London Press Eulogies: if War Had Lasted Another Year He Might Have Been Commander-in-chief of Briti

The death of Sir John Monash, at the age of 66, makes a gap in the dwindling row of famous war leaders which is greater than it seems, and which might have been far greater if the war had not ended in 1918, the “Daily Telegraph “special memoir by Captain B. Liddell Hart, says. For he had probably the greatest capacity for command in modern war among all who held command in the last war, it continues, adding that if that war had lasted another year he would almost certainly have risen from commander of the Australian corps to command of an army; he might even have risen to be Commander-in-Chief. If capacity had been the determining factor he would have done so.

That verdict, Captain Hart declares, startling as it sounds, is not mine, but that of some of the most discerning senior officers whom I know.

Monash was a Jew, he writes, probably the greatest Jewish soldier since Massena (the belief that Napoleon’s famous General was of Jewish orginin has become subject to serious doubt of late), and the only one to rise to command of an army corps during the war. In point of fact, he attained higher rank as an officer in the British Army than any Jew has ever done before. He was in some ways an utter contrast to the traditional idea of a great military commander. He, more than anyone, fulfilled the idea which gradually developed in the war-that the scale and nature of operations required a “big business” type of commander, a great constructive and organising brain. His views were as large as his capacity. Perhaps the strongest testimony to his capacity is the distance he went in spite of a tremendous compound handicap of prejudice, due partly to his Jewish origin, partly to the fact that he was an “amateur” soldier, and partly to something else.

His grip of situations, he says, silenced all doubters and compelled the admiration of even the most critical professional soldiers. The triumphant success of August. 8th., “The Black Day of the German Army”, was in no small degree due to him, and the surprise coup which captured Mont St. Quentin a few weeks later was entirely his responsibility. It has been acutely said that the root of our failures in 1914-18 lay in the fact that what was really an engineer’s war was treated as a cavalryman’s war. Monash was in a profound sense an exception that proved this conclusion. He was an engineer by profession, and in the war he became truly an engineer of victory.

After the war, he adds, General Monash returned to engineering, and his Victoria State electricity scheme is one of the greatest works of engineering in the world, vast in scale and a masterpiece of organisation.

The “Times” in a long obituary, setting out his career and his military achievements, makes reference to the fact that he was “a Jew by race and religion”.

Of Jewish stock, says the “Morning Post”, General Monash was an outstanding engineer, man of letters, orator, musician, and art connoisseur, and held law, literature, and engineering degrees. With his death, it writes, there passes a great Australian who might have been Prime Minister any time he chose to enter politics, and a genius the Empire can sadly spare.

ENGLAND NO LESS THAN AUSTRALIA RECALLS HIS GENIUS FOR LEADERSHIP: HE DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF AS A FIGHTER OF EXCEPTIONAL COURAGE AND AUDACITY: IN A MORE LITERAL SENSE THAN ANY OTHER COMMANDER HE LED WAY TO VICTORY.

England, no less than Australia, the “Morning Post” writes in an editorial, recalls with pride the remarkable genius for constructive leadership which raised this “amateur fighting man” in a few years from the rank of a Volunteer Colonel to that of a General in Command of an Army Corps in one of the greatest battles of history. Like so many Australians who had their first baptism of fire on Gallipoli, Sir John Monash promptly distinguished himself as a fighter of exceptional courage and audacity. His highly-trained mind, his extensive knowledge of civil engineering, his administrative ability, and, not least, his lovable personality, combined to place him in the front rank of military leaders.

Ludendorff, it continues, has himself admitted that the Australian break-through at Hamel was Germany’s “black day” and the turning point of the war. Sir John Monash, always insistent that his men were worthier of higher praise than their Commander, modestly described the episode as the “perfection of team-work”. His brilliant handling of the sixty tanks allotted him established that weapon as the spear-head of the Allies’ assault. It swept a path for the infantry without any need for prolonged artillery bombardment, and broke down the system of trench warfare for good.

Sir John Monash, the “Morning Post” concludes, in a more literal sense than any other Commander, led the way to victory.