With the Great War under way a matter of enormous military import reached the ears of a columnist with Melbourne's Table Talk 100 years ago this week.
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"The General Officer Commanding, Anzac, Egypt, tore his hair.Orderlies galloped up to his tent door on foaming horses and galloped away again. Motorcycles clattered and roared back and forth. Staff officers nervously gnawed their moustaches.
" 'Will it never be ready?' stormed the general, who was held up waiting for a new division. 'Isn't that settled yet?' Still another orderlydashed up out of a dust cloud. 'A Royal Commission,' he panted, 'is taking evidence. It will soon be settled.' The General and his staff settled grimly to their task of waiting."It had been discovered by the military authorities in Australia that half the soldiers wound their puttees starting at the ankle, and theother half started at the knee. Military etiquette gave a loud cry of horror and military operations ceased. The old soldiers clamouredfor the ankle-start. The new soldiers said starting at the knee was best.
"Then it was that General Williams arose and mounted his fiercest charger and galloped straight through tradition. 'Start at the knee,' he said.
"The army tied its puttees, rushed aboard transports and will shortly wire from Berlin."
When eventually puttees ceased to be worn it was in part because it was difficult (all that winding and the vexed question of where to start winding) to put them on in an emergency military hurry.
