1940-05-22 — Page 23

Wednesday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

MAGAZINE

The Soldiers

Chorus...

By Alan R. Dower

Black, white or yellow-the warriors of the nations Times 'and have sung their way to battle, through every age. tunes have changed since the Roman legions marched to Veralsmium 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 ego

IT

or regimental prkie. Any soldier who hay trudged the weary miles knows the value of á Justy song to aching limbs and faded spirits.

The songs these soldiers sing, have an infinite variety, for the music of a nation reflects the char acteristics, of its people.

Rider Haggard, in his novel, "Nada the Lily," gives us the chant of the Zulu impis in their tribal

.wars:

"We are the King's kine, 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 action with the Graf Spee:

:.

"For it was fiesta, and, we were so gay, "South of the Border, down 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 legion-

airos had their battlo songs and so had the Zulus, Our own Tommics rolish a lifting chorus, an do all soldiers.

May 22, 1940

PAGE

Battle Songs Down

Down the

the Ages

DDDDDDD

Go down through history lo the Crusades and you will find one of the most familiar stock tunes of the present day. Soracens heard the air of "For Ho'a u Jolly Goxl Fellow when the Crusaders went on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

Winchell Talks

It is an Here is a statement that has interested millions of American radio listeners. answer to a friendly challenge by the London "Sunday Dispatch" to Mr. Walter Winchell, "How do famous American commentator. The "Sunday Dispatch" asked Mr. Winchell:

you explain America's peace-time clamour, 'Stop the Dictators,' with her present atti Inde 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 political minorities; but we have-good-reason to distrust Europe. We have learned that nations may be allles 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 loss

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 500 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. Winchell and to other famous columnists was no criticism of America's attitude, but an honest inquiry. It was not an inquiry why. America lidd 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 clamour that we should not allow our war to interfere with America's business routine. TT is true that nations may be allies yat not have the same objectives. Towards the end of the last, war than grateful for that Intervention, but at the end of the war our objectives differed.

Prealdent Wilson inspired the League of Nations, with all its ambitions and all the difficulties which it entalled. America quickly repudiated the League, but the Ailles stayed in. ETHIOPIA.It was because of the League that Great Brilain anta- gonised her old ally Italy by joining in a programme of sanctions to end the war in Ethiopia.

1

Sanctions falled (and the League virtually died) because some coun- tries were not applying sanctions. Among those countries, of course, was the United Sinics,

CHINA-It is hard to believe that Mr. Winchell is serious when he throws-China in our faces. England is 10,000 miles sen joumey from Chiria.

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 get based on the Pacific and she had a big trade with Japan, which included 'much 'of the material which Japan needed to dart what she refused to call war.

The United States did not see it to combine with Great Britain in resisting this incursion. To be fair, it must be said that she has recently zéfused to renow her trade treaty with Japan

ALBANIA had no guarantees from Britain or France. If Mr. Win-

·chel; wanted us to go to war with Italy about Albania, there is no reason why America should not have gone to war with Italy on the same issues. AUSTRIA RHU CZECHO-SLOVAKIA can be grouped. A democrats to wage war requires two things: (1) Conviction by every member of the democracy that war is justified, and (2). The arms for war, -*For a long time Britain had neither. Hitler's absorption

of Austria arid hile demand for the return of the Sudoten minorities still fitted in the conceptiori held by a great many people in this country that he sought only to reunite the German-speaking peoples.

With

It was bhly when he repudiated the Munich agreement that the whole of Bi-lain was convinced that the safety of other nations was at štäke. į then we had not the necessary arms, and it is no comfort! to te avdrake Brited, in the time we have since taken to rearm ourolves, to os 2018 that this is 6 "phoney war DEN WAR DEUS,We appreciate that the war debts sores kill'

but hore ugali facti are the best kalvo,

smart, i

Let Mr. Winchel hot forget that Britain, too, suffered fu the wor debts, soluonnont “We could very cially havo pald Armerica the book debt If we had frisisted on all that was owed by ally and enemy being paid. But Europt a cedidify would have been mashed, and well in among the rin, would have been America. The so-called repudiation had the

American economists.

"heartiest approval not intentional bitterness that though America

One might add without

lost many of her soils, her greater

PNDER Our talise and, atrisanpil & M

sacrilen" was füancial. !!

The United Statet supported us financially while her men were train awarowulanok med neturi, o'z our dead.

יי

POLAND.—After Hitler's re- pudiation of the Munich ogree- 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- mitted to a war which threatens to be the bloodiest in history.

FINLAND may well be the 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 bitter 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: engaged in a major war, they sent „moudy,-men,—munitions-and-sup-- plies, and we hnd still more ready. wälting the word from, the men. who were conducting Finland's defence.

The United States, geographically. immune from 'reprisal, talked of a Ioan to Finland, but the talks fizzled out. In the end they sent medical, altt.

This is not sold by way of re- proach to the average American;" it is a plea that, one dimeulues should be better understood by him..

The original words have been long forgotten, but the same tune was continually on the ps of the great Napoleon. Perhaps we con imagine him softly murmuring us he gazed thoughtfully from the little mound at Ratisbon:

Throughout the dark days of 1014-18 the Royal Air Force sang its disdain of all carthly thingst

"So raise your glasses steady, "This world. is a world of lies; Here's a health to the dead

already,

"And Furrahi for the next mas

that dies."

To-D as France throbs again

to the tramp of marching fent :, the Allied forces take up the "Boomps-a- breezy

'chorus of Daisy" a popular refrain with the French as well as British troopa,

Sometimes too, they ask:

"Who

this man who looks like Charlie Chaplin, "What makes him think that he'

can win a war?

"It can't be his moustaché, "Cause that just makes

laugh,

"And Charlie's done it better,

and before!"

"Voila le boudin-Thero is the pudding!! chant the hard-bitten sons of the Foreign Legion as they come from the desert to join them; "A rifle's not a heavy load, legion- nalref"

"Whether the weather may be

wet or fine,

"We'll just rub along without a

care

"We're ponta hang out ow washing on the Sicpfried Line *If the Siegfried Line's_still

there"

Such is tho opilmism of British youth when it forms its ranks for battle.

Not unlice it in sentiment was the Texan battle song during thic 1821 war for the liberation of it-Texas from Mexko. Charging over-

the prairie of San Jacinto, in the full blast of a withering Mexican fire, the Texan frontiersman sang derisively:

"Oh, Marlbrook's gone a-fighting, Oh, when will he retum?"

SEBASTOPOL Was

WHEN

stormed and inken British

the

troops at Crimea refoleed thereafter in a song that was typical of that die-hard period:-

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The

deed of deeds te done; Ours is the glorious day, Sebas-

topol is tron."

Forty years ago, Britons and Colonials marched Into the Boer War with a carefree "Soldiers of the Queen," "Dolly Grey," and

There's Air!!!

"Oh, there's a lot of hals, "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

"Will you come to the bower I

have shaded for you?"

of

a heavy influx N spite of

popular songs from the home- land, many British battalions still cling Jealously to their regimental marches and country airs. Some of these have played their units around the world and back again.

The Loyal-Norin-Lancashire play. "Red. Rose" and the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry' enjoy the rousing "March Of The Cor- nishmen.

"The Scots Guards swing along to "Cook the North," and the Grenadier Guards to the brave strains: of "The British Grenad iers,”

"The same tune, with typical favourite with the

-

Tommy has changed to down verso, is Q the centuries: -Anthems are rare-USA. Marines, items in his repertoire. Nor will be have the fervor of the "Horst Wessel" song, "Deutschland Uber les Auf Der Ganzen Welt."

the Italian Fascists' "G

"Glavenezza.

.or

Bather does he seek to voice his spirits in the rollicking "Modemoi- selle. From Armentieres with ever-changing parody-or the im-

ortal. Tipperary,"

So far, this war has not pro- duced-the-Ivor Novelle-or-Jack Judge of the last great struggle, but Gracie Fields has already given "Wish Me Luck as You

Wave Me Goodbye" the great

popularity it deserves.

New melodies are many, but It takes a decided bit to displace some of the old time-honoured Lavourites.

"Pack Up Your

Troubles" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning" are always synony mous with periods of fortitude and courage, and The Lille Grey Home in the. West" has never lost its appeal.

And what soldler has not syung along to "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" at one time or on- other?

"From the Halls of Montezuma to the shorts of Tripoll, "We fight our country's bettier

on the land and on the sca; "And if you ever have the luck

to gaze on Heaven's scenica, "You will find the streets all guarded there by the U.S.A. Marinca."

Sometimes, too, they march to the "Dixie" 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 U.S. 27- Infantry:

"Oh, the monkeys have no tails, "They were bitten off by whater, "Oh, the monkeys have no talls

in Zamboanga."

Ridiculous, yes; but so it goes on the world over. The wild whoop of the Cherokee .. ✔

the war march of the ancient priests.

What age, what tongues has not raised the song of battle for He warriors?

One might oven say that the story of this world could be written in the music of the brave.

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

down, you

hoar what the

4

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