MANOEUVRES
Manoeuvres form an expensive portion of the conscript's training, and
it will be understood, when it is remembered that under ordinary peace
conditions France maintains twenty military stations, each forming
the skeleton of an army corps, that the annual cost to the state
runs into a considerable fraction of the total military expenditure,
this including the cost of food for men, forage for horses, the
running of transports and stores, and all the expenses incidental to
the maintenance of troops in the field. One item alone, the cost of
shells fired by artillery during their annual practice, represent a
large expenditure, for each shell is in itself a complicated piece of
machinery, which must be perfectly accurate in all its parts, and is a
costly thing to produce.
Not that the soldier on manoeuvres ever counts cost; the majority of
the troops do not even think of such a thing. They are out roughing it,
a business which gratifies the instincts of most healthy minded and
bodied men, and one which is conducive to health and high spirits. Your
conscript on manoeuvres is a different being from the one who came to
the colours in the previous October. He has acquired a self-confidence
and self-reliance of which he was innocent at the beginning of his
training; he came as a boy, but now there are about him the signs of a
man, and the first camp more than anything else gives him a realisation
of the value of military training from a man's own point of view, and
quite apart from its value to the state. By the time the season of
manoeuvres is over he is a second-year man, and has begun to feel his
feet.
If one takes a map of France and picks out the twenty stations of
the various army corps scattered throughout the country, and then if
one realises the numbers of men actually serving that these stations
represent, one will see that it is quite impossible that all the army
corps of the country should make a point of undergoing their manoeuvres
as one united body. The disturbance inflicted from a civilian point of
view on the area chosen would be enormous, and the result of no more
value as regards the training of officers and men than when two or
three army corps conduct their mimic warfare together. Certainly more
than one army corps should be engaged in an annual set of manoeuvres.
For instance, if one took Lyons as the station concerned, and assumed
that the army corps stationed at Lyons conducted its manoeuvres
year after year independently of those army corps which have their
head-quarters at other centres, it would be easily understood that the
army corps with head-quarters at Lyons would, to a certain extent, get
into a rule-of-thumb way of working, and would fail to keep itself
abreast of the various discoveries that are constantly being made
by all sorts and conditions of commanders in the art of war. It is
essential that units should as far as possible be able to interchange
ideas, and learn new ways from each other, for war is a business
in which, given forces of equal strength, the most intelligently
controlled army wins.
The manoeuvre areas of France are many. There are stretches of hill
country like the district of the Vosges; forest stretches like the
Ardennes in which the French Army has recently conducted some of its
stiffest fights; great open plains like that which lies about Châlons,
or like the Breton _Landes_; and river basins of diversified country,
giving reaches of hill, valley and woodland, and most useful of all
from a military educational point of view, since they afford training
in practically all branches of the soldier's work.
In average manoeuvres, two forces, designated respectively as a blue
and a red force, or in some way distinguished from each other by marks
which enable men to tell "friend" from "enemy," are set to face each
other in a certain limited area. Each force is expected to do its best
to render the other ineffective as a fighting force, and the conditions
are made to resemble those of real warfare as nearly as possible.
It must be said, however, that up to the present, no nation in its
military manoeuvres has ever allowed sufficiently for casualties; as
an instance may be cited the case of a regiment which, on a certain
set of manoeuvres in France, was surrounded and entirely put out of
action early in the course of the operations. Had the business been
real, the men of that particular regiment would all have been either
dead or prisoners, but they were allowed to continue to count in
the force to which they belonged, and the commander of the opposing
force simply scored up so much credit for having achieved a brilliant
military operation. Of course, from the point of view of training
officers and men, for which manoeuvres are specially designed, it was
quite right that the officers and men of this unit should take part in
the operations up to the last day, but, since men do not resurrect in
this fashion after a real battle, it may be said, viewing the matter
disinterestedly, that there was no further tactical value in the scheme
carried out. The opposing forces were so constituted for the operation
as to be of about equal strength, and the presence or absence of the
regiment referred to would have been quite sufficient to turn the
scale one way or the other--and yet they were allowed to take part
after having been theoretically wiped out of existence! This anomalous
method of procedure is not peculiar to the French Army, however, but is
practically common to the armies of all nations.
The nature of the work which the conscript has to perform on manoeuvres
is purely a matter of luck. For instance, the force in which one is
serving may be compelled, in order to carry out the scheme of its
commander, to execute a wheeling or turning movement to either flank,
and, supposing a wheel to the right flank is required, then the men
on the right flank have very little marching to do, and very little
work, since their part in the scheme is to wait for the wheeling flank
to come round. An amusing old scamp whose service began when the five
years' law was still in force, and who served in a French infantry
battalion up to a short time ago, used to allege that he was once
right-hand man of an army corps which wheeled in this fashion with the
right flank for a pivot. "I stood for three weeks," he alleged, "on
that flank, waiting for the outer flank to come round, and looking up
the line to see that the men kept their dressing." The "dressing," it
should be explained, is a term used in both the French and British Army
for the keeping of line by the men.
But, speaking seriously, these wheeling movements occur frequently
during a term of manoeuvres; when the business is over, and the men
of the various units come to compare notes, they are often puzzled at
the enormous amount of work and marching imposed on one unit, while
another had practically nothing to do, and stayed very nearly in the
same place throughout the whole time. For, though the part that his own
regiment has to play in a scheme is usually explained to the conscript,
the strategical nature of the scheme as a whole is generally beyond
his comprehension. This is not to be wondered at, since a strategical
scheme is planned out by the best brains of the army corps--at least,
the staff officers are supposed to possess the best brains, and are
given their posts mainly on account of greater fitness for the planning
of military operations.
Manoeuvres as a whole approximate as nearly as is possible, in view
of the difference in circumstances, to active service, but "nearly
as possible" is not "quite," and the lessons learned on manoeuvres,
valuable though they are, cannot be unreservedly applied to active
service. Reference has already been made to the way in which the
soldier enjoys his period of manoeuvres, but no man enjoys active
service in a similar fashion, and _moral_, one of the greatest deciding
factors in war, is entirely absent from the mimic warfare in which
armies engage in time of peace. At the same time the lessons learned
from manoeuvres are as valuable as they are varied. Commanding officers
learn the amount of strain which they can impose on their men; the
conditions under which transport can and must be brought up for the
use of the troops can be studied with almost as much accuracy as in
warfare; the cavalry commander learns the value, from a war point of
view, of his men as scouts and on detached duties, while the artillery
officer finds out, as he never could without manoeuvre experience,
the possibilities of gun transport, and the business of ranging
positions with a view to rendering them untenable by shellfire. Where
the manoeuvre period fails as regards war lies mainly in the absence
of disadvantages. As already remarked, the conditions under which
transport can be brought up for the use of troops can be studied, but
sometimes in war transport goes wrong, or gets captured, and an army
has to do its best to keep the field until supplementary supplies
can be obtained; manoeuvres never impose this form of disability on
the troops. The cavalry commander is unable to ascertain what his
men would do when actually under fire, and though artillery officers
learn to range a position, they are unable to judge what the troops
occupying that position will be like after shelling has been carried
out. Manoeuvres teach up to a point, but from that point the art of war
can be learned only from the grim business itself, and, since no two
bodies of troops are ever in the same frame of mind, and no two battles
are fought under identical conditions, the art of war is never learned,
simple though its principles are.
The average conscript is troubled little about such matters as these.
As an infantryman, his business is to entrench himself when ordered
to do so; to advance by short rushes, squad alternating with squad,
during the work of getting nearer the enemy; to charge if bidden, or to
retreat as he advanced, in the way that would produce least damage to
the force of which he is a member if that force were exposed to actual
fire. Both in infantry and cavalry there exists a prejudice against
firing the first blank cartridge of a manoeuvre day, though, once that
first cartridge has been fired, a man does not care how many more he
fires, and often men have been known to beg blank cartridges from
others, after firing their own. The reason for the prejudice consists
in the fact that the firing of the first cartridge fouls the barrel of
the rifle and renders necessary far more thorough cleaning at the end
of the day than would be required if the rifle had not been fired. But,
no matter how many more cartridges may be fired through the same rifle,
they cannot make the fouling of the barrel any worse, and once the
fouling has been incurred, there is a certain amount of fun in blazing
off blank cartridges at the "enemy."
The work of the cavalry is considerably more varied than that of
the infantry. Charges, which form the culminating point of cavalry
training at drill, are infrequently indulged in on manoeuvres, for
even in actual warfare, apart from the fact that the quick fire of
modern rifles has rendered the charge a rare thing, the conditions
imposed by the selection of infantry and artillery posts do not often
admit of a definite cavalry charge, owing to the nature of the ground
to be covered. During manoeuvres the chief value of cavalry lies
in their ability to act as mounted infantry; that is, they are able
to concentrate fire rapidly on a given point, and to get near that
point more quickly than infantry, thus rendering their fire decisive.
Further, small bodies of cavalry are employed in reconnaissance and
detached duties of various kinds; the modern army in movement always
throws out well to the front a screen of cavalry, whose object is to
find and report on the presence of the enemy, to maintain contact with
him, but not to engage in decisive action, which is as a rule, and
practically always when the opposing forces are of equal strength, left
mainly to the artillery and infantry following on behind the cavalry
screen. During a period of manoeuvres cavalry patrols theoretically
cut telegraph wires, destroy bridges, and do all they can to impede
the progress of the advancing enemy. Sometimes small parties of scouts
are sent out to get on to the enemy's lines of communication, and, if
possible, cut them. An army with its line of communication cut is in
practice like a man with his windpipe severed, and thus it will be
understood that if cavalry perform this business effectively, their
value to the force to which they belong is enormous. This, however, is
more true of manoeuvres than of war, for in the latter communications
are so well guarded that as a rule it takes a stronger force than
a body of cavalry unsupported by artillery to get on to a line of
communication with a view to damaging it.
Mention has already been made of the prejudice which the infantryman
has against firing the first blank cartridge of the day. Since this
is the case where the rifle is concerned, one may guess what the
artilleryman's feelings are like when his gun has to fire the first
shot, for the cleaning of a field-gun, even after firing blank
ammunition, is no light matter. The bore of the gun has literally to
be scrubbed out in order to remove the fouling, and the gunner's task
is not an enviable one; the clothing of the first-year conscript, when
the gun has been cleaned after firing, looks as if the man had been
hauled up a chimney by his heels, and though men keep a special suit of
fatigue clothes for use on this task, they like it none the more for
that.
In addition to the ordinary manoeuvre period in which cavalry and
infantry participate, artillery units go every year to a practice camp
which is a special area set apart for the firing of live shells, with
a view to giving officers and men alike training in the realities
of their work. The so-called smokeless powder--which in reality is
not smokeless--used on these occasions, together with the passage
of a shell through the rifling of the gun, renders the cleaning of
the bore an even more messy business than that incurred in firing
blank ammunition during tactical exercises. Drivers and gunners alike
generally enjoy their time at practice camp, but the gunners use
language over cleaning the guns, and with good cause too, when one
considers the nature and difficulty of the task.
But, whether the occasion be that of practice camp for the artillery,
or tactical exercise for the three arms, there is more to enjoy than
to cavil at. Manoeuvres come at the best period of the year, from the
weather point of view; the days are warm, but not too warm, and the
cool nights induce healthy sleep. There is plenty of food, generally
a sufficiency of tobacco and cigarettes, and the canteen travels with
the men. There is a pleasant uncertainty about the nature of the day's
work and the length of time it will take; one may be out until late
in the evening, or one may finish in the afternoon, and, after an
inspection of arms, be at liberty to go to the canteen and discuss
things in general with one's comrades, or with the men who, coming from
other stations, have new stories to tell and new matters to discuss.
One may, granted the necessary leave, walk over to a near-by town,
where is certain to be at least a cinema hall, and restaurants outside
which one may sit by a table at the pavement edge and view civilian
life. Or there may be a night march to be accomplished, and, though
this is a tiring business, it has a certain amount of interest as long
as the weather holds good. The chief drawback to manoeuvres is a rainy
season, when the soldier has a particularly unenviable time of it.
There are seldom sufficient fires at which to dry one's clothes; there
is, perhaps, the business of pitching tents in the rain, and then the
crowding of self, arms, and equipment into the canvas shelter, while
outside the rain keeps on in a way which suggests that fine days are
things of the past, never to be experienced again. The infantry go
squelching out from camp in the morning; the cavalry pull up their wet
lines and, getting mounted, splash out through mud puddles, while the
artillery drivers harness up their horses with a knowledge that a hard
day is in store for them, both on the road, where their horses will be
overtaxed by the heavy going, and in camp, where the cleaning of wet
saddlery and equipment and the grooming of muddy horses is enough to
spoil temper at the end of the day's work. And the transport waggons,
standing parked in the rain, look as if they were used for the carriage
of materialised despair, and had been abandoned because the loads were
too heavy. A wet town or village is a dreary sight, but a wet camp is
the most depressing thing on earth.
Even in wet weather, however, the spirit of the conscript is usually
proof against depression. There are compensations: for one thing, work
is lightened as far as possible, and usually the operations of the
manoeuvres are modified in case of a continual spell of wet weather,
for it is not only the men who suffer from adverse climatic conditions,
and it is not the business of a period of manoeuvres to impose too
great a strain on the forces taking part therein. When the men are in
their tents and the rain is driving down outside, the interminable
songs of the army may be heard from the interiors of the tents. Even
in a standing camp--that is to say, a camp located in one position for
a period of several days--the men are made to undergo a certain number
of parades in order to keep them in health, for continued idleness in
camp almost certainly means disease, and, as has already been remarked,
the authorities of the French Army are fully alive to the necessity for
preserving the health of the men.
On the average, manoeuvre days are fine days; a spell of wet weather
is exceptional, for the season of the year is chosen, in some degree,
with a view to imparting as much instruction to officers and men alike
as is possible in the allotted period. Given fine weather, one has to
work--but then, one has to work in barracks, and not in such congenial
fashion as in this life of open air and comparative freedom.
As the end of the manoeuvre period approaches, the second-year men
get more and more excited, for your Frenchman, whether as conscript
or civilian, is an excitable person, and not ashamed of showing his
feelings as is the man west of the Channel. For these second-year men
civilian life is getting very near. Pierre will go back to the farm,
and Jacques will return to his place behind the counter, while Jean
will once more polish the seat of the office stool for a stated period
each day. But Jacques and Pierre and Jean will at times look back to
the good days and the cheery comrades of the last manoeuvres, and
perhaps, although this is a conscript army, they will know a transient
regret in that they will never again go out from the barrack gate as
units of a column setting out on the long march.