The Common Soldier in the Field
[Illustration: American cow-boy with Canadians in South Africa.]
There is much in common between the life of a tramp and that of a
soldier in campaign. If the tramp had ever watched an army on the
march it might not be difficult for him to imagine himself surrounded
by all the pomp of war. He is dirty, unshaven, his clothes are ragged
and torn, and he presents a generally dilapidated and loose-jointed
appearance. His line of march is along the railroad; occasionally he
gets a ride in a box car, and at night he sleeps beside the track. If
he is lucky he gets a meal or so each day; he cooks the meal himself
over his own fire, the meat sizzling on the end of a stick, and the
coffee boiling in an old can. On and on he marches along the railroad,
he does not know where, he does not care--he just goes. Finally he
comes to a town and stands around in the switchyard, or at the station,
until some one comes along and orders him out. These conditions are
those of the life of the average tramp, but they fit that of the
soldier as well, the chief point of difference being that the tramp
does not have to work and the soldier does.
Fighting is what the soldier longs for and lives for; it does come
sometimes, although infrequently; and during the intervening routine
of work he almost forgets the fighting. The public at home reads of
battles, several of them perhaps occurring within a week; but those
actions cover the entire theatre of the war, and consequently one
command may rarely see two fights in succession. There is none of the
glitter that the romancers depict; the glory begins and ends with
the triumphal march through the streets to the transport. Up to the
time that the last line that connects with home is cast off, and the
great troop-ship turns her prow to the land of the enemy, the soldier
feels the true excitement and exhilaration of war; the cheers of the
crowd along the line of march still ring in his ears; the brave words
of speeding that were spoken by local officials, and the thoughtful
attentions of the ladies’ committees at the wharf are all bright
memories of the start towards fame and glory on the battlefield. But
about the time the jingling bell in the engine-room tells the official
at the throttle that the ship is clear of the harbor, and that she may
settle down to her long voyage, the soldier begins to realize that
war is no romance, but a stern reality that will take him away for a
long time from everything and everybody that he cares for, with the
possibility that he may never come back at all.
When he thinks of this, he pictures himself staggering back from the
crest of some hill that is to be taken, with a rifle-ball in his heart.
A few weeks later the cause of his not going home means some slow,
consuming fever, or other wasting disease, which gives him plenty of
time to repent the day he ever thought of going to war. Or instead of
that neat bullet through the heart, a ragged chunk of shell rips off
an arm or a leg, or tears its way through his side, dropping him in
the mud or dust, to lie until some one finds time to pick him up, and
take him in a springless wagon to a crowded field hospital, where a
surgeon gives but hasty attention to his needs. There is no “dying for
the flag” sentiment; no tender nurse, such as we see on the stage, to
take the last message home; instead, it is a helpless sort of death,
without any one near who has time to give even a drink of water. There
is no resemblance that would come so near my idea of a soldier killed
in battle as that of an unclean, sweating, and unshaven unfortunate of
a crowded city, struck by a street car, and thrown, bleeding and torn,
into the mud. Then, if no one had time to pick him up, and he should
lie there for hours, or perhaps days, the picture of a soldier’s death
would be complete.
After the first few weeks the whole idea of war becomes a dread, and
the one thought is, When shall we go home? After a few months have
passed, a helpless, “don’t care” feeling settles over every one, and
after that any change is highly welcome, no matter whether it be home,
the hospital, or the trench. The tedium of war is more telling upon the
volunteer than upon the regular, as the former soon begins to think of
his interests at home that are perhaps suffering. The volunteer never
thinks that his services will be needed more than two or three months
at the most; and when the service drags well on toward a year, it
becomes almost unbearable. The regular does not mind it so much, for
his apprenticeship of worry has been served with the early months of
the first enlistment, and any change from barrack life is an agreeable
one.
[Illustration: Dangebhoy hospital cart used in South Africa.]
After a soldier has been in the field for a few months there is not
much of the military appearance left to him except his gun, and there
is not the slightest trace of the smart, well-kept man on home duty.
It does not matter about his appearance, however, for the man himself
is there, and of all sorts and conditions of men in all creation, the
true fighting man is the manliest. He works day after day like a galley
slave, endangers his life night and day, and yet he is but the tiniest
portion of a great machine, of whom no one has ever heard, and who will
be forgotten before the ink is dry on the treaty of peace. For a day
he may be carried on the shoulders of a victory-maddened crowd, and
compelled to drink rare wine from silver goblets; nothing is then good
enough for him--the victor. But let him ask a favor from sovereign or
subject, from Congress or people, a year after, and no one remembers
him. His days and nights in the field, suffering that the nation’s
honor may live, are all forgotten, and the fighting man is pushed to
one side to make room for the trade of peace that this same man has
made possible.
No honor is too great to render to the men who go out to fight, whether
they be regulars or volunteers. The wage they receive would not pay any
man at home to undertake half so hazardous a task. Within two years I
have had the opportunity of seeing the work of four different armies
in the field, fighting for what they thought was right. Among those
four--Spaniards, British, Boers, and Americans--can be found a curious
variety of methods of warfare, and there is much that has never been
told.
The common soldiers of every land are brave; it is but a question of
leaders, methods, and numbers that decides which will be victorious;
for losing or winning, they show much the same valor. Nothing could be
more magnificent, nor reflect more credit on the men of Spain, than the
manner in which they met defeat at El Caney, at Santiago, and on the
seas in the conflicts with Sampson and Dewey. They went down in defeat
in a way that won the admiration of every soldier and sailor in the
American army and navy; they were brave, dignified, and courteous at
all times, even the rank and file.
The fighting methods of the Boers and the Americans are very similar,
and if the Boers were trained in military tactics their military
character would be almost identical with that of our troops. They
possess the same natural instinct of a hunter to keep under cover that
our men have, and their methods during an advance are the same. The
British army has just taken its first lesson in this sort of work, and
although it has been a costly one, it will pay in the end; and it is
England’s great good fortune that she did not have a powerful European
foe for a tutor, instead of the two little republics whose entire male
population would not make a good-sized army corps.
At the autumn manœuvres of the British army at Aldershot, just before
the South African war broke out, I was watching the attack and defense
of a hill by several battalions of infantry. Standing with me was an
officer of the Twelfth Lancers, and we watched the progress of the
action with alert interest. When the attacking force made its advance,
I noticed that neither the officers nor the men made any attempt at
keeping under the cover of the trees or rocks which were numerous in
the zone of fire. Of course the men were using only blank ammunition,
but in the same work our men would be compelled to crawl along from
tree to tree, or to keep under the shelter of the rocks. I remarked
to my companion that I should imagine the officers and men would take
greater interest in the work in hand if they went at it as though it
were real, and keeping to cover.
“Why, you do not mean to say that American officers and soldiers would
hide behind rocks and trees, do you?” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“Of course they would,” I replied. “They would not only get behind
rocks and trees, but behind the largest they could find. Don’t you do
the same?”
“No, indeed,” he said with emphasis, adding, “What would the men think
of an officer who would hide during a fight?” As it was not my first
visit in England, I did not continue the argument.
[Illustration: The Twelfth Lancers in South Africa.]
[Illustration: General French examining the enemy’s position during the
battle of Diamond Hill.]
It was, indeed, the general British opinion that to protect oneself
in a fight was to hide, and with this idea the men went to war in a
country where the enemy could find all the protection that he wanted,
and where he knew how to use it; and so these brave soldiers were
sent up in solid formation to be shot to bits by an invisible foe.
There could be no greater test of the valor of the British soldier than
the manner in which he faced death during the first months of the war.
The difference between the British and the American soldier is very
marked in the fact that the class feeling in England is so great. All
the middle and lower classes of England are taught to touch their
hats to birth in what is called a gentleman, and no matter where
they meet one, they show him deference. From these middle and lower
classes the army, of course, gathers its strength; consequently there
is a feeling of obedience even before the real lesson of the soldier
begins. This subservience is not always a good thing, for any one
who has the appearance of a gentleman has about as much influence or
authority with the men as an officer in uniform would have. An incident
which illustrates this occurred during the first days of the British
occupation of Pretoria. It was found that some of the Boer sympathizers
were communicating with their friends on commando during the night,
and, to prevent this, an order was issued that no one should pass
the sentries posted around the town after sundown or before sunrise,
without a pass from the military governor or from the field marshal
himself. The order was as imperative as could be made, for the danger
at that time was very great, and it was necessary that even the
smallest bits of information should be kept from the Boer forces. A
party of five Americans were dining at the house of a friend on the
opposite side of the line of sentries, and, when the order was issued,
it looked as though we would not get back until the next morning. One
of the party suggested that we bluff our way past the sentry at the
bridge over which we had to pass. The plan was adopted, and we walked
boldly up to the sentry post, and were promptly challenged. One of
the party stepped forward, and in a tone of authority said, “These
gentlemen are Americans, and are with me, sentry, and it will be all
right. Just pass them too.”
“You are sure it will be all right, sir?” inquired the sentry.
“Yes, quite sure,” was the answer, and the entire party was passed
without any further trouble, and for all the sentry knew they might
have gone straight to the Boer camp, which was only a few miles away;
but owing to the fact that the party was one apparently of gentlemen,
he did not see fit to refuse the permission to pass through the lines,
even though the field marshal had given his strictest order to the
contrary. This was not a single occurrence; any person could pass
through the lines at any time, providing he did not speak English with
a Dutch accent. To do that was to arouse immediate suspicion, and at
times our own “Yankee twang” was enough to cause the Tommy to ask
questions; but a few words of explanation invariably brought a polite
apology.
The Englishman makes a natural sailor, but he is not a natural
soldier, and it requires a great amount of training to make a good man
of him in the field; he may drill well, march well, and look well,
but he needs much training and good leadership to fight well. When
he has that, there is no better soldier to be found. It is in this
respect that the Americans, as well as the Boers, excel the English as
soldiers. They have been taught to hunt wild game in the wilderness of
the great plains and deep forests; they have been taught to shoot and
to ride in their childhood. The reason is obvious--they are a people of
a new country; both Americans and Boers have but recently fought back
the way for civilization, and, in fact, are still doing the same thing.
New York has forgotten the stress, Chicago is fast forgetting it; but
the great West has not forgotten it at all, and everywhere in America
the spirit of adaptability to rough conditions still pervades our life.
Each year every man, woman, and child who can get there seeks the
mountains or the woods for a few days or weeks, to satisfy the natural
American longing for the wild out-of-doors life that our forefathers
knew. But in England there is no open shooting as we know it, there
is no camping as we know it. It is true that the great estates have
excellent shooting, so far as their idea of hunting goes; but to our
point of view it is a senseless slaughter. Tame deer are driven up to
the guns to be shot, or domesticated wild birds are flushed by beaters
toward the hidden shooting party. The size of the day’s bag depends
merely on the supply of ammunition or the endurance of the trigger
finger.
[Illustration: Heliographing from Diamond Hill to Lord Roberts in
Pretoria.]
All this has to do with war only as it suggests one reason why the
British soldier has met his master in the art of war in South Africa.
The training that makes a fighting man, if not a soldier, is hunting
where the snapping of a twig or the approach on the wrong wind means
the loss of the prey. Guns and gunning are for the rich alone in
England, and the class that makes up the rank and file of the army
never have a firearm in their hands until they enlist. It cannot be
expected, therefore, that they can become sufficiently proficient
in its use to cope successfully in equal numbers with men who have
handled rifles since childhood. Not even the London police carry
firearms of any sort. The soldier is taught to load and shoot, and
learns his marksmanship at the target ranges; but he might as well be
taught pigeon-shooting in a street gallery with a .22 calibre rifle.
Target practice and firing in action are different games, and the
latter can be learned only by actual practice if the instinct is not
present.
When the British forces were landing at Beira, in Portuguese East
Africa, to make their march into Rhodesia, there was a company of
volunteers belonging to “Carrington’s Horse,” already entrained and
ready to start for the front. In conversation with one of the men
I found that they were from Edinburgh, and that the name of their
company was the “Edinburgh Sharpshooters.” Merely from curiosity I
asked what qualifications were required to join their organization of
sharpshooters, and whether they had to make any particular score.
“Oh, no,” he said, “none of us have ever shot a gun at all yet, but
as soon as we get up here we are going to learn.” When they left home
they wanted a name, and they liked that of “sharpshooter,” so they
took it. That is the way in which many of the British soldiers are
made; they receive a uniform, a gun, and a farewell address, and then
it is thought that they are ready to meet any foe. In some cases our
own volunteers have been as unqualified as were these young Scotchmen,
and we have suffered for it; but our men have in general a better
fundamental training than those of most other nations. One mark of the
difference between Englishmen and Americans (and also Canadians) is to
be seen in the toy-shop windows. The American boy’s first plaything,
after he tires of tin soldiers, is a toy pistol with paper caps. The
boy then begins to “play Indian,” and to shoot and scalp his little
sisters. In a few years, if he is favored by fortune, he will have a
little rifle, and then the Winchester will follow. That boyish training
helped to make the Canadian and Australian volunteers superior to the
English troops, and it is also in boyhood that the Boer farmer learned
to be the great fighter that he is. That same mimic use of deadly arms
in childhood, and the constant use of guns against game in youth, has
made the North American Indian not only the most formidable fighter in
the world, but also the world’s tutor in modern warfare.
Switzerland has adopted the idea of the advantage of training in
the use of firearms, and every man is furnished with a rifle by the
government, and also with a certain amount of ammunition each year. The
people of that little republic could retire into the fastnesses of her
mountains and withstand the armies of Europe for months. If Austria,
for instance, should again attempt to invade the cantons, the Swiss
would show the world that they can do the same that the Boers have
done, and at least sell their land and liberty at a tremendous cost of
human life.
If the British common soldier is properly led, and if he has full
confidence in his leaders, he will go anywhere; but he must be led,
for he has no initiative and does not think for himself in the field
any more than he does at home. What would an American soldier think of
a special privilege created in a regiment because there came a time
when all the officers were killed or wounded, and the non-commissioned
officers took the regiment through the fight? There is an English
regiment in which the non-commissioned officers all wear their sashes
over the same shoulder as do the commissioned officers, because in a
long-ago battle they led the regiment when their superiors were put
out of action. In the American army this would have been done by the
non-commissioned officers as a matter of course, or by privates if the
sergeants and corporals were disabled; and in the terrible slaughters
of the Civil War more than once this happened, demonstrating the
resourcefulness of the American soldier. While talking with British
prisoners taken by the Boers, I asked them why they surrendered so
soon, when they had ammunition left and when so few had been hit. Some
of them said that it was much better to be a prisoner than it was to
be dead, and seemed to take it more as a joke on the rest of the army
that still had to fight while they were now in safety. Some of them
blamed their officers. But not one seemed to feel that it was at all
incumbent upon the privates to fight it out alone or to take the lead
when there was no officer near. In all the months of imprisonment in
Pretoria and in the vicinity, the soldiers did not make any attempt
to escape, although there were enough of them to have taken Pretoria
empty-handed. There were several thousand British soldiers in one field
enclosed in wire, yet they made no effort to regain their liberty. The
reason undoubtedly was that they had no leaders with them. In such an
attempt some of them, of course, would have been killed, and possibly a
great many of them; but there is no doubt that with the proper spirit
an escape could have been made.
The care of the dead is a problem to which the British government has
not given much attention. Certainly there is nothing in the field that
would indicate that it had been seriously considered. But in this act
of grace the American War Department maintains a system which is in the
highest degree praiseworthy and which commands the deference of the
world.
It is purely a matter of sentiment that prompts any particular
disposition of the bodies of those who fall in a fight, or who succumb
to the ravages of fever; but to the fighting man in the field it is a
tender sentiment that means much. The body of every American soldier
who falls on a foreign shore is sooner or later brought home and
buried, with all the honors of war. If his family or friends want
his body for private burial, they are aided in securing it; but if
it is not so claimed, it is then taken to one of the great national
cemeteries and laid away with proper ceremonies. If one were to ask a
soldier in good health whether he wanted to be taken home to be buried,
he would probably reply that it did not matter at all what was done
with his body after he got through with it. But if the time came when
death seemed near, that same man would find sensible satisfaction in
thinking that some day his own family would stand beside the box that
served as the narrow cell of his last sleep. I have seen many a man die
soothed by the feeling that he would eventually be taken home. In a
severe campaign in a distant or foreign land, the idea of home finds a
meaning to matter-of-fact and apparently unimaginative soldiers which
they cannot express, but which stirs infinite pathos. When a soldier
lies weak from a burning fever, but with all his mental faculties more
than ever alert, or when he is on solitary outpost duty against an
active enemy, with time to turn the situation over in his mind, it is
then that he thinks of home as at no other time, and it is then that he
will appreciate all that he knows will be done for him should he happen
to be found by death.
Whenever an American soldier falls in action or dies of disease, he
receives as good a burial as the circumstances permit, and his grave
is distinctly marked, so that there will be no possibility of its not
being found when the time for removal comes. It may be months before
the day arrives, but it is sure to come at last, and then the bodies
are taken up and put in leaden-lined coffins and transported home.
[Illustration: Burial at Arlington of 426 American soldiers who fell in
Cuba.]
The year after the Cuban campaign I attended the burial of four hundred
and twenty-six officers and men at Arlington, the great national
cemetery on the beautiful, sloping banks of the Potomac River, opposite
Washington. The President, the members of the cabinet, the commanding
general of the army, and other high officials of state were there to
pay their respect to the noble dead as they were laid to rest in the
company of the thousands of others who gave their lives for their
country in the Civil War. The long lines of coffins, each one draped
with a flag, resting beside the open graves, ready to be lowered, told
a heavy story of the breakage of war. Two chaplains, one Protestant and
the other Roman Catholic, read the service for the burial of the dead,
while a soldier stood at each grave and sprinkled the symbolic handful
of earth upon the coffin. At the end of the ceremony the artillery
boomed the last salute, and the trumpeters sounded the slow, mournful
notes of “taps.” The imposing funeral cost the government a great
amount of money. But each year the soldier dead are gathered home; the
dead of every war our country has waged have been brought together, a
silent army of heroic men. These graves will be cared for and the names
will be preserved so long as the nation lasts.
In South Africa the English forces buried their dead with the honors
of war whenever it was possible, but not with the intention of taking
the bodies home at any future date; and in hundreds of cases the graves
were not even marked. There was not that deserved attention paid to
the dead which seemed often feasible, and which in some cases I felt
that Americans would have made feasible. In one instance in Natal a
Boer general sent a flag of truce to the British general, whose forces
had just met with a severe defeat, and told him that a truce would be
allowed in which to bury the dead, and that if the British general
would send out a burial party it would be given safe conduct and every
assistance in the work. The answer went back to the Boer commander,
“Bury them yourself and send us the bill.” The Boers did bury them, and
read a Christian service over them, but they did not send in a bill.
[Illustration: Gathering the dead after the battle of Diamond Hill.]
When rightly led, there is no braver soldier on earth than the
“gentleman in khaki” who goes out to do his Sovereign’s bidding in
every part of the world. He is the finest specimen of the sturdy
soldier known in Europe. He is not unlike the American soldier, except
in the standard of education and self-reliance. He is the same happy,
careless, and kind-hearted man, who will fight an enemy all day, and,
when he has been defeated, feed him out of his own scanty store of
rations. The British soldier does not often become intoxicated; but
when he does chance to take too much, he is apt to be affected with a
bit more of dignity, or with an exaggerated straightness; he is rarely
quarrelsome.
The British soldier in the field is by far more attentive to his
personal and military appearance than is the American soldier when on a
hard campaign. All the men in South Africa wore their heavy cross-belts
and pouches when, had they been our men, it is quite likely they would
have been lost, for they were of no great importance to the comfort of
the soldier. The Britisher keeps well shaven at all times in the field,
and, although he is burned as only an African sun can burn, he looks
well groomed. It does not seem to be compulsory to shave, as some of
the men are whiskered, but the large majority of the men keep their
faces free from a beard. Naturally, however, their uniforms get very
dirty, especially as they do not have any shelter tents to protect them
from the rain, and frequently the regiments on the march look as though
they were uniformed in black or a dark brown.
One thing in which the British soldiers are far behind the American
is in ordinary entrenching work in the field; they do not seem to
understand the first principles of construction of trenches, either
temporary or permanent. The sappers or engineers are, of course,
proficient in the work, but the ordinary infantrymen or cavalrymen
do not go at the work with the same intelligence that the Americans
display. This is not because they lack the intelligence, but because
they have never been trained for that obviously necessary work, always
having been taught to rely upon the engineer corps. Nearly all the men
carry an entrenching tool, but they have not had the necessary practice
and instruction in its use to make it a useful implement in their
hands. The American soldiers can do more and better work in protecting
themselves in a temporary trench with the top of a mess tin than the
British soldiers can do with their special tools. This is not the fault
of the British soldiers, but that of the officers who have neglected
to train them in this most important self-protection in the field.
Dr. Conan Doyle calls the infantry especially to account for their
ignorance in digging trenches in the South African war, and says that
the work they did were mere rabbit-scratchings in comparison with the
work of the amateur soldiers opposed to them.
To compare the relative bravery of the American soldier and Tommy
Atkins is very difficult; there is a difference, but it is undoubtedly
due to the training and not to the actual courage of the men. There
could be no better or braver soldier desired than the British when he
knows what to do and when he is properly led; but the trouble is that
he has not been taught to think for himself, and the majority of his
officers do not take the trouble to think for him. The consequence has
been that the Boers took more prisoners than they could feed. There
are instances, shamefully numerous, where a greatly superior force
has surrendered to the Boers after very slight resistance. Howard C.
Hillegas gives a number of cases, in his book on the Boer war, where
from three to sixty men have been captured by one or two Boers, without
firing a shot in defense. It is true that they were surprised in a
mountainous or rocky place, where they could not tell how many of the
enemy were opposed to them, but even this would not excuse a bloodless
surrender. I know of one case where over seven hundred regular soldiers
surrendered to a few more than a hundred burghers, after a loss of
eight killed and twenty-three wounded, and with their belts half full
of ammunition. They were not in the open, but were well covered, and in
as good a position as were the Boers. General Methuen’s despatch to the
War Office after one of his first engagements, in which he described
it as “the bloodiest battle of the century,” after he had sustained a
ridiculously small loss, shows that to the British mind losses are more
disturbing than to the American.
The Fifth Army Corps never would have reached Santiago, and never
would have driven out the Spanish fleet, had they ever allowed
themselves to be checked as the British did in South Africa before
Lord Roberts came. At Guasimas the dismounted cavalry, under General
Young and Colonel Roosevelt, attacked more than four times their
number of Spaniards, who were carefully entrenched in perfectly
constructed works, in a mountainous pass that was thick with a tropical
undergrowth. The enemy’s fire was well directed and very heavy, and at
one time the cavalry attacking were fought almost to a standstill; in
order to save themselves they charged the works, with a loss of sixteen
killed and thirty-two wounded. At El Caney and San Juan the fighting
quality of soldiers was shown on both sides; and it was on those fields
that the American gained his first deep respect for the Spaniard as a
fighting man. All day long General Lawton’s division fought every inch
of the ground toward the little suburb of El Caney under the stone
fort, and General Kent’s division advanced steadily, until there came
the final rush up San Juan hill. At the latter place the Spaniards
waited and fought until the bayonet drove them out, and at the former
they stayed and gallantly died. Very few prisoners were taken at El
Caney, and almost every one of these was badly wounded. The scene
inside the stone fort was beyond description. Captain Capron’s battery
had hit it forty-eight times during the day, and the little force
inside was literally shot to pieces; the walls and roof had fallen in,
and the floor was strewn with the wreck, covering the bodies of the
dead and wounded. Blood was spattered over the walls that were still
standing, and the terrible tropical sun had caused a sickening odor.
There was not a man in the fort that was not hit, and only two or three
were still alive. Even after this fort was taken, which was late in the
afternoon, and we were busy burying the enemy’s dead and caring for the
wounded, the Spaniards were still fighting at the thatched fort on the
other side of the town. The thought of surrendering never seemed to
enter their minds.
I was reminded of their bravery at Santiago by Cronje’s noble stand at
Paardeburg, where he withstood the combined attack of forty thousand
British soldiers with many guns for twelve days. Although he was in
a defenseless position, and although the number of men and animals
killed caused a frightful condition within his lines, still he held out
until his ammunition was entirely expended. Both the Spaniards and the
Boers went to the opposite extreme from the British in the matter of
surrendering, for there is no doubt that in many instances the latter
gave up far too easily. So many of them surrendered during the latter
part of the war, that the Boers were compelled, after they had disarmed
them, to set them free, as they had no accommodations or means of
caring for the thousands captured.
There is a significant contrast in the action of the British and
American governments regarding men who are lost by capture. It is the
policy of the British government to make no effort to rescue them; all
the prisoners are made to pay allowances, and promotion ceases from
the date of their capture. On the contrary, whenever any handful of
American soldiers have been captured in the Philippines, no possible
efforts have been spared to release them; in the case of the capture of
Lieutenant-Commander Gilmore and his men, a force of cavalry followed
them for several hundred miles, until finally, when they overtook them,
the rescuing party were in almost as miserable a condition as were the
prisoners themselves. The circumstances in the Philippines and South
Africa are quite dissimilar, however, and it was possibly good strategy
on the part of Lord Roberts to allow the prisoners to remain in the
hands of the Boers, as the responsibility for them was necessarily a
serious embarrassment for a small force; and on this account he would
not exchange any prisoners.
It is astonishing that the death rate from disease among the men in
the British army while in the field is not greater, for, not having
a shelter tent of any description, the men are compelled to sleep in
the open unless they happen to be able to provide a temporary shelter
for themselves. I have frequently seen a rain storm of several days’
duration, where the men were wet day and night and had no opportunity
whatever of drying their clothes. The English army uses regular tents
as much as we do in our service, but in the actual field work, where
the company tents must be left at the base of supplies, they are
shelterless.
Not only are the British lacking in the giving of shelter and comfort
to the men while in the field, but all the other European armies are
also very backward in this respect--none of them using the shelter
tent as it is used by United States forces. This is a simple and light
portion of an equipment, which produces more comfort for the men than
anything else they could possibly carry, for it is used in other ways
than as a shelter. In light marching order it is wrapped around the
blanket, forming the blanket-roll, the sticks and pegs being wrapped
inside; two men, each carrying a half, sharing the tent.
In the out-of-door life of campaign, our men again have the advantage
of the training which is bound to come from a new country where
sleeping in the open is not unusual. In the German army the men are
billeted upon the various towns or cities near which they happen to
make their night’s halt. The German War Department has statistics
showing the capacity of every house in the empire, and wherever a body
of troops is moved, information is given to the officers regarding the
accommodations to be found. Consequently, when a command marches into
a village or town, they are told off into squads and sent to their
respective quarters as easily as though they were in their own barracks.
During the autumn manœuvres of the German army in 1899, after watching
the operations for the day, I was sitting in a hotel, talking with
some of the staff officers, when one of them said in a most mysterious
manner, “Ah, but you must wait until Thursday night!”
“What is to happen Thursday night?” I inquired.
“Wait,” he said; “wait until then. It will be wonderful.” And his
brother officers shared his mild excitement over the events promised
for this particular night. I had visions of all sorts of exciting
things--of night attacks, forced marches, or anything up to a real
declaration of war.
“But what is it?” I asked, growing intensely interested.
“Why,” he said, “the army is going to bivouac all night--in the open
air--on the ground;” and then he settled back to watch the effect of
his startling statement.
So unused to camping were they that the event was looked forward to as
children might look forward to Christmas morning. It was the event of
the campaign, and the effect of putting these soldiers into the field
where there were no houses to be used for shelter would be a problem.
The custom of the foreign governments of giving medals to their
soldiers for a campaign is an exceedingly good one, and might well be
copied to a degree in the United States. There is a certain aversion in
this country for the use of national medals, and yet there are quite as
many in the form of military orders, society orders, and decorations
issued by the various States, as are used in any European country. But
these all lack that distinguished origin and endorsement which makes
a man proud to wear them. The British government is far in advance in
the system it has adopted for military decorations. A war medal is
struck after every campaign, and given to every man who has shared in
it, the soldiers receiving a silver medal, and the camp-followers,
drivers, etc., a bronze one. They are worn with full dress, and the
ribbons are worn with fatigue dress or in the field. The higher orders
are the Victoria Cross, which corresponds to our Medal of Honor, and
the “distinguished service” order, given for the same kind of deeds for
which the men of our army would be mentioned in the order of that name,
issued each year by the Secretary of War.
It would be a very simple thing for our government to issue a war medal
after every campaign, to be given to every man who had served in it.
It is a trinket of no intrinsic value, but the men who have the right
to wear it have gained it through hard-fought battles and privations
without number; they prize these trophies superlatively, and their
families treasure them after they are dead. Our government now issues
several medals, and so the campaign medal would be no departure from
our custom. It is always a pleasure to see the respect paid to some old
pensioner who carries an empty sleeve, as he enters a room or climbs
into a ’bus in London, with the medal of the Crimea hanging to his coat.
The fighting man in the field commands respect, no matter from what
nation he may come, nor for what cause he is fighting. He is one atom
of a great body that acts under the head and brain of one man, and to
a certain extent he reflects the personality of his commander. But he
is directly dependent upon the officers over him, and it rests largely
with them whether he is to be considered a capable man or not. The
British soldier has been taught to rely absolutely upon the judgment of
his officers; and if he has been found wanting, the blame rests with
them and not with him. No better war material could be desired than the
khaki man fighting in South Africa, unless it be the man in the blue
shirt fighting in the Philippines.
This latter man represents the extreme of self-reliance in the field;
to that he has been trained by his officers; for that his original
intelligence and his Yankee inventiveness have peculiarly fitted him.
With that self-reliance goes an American objection to being dispirited
under failure. When he is down he does not stop regarding himself as
“game”; under awful odds he cannot see sense in surrender, and if he
does become a prisoner he schemes and frets and digs and plots to
escape. He is probably the best fighting soldier in the world.