Fore-armed : How to build a citizen army

By Granville Roland Fortescue

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Title: Fore-armed
How to build a citizen army

Author: Granville Roland Fortescue

Release date: December 22, 2025 [eBook #77534]

Language: English

Original publication: Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1916

Credits: deaurider, chenzw and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORE-ARMED ***

FORE-ARMED

How to Build a Citizen Army

By
GRANVILLE FORTESCUE

_Author of_
“At the Front with Three Armies.” “What of the Dardanelles?”
“Russia, the Balkans, and the Dardanelles,” etc.

PHILADELPHIA
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

TO
G. F.

CONTENTS

PAGE

FOREWORD 9

THE SWISS MILITARY SYSTEM 13

THE GERMAN MILITARY SYSTEM 37

THE FRENCH MILITARY SYSTEM 59

THE AUSTRALIAN MILITARY SYSTEM 73

THE ENGLISH MILITARY SYSTEM 90

THE NEW ERA IN WARFARE 105

THE STRATEGIC POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 122

THE INSTINCT OF DEFENSE 146

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 163

FOREWORD

Since many citizens of the United States have become convinced of
the necessity of preparedness against war, this book is presented in
order to make available information as to the methods in use in other
countries, where preparedness has long been accepted in principle and
practice. From the experience of other nations, we may receive the
light wherewith to resolve our own problem.

Out of a study of the defense-service of other peoples, American
citizens can decide which plan, if any, best suits our race and our
traditions. No system of citizen soldiery was evolved in a day.
Undoubtedly legislators and staff officers will have to experiment
largely with different schemes before our people are satisfied with
results. If we begin on the right principle, however, it is safe to
assume that American business sense will gradually build up a defensive
organization commensurate with the needs of our menaced position.

But we must begin and we must work on the right principle.

As an indication of the unpreparedness of the United States, the
maneuver problem suggested in Chapter VII was, in a measure, worked
out on the Mexican border. With the greatest difficulty, and with
the forces stationed in close vicinity of the expected conflict, an
ill-proportioned American brigade was mobilized for active service
within eight days. What would be the outcome, were we menaced by a
first-class power, can easily be deduced.

I have availed myself of the publications of the War Department for
many of the facts herein contained. Where my personal opinion is
advanced, it is based upon ten years’ service in the United States
Army, together with observations made during the Spanish-American war;
Philippine insurrection; as military attaché with the Japanese army in
front of Port Arthur; as correspondent in Morocco during the Riff war;
and finally from experiences with the different armies in the European
war of 1914.

Recent legislation affecting the military organization of the United
States, is more a compromise with partisan politics than an honest
effort in the line of preparedness. The Army Bill of 1916 was accepted
by Army officers, Senators, and Congressmen who understand its faults,
because it contains certain commendable features (such as helping the
enlisted men more easily to obtain commissions, as suggested in this
book on page 174, and the enlargement of West Point), and, under the
antagonisms of parties, the advocates of preparedness were obliged to
accept a large proportion of faulty provisions, or see all military
legislation fail. It follows that such procedure is fundamentally
wrong. But in the end, the plain people of the United States will
determine the military course of the country. A knowledge of the plans
in practice in other lands may help towards a correct decision of our
country’s most urgent problem.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

CHAPTER I

THE SWISS MILITARY SYSTEM

The average American, tackling the subject of preparedness for the
first time, will wade through reams of rhetoric until his mind is a
mass of undigested military facts and fancies. Glib and generous are
the admonitions to prepare; yet the sum and substance of much that is
being spoken and written on the subject, when skimmed of patriotic
phrases, leaves but a residue of glittering generalities.

After listening to all the speeches pronounced at national defense
conventions, and after reading all the data appearing in print,
the average American still realizes how little he knows of what is
comprised in the term “citizen soldiery.”

If any economic revolution is to follow the drafting of the majority of
our younger citizens into a national militia, the voter wants to know
it before he supports the Continental, Federal or any other kind of
army.

The economic side of the question is particularly puzzling. Our kings
of commerce, who resolve their problems into terms of business, would
rarely send their sons into the army to work up from the bottom.
As a business proposition the army is negligible. Commercial and
professional life offer more substantial rewards. On the other hand, if
the available youth of the country were subjected to a short period of
military service, would this handicap our national development? How has
it worked out in other nations?

The three most thoroughly tested citizen services are the Swiss, the
German and the French. The Australian system, although not tested long
in time, has proved its value in a manner worthy of close study. But
let us begin with the Swiss. All military authorities agree on the
proposition that the descendants of William Tell have evolved a nearly
perfect national militia system; but these authorities insist that the
Swiss plan is essentially militia and not regular. This distinction
need not bother us, for no one wants to turn the great mass of male
Americans into professional soldiers. My dictionary defines militia as
citizen soldiery, and it is on that basis I shall lay before you the
workings of the Swiss system.

Briefly, military service is compulsory and universal, with almost no
exemptions save for actual physical disability. Citizens excused from
service, as well as those called but rejected for mental or physical
deficiencies, in lieu of service pay three special taxes. As nearly
fifty per cent of all men annually called to the colors are rejected,
those taxes amount to quite a tidy revenue.

The military taxes must be paid by every Swiss citizen, at home or
abroad, who is not enrolled in the active or reserve armies. So, in
addition to the men rejected, all citizens excused from military
service for whatever cause are liable for these assessments, which
are of three kinds: first, a military poll tax of six francs
(approximately $1.20); second, the military property tax, which is 0.15
per cent of assessed value of property exceeding in amount $200; and
third, a military income tax of 1.5 per cent on income. Military taxes
are paid only during military age limits; that is, from the ages of
twenty to forty-four. As a concession to the depreciation of a man’s
usefulness as a soldier with increasing age, the taxes are half the
stated sums between the ages of thirty-two and forty-four.

Of course, these taxes are assessed in addition to all other payments
to the State and they are rigorously exacted, but no one person can be
assessed a total military tax to exceed $600.

With a people so devoted to physical exercise, the number of rejections
must seem high. We reconcile the paradox when we understand that the
physical tests of the Swiss army are more severe than in Germany
or France. The Swiss system is extremely selective. For example,
the endurance tests, adequately severe, take the character of long
tramps across country, something after the fashion of the test former
President Roosevelt inaugurated for swivel-chair army officers, and
the men who show physical deterioration under this ordeal are passed
over for the more fit. Of course, the organization of the Swiss army
is based upon the expected average annual recruitment, and it would
seriously inconvenience the training staff and tax the depots and
supply departments if an unusual number of recruits were accepted.
So whenever the “class” is exceptional, the standard is, in a sense,
raised by more rigorous selection. In time of emergency, all available
men conforming to regulation requirements would be accepted.

Theoretically, liability to serve begins when the citizen is seventeen
years of age and ends at the close of his forty-eighth year. In
practice, actual service begins at the age of twenty. For the first
twelve years service is with the first-line troops, called the _Auszug_
or _Elite_; the following eight years the Swiss passes in the first
reserve, or _Landwehr_; and the last eight years of service is with
the second reserve, or _Landsturm_. This division does no military
service except in war time.

Under this system Switzerland, which boasts approximately 4,000,000
population, has developed a defensive army of 150,000 soldiers with
the colors, 120,000 in the first reserve, and 250,000 in the second
reserve--a total of over 500,000 trained fighting men. Pausing to
consider that Switzerland is but one-third the size of the State of
Pennsylvania, with about half as many inhabitants as crowd the Quaker
commonwealth, we must admit that the Swiss system produces results.
The total training of the Swiss infantry soldier is sixty-five days
the first year (seventy-five days for field artillery and ninety days
for cavalry), and only eleven days a year for seven (eight in case of
cavalry) succeeding years. The first reserve, or _Landwehr_, is called
out only once, for eleven days’ service.

Thus the first training period of the Swiss infantry soldier is one
hundred and forty-two days. Beyond this time he spends the eleven days
mentioned in the _Landwehr_ with his company and in addition there are
certain inspections prescribed that bring the entire time of training
up to one hundred and sixty-three days.

The military instruction of the Swiss recruit follows accepted lines
and begins with periods of elementary training in what is commonly
known as the “awkward squad.” The teaching is carried on much the same
as at West Point with the fourth-classmen or with newly joined recruits
in any of our National Guard organizations. The recruits arrive and are
divided into companies, sections, squads under competent instructors.
The training proceeds. The men are taught the facings, marching
in single and double rank, and given a full course of setting-up
exercises. For a month the men are grounded in the rudiments of squad
and section drill. The manual of arms is taken up as soon as the
recruit has mastered the simple marching maneuvers and the facings.
All instruction is conducted out of doors, and from the beginning war
conditions are simulated. Sometimes stress of weather makes indoor
drilling necessary, but this is rare. Armory drilling is scorned in
Switzerland. In barracks the men are taught to keep their kit clean, to
assemble and take apart their rifles, pointing and aiming drill, the
theory of shooting and the Swiss regulations. Besides these military
duties, recruits are taught to cook and are given some notions of
hygiene.

With the exception of Sunday, work goes on without interruption for
eight hours each day.

The Swiss recruit begins his target practice as soon as he has shown he
is able to handle his army rifle. Each recruit is allowed ninety blank
and two hundred ball cartridges. A man is allowed to expend fifteen
ball cartridges in preliminary shooting, eighty in individual practice,
and one hundred and five in field war practice. As soon as the recruits
are graduated from the “awkward squad” and commence company drills,
they are taken on marches, which are gradually extended till the men
can cover twenty-five miles without unusual fatigue and spend two
nights in bivouac.

The whole purpose of military training in Switzerland is to approximate
war conditions as nearly as possible. So it has been said with truth
that the progress of training of the Swiss militia is exactly the
reverse in theory and fact of that in operation with the militia in the
United States. Actual work under war conditions being the end and aim
of the Swiss system, and the time of training being so restricted, the
instruction begins and ends in the open country. To quote from a report
of a former military attaché, Major T. B. Mott, U.S.A.:

“After a thorough course in the school of the soldier and squad, work
out in the open fields is begun and the recruit comes face to face with
the primitive problems of a campaign and learns at the very start ‘what
he is there for.’ He is taught to march correctly in column, form line
and march in line, but these exercises are made an incident of going
to and coming from ‘work.’ The real business of his life, he learns,
is to march steadily under a heavy pack, shoot straight, take cover,
and obey his squad leader.... The fifth and sixth weeks entire are
spent on a long march in rough country, where the battalion acts for
the most part as if in the presence of an enemy, maneuvering by day,
establishing outposts at night, and conducting combat exercises with
ball cartridges.

“The contrast between this sort of militia training and that seen in
America or England is most marked. The psychological effect on the men
is certainly important. The first conceptions of the real business of a
soldier, his whole reason for existence, are apt to produce a lasting
impression on a young man. In our (American) service the recruit’s
first enthusiasms are concentrated (and dissipated) in the grind of
barrack-yard drill, where no man need, or is expected to use his head.
As these same recruits, whether fourth-class cadets or regular enlisted
men, grow old in the service, and in turn have to instruct others, the
ideas crystallized in them during their first training prevail, and
instinctively they give importance to the things that have been most
deeply impressed upon them....

“In Switzerland there are no parades or reviews or drills beyond the
company or battalion ... through the push of stern necessity the Swiss
has sifted out the absolute essentials to fitness for war, and these
essentials, field exercises and good shooting, he works at to the
exclusion of everything else.”

Such in outline is the Swiss plan; but there are certain factors and
conditions in the Alpine nation that make the development of a national
militia a much simpler proposition than, for example, would be the
case in the United States. In the first place, the Swiss are a nation
of patriots. Reference again to my dictionary brings out the fact
that a patriot is a lover of his country. Not to make any invidious
insinuations about the quality of patriotism in this or any other land,
if I were the chief of the World’s Bureau of Political Statistics,
and had to compile a comparative table of the patriotic qualities of
the peoples of the earth, I should begin with the Swiss and work
down. A lover of his country. The phrase does not half convey how the
Swiss feels toward his lakes and mountains. Why, he regards them with
passionate adoration. The Swiss is a super-patriot.

The next factor bearing largely upon the problem of speeding up the
soldier-making plant is the physique of the raw material. Search as
you may the Swiss vocabularies--French, German and Italian are the
languages spoken--and you will find no term for molly-coddle. After
spending some time in Switzerland I am convinced that both soil and
climate preclude the cultivation of the said human species. Of course,
imported varieties thrive in the steam-heated hotels perched on the
sides of the mountains, but no indigenous specimens exist. At a guess I
should rate the Swiss as the physical equals of the best human beings
produced on this globe. You cannot live in Switzerland without taking
exercise. The character of the terrain demands it. So, making a virtue
of necessity, the average Swiss, boy and man, takes more general
exercise than the upper-class Englishman.

Finally, the tradition of William Tell inspires the race. The Swiss
are a nation of sharpshooters. Up to within fifty years the organic
law of the land prohibited any male from taking unto himself a mate
until he furnished proof that he owned a musket and convinced the
authorities that he knew how to use it effectively. One of the first
provisions of the Swiss Constitution decreed that every citizen must
be ready to defend his country. Under this law, as soon as the state
could afford it, every male in the Alpine nation was furnished a gun
and ammunition. The ancient idea persists today. Every village has its
rifle range. Consistently the descendants of William Tell have adopted
target shooting as their national game. In these perilous times it is a
more-to-be-recommended sport than baseball.

Taking it for granted that some of my readers have not heard the
story, I give here a conversation which took place several years ago,
when the Emperor of Germany was the guest of the President of the Swiss
Republic. Wilhelm was in a waggish mood.

“What is the total fighting force, Mr. President, Switzerland could
muster in an emergency?” asked the Emperor.

“Some five hundred thousand men at a pinch,” the Swiss President
replied.

“So few!” exclaimed Wilhelm. Then, with a mischievous twinkle in his
large eyes, he continued, “Why, I could send two and a half million men
to attack Switzerland. What would happen then?”

The President answered, with a rather bored air:

“In that case, sire, I fear each Swiss soldier would have to expend
five cartridges.”

If you have ever seen the Swiss shooting clubs in action you will know
the President was no braggart.

I am firmly convinced that, instead of a rattle, the infant Switzer
is given a miniature rifle. From earliest days his associations
center round firearms and musketry practice. Be he the child of even
the poorest peasant, his first recollections are of seeing his father
cleaning and polishing a Swiss army rifle. That weapon is a household
god. Sometimes, if he is good, the youngster may draw the oiled rag
through the barrel during the cleaning process. He will trail his
father to the village range. He will hear scores discussed, his
father’s chances of winning a local prize, and how warmly his mother
would welcome the prize money. His youthful experiences may include
following the great federal shooting matches at Fribourg.

Imagine the sensations of the American boy if he could combine a
week’s picnicking with a championship baseball game each day, and
you will conjure up something of the feeling of the Swiss child when
attending the great triennial shooting competition. The prize winners
in the shooting contests fill the same niche in the Swiss small boy’s
heart-shrine as Christy Mathewson does with the American youth. In
a sentence, the whole population of Switzerland interests itself in
shooting, and can shoot.

Thus, the raw material furnished, being one part patriot, one part
physical fitness and one part sharpshooter, the problem of producing an
army in Switzerland is readily solved. All that is necessary is some
supplementary special training in team-work. Every American knows the
significance of that word, and I do not hesitate to pronounce that the
whole secret of an efficient army is compassed in the team-work idea.

When he is nineteen the young Swiss presents himself at the mayor’s
office of his town and undergoes a rigid physical and moderate mental
examination. If he passes the physical test, which includes running
and walking endurance trials, and fails mentally, he is sent to night
school until it is time to report for military training. Physical
failure debars a man from service. Such a misfortune is considered
almost a social calamity. The town belles have little time for those
rejected on this count. The severity of the examination is attested
by the fact that, out of approximately 40,000 young men who annually
present themselves, 20,000, or 50 per cent, are rejected.

The following spring the accepted recruit receives notice directing him
to report to the nearest training ground--there are eight scattered
over Switzerland--and then he begins his sixty-five days’ work in the
Recruit School. Here the tyro soldier is supplied with a uniform,
complete accoutrements for field service, a rifle and ammunition. This
equipment is his property until the end of his liability for military
service. When not in use he keeps the complete outfit in his home.

This Swiss militia is a business army. From the first the recruit is
trained under field conditions--no fancy manual-of-arms exercises in
million-dollar armories; no reviews; no parades. The recruits devote
a full eight-hour day to intensive training. All exercises take place
out of doors. The corps of instructors, a specially trained staff, who
perform their never-ending duties with religious idealism, cram more
specific military instruction into a given time than is the case with
any other army in the world. A fourth class-man at West Point--and he
has few idle moments--has a sinecure compared with the Swiss recruit.
Night work, long, fatiguing marches and trench digging bring no let-up
in the usual eight-hour-day schedule of exercises. The men come through
the course as lean as leopards. Perceptions are razor sharp. Faculties
are on edge. This sixty-five-day period of concentrated military toil
completed, the militiaman goes home. He has a solid foundation in all
the duties of a soldier.

The annual eleven-day terms of instruction are picnics compared with
the Recruit School. Of course, a man is assigned to his home company.
The work begins with an inspection and company drill. For two days
this instruction proceeds in all detail; then the men are marched to a
point where three other companies are met, thus forming a battalion.
Exercises for this larger unit continue for two or three days, when
the battalion marches to a regimental camp. The same process is
repeated until the company passes through brigade, division and corps
training. Sometimes the work terminates with a march in field order.
All this instruction takes place within eleven days. Under this system,
supplemented by universal musketry practice, Switzerland turns out a
force entirely competent for home defense in 142 days’ actual training.

Is national life affected by this training favorably or unfavorably?
A Swiss would laugh if you asked him that question. Discounting the
patriotism of the people, you have the answer when you know that the
majority of Swiss citizens who have migrated to other countries, return
each year for their military service. Democracy is never imperiled,
for all officers are selected step by step from the ranks. I have seen
General Wille, the commander-in-chief of the forces of Switzerland, in
Berne, and no officer could possibly show less military swank.

Comparative figures on the efficiency of men who undergo the military
training and those who do not are not always obtainable. Insurance
actuaries figure that it adds an average of five years to a man’s life.
Since the system was inaugurated, the work of the juvenile courts has
perceptibly slackened. The training helps in the matter of obedience
and orderliness, and this shows in every field of industry. It is the
opinion of some of the big business men of Switzerland that the plan
is responsible for the speeding up of all work in factories. The habit
of concentration developed because of intensive training, according to
a Zurich steel magnate, is a mental improvement that has indirectly
solved some of the Alpine nation’s tremendous railroad engineering
problems.

To avoid military training interfering with economic life, the men for
the different arms in the Swiss service are selected largely according
to previous occupation. Engineers are assigned to the engineer corps,
telegraphers to the telegraph companies, young farmers to the cavalry,
the mountain guides and climbers to the mountain artillery. So, in his
training every advantage is taken of a recruit’s trade or profession,
both to help the service and improve the man’s efficiency. This method
tends to lessen the amount of special training required.

Another feature of the Swiss plan is an insurance issued by the State
on behalf of every soldier, so he is covered from loss in case of
accident in the line of peace service. Again, a common-sense measure
is a present-day tax against the cost of future wars. For fifty years
and more Switzerland has been accumulating a fund to pay the pensions
resulting from any coming conflict. This sum now amounts to $4,000,000.

Though the budgets vary somewhat each year, it can be stated that
the approximate expenditure of Switzerland on the army, annually, is
$7,000,000. Practically all of this amount is expended upon the 150,000
troops of the first line. The reserve forces cost the State little or
nothing for their upkeep.

The remarkable showing in cost is due to the fact that officers and
men are paid only during periods of training, and then merely sums
considered sufficient to cover living expenses. No table of payments
to regular troops being in existence, the militia do not expect a
professional salary. The highest officer in the army in time of peace,
a colonel, gets $3.40 a day while on instruction service, and $4.00 a
day in active duty. Under all circumstances the private receives the
sum of 16 cents per day. Here is another proof of the patriotism of the
Swiss. The American soldier costs the nation about thirty times as much
as the militiaman of Switzerland. In contra-distinction, it might be
said that the Swiss army is thirty times as effective as the American.
And this is not due so much to universal liability to training as to
the thoroughness with which the Swiss have worked out all the details
to enable the forces to take the field at an instant’s notice. It has
been the custom to say that republics never prepare sufficiently for
war emergency in times of peace. Switzerland is the exception to this
rule. Twice France has proved to be unequal to long-expected attack. In
the United States the tendency is to leave all questions connected with
the organization of military forces for settlement until the moment war
is declared. Such is said to be the distinctive trait of democracies.
If this be true, the day is not far distant when popular systems of
government will cease to exist. The Swiss, who are a people of the most
advanced type of democracy, find no menace in an army of half a million
men. The mountain nation sees nothing undemocratic in arranging every
detail of the work entailed in organizing against war; no infringement
of the rights of the people in teaching them to be able to meet an
adversary upon at least equal terms. In the last analysis, it is most
important for a republic to train its citizens for defense, as they are
the bulwark that fends the freedom of the democracy.

Switzerland needs no committee of boosters. It comes as near the
Utopian democracy in its concept as will be found on this footstool of
Providence. Here every fit male has rigorous military training; yet the
country remains without a taint of militarism.

CHAPTER II

THE GERMAN MILITARY SYSTEM

Military authorities agree that the German army organization surpasses
all others. The present European war is the test that has demonstrated
this fact. German national standards and American national standards
are as far apart as the poles. The Prussian government scorns all
democratic ideals and militarism pervades every cranny of the social
structure. Notwithstanding these conditions, as we are searching for an
ideal military system, we cannot afford to overlook the best the war
has developed.

All who have given the subject any study have a general idea of the
military demands made upon the German citizen. It may be well, however,
to insert an epitome of the scheme in order to analyze it.

In Germany, military service is universal and compulsory, but before
the present war there were many exemptions from duty with the colors.
On his seventeenth birthday the young German was liable for the call,
but actual military work never began until he reached his twentieth
year. At forty-five his service ceased.

During these twenty-five years of liability for duty, the German
compasses the entire gamut of military instruction. For seven years
he trains with the first line, active, or what is commonly known as
the standing army. The initial two years are spent in the ranks, where
the recruit is grounded in every detail of the duties of the soldier.
The instruction is imparted with a thoroughness equaled in no other
army. There have been, also, undoubted cases of unnecessary severity.
These are not the outcome of the system, but one of its evils, and form
the exception rather than the rule. While the instruction is imparted
with unusual strictness, it is policy to be just and, from the point
of view of the German who has passed his whole life under restraint,
the character of discipline employed is nothing extraordinary. From
the strictly professional point of view the means are justified by the
results. Frederick the Great himself could find few flaws in the German
active army.

As the seeds of American military training were planted by a German,
one who had served on the staff of Frederick the Great, we have a
parallel by which we can gain some idea of the German period of
instruction. The German system works along the same lines as those
pursued in the Regular Army in the United States, with this exception:
in the United States the recruit is encouraged to do some of his own
thinking; in Germany he is never expected to think. In Germany the
instruction is given under the strictest conditions conceivable. Once
the soldier joins his company, he is assigned a number and his bed
in barracks and thereafter he becomes as a cog in a great machine.
While the preliminary training follows the accepted lines, it is more
thorough and more exacting than the course of instruction in any other
army. In addition to his marching, drilling and purely military work,
the soldier does all the manual labor about the barracks. Of course,
the soldiers do their own cooking and tailoring, they also perform all
the “domestic” service of the barracks and the many demands incident
to the upkeep of a large army post. The routine of the day begins with
the cleaning-up of quarters and an inspection. Then the drilling is
taken up and continued practically without break until noon. Various
instruction will be undertaken in the afternoons, its character
depending upon the season of the year. More time is spent on actual
individual instruction than in any other army, and no man is graduated
out of the awkward squad until he is perfect in the details of his work.

The soldier is under absolute restraint while in barracks and he can
only leave his quarters with permission. His amusements and pleasures
are limited and, of course, he must wear his uniform on all occasions.

The German passes through the ordinary instruction of squad, section,
company and battalion during his first year service and as soon as the
period for Grand Maneuvers arrives he is supposed to be well enough
instructed to carry his pack and perform the trying test of that time
without breaking down. These maneuvers take place during the summer
at some of the various grounds scattered over Germany. The Kaiser
maneuvers, when the whole of Germany’s fighting strength is assembled,
are the climax of the German soldiers’ career.

During his instruction period the German recruit finds that he is
happier if he performs his many duties letter perfect. And it goes
much better with him if he fits himself in with the system and its
prejudices. While he is in the army, his spirit is being moulded to
ideals that are the foundation of the German Empire.

Following the two-year period, when all is subordinated to military
training and the German citizen gives his complete time and thought
to the army, he passes into the reserve for five years, where he still
belongs to his corps and is obliged to join it twice for two terms of
training, limited by law to eight weeks. In custom these periods seldom
lasted more than a month or six weeks. The length of service in the
cavalry and artillery is somewhat longer.

The next stage of the German’s military life is passed with the first
“Ban” of the second line army or _Landwehr_. Liability for this duty
lasts five years. During these years the _Landwehr_ men are called out
twice for war maneuvers, serving from eight to fourteen days on each
occasion. This ends his active military instruction. The German citizen
is assigned to the second Ban of the _Landwehr_ until he has completed
his thirty-ninth year, where no special training is required.

The _Landsturm_ is the final stage of the German’s military life.
This organization is nominally a home guard of all men from forty
to forty-five years of age who have passed through the prescribed
course of training in the army. Besides these men, the enrolment of
the _Landsturm_ includes the untrained subjects of the Kaiser between
thirty-nine and forty-five. Properly, this elderly contingent is the
second division of the home guard. The first division takes in all the
citizens of the Empire between the ages of seventeen and thirty-nine
who, for one reason or another, received no military training.
Enrolling such units in the _Landsturm_ keeps before all citizens
the fact of duty for defense of the Fatherland. There are many ways
in which a citizen may serve his country besides fighting in the
front-line trenches.

Other categories of reserves are organized, the most important being
the _Ersatz_, which is composed of young men about twenty years old
physically and mentally fit for service, but in excess of the numbers
normally needed to complete the peace time strength of the standing
army. The _Ersatz_, undergoes three terms of training of ten, six and
four weeks respectively. When the German army mobilized in July, 1914,
many of the youths volunteered for duty with the colors, while the rest
were mustered into service with fully trained reserves. A part of the
_Ersatz_ is assigned non-combatant duties.

Leaving out of consideration the demands of present war conditions,
Germany with a population of over 66,000,000 had over 1,000,000
citizens present themselves for service each year. About fifty per
cent were rejected on various counts. Of the remainder, 250,000 were
actually drafted for duty with the colors.

That a man is rejected does not mean that he is entirely unfitted for
military duty. In the German service, of all who presented themselves,
only the best are chosen. (I refer, of course, to conditions before the
present war.) It has been found that in the scheme of the organization
of the German army, 250,000 recruits are all that can be effectively
handled each year, so a selection is made out of all who present
themselves under the yearly call, and the rest are excused. Of the
number actually rejected as unfit, a large proportion belong to the
class defective in eyesight.

Scrutinizing this program of military work, we see that the economic
life of the ordinary citizen is actually interrupted during a two-year
period. The secondary training terms are actually vacations for the
hard-working German. The whole business and industrial life of the
Empire is organized to meet the demands of these interruptions. Notice
is always given in good time when the reserves of the active army are
to be called for their supplementary period of service, and the large
and small industrial organizations throughout the Empire take the
necessary measures to adjust themselves to the loss of time involved.
It has been found in practice that the actual working efficiency of an
employee is improved by these short absences from work.

When the German citizen has passed into the _Landwehr_ and the
_Landsturm_, the short periods of training required of him have no
appreciable effect upon the economical life of the Empire. So, although
the German system looks very formidable, through the statement that
a man is liable for service for a period of twenty-five years, an
examination of his service shows that he devotes only two uninterrupted
years to military training.

It is no easy matter to introduce an outsider into a sort of camera
obscura where the German viewpoint on militarism will be revealed. In
Prussia the content of the word is an inheritance passed on to the
whole German people by Frederick the Great. Yes, the germ of the idea
was planted by the Great Elector when Prussia was a minor principality
of little more importance in Europe at the time than Paraguay is
in South America today. Any German will tell you, with sincerest
conviction, that the strength--and he means the wealth--of the nation
is the blossoming offshoot of the military tree. Disinterested
political economists partly agree with this contention. The men brought
up in the German ideal cannot see, and will not admit it has unlovely
sides. Far from having a warping effect on the mind, the subject of
the Kaiser firmly believes the intellectual standard of Germany is
founded on military training. In a conversation with a German reserve
officer in Berlin during the early months of the war, I got the Teuton
argument in a sentence. “The Army is the poor man’s University.” Anyone
who has made a study of the German system must agree in large measure
with this dictum. My informant, who had spent several years in the
United States and knew our prejudices, went on to explain:

“In the army our citizen receives the cheapest, most thorough and
scientific education of its kind known to pedagogy. His mind is
trained. His muscles are trained. His spirit is trained. After two
years he is a complete mental, physical and moral entity.”

It was a broad statement, but, allowing for native enthusiasm,
accurate. The officer paused as if seeking in his mind a concrete
expression of his argument.

“The goose step!” His eyes lighted at the words. “Let me tell you a
secret: German soldiers enjoy the ‘goose step.’ It is the outward sign
of their devotion to an ideal. Psychologists will assure you that when
a man has complete control of his muscles--such control as develops in
army work--his mental efficiency is enormously increased. But this is
not news to you. You have seen it with your own recruits. _Nicht wahr?_”

I was constrained to admit that my observation, to a certain degree,
bore out his statements, but I could not allow that this result could
only be accomplished in military training.

“Would that those who criticize our German system could see some of
the concrete results. Take men from the mountains of Silesia. Many do
not know their right hand from their left. They cannot read or write.
The word cleanliness is absent from their vocabulary. As your poet
said, they are brothers to the ox. After two years’ hammering (this
is a quotation) ‘the peasant is transformed. He has learned to read
and write. He is clean, orderly, punctual, obedient, a credit to the
Empire.’ Such is the pernicious result of militarism!”

Passing to generalities, my companion continued:

“In the army the people are welded into one efficient national machine,
a highly trained social machine, with all its component parts working
toward a common end--the German Ideal.”

Of course, this was an officer stating his views; but he was not
a regular, only a reserve, and so not wholly tainted with the
professional habit of mind; in fact, I found practically the same
view of the effect of military training to be general throughout
Germany. Bankers, merchants, artisans--all agreed that the greatness
of the German Empire was firmly planted on the compulsory plan of
service. When this is the consensus of opinion of practically an entire
population who have tested the plan, the idea merits some hard thinking.

There are Germans who condemn the system of conscription. They are
a minority so small that finding one is like hunting through oyster
shells for pearls. The Socialists, as a party, oppose compulsory
service. However, you must use a microphone to hear any criticism
under present conditions. Dr. Karl Liebknecht, whom the German press
would like to label as a bad boy of the Reichstag, is unutterably
opposed to war and all the pomp, pageantry and prostration incident
thereto. His effusions on the subject fill several handy volumes of
the Reichstag _Record_. He feels so strongly on the point that once,
on a “seeing-the-front party” where I was a guest, this distinguished
statesman for a long time refused to appear on the same film in a
war writers’ group because some “_feldgrau Pickelhauben_”[A] filled
the background. As his colleagues, we insisted he should take the
center. He consented; but when one of the officers, without a smile,
politely invited Herr Liebknecht to join an exclusive military group
he intimated that to do so would insure something worse than eternal
damnation. And Liebknecht is elected regularly. Ernest Meyer, the
plodding editor of _Vorwaerts_, is also anti-militarist.

[A] Field-gray helmets.

The German military instructor has not the same material to work
with as is found in Switzerland. Though the educational plan adopted
includes first-class physical instruction in public schools, it is
natural that general results, in so large a population, could not be so
good as in the smaller country. Yet this fault is cured in the army.

Again, the army is the economic ally of German industrialism. When
a butcher, a baker, a barber, is enrolled he takes his place in the
specific department of the organization for which his training fits
him; and then and there his industrial efficiency advances. He is
taught to be a clean and saving butcher. As a baker he is taught the
chemistry of dough, in addition to practical bread making. The barber
becomes a rapid-fire artist. All learn the vital lesson of hygiene
as reflected in their special trades. It is unnecessary to multiply
examples. The same principles hold with shoemakers, farriers, tailors,
carpenters. In after life it is always the artisan who has completed
his two years’ service who gets the most work in his village.

There can be no quarrel with the results produced on the individuals
by army training. The salient fact that merits criticism is the
domination of national existence by military principles. The army is
a fetish in Germany. The school-boy, on his way to his lessons, packs
his books like a knapsack. Throughout his whole educational régime he
is under a discipline only little less exacting than that which he will
encounter in the army. Germany prides itself upon discipline. As a
broad discussion of it would only lead to the questions of exaltation
or the suppression of individual effort, it finds no place here. When
it comes to a choice, however, between the controlled agent and the
uncontrolled in any sphere of life, there can be no disagreement. The
German system must be judged from the German point of view, and not
from the American.

One of the factors that has contributed more than others to the
spread of military standards throughout Germany is the government
ownership of railroads. The railroads are such an important part of
a nation’s existence that any plan controlling them is sure to have
an effect upon the people at large. The great German general staff,
very rightly, consider the railroads as the first factor of the
plan of national defense. Consequently, they must be at all times
under military control. In no other manner would it be possible for
German army administration to mobilize in the necessarily short time
Germany’s geographical position demands. In time of peace, the railways
are nominally under civilian control; this is theory and not fact.
The heads of railway administration have rank in the army, and they
understand perfectly what their immediate duties would be upon the
declaration of war. So in gradation, from the highest officials down
to the most insignificant brakeman, the whole railway personnel is
organized on the military plan.

The tremendous advantage which this plan has given Germany will not be
entirely revealed until long after the existing war is concluded. We
can see the reflections of it, however, in the extraordinary capacity
of German commanders for moving their forces over the most extensive
areas in the shortest possible time.

With this symbol of militarism working through the daily life of
the German--in the manner that railroad transportation is bound to
do--it is readily understood how the essence of the evil tinctures
the whole social structure. It goes without saying that the upper
class in Germany stimulates domination by every means. They are very
careful, however, to avoid all apparent injustice in this control,
and assiduously foster the thought that it is only through a complete
surrender of individual rights that the whole nation can advance to
its ultimate destiny. Many of the pretentions of the Germans that
have appeared outrageously presumptuous to other peoples are but
expressions of this thought. And here we get the clue to the fallacy of
the whole German system. It is militarism gone mad.

The many excellencies that result from military training are
prostituted to unworthy ends. The essential fault of the
soldier--vanity--has been emphasized and developed until it has become
a national disease. It is from this seed that the German mania for
impressing their standards of “kultur” upon the rest of the world has
sprung.

From what proceeds it is easy to see how a discussion of the army
plan in Germany leads to an analysis of the whole German political
system; and would, if carried further, bring us face to face with the
controversy of autocracy _versus_ democracy. Nothing can be gained here
from carrying the argument to such lengths. We wish to learn what to
avoid in the German scheme, while selecting such excellencies as would
fall in with American traditions and ideals.

Impartial observers are wont to state that America errs as much on the
side of individual liberty as Germany does in the repression thereof.
Obviously, no comprehensive design for military organization can be put
into effect without the curtailment of personal freedom. In the United
States we want to make this curtailment a voluntary sacrifice on the
part of the individual. No citizen worthy of the name should hesitate
to surrender, of his own accord, what he is disposed to consider an
inalienable right, when he is convinced that in so doing he insures
the safety of the nation. The sacrifices made by the German people
are in response to the demand of the Kaiser, who is the sovereign. In
like manner, American citizens must make similar sacrifices--modified,
however, by altered conditions--for each individual citizen possesses
in himself the attributes of sovereignty. Therefore, it is incumbent
upon us to study this German plan, which has proved itself under the
severest tests of war, and select therefrom what is necessary and
suitable to national self-defense.

There is no possibility of our adopting any system tainted with
militarism. When all is said and done, the greatest evil of what we
classify under that term is the military caste. We must never have a
military caste in the United States. The reader does not have to be
reminded that the present American organization is an inheritance from
Baron Frederick von Steuben, and is based upon a Prussian foundation.
In a later chapter, a suggestion for modifying the system of educating
officers for the army will be put forth. There is no real reason why
the American youth who feels impelled to choose the military profession
should not seek a congenial and moderately profitable existence
in the army. With our American common-sense as a safeguard, there
is very little likelihood of such an American developing into the
sabre-clanking “Hauptmann.”

A detailed study of all the ramifications of the German military system
belongs to the province of the professional soldier; not to the
civilian. Daily, more and more data are coming to hand, throwing light
upon the working, under the test of war, of the German organization.

This review of military conditions in Germany cannot be concluded
without a statement of the cost of a peace army of 616,000 men. The
military expenditure of the German Empire entered in the budget for
1914-15 amounted to $217,000,000. That such an enormous and complex
organization can be financed for this moderate sum is the most
important lesson to be learned from Germany.

CHAPTER III

THE FRENCH MILITARY SYSTEM

It is as true now as it was in Napoleon’s heyday of triumph that
the _poilu_ carries a potential marshal’s baton in his haversack.
This is the keystone of the French defense scheme. And by a
curious paradox--for the project first emerged from the brain of a
hyperautocrat--it has molded the soldiers of France into a completely
democratic army. By way of parenthesis, my opinion is that our
home-grown fighting force might be more representative if encouragement
were freely given the American private soldier to aspire after a
general’s stars.

To return to the French, their method, briefly sketched, is as follows:
Service in the national--or, as it is called, metropolitan--army is
compulsory for every French citizen, except such as show they are
hopelessly unfit physically. No other exemptions are considered. From
the age of twenty to forty-eight all Frenchmen are part of the army.
The last law--1913--on the subject decreed service with the active
force in the ranks, continued for three years--from the twentieth to
the completed twenty-third year. For eleven more years the Frenchman
was classed as a reserve, and after a seven years’ enlistment in the
territorial force his liability to serve ended with seven years in the
territorial reserve. Reservists for the active army turn out twice in
the eleven years for maneuvers that last about four weeks for each
period. The territorial army trains once for two weeks. The reserve of
this force is never called for training.

Though the French army has certain points in common with the German,
actually they are as wide apart as the poles. The two systems split on
the rock of officer caste.

I shall never forget the shock all my preconceived military ideas
sustained when first I saw the French army in action. It was in the
early days of this war. I had literally been sitting down on the
banks of the Meuse while two divisions of the Germans and French were
fighting it out overhead for the possession of the bridge that crosses
the river under the cliffs at Dinant. The night of the second day of
the engagement, having a premonition of what was coming, I executed a
strategic retirement to a nearby village.

It was a raw, rainy night. The village inn was a two-room shack.
One room served as office, lounge and bar--principally bar. The
other was the bedrooms. The plural is what I mean. When you made
known your preferences it mattered not whether you wished a sunny
southern exposure or a quiet corner on a court; you were shown to “the
bedroom”--not all of it, just a straw-strewn section thereof.

Outside, what seemed to me to be the whole French army was rumbling
past in boulevard motor busses. In the lounge-office-bar I made myself
as inconspicuous as possible. Members of the divisional artillery
staff, from general down, were the only officers present at the moment.
A technical discussion was in progress. There was nothing odd in
that, for of all the military species, the artilleryman is the most
argumentative. But what opened my eyes to the popping point was the
manner in which a major--a mere major!--talked back to the general.

What have since become the famous “75’s” were then being tried out. The
point in dispute was purely professional and is outside my story. The
astonishing part of the duologue was the vehement manner assumed by the
major toward his superior. He strode up and down, gesticulating. He
harangued “his” general--all superiors are addressed in the possessive
in France--in the tone of a stump speaker. The discussion was largely
technical, but I gathered enough to understand that the emphatic major
would get the decision if the matter were left to an unprejudiced
referee.

Frankly I expected the general to call for a couple of the largest and
fiercest gendarmes in the vicinity and send the major back as far as
Bordeaux in arrest for disrespect to a superior. Instead, _Mon General_
mildly argued with his subordinate and held that the functions of the
divisional artillery precluded the course of action advocated. That was
all that happened. One or two of the other officers seemed slightly
interested, but the rest took the affair as a matter of course.

Ten years in the Federal prison at Leavenworth would be about the
court-martial sentence of that major if he disputed with a superior in
our service. In Germany they would not even wait for dawn to shoot him.

Before the night was over I was to get another surprise. The rain
came down as if a deluge scheduled for Philippine service had been
switched into that part of Belgium. Now the Hotel Hut began to absorb
blue-and-red soldiers as a sponge does water. Actually, the two rooms
were sopping with privates. I remember the raindrops in the flickering
lamplight glistening like diamonds on their rough blue coats.

Officers filtered in as well; one tall azure dragoon, with his
helmet crowned with horse-hair, gave a striking touch to the bizarre
scene. And all, from field officer to private, mingled in what from
a professional viewpoint would be designated easy familiarity. With
amazement I saw all ranks stand at the bar and swallow their bocks. For
a United States officer to be seen at a bar where privates drink would
bring swift reprimand, if not court-martial.

I reveled in the wonder of the scene--the “real thing” in that sudden
cataclysm, the War of Europe; but all the time I kept questioning
myself on the apparent passing up of discipline in the French army.
The whole foundation was pushed out from under my army experience,
and my military notions tumbled about me like a child’s house of
blocks, when I went into the bedrooms. Spread over the floor, without
distinction of rank or birth, were as many Frenchmen as the room
could hold. Patrician and _poilu_ all snored in happy accord. Lulled
to sleep by the sonorific nasal chorus that lifted gently to the
rafters, I concluded that, so far as the army was involved, the French
ideals--_Liberté!_ _Fraternité!_ and _Egalité!_--were no idle dreams.

In that little low-ceilinged, lamp-lit room the secret of the French
system was made clear to me. It was unconscious idealism. It was not
the conventions of the service that knit those Frenchmen into the
peculiar fabric of an army, where in time of stress the distinction of
rank might be ignored without imperiling discipline. Back in the mind
of every man in that room was the thought: “We are all fighting for
France.” Even though it is the custom to bury the officers in separate
graves, none knows better than the Frenchman that, certainly in death,
president and private are equal.

France is a nation of paradoxes--the war has proved this statement;
and from the soil of empire we get an equality that needs no violent
assertion to prove its existence. Universal service in a large measure
accounts for this phenomenon. America owes a great debt to France.
Should it happen that we get a hint from the French which will help
solve our defense problem, the debt will be doubled.

Since my first experience I have had many others showing this curious
attitude of officer toward private in the French army. I am convinced
that it is the mainspring of French strength today. Actually I believe
General Joffre’s troops know more war lore this minute than any of
their allies or opponents. The confidence existing between the captain
and his company has brought this about.

For instance, there was a case where a French common soldier had an
idea--no uncommon thing with Gallic common soldiers. The idea was
concerned with an improvement in bomb throwers. He took the notion to
his officer. “We’ll try him, _mon vieux_!” Imagine any other type of
officer calling a private “Old Boy”!

Together they went to work with the enthusiasm of artists. Shortly
the contraption was rigged. The whole company gathered in a corner of
the trench to watch the début of the machine. All was ready. Then the
muffled snap of a spring and fifty pounds of explosive were silently
wafted into the midst of a startled band of Bosches. Such was the
origin of the noiseless bomb-thrower, today one of the most important
articles of furniture in any trench.

What economic effect army training has had in France is difficult
to specify. You know the Socialists waged an unremitting war on the
institution before the present crisis. The army was considered the foe
of labor. In France that argument is forever closed. The instinct of
self-defense is stronger than all minor economic considerations.

It is contended by some that the sporting revival in France is
indirectly the result of universal training. Certainly the statistics
show an advance in the national physical standard. How this training
helps in all industrial effort has been dwelt on in describing the
results in Switzerland and Germany. The same generalizations apply to
France. But the real worth of the military work lies in the national
spirit developed. The morale of the race, nursed in the camps and
barracks, gives today what some glibly call a regenerated nation. If
France is regenerated she has her army to thank for this birth of new
life.

When you see the defenders of France in the trenches, where every
element is fighting to break their spirits, and contemplate the
insouciance with which they meet the dregs of discomfort, wounds, and
death, you realize that her sons are citizen soldiers in the ideal
distinctions of the term. Then another truth dawns on you: Out of
solidarity of service France has found her soul.

The principle of conscription has long been accepted in France and it
is of interest to trace the course of this method of raising armies in
the nation that gave the republican idea to Europe.

At the outset of the Revolutionary period, voluntary enlistments
rallied all necessary recruits to the republican flag. Later, it became
necessary to impress upon the citizens the duty to serve the country.
The convention that ruled France before the advent of Napoleon, first
issued the fiat, “The service of the country is a civic and general
duty.” Later, the revolutionary government of 1793 issued a decree
which declared that until the enemies of the republic were driven
from the territory of France, all Frenchmen were liable for military
service. In the language of the document, “The young men will go to
battle, the married men will forge weapons, and transport stores, the
women will make tents and clothes, serve in the hospitals, while the
children will prepare bandages.” Surely this was the true principle of
the “nation in arms.” In the present war the divisions of the people
fill the functions prescribed in the ancient document.

It was not necessary to take the number of men available, so the
annual contingent was fixed according to the wastage. Recruits were
drawn by lot and some came forward for voluntary enlistment.

This method was continued during the Napoleonic wars, but with the
waning of the great Corsican’s fortunes it became more and more
difficult to obtain the annual drafts.

After the fall of the Empire the principle of conscription was allowed
to lapse. At the time of the Restoration it again came into force and
continued for about twenty years. Once more the scheme went out of
practice and was not resumed until just previous to the war of 1870.
But it was too late to bring a sufficient force into being before the
country was overrun by the enemy.

After the tragic lessons of that war, successive French governments
tried to build up a national army on the old republican lines that
every citizen owed service to the state. Originally the term of service
was five years, then three, then two and finally just before the
outbreak of hostilities in 1914, restored to three years again.

The present law not only lengthened the period of training with the
active army, but established absolute equality for all citizens under
the call to arms. Previous legislation had tampered with the principle
of conscription and created a large class of privileged citizens who
only served twelve months with the colors. In self-defense, the Third
Republic went back to the old theory of universal service and forbade
any exemptions, save for complete physical disability.

The peace strength of the French standing army in 1914 was 790,000. In
organization it followed the usual lines with slight modifications. The
reserve troops form divisions corresponding to those of the first line.
Thus there is available in time of war what amounts to a second army
of the same organization as the regular force. A similar plan is put
into practice with the territorial army. It cannot be said that these
third line troops are in any way as effective as the first or second.
In actual conflict these forces would be of value only in holding lines
of communications and remote depots of supplies.

The colonial army which forms a distinct part of the French defense
line is an auxiliary force of high military value. It has proved itself
in the European war. It is distinct from the metropolitan army and
consists partly of white and partly of native troops. The colonials are
recruited, for the most part, by voluntary enlistment, or by voluntary
transfers from the metropolitan army, but in West Africa, compulsion
can be called into effect if enough volunteers do not come forward. The
famous foreign legion is a part of the colonial army.

The last peace budget put the cost of the French army per year at
almost $250,000,000. This includes the expenses of the colonial army
with certain sums spent upon armament. Actual upkeep of the standing
forces would be $240,000,000 per annum.

CHAPTER IV

THE AUSTRALIAN MILITARY SYSTEM

The problem of defense in Australia is in many ways identical with that
of the United States. In the island commonwealth a constitution exists
modeled on the lines of that governing the union. National development
in the antipodes has, in some degree, followed the course pursued in
America. But from the inception of the commonwealth, the question
of defense has been in the minds of the people and their chosen or
appointed administrators.

The circumstances governing the present system grew out of conditions
like to those that prevail in the United States. Australia originally
depended for defense upon a regular establishment, small in number, and
a force of militia. These were supplemented by rifle associations of
problematic value, and by school battalions. In the military evolution
of the country the latter have been a vital factor.

Previous to the establishment of the commonwealth, Australia depended
upon Great Britain for the necessary measures of protection. It would
seem to have been the policy of past English administrators to foster
this state of dependence, under the opinion that such action reinforced
loyalty to the mother land. Today all this is changed. Australia is
self-governing and self-reliant. While strong in its devotion to
Britain, as shown by the enormous sacrifices made in the present war,
the commonwealth has cut the leading strings and now works out its
destiny unaided.

The Defense Act of 1903-1909 of Australia was the first law passed
in any English-speaking country which recognized the principle of
universal liability of citizens to military training in time of
peace. The introduction of the statute met with hearty approval. Its
provisions went into effect in 1911 and since that date Australia has
steadily advanced in military efficiency. The remarkable feature of the
system is the little time actually devoted to training, compared to
the excellent results attained. The worth of the Australian militiaman
has stood the acid test of war. In no field of the world fighting did
soldiers of whatever nationality show higher military qualities than
possessed by the Australian corps which fought so long and determinedly
in Gallipoli. A system achieving these splendid results in such a short
time merits close study by all interested in the question of citizen
soldiery.

After the Australian Parliament passed the defense act, it immediately
invited Lord Kitchener to visit the island, examine local conditions
and make recommendations. This businesslike proceeding produced a
militia organization which stands as a model to the world. The results
are all the more noteworthy when we consider that the Australian is, if
possible, more individualistic than the American. It has been proved
that there is nothing basically antagonistic between submitting to
necessary military training and enjoying complete political liberty.
The antipodean is as jealous of his “rights” as the range rider of
the western United States, yet he submits to discipline to serve his
country.

As the pioneer nation favoring universal service, Australia found many
difficulties in her path. In the first place, her area was great, about
3,000,000 square miles, enclosed in a coast fine of more than 12,000
miles. (The United States coast line is 20,000 miles and continental
area 3,616,000 square miles.) Over this area a population of nearly
5,000,000 was unequally distributed, the greater portion living within
300 miles of the eastern, southern and western coast of the island,
with more than one-third of the aggregate inhabiting the five principal
cities of the commonwealth. The United States has a population
distribution of the same type, but on a highly exaggerated scale.

The system of training brought into force in Australia was no radical
departure from what had gone before. It was the simple extension of
the existing militia and cadet system to include all those who were
physically fit instead of limiting membership to volunteers. From this
seed, which had been germinating for twenty years, grew up the present
successful plan.

The Australian Defense Act of 1903, largely amended, imposed a system
of compulsory training, on all fit males beginning with cadets of
twelve to eighteen years of age, followed by one year in the citizen
forces as recruits, after which the men remained as soldiers for seven
years. Liability ceases with the completion of the twenty-sixth year,
but men are expected to join the rifle clubs which are established
all over the island and keep up their shooting. The actual period of
military training is exceedingly short. The time required of the young
citizen soldiers from eighteen to twenty-six years being only sixteen
days in each year. Of this period eight days must be passed in camp in
continuous training.

Compared with European requirements, this is excessively limited, but
because of the ardor of the cadets, and the fact that shooting is a
national pastime in Australia, the ends are out of all proportion to
time expended.

The whole country is divided into recruiting districts, ninety-two in
number, of approximately equal population, each district providing
one infantry battalion. When the system is in full operation it is
estimated that the total number of men under training will be 150,000
cadets and 120,000 citizen soldiers. Antedating the outbreak of war in
1914, the Australian militia totaled 50,000 in all ranks. In addition
to these there were 90,000 undergoing training as senior cadets. Also
about 50,000 were registered in the rifle clubs.

The former militia and volunteer units were gradually merged into
the new citizen army. When complete this will consist of 23 infantry
brigades (92 battalions), 28 regiments of light horse, 49 field and
7 heavy batteries (4 guns each), and 14 companies of engineers with
the necessary departmental troops. In event of attack, about half of
the force would be required to garrison and defend the ports while the
remainder would form a mobile operating army.

When the plan is in full working order, after eight or nine years, it
is expected the cost will be about $15,000,000.

Such in brief is the Australian scheme.

In order to emphasize the very small time period required in this
system the training of Australians is here tabulated:

Artillery and engineers and naval recruits train for twenty-five days,
of which seventeen are spent in camp. From the above it is seen that
the Australian system is founded upon the training of the youth of
the country. Let us examine the three stages of instruction for boys
and young men in Australia, under separate heads. The purpose of the
different periods of schooling are.

First, in the junior cadets, to systematize physical drills and
marching exercises in conjunction with school duties and thus improve
bodily development. This plan was found of peculiar advantage to the
city-bred boy.

Second, with the senior cadets, between the ages of fourteen and
eighteen, while continuing the physical development, to initiate
a general military training that would lighten subsequent recruit
instruction.

Third, in the militia, men between eighteen and twenty-five years of
age, to organize, train and discipline a force of real fighting value.
In Australia, as in the United States, primary education is compulsory
and free. In most of the antipodean states children remain at school
up to fourteen years of age. Schools are found in even thinly populated
districts and three-fourths of the children of the country attend
the same. The other fourth attend private schools. The commonwealth
government has no authority over education, which, as it is in the
United States, is a function of the state government. But the central
government has power to require training for military purposes in all
schools. It was no difficult task to introduce military instruction in
the schools, as, before the passage of the defense act, volunteer cadet
corps existed in primary institutions of learning. These numbered some
30,000 students and have passed on their name, junior cadets, to the
present organizations.

Although Australia is a young country, the effect of the crowding into
the cities has already been marked among the youth of the land. A sharp
difference is noted between the city- and the country-bred boy. So
this physical training is a national asset, even though many of the
boys who train, afterwards fail to come up to the high standard set
for entrance into the militia. In the schools all cadets are examined
medically before being subject to the fatigues of military exercise.

As the commonwealth government had no power to legislate military
instruction into existence as an added burden to the schoolmasters,
it had to be accepted voluntarily. In recompense the central
administration made grants to schools meeting the government
requirements. All the schools are now conducting the training. Teachers
undertake a special course in order to fit themselves for the work.

The training consists of not less than fifteen minutes each day devoted
to physical exercises and a short time occupied in marching drill,
which, in practice, is infantry squad drill. In addition, the cadet can
choose two of the following subjects as part of his military course:

1. Miniature rifle shooting.
2. Swimming.
3. Running exercises in organized games.
4. First aid to the wounded.

From the above schedule it is easily understood that the cadet training
of ninety hours per year is one of the popular courses of the schools.

What the junior cadets look forward to during the whole of their period
of apprenticeship is the date of their fourteenth birthday, when they
become seniors. The two titles come down from the days of the Roman
republic, when the young men of that nation espoused military training
in order to fit themselves for war. The Australian senior cadet forms
part of his country’s military system. A pride and glow of patriotism
fills his breast when first he dons his uniform. Then he receives his
“Record Book” in which will be written the history of his military
life, he is allotted arms and accoutrements and assigned to a company.
It is safe to say that the young Australian experiences much the same
feelings as did the novitiate knight of old when first he donned armor
and lifted spear.

Now the cadet comes under military discipline. Companies are as a
rule 120 strong, including three officers, five sergeants and four
corporals. Nothing more complicated than company evolutions are
attempted in the way of drill, which includes the manual of arms. At
times, the companies are formed into battalions for some ceremonial and
this gives added zest to the training. As the boys enter into their
work with all the enthusiasm of youth, they soon attain a proficiency
that approaches the drilling of West Point cadets in the United States.
In the outlying districts, the cadet companies recruited in the remote
grazing country are remarkable for the physique of the members.
Nevertheless, battalions formed in city areas respond rapidly to
systematic physical instruction, and show sharp improvement in body, in
mentality and in morality at the end of the course.

The introduction to military training is continued for four years. At
the end of that time, when the senior cadet reaches his eighteenth
year, he is brought before the medical officer of his training area
for examination. He is then classified as either first, fit; second,
conditionally fit; third, temporarily unfit; fourth, unfit; fifth,
not substantially of European origin or descent. According to his
classification he does or does not enter the established militia.

As recently as 1912 service in the militia of Australia was voluntary.
The period of engagement was three years and implied the right to
resign under certain contingencies. The militiaman who attended a
minimum number of parades, equal to twelve full days’ training, was
declared efficient. The only penalty for non-efficiency was discharge.
Officers were selected from citizens in or outside the militia force
without any previous qualification. From the above it can be gathered
that the standard of training was unfortunately low. In order not to
inaugurate too radical a departure from past conditions when the
defense act went into effect, old militia units were continued in
existence, and while their internal organization was interfered with as
little as possible, they were brought up to an improved standard.

In addition new units were created, and these include many old members.
Here a distinct alteration in constitution has been effected. Old
members are not usually re-engaged after the completion of their
current enlistment. This provision is probably put forward in order
to break with some of the past traditions. Non-commissioned officers,
however, are encouraged to re-enlist.

Classes report annually at one date, usually July 1st, and when their
eight-year service is complete the class is mustered out as a body.
As already stated, for the first seven years all the members of the
class must undergo military training not less than sixteen whole days
annually. Efficiency is determined at a yearly test, and militiamen
found not to be up to standard must undergo longer service. Promotion
in all classes is from the ranks and is based on merit. In normal times
about 20,000 senior cadets become liable to training in the militia
every year. This number may be expected to increase as the population
of Australia grows.

Musketry instruction is a special feature of the militiaman’s training
and is carried out along the same general lines pursued in the
British army. Rifle ranges are located within a few miles of all the
training localities. In the mounted services, which are very popular
in Australia, the cavalryman citizen soldier supplies his own mount.
This simple device relieves the commonwealth government of a large item
of expenditure. On the other hand, the field artillery batteries are
supplied with government horses obtained and maintained especially for
the purpose. Australia has a stock of 2,250,000 horses of all types, so
there is little difficulty in supplying the militia needs in the open
market. However, it is proposed to establish a large government stud
farm and breed a uniform type of artillery horse.

Results of universal liability to military training in Australia can
thus be summarized:

Prior to the year 1909 there had been a steadily growing feeling in
Australia that the 25,000 available militia was entirely insufficient
for local defense. The Federal Government, after careful study,
discovered that it was in no financial condition to increase the
military forces on the same lines and at the same rates of pay as
then in force. To expand the militia to 120,000 would have meant an
outlay far too great in proportion to revenues, and it was also deemed
impossible, even if the money were available, to bring the citizen
force up to this strength through voluntary enlistment.

Neither was it thought that under the old standard of instruction the
increased numbers would produce increased efficiency. Soldiering,
as then conducted, would often operate to the disadvantage of the
patriotic militiaman because of the short-sightedness of his employer.
Men lost their jobs for going to camp, resignations which were
allowable were frequent, and thus it was considered that even if it
were possible to continue the volunteer enlistments, the average length
of service would be curtailed.

To wipe out the citizen forces already existing, which cost so much for
the result obtained, and to increase the regular forces to a new war
establishment, would have given a very good fighting machine. Because
of its cost, and the prejudice of the Australians against a large
regular army, such a scheme was rejected. Between these two extremes
the new system has been evolved.

CHAPTER V

THE ENGLISH MILITARY SYSTEM

In event of a great war the United States would suffer the same
military experience as England. The positions and policy of the two
countries are somewhat analogous and our military course has been
shaped along lines that closely follow the English system. For this
reason, the change brought about in military matters in the British
Empire, under pressure of war, is of especial interest to Americans.

I do not hesitate to say the First Hundred Thousand, as they are
now designated--the expeditionary army England sent to Flanders and
France in August, 1914--as a fighting force--has never been excelled.
The battalions were professional soldiers. Their training had been
practical. Their equipment was excellent. Their physical condition
superb. What added highly to the effectiveness of these battalions
was the standard of marksmanship maintained in the English army. The
splendid shooting ability of the British soldiers saved them from
annihilation. The discipline that had become part of their nervous
reactions made it possible for them to carry out with small loss, a
retreat that has since become historic. Superior numbers overwhelmed
the British at Mons and Le Cateau. Yet, despite two severe defeats, the
army was extricated from an almost impossible situation and suffered
no deterioration in morale. In the same predicament, any save highly
trained and efficient units would have probably repeated the famous
maneuver of the Northern army at the battle of Bull Run.

The fact that stands out in this initial campaign is, the finest type
of professional soldiers were defeated by superior numbers of trained
citizen battalions. Man for man, I do not consider that the German
troops of the first line equaled, in soldierly qualities, the British
army forced back in Belgium. German officers are more professional
than English and the invaders had a smoothly working staff--a factor
lacking with their opponents--but in the rank and file, the Englishman
outclassed the Prussian. Nevertheless, the professional soldier went
down to defeat before the trained citizen in superior numbers. From
this circumstance we draw the lesson that the day of the mercenary
soldier is over. Under the policy of the nation, in arms, which has
been forced on the world by Germany and her allies, it is impossible
for any country to pay enough professional soldiers to take the entire
responsibility for the protection of the nation. Such an arrangement
would also be highly detrimental to moral standards.

In England, as would be the case in the United States, the regular army
was but a stop-gap. When the real test of battle came, the nation had
to fall back on the citizens to furnish fighting material. Additional
forces were supplied under two heads, territorials, who are militia in
its strictest sense, and volunteers.

It would be a tedious technical discussion to go into the reasons why
the army formed from this material failed of its object. What is of
importance is the fact that the English people--the most reluctant in
the world to break with tradition--realized the necessity of compulsory
service.

Had the measure of conscription been put into effect at the very
outbreak of war, who can say how many useful lives might have been
saved? Who can reckon how the conflict might have been shortened?

Unlike England, the United States has no “Grand Fleet” equal to the
task of guarding its coasts. Should an invader disembark in the numbers
that sifted through Belgium in 1914, the American regular army could be
counted upon to make as heroic a stand as the First Hundred Thousand,
but it would, in the end, be swept away.

Until the opening of hostilities the organization of the British army
was divided into the regular army and a territorial army. A large part
of the regular army was stationed in British dominions oversea. The
territorial army serves at home in peace time, but in event of war,
becomes an auxiliary reserve. Recruits for all forces are obtained by
voluntary enlistment.

In time of peace the regular army embraces the standing army, the army
reserve and a special reserve. In the standing army and army reserve
the period of enlistment is for twelve years, with the permission to
extend to twenty-one years under certain circumstances. Of the original
twelve years, from three to nine are spent with the colors--that is
on active service--the remainder of the enlistment is passed in the
army reserve. As a rule, the majority of men serve seven years in the
permanent force and five years in the reserve. Thus the English recruit
for the regular army chooses soldiering as his lifework. Men enlist
between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.

In peace time the establishment is never kept up to full strength
and, upon the outbreak of the European war, difficulty was experienced
in bringing the units up to the requirements, from the army and the
special reserve forces.

Including all ranks, the peace total of the regular army is about
250,000. Roughly, these are divided as follows: 135,000 for service in
the British Isles, 45,000 stationed in Egypt and the Colonies, with
75,000 English troops in India. The native army in India, at peace
strength, numbers 159,000. The war strength of the English army, on
paper, exclusive of all auxiliary and territorial forces, is 391,000.
The territorial army in 1914 was 312,000. In the army estimates of
1914-15, before the outbreak of war, the total of the English home and
colonial military establishments was reckoned at the high figure of
727,000. And this did not include the regular troops in India (75,000).

After the standing army (regular troops) England relies first on the
special reserve, which might be classified under the convenient German
term, _Landwehr_.

The special reserve consists in the main of troops not permanently
embodied in the standing army, but its units act as regular depot
battalions. Special reservists enlist for six years. The recruits, with
certain exceptions, are put through five months’ preliminary training.
The trained men of this force are called out annually for three weeks,
with an additional six days’ musketry practice for infantry.

Officers are for the most part non-professional, and although the
enlisted force includes some ex-regular army men, the special reserve
still retains the flavor of militiaism, out of which it was created in
1907. In 1914 it was 80,000 strong. These numbers have been largely
augmented and the reserve has been used to supply drafts both of
officers and men for the regular army serving in the field.

The home defense force of the British Empire is the territorial army.
This corresponds in purpose to the German _Landsturm_, although in
composition it is entirely different. While an engagement in this body
only involves duty in the British Isles, over 20,000 officers and men
accepted liability for service abroad. The term of enlistment is for
four years. Recruits must be from seventeen to thirty-five years old.

The training of the territorials consists in two weeks in camp
annually, a certain number of prescribed drills varying with the
branch, and a course in rifle shooting. Unless the soldier spends at
least eight days in camp and passes an efficiency test, he is fined
$25. All officers in the territorial army are non-professional, except
certain generals and the staff.

While the establishment of the territorial army, on paper, in 1914 was
312,000 officers and men, the actual strength did not exceed 250,000.
At once the original establishment was doubled. Although, as stated,
the force was destined for home defense alone, as the war progressed,
an overwhelming preponderance of the territorial army volunteered
for foreign service. Immediately a number of battalions were sent to
India to replace regular forces. During the first year of the war
they continued relieving troops stationed in the various British
possessions. Lately territorials have been sent directly to the theater
of operations.

According to the budget, previous to the war, the cost of the English
army in 1914-15 was $143,321,000.

It is very informing to review these figures, in the light of
subsequent events. They show most forcibly how, during long periods
of peace, the establishments of the military forces are allowed to
shrink. The special reserve and the territorial army consisted of mere
skeleton battalions, in no way fit to take the field. So, when the
test came, the country had to rely alone on the regular army. Soon
it was discovered that the volunteer system of recruiting--in time
of peace--had not kept the units up to full quota. The plan of the
English general staff decreed that on mobilization for war, the bulk
of the regular army stationed in England would be organized into an
“expeditionary force” consisting of a cavalry division, six infantry
divisions with certain train and communication troops, making in all
an aggregate of 165,000 officers and men. Service regulations put the
infantry divisions at about 18,000 strong, with the cavalry division
numbering under 10,000.

Yet when the British Isles were raked and scraped for soldiers, in
August, 1914, the aggregate available for service was between 60,000
and 80,000, the estimated strength of the first British army sent to
Flanders. Possibly a support of 20,000 followed the first contingents.

So, of the regular army, when the note of war sounded, not half
were present for duty. But before we criticize the English military
authorities, let us ask ourselves how many of the units of the American
army would be available in emergency, and how near their paper strength
would these units be? It is safe to assume that the United States
would find itself in a much more serious predicament than Britain did
under similar conditions.

While the “expeditionary force” was as fine a body of fighting men
as the world will see, they, as I have indicated, could not hope to
accomplish the task set before them. And it was found--as will always
be the case where a military establishment must depend upon the grace
of a legislative body for its maintenance--that the standing army was
far below the required standard of enlistment.

Under war conditions the territorial army organizations broke down.
What might have been the consequences if England were compelled to
rely upon this force in case of invasion, is appalling to contemplate.
Luckily, it was possible to reorganize the whole of the territorial
establishment and--though for a long time many units were without
rifles and equipment--it was possible to mobilize and stiffen them
through preliminary training. As for taking the field, few, if any, of
the battalions were fit for active service when war broke.

It is only fair to state that prevailing conditions were not wholly
the fault of territorial officers and soldiers. The substitute for a
citizen army was a good deal scoffed at in former times in England, and
_Punch_ leveled many of its jokes at the ignorance of the territorials.
In time of stress the British press and public were glad to turn to
these despised “toy soldiers” for aid.

The lessons from the experience of our mother country are obvious.

First, it is seen a country that relies on a limited--although highly
trained--professional army cannot cope in combat with a state that
follows the “nation in arms” principle.

The English army served an excellent purpose. Without it a large part
of the British Empire would have had to depend upon local forces
for protection. In brief, the function of the regular army in Great
Britain, as in the United States, was primarily to garrison distant
possessions. It was a sort of sublimated police. To expect such a force
to meet any other hostile menace, successfully, is outside military
reason. Mobilization is the first activity of defense, and it is
obviously impossible to concentrate quickly, troops scattered over a
large area of the earth’s surface.

Second, reserves cannot be improvised.

With the best will and spirit in the world, the English people could
not throw into the field a proper supporting force for the first
line. It was clearly demonstrated that the training of supplementary
forces cannot be left to the moment of the outbreak of hostilities
without entailing heavy and unnecessary losses in the first line.
That the organization of new forces under the stress of war is always
a difficult and demoralizing process was sharply shown. In this
connection it was discovered that a haphazard system of second-line
training in time of peace gave the minimum of efficiency in time of war.

Third, universal liability to service, certainly in event of war, is
the only just and efficient system of defense organization.

Only after the bitterest lessons did England and the English people
consent to conscription. It cannot be said the nation embraced the
change in its military ideals, save in a spirit of resentment against
Germany for making the measure necessary. But the government and the
people realized it was no longer an abstract discussion between the
principles of volunteering and conscription. Opposed as the body of
the populace were to any measure in the smallest degree tainted with
Prussianism, yet under the soul-testing ordeal of battle they took
their lesson from the enemy and prepared to meet him on nearly equal
terms.

How much of the material resources of England and how many of the lives
of her gallant sons were lost because these pregnant lessons were not
learned in time of peace, will never be computed. Today Great Britain
is laboring heart and soul to remedy the military sins of the past.
With characteristic doggedness Britannia is welding into being an army
worthy of the nation. But present activity will not bring back the
dead from the fields of Flanders. As we sow, so must we reap. It were
well if the United States took the experience of England to heart and
pondered deeply thereon.

CHAPTER VI

THE NEW ERA IN WARFARE

The science of war is never stationary. While in times of peace the
evolution of armament and tactics, as a rule, are gradual and slow,
during active operations, revolutionary changes may take place over
night. Of such the first to come to mind was the encounter between
the Merrimac and Monitor. These little ships, in their memorable
battle, were the forerunners of the superdreadnaught. From such small
beginnings nearly all radical military alterations arrive.

Therefore, in any study of preparedness we must watch closely
successive military operations. The present European war will bring
about a revolution in military science. The change may be more complete
than that which marked the Napoleonic period, more radical than the
era that saw the introduction of gunpowder. As the battle of Harfleur
marked the change of military tactics in the fifteenth century, so
will the battle of the Marne record the alteration of tactics in
the twentieth century. During this battle, aeroplanes were first
extensively used in “spotting,” which is a colloquial artillery term
meaning to locate and indicate the range of enemy batteries.

The aged-proved axioms of strategy will always remain the same, yet the
European war has evolved an extraordinary evolution in armament.

Already we see the first stages of war in the air in the sustained
maneuvering of squads of Zeppelins. It would be safe to predict that
soon battles as decisive as any waged on land or sea will be fought out
in the sky. The air raids and the isolated combats that are matters of
daily occurrence along the Franco-German fighting front will eventually
develop into carefully planned operations by huge fleets of air craft,
seeking to achieve a definite military objective. That these flying
squadrons will meet other aerial armadas determined to defeat them, is
obvious.

Before taking up the study of the possibilities of war in the air,
it is essential that we examine the extraordinary military situation
on the face of the earth. The year 1915 has seen nearly all Europe a
vast testing ground of war’s basic elements. All the newest devices
contrived by man for the killing of his fellowman have been tried out.
The result is a vicious circle in the science of war. The new methods
of defense are about equal to the new inventions for destruction. So
that, finally, war still hinges on the hand-to-hand encounters.

The experts who theorized about the effect of modern weapons before the
war, declared that battles would be conducted with immense intervals
separating the contending forces. The killing power of the modern
rifle was so great that troops could not approach within a mile of one
another. But experience refutes theories. The trench lines of armies
are now sometimes only ten yards apart.

Against the magazine rifle and the machine gun, the charge was
impossible, the bayonet obsolete, said the wise ones. Far from being
the fact, the charge is a nightly maneuver and the bayonet, especially
the hand variety, is still the best weapon the soldier carries.

The military situation in Europe, in its present anomalous stage, is a
heavy indictment of man’s vaunted development; he finds himself in the
science of war, to which he has applied his best skill and brain power,
little farther advanced after centuries of effort than the cave man.
But the situation cannot remain as it is. There are factors behind the
fighting lines that absolutely forbid the indefinite continuation of
the existing state of war.

Strategy is the method employed to bring an enemy to battle. Its end
is to wipe the enemy out of existence. In principle, this purpose of
combat is eternal. Tactics, that is, troop handling, on the contrary,
is no more stable than the weather.

A century ago Napoleon told us “tactics change every ten years.” Most
of our modern generals seem to have overlooked this dictum. Within the
last year the wisdom of the master tactician has been attested anew.
Old tactical theories lie buried in the modern trench. Today we enter
the period of subway warfare. The trench nullifies the most carefully
thought-out plan of attack. It has made the maneuver battle a matter of
history.

Fighting of real armies has come to the stage realized a decade
ago in football--mass formation. But as mass formation produced a
disproportion of disabled players, so the present offensives produce
a war wastage out of all relation to results. The problem before the
present commanders is to cut down that wastage and win.

That swift and decisive operations in France and Flanders by any
belligerent are indefinitely postponed, was three times conclusively
demonstrated by three separate attacks--the French in Champagne, the
English at Loos, and the Germans at Verdun.

These attacks proved that, under the conditions which now hold, it is
impossible to penetrate well-defended trench lines with sufficient
numbers of victors to achieve a position of dominant strategic
advantage. True, the offensives resulted in the capture of men, guns
and positions, but the profit thereof was not worth the wastage.

The battle line in the west is rigid. In this hypothesis military
problems are analyzed solely on the conditions in France and Flanders.
Having cast the battle maneuver into the limbo of oblivion, what plan
shall we substitute?

Forces along limited fronts can capture sections of the first, second
and even the third line trenches, but there they must stop. No attack
can maintain its propulsive power beyond the third line. The losses are
too large; the winners who survive too few to hold. This first formula
of modern warfare has been proved past all dispute.

Trench construction is now elaborated beyond all previous conception.
Troops live like moles. Belgium and France are gridironed with
tunnels, saps and ditches. In some districts the third line trenches
are dug five miles in rear of the first. The intervening acreage is a
forest of abatis. High and low wire entanglements spring like hop vines
from the hill slopes. Deadly pitfalls with long impaling stakes planted
at the bottom await the enemy. So when the stanchest regiments reach
the third lines there remains but a group of shattered squads. Cohesion
and direction are lost.

Supporting artillery fire is ineffective. The sources of ammunition
dry up like a trickling stream in the desert. The assault dies. When
new men and new ammunition are again gathered, the battle chiefs plan
another offensive. The commanders are obsessed by the vision of that
maneuver myth, “the Gap.” They reason, the enemy’s lines once pierced,
all precedents demand that he retire. Unfortunately, past performances
have no bearing on present warfare.

When Marshal von Mackensen inaugurated his idea of artillery in
column-firing formation and cut the Russian front in Galicia, many
military students thought this the beginning of startling new
maneuvers. But when conditions were analyzed it was found that von
Mackensen’s success was in large measure due to Russian ammunition
failure.

The French curtain of fire is a variation of the German expedient. The
defect in this use of artillery is the enormous expenditure. Shells are
sown into the soil like seeds in a wheat field.

As Napoleon solved the tactical problems of other days, so I expect
the trench dead-lock to be broken by a Frenchman. The French are the
most ingenious of the contending nations. Unfortunately, they have not
had complete command of all the forces in the field. This prevents
them from attempting the extended “push and grip” action. Such action
would be an assault along the total occupied frontage, from Nieuport to
Belfort, 450 miles, with the object of gripping sections of the enemy’s
position wherever weakness develops. It must always be preceded by the
longest possible artillery fire.

Perhaps the near future will witness a maneuver which the tacticians
have deemed impossible, a battle won with great guns alone. Man wastage
is the woe of this war. The grim specter of the end of the human supply
haunts every commander. It takes eighteen years to make a man, and
hardly more than eighteen minutes to turn a shell. What the ratio of
killing power may be has not been determined.

In the future we shall see artillery actions maintained continuously,
not only 72 hours, but 144, even 200 hours. These bombardments will
be one continual drum-roll of death. Can men, even when they are not
hit, live under this deluge of shells? Some, perhaps, but the majority
will be driven mad by the noise. The attacked area will be one great
crater of smouldering débris. What with the man-made meteorites that
disembowel great sections of the earth, dropping with the density of
hail, the spread of poisonous vapors, the shrieks of the dying at night
and all the incident horrors of bombardment, such a battlefield will be
hell in miniature.

Add to this a vast subterranean attack, such as 50 or even 100
mines exploded simultaneously, and we reach the limit of ground and
underground fighting.

What develops in aerial warfare is of vital interest to the United
States. Like England, we have been asleep while our neighbors labored
to produce a mechanical contrivance the world influence of which is
beyond the flights of wildest fancy. The dirigible is the ship of the
future. Out of the experience of this war it will come to be the great
commercial carrier of the ages.

Look at the Zeppelin without prejudice excited by its early failures,
and you will see a war vessel of infinite possibilities. Today it is in
its infancy. Ten years from today the Zeppelin will be more mighty in
radius and armament than the Nevada.

When in Berlin during the first period of the war I met a German
officer who spoke often of an aerial invasion of England. At the time
the plan seemed absurd. Since then I have seen the first Zeppelin
come to London. The ghostly cylinder swam over the city while the
searchlights centered their silver rays upon it. It looked to be
as long as a surface car. My ear caught the faint purr of distant
machinery. This sound was soon drowned in the muffled roar of bursting
bombs.

Suddenly athwart the night sky a flashing meteor circled and burst
with a sharp crack. Others came quickly in the wake of the first,
showing the frantic haste of the men firing the anti-aircraft guns. The
shrapnel spattered the sky with great globules of gold. Suddenly and
mysteriously the monstrous silver cylinder shot up into the heavens, to
be seen no more.

Then out of the west, burning buildings sent a red flare up into the
night. Against this crimson haze the dome and cross of St. Paul’s was
sharply silhouetted. Such was the first battle in the air. Dull indeed
must be the imagination that was not stirred by the sight. Since then
there can be no doubt that the airship will be a vital factor in future
wars.

At present no other nation save Germany has a dirigible fleet worthy of
the name. I heed the oft-repeated statement that the Zeppelin has not
proved itself an auxiliary to the fighting forces. Perhaps as yet it
can claim no startling success. But to assume no effective work from
this “fourth arm” in the near future would be the height of military
folly.

England commands the seas, and Germany commands the air. Out of this
condition will come a contest that will shatter old military methods
and maxims. The world will see the most astounding raid ever attempted.
All these isolated attacks on the English coast--experimental practice
trips--clearly foretell one end--an air invasion of England.

The experts in aeronautics agree such invasion is feasible. Combining
all the aircraft available in the British Isles, including the Greek
letter classes of airships, such a fleet would be no match for the
flying craft Germany could put in the skies. Yet England boasts an
aggregate of 15,000 aeroplanes.

Let me quote from F. C. Lancaster, the expert English aerial engineer:

“When, however, the weather conditions are favorable to attack, also in
the case of attack by night, there is no means of defense at present
known to the author which would prevent the enemy from inflicting
enormous damage if he attack in sufficient numerical force and be
prepared to attack with determination in spite of any losses he may
sustain; no reasonable superiority in the defending aircraft, either
individually or numerically, can be entirely effective.

“Neither can we pin our faith to counter aircraft artillery; under the
conditions in question it may prove useless.... The raids which have
been hitherto carried out are quite trivial and ineffective affairs
compared with what in due course will become possible.”

These words are prophetic. In actual maneuvers, prepare to see flights
by 100, 200--yes, 500 aeroplanes. These will be craft of all sizes and
construction. The giant triplane is a fact. But aeroplane improvement
will not stop there. The Skyorsky aeroplane, a mighty Russian machine
that has carried sixteen passengers, points to future progress. The
quadriplane, with a crew and armament equal in effect to an undersea
boat, and capable of a 1000-mile flight at a speed rate of 100 miles an
hour, is no mere figment of fancy.

The only check on air war is the dearth of trained fliers. When
they are recruited in sufficient numbers on both sides, look for
revolutionizing changes in the methods of conducting war.

No maneuvering army will be complete without an auxiliary air fleet.
It is possible the air fleet will be the attacking force, and the
earth-anchored infantry and guns act only as a supporting factor. No
man can yet foresee how the “fourth arm” will be employed in grand
tactics.

It needs no prophetic vision to foresee the development of the
submarine. From the first, naval constructors have been working toward
an undersea craft of greater radius and greater displacement. No
mechanical problem forbids the 5000-ton submarine with a 6000-mile
radius; such ships will probably take the waters this year.

A new type of periscope is being evolved which may vastly improve the
undersea boats. But these rovers will find their raids more severely
blocked than ever.

The “antisubmersible” is a new type of ship on the English roster. It
is an elaboration of the swift launches used to combat the undersea
ships in the English Channel and the Mediterranean. On these craft a
special cast of gun will be mounted capable of throwing a subsea shell.
Such at least is the claim.

The Merrimac and the Monitor changed the navies of the world over
night. A new submarine invention might achieve the same results. With
the discovery of the subsea light ray, this would happen. Only find
some method of making clear the course of the submarine while it
cruises beneath the waves, and you increase its service a thousand
fold. Unseen and unsuspected, it might prowl the waters of the seven
seas, scuttling ships of all enemies unmolested.

At present one submarine cannot fight another, because one submarine
cannot see another. To send a submarine out to find and destroy a
submarine would be like sending a blind man out in a city to find
another blind man.

Give the submarine but one eye, and the mightiest superdreadnaught goes
to the scrap heap. The naval change of 1863 may be paralleled in 1916.

Americans are first in the fields of mechanics, so this chapter is
inserted with the intention of turning the minds of some of our
inventors into channels that may serve in war. We have given the world
both the submarine and the aeroplane. Let it be hoped we have not
delivered a weapon into the hands of our enemy while we remain unarmed.

CHAPTER VII

THE STRATEGIC POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES

“The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary
to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance
those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other
nation abounds.”--GEORGE WASHINGTON.

It is the fashion to say that the world is growing smaller. This figure
of speech is deep with significance for the United States. No people
know the fact of world shrinkage so well as our own, because of the
characteristic passion of Americans for foreign travel. As a corollary,
there is one subject that will always hold the interest of the United
States citizen, whether the subject be looked at in the light of
pleasure or profit, and that is transportation.

Step by step, the American republic has advanced in prosperity and
prominence in stride with the progress of freight and passenger
carriage. Present wealth in the United States is built upon the
railroads. At the same time, the American people envy other nations
their great sea tonnage.

While the citizens of the United States have studied the transportation
problem extensively from the business point of view, few have examined
its bearing upon the strategic position of the country. At the
present stage of world development, no subject is more worthy of hard
thought than the probable contraction of globe-encircling lines of
communication.

It is a curious circumstance that the paths of war follow the paths
of commerce. Still, if we go into the reasons for this phenomenon,
they are seen to be consistently logical. The conflicts of commerce
are often the precursors of warfare, so it is but natural the two
conditions run along the same channels.

Thus, every point where the lines of transportation impinge upon the
coast of the United States holds a danger--intimate or remote--to this
country. In other words, the United States is open to attack at every
point on the coast, except where local defenses protect individual
cities. The coast of the United States includes not only the seaboard
line of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with the Gulf of Mexico, but
the shores of Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines and our
Achilles heel, the Panama Canal Zone. The most remote possessions must
be carefully considered in all plans of defense.

While more frequent and more rapid transportation will tend to bring
outlying American dependencies into closer relations with the mother
country, yet by their positions they will always be under the menace of
potential enemies. Such menace increases in direct ratio to the lack of
transports and shipping units in the United States.

In the exposition that follows bear constantly in mind the fact that
the figures given for the time required to transport troops from point
to point, is the maximum. Remember that each year shows an improvement
in tonnage and speed in ocean-going ships. As a gauge of such
advancement, compare the speed and displacement of the Mauretania with
any ship considered an ocean leviathan twenty years ago. The comparison
will give you an insight into the rate of world shrinkage.

The safeguard of isolation no longer exists. The oceans, instead of
being barriers to possible enemies, are now convenient carriers of
striking power. The number, speed and carrying capacity of ocean-going
vessels make the sea lanes of peace easy avenues of attack in time of
hostilities. The most conclusive demonstration of this fact was the
British Expedition to the Dardanelles. Incident to this campaign, it
was shown that sea transport was the safest and most convenient method
of moving troops and material between distant points.

And as a supplement to ocean transport we must consider the aeroplane,
the submarine and wireless telegraphy, with the increased radii of
action of these elements and the possibilities of their further
development. From my own experience, I expect to see improved Zeppelins
sailing between Europe and the United States within ten years. If
you want to arrive at a parallel which gives a hint of future aerial
advancement, compare the “Claremont” of Fulton’s voyage down the Hudson
in 1807 with the superdreadnaught “Pennsylvania.” The first successful
steam vessel would not be fit for dingy work on the battleship. The
improvement that has taken place within the last one hundred years in
ocean-going transportation puts a very different complexion upon the
American political status from that which inspired the actions of the
fathers of the nation.

As the years pass, both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the
United States will become more and more within the sphere of hostile
activities of over-seas nations. So in planning for national defense
let us not build only for today.

All American citizens know enough of the geographical circle of
American influence to realize the many points of weakness it presents.
On one side we offer the whole Atlantic seaboard, the coast line of the
Gulf of Mexico, and the Colon entrance to the Panama Canal. Also Puerto
Rico and the islands of the Caribbean Sea may be regarded as in the
sphere of hostile activities, and readily assailable.

Because of the Monroe Doctrine, it can be accurately stated that the
United States is liable to attack at any part of the Atlantic side
of the Western Hemisphere, from Portland, Maine, to Punta Arenas,
Patagonia.

The Pacific sphere of American influence is the open door to all
enemies. It is conceded by military students that the island
possessions of the United States could not be defended in case of
attack, under the present army program. It is not necessary to enlarge
upon this situation. What more nearly concerns the integrity of the
Union is the undefended condition of Alaska. Finally, the entire
western area of the country is exposed to aggression.

Here also the entrance to the Panama Canal is a strategic objective
sure to receive prompt attention from any enemy. Again, on the Pacific
side of the American continent, the prohibition of the Monroe Doctrine
can be challenged. One sword-prick and this paper rampart will be
breached. In order to get the strategic outline of the United States
in your mind, try to imagine all possessions girdled by a fortress
wall. Remember, we have no troops to man more than an infinitesimal
section of this imaginary bulwark, and guns are placed only at rare
and immense intervals along it. That it lacks the first essential of a
fortress, positions of mutual support, is immediately observed. Again
it is at once evident that the lines of communication, another basic
element of defense, are from every angle, outside immediate boundaries,
assailable. The measure of defense to be expected at points of probable
assault can be approximately estimated by the number of troops present
at the points. It is assumed the forces have the requisite amount
of ammunition and artillery to meet initial operations of an enemy.
Figures obtained from the War Department give the usual peace time
distribution of the fighting forces of the army as follows:

In the United States (including Coast Artillery) 51,000
In the Philippines:
Regular troops 13,500
Native scouts 6,000
In Puerto Rico 700
In Alaska 800
In Hawaii 9,600
In Panama 6,200
------
87,800

From this table it is possible to estimate what effectives can
be placed in the field at the immediate outbreak of hostilities.
No allowance is made for “war strength,” which, under the system
prevailing in the United States army, is largely a myth. To add a
thousand untrained men to an infantry unit does not double the fighting
ability of that unit, although it doubles its numerical strength. Such
a proceeding is more likely to demoralize a dependable force. The worst
feature of the whole American plan is the war-expansion idea. Stop a
moment to analyze what the scheme means.

In peace, regiments are homogeneous aggregations of disciplined,
equipped and trained soldiers. They are fighting teams. Think what
will happen when the team is suddenly doubled in size, by adding
undisciplined and unarmed, untrained elements. Admitting that it were
possible to absorb these troops into the original regiment (a result in
itself impossible, because the rifles for the supplementary troops are
not made), how would the fighting value of the force be affected? Any
army officer, and there are many who have approximated the experience
outlined during the Spanish-American war, will tell you that the
original efficiency of the unit suffers a distinct loss. The theory
that it is possible to strengthen armies with undigested recruits added
to veteran forces is a fallacy often proved on the battlefield.

As our subject is preparedness against war, defenses must be considered
in the light of deterrents from attack. Let us see what forces could be
mobilized to meet a foe on the East.

Officers of the General Staff have agreed that, in case of war with a
first-class power on the Atlantic, the portion of the country lying
between and including Maine and Virginia would undoubtedly be the
primary objective of an invader. While all other points along the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts and all points on our land frontiers would
undoubtedly be in danger, the danger would be secondary to that of the
Atlantic states named. Roughly, any one of the first-class powers could
transport 150,000 to 350,000 soldiers to American shores within fifteen
days. This result is worked out from what is known of the troops
available and the serviceable transport at the disposition of the great
European powers and the time needed to load the assumed expeditionary
army and cross the ocean. The factor of naval interference is not
considered.

It must be taken for granted that the enemy would not be able to gain a
foothold in any of the coastal fortified areas by direct naval attack,
and in consequence, would be forced to choose some suitable place on
the Atlantic seaboard from which land operations could be conducted
against both the important coast cities and the rich commercial centers
in the interior. Between the fortified positions on the coast, long
stretches lie open to the enemy. The only cure for this weakness is a
mobile land force sufficient to deter a potential aggressor from making
the attempt at landing.

There is a simple test to determine how rapidly units can be moved
and how many troops can be concentrated at some designated point on
the periphery of the United States. Such a maneuver--which would be a
splendid object lesson--could be planned to follow closely probable
political and military sequences.

The War Department would assume that diplomatic relations with a
certain first-class European power were at the breaking point.

A confidential order is then issued to the Chief of Staff. It is
supposed, in stating the problem, that cabinet conferences and
congressional agitation have no material bearing on the course of
events. Hardly has the head of the army received his admonitory
order, when a special agent in the certain hostile European power
reports mobilization activities in the vicinity of a named port. This
information, confirmed from other sources, is assumed to come to hand
on June 1st. However, diplomatic negotiations continue, so the American
government, ever hopeful of avoiding war, does not act upon the
information received until the 4th of June. On this day the American
ambassador in the certain first-class European power is handed his
passports. War against the United States is declared at midnight.

Before the last echoes of the striking hour have died away over the
waters of the named port, a fleet of fifty transports carrying the
first hostile expedition puts to sea. The enemy fleet is already in
position on the Atlantic.

In our maneuver, news of the sailing of the transports is supposed
to arrive in Washington the morning of June 5th. Immediately the War
Department issues the necessary orders for mobilizing the regular army.
National Guard and militia forces are also called upon. At this time it
is unknown at which point the enemy may choose to attempt a landing.
Therefore the available forces can only be moved to positions in rear
of salient points.

It is assumed the American and enemy fleet meet, and, owing to superior
organization on the part of the invader, the American ships are sunk
or scattered. The naval battle takes place June 12th. Now the hostile
transports are half way across the Atlantic Ocean. News of the naval
defeat reaches the United States on June 13th. From the course and
position of the transports, as reported by an American destroyer,
the enemy is seen to be moving to strike at either New York or
Washington. Orders from the War Department and the General Staff follow
fast. On June 18th the enemy squadron is sighted steaming directly
towards New York. On the night of June 20th (the time calculated
for the sea-crossing having elapsed) the enemy is supposed to begin
disembarking at Fort Pond, Long Island. Here our experiment ends.

To furnish the answer to the question of preparedness all that is
now necessary to reckon is the aggregate number of American troops,
regulars, National Guard and militia, in position to oppose the
assumed landing. Granting that the enemy has 150,000 troops on the
transports--a moderate estimate in view of the forces available in
the first-class powers of Europe--how many American soldiers will be
fighting the invader and what are our chances of driving him back to
his ships?

Could the War Department be allowed the money necessary for carrying
out the experiment outlined above, the result would be a stunning
object lesson for the citizens of the United States.

Without putting the maneuver into actual practice, we can deduce
certain facts. From the table furnished by the War Department we know
that there are in the United States (when not diverted to follow a
Mexican bandit) a few over 50,000 regular troops. In our problem,
however, we must subtract 15,000 coast defense soldiers from this
total, as these are not mobile. So we are left with 35,000 soldiers
to defend 3,000,616 square miles of territory and 20,000 miles of
continental coast. We know that these troops are scattered over the
United States from Maine to California, from the Great Lakes to the
Gulf of Mexico. The time necessary to transport them from their posts
to the Atlantic seaboard can be approximately computated. But what
cannot be ascertained is the help the railroads will be able to give in
meeting an unexampled situation. How long it will take to mobilize the
rolling stock necessary for the movement of the troops is a time factor
we must allow for with a large margin.

The records of the past performances of the army in time of war are
available, and they contain nothing calculated to inspire the hope
that more than half the total forces posted in the United States could
be mobilized on the Atlantic coast within fifteen days. Allowing a
little grace, the greatest number of regular troops that could be
thrown against the landing invader is 20,000. It needs no extraordinary
military knowledge to estimate how long such a force could stand
against 150,000. The regulars will be supplemented by a large force of
militia, as the attack is supposed to take place in New York, where the
National Guard organization is strongest. But anyone in the smallest
degree familiar with the limitations of the citizen regiments, as at
present organized, equipped and trained, knows that they will only be
available as a supporting line of doubtful value. To throw the state
troops into action against the soldiers of any first-class European
power, under the conditions that now hold, would be murder.

Ammunition, the vital necessity of fighting units, is not considered,
but from the lessons learned in Europe it is known that the rate
of expenditure far surpasses the measure of supply. It would be
interesting to discover how much and what class of ammunition could be
supplied the artillery of the United States defensive force. Calculated
according to the expenditure of artillery ammunition during daily
battles along the Buzra River in Russia, the American army could rely
for support from its batteries for half a day.

Transferring the scene of activities to the Pacific coast, the same
general conditions will prevail. Only, from the peculiar geographical
outline of the country and the difficulty of transportation, this part
of the United States is far weaker, strategically, than the eastern
seaboard. This is the fact, in spite of the distance separating the
Pacific coast from the ports of a possible enemy. To load 150,000
troops and cross the Pacific Ocean would require not less than
twenty-two days. But once a hostile force was landed on the west sector
of the Union, the utmost difficulty would be experienced in dislodging
it.

Washington State offers a particularly inviting objective to an
enemy in the Puget Sound district. This corner of the United States
is completely cut off from the rest of the country by great natural
obstacles. At the same time, it presents a long stretch of coast open
to attack. It would be no difficult matter for a first-class Pacific
power to strike at Puget Sound, enter western Washington, seize and
destroy the important bridges and tunnels linking the state with
the rest of the country, and establish an army so securely that a
great force and a long time would be necessary to dislodge it. The
natural resources, as well as the industrial condition, of this region
are calculated to maintain an invading army of 150,000 men for an
indefinite period.

The situation in California is even more perilous. There are so many
points along the extended coast of this state an enemy would be in a
quandary as to the best for his purposes. While the transportation
facilities are somewhat better than in Washington State, this advantage
is offset by the enormous area of California. To mobilize enough
troops to meet invasion at the many possible landing places would be
a task beyond the power of an army numbering less than 250,000 men.
The peril of California is increased because of its border adjoining
Mexico. Nothing at present stops hostile forces from entering the
state over the southern border. The little strip of Lower California
offers an enemy a suitable position upon which to establish an
advanced base of operations. Once admit a hostile army into this great
western commonwealth, and all the resources of the nation, in men and
money, would be needed to drive him out. His expulsion would only be
accomplished after years of effort and the loss of thousands of lives.
It follows that the military preparation of the West must be such as to
forbid any potential enemy the thought of invasion.

Passing to the oversea possessions of the United States, it is
discovered that each distant territory presents a special military
problem. The forces that would garrison the Philippines, Hawaii,
Panama, Alaska, not to mention Guantanamo and Puerto Rico, in case of
war, would perform a distinct tactical and strategic mission. Dependent
upon long sea communication for aid from the home country, they would
have to be in all ways self-supporting and able to maintain themselves
for long periods of isolation. It is impossible to maintain a force
strong enough to hold the entire island territory of the United States.
All that can be hoped for is to keep some point that is a key position,
while allowing the enemy to have his way over the undefended area. The
Hawaiian Islands and Panama present a strategic problem that cannot
be treated in this manner. The former would offer a convenient base
for an enemy operating against the Pacific coast, and tend to nullify
the advantages accruing from the possession of the Panama Canal. The
question of their defense is largely technical and does not depend so
much on the size of the force assigned as the organization of defenses
and the co-operation of the navy.

The Panama Canal is the most important strategic position within the
domain of the United States. The whole foundation of American military
and naval strength is based upon the control of this highway connecting
the Atlantic with the Pacific Oceans. It follows that no effort is too
great to secure this point from capture. The complicated machinery of
the locks, spillways and basins of the canal call for extraordinary
precautions in safeguarding them, and demand an organization large
enough and efficient enough to protect these easily destroyed
mechanisms, under all circumstances. A resolute commander with a picked
force could land at a point outside the range of the sea-coast guns
and with skill find his way to some vulnerable sector of the canal and
destroy its usefulness for an indefinite period. The most pressing
problem confronting the American nation is to provide immediately for
the safety of the canal.

The strategic problems of the United States are so many and so
intricate that they lead us far into the domain of the technical
soldier. But omitting the highly specialized quality of knowledge
needed, when the last professional soldier has had his say, the problem
of defense depends upon the number of troops available in time of
attack.

The officers of the American general staff have compiled a plan of
preparedness. In all probability, this plan would insure the United
States against war. Surely the well-considered conclusions of our
professional soldiers merit the respectful consideration of the
non-military population. In passing, let me correct a wrong impression
prevalent among people unacquainted with the army officers. American
officers are not hungering for war. They know the consequences of
conflict better than the civilian. To suggest that the leaders of
the United States army desire war in order to exercise knowledge,
is a scandalous indictment based upon ignorance or thoughtlessness.
The majority of army officers are family men who work hard at their
vocation, and have as much to lose through warfare as other citizens.

To return to the strategic problems, it is next to impossible to
arouse all of the inhabitants of the United States to the serious
consideration of the problem of preparedness against war. While the
coast states are keenly interested in the discussion, citizens living
in the interior scoff at talk of danger. All of which operates against
the evolution of a sound military policy. Another factor militating in
opposition to the plans of defense is the wrong conclusion drawn from
the past experiences of the United States in war. Providence has been
kind to the American republic. We have emerged from many conflicts
successfully. But when the military student analyzes the reasons for
our success, he is amazed. The fact that the United States exists
today is due in the first instance to the timely aid of the French at
a critical stage of the Revolutionary War, and to a wonderful sequence
of events, classified only under the head of luck. Is it good policy to
depend upon luck to save us in the future?

CHAPTER VIII

THE INSTINCT OF DEFENSE

“If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments
of our growing prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times
ready for war.”--GEORGE WASHINGTON.

The instinct for defense is as old as the world. It grew out of the
habit of the strong to prey upon the weak. In the dawn of civilization,
the cave man would shoulder his bludgeon and go forth to slay any
brother whose stores or woman he coveted. Later, the bold and unthrifty
raided the weak and saving. This state of affairs drove the less
warlike together for defense and thus in due course evolved the nucleus
of national life.

Families banded together and took the necessary measures for
safeguarding mutual interests. Such was the basic element of military
evolution. True, armies were debauched from their original ends by
ambitious princes, but this does not alter the case that the function
of a military force is to protect the homes and property of peoples.
It is well, in the echo of the battle-guns of Europe, to recall these
facts.

The defenseless invite attack. Witness the plight of Belgium. With my
own eyes I have seen the penalty of unpreparedness paid in blood and
ashes. Whole cities were laid waste because the citizens were incapable
of defending them. I witnessed the flight of a nation before the tidal
wave of invasion. Man for man and woman for woman these fugitives were
the richest race in Europe. Resting on the false promises of neighbors,
Belgium made no adequate preparation for defense. Its only sin was
weakness. Because the men of Belgium had not been trained in the skill
and taught the duty of defense, their motherland lies crushed. The old
have died by the roadside, when panic drove thousands before the menace
of war unchained. Children sickened and starved. What women suffered
may not be written. Who in our country can give thought to these facts
without the chill of fear creeping into his heart. Our men are the
defenders of our women. The weak, the children of the country, are in
their charge. Pass all abstract considerations and fix alone on the
safety of the home, the protection of loved ones, and we find ourselves
back to first principles. The social state can only be preserved by
mutual support in time of attack. Thus the first duty of every citizen
is to defend his country.

In that long era when nations depended upon hirelings to do their
fighting, the significance of this duty was lost. Selfishness led
to shirking the sacrifices demanded by war. Many wars were but the
conflict of the policy of princes. Let it be hoped that conflicts
willed by the people alone will bring nations to arms in future. But
one eternal human law will forever urge man to settle his last battle
through trial by blood. That law is the struggle for existence. War
today is only the continuation of national policy.

While the American people have shown themselves averse to war, who
demands that in order to avoid bloodshed we abandon the Monroe Doctrine
or surrender our rights in the markets of the world? No man dare say
war will never again visit America.

Study the table of the world’s greatest producing nations. Foremost
among all others you will find the United States. Nature has given
us enormous riches. The ingenuity of our people has developed and
amplified national resources. In twenty years we will have forged so
far ahead of the other nations of the earth that our position will be
the envy of the world. With wealth will come weakness. Unless a radical
change develops in the policy of this country looking towards greater
national security, when we reach the zenith of our prosperity we will
invite attack from every side.

No better parallel can be found showing the fate in store for the rich
but unprepared nation than the extinction of ancient Peru. Before the
advent of Columbus, a happy and prosperous people lived in the Andean
valleys. Ruins of wonderful cities, once adorned with temples and
palaces, testify to the wealth of the Empire of the Incas. Fabulous
ornaments of gold and silver beautified these buildings. From the
scanty records remaining, we know the ancient Peruvians enjoyed a
highly developed social system. They excelled in the arts of peace.
Relying on the towering crags that surrounded their valley-land, the
Peruvians forswore and condemned all military effort, and devoted
themselves assiduously to husbandry. Down the slopes of the valley of
Cuzco winds an irrigation system challenging the best of modern times.
Here is testimony enough of the prosperity of the subjects of the Incas.

The race lived long in peace, secure in the impregnability of the
mountain ramparts. The fable of their riches and their cities spread.
The population of the kingdom was estimated from 2,000,000 to
7,000,000. Those 2,000,000, let us say, were conquered by 184 Spanish
“gun men.” The Peruvians saw their cities sacked, their women violated,
their ruler murdered. The men, women and children were sold into
slavery, where they toiled out a miserable existence, delving in mines
that had been the source of their own wealth, to satisfy the avarice
of the conquerors. Study the story of the conquest of Peru and learn
the consequences of unpreparedness. You will find there a parallel for
every incentive and every act of modern war. From the history of the
Incan kingdom two obvious facts stand out. First, natural resources,
wealth, is more a temptation to neighbors than a factor of strength.
Second, no nation can avoid war and exist when another nation wishes to
force war upon it.

There are those who point to the wonderful natural and artificial
resources of the United States and deduce from these great strength.
In war our wealth would simply be a spur to the enemy. To put the
discussion in colloquial analogy, who would win in a fight between Mr.
J. Pierpont Morgan and “Jack” Johnson?

Because we are a peace-loving people it does not follow we shall remain
immune from attack. Let us labor for our ideals, but do not let our
most ardent impulses for world betterment blind us to the basic facts
of human nature. God has been good to the people of the United States.
No other nation enjoys the fruits of the earth and of industry in so
great a measure as we do. It is easy for us to advocate universal peace
and the arbitration of all disputes, because we have everything to gain
from peace and everything to lose by war. To put the matter bluntly,
universal peace and unlimited arbitration implies we can shirk our
manifest responsibilities.

We are confident in the forensic skill of our advocates. But is it
possible for any rational being to reconcile the existence of The Hague
Peace Palace, with its thousands of volumes of words on the abolition
of war, and the settlement of all disputes according to the decisions
of a few ideal personages with God-like attributes, with the furious
whirlwind of battle sweeping Europe today? The print was hardly dry on
the type recording the polished rhetoric of peace before the armies of
the belligerents were marching to mutual slaughter. Peace is the vapor
of words, war the substance of deeds. Differentiate the fact of war,
and the strong probability of the continuation of war by such nations
as find the method suiting their self-interests, from the abstract
discussions of a millennium when all national contests will be settled
by a set of incorruptible and infallible judges. While man remains
finite in his wisdom and judgment, blood conflict will continue.

We may not wish war, but what shall we do if an aggressive adversary
attacks us? Hostilities may develop from the flimsiest foundations. Our
political attitude, our wealth, our geographic position invite attack.
It is highly rational to consider aggression possible. What should we
do if New York and Washington were captured? Surrender the occupied
territory and live in sweet peace with our conquerors (who doubtless
would rest content with the easily acquired provinces and cities),
purchase an evacuation (which would assure immunity for the future,
perhaps), or fight? Is there an American citizen worthy of the name who
would hesitate in his choice?

I remember what I reverently think of as my first glimpse into the
soul of soldiers fighting, as our fathers fought at Lexington and
Brandywine. I had left the German lines in Belgium, passed the last
patrol of Uhlans at Middlekerke, crossed the few kilometers separating
the opposed forces, until at Westende I stopped my motor beside the
foremost Belgian picket. He was a boy in his twenties. Fresh from the
sight of the masterful mechanism of the German war organization, this
sentry looked like a child in the path of the Juggernaut. After showing
my papers I offered to carry him into his lines at Nieuport.

“The Germans are not more than five kilometers away, you know; they
are coming.”

His eye flashed scorn at my suggestion.

“My place is here. Let them come.”

Outside Nieuport an outpost was dug in along the road. The blue barrel
of a machine gun shining out of the trench-top looked like the rigid
body of a snake stretched along the macadam. A bearded sergeant took
my papers. While he studied them I found myself under the eyes of a
war-worn group. What a story those eyes told! They held an unearthly
light. It seemed as if they were looking beyond me and the sand dunes,
the sea even, into another world. Trench-soiled, uncouth, bearded with
the tangled growth of hard campaigning, the eyes of those soldiers
seemed to shed a radiance about them. If the eye is the window of
the soul, I saw into the spirit of these men. Enshrined there was an
ideal--the sacrifice of self for country.

When the sergeant gravely returned my papers I raised my hand sharply
to my hat rim, the group as a man returned my salute. I drove on with
the old Roman words of death defiance uppermost in mind: _Morituri
salutamus_.

Horrors, or atrocities, as they are designated in war, are almost
always confined to the operations of invading armies. So it is a
country such as the United States, where traditions and geographic
position place us on the defensive, that must suffer most should an
enemy strike. It is unthinkable that our nation will ever engage in
an armed adventure of aggrandizement. Those who rant against adequate
measures for protection insult the majority of the American people by
crying out that making our citizens into competent defenders of their
homes, property and families means sowing the seed of world conquest.
If this were true, it were better we disarm and perish than continue
to enjoy the liberty for which our forefathers suffered and died. We
are not worthy of the liberty secured to us by the blood spilled from
Bunker Hill to Yorktown, from Bull Run to Appomattox, if we are not to
be trusted with the weapon necessary for our self-preservation.

The confusion of thought on the question of defense has arisen from
our conception that the regular army is solely responsible for the
safety of the nation. Vaguely our citizens, who are so occupied with
other interests they cannot give the subject the thought it merits,
understand that in event of a war of the dimensions of the struggle of
1861-65, the regular soldiers would be reinforced by volunteers. But
the question of reserve, in fact, the whole problem of protection, is
pushed out of mind because it is considered a remote contingency that
this nation will again be faced with no alternative but war. In the end
it is assumed that the seas protect us.

After what has passed in Europe during the last year and a half no
man can honestly believe our regularly enlisted force, numbering not
more than 90,000 combatants, scattered over our lands from Alaska to
Florida, in Hawaii and the Philippines is competent to fend an attack
resolutely directed against this country. Since the Civil War the
United States army has been little more than a super-police force. The
comparison of the standing army of this country with the forces of
the powers that may move against us leads to absurd results. Should
an enemy elect to land on Long Island and move on New York, as Lord
Howe did in 1776, granting that it were possible to mobilize the whole
regular army to meet the invasion, it would be brushed aside more
easily than were the Continental forces of Washington. With the present
supply of ammunition the American army could not make as stubborn a
stand as did the Belgians at Liège.

The whole theory of the small regular army in this country is based
on the assumption of the availability of every fit male for military
service. This theory comes to us from colonial days. In former times,
considering the conditions that obtained, it may have been justifiable.
But today the practice of war has changed. Improvisation is no longer
possible. We live in the era of the “nation in arms.” And the nations
approaching the United States in population and material wealth drill
and arm all suitable citizens. Granting the possibility of war, to
continue in the present state of defenselessness is a stupid crime.

On the theory that our army cannot be trusted, and therefore must
be kept down to lowest strength, is it not doubly incumbent on the
citizens of the country to adopt some system of self-preparation? In
case of emergency the flower of the nation would rush to the colors.
Yes, without officers, without arms. The men who might attempt to
bulwark our shores against invasion would, to borrow a current phrase,
serve as cannon fodder.

The trouble with most of the well-intentioned citizens of this country
who argue against defense-training is that they have never actually
seen what happens when untrained and under-munitioned troops meet
highly organized opponents. The result is massacre. The braver the
untrained force, the more vicious the massacre. Men will continue to
lay down their lives for their homes and liberties, but is it not the
right of all to demand that the sacrifice be not in vain? Under the
conditions of modern life, the average man cannot train and equip
himself, and even if he could, this is far from being the sum total of
preparation for defense. An army is one of the most complex and highly
organized businesses of the times. Today the casual reader of the
daily papers must be aware of this fact. Thus we are brought back to
the problem of defense. As we are a self-governing people, so are we a
self-defending people. It is right that we continue with a reasonably
small standing army. But this implies the liability of every fit male
citizen of military age to be trained and ready to supplement the work
of our small army when the national life and liberties are endangered.
The degree of training and readiness must insure the repelling of
an enemy before material damage has been inflicted on the lives and
property of the people.

It argues a limited insight into the qualities of Americans to think
that they would not respond with their total mental and material
resources if the land should be invaded. Such is not the contention.
In plain words, when our citizen body of military age is instructed in
tactics and when the nation has a sufficient supply of war material to
arm and equip these citizen soldiers, we shall avoid death, suffering
and the horrors of war, perhaps war itself. Should war come, the
protection we can offer our women and children will be in the ratio of
our preparation.

Nations, like men, have their part to play in the march of
civilization. No nation can shirk this part and keep its own honor.
The United States boasts the only purely altruistic act credited to
a conquering sovereignty. It fought a war on sentiment, occupied
territory, and when the war and the evils that follow war were
remedied, withdrew wholly from that territory. The United States set
a new standard. Having done this, it must maintain its place among the
ranking powers of the world and bring the pressure of its influence for
good on all international questions.

Today the American republic provides no adequate protection for the
lives of its citizens or their property in case of war.

We have seen the fate of nations unprepared.

We are rich beyond all other countries. The total wealth of the United
States is $187,000,000,000; greater than Germany and Great Britain
combined.

Our greatest wealth is concentrated in cities on or near our coast
line. With bitter shame we remember how easily our capital was once
captured.

At this moment two-thirds of the world is ablaze with battle. What
will be resolved from this stupendous conflict no one can prophesy. Is
it not time for the people of the United States to put their house in
order?

CHAPTER IX

WHAT SHALL WE DO?

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined, to
which end an uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.”--GEORGE
WASHINGTON.

A plan put forward to solve the defense problem of the United States
can be simple in outline, but must become complex in detail. Yet the
skein of detail will be readily disentangled if the outlined plan
rests upon sound principles. Any departure from proved and accepted
postulates of military development will end in disaster.

Today, happily, the majority of the American people are alive to the
pressure of preparedness against war. Moreover, they are not likely to
be gulled by the inertia or the trickery of politicians. In the end the
citizens will demand a system of national defense commensurate with the
peril of the republic.

Heretofore, owing to the fact that the greater part of the uninformed
public confuse valor with efficiency, it has been difficult to
arouse sentiment in favor of increasing the United States military
establishment. The old tradition that the farmer would drop his
plowshare in the furrow, grasp his fowling piece, rush to the defense
of his country and triumph, dies hard. If there still exists in this
nation anyone who cherishes this delusion let him discard it forever.
You cannot fight against machine guns with pitchforks.

Conditions prevailing in this republic since the presidency of
Jefferson have colored the subsequent trend of military development.
The people, for some inexplicable reason, have never trusted the
regular army. During the Jeffersonian régime the army was reduced
almost to the vanishing point--about 3,000 aggregate. Senators and
Congressmen gloried in the fact that thus the Treasury of the United
States was saved the sum of $522,000 annually, and proclaimed from
the capitol the boast that in practically eliminating its armed force
this young republic had set a standard for the world, and, because no
army existed, all cause for war ceased. Eight years later the Senate
and the members of the House of Representatives made an exceedingly
hasty and undignified exit before the invader. A concourse of ribald
enemy-soldiery seated in the very halls where the solemn lawmakers
propounded their sophisms was the answer to the policy of army
suppression. Will history repeat itself?

Every plan of national defense must proceed from a discussion of the
size of the navy. The peculiar geographical position of the United
States makes the naval program of the nation a matter of supreme
importance. Wisely Congress has brought into being a body of officers
technically trained, and turned over to them the duty of examining
the American naval situation in all aspects and furnishing Congress
with the result of these investigations, with their recommendations.
Unwisely the national legislators have never fully accepted the
recommendations of the Naval Board. Battleships bring no votes. In
consequence, United States naval strength is entirely unequal to the
task of defending the country against an enemy of the first class.
Our naval needs can be stated in two sentences. On the Atlantic coast
the United States must at all times possess a fleet superior in speed
and guns to that which the German nation keeps afloat. On the Pacific
seaboard American ships must be greater in number and more efficient
than those of Japan. Until this standard is reached, the Panama Canal
notwithstanding, United States shores are open to invasion.

Throughout this book it has been the intention to confine the
discussion to measures for evolving sufficient land forces for national
defense, so no further elaboration of the naval situation will be
attempted. But for all those Americans who would inform themselves
on the fate of ships in conflict, the author recommends a study of
the sea encounters in the present war, and most earnestly suggests a
thoughtful perusal of the story of the battle of the Straits of Japan.
Herein is a lesson that the United States should take seriously to
heart.

The regular army is the only force which could be thrown against an
invader. It is the only force approximately ready for the defense of
the nation. I say approximately, for the army is sadly deficient in
artillery and ammunition.

It is to be regretted that the regular organization of the United
States is a mercenary force.

To depend upon hireling troops to repel invasion makes the average
citizen shirk the whole question of individual defensive duty. The
taxpayer considers he has bought immunity from attack. Certain sums are
appropriated each year out of the Treasury for the support of the army
and navy. The ordinary citizen takes little interest in the history of
these appropriations. That the American citizen is satisfied with the
huge cuts made by wrong-headed Congressmen, in both naval and army
estimates (carefully prepared by trained officers) is proved by the
return of these Congressmen term after term to Washington.

Thus the average voter fails twice in his duty to his country. First,
by tacitly denying that it is incumbent upon each citizen of the
commonwealth to share in the task of national defense, and second, by
indifference to measures which vitally affect national security.

However, so long as the people of the United States put their reliance
upon the regular army to secure to them the uninterrupted enjoyment
of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, let their first care be to
see that the force is equal to the task. The highest authorities agree
that an army approximately 250,000 strong would be sufficient for
the work. It has been said that under the present opportunities for
employment in the United States it would be difficult to recruit the
army up to the figure quoted. Whether this is fact or opinion can be
determined by test. These handicaps of recruitment would be greatly
modified if the army increase contained a sufficiently high proportion
of technical troops. In this mechanical age war is highly scientific.
One of the great needs of our present organization is the expansion of
the engineer corps, signal corps and aeronautical section. The American
army is without railway or balloon units and no adequate train corps
exists. If the scope of the organization were enlarged as it should
be, undoubtedly the popularity of the technical branches, which appeal
to the ambitions of the average young man, would attract a sufficient
number of recruits gradually to bring the service up to required
strength.

The enlargement of the field artillery, with the adoption of an
additional heavier type of mobile cannon, in view of the lessons of
the European war, is a matter that should receive immediate attention.
The present artillery complement of the army is sadly inadequate
for the usual duties assigned to this arm. It is under-armed and
under-munitioned. The artillery, excepting coastal divisions, is
the most neglected branch of the service, in view of its military
importance. Yet in personnel, it is a true _corps d’elite_. No officers
of the army surpass our “gunners” in professional knowledge and pride
in their work.

The present issue of field-piece is an excellent type. It approaches in
model the famous French field-gun. But, all told, there are only six
regiments of mobile artillery. If in case of emergency it were possible
to concentrate the whole of the force against an invader, under the
accepted standard organization of foreign armies, our defending cannon
would be outnumbered and outranged. With but six artillery regiments,
comprising all the batteries in the army of the United States, it is
difficult to decide if the situation is more absurd than sad.

In the evolution of warfare brought about by the present conflict it
has been found that the heavier type of field-gun, 4.9, or a similar
caliber, is absolutely necessary to meet battle conditions. No battery
of field artillery in the United States contains such a gun. As for
mobile howitzers of the Skoda type, eleven-inch pieces of enormous
power and effect, that such guns will be provided is beyond the dreams
of the most sanguine enthusiast for United States army improvement.

The above details are only dwelt upon in order to give the citizen
a suggestion of the pressing wants of the army. Any scheme of
organization should be left in entirety to the decision of the officers
who devote their lives to the study of the subject. As has often been
said, the United States government pays a number of specialists to
draw up plans to meet the problem of defense, and Congress immediately
scraps the whole material. Such a proceeding would wreck any ordinary
business organization, and it is obvious that it will run this republic
on the rocks of military disaster unless remedied. What the regular
army needs is more men and more and heavier guns. Let the citizen
stand on the broad platform of a correctly proportioned regular army
of 250,000 men. Let him impress his views firmly upon his Congressman.
Then, at least, the citizen will have fulfilled a large part of his
duty to his country.

Before passing to a discussion of the required army reserve, let us
consider two points which from personal experience seem to be of
importance.

First, in all that I have seen in the different theaters of war,
nothing has so much impressed me as the effectiveness of the machine
gun. The value of this weapon in defense is well recognized by all
belligerents. The English staff have gone to the length of organizing
a separate machine-gun corps. As this is essentially a weapon of
defense--which is the military problem of the United States--let
us follow the lead of England in this matter and create sufficient
machine-gun regiments to protect the thousand and one points on
American shores where an enemy may be expected to land. The machine
gun is cheap and effective. Besides, this measure can be put into
operation in a comparatively short time.

My second suggestion is more radical. It deals with the promotion of
officers from the ranks in the regular army. The army is the only
“business” in the United States that does not offer encouraging chances
of advancement from the bottom up. It is possible for an enlisted
man to obtain a commission, but experience shows that this method of
gaining shoulder straps is the exception rather than the rule. It
may not be exact to say West Point is undemocratic in effect, but
certainly it is undemocratic in principle. Let it be made a rule that
all graduates serve a certain specified time in the ranks before being
commissioned, and also make provision for helping the enlisted men to
seek advancement in the service. Take innumerable examples of business
success and in many instances it will be found that the head of the
organization has risen from the humblest position. He knows his work
from the closest contact with it and intimate experience. No one thinks
of looking askance because the president of the Federal Iron and Steel
Company began his career as office boy. Why should not the steps of
promotion be as accessible to the private in the army as they are in
civil life. Let the young men of the country be stimulated to enter the
service, in order to gain commissions. In case of war, a large number
of officers would have to be improvised (it is laughable to state
that there are 16,000 efficient officers now available in the United
States), and although doubling the capacity of West Point is a splendid
remedy for officer shortage, it savors of political expediency. Give
the self-respecting enlisted man the chance he is entitled to, make the
regular army a career, and at once you bring the army closer to the
people.

Under the conditions that prevail in the United States, a regular
army is the only force that can be considered as first-line troops
available for mobilization against invaders. As it is impossible,
because of political and economic considerations, to maintain a
standing army large enough and strong enough to meet potential foes and
definitely defeat them, at all points of the periphery of the United
States, and as all potential enemies have armies vastly superior to
that of the United States, it is imperative that the regular forces be
supplemented by a certain class of reserves.

Granting the building up of the standing army will be properly carried
out, the question of national existence depends upon the correct
solution of the problem of the American secondary army. The author is
firmly of the opinion that universal service is the only democratic
and logical solution of the problem. For some reason the average man
in civil life confounds universal military training with “militarism.”
From a study of the chapters dealing with the French, Australian
and Swiss systems it is seen that the two ideas can be sharply
differentiated. Militarism--or, to give it the correct designation,
Prussianism--exists in Germany because it is fostered by an autocratic
government. Conditions in France are absolutely the reverse. In
Switzerland the army is a most popular institution. If the American
people could divest themselves of the preconceived notion that military
service is servile, and that the liberties guaranteed them under the
Constitution were infringed by submitting to discipline, the problem of
defense would solve itself.

The great fault of militarism is the creation of officer privilege. The
officer caste is a relic of feudalism. In the middle ages it was the
knight and lord who, by divine right, commanded troops in battle and it
is a suspicion that somehow this condition still holds which prejudices
Americans as a class against military discipline. If this prejudice
could be overcome, every United States citizen would surely bear his
share in the defense of national integrity. To do so efficiently he
would have to perfect himself in certain military duties. In practice
he would have to become an integral part of the national army. When
all is said, the army approximates any other business. It is not given
to every man to be a boss. Some must be employees. Every American
recognizes the reasons for discipline in his business. A little
familiarity with army life will show him the imperative need of this
same quality in a properly organized system of defense. Gradually,
it is to be hoped, the civilian fear of military regulation will
fade. Then, with the awakening to the unpreparedness of our country,
universal service will be a fact instead of a remote dream.

Meanwhile let us examine what substitute scheme will fill the want of
general liability to military training.

Two projects present themselves: First, the utilization of the National
Guard as a federal reserve, and, second, the organization of federal
volunteers. Before entering into the merits of either plan let us
remember the broad lines upon which the European armies are organized.
Turning back to the chapters dealing with the various forces, we see
that all have, first, the standing army; second, the reserve army
(_Landwehr_); and, third, the Home Guard (_Landsturm_). With minor
modifications this is the standard arrangement in all the armies.
Do we not get the hint for the solution of our difficulties from
this scheme? From the foundation of the republic the National Guard
and the militia have been the home-guard troops. This function has
been traditional. In those states that have made an effort to bring
guard regiments up to a high standard of efficiency, considerable
local pride is lavished on the various organizations. Under existing
conditions it would seem that we have here the answer to one part of
the preparedness problem. Let the National Guard and militia be the
force corresponding to the _Landsturm_ in the foreign armies. With the
present units as a basis it would be a comparatively simple expedient
to bring all the National Guard regiments under central control and
establish interstate standards that would insure a homogeneous force.
Federal command of all guard and militia units is essential in this
plan. But such command need not in ordinary times interfere with state
military development. The function of the state authority would be to
bring the guard force up to perfection in line duties. This involves
a change in administration and some modifications of present systems;
but no serious obstacle blocks the path to the development of efficient
battalions properly trained, armed and equipped, under their own
officers. Incidentally, it should be exacted of all guard and militia
officers, that they serve a specified period with the regular army.

It is unnecessary to elaborate the many details governing the
establishment of this third-line defense force. Suffice to say that in
all particulars it should be made to conform to regular army standards
in so far as possible.

There are three suggestions, nevertheless, that may be put forward:

First: The strength of the National Guard in each state to be
proportionate to population and federal aid to be strictly apportioned
according to the number of guardsmen actually undergoing training.

Second: All training to be in the field, following the Swiss plan,
armory training to be reduced to a minimum.

Third: All officers in time of war above the rank of major to be
assigned from a supplementary reserve of the regular army.

In accordance with this third clause, when called into federal service,
the state battalions will retain their own line officers, but will be
furnished staff and general officers from the regular establishment.
In time of peace, certain officers of the United States army will, in
addition to their other duties, be assigned to regiments, brigades
and divisions of the guard. Whenever the guard is united for federal
service, during such periods of training as may be determined upon,
these regular officers will officiate in their superior capacities.
Otherwise the guard will be under state command.

Such, in outline, is a plan for utilizing the present forces pertaining
to the various states and encouraging the establishment of other state
troops. The principle of this organization is that state troops are
primarily a home guard. They are, in fact and tradition, the third
line. Any radical departure from the original plan of service will
certainly bring complications sure to impair the strength of the
national-defense control.

More difficult in every way is the solving of the problem of creating a
second-line force. In principle the troops supplementing the standing
army should be the bulk of the fighting strength of the nation. In
numbers it should conform to the size of potential expeditionary forces
of invasion. Any strength less than 500,000 cannot be considered. In
the author’s opinion only a force of such size could save the capital
from capture or prevent the capitulation of New York. On the Pacific
seaboard, eliminating the question of the defense of the insular
possessions, no smaller force could hold the coast and retain Alaska.
Thus the immediate task of the United States is to bring into being
500,000 armed and disciplined fighting men. How can this be done?

Compulsory service being out of the question for the time, the safety
of the nation must rest upon volunteers. Here we are at once confronted
with the query, Can the nation recruit such a number of volunteers in
time of peace? In the opinion of certain authorities such recruitment
is impossible. But this is opinion, not fact. Before condemning the
plan for raising a force that of its own volition comes to the defense
of the country, some test should be made of its practicability. The
plan means sacrifice, but it would be a sad indictment of American
loyalty to take it for granted that the majority of United States
citizens are so ignorant or indifferent to the question of defense that
they put personal safety before national security.

In order to bring into existence the second line of the American army,
the country must be aroused to a sense of its helplessness, and the
individual duty each man owes to the commonwealth. To accomplish this I
frankly suggest advertising.

Let the facts be known. Put the question squarely up to the young men
upon whose shoulders the responsibility of defense rests and let them
decide the matter for themselves. Obviously the advertising material
must be honest on all counts and scrupulously exact. Nothing of an
alarming nature should be emphasized. Simply state the case of the
country as now situated; give the strength of the armies of neighboring
nations, reproduce the bald statements of what these armies could do if
so disposed, and finally, without boasting, indicate the ideals of the
United States, the responsibility for maintaining the Monroe Doctrine,
and how this responsibility might conflict with the ambitions of other
nations.

A volunteer force to be successfully maintained must be popular.
This fact must be kept in mind in considering the organization of the
suggested second-line army. You have seen, in the chapters dealing with
the Swiss and Australian systems, how service is looked upon as an
honor. Such an ideal can be built up with an American volunteer force.
Let us follow the minute-men tradition. Indicate a standard up to which
all who serve must live. Make the second line a _corps d’elite_. Create
a spirit of self-respect as the first requisite of the minute man. Make
it a moral as well as a military force. Herein is the germ of success
for the army of defense.

Before many years the effect of the training and discipline obtained
in such a force would make itself felt in national economic life.
Employers will quickly discern the advantages of employees who know the
significance of obedience, promptness, neatness and self-respect. In
time, a discharge from the minute-men army would be a recommendation
bringing preferential employment to all who hold it. As help for
entrance into positions where military qualities are necessary, such
as express messengers, policemen and watchmen in the great industrial
plants and similar occupations, there is no better preliminary training.

To model a working plan for the volunteer army is not the purpose of
this book. Systems that have been successfully employed abroad are
explained in detail. From the data in hand a competent board of officer
and civilian experts can devise a scheme suitable for the United
States. Only one prayer is offered in this connection--preserve the
whole organization from any taint of partisan politics.

In the arrangement of a volunteer army plan the author has but two
suggestions which he puts forward as the result of personal experience:

First: Initiate a course of musketry practice in public schools. Such
a course need only be elementary, and include a knowledge of handling
and caring for the army rifle, with some gallery practice. It would
have for its object the familiarizing of the boy with the weapon which
some day he might have to use in defense of his home. No longer does
the average boy in the United States have the chance to “go hunting,”
as was the case a generation ago. Thus the familiarity with firearms,
which was a characteristic of the American people, is gradually being
lost. It is to offset this that the suggestion is made.

The second recommendation is that the naturalization laws be changed so
that no foreigner can have the right of suffrage until he has served
the allotted term in the volunteer army. The right of the vote is the
highest privilege of a citizen of this republic. It invests every
American with a responsibility in national life. Through the exercise
of his vote the citizen shares the weal or woe of his country. No
stranger should be granted this exalted right until he is grounded
in habits of loyalty to his adopted land. It is not wise to delude
ourselves about the standard of patriotism of the average immigrant.
He comes to this country from motives of self-interest. His later acts
spring from the same causes and not from a sense of obligation to the
foster nation.

There is much more that could be written on this subject of
preparedness against war. Here the author has only tried to embody
certain suggestions on the question that have been the result of a
number of years’ study and observation of things military. If he has
in some slight way turned the thoughts of his fellow citizens into
channels of reflection, the object of this book is fulfilled. Yet
before writing _finis_ the author must once more record his opinion
that national integrity and the opportunity for maintaining American
world standards lie solely in the adoption of universal liability to
military or naval training. In the councils of nations, a power is
respected only in proportion to its strength.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Page 97: misspelling "Landstrum" corrected.

Page 164: typo "stil lexists" corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.

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