An officer has been given the command ci an English division at the age of 46, and the appointment is hailed as a vindication of youth. This promotion te high rank of junior Officers, a recognition of merit as distinct from seniority, is regarded in some quarters as a daring depar-{wre from established procedure, an almost revolutionary change. The young are to be given a chance, we are told. How some of the famous military leaders of the past would have smiled at the modern definition of military youth.
The "young" officer recently appointed to command a division is the same age as Wellington was when ko ended his military career at Waterloo, after directing many successful campaigns. Napoleon at 35 was at the. height of his power. The Duke of Marlborough, wa: recognized as a military genius before he was 40 and Cromwell was 43 when {he Civil War gave him his chance.
History, in fact, provides innumerable examples of men brilliantly conducting military campaigns at an age which some people to-day would call juvenile, Hannibal led an army across the Alps into Italy when he was 29; Alexander the Great had conquered most of the then known world before he was 30; and Julius Cæsar, when he annexed Britain for the Roman Empire was a ripe old veteran of 45.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.