Allied army

“ "We keep the good things for our friends of the allied army, but we give to our enemies only what is absolutely necessary, and if they die, so much the worse for them!" ”

“ France has, say, three million soldiers; Germany, five; Austria, four—and England had, perhaps, a hundred thousand men, perhaps more, on board this fleet which defended the English land and lands far overseas without firing a shot. A battalion of infantry is more than sufficient in numbers to man a Dreadnought. How precious, then, the skill of that crew! Man-power is as concentrated as gun-power with a navy. Ride three hundred miles in a motor-car along an army front, with glimpses of units of soldiers, and you have seen little of a modern army. ”

“ The armies in the East and West acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together; enabling the enemy to use to a great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, re-enforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing for the support of their armies. ”

“ It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. ”

“ Turkey undertakes from the coming into force of the present Treaty not to accredit to any foreign country any military, naval or air mission, and not to send or allow the departure of such mission; she undertakes, moreover, to take the necessary steps to prevent Turkish nationals from leaving her territory in order to enlist in the army, fleet or air service of any foreign Power, or to be attached thereto with the purpose of helping in its training, or generally to give any assistance to the military, naval or air instruction in a foreign country. ”

“ If you despise the little troop which, in these numerous experiments, did make good its landing, take with you, if you please, this précis of its exploits: eleven hundred men, commanded by a soldier raised from the ranks, put to rout a select army of 6000 men, commanded by General Lake, seized their ordnance, ammunition, and stores, advanced 150 miles into a country containing an armed force of 150,000 men, and at last surrendered to the Viceroy, an experienced general, gravely and cautiously advancing at the head of all his chivalry and of an immense army to oppose him. ”

“ But to employ in the same space a force no greater than the British, considering the advantage of position given with modern arms to an army acting on the defensive on well-chosen ground, would have meant the annihilation of the German army section by section. ”

“ Offficers at present serving in the army or the gendarmerie who are not admitted to the new armed force shall be definitely released from all military obligations, and must not take part in any military exercises, theoretical or practical.
Officers newly-appointed must undertake to serve on the active list for at least twenty-five consecutive years.
The annual replacement of officers leaving the service for any cause before the expiration of their term of engagement shall not exceed five per cent. of the total effectives of officers provided by Article 158. ”

“ We met officers in every branch of the service,—infantry, cavalry, artillery, flying corps, ordnance, army service, medical, engineers, construction, water transport, etc., and thereby obtained a splendid idea of what was going on, and how the various branches of the service worked together and viewed any given problem.
Some of these views were quite at variance with one another. For instance the artillery man looked upon the infantryman as the man who protected his guns and kept off the enemy while he killed them. ”

“ In the zone which is effectively occupied by the Greek army there is order, but it appears to be maintained at the cost of oppressing the Turkish population. This evil is accentuated by the Turkish Civil Administration, which, particularly in the neighbourhood of Ismid, is venal and corrupt, and allows itself to be used by the Greeks, to carry out their policy.
The Greek military authority admits that nothing is done to maintain order in districts not actually occupied by Greek troops. ”

“ Soon the number of effective infantry divisions on the British front had risen from forty-five to fifty-two. And meanwhile American energy was pouring men across the Atlantic, and everywhere along the Allied front and in the Allied countries, but especially in ravaged, war-weary France, the news of the weekly arrivals, 80,000, 100,000, 70,000 men, was exactly the stimulus that the older armies needed. ”

“ There is perhaps no operation of war more difficult than that which this country has to undertake in the embarkation of its army for a continental campaign. It is not merely as regards its personnel; but large reserves of ammunition and stores, and the armaments and equipments of the artillery, engineers, [Pg 11] medical, commissariat, clothing, and other departments have to be embarked, and all so arranged as to be prepared for rapid landing after a long voyage, and possibly in the face of an enemy. ”

“ Large numbers of untrained men, without organization to embody them in, add little to actual military strength.
Armies of First Line
The Army which will take the field at the outbreak of war is the Regular Army, which is organized, kept up, and trained, year by year, in peace. The War Army will be this Peace Army mobilized, or brought up to war strength and completed in every essential, by calling up reserve officers and men to fill its ranks. ”

“ The Army will for the first time be associated with an Ally to whom it has been the lot of the British nation to be opposed in the field for many centuries.
“The gallantry and high military qualities of the French Army are matters of history, and the alliance which has now been formed, will, the Commander of the Forces trusts, be of long duration, as well as productive of the most important and the happiest consequences. ”

“ In the first general engagement in the Great Rebellion of the United States—which was fought at Bull Run—American Volunteers were also for the first time under fire, but what was the result? A total pell-mell rout—a scattered army hurrying on—cavalry, artillery, and infantry—in one mighty, confused mass—treading down and overthrowing each other, in their eagerness to escape from the manly chivalry of the South. ”

“ At 6 A. M., on August 23d, I assembled the commanders of the First and Second Corps and cavalry division at a point close to the position and explained the general situation of the Allies, and what I understood to be General Joffre’s plan. I discussed with them at some length the immediate situation in front of us.
“From information I received from French headquarters I understood that little more than one, or at most two, of the enemy’s army corps, with perhaps one cavalry division, were in front of my position; and I was aware of no attempted outflanking movement by the [101] enemy. ”

“ We were immediately ordered from our old detachment and joined another, the whole composing a corps of about five hundred men. We instantly marched towards the enemy's right wing, which was in the orchard, and kept concealed from them as long as possible, by keeping behind the bushes. When we could no longer keep ourselves concealed, we marched into the open fields and formed our line. The British immediately formed and began to retreat to the main body of their army. ”

“ As the war was a sectional one in its origin, many of our best officers believed that the volunteer regiments should be formed into brigades and divisions, without reference to the States from which they came. They held that an army organized in this way would more rapidly develop the national spirit and become a more efficient military machine than one formed on state or sectional lines, and the general practice to the end of the war, in the Union army, was in accordance with this idea. ”

“ The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of corps of army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements of a great modern army with its own railheads, supplied directly by our own Service of Supply. The concentration for this operation, which was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most careful attention to every detail. ”

“ The routed army has rallied and reappears—and, hark, on the extreme left a cannonade. Never before had the Unholy Alliance a finer park of artillery—and now its fire opens from the great battery in the centre, and the hurly-burly is general far and wide over the whole field of battle. ”

“ The adequacy or inadequacy of such an army as this for doing what was required of it—for securing speedy victory in event of war—or still better for preserving peace by the menace which it opposed to German schemes of aggression—can only be tested by considering the broad facts with regard to numbers, efficiency, and readiness of all the armies which would be engaged directly, or indirectly, in a European struggle. ”

“ With the coming of daylight, the Germans charged the combined French and American troops that held that part of the field. Fighting desperately, the Allied armies were forced to fall back in the face of superior numbers and a terrific rain of machine gun and artillery fire. ”

“ At this time our army in northern France were holding a sector in the world’s great battle where our regiment, with other American and French forces, faced the German army at the peak of a German salient. At some points the American positions were maintained in the shell holes that pitted the battle ground; and I felt guilty at leaving my comrades when I felt myself fit for duty and there was fighting to be done. ”

“ It could not but have been most useful to our officers to have been enabled to take fair measure of the system and capability of an American army, North or South; to have formed an estimate of their generals and of the value of their [129] several arms—cavalry, artillery, and infantry, each of which presented conspicuous examples of what to avoid, more especially the first, whilst the second had peculiar features worthy of study, and the third was a very wonderful illustration of the volunteer principle. ”

“ The battle is no longer between the opposing lines of the infantry, for to win a position you must hold it, and to hold it you must have brought up swiftly and safely from the rear bombs, ammunition, wire rations, and a means of entry for the supporting and relieving troops, the area of the battle is no longer the front line, it is behind this that the enemy barrage descends, and over a wide field of fire the German shells are searching for all those who would bring up succour and relief. It is under these conditions that the pioneers must do their work. ”

“ It is curious to see, therefore, how the first voluntary national army, long embodied, produced an antagonism, among the mass of the people, to standing armies altogether, a feeling which lasts even until now in theory, if not in fact. ”

“ They represent the supreme sacrifice in the interests of the national honour of what was familiarly known as our "regular army." Since the outbreak of the war, fresh armies have arisen, of new and unprecedented proportions. The members of these new armies are as familiar now to the public eye as the representatives of the old regular army are scarce. ”

“ When peace was signed, we had boy soldiers in the ranks much as we have now, many of the older men having perished; yet they fought well, as they always have done. Outside the first line there were foreign legions and militia,400 and that was all. The times even then were past since an army of 25,000 men was considered a respectable command for a serious European war; and the change in the conditions is even greater now, with all Europe an armed camp, and the armies themselves counting as many thousands as they did hundreds “when George the Third was king.” ”

“ It is probable that this concentration was ordered for the purpose of giving uniformity to the instruction of the men in their duties as foot and mounted soldiers, and that in war they were to be distributed to the different grand divisions of the army. It cannot be denied, however, that great advantages might result to the general who could rapidly move up ten thousand men on horseback to a decisive point and bring them into action as infantry. ”

“ Let us, for argument's sake, assume for a moment that we were to be invaded with an army of only a hundred thousand men, trained, equipped, and supplied with the supreme adequacy with which the troops of the other Great Powers are trained, equipped, and supplied. ”

“ When regiments are combined into brigades, brigades into divisions, and divisions into army corps, cavalry, artillery, and certain other auxiliary troops, such as engineers, signal corps, aeroplane corps, etc., are joined with them in such proportions as has been found necessary. Every unit, from the company up, has its own supply and ammunition wagons, field hospitals, etc. ”

“ Buck noticed that in many cases, the rough cap of a French infantryman hung side by side with battered German helmets. The German army does everything neatly, thoroughly. Whenever there is time it buries the fallen enemy as well as its own dead. ”

“ We were without intrenchments or defensive advantages of any sort, and more than half the army engaged the first day was without experience or even drill as soldiers. The officers with them, except the division commanders and possibly two or three of the brigade commanders, were equally inexperienced in war. The result was a Union victory that gave the men who achieved it great confidence in themselves ever after.
The enemy fought bravely, but they had started out to defeat and destroy an army and capture a position. ”