THE SYSTEM OF TRAINING
"The demands which war makes upon the troops must determine their
training in peace.... The tasks of the soldier in war are simple. He
must always be able to march and to use his weapon. He can do both
only so far as his moral and intellectual qualities suffice and his
bodily and military training has been effective. Moreover, his
performance will be fully useful only when it is guided by the will of
the leader and regulated by discipline."[1]
The ideal here formulated is realized by devoting much time and
attention to training and teaching each individual recruit. Next comes
the exercise of the company, also as thorough as possible. These two
stages of schooling occupy the greater part of the military year. Then
when the companies are perfect they take their places in the battalion,
and the battalions in due time in the regiment and in the brigade. The
crown of the whole training is formed by the manoeuvres, in which
divisions and occasionally army corps are assembled for practice,
resembling as nearly as may be the operations of actual war.
Several objects are served by these manoeuvres. In the first place,
the separate exercise of brigades preceding the manoeuvres proper
completes the formal training of the troops, and gives practice in the
evolutions of large homogeneous masses of each of the three arms. The
manoeuvres of divisions and army corps serve to accustom the three arms
to act in concert, and to overcome the great friction which at first
always impedes the movements of such large composite bodies. All the
various manoeuvres, moreover, give the superior officers the
opportunity of inspecting the work of their inferiors, that is, of
ascertaining how far the training of the troops has been thorough, and
with what degree of skill they are handled.
Not the least important purpose of the manoeuvres is the training of
commanders. The troops are divided into two parties supposed to be
enemies at some stage of an imaginary war. The commander of each side
learns from the umpire the nature of the supposed operations which have
brought his forces into their actual situation, together with such
information concerning the enemy as in real war he might be presumed to
have obtained. He has then to act according to his own judgment. In
this way the generals are practised and tested in the power of rapidly
and surely grasping situations such as occur in war and of acting upon
the insight thus gained. The arrangements are so made as to afford
practice like this to as many officers as possible of all ranks, though
it is chiefly the generals, the commanders of brigades, divisions, and
army corps who profit by them.
Thus the Prussian system of training produces as the net result on the
one hand an army corps as an instrument pliable to its commander's
touch, so that it can be surely and easily handled in any situation,
and on the other hand a general skilled in the manipulation of this
powerful and complicated instrument.
[1] _Felddienstordnung_, §§ 1, 2.