Short Rounds
General Chérin Makes a Point
In early 1785, Louis Nicolas Hyacinthe Chérin (1762-1799), just 23, was appointed genealogist of the French Royal Army, a post which his father had held before him. His principal duty was vetting the nobility of officer candidates; to receive a commission, one had to have four generations of noble blood in the male line, and this was shortly changed to four generations on both sides. So the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, which abolished all noble pretense and privilege, took away Chérin’s livelihood. But the Revolution also presented an opportunity. What with noble officers leaving the army in droves, Chérin was soon commissioned a second lieutenant; by 1795 he was a general.
Now Chérin’s rise was partially due to the fact that he proved to be a natural soldier, brave, loyal, and intelligent. But he also had the right touch to lead France’s new Revolutionary volunteers and conscripts.
Once, Chérin was leading his troops over some very difficult ground while under sporadic enemy fire. As he did so, he rode back and forth along the column, shouting encouraging words and urging the men onwards.
It being a Revolutionary army, one soldier shouted back, “It’s easy for you to talk, up there on that fine horse— but us poor devils!”
At that Chérin dismounted and offered his horse to the soldier, who promptly mounted it.
Moments later, a shot struck the man, killing him instantly.
At that Chérin said to his troops, “You see, that the most elevated place is not the least dangerous,” and, remounting, resumed the advance.
Always leading from the front, Chérin was mortally wounded while reconnoitering the enemy lines at the Battle of Zurich (June 3, 1799); he died five days later
Major Atlee
Clement Atlee (1883-1967), who succeeded Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in 1945, saw extensive service during the Great War, and was ever afterwards usually referred to as “Major Atlee.”
On the outbreak of the war, Atlee was a lecturer at the London School of Economics. A lawyer, while at Oxford he had, like most students, been a military cadet and promptly applied for a commission. Atlee became a captain in the 6th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment. He took part in the Gallipoli Campaign, serving first at Cape Helles, but came down with dysentery and had to be evacuated to Malta to recover. As a result, he missed the Battle of Sari Bair (August 6-21, 1915), in which his battalion took very heavy casualties. Returning to the front, he served at Suvla Bay until the end of the campaign. During the evacuation of Suvla Bay in December of 1915, Atlee’s company was selected to be the covering force, and he himself was the penultimate man to leave the beach, on the 20th.
After a short rest in Egypt, during which the battalion was rebuilt (among other personnel, it required 120 NCOs to bring it to full strength), the 6th South Lancashire was transferred to Mesopotamia. During operations to relieve the Siege of Kut, Atlee was badly wounded storming a Turkish trench in the Battle of El Hanna (April 5, 1916).
Evacuated to Britain, after recovering, Atlee spent most of 1917 training troops. In mid-1918 he returned to the front, and served to the end of the war, by which time he had been promoted to major.
After the war, Atlee became active in the Labour Party, and held several cabinet posts. He became party leader in 1935, supported rearmament, despite the many party members who were pacifists, and became Deputy Prime Minister in Winston Churchill’s war cabinet.
In 1945 Atlee led the Labour Party to victory in the polls, and became Prime Minister, serving until Churchill returned to power in 1951
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