in the Admiralty Pins are no longer used for holding papers together in the British Admiralty, The First Lord, the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, saw to that. Soon after he arrived there he pricked his thumb while studying some documents. " Please instruct every department in this building to fasten papers with clips, not pins," he told his secretary. Winston Churchill is a plague to those who work under him. He keeps them on their toes and spares neither them nor himself. In the Admiralty his word is law. New War Minister The Right Hon, Oliver Stanley, who is the new Minister of War in succession to Hore Belisha, is a son of the 17th Earl of Derby and a lawyer. He served in the last war, winning the M.C. and Croix de Guerre and was mentioned in despatches, The new War Minister entered Parliament in 1923. From 1931 to 1933 he was Under Secretary to the Home Office; from 1933-34 Minister of Transport; 1934-35 Minister of Labour; and from 1935-37 President of the Board of Education. He is 45 years of age, not at all spectacular like Hore Belisha, but sound in the British tradition. The Wonderful Danube More and more frequently mention has been made of the River Danube in the cable news. Hitler’s desire for control of this great waterway becomes more evident as the war goes on, for along its great length passes much of Germany’s, trade. The Danube is one of the most wonderful rivers in the world and gives Germany a direct outlet to the Black Sea; hence the reason for its complete control by Germany. It is 1,780 miles long. It rises in Baden, in the Black Forest, flows through Ulm in Wurttemberg, where it is navigable for vessels up to 100 tons, Large vessels can navigate the river as far as Ratisbon, in Bavaria. It enters Austria at Passau, flows through Vienna, and near Budapest is joined by the Drava. Then it runs through Yugoslavia, past Belgrade, and for many miles is the boundary between Rumania and Bulgaria, both in the news to-day. Then it turns and flows between Rumania proper and the disputed territory of Bessarabia and enters the Black Sea by three different outlets. The Danube drains an area of 315,300 sq. miles, is the chief commercial river of Europe, is open to all nations (or was till war broke out), and is connected by canals with both the Rhine and the Elbe. At places the river is over a mile wide and 40 feet deep, in the lower reaches reaching to 200 feet deep. Negley Farson, who wrote " Sailing Across Europe," took a small boat from Holland, travelled up the Rhine and the canals to the Danube and followed that river to the Black Sea, Its most familiar association in the public mind is with the famous waltz, the Blue Danube, though observers state that its colour is a dirty, unromantic grey.