At Ypres with Best-Dunkley Part 15

_The First Palestine Campaign._

Something may be added now about General Murray's work in the East. He commanded in Egypt from January, 1916, to May, 1917. During that time he dealt with the Gallipoli forces, disorganized and with most of their supplies gone. He had to reorganize them into a fighting force again and to send them West. He had to organize and plan the campaign against the Senussi, to be responsible for the internal condition of Egypt, and to defend Egypt from the Turks, then relieved of the Gallipoli operations.

The Turkish attack was beaten off and four thousand prisoners taken, the defences of Egypt were pushed forward through the Sinai desert, water-lines carried up and wire ways laid, and all the vast preparations made by which it became possible to take Palestine. His two a.s.saults on Gaza failed, but he held the ground he had taken, including the Wadi Ghuzze, which would have been a big natural defence of Palestine.

He was fighting with three divisions very far short of their full strength and several battalions of dismounted yeomanry, four big guns, and thirty aeroplanes, all of old-fas.h.i.+oned type. His pipe-line was within distance from which it seemed possible to "snap" the Turks at Gaza, but fog delayed the start, and the manoeuvre took too long, and the cavalry fell back from want of water. The snap was so near a success that they picked up a wireless from the Germans in Gaza to their base saying "Good-bye," as they were going into captivity. That was the main point of the story.

According to General Murray's friends what happened in Palestine was what has happened so often in our history. A general is given a job to do with insufficient forces, and urged on despite his appeals for a sufficient force. He fails. Another commander is appointed, and the new man naturally can exact his own conditions, begins the task with an adequate force, and succeeds. All this, of course, does not take away a single leaf from Sir Edmund Allenby's brilliant bays or suggest that General Murray could have done so well. All that is suggested is that he did not get the same chance.

APPENDIX II

THE INFANTRY AT MINDEN

The six Infantry Regiments engaged at Minden, on August 1, 1759, were:

12th Foot--Suffolk Regiment.

20th Foot--Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers.

23rd Foot--Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

25th Foot--King's Own Scottish Borderers.

37th Foot--Hamps.h.i.+re Regiment.

51st Foot--King's Own (Yorks.h.i.+re Light Infantry).

Tradition tells that in the course of the operations at Minden, the 20th were pa.s.sing through flower gardens and, while doing so, the men plucked some of the roses and wore them in their coats. This story was the origin of the "Minden Rose" which is worn annually, on August 1, by all ranks of the Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers.

APPENDIX III

GENERAL RAWLINSON AND OSTEND

Field-Marshal French did not definitely state in his fourth dispatch that General Rawlinson landed at Ostend, but he devoted a number of paragraphs to the subject of "the forces operating in the neighbourhood of Ghent and Antwerp under Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, as the action of his force about this period exercised, in my opinion, a great influence on the course of the subsequent operations." However, in "1914" Lord French has written (page 200): "I returned to Abbeville that evening. I found that an officer had arrived from Ostend by motor with a letter from Rawlinson, in which he explained the situation in the north, the details of which we know." And John Buchan in _Nelson's History of the War_, Vol. IV (page 33), states that "On 6th October the 7th Division began to disembark at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and early on 8th October the former point saw the landing of the 3rd Cavalry Division, after a voyage not free from sensation. The force formed the nucleus of the Fourth Corps, and was commanded by Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had a long record of Indian, Egyptian, and South African service." G. H. Perris in _The Campaign of 1914 in France and Belgium_ is even more emphatic: on page 305 of that work he writes: "Part of the 4th British Corps--the 7th Infantry Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division--under Sir Henry Rawlinson, had been landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge without interference, and had advanced eastward to cover the Belgian-British retreat to the south."

APPENDIX IV

EDWARD III AND THE ORDER OF THE GARTER

Colonel Best-Dunkley's question on this subject can best be answered by quoting in full the first paragraph of Chapter XVI of David Hume's _History of England_, Vol. I:

"The prudent conduct and great success of Edward in his foreign wars had excited a strong emulation and a military genius among the English n.o.bility; and these turbulent barons, overawed by the crown, gave now a more useful direction to their ambition, and attached themselves to a prince who led them to the acquisition of riches and glory. That he might further promote the spirit of emulation and obedience, the king inst.i.tuted the order of the garter, in imitation of some orders of a like nature, religious as well as military, which had been established in different parts of Europe. The number received into this order consisted of twenty-five persons, besides the sovereign; and as it has never been enlarged, this badge of distinction continues as honourable as at its first inst.i.tution, and is still a valuable, though a cheap present, which the prince can confer on his greatest subjects. A vulgar story prevails, but is not supported by any ancient authority, that at a court ball, Edward's mistress, commonly supposed to have been the Countess of Salisbury, dropped her garter; and the king, taking it up, observed some of the courtiers to smile, as if they thought that he had not obtained this favour merely by accident: upon which he called out, 'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' Evil to him that evil thinks; and as every incident of gallantry among those ancient warriors was magnified into a matter of great importance, he inst.i.tuted the order of the garter in memorial of this event, and gave these words as the motto of the order.

This origin, though frivolous, is not unsuitable to the manners of the times; and it is indeed difficult by any other means to account, either for the seemingly unmeaning terms of the motto, or for the peculiar badge of the garter, which seems to have no reference to any purpose either of military use or ornament."

APPENDIX V

GOLDFISH CHaTEAU

The following note about Goldfish Chateau, contained in the _Manchester Guardian_ of September 8, 1919, is relevant to the text:

All the men who had any part in the tragic epic of Ypres will be interested in the news that the Church Army has taken over "Goldfish Chateau" as a hostel for pilgrims to the illimitable graveyards in the dreadful salient.

For some reason (writes a correspondent who was in it) we christened the place "Goldfish Chateau." It was a somewhat pretentious mansion, in Continental flamboyant style, standing just off the Vlamertinghe road about half a mile our side of Ypres. Its grounds are ploughed up by sh.e.l.ls and bombs, but most of the fountains and wretched garden statuary remains with the fishponds which perhaps gave the villa its army name, and rustic bridges most egregiously incongruous with the surrounding death and desolation.

All through the Ypres fighting it was a conspicuous landmark well known to every soldier, and used, as things got hotter and hotter, as staff headquarters, first for corps, then for division, and finally for brigade and battalion.

Strangely enough, the chateau never received a direct hit, though all the country round was ploughed up and every other building practically flattened out. The camp tales accounted for this immunity in all sorts of sinister ways. One story was that some big German personage had occupied the place. Probably these were romantic fictions. But the fact remained that "Goldfish Chateau" bore a charmed life in spite of the fact that the German sausage balloons almost looked down the chimneys and so many staffs lived there. Hundreds of thousands of men in this country who could not name half the county towns in England would be able to describe every room in this Belgian villa outside Ypres.

Lancas.h.i.+re soldiers are well acquainted with it.

During the third battle of Ypres the transport of the 55th Division had to leave the fields just opposite the chateau in a hurry. The Germans not only sh.e.l.led the place searchingly, but one morning sent over about a dozen bombing planes. Simultaneous sh.e.l.ling and bombing is not good for the nerves of transport mules. But the luck of the "Goldfish Chateau" held. Nothing hit it.

THE ROAD TO EN-DOR

By E. H. JONES, Lt, I.A.R.O.

With Ill.u.s.trations by C. W. HILL, Lt., R.A.F. Fourth Edition.

This book, besides telling an extraordinary story, will appeal to everyone who is interested in spiritualism. The book reads like a wild romance, but is authenticated in every detail by fellow-officers and official doc.u.ments.

_Times._--"Astounding ... of great value."

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_Morning Post._--"It is easily the most surprising story of the escape of prisoners of war which has yet appeared.... No more effective exposure of the methods of the medium has ever been written. This book is indeed an invaluable reduction to absurdity of the claims of the spiritualist coteries."

_Birmingham Post._--"The story of surely the most colossal 'fake' of modern times."

_Daily Graphic._--"The most amazing story of the war."

_Spectator._--"The reader who begins this book after dinner will probably be found at one o'clock in the morning still reading, with eyes goggling and mouth open, beside his cold grate."

_Punch._--"It is the most extraordinary war-tale which has come my way.

The author is a sound craftsman with a considerable sense of style and construction. His record of adventures is really astounding."