James F. J. Archibald

“ In a severe campaign in a distant or foreign land, the idea of home finds a meaning to matter-of-fact and apparently unimaginative soldiers which they cannot express, but which stirs infinite pathos. When a soldier lies weak from a burning fever, but with all his mental faculties more than ever alert, or when he is on solitary outpost duty against an active enemy, with time to turn the situation over in his mind, it is then that he thinks of home as at no other time, and it is then that he will appreciate all that he knows will be done for him should he happen to be found by death. ”

“ Once in touch with the workings of his great brain, his untidy appearance was forgotten, and you thought of him as a magnificent relic of the noble Dutch blood, one who had reclaimed a new continent from wild beasts and wilder savages; a man who had fought his way, foot by foot, into the great veldt and into the mountains, and had built a home for thousands of contented followers, only to be driven out by a more powerful nation. ”

“ I have heard a Frenchman curse his squad by all the saints in the calendar; but I know of nothing half so effective as the quiet sarcasm that the English or Irish drill sergeant can command when he is completely out of patience with an awkward “rookie”; it is more deadly than oaths or blows; it always accomplishes the end. Up to the present, the British army has been almost built, trained, and run by non-commissioned officers, many of whom are superior to the officers over them in all but birth and breeding. ”

“ But in this act of grace the American War Department maintains a system which is in the highest degree praiseworthy and which commands the deference of the world.
It is purely a matter of sentiment that prompts any particular disposition of the bodies of those who fall in a fight, or who succumb to the ravages of fever; but to the fighting man in the field it is a tender sentiment that means much. The body of every American soldier who falls on a foreign shore is sooner or later brought home and buried, with all the honors of war. ”

“ That same mimic use of deadly arms in childhood, and the constant use of guns against game in youth, has made the North American Indian not only the most formidable fighter in the world, but also the world’s tutor in modern warfare.
Switzerland has adopted the idea of the advantage of training in the use of firearms, and every man is furnished with a rifle by the government, and also with a certain amount of ammunition each year. The people of that little republic could retire into the fastnesses of her mountains and withstand the armies of Europe for months. ”

“ Tactics are not to be confounded with strategy. Strategy, speaking largely, is the planning of the thing which an army has to do; tactics is the manner in which an army does it. The strategy of a campaign may be carefully planned by the wise men of the War Department or by the commanding general. It may be infallible on paper; but if the tactics of the general officers in the field cannot follow the lines thus laid down, the strategy is a drag anchor on the success of the army. ”

“ What would an American soldier think of a special privilege created in a regiment because there came a time when all the officers were killed or wounded, and the non-commissioned officers took the regiment through the fight? There is an English regiment in which the non-commissioned officers all wear their sashes over the same shoulder as do the commissioned officers, because in a long-ago battle they led the regiment when their superiors were put out of action. ”

“ Now comes the time when aptness in society, polo, and cricket does not cut any figure in the problem to be solved. Actual war with a keen-witted enemy stares the gorgeous officers in the face, and they suffer from their own ignorance simply because, with all their personal courage—and there are no braver in the world than some of them—they have not learned their most obvious business. ”

“ In New York, in Boston, in Chicago, it is not impossible to see the private’s blouse at a tea function or across the table at dinner, in the most refined society; after the instant’s surprise at seeing the insignia of the common soldier, it is remembered that he is present in his own right, irrespective of uniform, and he is admired for his unostentatious service of the flag. ”

“ There is no resemblance that would come so near my idea of a soldier killed in battle as that of an unclean, sweating, and unshaven unfortunate of a crowded city, struck by a street car, and thrown, bleeding and torn, into the mud. ”

“ He must not only understand the tactics of attack and defense, but he must be able to tell the quality of hay and of butter. He must understand weights and measures as accurately as an ordinary shop-keeper. Real war of this day has a great deal of everything except fighting. Hundreds of men and officers go through an entire campaign and never hear a shot fired; instead, they study columns of figures, great sheets of warehouse returns, and manifold way-bills of freight shipments. They may worry over the price of wheat or the weight of live stock on the hoof, but never over bullets or bayonets. ”

“ Even as it was, Lord Roberts had made three attempts to advance his main force, and each time was compelled to retire, not because of the force of the Boers opposing him, but because of his inability to get rations up to his troops.
It was not a glorious entry, and the occupation was not so satisfactory to the British themselves that the word “Pretoria” on the regimental standards will stir a soldier’s throb for many years to come. Some day the blunders will be forgotten, the human wrongs will grow dim in distance, and only the glory of effort and the benefit to civilization will be thought of ”

“ Before the British advance reached Johannesburg one would never have known, by merely taking note of the life in Pretoria, that a fierce war was being waged in the country. The ladies went on with their calling and shopping, business houses carried on their work as usual, and the hotels were crowded with a throng of men who looked more like speculators in a new country than men fighting for their homes and liberty. ”

“ There are shoals of Englishmen who cannot stand the drudgery and discipline of the ranks in time of peace, but who flock to the standard as soon as there is a chance of fighting. The recruiting sergeants say that nearly all of the material they are getting at present is of a better class. These men want to fight for the love of fighting, and not as a refuge from starvation. A few weeks of training licks them into shape. As long as the outbreak of war affords such a stimulus to recruiting as this, there is no need to despair of the British race. ”

“ The British soldier in the field is by far more attentive to his personal and military appearance than is the American soldier when on a hard campaign. All the men in South Africa wore their heavy cross-belts and pouches when, had they been our men, it is quite likely they would have been lost, for they were of no great importance to the comfort of the soldier. The Britisher keeps well shaven at all times in the field, and, although he is burned as only an African sun can burn, he looks well groomed. ”

“ He works day after day like a galley slave, endangers his life night and day, and yet he is but the tiniest portion of a great machine, of whom no one has ever heard, and who will be forgotten before the ink is dry on the treaty of peace. ”

“ It was a prophet’s opportunity, such as comes to but few preachers in all history, to stand at the final threshold of a nation’s life, to bid farewell to the men leaving for the forlorn hope of the last struggle, and to embrace in one cry of faith both the heartbreak and the resolution of a people. ”

“ Another method of recruiting the British army is by “recruiting marches” through the rural districts. With their most attractive uniforms, colors flying, and music piping, a battalion makes the entry into a town on their march in such engaging style that many of the youths of the place are sure to cast their lot with the army on the impulse of the moment; and in this way some of the best men are found, as in Great Britain the country lad seems to make the best soldier.
In the United States it has not been found necessary to resort to these expedients to gain recruits. ”

“ No honor is too great to render to the men who go out to fight, whether they be regulars or volunteers. The wage they receive would not pay any man at home to undertake half so hazardous a task. Within two years I have had the opportunity of seeing the work of four different armies in the field, fighting for what they thought was right. Among those four—Spaniards, British, Boers, and Americans—can be found a curious variety of methods of warfare, and there is much that has never been told. ”

“ The most important work of an army is that of the commissary department, which is the one division of labor that receives the least credit and no glory. An army might get along without its engineer corps, or its signal service; it could at least march without guns; but it cannot move a foot without its full supply of food.
A few days before Santiago fell, General Shafter wired the War Department that he thought it likely he would be compelled to withdraw. The despatch was made public in the press; to withdraw meant a retreat, and instantly a wave of indignation arose against General Shafter. ”

“ Following the departure of the President and other officials, on the last of May, came a couple of days of panic, during which all sorts of rumors flew about, while the lawless element of the town played havoc. As soon as it was decided to abandon the capital, all the government stores which had been gathered for the use of the army in the event of a siege were turned over to the people for their own use. The stores, which were in large warehouses, were broken open and rifled by a wild, excited crowd from every station of society. ”

“ The country which has been the scene of operations in South Africa seemed designed by nature for defensive operations. In the Orange Free State the veldt stretches away for miles and miles, broken by single kopjes and short ranges of mountains, from which a sentinel can note the approach of a hostile force in the far distance. In the Transvaal, although the country is more broken, it is easy to watch the enemy’s approach; and with the excellent signal service of the Boers it has been practically impossible for an advancing column to surprise the defending force. ”

“ It is a trinket of no intrinsic value, but the men who have the right to wear it have gained it through hard-fought battles and privations without number; they prize these trophies superlatively, and their families treasure them after they are dead. Our government now issues several medals, and so the campaign medal would be no departure from our custom. It is always a pleasure to see the respect paid to some old pensioner who carries an empty sleeve, as he enters a room or climbs into a ’bus in London, with the medal of the Crimea hanging to his coat. ”

“ While the colonials were in the field in South Africa, I think their opinions of the imperial officer took the shape of amusement rather than contempt; but when they have returned to their homes their derision is bound to become scorn; for that great respect which they have been taught to feel is broken, and they have suddenly awakened to the fact that they of the New World have outstripped the mother country in practicality. ”

“ The tedium of war is more telling upon the volunteer than upon the regular, as the former soon begins to think of his interests at home that are perhaps suffering. The volunteer never thinks that his services will be needed more than two or three months at the most; and when the service drags well on toward a year, it becomes almost unbearable. The regular does not mind it so much, for his apprenticeship of worry has been served with the early months of the first enlistment, and any change from barrack life is an agreeable one. ”

“ In overcoming the Boers Great Britain had a problem of appalling magnitude. Her soldiers were to be transported from the ends of the earth to the Cape, and then to march as far as from New York to Denver before they could reach the enemy’s capital. Their line of communication was to be guarded in force at every bridge, trestle, and causeway for the whole of that immense distance. Cape Colony, the base of operations, was itself almost a hostile country. Three besieged British garrisons were to be relieved, and they required three diverging armies of rescue. ”

“ The Army Service Corps is one of the features of the British army which American authorities would do well to study. It is an armed and drilled commissary corps, of about 4,000 officers and men, which handles the entire work of that branch; but it is a fighting corps as well, when occasion requires. This last feature is of great value, in that it does away with the necessity of a detachment of men being drawn off as a special guard for every wagon or two. The Army Service Corps acts as its own convoy where only an ordinary one is required. ”