Military manpower

“ It may be of interest to glance at the strength of the Forces which the chief military nations will put into the field at the outbreak of war. The strength depends essentially on the number of organized Formations of Troops. ”

“ But does not everybody know, military man or not, that unless there is a defile, or some narrow place through which troops must pass, and which a fortification will command, that a mere open road must, in time of war, be in the power of the strongest? ”

“ It may, perhaps, be said that the army estimates are increasing; and my reply is that as the Empire is expanding, it requires not only more men, but more numerous and costly armaments for defence, than in the past. ”

“ If the present war has proved anything it has proved that the one thing above all others which insures the national defense is trained and seasoned men,—and enough of them to overwhelm any invading enemy by the sheer force and weight of innumerable battalions. In all the future years the fundamental military strength of every nation is going to be measured by the number of such men that she has immediately [Pg 392] available for instant service, with adequate arms and equipment. ”

“ It is a matter for consideration what is the military system that will best keep us ready for war if war be forced upon us, and at the same time with the least detriment or danger to the people or the Government. Is it a large regular force, a standing army, adequate to the defence of the country always on foot and in the pay of the General Government? ”

“ I wish to draw your attention to the need for maintaining at least the nucleus of the Armed Forces whose primary mission should be the training of our manpower potential not only to defend our territory but also to meet such minimum defense requirements as a consequence of commitments with our friends and allies. ”

“ In some nations the method has been to trust for defence and security to what is called a Standing Army; a number of men paid by the public, to devote themselves wholly to the military profession; while the body of the people followed their peaceable employments, without paying any attention to the art of war. ”

“ But the war called for money, provisions, and supplies on a vast scale, and even more it demanded endurance, energy, and military experience on the part of the troops. In the almost entire absence of all these, you personally provided and organised everything, drilled those who had reached the age for military service, got together a force of cavalry to match the enemy's, and issued orders for the infantry to persevere in their training. ”

“ A national force should be organized primarily for civil duty in time of peace. It should be organized in such a way that it could at a moment's notice be converted into a military machine for national defense in case of war. ”

“ All the business of preparing for the military registration of 10,000,000 men, of providing quarters and instructors for nearly 50,000 prospective officers, for finding arms and equipment for millions of troops yet to be organized, of expanding the regular army to full war strength, of preparing and recruiting the National Guard for war was at hand. ”

“ If you have arms, have you military stores, or can you procure them? When this war is proclaimed, all supplies from foreign parts will be cut off. Have you money to maintain the war? Or had you all those things, some others are still wanting, which are absolutely necessary to encounter regular troops, that is discipline, and that subordination, whereby each can command all below him, from a general officer to the lowest subaltern ”

“ 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. ”

“ The comparative weight with which militarism, that is, the system which makes the maintenance of great armaments one of the principal objects of the state, burdens different nations, depends upon their respective wealth, the length of the terms of military service, their administrative organization and the nature of their political institutions. ”

“ Our military forces, hence, are smaller than they would otherwise have been, and our means of mobilization less rapid than those which exist on the Continent, because our reserve men, living where and as they like, are not localized and controlled in the manner which obtains among the Powers of Europe. ”

“ Good civil government, in causing contentment to the people and in developing the resources of the country, gives vast additional strength to our military power. In addition to the British troops, we maintain highly efficient armies recruited from the many martial races under our rule, and are able to increase them [Pg 309] almost at will. At the same time, the improved means of communication by railways, roads, and rivers enable us to concentrate our forces, supplies, and munitions with comparative ease. ”

“ The great improvements made in the art of war in modern times, in weapons, drill, discipline, etc., has made warfare more of a science and less of a trial of brute force than formerly, and hence the necessity for a body of trained officers capable of moving, directing, and bringing into effective operation all the appliances of war with which modern armies are furnished. ”

“ Of these, I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. ”

“ A second of these resources is that of preparation for war in time of peace, the training of the able-bodied citizens in the military art, until practically the entire nation becomes converted into a vast army, its members, after their term of compulsory service, engaging in ordinary labors in times of peace, yet liable to be called into the field whenever the war lords desire, to face the death-belching field piece and machine gun in a sanguinary service in which they have little or no personal concern. ”

“ Movements and manoeuvres were criticised, attacked, defended, ridiculed, and condemned, with a degree of acuteness and knowledge that showed the enormous progress the nation had made in military science, and with what ease the Republic could recruit her officers from the ranks of her soldiers. ”

“ To march an army of preponderous strength through level and fertile country, flanked by friendly war-ships and backed by unassailable credit; to meet and overcome a much smaller and far less rich army, intrenched behind earthworks of doubtful formidableness, and finally to besiege and capture an isolated city of more historic than strategic advantages, seemed on the face of it as easy as rolling a barrel downhill or eating when hungry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, how can an army like theirs be strong? Its members mostly unaccustomed to steady exertion or precise organization; without mechanic skill or invention; without cash or credit; fettered in their movements by the limited rolling stock of their scanty railways; tethered to their own homes by the fear of insurrection;—what element of solid strength have they, to set against these things? In the present state of the world, strong in peace is strong in war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when we do send our men and women into harm’s way, we must also clearly define the mission, prescribe concrete political and military objectives, seek out advice of our military commanders, evaluate the intelligence, plan accordingly, and ensure that our troops have the resources, support, and equipment they need to protect themselves and fulfill their mission. ”

“ Not only the nation and the Government, but the army itself, apart from its inadequacy in numbers, was completely unprepared for war. There was hardly a single officer or sol&er who was really trained for war, who knew what war meant, who realized the intellectual and physical preparation required for it, or the energy and the sacrifices demanded in waging it. ”

“ We are also maintaining a small military force to consist ultimately of not more than 17,000 men, including the army, the air force, and the naval patrol, which will serve as the nucleus and rallying center of our citizen army which will gradually be built up to a strength capable of denying our shores to an invader. ”

“ The war affords the Insurgents an opportunity of knowing Foreign Powers, with whom they form connexions, and from whom they receive aid: the war, in fine, destroys, in detail, our little army, either by the fruitless fatigues of a campaign under the present system, or by exposing it to the influence of seduction, to which the apparent remoteness of our success gives but too much room, and the effects of which are felt even amongst the European soldiers, without its being possible for the Government either to replace them or the arms which they generally carry off. ”

“ To shorten the War—by strengthening the morale of the allied peoples and their armies, by alleviating their sufferings in the period which must elapse until the American army can become fully effective abroad. ”

“ It is the fashion for politicians (and I am sorry to find them supported by eminent statesmen) to preach the doctrine of armaments; they allege that in order to preserve peace it is necessary to be prepared for war, that a nation with a large army or navy commands respect, and that her word carries weight. This argument cuts both ways, for a nation occupying such a commanding position may be unreasonable and a terror to weaker nations. ”

“ In these various ways different degrees of military efficiency are obtained, but, generally, experience shows that the more thorough and intelligent this training in arms, the greater the development of the requisite military qualities in the units; and the more these qualities become a second nature, the more complete will be their warlike efficiency. ”

“ It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a nation. ”

“ HOW AN ARMY IS FORMED. The making of an army—that is what it means to turn men of peace to men of war, to fit the mechanic or the business man, the farmer or the miner, for a passage at arms with a foreign foe—has been for the present generation a matter of conjecture and of lessons drawn from previous passages in the nation's chronicles. ”

“ Our army and navy, always thought of as instrumentalities of last resort, reserved almost wholly for defense against aggression from without, have on principle been always under the control and direction of civilians as such, and in peace time have been recruited by voluntary enlistment. ”

“ The Armed Forces and the unified commands have achieved a remarkable degree of integration in organization and operations and remain the best-trained, best-equipped, and best-prepared fighting force in the world. ”

“ Inspired by the intrepidity and vigilance, the fearlessness and the activity of the General,—who was constantly on the move, visiting the advanced works, pressing his reconnoissances even within the enemy’s lines, and making every available disposition of men and munitions which could conduce to the common safety,—soldiers and citizens kept brave hearts, labored incessantly and cheerfully, observed a sleepless watch upon the sea and its inlets, and stood prepared to offer stout resistance to the Spaniard. ”

“ Every army at the present time is divided into regular troops, who are already organized in time of peace and are merely brought to full strength in war-time, and new formations, which are only organized on mobilization. ”

“ All the appliances of science, industry, and art are brought into use to make it the best army the world ever saw.
It is the business of the government to bring the materials together, and the business of the generals to organize it into brigades, divisions, and corps,—to determine the number of cavalry and batteries of artillery, to place weak materials in their proper places, and the strongest where they will be most needed. ”

“ The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of corps and 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 railroads, 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. ”

“ No army, however disciplined, can contend successfully against such a system applied to a great nation, unless it be strong enough to hold all the essential points of the country, cover its communications, and at the same time furnish an active force sufficient to beat the enemy wherever he may present himself. If this enemy has a regular army of respectable size to be a nucleus around which to rally the people, what force will be sufficient to be superior everywhere, and to assure the safety of the long lines of communication against numerous bodies? ”