Wednesday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
Library,
May 22, 1940.
me Court
MAGAZINE
PAGE
The Soldiers' Battle Songs Down the Ages
Chorus...
By Alan R. Dower
Times and
Black, white or yellow-the warriors of the nations have sung their way to battle through every age. tunes have changed since the Roman legions marched to Veralamlum to meet Caractacus with a song of triumph on their lips; but, even down to the present day, the hymn 'of battle has been encouraged in every army of the world.
TT is not altogether a boast of national ogo
IT
or regimental pride. Any soldier who has trudged the weary miles knows the value of a lusty song to aching limbs and jaded spirits,
The songs these soldiers sing have ΠΑ infinite variety, for the music of a nation reflects the char- ncteristics of its people.
Rider Haggard, in his novel, "Nada the Lily," gives us the chant of the Zulu Impis in their tribal
ware:
•
"We are the King's king, bred to be butchered; "And you are one of us.
"We are the Zulu, children of the Lion.
"What! Did you tremble?”
I like to think of the British tars in the turrets
of the cruiser Ajax, singing as they closed the actlon with the Graf Spee:
"For was fleata, and we soere so pau. "South of the Border, daun Merico way.”
"Yes, a peaceful enough song to an orchestra of guns. But does it not suggest the cool sureness of Drake before the Armada and the doggedness of Gren- ville in the Revenge?
+
Walter
Roman logion-
airos had their battle songs and so had the Zulus. Our. own Tommies. relish a lilting chorus, as do
all soldier.
D D D D D D D
Go down through history to lite Crusades and you will find one of the most fumlar stock tines of the present day. Saracens heard the air of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" when the Crusaders went on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
Winchell Talks
Hore is a statement that has interested millions of American radio listeners. It is an answer to a friendly challenge by the London "Sunday Dispatch" to Mr. Walter Winchell, famous American commentator.. The “Sunday Dispatch" asked Mr. Winchell: "How do you explain America's peace-time clamour, 'Stop the Dictators,' with her present atti-, tude of isolationism and indignation over British censorship of United States mails?" Here is his answer made by radio.
IT IS true (says Walter Winchell) that America hates oppression, especially cowardly attacks on defenceless polítical minorities, but we have good reason to distrust. Europe. We have learned that nations may be allies yet not have the same objectives. .....
NOT every hater of tyranny is a lover of democracy; not every foe of Hitler's is a friend of freedom..
TWENTY years ago we had faith. Now we have 11 billion dollars in war debts to re- mind us that Europe's commercial promises are not good, and China, Ethiopia, Austria, Czecho- Slovakia, Albania, Poland, and Finland to remind us that European military treaties are worth even less.
WE think Europe is morally bankrupt, and that it is a quaint European custom to cry about universal liberty in order to protect selfish national policies.
UNDER certain conditions, if necessary, we will fight to the death-but this time it will be only to defend our own country, our own Bill of Rights and our own institutions.
YES, it is true that we are 3,000 miles from the firing line, but the so-called civilised belli- gerents are only 600 miles from Finland.
WE do love democracy, but our answer to Europe is Europe's answer to the Czechs, the Austrians, the Albanians, the Poles, and the Finns.
And Here's
The Reply
The Invitation to Mr. Whichell and to other famous columnists was no criticism of America's attitude, but an honest inquiry. It was not an inquiry why America had not joined the Allies; it was, why America, once Britain was at war with Germany, had substituted for her demand that we should “stop the dictators" a glamour that we should not allow our war to interfere with America's business routine. TT is true that nations may be allies yet not have the same objectives. Towards the end of the last war the United States gave its mighty aid to our cause. No Briton and no Frenchman will ever feel other than grateful for that intervention, but at the end of the war our objectives differed.
President Wilson inspired the League of Nüllons, with all its ambitions and all the difficulties which entailed. Amerien quickly repudiated the League, but the Allles stayed in. ETIOPIA It was because of the League that Great Britain anta- gonised her old ally Italy by Joining in a programme of sanctions to end the war in Ethiopia.
Sanctions failed (and the League virtually died) because some coun- tries-were-not-applying sanellons. Among those countries, of course, was the United States.
CHINA-It is hard to belleve that Mr. Winchell is serious when he throws China In our faces. England is 10,000 miles sea journey from China.
...
America" may be 3,000 miles away from Europe, but she was much nearer to this particular job of police work than was Britain. She has a huge fleet, based on the Pacife and she had a big trade with Japan, which included much of the material which Japan needed, to start what she refused to call war, *..
The United States did not ree fit to combine with Great Britain In resisting this incursion. To be fair, it must be sold that she has recently refused to renew her trade treaty with Japan.
ALBANIA' had no guarantees from Britain or France. If Mr. Win- chell wanted.un to go to war with italy about Albenia, there is no reason why America'1 should not have gono.to war with Italy on the same issues. AUSTRIA und CZECHO-BLOVAKIA con be grouped. A democry to wage war requires two things: (1) Conviction by every member of the democracy that war is justifled, and (2) The arms for war.
For
n long time Britain had neither. Hitler's absorption of Austria and his demand for the return of the Sudeten minoritics_still_fitted in with the conception held by a great many people in this country that he sought only to reunite the derman-speaking peoples,
It was only when he repudiated the Munich agreement that the whole of Britain was convinced that the safely of other nations was of stake. Even then we had not the necessary arms and it is no comfort to the averago Briton, in the time we have since taken to rearm ourselves, to be told that this is a "phoney war"
WAR DEBTS—We appreciate that the war debts sores still smart,' but here again facts org, the best salve.
Let Mr. Winchell not forget that Britain, too, suffered in the war debis settlement. We could very easily have paid Amerlen the book debt if we had insisted on all that was owed by ally and enemy being paid. But Europe's ruins would be my would have been smashed, and well in among the have been America. The so-called repudiation had the heartiest approval of many American economists
Orie might add without latentional bitterness that though- Amerlen supported our cause and, unhappily, lost many of her sons, her greater ancrifice was finahelal. Da
"could not ass for n returm of our dead.
POLAND.-After Hitler's re- pudiation of the Munich agree. ment, Poland was the next country menaced. Great Britain
and France, at least, offered her an alliance, difficult though it was to implement, but the measure of our carnestness is that we are com- miited to a war which threatens to be the bloodiest in history.
FINLAND may well be issue on which we finally part company with Mr. Winchell. Our consciences can rest easy on the statements of responsible Finnish Ministers-made even in the biller hour of defeat--that the Allies gave all the help they could, de- spite the obvious geographical difficulties, and that, although Britain and France were themselves
the
- engaged in a major war, they sent money, men, munitions and sup-. plies, and we had still more ready, walting 'the word from the men' who were conducting Finland's defence.
..
"The United States, geographically immune from reprisal, talked of h loon to Finland, but the talks' fizzled out. In the end they sent medical aid,
'This is not sold by way of re- proach to the average American;
it is n plen that our dimculties
The original words have been long forgotten, but the saine tune *was continuilly on the lips of the great Napokon. Perhaps we ena imngine him softly murmuring it as he gazed thoughtfully from the Hiltie mound at Ratisbon:
.
"Oh, Marlbrooic's gone a-fighting, Oh, when will he return?"
WHEN SEBASTOPOL
wns
stormed andt taken British troops at the Crimea rejoiced thereafter д song that was typical of that die-hard period:-
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The
deed of deeds is done; Ours is the piorious day, Sebas-
topol is wan."
Forty years ago, Britons and Colonials marched into the Boer War with carefree "Soldiers of the Queen, Dolly Grey," and "There's 'Ar!"
"Oh, there's a lot of hair, "You've enough to stuff a chair; "You've got a tidy mop, "Get a little bit of the top." -The
outlook of the British Tommy has changed little down the centuries.
"Anthems are rare Items in his repertoire, Nor will Wes the fervar of the "Horsl
be
song, "Deutschland Uber Alles Auf Der Ganzen Welt." of the Italian Fascists' "Giovenezza.
Rather dos he seek to voice his
From
spirits in the
the rollicking "Mademol- selle
Armentieres"-with ever-changing parody—or the lin- mortal Tipperary.
So far, this war has not pre- duced the Ivar Novello or Jack Judge of the last great struggle, but Grazie Flelds has already given "Wish Mo Luck" as You Wave Me Goodbye" the great popularity deserves.
New melodies are many, but It' lakes
bit to decided
displace takes o some of the old time-honoured favourites. "Pack Up Your Troubles" and "Keep the Home Fires
Burning" are always synony- mous with periods of fortitude and courage, and "The Little Grey House in the West" has never lost its appeal.
And what soldier has not swung along to "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" at one time or out- other?
Throughout the dark days of 1914-18 the Royal Air Force sang its disdain of all earthly things;
"So raise your olasses steady, "This world is a world of Itea; Here's a health to the dead
already,
*And Hurrah! for the next man
that dics,"
TO-DAY, as Franco-throbs again
to the tramp of marching feet, the Allied forces take up the breczy chorus of "Boomps-a- Daisy," a popular refrain with the French as well as British troops. Sometimes, too, they ask:-
Who is this man who looks like
Charlie Chaplin,
"What makes him think that he
can win a war? "It can't be his moustache,
Cause that just makes น.
laught,
"And Charlie's done it better,
and before!"
"Voila le boudin-There is the pudding!" chant the hard-bliten sons of the Foreign Legion as they come from the desert to join them, "A rifte's not a heavy load, legion- nairel"
"Whether the weather may be
wet or fine, "We'll just rub along without a
care; "we're
gonna hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line "If the Sicpfried Line's atiti
there!"
Such is the optimism of British youth when it forms its ranks for battle.
of
Not unlike It in sentiment was the Texan battle song during the 1821 war for the liberation Texas from Mexico. Charging over the prairle of San Jacinto, in the full blast of a withering Mexican are, the Texun frontlersman sang derisively:
"Will you come to the bower I
have shaded for you?"
TN spite of heavy influx of popular songs from the home- lund, many British battaliona still cling Jealously to their regimental marches and country airs. Some of these have played their units around the
and back again. world The Loyal North Lancashire play "Red Rose" and the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry enjoy the rousing "March Of The Cor- nlahmen."
The Scots Guards swing along to "Cook o' the North," and the Grenadier Guards to the brave strains of "The British Grenad." lers,"
The same tune, with typical verse,
is a favourite with the U.S.A. Marines.
"From_the_Halls of Montezuma
to the shores of Tripoli, "We fight our country's batiles
on the land and on the sea; "And if you ever have the luck
to gaze on Heaven's scenes. "You
will And the streets all there by the USA.
Sometimes, too, they march to the "Dixle" of the American Civil War, or "There'll Be a Hot Time In the Old Town To-night."
And here is a fragment of the marching song of the US. 27th Infantry:
"Oh, the monkeys have no tails, "They were bitten off by whales, "Oh, the monkeya have no talls
in Zamboanga,” Ridiculous, yes; but so it goes on the world over. The wild whoop of the Cherokee
the wor march of the ancient pricats.
What age, what longues has not raised the song of battle for His warriors?
•
One might even say that the story of this world could be written in The music of the brave.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
By Lichty
should be better understood y “Pipe: down, you guys--l can't hear what the crowd wan
me to do.
No.
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