The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-30

with him and which he must not touch
 until the last extremity.
 What he learned then stood the army
 in good stead in the early days or the
 fighting in France and Flanders. Never
 once during the terrible retreat from
 Mons and later during the pursuit of the
 flying Germans to the present line did
 the British army go short of food or sup
 plies. Robertson, who was chief of staff
 to Sir John French, cut all the red tape
 and got the goods to the places where
 they were wanted On one occasion a
 trainload of food arrived at a French port
 and was badly needed at the front. For
 some reason the transport officer said
 it could not be loaded and dispatched
 that night. Robertson heard of the de-
 lay, as he heard of everything, and mo-
 tored to the wharf.
 q am going to stay here until that
 train leaves,' he told the officer in
 charge, land if I miss my supper you - well go back to England.' Robertson
 did not miss his supper, and the Tommies
 at the front got theirs in time. HAS NO NERVES
 It is said that he has no nerves and
 no bowels of compassion. He can work
 all day and all night for days on .
 stretch. and he expects all those around
 him to do the same. man who Is not in the pink of physical and mental con-
 dition cannot remain on his staff. Off
 duty. however, his friends declare that
 he is a kindly, if rather bluff, man and
 man who enjoys the good things of life perhaps all the more because he de- prives himself of them when duty re- quires him to do so
 No man is more ready to cut red tape when he thinks it Is clogging the wheels of efficiency, although no man is mote rigid in his advocacy of system in the business of army administration One of | the most quoted instances of this was on. | the retreat from Mons when officers and men lost caps, overcoats, rifles and l equipment of all kinds. Now the BSitish
 army regulations do not provide for N 7- i ried retreats, and they do provide thu 1 a man cannot draw any fresh article of | equipment until the old article has been handed in. solemnly sat on by a board and condemned as past further use Of ficers are supposed to provide their own equipment out of their pay. When thou sands of men arrived at the base, half clad and without all sorts of essential
 articles, no one seemed to know what to
 do about it. Robertson cut the red tape by ordering the storekeepers to issue to every man what he needed, taking, of course, an officers receipt and let 1t be
 accounted for afterwards. Presumably board has sat and condemned the lost equipment in orde to keep the records straight, but if it has no one outside the army has heard of it.
 Perhaps one of Robertson's greatest achievements was his marriage. The ex- | ranlSer married the daughter of general. In 1894, while he was still captain in India he married Mildred Adelaide, the daughter of Lieutenant General Palin of the Indian army. No doubt at the
 time there was gossip in every canton ment in India-the home of gossip-about Captain Robertsons step up in the world. Now he is the superior in rank of his father-in-law, and his wife is Lady Rob- ertson, for the King knighted her hus- band in 1913 after the great maneuvers of that year at Aldershot It is no se- cret that before long he will receive a. barony and perhaps even a viscounty and should the war be prolonged and his 1 services prove as valuable as every one who knows his record and his abilities 1 expects they will, there is no reason why l he should not go even higher in the peerage. Perhaps a dukedom is too much | to expect, but his wife may yet be countess. Napoleon made some of his generals who had sprung from the ranks kings and princes. but there never yet has been case in the history of Great
 Britain where domestic servant became a peer of the realm.