William Addleman Ganoe

“ For it is in this interval between the information’s coming to, and the decision’s going from, a leader that the fateful question arises, “What is my plan?” His thoughts, before they arrive at a decision, must take in and classify in a certain definite order all obtainable and pertinent facts. He must assemble all his data before he can take the slightest risk as to how his troops are to act. Lives are at stake in the passing minutes; victory is awaiting the decision. In all this stress and excitement the commander must observe and listen as if he were stalking a deer in a thicket. ”

“ The English found themselves, after some cross-country fighting, in the trenches. There the operation order which had provided for situations of march, halt, bivouac, and battle, was gradually made over to suit the peculiar needs of defenses, raids, and frontal attacks. The barrage fire, bombs, mortars, machine guns, and intricate lines of communication added to the number of details to be considered. Little by little the will of the commander expressed itself in such completeness that the former size of his operation order passed all bounds. ”

“ We have now completed the consideration of the expression which directly affects troops in the field. We have written the field message which brings information to commanders and which helps them to make an estimate of a situation. We have framed the field order which grows out of that estimate and which transforms the decision into action. We have viewed the operation order which is no more than a field order made to fit trench warfare. We have seen orders which are issued in connection with combat so as to govern the movement of trains. ”

“ One of the first principles we learn in rhetoric is to suit our treatment and diction to our purpose and readers. Commanders await with interest and expectancy the words of a field message or order. Students await with skepticism or inertia the chapters of their lessons. Although we rightly can prescribe the severest clearness for something which is bound to be absorbed, we cannot be satisfied with one precise, colorless statement of that which is likely to be ignored. ”

“ General Wagner, a pioneer among American military authorities, divides into completely separate operations the act of deciding upon a definite plan of action and that of drafting or framing orders which will carry that decision into effect. One is purely military and has to do with dispositions of forces; the other is mainly rhetorical and has to do with manipulations of language. Many a military man has decided certainly in his own mind what he is going to do in order to carry out his mission, only to be faced immediately with a harder task. ”

“ Carelessly or improperly phrased instructions have caused many miscarriages of military plans. The attainment of perfection in the use of language is a matter of painstaking study and the gradual refinement of practice. Merely dreaming of what one will do when responsibility is thrust upon him is not the way to prepare for successful achievement. It is the duty of every self respecting officer to be ready to do not only his best but to do what is right. ”

“ There is no error in the expressiveness of a field order which the analytical and synthetical study of English will not overcome. We must first learn by analysis to recognize mistakes when we see them. We must then try to manipulate our language so that those mistakes will not occur. Indeed, we must go further than the mere negative avoidance of mistakes. We must not be satisfied until we have made our expressions exert a positive force. The ways and means of so doing are found in the simple rules of rhetoric. ”

“ If, then, we can try our hand at transcribing our ideas in as formative a period as possible in our military careers, we, too, may attain a proficiency that will become a second nature with us. At least, we may put behind us a great part of this uninteresting but indispensable work of learning to control our language, before we confront the more serious task of straightening out tactical and strategical difficulties in the presence of the enemy. ”

“ All military language should be of the utmost brevity and clarity. Death and disaster are the direct results of ambiguity. Throughout all history mistaken directions and information have been the ruin of whole campaigns. Careless wording, like careless shooting, is not only ineffective but often suicidal.
The object of these few lessons is to give practice in putting the language of military communication into form. ”

“ The Sentence and the Paragraph, then, should be perfectly constructed. Each one of those elements should be tested to see that it is unified, coherent, and emphatic. The examples herein given, or any set phrasing, should never be imitated. Every leader must compose his own words, his own decision. He must give to his subordinates the language that best suits the particular occasion. Otherwise there will be no unity of structure and little likelihood of unity of action. Every military situation is a a law unto itself, and the language of the field order should fit that law. ”

“ It is, perhaps, not too much to say that the American works against heavier odds than the European. The syntax of the inflected languages of Europe demands that the speaker pay a proper attention to the changes of number, gender, and case, if he would not appear ridiculous, whereas the English language, being almost without inflections, permits its speaker to toss his words about with an ease unknown to Continental speech, and still be intelligible. ”

“ We should certainly be armed with a Field Message Book when the crucial moment for writing a message arrives. But it so happens, especially in open warfare, that that article of equipment may have been left in the saddlebags, or have been borrowed by a friend. At any rate it is not present for duty when we want it. However, we are always able to produce a piece of paper or clothing—something upon which to write—from someone of the party present. It behooves us, then, to learn to compose a message without the aid of a blank. ”

“ You see no animals or picket lines. The fires die down shortly and the talking ceases. You take turns on watch with the senior man of your patrol. At a quarter to one while you are on watch, fires begin to spring up at the ends of the company streets. Shortly afterwards a young soldier comes to the nearby farm house to get water. He grumbles loudly that he must get up in the middle of the night and complains that the first sergeant has ordered the company to be in ranks at one fifty. You get your message off at five minutes after one and remain in observation of the camp. ”

“ Our decisiveness must reach our farthest superior or subordinate; and words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs are going to be our only representatives. They alone will stand for us. Every pencil mark on that paper will be a part of the photograph of our intelligence. Our phraseology will be ourselves. We shall be judged by it, and rightly so, at a time when we shall have no chance to offer an amendment, an excuse, or an I-didn’t-mean-quite-that.
Guide-posts must mark our highways, if we are in earnest about our destination of brevity and clarity. ”

“ You hear that the enemy has probably been reenforced and that this reenforcement probably consists of a brigade of cavalry. You also hear, just when you issue this, your 7th field order of the campaign, that there are some hostile infantrymen near York, say, about a brigade. The rear guard, you figure, ought indeed to keep the enemy in check. A rear guard of this nature ought to resist any advancement on the part of the enemy until your advance guard can open a road through York. The first cavalry division, you have knowledge, is bivouacking near where you are. ”

“ If no one in the patrol is capable of sending back accurate and timely written information, the reconnaissance has failed, and the patrol might as well have remained in camp. The good field message is the strong link between the reconnoitering party and the main body. The poor field message is a gap which no amount of courageous effort in ferreting out facts from a wary enemy will bridge. The ideal reconnaissance, then, is one which keeps a constant stream of accurate and reliable messages flowing back to the proper recipient. ”

“ From all the messages and all sources of information which you can assemble, you estimate that it will require two or three hours to make these bridges safe for troops. You want the 1st Battalion of the 7th Field Artillery to move out straight to the south and to take up a position 500 yards south of where you are writing your message. When the artillery gets there, you want it to open fire just as soon as it can on the enemy’s position wherever that might be. You want your artillery to make the enemy’s artillery a target, and to develop that target as soon as possible. ”

“ You are riding at about thirty miles an hour on a road supposedly clear of the enemy, when you are met by a fusillade from the woods in the vicinity of Henderson Meeting House. As you pass the road-fork, shots follow you and you feel a sharp pain in the calf of your leg. You speed up to pass the cross-roads at Hunterstown, and in two minutes reach Granite Hill Station. At twenty minutes after nine in the morning you dismount from your motor cycle and direct an infantryman standing near you to take a verbal message to headquarters in addition to the written one you hand him. ”

“ You do not want the field train to move out and to accompany you in your movement. The third infantry you have decided to make your reserve. It ought to take up some kind of position to the right of the second infantry and in rear of it. The first infantry should move out and should follow the road leading south, and before any of the others of the troops it ought to attack the enemy in front. You want the first infantry to begin their movement right off and then later on to support the enveloping attack. The enveloping attack you have trusted to the second and third infantry regiments. ”

“ If the Colonel consumes more than a reasonable number of minutes in writing his orders, or if he shows a hesitancy in so doing, or if he must seek aid from his Adjutant, it is surprising to note how soon after Major Smart’s departure from the post, the Colonel receives a letter from Washington apprising him of his shortcomings, and recommending, for his own good, a speedy remedy. Because of the inroads upon efficiency, the War Department, like any good business firm, cannot brook vacillation or unwarranted loss of time. ”

“ The work of any military individual in command of men is not only that of doing but also that of telling others how to do. The Explanation of the efficient leader is a continuous process from morning until night. He is constantly called upon to make his words count. If he halts, he loses time. If he hesitates, he makes his men restless. ”

“ The first field artillery should go about half a mile south of this camp; it should proceed around by the road parallel to the Chambersburg road, and should go as far as a point one mile south of Seven Stars. When it gets there it should select and prepare a position to support the defense. You want all the other trains which you have not mentioned not to move out from where they are, but want them to be ready to move in any direction at your command. You know that your main army is going to attack the weaker hostile force, which is in its front, on the very morning your order is issued. ”

“ When one has qualified himself to write or dictate orders and instructions properly he has already learned to interpret those he may receive from others. Accuracy of language demands discipline of mind. Under our system of raising war armies much has had to be entrusted to men without either discipline of mind or of character. This makes it necessary for officers not only to be qualified themselves to prepare and to interpret orders, but to teach the art to others. ”

“ So we must not betray surprise or anguish when we are beset on our way by some old enemies with whom we have wrestled in rhetorics. In meeting them again we shall become the stronger because of the exercise on new and professional ground. The effort to put facts into forceful and compact form now, will create for us such a habit of brevity and clarity that later on we shall have room in our natural language for only such ideas and decisions as are brief and clear. ”

“ Ordinarily the American does not need to be told to cultivate humor. He reeks with it. But there are some instructors whose minds work along so impassively that it is difficult for them to be wakened from their gravity. To them the conscious development of the short anecdote, homely illustration, and incongruous phrase is a splendid aid. The great majority, however, must be guarded in the use of humor. The quality itself may be overworked so that the proportion of matter in the Lecture is small in comparison to the witticisms. Humor is but a means to an end. ”

“ There are similar cases where a word taken away, or the change of a phrase, clause, or sentence, will make the recipient of the communication more sure of the true state of affairs.
To sum up as far as we have gone, we see that our object is to put military communication into proper form; that the failure to make our expression of the utmost brevity and clarity causes loss of efficiency, battles, and life; that a condition of inability to express ourselves exists widely ”

“ Your main body in order of march will be, one section of the signal company, the first battalion of the fourth regiment of infantry, the first brigade of Field Artillery without its first battalion, all but the first battalion of the second brigade, all but one company of the first battalion of Engineers, Signal Company A without its detachment, the field artillery combat train, and three ambulance companies. You want the river crossings of the Monocacy and the roads, railroads, and in fact all approaches to them from the east to be especially observed by the Advance Guard. ”

“ They strike you from the front, and you are holding them by your fire when a troop hits your right flank riding at a full gallop out of the woods from the direction of the Henderson Meeting House. You are in a very awkward position and are prepared to do or die, when, without warning of any kind, a squadron of your own 29th Cavalry which has been on a raiding expedition in the direction of New Oxford, deploys at a gallop from Hunterstown. The enemy, who is now in turn struck in flank, is in serious straits. He breaks and runs in the direction of Table Rock, the friendly squadron pursuing. ”