Monro is to succeed General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien as Governor of Gibraltar. As we read these names our thoughts turn back to the critical days of the war, and we may wonder whether it was not a mere accident of fate that prevented either or both of them from reaching the highest rank in the British Army. To take General Smith-Dorrien first of all. When the British Expeditionary Force went to France for bitter wrangling between him and Lord French as to what the orders were, and so unhappily 2 clouded issue. Later other differences, said'to be about the stvle_of trenches, occurred, and Sir Horace finally left France to command in East Africa. He had hardly arrived when ill-health compelled his retirement from active service. Sir Charles Monro's career, as far as the public knows it, has been free from these unpleasant quarrels. After many months of successful work in France he was sent. to carry out the evacuation of Gallipoli, and then returning to the western front he took over the command of the First Army, vacated by Haig who had just been made Commander-in-Chief. Almost immediately, however, he was packed off to India, and there remained in chief command during the war. Probably the public does not recognize the work he did there in connexion with Mesopotamia. Up to the time he got there all the Mesopotamian adventures had been badly starved, and it took a man of General Monro's calibre to put an end to the parsimony of the politicians. It was owing to his generous support that Maude was able to achieve a triumph denied to others, but a Governership at Gibraltar is his sole recognition. 2
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.