JOHANNESBURG MAR meeting "SCHARNHORST/GNEISENAU" by Messrs. Darrell Hall, Peter Fox and Gunther Vogel went off well - so much goes into this type of presentation and Johannesburg was very pleased and appreciative with the effort.

FUTURE MEETINGS : Jhb

Thu 19 Apr :: Annual General meeting and Film Show
Due to Easter this will be the THIRD Thursday.

Thu 10 May :: "THE ZULU WAR" by fellow-member Mr. George Chadwick

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING: This notice was given in the March Newsletter. It will be held at the S.A. National Museum of Military History on Thursday the 19th April, 1979, at 20h00 (8 p.m.). Many people do NOT like attending such meetings, but we appeal to you to do so.

BRANCH NEWS: CT - 10 May "THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF" by Mr HR Heitman, MA., Dept. War Studies, King's College, University of London.::
DURBAN and KLERKSDORP - nothing to hand for Apr onwards !!

SUBS. Sorry to have to keep on this subject, but have you paid? Please make sure - check your cheque counterfoils. It is astonishing how many people THINK they have paid, but they haven't.

CHANGE OF POSTAL ADDRESS to be notified as soon as possible to the Hon. Sec.

INFORMATION REQUIRED BY AUTHOR: He seeks unpublished material, such as documents, diaries, photos. etc of (1) life and career of Gen. Paul Von Lettow-Verbeck and (2) General Sir Hector MacDonald and also on the fortunes of the Highland Brigade after Magersfontein. Please send your material to the Hon. Sec. Mr. M. Gough-Palmer at the above address or contact him on Telephones: Business Pretoria 42-1656 :: Residential Johannesburg 616-1531. All material will be returned to the owners.

DATES OF INTEREST: 1 Apr 1941 CAPTURE OF ASMARA : 2 Apr 1879 BATTLE OF GINGINHLOVO :
3 APR 1895 BATTLE OF MALAKAND PASS and BATTLE OF REDDERSBERG
1900 and FALL OF BENGHAZI 1941 : 6 APR 1941 CAPTURE OF ADDIS ABABA and
1943 BATTLE OF WADI AKARIT : 7 APR 1941 CAPTURE OF MASSAWA : 9 Apr 1915 BATTLE
OF ARRAS : 10 Apr. 1942 BATTLE OF KOHIMA : 15 APR 1942 MALTA AWARDED THE
GEORGE CROSS BY KING GEORGE Vl ; 16 APR 1917 SECOND BATTLE OF THE AISNE and
1945 BATTLE OF MEDICINA : 17 APR 1917 SECOND BATTLE OF GAZA : 22 APR 1915
SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES : 23 APR 1951 BATTLE OF IMJIN RIVER : 25 APR 1900
RELIEF OF WEPENER and 1915 GALLIPOLI LANDINGS : 29 APR 1916 FALL OF KUT AL AMARA.

QUARTERS. In the field the troops are quartered in tent camps, bivouacs or towns and villages. As a rule British troops take tents with them in their campaigns, as in those countries, where their operations are mostly carried on, inhabited places are rare, and bivouacs can obviously only be regarded as makeshifts. The army tent, to so-called Bell-tent, is conical in shape, and has low walls. It weighs 69 to 74 lbs, is about 10 ft high, and has a diameter of about 18 ft. It can accommodate 15 men, who lie stretched on the ground, like radii of a circle with their feet toeards the tent pole.
Written in 1899.

To the surgeon: "If a patient seems likely to cost you some trouble or medicine, report him incurable, and persuade the colonel or commanding officer to discharge him."
Advice to Officers of the British Army etc. 1782.

"From the time of the French Revolution, and through two great wars, generals were able to slog it out with extravagance undreamed of by their predecessors," he says. "The French Revolution grew out of a vast collision of forces - intellectual tumult, social, political and economic frustrations, territorial greed and personal animosities, exploding together. It was at the same time the last of the peasant revolts, and the first of the urban class wars."

"The collapse of Christendom was complete, and the churches were finally exposed within each state as having become the chaplains of a dangerously romantic social order. With church and king toppled, a romantic concept of the Nation, the Republic as the supreme unit, took over. And there was no more positive way of identifying the Republic and its citizens than finding enemies and fighting them." Order was gradually restored; in 1798 the first European mass conscription laws were passed. The Revolution sent a million Frenchmen to their death, and perhaps three or four times as many foreign troops.

But Napoleon did both. He brought to the armies of the Revolution his undoubted skill in the field; his grasp of intelligence, thorough planning, recognition of talent, and exploitation of his personal charisma to boost morale. Yet he made a colossal mistake in the 1812 campaign, when he sent 450 000 men into Russia and barely 30 000 came back. The luckiest of his Corps lost 63 000 men out of 66 000.

Prussia next became the dominant military power in Europe. Clausewittz, who had served both Prussia and Russia against Napoleon, preached that War was an act of violence pressed to the uttermost. The object was to disarm the opponent, and oblige him to obey one's will. Victory must go to the most violent, and force must be used unsparingly and without regard to bloodshed. War, he said, was a trinity of original violence of blind hatred, the interplay of chance, and the exercise of political skill.

Britain had developed her Navy long before the days of Nelson; in the Russo-Japanese war, a short, sharp conflict, naval superiority of the Japanese quickly reduced Port Arthur and brought hostilities to an end, and the world's Great Powers were busy amassing naval strength.

In World War I poison gas was introduced; but it proved a clumsy weapon; trench warfare witnessed deadlocks with the continuing slaughter of thousands; and finally the Japanese were eliminated (only after devastating destruction of Britain's great warships) by the Atom Bomb: the triumph of technology; meantime the great powers' navies of the air had brought the horrors of war to inland cities; and tanks proved effective as the navy of the desert. Guerilla forces grew in effectiveness in Vietnam.

[end]

Drinking is the soldiers' pleasure.
Dryden 1697

When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battlefield, they have all one rank in my eyes.
Napoleon.

To the Quartermaster:-
If any good rum or brandy should be delivered to you from the commissary's stores for the soldiers, or wine (which might possibly happen) for the hospital, you should rectify what was certainly a mistake in the contractors, by appropriating it to your own use, and substituting some of an inferior quality - unless the commanding officer should insist upon this as his perquisite.

Advice to Officers of the British Army etc. l782.

General Monk on military reputations (1608-1669).
"War, the profession of a soldier is that of all others, which as it conferreth most honour upon a man, who therein acquiteth himself well, so it draweth the greatest infamy upon him, who demeaneth himself ill. For one fault committed can never be repaired and one hour causeth the loss of that reputation, which hath been thirty years acquiring."

To the Quartermaster. You must on all occasions endeavour to inculcate the doctrines of witchcraft and enchantment: it will be difficult to account on other principles for the sudden and frequent disappearances of various articles out of your magazine.
Advice to Officers of the British Army etc. 1782.

The battle honour "EMSDORFF" is borne only by the l5th/l9th The King's Royal Hussars. It was the first battle fought by the 15th the King's Hussars newly raised as Eliott's Light Dragoons on 17th March 1759. They fought with a force of German troops and greatly distinguished themselves in repeated gallant charges against the French.

FAREWELL...... "there comes a time the walrus said" --- My time has now come to an end. For some 10 years (plus or minus, I can't remember) I have compiled this monthly newsletter and the time has now come for "change". As in all societies etc. new blood must be injected. May I take this opportunity of thanking those numerous people who have so kindly telephoned me, written to me or spoken to me about the pros and cons of this newsletter and also to thank you all for being so patient in having to read through this dissertation every month.

Warmest regards
Bertie Simpkins
Scribe