Too much stress has been given to a long, intensive training as
absolutely necessary to fit men to become good, reliable battle-service
soldiers, or to enable them to tackle either purely military problems,
or such problems as confronted us in our long, exhaustive pursuit of
those deserters. Perfection of drill and military training is one thing
through a continuous and harassing barrack or field training. To fit men
to become alert, resourceful, obedient soldiers for quick and ready
service through discipline and a minimum of tactical drill is altogether
another thing when a war is fully on. Theodore Roosevelt in his
Autobiography (p. 250) says: "The reason why it takes so long to turn
the average citizen, etc., into a good infantryman or cavalryman is
because it takes a long while to teach the average untrained man how to
shoot, to march, to take care of himself in the open, to be alert,
resourceful, cool, daring and resolute, and to fit himself to act on his
own responsibility (individual initiative). If he already possesses
these qualities there is very little difficulty in making him a good
soldier (nor should it take a long time). All the drill necessary to
enable him to march and to fight is of a simple character. _Parade
ground and barrack square maneuvers are of no earthly consequence in
real war._ When men can readily change from line to column, and column
to line, can form front in any direction, and assemble and _scatter_
(deploy), and can do other things with speed and precision they have got
a fairly good grasp on the essentials."
No amount of long drawn out drill will give him battle instinct or
battle sense; not until he goes in under fire and faces up to what he
sooner or later has got to encounter,--drill or no drill--does he
acquire it.
Leaving out the non-essentials and endless repetitions of drill during a
war crisis (and by the non-essentials the writer means a cut and dried
program from 5.00 A. M. to 10 P. M., with "manual of arms by the
count"--all dress parades, reviews and other ceremonies, marching or
"hiking" with a full infantry pack in a temperature of 109 deg. in the
shade, to see how men can _intensively_ endure such heat, or, in other
words, a persistent effort to break these men down and determine whether
they have any courage, endurance or guts)--it should take less than
three months to make an alert, steadfast, reliable and efficient battle
soldier in time of war, and not more than six months in time of peace if
more perfection is arrived at, unless it is desired to specialize in
artillery, engineering and the Scientific Corps. Much less time was
taken during the Civil War. Most of these intensive training sharps and
cranks harp incessantly about the absolute necessity for a long period
of "_discipline_". The writer is nearly a crank on that subject, for
discipline is the real, true and vital basis on which to build for a
battle soldier. Then employ most of the few weeks, taken as a limit for
training, in discipline alone--making that the one objective upon which
to concentrate the intensive effort, devoting the balance of the time to
sufficient tactical drill to readily handle them under fire, and no
more, or until the first deployment and the shrapnel or machine gun fire
of battle demonstrates the fact that any and all tactical formations
whether perfect or more loosely co-ordinated are soon broken up. Any
more tactical drill than is sufficient for such a purpose in time of
war--when all preparation must necessarily be hastened--is simply a mere
repetition looking to more perfect formations and movements and
therefore a sheer waste of time and effort.
Both Theodore Roosevelt and General Leonard Wood were then right in
their grasp of the situation and summing up of five weeks of _training_
and _battle activities_ of the "Rough Riders". Neither had had any
military training, either theoretical or practical--one having been a
college student, writer, ranchman, police commissioner, Secretary of the
Navy, etc., while the other had been a medical officer. Both, however,
had been out in the open under the stars, were alert, self-reliant,
versatile, many-sided, broad-guaged, tense, strenuous, level-headed,
far-sighted, sagacious, but withal, endowed with a large stock of good
judgment and plenty of good, sound horse sense. Neither had drilled a
troop of cavalry--much less a regiment--but they had had some good
regular officers and old non-commissioned officers assigned to start
them off, and furthermore, in the face of a war, then on, and quick
preparation for immediate battle service absolutely necessary, both saw
at a glance what every good soldier--whether theoretical or
otherwise--should see, that there was no time to waste in the mere
niceties of a perfect tactical drill; that all of the non-essentials
would have to be cut out--and the one essential, which they kept
steadily in view, in dealing with and licking into shape such a body of
men as the "Rough Riders" were, and which they were so suddenly called
upon to organize and put into battle--was _discipline_, more
_discipline_, and then _some_; to control the unruly elements, eliminate
the really vicious, and administer the severest punishment, tempered
with justice and mercy, for any and every infraction of the disciplinary
laws governing any large bodies of men trying to adjust themselves to
the novelty of control by superior authority appointed by the Government
to hold them in check, and to give them just sufficient tactical drill
to get them into and out of a battle mess, in a fairly orderly fashion.
The "Rough Riders" had been gathered from the "four corners of the
earth." What good could six months or a year, or even longer, of hard
drill or long drawn out intensive training have done these men with war
already on? They would soon have "bucked"--grown disgusted--gone
stale--lost their spirit and enthusiasm--their morale and force, and
given their officers no end of trouble by their restlessness and
eagerness to try out their mettle and "get in". They needed plenty of
hard discipline and proper guidance daily, and Theodore Roosevelt says
they _got it_. They already possessed most of the other qualifications
which he so clearly enumerates. They needed to be taught prompt
obedience to lawful authority, and they soon found that out and who were
their leaders. What more did they need to fit them for battle than what
he so concisely states in the way of tactical drill, to enable them to
get on and off a battle-field, and the courage-born stimulus of good
competent officers and non-commissioned officers? Most of them already
knew the use of arms, and nobody ever stands up on a battle line and
exercises in the manual of arms, either "by the count" or "at will".
There was no time to put them into large cantonments with other troops
and intensively train them according to a War College prescribed
schedule. _Everything had to be sacrificed to time._
The late Col. Arthur Wagner, U. S. Army, is reported to have said
shortly after the Spanish-American war, when asked what his experience
had been at Santiago--"There was nothing I saw there that fitted into my
text books in any way."
No cut and dried plans such as might be worked out in a Staff War
College to fit into every program could be used, unless, perchance, the
conditions which we were constantly meeting fitted into such
plans--which they seldom do--and we could not afford to fall back on any
"perchances", necessitating, as they would, the rapid changing of such
plans, in the face of a situation or crisis which might and did demand
immediate and decisive action.
The query then naturally arises--of what vital or practical use is much
of these enforced student theoretical courses at Leavenworth and the
Staff War College, especially in feeding up officers--who have no
special aptitude for the profession--on sham battles and sham war
maneuvers, if, after stacking up hundreds of these worked out war
problems, such as four or five different plans for the invasion of
Mexico, and the same number for the invasion of Canada, it shall be
found that just at that particular time the conditions bear no relation
whatever to, or fit into these carefully worked out and elaborate
plans, all of which may, and probably will have to be hurriedly changed,
when there is little or no time to do so, just as the crisis of a sudden
campaign is forced upon us or is quickly culminating. Any commanding
officer of our army who cannot then quickly change that cut and dried
plan thrust into his hands by the War Department, and in the face of
sudden and almost insurmountable obstacles, and all of these conditions
entirely foreign to such plans, to work out in front of an enemy already
mobilized for battle--why--his name is--_MUD_!!
In all measures of this kind we felt compelled to take relating to these
deserters, the exigencies we had to face at any moment and the plan we
hastily made to fit into them, proved to be the deciding factor. Such a
thing as pursuing those deserters under any cut and dried programme
would have been not only ridiculous, but a blithering farce. That is
why, with a man of Mackenzie's horse sense, we were left to perfect
freedom of action, and our own independence or individual initiative.
Therefore, while it may seem almost treason for a graduate of West Point
to declare it, nothing that the writer had ever learned there was of the
slightest value to him in trailing these men. It was a problem
absolutely separate from the ordinary military processes, and governed
entirely by other factors than those to which an education at the
Military Academy had any relation.