" AUTOMATONISM " IN THE ARMY.
THERE is a story told by Mr. Sidney Peel in "Trooper 8,008 I.Y." of a company of Imperial Yeomanry on the march, and newly arrived at the place chosen for their camping-ground for the night. Tents had to be pitched; but the men were dead tired, and one of the tents was pitched with the pole a few inches out of the perpendicular; otherwise it afforded good enough sleeping-room for tired men. The crooked pole caught the sergeant-major's eye, and the sleepy Yeomen were turned out to straighten it. There was some grumbling. " Don't you know," the sergeant-major was asked by one of the troopers, "that this sort of thing is the curse of the Army ? " " Do you think," was the reply, " that I've been twenty years in the Army without knowing that ? But you've got to do it all the same." The story is illustrative of the tendency— common, no doubt, to all Armies—towards what we have called " automatonism." The thing is unnecessary, it is contrary to common-sense, but it must be done. Clearly it would be best, as regards the fighting efficiency of the company, if tired men who might be engaged the next day got all the sleep possible. But the Drill Book says that they must sleep under a perpendicular tent-pole : therefore the troopers must be pulled out of their blankets to make it perpendicular. The automaton works, the tent-pole is straightened, and the automaton is laid down till to-morrow's work is required of it.
Is that the right ideal at which to aim, for any nation desiring an Army worthy of the name ? There is an answer to that question to be found, if it is looked for in the right way, in a little book which has just been added to the enormous mass of writing dealing with the shortly put question,—" More or less drill?" Its title is " Tactics and Military Training, by Major-General George D'Ordel, late Director-General of Military Instruction " (Bickers and Son, Is.) It is " edited by the editors " who give their names in a preface. The book, which at first sight looks like one of the many manuals "published by authority" for the use of officers and men in the Army, turns out to be an exceptionally amusing, and perhaps exceptionally instructive, skit on the " Infantry Drill Book " of 1896. It is, in fact, a most useful piece of satire on military methods,—a satire all the more useful because it is in- spired with an admirable verve and gaiety. Its " rock- bed " purpose is serious, but its method is purely farcical ; and the reader who knows little of Army problems will enjoy it almost as much as the ardent reformer. It is laughter-compelling on every page. It is supposed to be the last work of Major-General D'Ordel, who appears to have been an officer who served with dis- tinction in the Crimea, and who lately issued a revised edition of his grandfather's manual of musketry. Major- General D'Ordel died in distressing circumstances : he had a stroke at his club, the United Military and Navy, while engaged in reading Lord Roberts's new book on " Infantry Training." The book " was opened at the preface, and a deep nail-mark scored under the following passage : Nor are the men to be allowed to degenerate into mere machines. The efficiency of the fighting man is the test of a good battalion.' During the two days' un- consciousness which preceded his death only two half- coherent words were heard. Gone' and later the dogs.' It is to be feared," the editors add, " that Major-General D'Ordel will not be the only distinguished victim of this work." That is an expression of hope which will be present to the minds of all who have watched the grinding of the joints of the automaton—the "mere machine "— during the last twenty or thirty years, and who have seen with relief a certain amount of the oil of common-sense poured during the last two years on its rusty cogwheels. But before we go any further we must ask : What is " automatonism " ? What is the deadening, hypnotising in- fluence which has done its best to reduce what should be a thinking, dangerous brain and body into an unseeing, un- watchful, rigid piece of mechanism ? For an answer we must go back, perhaps, to the consideration of character- istics which belong, not to the Army alone, but to the nation which provides the Army. It would be, of course, absurd to hold that when anything goes wrong in any branch of the nation's activity, we must simply fold our hands and resign ourselves to "an inevitable consequence " of the national attitude towards things in general. Those are counsels of despair. But it is for the most part true that when you find in a branch of the national Service, as in the Army or the Navy, something radically wrong, you must seek for its first cause something outside, not inside, the actual Department in which the unsatisfactory prin- ciple is found at work. The nation as a whole is slow to approve innovations, slow to seize the opportunity easily recognised by more mercurial natures, slow in receiving impressions or advice from outside. But the nation's opportunities and openings for original action are many, and, as it is, the nation takes a few of them, gradually and after thought. The representatives of the nation in the Army possess the characteristics of the nation, but their opportunities are few and limited in comparison ; hence the openings they take are fewer. You get, that is, in the Army possibilities of innovation or improvement on only a few lines, immensely important though the correct- ness of those lines may be; and in consequence improve- ment comes slowly.
The analogy between the mind of the nation and the mind of the Army is, however, in one sense incomplete. The mind of the nation has never submitted to be drilled ; it is the more likely, therefore, to change, to strike out original paths, to accept innovations. It is the essence of the mind of the Army that it has been drilled, schooled, hewn on a Procrustean bed of tradition. If there were a national tendency towards automatonism, it would evidently be found outside the ranks of the Army. But it is not so found. If, then, automatonism is the direct result of drill, we come back to our original question, "Is the ideal of automatonism a right ideal ? " Here, at all events, is General D'Ordel's opinion on the point. " The great object of the training of the soldier is to prevent him trying to think for himself (a thing he could never succeed in doing) It must never be forgotten that the soldier is a part of a great machine, and that the efficiency of the machine depends upon the regular and mechanical exactitude of the parts composing it. In order to gain this important point, the soldier must be constantly employed on work which, by not being connected with warfare, will not stimulate his curiosity with regard to active service.
The soldier should on no acccount be taught sufficient mechanics to enable him to open and clean the lock of his rifle, as this could only lead either to his spoil- ing the weapon or to his becoming proud and acquiring knowledge greater than that of his superiors." Is that, after all, a caricature of the attitude of mind of the old school of soldier towards the training of men in the ranks? Or take another point, —the attitude of the Army mind to innovations in weapons. General D'Ordel finds his atten- tion drawn to the modern 15-pounder, and proceeds to weigh up, fairly as he believes, the merits of the new weapon as compared with the older forms to which he has been accustomed. " Take as a type of the sledge guns the Chinese Brass Dragon Carronade, and for a wheeled gun the 15-pounder Mark IV The sledge gun is the cheapest and easiest to construct The power, accuracy, range, and rapidity of fire in the two systems may be assumed to be practically identical when using the same charge and projectile. With regard to strength and durability there is no doubt that the wheeled system yields to that of the sledge Sledge-system guns have also a great superiority in regard to simplicity of equipment and stores. However excellent a wheeled 15-pounder may be, it must consist of several parts, each of which must be carefully looked after to keep it in working order, which necessitates carrying to the field spare wheels and com- plicated stores, as well as great care in the handling and driving of the guns : whereas, upon the other hand, the carronade consists of two parts only: powder and spherical stones constitute the only stores In regard to mobility, while recognising the superiority of the wheeled gun in this respect in open country, it will be noticed that across deep lakes and rivers their pace is identical ; and the same may be said of their Dace when travelling by rail. I might here take oocasion to say of what vital importance it is to the best interest of the service and of the country that we should be ever ready to weigh and consider, without any conservative prejudice, the merits and demerits of any invention or innovation brought to our notice, and should it appear to be an improvement upon the existing state of things, to adopt it without hesitation or delay." That is, really, hardly a caricature. The last sentence must have been written or spoken hundreds of times. It was the attitude of the automaton towards the Snider, the Martini-Henry, the Lee-Metford in turn ; and who has not seen heads shaken over the written descrip- tion of the Government new rifle, or heard the comment, " We don't want a better rifle than we've got " ?
But it is not only distrust of new weapons, but of new systems, that is the outcome, as it is in some sense the cause, of automatonism. The Army system of corre- spondence would drive an ordinary City firm into the Bankruptcy Court in a fortnight, simply owing to its com- plication and the waste of time involved. General D'Ordel gives a specimen of " model correspondence " which the editors ask the reader to understand is " an example, not an exaggeration," of the methods in use. No Adjutant would need such an assurance. There are twenty-one letters in all, the first of which, dated 1/1/55, is an applica- tion from O.C. Tomski Bridge to Adjutant 200th Regi- ment " for forage for one horse, under L. of C.O.A5321X, and beg you will lay it before the Commanding Officer for his favourable consideration." Then the application goes on its rounds. It goes to the 0.0. 200th Regiment, Slavyansk, and back to the Adjutant ; then to the Station Staff Officer, Yalta ; on to the Commandant, Yalta, and back to the S.S.0 ; from the S.S.O. again to the C.S.O., Simferopol, who solemnly forwards it to the G.O.C. Simferopol for his approval; approved, it passes through the hands, always duly noted and passed on again, of Assistant-Adjutant- Generals, Deputy - Assistant - Adjutant - Generals, and Active Officer Commanding Army Ordnance Department, receiving everywhere a plentiful besprinkling of initials ; the tenth letter, indeed, " from A.D.A.A.G. (B.) A.O.C.A.O.D. to D.A.A.G. 16.1.55. Herewith memo. and correspondence noted and returned D A.A.G. (B.) A.O.C.A.O.D.," is almost inspired in its alphabetical resonance. Eventually (23.1.55.) it reaches a* Quarter- master, who replies that permission to issue forage has not yet been published in Garrison Orders. Back goes the application to the Adjutant, and back again to the Q.M., who (27.1.55) discovers that L. of C. Order A5321X is cancelled by A.O. 53219X (B), and that " therefore you are not entitled to forage." Meanwhile the horse died.
We must not be supposed to take too seriously the extravagances of this amusing little volume. But there is a great deal of truth underlying the ridicule of which we have given examples ; and the fact that, as every soldier knows, such a system of correspondence as that cited above is still possible is evidence that automatonism will not be replaced by intelligent thought and action without the hardest work on the part of determined reformers. Can the doctrines inculcated by automatonism be summed up in a phrase ? Perhaps " It is the soldier's business to be killed " instead. of " It is the soldier's business to kill " pretty nearly hits off the difference between the two schools of thought. We must not be understood to under- rate the value of discipline in the Army. We hold, indeed, as strongly as possible, that co-operative discipline is the first essential among professional soldiers. But there is a difference between the discipline that teaches a man how to be killed, and that which teaches him how to kill. Combined, both are valuable ; but the one, which crushes, is worthless without the other, which necessitates alertness, thought, and intelligence.
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