The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ in time of war to meet the first shock of an invasion and sufficient in time of peace to meet the various demands made upon it for home service, such as troops for home emergencies or disorders, troops for the necessary training of the National Militia, also sufficient officers and noncommissioned officers for duty at schools, colleges, military training camps and in various other capacities. It must be also strong enough to provide a strong expeditionary force, such as we sent to Cuba in 1898, without interfering with its regular duties.

      The necessity of building and maintaining an adequate navy, well balanced, thoroughly equipped and maintained at the highest standard of efficiency and ready always for immediate service, with necessary adjuncts afloat and ashore, is also one of the clear lessons of the war; others are the establishment of ammunition plants at points sufficiently remote from the seacoast, and so placed as to render their capture and destruction improbable in case of sudden invasion; the provision of an adequate reserve corps of 50,000 officers, a number sufficient for one and one-half million of citizen soldiers; officers well trained and ready for immediate service; the provision of adequate supplies and reserve supplies of artillery, arms, and ammunition of all types for these troops.

      We must also build up a system under which officers and men for our citizen soldiery can be trained with the minimum of interference with their educational or industrial careers, under conditions which will permit the accomplishment of their training during the period of youth, and once this is accomplished will permit their return to their normal occupations with the minimum of delay.

      The lesson which we should draw from the Great War is that nothing should be left to chance or to the promise of others, or to the fair-weather relations of to-day; that we should be as well prepared, and as well organized on land as Switzerland, a nation without a trace of militarism, and yet so thoroughly prepared and so thoroughly ready and able to defend herself that to-day her territory is inviolate, although she is surrounded by warring nations.

      Belgium to-day is an illustration of what may be expected from lack of adequate preparedness.

      The great outstanding lesson of the war is that we must not trust to righteousness and fair dealing alone; we must be prepared to play our part, and while loving justice and dealing fairly with others, we must be always ready to do our full duty, and to defend our country with force if need be. If we do not, we shall always be helpless and at the mercy of our enemies. We can be strong, yet tolerant, just, yet prepared to defend ourselves against aggression.

      Another lesson is that our military establishment on land and sea should not be dependent upon a system of militia and volunteers. These will not be found adequate under the conditions of modern war, and above all we should appreciate the fact that our military system must be founded upon equality of service, rich and poor alike. We must while extending equality of privilege to all, including the thousands who are coming to us every day, insist upon equality of obligation by all. With the privileges of citizenship must go the obligations and responsibilities not only in peace but also in war.

      We should take heed of the lessons of the past, and remember that the volunteer system has always failed us in our wars. Such experience as we have had in war in recent years has in no way prepared us for a war with a first-class nation prepared for war. We have never engaged in such a war unaided. This experience is one which is still before us. We should look upon service for the nation in the same way as we look upon the payment of taxes, or the compliance with the thousand and one laws and regulations which govern our everyday life.

      Relatively few people would voluntarily pay taxes even though they knew the money was to go to the best of purposes. They pay taxes because the law requires it. The people as a whole cannot be expected, nor can we with safety trust to their performing their military duties effectively, unless some general system of equal service for all who are physically fit, is prescribed, some system which will insure preparation in advance of war, some system which will bear upon all alike. The volunteer spirit is superb, but the volunteer system is not a dependable system to which to trust the life and security of the people, especially in these days when the highest degree of organization marks all nations with whom we may possibly have some day differences which will result in the use of force. The militia, willing as it is, cannot be depended upon as a reliable military asset. Its very method of control makes it an undependable force, and at times unavailable. The men and officers are not at fault; they have done all that could be expected under a system which renders efficiency almost impossible of attainment. The militia must be absolutely and completely transferred to Federal control; it must cease to be a State and become a Federal force, without any relationship whatever with the State.

       The militia must have thoroughly trained reserves sufficient in number to bring it promptly to war strength. The infantry of the National Guard, as in the regular army, is maintained on a peace footing at rather less than half its maximum strength.

      For a number of years we have been confronted by conditions which may involve the use of a considerable force of troops, a force exceeding the regular army and perhaps even the regular army in conjunction with the militia. This means that a thousand or more men would have to be added to each regular and National Guard infantry regiment to bring it to full strength. In the National Guard only a small proportion of the men have had long service and thorough training, and if brought to full strength through the injection of a thousand practically untrained men it would mean these regiments would go to the front with not over 30 per cent of well-trained men. In other words, they would be military assemblages of well-meaning, but undisciplined and untrained individuals, and unless we are to repeat the experiences of '98 it will be necessary to hold them for several months in camp and put them through a course of the most intensive training. It is probable that if they are called it will be under an emergency which will not permit such training, and we shall see again the scenes of '98, untrained, willing boys, imperfectly equipped under inexperienced officers, rushed to the front, willing but a more or less useless sacrifice.

      Another great lesson should be to heed no longer those false prophets who have been proclaiming that the day of strife has passed, and that everything is to be settled by arbitration; prophets of the class who obstructed preparation in England, who decried universal military training, and all but delivered her into the hands of her enemies.

      "Our culture must, therefore, not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season that he is born into a state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace; but warned, self-collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder; let him take both reputation and life in his hands, and with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and rectitude of his behavior."—Emerson.

NAVAL LESSONS OF THE WAR

       By REAR ADMIRAL AUSTIN M. KNIGHT, U. S. N.

       Table of Contents

      Although the greatest war in history is not yet at an end, and none of us can even guess when the end will come, it is possible to draw certain very important conclusions from the developments to date, especially in so far as these developments are concerned with war upon the sea. The great sea fight for which the world has looked since its two greatest naval powers went to war against each other has not taken place. It may never take place, although both sides profess that they are eager for it. And until it does take place, the final word will not be spoken as to the relations between guns and armor, between battleships and battle cruisers, or between either of these types of "capital" ships on the one hand, and the destroyer and submarine on the other.

      The submarine has proven its power, it is true, and against the battleship; but always where the element of surprise has entered into its attack in quite a different fashion from that which is inherent in its always mysterious and stealthy nature. The battle cruiser has shown СКАЧАТЬ