In this war we are working out things instead of thinking them
out, and these enormous changes are still but imperfectly apprehended.
The trained and specialised military man probably apprehends them as
feebly as anyone.
This is a thing that I want to state as emphatically as possible. It is
the pith of the lesson I have learnt at the front. The whole method of
war has been so altered in the past five and twenty years as to make
it a new and different process altogether. Much the larger part of this
alteration has only become effective in the last two years. Everyone is
a beginner at this new game; everyone is experimenting and learning.
The idea has been put admirably by _Punch._ That excellent picture
of the old-fashioned sergeant who complains to his officer of the new
recruit; "'E's all right in the trenches, Sir; 'e's all right at a
scrap; but 'e won't never make a soldier," is the quintessence of
everything I am saying here. And were there not the very gravest doubts
about General Smuts in British military circles because he had "had no
military training"? A Canadian expressed the new view very neatly on
being asked, in consequence of a deficient salute, whether he wanted to
be a soldier, by saying, "Not I! I want to be a fighter!"
The professional officer of the old dispensation was a man specialised
in relation to one of the established "arms.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120