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 A GENERAL'S LETTERS TO 
 HIS SON
 
 A General's Letters 
 
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 tO 11 1 5 iSOH 07i Obtaining 
 His Commission *x *x <m <m 
 
 Cassell and Co7npa77y, Ltd 
 
 London, New Tork } Toronto and Melbourne 
 
 1917 
 
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 7(*7 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Enormous numbers of young officers have 
 joined our fighting ranks in the last two 
 and a half years and are still joining. 
 Owing to the improvisation of huge armies 
 for the purpose of this gigantic war for the 
 safeguarding of freedom, truth, honour, 
 and civilisation, training, which normally 
 takes years, has to be compressed into 
 a few months ; and owing to the paucity of 
 officers versed in the traditions of the 
 Service and lack of time, it is impossible 
 to provide the guidance for these young 
 fellows which is necessary if they are to 
 conduct themselves and carry out their 
 duties up to the high standard of officers 
 of our pre-war armies. 
 
 There is no doubt that there is a uni- 
 versal desire on the part of these officers 
 to do this, and my advice to them is to
 
 vi Preface 
 
 read and study these excellent letters by 
 a General Officer, whose opinion is worth 
 having, and who has thereto set down 
 his carefully thought-out views formed in 
 the course of thirty-eight years' experience 
 devoted to the Service. 
 
 (Signed) H. S. Smith-Dorreen, 
 General. 
 
 May 1st, 1917. 
 
 Note. The Author's profits will 
 be given to Military Charities
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1. On Being Gazetted . . 1 
 
 2. On Joining the Battalion . 9 
 
 3. On Discipline . . .19 
 
 4. On National Discipline and 
 
 the Temptations of London 31 
 
 5. On Billets and Care of the 
 
 Men 43 
 
 6. On the Art of Command . 55 
 
 7. On Training .... 65 
 
 8. On Money .... 75 
 
 9. On What we are Fighting 
 
 Against .... 84 
 
 10. On What we are Fighting For 94 
 
 11. On Honours and Rewards . 103 
 
 12. On Facing Death . . .110

 
 A General's Letters to 
 His Son 
 
 ON BEING GAZETTED 
 
 June 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 I see that you have been gazetted as 
 a Second Lieutenant to my old Regiment, 
 and you have my most sincere congratu- 
 lations and good wishes. 
 
 As it is impossible for me to see you, 
 I shall write to you from time to time 
 giving you advice, which will be written 
 less as from a father to a son than as from 
 a senior officer to a young one in whom 
 he takes an interest. In my letters I 
 shall try to avoid touching on religion and 
 kindred subjects, as this has always been 
 your mother's role, but you must not
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 think because I avoid them that I think 
 them of no consequence, for quite the 
 contrary is the case. 
 
 I was not as young as you are when I 
 joined, and in normal times you also would 
 have been a good deal older before you 
 donned the King's uniform ; but whatever 
 you may be in years you must remember 
 that henceforth it is up to you to acquit 
 yourself as a man. You have had the liberty 
 which accompanies man's estate given to 
 you somewhat suddenly, for it is not long 
 since you left school. I know that many 
 temptations will offer themselves to you, 
 for the hundred-and-one things in order 
 to do which you have longed to be a man 
 are now open to you ; but you must 
 always bear in mind that your time, your 
 brain, and your life are now no longer 
 your own, but the State's, which is in 
 urgent need of them, and I am sure that 
 you can be trusted not to abuse your 
 newly gained freedom. 
 
 In the British Service, contrary to 
 the custom obtaining in many countries,
 
 On Being Gazetted 
 
 no actual oath of allegiance is taken, 
 but in granting you a commission the 
 Sovereign presupposes your allegiance and 
 devotion, and calls you his " trusty and 
 well beloved," and the possession of this 
 commission gives you the right to demand 
 to be treated as an officer and a gentle- 
 man. It is the admission to the knightly 
 caste. I believe that in our army of old 
 days the two lower commissioned ranks 
 were looked upon as the equivalent of 
 page and squire, whereas the Field Officer, 
 who wears spurs, was regarded as the 
 successor of the knight. 
 
 As you probably know, in India there 
 are four main castes : the Brahmins, or 
 priestly caste ; the Kshatriyas, or fight- 
 ing caste ; the Vaisyas, or trading caste ; 
 and the Sudras, who carry on the lower 
 trades and other such occupations; be- 
 sides which more than one-half of the 
 Hindu population are untouchables ; but 
 the only men besides the Brahmins who 
 are designated as twice born, and are 
 allowed to wear the sacred thread, are the 
 3
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 fighting caste, which in Asia, as in Europe, 
 is the caste of knights and kings. 
 
 To go farther east is to come across 
 the Samurai with their elaborate code 
 of honour, or Bushido, which gives the 
 men of knightly caste certain privileges, 
 that, strange as some of them may 
 seem to us, are most highly prized. Until 
 the last fifty years, since which time the 
 size of the army has no longer permitted 
 it, officers in the German Army came 
 principally from the Adel, or nobility ; 
 and in Germany, until quite lately, the 
 only way for a gentleman not having 
 " von " before his name to obtain admis- 
 sion to Court was to become an officer, 
 which put him socially on equality with 
 the nobility. 
 
 I have touched on these points be- 
 cause I want you never to forget that in 
 joining the profession of arms you have 
 adopted a calling which in all parts of the 
 world, and from the earliest times, is 
 admitted to be amongst the' highest that 
 a man can enter ; and in adopting that 
 4
 
 On Being Gazetted 
 
 calling, as a British officer, you further 
 have the knowledge, especially at the 
 present juncture, that you are doing so 
 with the express purpose of fighting in 
 the greatest of all wars on the side of 
 right and freedom, against the forces of 
 tyranny, injustice, and barbarism. 
 
 Should you want further incentives to 
 noble deeds you will find these in the 
 history of your Regiment, which you must 
 now feel entrusted to your safe keeping. 
 Until a few years ago the most cherished 
 of the regimental traditions were con- 
 nected with the names of Corunna, Bada- 
 joz, and Waterloo, which are emblazoned 
 on the Colours ; but deeds of the last 
 two years in which the new battalions of 
 the Regiment, as well as the old ones, 
 have taken part have equalled, if not 
 eclipsed, all that was done by our an- 
 cestors. And it is for you to see that 
 your brother and the hundreds of thou- 
 sands of others who gave their lives to 
 save disaster before the nation was pre- 
 pared, did not die in vain, and by devotion 
 5
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 to duty in all its branches to do your 
 utmost to bring about a complete victory 
 for our cause. 
 
 Before the war it was the delight 
 of a certain section of our population 
 to regard the officer as a brainless, 
 swaggering, dissolute fellow who always 
 tried to avoid paying his debts. As a 
 matter of fact, the contrary was the case, 
 and, considering the size of the army, 
 there was no profession in the kingdom 
 which was more orderly in its behaviour, 
 while there was certainly none in which 
 the above vices were more severely dealt 
 with. Nevertheless, it was the custom 
 to pillory an officer for any apparent 
 breach of convention, without even giving 
 him the benefit of the doubt, or inquiring 
 into the real motive underlying his action ; 
 whereas, had he been a civilian, his con- 
 duct would have passed without comment. 
 Of those who were regimental officers at 
 the commencement of the war not many 
 are now left, and those that are left are 
 looked on as worth their weight in gold ; 
 6
 
 On Being Gazetted 
 
 but when peace again reigns you must ex- 
 pect to hear soldiers taunted by politicians 
 for want of brains and by bureaucrats 
 for their poverty. 
 
 Were they as a class less scrupulous 
 they would more often avoid both these 
 indictments; but the wealth you seek 
 should be neither office nor riches, but 
 honour and your own self-esteem. 
 
 I know that you were always proud of 
 your grandmother's family motto, " Vir- 
 tutis gloria merces" and undoubtedly glory 
 and not riches is the proper reward of 
 valour ; but it is the consciousness of 
 having done your duty, rather than the 
 glory which accrues from it, that should 
 be your aim. 
 
 In conclusion, my advice to you is the 
 same that was given to me by my father 
 on his death-bed, namely, that if ever 
 you have two courses open to you and 
 are in doubt as to which of them you 
 should pursue, you should take Tthat 
 which you consider to be the most honour- 
 able, and that which is most thoroughly 
 b 7
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 playing the game for your pals and for 
 your side, eliminating all idea of per- 
 sonal advantage. 
 
 I shall write to you again before you 
 join. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 s
 
 ON JOINING THE BATTALION 
 
 August 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 I hear that you have received orders 
 to join your Battalion. I remember dis- 
 tinctly the day on which I joined mine, 
 and my first day in the Mess. 
 
 Like most things we have to face, the 
 idea is much more terrible than the 
 actuality ; and to you, who have been 
 at a Public School, the ordeal ought not 
 to be so trying as to another who has not 
 had this advantage. You are sure to 
 find that you are kindly received as long 
 as you are modest in your behaviour, and 
 err on the side of diffidence rather than 
 on that of self-assertion. 
 
 I will tell you one or two stories, about 
 men who joined when I was a subaltern. 
 9
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 One day a very carefully dressed young- 
 ster walked into the Mess with a self- 
 satisfied air. As several cadets had been 
 gazetted, and we did not know which of 
 them he was, the Senior Subaltern asked 
 him his name, to which he replied in a 
 rather la-de-da manner, *' My name is Ray- 
 mond Vere de Vere Grosvenor." The 
 Senior Subaltern said, " All right, we will 
 call you Buggins," and Buggins he was 
 called as long as ever he remained in the 
 Regiment, and although he eventually 
 turned out quite a good fellow, he had 
 not a very rosy time to begin with. I 
 also remember a nervous, callow young- 
 ster, whom we afterwards called " Boy " 
 Brown, joining in India. He had had a 
 very rough passage, was a bad sailor, and 
 two nights in the train had not freshened 
 him up. He was so shy and nervous 
 when he walked into the Mess that as 
 we one after the other shook hands with 
 him we could hardly help laughing in his 
 face. 
 
 The next day there was a steeplechase
 
 On yoining the Battalion 
 
 meeting, and a jockey was wanted for a 
 brute that nobody cared to ride, when 
 Boy Brown came up and shyly asked for 
 the mount, got the brute round the course, 
 and came in a good third. He was made 
 quite a hero of that night at Mess, and at 
 once became a favourite with us all. 
 
 In the years immediately preceding the 
 war a great deal was heard about " rag- 
 ging," and there is no doubt that the 
 means taken to teach young officers 
 manners were often reprehensible but, 
 take it all round, the education they 
 used to get from the Senior Subaltern 
 was excellent, and in many cases badly 
 needed. The Senior Subalterns were 
 hardly ever men who could be accused of 
 snobbery, and I have never known an 
 officer, promoted from the ranks, to have 
 had anything but a good reception, though 
 youngsters with swollen heads were always 
 put into their proper places. 
 
 You ask me how you should address 
 your senior officers. It is the custom of 
 the Service for all officers of the rank of 
 ii
 
 A General 's Letters to His Son 
 
 Captain or under to call one another 
 by their surnames without any prefix. 
 The Colonel you should always address 
 as " Colonel " or " Sir," and a young- 
 ster should also always address a Major 
 as " Major " or " Sir," unless he is especi- 
 ally told not to do so. I have lately 
 received several letters from officers, ad- 
 dressing me as " Dear Sir," instead of 
 
 " Dear General," or " Dear General Z " 
 
 if the writer did not know me well. Of 
 course, you know that you should reserve 
 the words " Dear Sir " for your busi- 
 ness letters. 
 
 In some regiments in the old army a 
 great deal of familiarity of address used 
 to be allowed in the Mess, but these were 
 regiments in which the discipline was 
 always above suspicion, and it is unlikely 
 in battalions of to-day, constituted as 
 they are mostly of officers who had not 
 joined when war commenced, that any 
 liberties in this respect would be wise. 
 On parade you should invariably address 
 your senior as "Sir." 
 
 12
 
 On ^Joining the Battalion 
 
 You must endeavour to be on good 
 terms with everybody. It is only natural 
 that you will find that some spirits are 
 more kindred to you than others ; but 
 whenever you can do so by little acts 
 of kindness, try to ingratiate yourself with 
 all if this can be done without loss of 
 principle or self-respect. 
 
 Be very chary with your confidence, and 
 only give it to those of whom you feel 
 as certain as you can be that they are 
 worthy of it. Avoid making enemies, 
 especially of making them among men 
 who are likely to hit below the belt. It 
 is a true saying that we should choose 
 our enemies as carefully as we choose 
 our friends. A Bayard may be a more 
 formidable antagonist than a Hun, but 
 he is a pleasanter man to deal with, either 
 in peace or war, and you are placed at 
 a great disadvantage in having in your 
 antagonist one who will condescend to 
 means to which you cannot stoop. 
 
 Whatever the conduct of the enemy, 
 it should be no excuse for lowering your 
 *3
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 own standard. There is a good story, 
 which is also true, of one of our officers 
 in the North Sea, who, when a German 
 officer was brought on board after having 
 been rescued from drowning, entertained 
 him in his cabin, gave him a new rig-out, 
 and a good cigar. As a reward this dis- 
 ciple of Kultur spat in his face. When 
 he was asked what he did in return, he 
 only remarked, " Poor devil ! I pitied 
 him for being such an unmitigated cad, 
 but I suppose he was born like that, 
 and a leopard can't change his spots." 
 You are nonplussed in dealing with a 
 man who spits if you have been brought 
 up not to spit back. 
 
 There is a very necessary and hard-and- 
 fast rule that ladies' names should never 
 be mentioned in the Mess, and however 
 junior you may be, should you hear 
 officers transgressing this rule, you should 
 either call their attention to it or yourself 
 get up and go away. 
 
 Avoid extravagance, either with your 
 money, in your dress, or in anything else. 
 4
 
 On yoining the Battalion 
 
 Remember that the best dressed man is 
 the one who you know is well dressed, 
 but whose clothes are so unnoticeable 
 that you cannot remember what he had 
 on; and you should have no ambition 
 to be known by the shape of your hat or 
 the colour of your tie. 
 
 There is no petty vice which is so 
 much disliked among men of the pro- 
 fession of arms as is meanness. Never 
 be led away by the idea that generosity 
 and extravagance are in any way akin. 
 I have known the man who would put 
 a "monkey" on a race, or lose a couple of 
 "ponies" on a game of poker, and who 
 would try to avoid giving the gamekeeper 
 the tip he had the right to expect, or 
 would under-pay his cabman if nobody 
 were looking. I have also known men 
 wallow in champagne, and refuse a " fiver " 
 to an old friend who had got down in 
 the world ; and I have, on the contrary, 
 known the man who would stint himself 
 the glass of port he liked so much after 
 dinner, in order either to keep a hunter 
 *5
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 or to be able to tip the waiter. These 
 men killed two birds with one stone, for 
 they achieved their direct purpose, and 
 also by practising restraint strengthened 
 their characters. 
 
 I don't want you to think that I am 
 lecturing you, nor do I expect you will 
 avoid getting into scrapes any more than 
 I did. The four-year-old which never 
 has any will of its own seldom turns out 
 a really good hunter, and the puppy 
 which never runs wild seldom becomes a 
 first-class dog ; so with the human sub- 
 ject, the young must have their fling, 
 and this in ordinary times must be for- 
 given as long as a man never does any- 
 thing that is ungentlemanly. 
 
 In the old days a good deal used to be 
 drunk in the Mess, and I can recollect 
 big guest nights when chargers were 
 brought into the dining-room and jumped 
 over the tables ; but those days have 
 gone for ever, and a good thing too, 
 though their memories are associated with 
 some of the best of fellows who were, 
 16
 
 On Joining the Battalion 
 
 however, the best of fellows in spite of, 
 and not by reason of, such escapades. 
 Now it is considered bad form for an 
 officer to exceed in the least, even inside 
 the precincts of the Mess, and there can 
 be no doubt that the less a man drinks 
 the fitter he keeps. Alcohol does a little 
 good sometimes, and a great deal of harm 
 very often. If the whole nation were 
 moderate, no restrictions with regard to 
 its consumption would be advisable. As 
 a restorative on rare occasions there is 
 nothing like a pint of champagne, and 
 the tot of rum sometimes given to the 
 men in the trenches puts new vigour 
 into them ; but if taken as a daily ration, 
 alcohol loses its potency as a pick-me-up. 
 To put it in another way, I consider that 
 if the good that alcohol does is repre- 
 sented by the figure 5, the harm it does 
 is represented by 95 ; and this being so, 
 I very much regret that we did not follow 
 the Russian lead when they prohibited 
 the sale of vodka during the war. If I 
 thought that there were any chances of 
 *7
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 drink having much attraction for you, I 
 should urge you to become a teetotaller ; 
 but as things are I do not do this, though 
 I think that the less you drink the better, 
 and you will find that if you are very 
 abstemious in your habits there are sure 
 to be others in your Mess who are 
 equally so, and you will not be looked 
 on with suspicion as would have been 
 the case in the old days. 
 
 Always remember that you are joining 
 your Regiment during the greatest crisis 
 in which your country has ever found 
 itself, that it is your bounden duty to do 
 everything in your power to make your- 
 self a fit instrument in her service, and 
 that, in spite of what I said just now 
 about youngsters having their fling, this 
 is a period for work, and for work only. 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 18
 
 ON DISCIPLINE 
 
 September 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 My subject in writing to you to-day 
 will be discipline as applied to the soldier 
 and his officer. 
 
 It is a word of which you will, no doubt, 
 have heard much, but it is also one the 
 importance of which absolutely cannot 
 be exaggerated. It is the moral force 
 which creates the essential difference be- 
 tween an army and a collection of men 
 with muskets. Without it genius, hardi- 
 hood, and endurance are wasted. It is 
 discipline which enables men to hold on 
 and stick it out when all seems up. It 
 was discipline which enabled our Expe- 
 ditionary Force to get back from Mons, 
 and it was discipline which enabled some 
 battalions to get back with comparatively 
 19
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 no losses from stragglers, whilst others 
 lost many. 
 
 In a well-disciplined unit men find it 
 almost impossible not to obey the com- 
 mander's voice, however tired they may 
 be, or however terrible the order. They 
 thus work as one man. 
 
 When, during the Mutiny, the Resi- 
 dency at Lucknow was besieged by the 
 mutineers, their trenches were in some 
 places only forty or fifty yards from ours. 
 We know how brave some of the native 
 races of India are ; they outnumbered 
 us by twenty to one ; and if they had, 
 directed by a single leader, made a charge 
 on a large front, they could undoubtedly 
 have got in, but as they had no confidence 
 in their commanders, and no discipline, 
 the Residency held out until it was re- 
 lieved. Had the Boers had discipline on 
 Waggon Hill on January 6th, 1900, they 
 could have taken it ; but, fortunately for 
 us, they had not, and Ladysmith held 
 out. It is discipline which puts it within 
 the] power of the commander by sacrificing 
 20
 
 On Discipline 
 
 part of his force to save the rest. Napoleon 
 used to say that the moral is to the physical 
 as three is to one, and among moral forces 
 none is for the soldier more important 
 than discipline. It is the force which 
 prevents a defeat being turned into a 
 rout, and which in the hour of victory 
 keeps troops under control. Discipline 
 gives confidence, and confidence gives 
 courage. In a disciplined company when 
 the Captain has given the word to advance, 
 the individual man obeys, certain that 
 whether he advances or not his comrades 
 on either side will do so, and whatever 
 his own feelings may be, he cannot but 
 obey. Having done so, and believing 
 himself a hero among a band of heroes, 
 he acquires the courage which comes 
 from discipline, and becomes a brave 
 man though he was not born one. 
 
 I have known the Germans intimately, 
 both in peace and in war, and am con- 
 vinced that individually they have nothing 
 like the fighting spirit and fearless cour- 
 age which is the birthright of the British 
 
 21
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 race, but unfortunately for us they are 
 the most disciplined nation in the world, 
 and it is this quality which renders them 
 so formidable. 
 
 It is discipline which enables them to 
 out-dig us. Their men are not physically 
 stronger than ours, but by means of dis- 
 cipline their officers get much more work 
 out of them than we do out of our men, 
 as anybody will admit who has been in 
 a trench which the Germans have taken 
 on temporary loan from us and have 
 turned against us during the few hours 
 of their occupation. The atrocities which 
 the Germans have committed in Belgium, 
 and other parts of the world, must not 
 be attributed to lack of discipline, for 
 had the authorities wished to stop these 
 atrocities they could have done so. The 
 outrages have been committed by the 
 order of high command, with the object 
 of terrorising inhabitants, and have not 
 been due to lax discipline. A German 
 is disciplined from the time he leaves 
 his cradle. 
 
 22
 
 On Discipline 
 
 The words which you see written up 
 more often than any others in Germany 
 are " Es ist strengstens verboten " ("It is 
 strictly forbidden "). It is forbidden to 
 do so much that, as a friend once remarked 
 to me, it would be much simpler to write 
 up once for all, "It is forbidden to do 
 anything that you want to do." But, 
 however disagreeable all these imposed 
 restrictions may be, they decidedly tend 
 to make a disciplined people, which is 
 tractable and ready to submit its own 
 will to that of its leaders, and the German 
 soldier fears and implicitly obeys his officer 
 or non-commissioned officer, whoever he 
 may be. In absolute contradistinction to 
 this is the discipline exercised by British 
 officers over our Indian and African troops, 
 which is the outcome of the officer's own 
 personality. 
 
 They love, respect, and obey Captain 
 Smith Sahib Bahadur, and accept his 
 decision or follow him anywhere on account 
 of their respect for and personal devotion 
 to him ; but if another captain, whom 
 c 23
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 they do not know, be brought into the 
 company, the company suffers until the 
 men learn also to know and respect him. 
 In the British Army the discipline exer- 
 cised is something between these two 
 extremes. Your men will obey you be- 
 cause you are their officer, but you will 
 succeed in getting infinitely more out of 
 them if you can win their love and re- 
 spect. Let your Platoon always be your 
 first care. Put yourself in the position 
 of your men, and never ask them to do 
 what you would not yourself be ready to 
 do in like circumstances. Care for their 
 comfort, and remember the British soldier 
 is, as a rule, most extraordinarily impro- 
 vident. He has been in the habit of 
 having everything provided for him and 
 thought out for him. It is a great pity 
 that this is so, but at present you must 
 take it as a fact, and try to counteract 
 the consequences by your own forethought. 
 I think that the most marked differ- 
 ence between the old Regular and the 
 New Army officers is the care and know- 
 H
 
 On Discipline 
 
 ledge of their men which the former 
 displayed. 
 
 I remember once in South Africa seeing 
 a company of Colonial Mounted Infantry 
 who had been twenty-four hours without 
 food. The little wheeled transport which 
 the company had with it carried either 
 non-essentials or the officers' kit, and the 
 men hungered. Alongside it was a com- 
 pany of Regular Mounted Infantry with 
 its Scotch cart. 
 
 I had previously asked the Captain 
 whether I might put my coat, which was 
 inconveniencing me on my saddle, on 
 this cart, but he most respectfully and 
 politely pointed out that the cart was 
 entirely the property of the men, and 
 asked me not to do so, as he had calcu- 
 lated every pound which was carried on 
 it. The men of this company always had 
 enough to eat, and the Colonial company 
 envied them their officers. 
 
 In France the provision made by old 
 Regular officers for dry clothes and com- 
 forts for the men usually compares very 
 25
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 favourably indeed with those made by 
 the majority of men with less experience, 
 and I have seen many cases of men re- 
 turned from the trenches remaining in 
 wet clothes for hours, when forethought 
 could have prevented this. 
 
 I have the greatest admiration for the 
 gallant fellows who have come forward as 
 officers, and who have practically always 
 been an example to their men in courage 
 and devotion to duty, and it is far 
 from my wish to decry their efforts. My 
 object in making the above remarks is 
 to call to mind that it is as important 
 to look after your men, and keep them fit, 
 as it is to lead them well in action. If 
 you look after your men, and if they 
 know that in you they have a friend 
 upon whom they may depend, you may 
 rely on their never leaving you in the 
 lurch. 
 
 Always consider your men's comforts 
 
 before you think of your own. Choose 
 
 a good batman to look after your personal 
 
 comfort, for if you are not well you cannot 
 
 26
 
 On Discipline 
 
 do your duty properly, but make your 
 Platoon your own care. I have always 
 taught you when you came home from 
 hunting to see that your horse had his 
 gruel before you looked after yourself, 
 and you cannot well do less for your men 
 than you do for your horse. 
 
 Discipline, like charity, begins at home, 
 and|you must see that you yourself possess 
 whatjyou try to inculcate. If you con- 
 sider that you have been unjustly treated, 
 and^that another, less competent than 
 you, has received the promotion which 
 youjyourself expected, ksep your feelings 
 to yourself. Refuse to be embittered, 
 and do your duty as cheerily as ever. 
 
 This war is not being fought in order 
 that you may get advancement. Do not 
 criticise your superiors, and try to dis- 
 courage others from doing so. The same 
 measure that you mete out will be meted 
 out to you again. Always remember that 
 your Platoon, your Company, or your 
 Battalion are not the whole force, but 
 small parts of the whole, and that in 
 27
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 making a plan the commander must think 
 of what is for the good of the whole, and 
 not of special units or individuals. 
 
 No man is infallible, and it may well 
 happen that your immediate superior has 
 not tackled the problem in front of him 
 in the best manner ; but whatever his 
 orders are, back him up, heart and soul, 
 and remember that a fairly sound plan 
 energetically carried out will generally 
 succeed, but that a perfect one is doomed 
 to failure if not properly supported. Do 
 all you can to inculcate esprit de corps, 
 and try yourself to live up to a high 
 standard, which is the best way of getting 
 your subordinates to do the same. 
 
 Smartness in turnout, punctiliousness 
 in saluting, exactness in guard duties, all 
 make for discipline. 
 
 When all is going well and sailing 
 smoothly, no great difference may be 
 noticeable between the work of a well- 
 disciplined battalion and that of one in 
 which the discipline is not above reproach. 
 But it is when men are tired and dis- 
 28
 
 On Discipline 
 
 tressed that it is most difficult to main- 
 tain discipline, and it is then that it is 
 also most necessary to do so. 
 
 Even on a route march but little differ- 
 ence between the marching of the above- 
 mentioned battalions would be noticeable 
 for the first few miles, but when the 
 men began to get tired it would be very 
 marked. 
 
 Do not be afraid of a little humour if it 
 be to the point, and never forget that a 
 good joke goes far to get over the road 
 when it is long and uphill, while the per- 
 fection of manners is to be able to main- 
 tain cameraderie without degenerating into 
 familiarity. 
 
 Learn to be cheerful under difficulties, 
 make little of the hardships you have to 
 endure, never grumble, and do not forget 
 that however bad things are they might 
 be much worse. Remember always to play 
 for your side, and not for your own bat. 
 As long as your side wins it is of small 
 account who kicked the goal or made 
 most runs. 
 
 29
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 Your one and only object must be, re- 
 gardless of self, to do your best to enable 
 your country to beat the enemy. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 3
 
 ON NATIONAL DISCIPLINE AND 
 THE TEMPTATIONS OF LONDON 
 
 October 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 I have lately heard much about the 
 condition of London, and especially of 
 the streets. An old friend writes to me 
 that the other day he walked down the 
 Strand and through Leicester Square in 
 the afternoon, and was amazed at the 
 number of painted women who ogled him 
 in broad daylight. Continuing his course 
 westward he saw many glaring posters of 
 the different entertainments being per- 
 formed at the music-halls, and was also 
 struck by the headlines of the evening 
 papers, from which it appeared that the 
 war was practically over. Going farther 
 westward he met ladies belonging to a 
 3i
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 higher scale in the social status, but carry- 
 ing as much paint as those in Leicester 
 Square, although it was, as a rule, more 
 artistically put on. All this was very 
 bad hearing to me, for we have got to 
 get down to it if we are to win this war, 
 and people whose women paint them- 
 selves and who delight in music-halls 
 and questionable Charlie Chaplin films, 
 when the greatest tragedy of all times is 
 being enacted by their brothers, are not 
 getting down to it. We are also not 
 helping to win the war by deceiving our- 
 selves with the idea that it is over, by 
 magnifying small successes until they 
 appear to be great victories, and by at 
 the same time insisting on shutting our 
 eyes to the more seamy side of the pic- 
 ture. The truth is not always palatable, 
 but it is wholesome, and it is the only 
 foundation on which one can build without 
 courting disaster. 
 
 From all I hear I fear that the atmo- 
 sphere of society, and, indeed, the general 
 atmosphere of London at the present time, 
 32
 
 On National Discipline 
 
 is unreal and untrue. There are too many 
 people who live on excitement, and when 
 they can't get it complain of being " bored." 
 Waves of optimism follow waves of de- 
 pression, and which of the two is the 
 worse I really do not know ; but both are 
 bad, and until the nation alters we shall 
 not win, for we are not fit to win, and I 
 am as certain as I can be of anything 
 that victory in this titanic contest will 
 not be given to a nation which is morally 
 unsound and superficial. 
 
 I hear that officers in uniform are often 
 to be seen walking with women who un- 
 doubtedly are members of the demi- 
 monde, and with this example it is not 
 to be surprised at that the men do the 
 same even more flagrantly, our Colonial 
 troops, probably on account of their draw- 
 ing more money, being especially notice- 
 able. I promised not to preach morality, 
 but without trespassing on morals I can 
 say that officers thus degrading the King's 
 uniform deserve to be cashiered. It is 
 urged that officers behave themselves in
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 this way in uniform because they are not 
 allowed to wear mufti. My only answer 
 is that of all times the present is the 
 most inappropriate for associating with 
 cocottes. 
 
 Putting the moral aspect of the ques- 
 tion aside, and approaching it only from 
 the utilitarian point of view, we now want 
 every man we can get, and he who runs 
 the risk of diseasing himself is perform- 
 ing a most unpatriotic act. It is English 
 law that a man should only be judged by 
 his peers, and you may say with justice 
 that in this matter I am not one of your 
 peers. My answer is that exceptional times 
 and circumstances demand exceptional 
 legislation. 
 
 My friend, of whom I spoke at the be- 
 ginning of this letter, also mentioned that 
 there appeared to be a great deal of 
 drinking going on among the officers of 
 the New Army. The idea of officers in 
 uniform exceeding in public places, or of 
 their making a habit of frequenting bars, 
 would, in the pre-war days, have been 
 34
 
 On National Discipline 
 
 looked on as impossible. In many cases 
 those who have newly joined have not 
 had the advantages of early training 
 which the old Regular officer generally 
 had, but they have joined the fighting 
 caste, and noblesse oblige. Bar-loafers are 
 not leaders of men. 
 
 What a ten thousand pities it is that 
 the nation did not as one man follow the 
 lead given by our King and by Lord 
 Kitchener in renouncing drink for the 
 period of the war ! Not only would it 
 have saved us half a million a day, but 
 it would have immensely increased efficiency 
 throughout the nation. 
 
 It is a spirit such as the Covenanters 
 had which wins battles, and this, I fear, 
 is not the spirit of our nation to-day. 
 On this side of the water most people are 
 for ever thinking of what they can get. 
 They leave the giving to be done by the 
 men in the trenches. It may be more 
 pleasant to get than to give, but when 
 we have to move on and we've all got 
 to, whether at the age of twenty in the 
 35
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 trenches or at that of seventy from gout 
 the boot will be on the other leg. The 
 inward satisfaction that it may give a 
 lady to know that she is perfectly dressed, 
 or the dinner hog to know that his belly 
 is full, and that he has a secret store of 
 food which the authorities can't get at, 
 doesn't last as long as that which the 
 man has who has done his duty, and 
 this gives no indigestion. 
 
 The other day I heard a story which 
 seemed to me very pathetic, and which 
 I will tell you. A friend of mine travelled 
 north with a man who had lost a leg, 
 and entered into conversation with him. 
 The man said, " The worst of it all is that 
 I shall never have a little home of my 
 own, and I shall never have anybody 
 to care for me." My friend said, " How 
 do you make that out ? Your losing a 
 leg would not make any difference." 
 The soldier replied, " I thought so once, 
 but I don't now. In the hospital that I 
 have just come from there lay in the 
 cot next to mine a man called Jem McLean, 
 36
 
 On National Discipline 
 
 who had lost a hand and foot, but did 
 not seem to mind, his only regret being 
 that he could not go back to have another 
 go at the Boches. He was just the 
 merriest fellow you ever met ; he was 
 the life of the whole ward and always kept 
 us amused, and his laugh was the most 
 cheering one you ever heard. He was 
 always talking of his girl who was going 
 to marry him, and singing her praises. 
 One afternoon, when he was asleep, a 
 young lady came into the room and asked 
 to see Jem McLean. I pointed him out 
 to her, and she woke him up and said, 
 * I heard you were wounded, and have 
 come to see you, Jem. What have they 
 done to you ? ' He said, ' I am wounded, 
 and badly; I have lost a hand and a 
 foot.' She seemed horrified, and said 
 very little for another five minutes. Then 
 she looked at him and said, * I may as 
 well tell you, once and for all, that when 
 I marry I shall marry a whole man, and 
 not a bit of one.' Jem McLean died that 
 night." When I heard this story I thought 
 37
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 of the song you used to sing : " Oh, Lucky 
 Jim ! " 
 
 In answer to your second question, the 
 fact is continually being brought home, 
 that whilst a portion of the nation is 
 fighting for all that England holds dear 
 and is undergoing the most terrible ordeals, 
 many of the remainder seem still hardly 
 alive to the fact that we are at war. The 
 other day I heard a young lady say that 
 she considered the war an " awful bore," 
 and that she hoped that it would soon 
 be over. 
 
 I know another lady who told me that 
 she had to have a chicken killed every 
 second day, because her dear little Pekinese 
 would not thrive on anything but chicken's 
 breast ! I hear of balls at private houses, 
 and of nightly dancing at public places. 
 These things are harmless enough in 
 themselves, and in normal times nothing 
 could be said against them ; but the atmo- 
 sphere is not that which should obtain 
 when the greatest nations in the world 
 are fighting for their lives. Youngsters 
 38
 
 On National Discipline 
 
 home on leave certainly require some 
 amusement, and it is good that they 
 should forget the horrors of the trenches, 
 but it is not well that when they come 
 from the terrible realities which they have 
 lived in, they should go to the other 
 extreme and be dragged into frivolity. 
 It is a true adage which says men are 
 what women make them, and I think 
 that when men return from the front 
 for a short spell, and are naturally in a 
 very highly strung and malleable state of 
 mind, women could do better with them 
 than by appealing to their love of cham- 
 pagne and of waltzing. I don't say that 
 these things are wrong, but that at the 
 present moment they are out of place. 
 The woman or girl who is worth her salt 
 can do so much good if she only knows 
 how. She can do more to inspire a man 
 and give him high ideals than all the 
 preachers in the world, and her object 
 should be to talk to the man who is 
 going to the front as she would like to 
 feel she had talked to him if she 
 d 39
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 heard he had fallen soon after his 
 return. 
 
 I have just heard that a few weeks ago 
 
 an old acquaintance of mine, Lady A , 
 
 gave a dance, the ostensible reason for 
 her giving it being to amuse her son Jack, 
 who, she hoped, would be at home with 
 some of his friends. As a matter of fact, 
 Jack had always avoided dances, but his 
 sister Sybil seemed to think that two 
 years of the trenches would have altered 
 his views with regard to them. She, as 
 you know, was engaged to be married 
 to Ian McNeill, Jack's captain. Both 
 McNeill's and Jack's leaves were stopped 
 at the last moment. The dance was a 
 merry one, and ended in the morning with 
 bacon and eggs. None of Jack's friends 
 turned up, but their absence was made 
 up for by other men, who were doing 
 work of some sort at home and most of 
 whom had not been at the front at all. 
 
 Sybil A was in boisterous spirits, and 
 
 looked very well. There was a trench 
 
 raid that night. Ian McNeill was killed 
 
 40
 
 On National Discipline 
 
 and Jack A was left wounded on the 
 
 enemy's wire ; they heard him shouting 
 for many hours, but when they brought 
 him in the next night he was dead. There 
 are times for all things. This is our 
 national Lent. Let us wait for the dances 
 until after our Easter. 
 
 You will remember that in 1806 Napoleon 
 defeated the Prussians at the battles of 
 Jena and Auerstadt, and that in three 
 weeks Prussia was on her knees and 
 absolutely conquered. 
 
 Soon after this, under the guidance of 
 Scharnhorst and other leaders of Prussian 
 thought, the Tugendbund, or bond of 
 virtue, was formed ; that is to say, the 
 nation went into penance, gave itself up 
 to making a cult of the primitive virtues 
 of patience, sobriety, chastity, thrift, hardi- 
 hood, and courage, and made up its 
 mind to eschew all that was frivolous until 
 it had re-established its place in Europe. 
 It succeeded in doing this so well that 
 in 1814 it was able to take a leading 
 share in the overthrow of Napoleon, and 
 41
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 in 1815 played an historic part at Waterloo. 
 It is, I consider, up to us to take a leaf 
 out of the Prussian book, and until we 
 do so, and until the whole nation takes 
 the war seriously, we do not deserve to 
 win. We are capable of winning, but it 
 will not be in a hack canter, but all out 
 by a head. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 42
 
 ON BILLETS AND CARE OF 
 THE MEN 
 
 October 15th, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 In your last letter you say that as the 
 short winter days are approaching time 
 often hangs heavily on your hands, and 
 that, especially in billets in a small town, 
 it is hard to find occupation when the 
 hours of work are over. I sympathise in 
 this respect both with you and with your 
 men. 
 
 I will talk first of your men, as they must 
 be your first consideration. Always re- 
 member that you exist for them, and not 
 they for you. You belong to the Platoon ; 
 not it to you. I remember hearing a 
 Commanding Officer smartly taken to task 
 for somewhat ostentatiously talking of 
 " my Battalion " instead of the " Battalion 
 which I command." It is your duty to 
 43
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 do everything in your power to obtain 
 reasonable recreation and amusement for 
 your men. The majority of them are not 
 accustomed to reading for long hours at 
 a stretch, and when they are off duty 
 will get into mischief if no reasonable 
 way of employing their leisure hours be 
 open to them. w Satan finds some mis- 
 chief still for idle hands to do." Try to 
 rig up ranges where miniature ammuni- 
 tion can be fired in the evening, and insti- 
 tute pool-shooting and competitions. Try 
 to raise a few pairs of boxing-gloves, and 
 don't be above putting them on yourself 
 and having a bout. Men love an officer 
 who enters into their sports with them. 
 If time admits of it, start a company 
 football team. Take an interest in help- 
 ing the Soldiers' Institute, and always give 
 a hand to the Y.M.C.A., which is usually 
 excellently run. If you can obtain a 
 room for your men where they can write, 
 and also procure some literature for them, 
 they will all appreciate it very much. If 
 there are no counter-attractions and no 
 44
 
 On Billets and Care of tlte Men 
 
 places where they can spend their evenings 
 in warmth and comfort, they will probably 
 all go to the public-houses or to the can- 
 teen and small blame to them. 
 
 The greatest cause of drunkenness is 
 treating, for many misguided people think 
 that they are displaying their patriotism 
 by rendering His Majesty's soldiers in- 
 capable. The use of the gallon measure in 
 the canteen is also conducive to drunken- 
 ness. Four men go to the canteen to- 
 gether ; one orders a gallon from which 
 they all drink, the others later on also 
 each order a gallon, with the result that 
 each man has by the end of the evening 
 had a whole gallon. The sporting chance 
 of a man being able to get a little more 
 than his share seems to have a fascination, 
 for had each man gone in and ordered his 
 own drink he would probably have paid 
 for a quart and this would have sufficed 
 him. At all events, I know that the aboli- 
 tion of the gallon pot in certain canteens 
 very much decreased drunkenness. 
 
 Once, in India, at the station which I 
 45
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 was commanding, there was suddenly a 
 considerable increase in crime, and this 
 was undoubtedly due to certain objection- 
 able performances which had lately been 
 opened in the station, and with which 
 it was difficult to deal. I mentioned this 
 fact to the manager of the Y.M.C.A., who 
 happened to be a particularly astute and 
 energetic Yankee. His reply to me was, 
 " I think I can deal with that all right by 
 putting on an absolutely first-class enter- 
 tainment that I can get hold of, and I'll 
 make your men so comfortable, and amuse 
 them so well, that the place you are talk- 
 ing of will be broke, for none of them 
 will go to it whilst my show is on." He 
 was as good as his word. 
 
 Religious people with the best of in- 
 tentions not infrequently drive men out 
 of the regimental and other institutes. 
 Neither you nor I should like the walls 
 of the Naval and Military or the "Rag" 
 to be festooned with tracts, but this is 
 what is sometimes done in the case of 
 the institutes, which should be legarded 
 46
 
 On Billets and Care oj the Men 
 
 as the men's clubs. You will remember 
 the story of the old lady who had a parrot 
 which used to repeat a large number of 
 texts, and who insisted on lending the 
 bird to her nephew to put into the barrack 
 room to convert his men. After an 
 absence of a couple of months she sent for 
 the parrot, which swore at her so horribly 
 that it was for ever banished from her 
 presence. The tracts hung up on the 
 walls would, if they could, often blush at 
 what they hear, but they certainly do no 
 good, and they do not prevent a man 
 telling an obscene story, though the fact 
 of the text staring him in the face makes 
 his obscenity worse. I am all in favour 
 of there being a side room, where any 
 man who wishes to do so can have a 
 private talk with the clergyman ; but it 
 should be a rule that in the public room 
 no person in authority speaks to any man 
 on religious matters unless the man him- 
 self starts the subject. My experience 
 has been that where this rule is not observed 
 the best men i.e. those men who are not 
 47
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 hypocrites, and who prefer freedom to a 
 slightly cheaper meal will desert the 
 institute and go to the public-house or 
 canteen. 
 
 In order to help a man you must put 
 yourself in his place, and look at things 
 from his point of view ; not as you think 
 that his point of view ought to be, but 
 as it really is. 
 
 If you start from false premises you 
 cannot do much good. Our object should 
 always be to raise the ideals of those 
 whom we can influence ; but whilst having 
 this object in view we must bear in mind 
 that what would be a comparatively high 
 ideal for a sinner would be a come-down 
 on the part of a saint, and if you demand 
 too much from those who are not used to 
 the best, you always run the chance of 
 choking them off altogether. Do not pitch 
 your note too high, or you will do no 
 good, for your men, although they are 
 capable of understanding good, straight, 
 manly conduct, appreciate it, and can be 
 induced to heighten their ideals a little, 
 48
 
 On Billets and Care of the Men 
 
 always look with suspicion at anyone who 
 overdoes the conversion business. 
 
 I heard an Ejaw on the River Niger, 
 who was accused of being a cannibal, 
 reply, " My father eat man. I no eat man, 
 but I eat dog." He evidently thought 
 he had gone up one ; it is to be hoped that 
 his son will draw the line at pig. You 
 would have been more likely to improve 
 the ordinary highwayman by telling him 
 stories of Claude Duval than by preaching 
 esoteric Buddhism. 
 
 It is only right that you, who have 
 had the many advantages which you 
 have had, should demand a much higher 
 standard from yourself than you do 
 from others, but " don't look too good, 
 nor talk too wise," or you'll spoil it 
 all. 
 
 I often think that life is rather like a 
 ride to hounds. There are a few who can 
 take a line of their own over a stiff coun- 
 try, and negotiate all the fences satis- 
 factorily. There are others who, having 
 got a lead, are able to follow over the 
 49
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 same fences ; and again others who, 
 knowing their capabilities to be modest, 
 think it wiser to take a more circuitous 
 route. Some stick to the road and go 
 a long way round, but get there eventu- 
 ally. An unambitious course is the best 
 for the man who has little nerve and a 
 bad horse ; for were he to try to ride 
 his own line he would probably get hung 
 up at a stiff fence, lose much time, and 
 eventually have to go round by the road. 
 The course which is best for one man is 
 not necessarily the best for another dif- 
 ferently constituted; but the man who, 
 having a good horse, sticks to the road 
 when he could have gone across country, 
 is not much of a fellow. 
 
 We are an extraordinary mixture of 
 good and bad, but most of us are ready 
 to do either what is good or bad so long 
 as it is not disagreeable and is at hand, 
 and, having taken a certain course once, 
 are more likely to take it again the second 
 time ; and it is up to you to see that 
 harmless occupations are provided to 
 50
 
 On Billets and Care of the Men 
 
 amuse your men in their leisure hours 
 and keep them out of mischief. 
 
 There is another point I should like 
 to touch on before closing on the sub- 
 ject of the care of your men in billets 
 and in the barrack-room. There are 
 many ways in which the so-called upper 
 classes have a very great deal to learn 
 from Tommy Atkins ; but there are 
 others, and one of them is language, in 
 which they should not emulate him, 
 though I am sorry to say that sometimes 
 they do. The men are undoubtedly ad- 
 dicted to the use of bad, and often dis- 
 gusting, language. This language does 
 no good, and is usually objectless, and 
 as the same adjectives are used in front 
 of every substantive it cannot be claimed 
 that any special point is emphasised, 
 while all that can be said of its use is that 
 it is a revolting habit. I know that the 
 filthiest language is often used by good, 
 honest men who mean nothing by it, but 
 the constant use of disgusting, and some- 
 times blasphemous, expressions cannot but 
 5 1
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 have a degrading effect. Although in con- 
 versation with each other the men are 
 in the habit of using such language, they 
 never do so when speaking to a superior, 
 and this fact speaks volumes. 
 
 Once when I was commanding a bat- 
 talion in Ireland, during a pause in opera- 
 tions at some manoeuvres, we were halted 
 on a beautiful hill, when I heard the 
 following conversation : " I say, Bill, 
 
 what a b view." Bill's reply was, 
 
 "I call it a pretty b view." The 
 
 other said, " What a pretty b view 
 
 for a b photographer on a b 
 
 fine day." This conversation is quite 
 illustrative. The men were simply ad- 
 miring the view ; but, from force of 
 habit, when speaking to a comrade, had 
 to insert the least objectionable of their 
 adjectives in front of their substantives. 
 A good deal can be done by officers who 
 join in the men's games telling them 
 that if they do not moderate their lan- 
 guage they will be warned off the ground ; 
 but what is absolutely essential is example, 
 52
 
 On Billets and Care of the Men 
 
 and if officers, as I know sometimes to 
 be the case, adopt unsavoury epithets 
 from the men's vocabulary, no amount of 
 precept will make up for this example. 
 
 Now, as regards yourself. Never waste 
 your time. Either work, play, or sleep, 
 but don't idle or loaf. Avoid standing 
 about the Mess or local club, gossiping or 
 doing nothing. You must, of course, read 
 the newspaper to keep yourself to a 
 certain extent up to date, but do not 
 waste too much time over it. If you look 
 at a newspaper which you have not read, 
 and which is a week old, how extra- 
 ordinarily little there is in it which you 
 care to read, and how little of to-day's 
 paper will be worth recollecting a week 
 hence ! I am not going to undertake to 
 give you advice as to what books to read, 
 but endeavour to keep in your pocket 
 some book or notes on points on which 
 you wish to contemplate, or which you 
 desire to commit to memory, so that if 
 you have half an hour to wait anywhere, 
 you can occupy your time. " All work 
 53
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and 
 I want you to amuse yourself, but don't 
 help time to hang heavy on your hands 
 by doing nothing. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 54
 
 6. 
 
 ON THE ART OF COMMAND 
 
 November 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 Many thanks for your last letter. 
 
 There is indeed a great art in knowing 
 how to command. No man can com- 
 mand others who has not himself learned 
 to obey. 
 
 This idea" is, I think, brought out in the 
 Prince of Wales's motto, " Ich dien " (I 
 serve). I have no doubt that you will 
 remember that amongst your masters at 
 school there were some whom no self- 
 respecting boy could help " cheeking," 
 and who could never maintain disci- 
 pline, although they were always punish- 
 ing, whereas there were others who never 
 punished, who always had their forms in 
 perfect order, but to whom nobody dreamt 
 of being impertinent. It is the same in 
 e 55
 
 A General 's Letters to His Son 
 
 the Army. Some Commanding Officers 
 obtain cheerful obedience to their com- 
 mands, whereas others find it difficult to 
 get any orders carried out, and are gener- 
 ally unpopular into the bargain. You 
 have met some, and you will meet more 
 men of each type. Try to analyse why 
 one man is willingly obeyed and another 
 is not. Do this, not with the object of 
 picking holes, but in order that you 
 yourself may learn to acquire the art 
 which the one possesses and the other 
 lacks. Avoid giving any orders which 
 are unnecessary. Avoid giving orders 
 which are irksome. Before giving orders, 
 whether regarding the tactical situation 
 or dealing with matters in the lines, very 
 carefully consider what their effect will be. 
 Never give an order which you cannot 
 enforce. It is better to cancel an order 
 than to allow it to be disregarded. Al- 
 ways see that your order is properly 
 given, and in a form which cannot cause 
 offence. If you ever have to convey an 
 order given by a superior to another, be 
 56
 
 On the Art of Command 
 
 most careful that you deliver it correctly 
 and politely. It is possible that the order 
 you bring is an unwelcome one, but its 
 purport will be rendered less unpalatable 
 if it be tactfully conveyed; and as your 
 object should be to have the command 
 you have brought cheerfully obeyed, it is 
 your duty to do what you can to bring 
 about this end. 
 
 Always be particularly careful to avoid 
 sarcasm in dealing with your subordi- 
 nates. A good telling off often does a 
 man good, but sarcasm invariably leaves 
 a bad taste in his mouth. Do everything 
 in your power to check domineering and 
 bullying, but at the same time be care- 
 ful to uphold authority. 
 
 The man whom I have always pitied 
 most is the lance-corporal. It is not to 
 be expected that he should always be a 
 paragon in the way of tact, and he may 
 sometimes try to pay off old scores by 
 means of his newly fledged authority, but, 
 on the other hand, if any man feels himself 
 aggrieved and annoyed with life gener- 
 57
 
 A General's Letters to His Sou 
 
 ally his most ordinary way of expressing 
 it is to assault the lance-corporal. For- 
 tunately there is not in our Army a tithe 
 of the bullying which takes place in the 
 armies of many other nations ; but, all 
 the same, most of the insubordination 
 which does take place is the direct conse- 
 quence of superfluous and thoughtless 
 orders given in an annoying manner to a 
 hot-tempered man. What we should aim 
 at is cheery and willing obedience, and 
 not the slavish fulfilment of the letter of 
 the order. When you have received an 
 order which your Platoon is to carry 
 out, I am certain that you resent being 
 told exactly what to do, but prefer to 
 perform it your own way. Do as you 
 would be done by, and do not interfere 
 too much with your Section commanders. 
 It is possible that on the first or second 
 occasion that a certain scheme had to 
 be carried out, it might have been better 
 done in the actual circumstances as the 
 Captain knew them to be, if he had given 
 detailed orders as to how your Platoon 
 58
 
 On the Art of Command 
 
 was to act, and if you had done the same 
 with regard to your Sections ; but by 
 this method neither you nor your Section 
 commanders would have learned much, 
 and the object of the exercise, which was 
 to instruct the Company, would not have 
 been fulfilled. The principal object of all 
 tactical instruction is to train officers and 
 men to act when they have no superior on 
 the spot to refer to, and in order to fulfil 
 this object you must always be very care- 
 ful not to encroach on the sphere of 
 your subordinates. In the old days in 
 the British Army the Colonel and the 
 Adjutant used between them to run the 
 whole Battalion, but now the double 
 Company should be as independent a 
 unit as a Battery of Artillery or a Squad- 
 ron of Cavalry, and it is a fine command 
 for a young officer, and an excellent 
 training for a higher position. Always 
 encourage initiative and love of responsi- 
 bility on the part of your subordinates. 
 If an officer or N.C.O., who you know to 
 be doing his best, takes measures which 
 59
 
 A General 's Letters to His Son 
 
 are not in your opinion well adapted t 
 meet the situation, point out to him his 
 mistakes, and tell him what he ought to 
 have done, but do not censure him 
 severely or sharply ; if you do you will 
 run the risk of destroying his initiative, 
 and he will very likely on the next occa- 
 sion do nothing at all. 
 
 It is right that the Captain should call 
 up the Section commanders as well as 
 the Platoon commanders, when he criti- 
 cises the way an exercise has been per- 
 formed. A Section commander may any 
 day find himself in command of a Platoon, 
 and the criticism of an officer's tactical 
 handling of his command in front of his 
 subordinates is likely to be instructive, 
 and is quite unobjectionable so long as 
 the manner in which it is conveyed is 
 friendly ; but anything approaching a 
 censure must never be given in the pre- 
 sence of a junior, and if you openly blame 
 your N.C.O.'s in front of the men you 
 entirely undermine their authority. 
 
 There is a great art in writing orders, 
 60
 
 On the Art of Command 
 
 but as this forms a regular branch of mili- 
 tary study I shall not here do more than 
 touch on it. Whenever possible, if you 
 have an important order to give, put it 
 in writing. I do not tell you to do this 
 in order that you may have a record to 
 save yourself if things go wrong your 
 object must be to prevent things going 
 wrong or being misunderstood, and not 
 to save yourself in case of this happening 
 but to ensure that you have clearly 
 stated your intentions. You are less 
 likely to give an ambiguous order in 
 writing than by word of mouth. If an 
 order has been misunderstood, before 
 blaming the recipient be quite sure that 
 it was clearly issued. I have, more than 
 once, heard orders given which, if I had 
 been the recipient, I should not have 
 understood. Whenever you give a verbal 
 order make the recipient repeat it to you. 
 Do this not only to ensure that he has 
 understood the order, but also to make 
 certain that your order does not admit 
 of more than one interpretation. It often 
 61
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 happens with verbal orders that, in the 
 excitement of an engagement, what the 
 commander meant to order and what he 
 has ordered are two different things, and 
 the possibility of this taking place must 
 be guarded against. Orders must be short 
 and to the point. Everything superfluous 
 should be omitted, and the man who has 
 to execute them should be given as free a 
 hand as circumstances admit of. Orders 
 dealing with a definite situation may go 
 into greater detail than those which deal 
 with a situation which is only probable 
 and not definite. In the latter case in- 
 structions will usually take the place of 
 orders. If you are ever in doubt as to 
 whether an order still holds good, ask your- 
 self : Was the officer responsible for the 
 order in possession of the main facts as I 
 now know them to be when he issued it ? 
 If he were, there can be no question that it 
 is your duty to carry it out ; but if you 
 are certain that he had no knowledge of 
 some material fact, and if your not 
 carrying out the order does not let in your
 
 On the Art of Command 
 
 pal, it is not incumbent on you to sacri- 
 fice yourself and your men. 
 
 Orders take a long time to permeate : 
 the Army sends them to the Corps, the 
 Corps to the Division, the Division to the 
 Brigade, the Brigade to the Battalion, and 
 the Battalion to the Company. Every 
 office through which these orders pass 
 expunges certain parts, which do not refer 
 to the next subordinate formation to 
 which they are sent, and amplifies other 
 parts. The art of quickly writing orders 
 is one of the most important which a Staff 
 Officer has to learn, but important orders 
 take hours to write. You may in our 
 Army of to-day always feel quite certain 
 that the Staff start writing their orders 
 the very second they receive orders from 
 higher authority on which to base their 
 own, and that they are not either com- 
 fortably eating their dinners or wasting 
 their time while you are impatiently 
 awaiting the receipt of orders. Regi- 
 mental Officers often either do not know, 
 or fail to appreciate, the difficulties with 
 63
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 which the Staff have to contend. It is a 
 good plan to send out an anticipatory 
 order when it seems probable that the 
 whole orders will take long to write : for 
 instance, the Division can make up its 
 mind in five minutes that the 200th 
 Brigade will lead, and that it will con- 
 tinue the march in such and such a direc- 
 tion, passing certain cross roads at 6 a.m., 
 and the receipt of this order will prob- 
 ably ensure a quiet night's rest for the 
 Battalion. Always avoid giving an order 
 which may afterwards have to be can- 
 celled. Remember the sequence : order, 
 counter- order, disorder. Counter-orders 
 should be avoided, as they try men's 
 confidence. The addition or omission of 
 one word will often make all the dif- 
 ference to the comfort and well-being of 
 your subordinates, and it is your duty to 
 look after these essentials to the utmost 
 of your ability, so lose no opportunity of 
 learning to write good and concise orders. 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 64
 
 7. 
 
 ON TRAINING 
 
 December 1st, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 In your last letter you tell me that your 
 Division will not be going out for a couple 
 of months, and this will give you a little 
 extra time to learn your work before 
 you go. 
 
 When I joined, an officer used not to be 
 looked upon as fit for anything until he 
 had three or four years' service ; but in 
 these days of intensive training as much 
 is expected of him after three or four 
 months. By working harder more can be 
 learnt, except that it is hard to condense 
 into a few months the training in disci- 
 pline which should be ingrained in a man 
 and become part of his nature. With 
 regard to the work actually in front of 
 you. I have noticed a tendency in the New 
 65
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 Army to look on musketry as of secondary 
 importance, and on bombing and bayonet 
 fighting as the chief subjects in which 
 an infantryman should be proficient. It 
 is difficult to get exact statistics, especi- 
 ally as a bullet wound may be inflicted 
 either by a rifle or by a machine gun ; but 
 I do not think that I am far out in stat- 
 ing that during this last offensive, for every 
 twenty-five or thirty of our men who 
 have been admitted to hospital suffering 
 from bullet wounds, there have been only 
 about two admissions on account of 
 wounds inflicted by bombs, and not even 
 an average of one on account of bayonet 
 wounds. It must also be borne in mind 
 that when the sniper hits he generally 
 kills, and the dead are not admitted to 
 hospital. 
 
 This in itself should prove to you the 
 importance of musketry, for I am sure 
 that our infantry fire is not worse than 
 that of the Germans. Your first efforts 
 should be to make the whole of your 
 Platoon fairly good shots and able to fire 
 66
 
 On Training 
 
 fifteen rounds a minute with moderate 
 accuracy. It must never be forgotten 
 that it was the fire of the Infantry of our 
 highly trained Expeditionary Force which, 
 time after time, checked the Germans 
 during the early part of the war. You 
 cannot devote too much energy or trouble 
 to musketry. In the short time you 
 have in front of you you must be satis- 
 fied with the results aimed at in the last 
 paragraph as far as the majority of your 
 men are concerned, but you should en- 
 deavour to train 5 per cent, of the best 
 of them as snipers, and any extra ammuni- 
 tion you can get hold of should be ex- 
 pended on their careful training. We 
 have now to do more in weeks than in the 
 old days was expected of us in as many 
 months, so we must cut our cloth accord- 
 ing to our measure, and cannot aim at 
 having a large number of first-class marks- 
 men. 
 
 When you lecture, try to make what 
 you say interesting, and, if you have 
 the opportunity, every now and then 
 67
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 interlard, it with some illustration of what 
 you mean. Uneducated men cannot re- 
 member a lot of hard facts unless they 
 have pegs to hang them on. Lectures 
 given by officers and non-commissioned 
 officers are frequently not only extremely 
 dull, but they are often almost devoid of 
 useful information. An enormous amount 
 has to be pumped into the men in a short 
 period, and no time should be wasted on 
 platitudes. You can generally tell whether 
 what you are saying is being taken in by 
 the men, by the look on their faces. Al- 
 ways avoid terms which they do not 
 thoroughly understand, and put yourself 
 on the level of their intelligence. Don't 
 talk what is Greek to them. Always en- 
 deavour to get your subordinates to fol- 
 low your line of thought, and as far as 
 possible give them your reasons for what 
 you do. This is the way to make intelli- 
 gent soldiers capable of acting on their 
 own responsibility. When you are route- 
 marching ask the men questions such as, 
 " If a shoe had fallen off my horse, where 
 68
 
 On Training 
 
 could I get him shod ? " . "Is there any 
 water near here ? " etc., etc. This will 
 ensure the men keeping their eyes open 
 and telling you on the next occasion of 
 the forge, and of the stream over which 
 you marched. Constantly think out for 
 yourself little tactical situations such as, 
 " How should I put that house in a state 
 of defence?" or "What would be the 
 best place for a picquet ? " 
 
 Before putting these questions to your 
 subordinates discuss them with some 
 senior if you are not sure of the best 
 solution. But the very fact that you 
 are constantly putting to yourself such 
 little problems will render you much 
 quicker at properly solving them when 
 the time comes for you to do so in earnest. 
 Remember the enormous holding power 
 of your Lewis guns, also remember, if 
 time does not admit of your providing 
 cover for the whole of your Platoon, that 
 you can generally, by using intensive 
 labour, get cover for your Lewis gun. By 
 intensive labour I mean telling off two 
 69
 
 A Generals Letters to His San 
 
 or three men to one tool and letting a 
 man dig as if he were running a hun- 
 dred yards' race for, say, a couple of 
 minutes, and when he is tired having 
 another ready to snatch the tool from 
 him. 
 
 Think out little fire problems, as, for 
 example, what sort of fire you ought to 
 employ on such and such an occasion ? 
 Should combined sights be used ? Would 
 you fire straight at the object ? Would 
 you fire at some auxiliary mark to get your 
 range ? Would you on the occasion in 
 question open fire at some spot before 
 the enemy arrived there in order to check 
 your range ? Would you open fire directly 
 you see him, or would you let him come 
 close up to you before disclosing your fire ? 
 There are occasions when each of the 
 above methods would be the right, and all 
 others the wrong one to pursue. Con- 
 tinually ask yourself such questions, and 
 carefully think out the answers, so that if 
 you meet with a similar problem on ser- 
 vice you are meeting an old friend to 
 70
 
 On Training 
 
 which you know the answer. Let no little 
 problem be new to you. 
 
 Unless conditions have very much 
 changed when you go to the front, the 
 British Army will still be in the trenches, 
 and you will be apt to consider that 
 warfare means trench warfare instead of 
 its being only a phase which we hope 
 will soon be over, as it can never lead 
 to great decisions. We know to our cost 
 the great losses which have been inflicted 
 by German machine-guns, if well placed 
 and available at the right moment. I 
 lay stress on their being available at the 
 right moment, as, unless good cover be 
 provided for them, the guns themselves 
 are usually buried and the detachment 
 killed before they have a chance to come 
 into action. My point in mentioning this 
 is to call your notice to the immense im- 
 portance of providing adequate cover for 
 machine-guns and their detachments. 
 
 There are a good many things which 
 you can learn only when you have got 
 to the front, and with regard to which 
 
 F 71
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 a few days' experience is worth any 
 amount of theoretical teaching. 
 
 There are, however, others which you 
 can learn just as well at home as in the 
 trenches, and, in fact, a great deal better, 
 for a wet dug-out is not an ideal place in 
 which to imbibe theory. Every officer, 
 and really every senior non-commissioned 
 officer, should be able thoroughly to read 
 a map, orientate himself on it, and to 
 understand the shape of the ground from 
 the contours. He should also be able, 
 without a second's thought, to indicate 
 any point on a squared map by means of 
 quadrilaterals. This can be learnt in five 
 minutes, and is absolutely essential; but, 
 all the same, it is wonderful how many 
 officers do not know the simple method 
 which is now in vogue. It is always 
 possible that you may on any day find 
 yourself in command of a Company, and 
 you must do all you can to qualify your- 
 self for commands higher than that in 
 which you are acting. You must always 
 remember that you cannot properly com-
 
 On Training 
 
 mand your own front unless you roughly 
 know what is going on on the fronts of 
 your neighbours. 
 
 You must always fight as if you were 
 one of a team, and not as if you were 
 carrying on an isolated engagement. 
 Always keep up liaison with the troops 
 on your flanks. This is especially neces- 
 sary if your command is on the flank of 
 a higher formation. 
 
 If you have to deliver an attack, always 
 be careful not to charge too soon. Heavily 
 laden men, even when working over hard 
 ground, cannot charge for more than 
 twenty or thirty yards, and if the word 
 is given prematurely the consequence is 
 that they come in, not in line, but pumped 
 and in a ragged formation, which the 
 enemy, if he stands his ground, will have 
 no difficulty in defeating. Make your 
 men's feet your first care. There are, of 
 course, thousands of things which you 
 have to learn, and all that I have tried 
 to do is to call your attention to a few 
 important points which I know from 
 73
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 experience are often neglected, or about 
 which there is sometimes ambiguity on 
 the part of young officers. You should 
 always bear in mind the possibility of 
 your being placed in some position in 
 which the fate of a battle, and that of 
 an Empire, may depend upon the know- 
 ledge, courage, efficiency, and fitness of 
 yourself and of your command, and your 
 one and only object at present should be 
 to prepare yourself and the men entrusted 
 to you for such an emergency. It would 
 not be the first time on which the evenly 
 balanced scales in battle have been weighed 
 down by the action of a Subaltern and 
 his men, and history repeats itself. 
 
 Remember what we are up against ; 
 remember the glorious traditions of this 
 Regiment which you are joining ; re- 
 member your name and the sword which 
 your great-grandfather wore at Waterloo, 
 which now is yours, and live up to them. 
 
 Noblesse oblige. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 74
 
 8. 
 
 ON MONEY 
 
 December 15th, 1916. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 In your last letter you tell me that you 
 lent a brother officer nearly all you had 
 at the bank in order to enable him to 
 pay a gambling debt. If you are suffi- 
 ciently fond of him to risk losing the 
 money in order to do him a good turn, 
 or if you think the lesson which he has 
 learnt will keep him straight in future, 
 you have performed a good and kind 
 action, and one for which I should be 
 the last to blame you ; but in lending 
 money you should be prepared to look on 
 it as a gift. The worst of lending your 
 money is that in doing so you often lose 
 your friend, for either the lender presses 
 75
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 for repayment, which the borrower takes 
 amiss, or the borrower avoids his old 
 friend, being unable to forget the dross 
 he owes him. What is it that Whyte 
 Melville says ? It is something like this : 
 " Money lost, little lost ; friends lost, 
 much lost ; honour lost, all lost." Stop 
 when you have lost the money. Don't 
 gamble with the others. What you have 
 is your own to do what you like with, 
 but you must never back another man's 
 bill unless you are fully prepared to pay 
 up should he not be able to meet it ; and 
 on no account whatever have any trans- 
 actions with a money-lender. It is very 
 seldom that by doing so you even do any 
 good to the man who is in trouble. You 
 tell me that on this occasion your friend 
 played poker with men who were much 
 richer than he was, and having lost more 
 than he could afford ran after his 
 money and gambled to try to get square. 
 This is, of course, the most ordinary way 
 for a gambler to be ruined. Very few have 
 the courage to cut their losses, but go 
 76
 
 On Money 
 
 on playing, hoping by a coup to get 
 everything back, and only succeed in 
 getting farther into the mire. You must 
 always remember that what is gambling 
 to one man is not gambling to another. 
 Playing bridge for five shillings a hundred 
 would be rank gambling on the part of 
 a Subaltern with only his pay, whereas 
 ten times those points would not be 
 gambling in the case of a rich man. If 
 you do play cards and it would be ridicu- 
 lous to advise you never to play a rubber 
 of bridge always avoid playing with 
 anybody who cannot, without in any 
 way feeling it, afford to lose at the points 
 at which you are playing. 
 
 I hate gambling at cards, which, as 
 you know, have little attraction for me ; 
 but to play for points your friend can- 
 not afford to lose is doubly disagreeable, 
 for to win from him is really worse than 
 to lose, and there is little pleasure in 
 playing a game at which one would 
 rather lose than win. The same principles 
 apply to the racecourse, except that few 
 77
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 people have any compunction in winning 
 from a bookie ; but no man can enjoy 
 looking at a race on which he has put more 
 than he can afford to lose, and in the 
 long run betting is a mug's game. Both 
 layers and backers cannot get fat, and 
 you have only to look at the ring to see 
 that the layers do so. 
 
 It requires great restraint on the part 
 of a man to be able to associate con- 
 tinually with those of much greater means 
 without getting into debt. If the earthen- 
 ware pots float down the stream with the 
 brass ones we all know what must happen 
 to them. 
 
 Fortunately, during this time of war, 
 there are comparatively few calls on the 
 purse of a young officer, and he ought to 
 be able to manage on his pay if he is 
 strictly economical ; but, all the same, 
 I have heard of very many cases of dis- 
 honoured cheques and other dishonour- 
 able money transactions of a sort which 
 were hardly ever heard of in the old 
 Army, in spite of the fact that it was, 
 78
 
 On Money 
 
 generally speaking, composed of poor 
 men. We are all inclined to 
 
 " Compound for sins we are inclined to, 
 By damning those we have no mind to," 
 
 and have points on which we are more 
 inclined to be extravagant than we are 
 on others which do not appeal to us ; 
 but I don't think I can recollect a single 
 case of a man being brought to ruin 
 through keeping a polo pony or a hunter 
 more than he could, strictly speaking, 
 afford, though I have known hundreds 
 who have gone under on account of 
 gambling, of women, or of drinking ; and 
 I will warrant that, in nine cases out of 
 ten, one of these causes was at the bottom 
 of the dishonoured cheque. 
 
 It is, of course, incumbent on an officer 
 always to be well turned out, and it also 
 behoves him to avoid, when in uniform, 
 restaurants and seats in theatres and rail- 
 way carriages, in which he is likely to be 
 brought into close contact with his men 
 familiarity breeds contempt, and is bad 
 79
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 for discipline but it is not incumbent 
 on him to spend much money on his 
 food or to drink expensive wines. 
 
 We must cut our cloth according to our 
 measure, but sometimes are apt to find 
 it difficult to differentiate between luxuries 
 and necessities. I always like the story 
 of the nobleman in the fairy-tale who, 
 after a long minority, succeeded to an 
 impoverished estate, but inherited two 
 gifts which had been bequeathed to him 
 by a fairy godmother. These were a 
 purse, which was always full when the 
 purchase made from it was necessary ; 
 and a sword, which always brought vic- 
 tory when the hand which used it was 
 in the right. On becoming of age the 
 young nobleman bought clothes, some 
 horses and carriages, and did up his 
 house ; the money for all this was forth- 
 coming, as all these were necessary. He 
 also killed robbers and rescued maidens 
 with his sword ; but when he spent money 
 in carousals, and picked an unjust quarrel, 
 he found his purse empty and the sword 
 80
 
 On Money 
 
 would not fight for him. It is hard to 
 draw the line as to what is necessary and 
 what is extravagance. The best rule for 
 a soldier is to have few wants ; the less 
 he can do with the better, and especi- 
 ally do these words apply to this crisis. 
 I remember as a small boy learning in 
 my Latin grammar, " Effodiuntur opes irri- 
 tamenia malorum" against which was the 
 translation, " Riches, the incentives to evil, 
 are dug out of the earth." And still the 
 whole world seeks them. As Robert Mar- 
 shall says, money is the only responsibility 
 which humanity has never shirked, and 
 this in spite of what we have heard with 
 regard to the rich man and the camel at 
 the eye of a needle. It is an extraordinary 
 thing, but a fact, that the possession of 
 money often turns a generous man into 
 a miser. We most of us know those who, 
 when they had an allowance of a hun- 
 dred a year, were willing to share it with 
 anybody, but who, after they had come 
 into a fortune, seemed to count their 
 sixpences. I have known some generous 
 81
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 rich men, but I have known propor- 
 tionately many more generous poor ones. 
 I always like the story of the man who 
 had two sons, to each of whom he 
 gave a moderate allowance. One of them 
 always lived on it, and had to spare. The 
 other always outran it, and tried to borrow 
 from his brother, who had little sym- 
 pathy with his extravagance. When the 
 father died, contrary to all expectations, 
 he left the whole of his money to the son 
 for whom he had already paid up so 
 often, giving as his reason that he knew 
 that this son would always be hard up ; 
 but that the other, although he left him 
 nothing, would before long be rich. 
 
 The oath which the young Sikh has to 
 take is a fine one. It is to worship steel 
 and not gold, never to turn his face on a 
 friend nor his back on an enemy. With 
 him this is a matter of caste. Yet the 
 object of most men seems to be to get 
 as much as possible at the smallest price, 
 and this rule holds good, whether the 
 coin be of metal or of such things as 
 82
 
 On Money 
 
 sincerity, unselfishness, and love ; in 
 short, to get gold and give silver. They 
 have their reward. Others have given 
 gold and got lead. They have their 
 reward. There are many graves in 
 
 France. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 83
 
 9. 
 
 ON WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING 
 AGAINST 
 
 January 1st, 1917. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 You ask me whether I think war 
 was unavoidable. My answer is, " Yes.*' 
 Germany, headed by Prussia (for the 
 aggressive spirit is really more Prussian 
 than German), has for many years been 
 determined to make a bid for the 
 supremacy of the world, and in order to 
 achieve this purpose it was quite inevit- 
 able that she must come into conflict 
 with England. In order to achieve her 
 ambition two courses were open to Ger- 
 many. One was first to tackle England 
 on the chance of France and Russia not 
 supporting her, and the other was to 
 attack France and Russia at a time when 
 she believed it unlikely that England 
 would join them, and, having subdued 
 84
 
 On What we are Fighting A gainst 
 
 them and fortified herself on the Belgian 
 and Dutch coasts, then to challenge 
 England, which she knew to be the great- 
 est stumbling-block in her path to world- 
 wide domination. She adopted the latter 
 course, and had we not gone to war when 
 we did the fates of France and Russia 
 would have been sealed, and also our own 
 a few years later. For the last fifty years 
 German policy has been deliberate, and 
 its ambitions have become greater as 
 decade followed decade. As little as pos- 
 sible has been left to chance. In 1866 
 war was forced on Austria, and she was 
 defeated in six weeks. At the same time 
 a quarrel was picked with Hanover, 
 which, separating, as it did, Prussia 
 proper from the Rhine provinces, had 
 long been a Naboth's vineyard to Prussia ; 
 it was conquered, and from that time 
 has formed part of the kingdom of the 
 Hohenzollerns. Since the Franco-German 
 War, during which the King of Prussia 
 was made German Emperor, the import- 
 ance of Germany has every year in- 
 85
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 creased. The direction of the affairs of 
 Germany has always been in the hands, 
 not of Party politicians, but of statesmen 
 who thought far ahead, had certain defi- 
 nite objects in view, and who, as Clause- 
 witz says, looked on war simply as a 
 continuance of diplomacy by other means. 
 The only bad mistakes that the Germans 
 have made have been in psychology. In 
 this respect they have, during the last 
 few years, made some grievous errors, 
 and have quite misunderstood the mental 
 attitude of other nations. 
 
 A Prussian is a tremendous believer in 
 brute force and in the necessity of inspir- 
 ing his enemies with a sense of fear. As 
 you know, I have from the time I left 
 Harrow been a great deal in Germany, 
 and have had exceptional opportunities 
 of studying the people and also the 
 Army. 
 
 The Prussian proper was and is feared, 
 but hated, by other Germans. How well 
 I remember in the late 'seventies the 
 
 house of Baron H , in a town in the 
 
 86
 
 On What we are Fighting A gainst 
 
 province of Hanover ! He was of British 
 descent, but had commanded a Hussar 
 regiment in the Hanoverian army, and 
 had with his Hussars broken three Prussian 
 squares at Langensalza, the last battle 
 the Hanoverians had for their freedom. 
 Into this house no Prussian officer was 
 allowed to enter, and on a prominent 
 table in his drawing-room was placed a 
 Prussian helmet which had written on 
 it the following words from a well-known 
 speech by Bismarck, " Macht geht vor 
 Recht durch Blut und Eisen" which, as 
 you know, means " Might counts more 
 than right through blood and iron." 
 These are Prussian principles. I also re- 
 member Countess K , the wife of a 
 
 Colonel of Hanoverian Dragoons, who had 
 also fought against the Prussians in the 
 same battle. When war broke out with 
 France the Prussians tried to seize all 
 prominent Hanoverians, and as Countess 
 
 K refused to disclose the whereabouts 
 
 of her husband, she was put into prison 
 by the Prussians and was treated as an 
 g 87
 
 A General } s Letters to His Son 
 
 ordinary criminal, although she had a 
 baby with her, who died in prison. They 
 were, even then, neither over-nice nor 
 over-squeamish in their methods. Talking 
 
 of Baron H reminds me of wars of 
 
 other days. In another war he had gone 
 out of his way to kill a standard-bearer in 
 order to capture the standard, and his 
 conscience afterwards pricked him for 
 having taken the life of this man in order 
 to gratify his pride, so he instituted in- 
 quiries as to the man's identity, and 
 pensioned his widow for the rest of her life. 
 
 Stories of old wars teem with pictur- 
 esque incidents, and especially with the 
 chivalry always displayed by our whilom 
 enemies and gallant Allies of to-day. No 
 man shouid bear an old opponent ill-will 
 as long as he fought him fair and square, 
 but it is hard to forgive a blow below the 
 belt. 
 
 The officer class in Germany has an 
 
 elaborate code of honour with regard to 
 
 duelling, but, except in this respect, the 
 
 Germans have no idea of fair-play, and 
 
 88
 
 On What we are Fighting A gainst 
 
 only enjoy a fight when they are two or 
 three to one. As a boy . I had personal 
 experience of this. 
 
 The following story is illustrative : An 
 Englishman, who is now high up in our 
 Service, previous to entering the Army 
 was studying German at a small town, 
 and one day was quietly skating when 
 three German students, seeing an English- 
 man alone, attacked him with clubbed 
 skates. He defended himself for some 
 time, but eventually quitted the ice and 
 ran, followed by his opponents. He was 
 a good runner, and after going half a 
 mile so as to get his antagonists well 
 separated, he turned, and laid them all 
 out, one after the other, two of them 
 being laid up for three months. The 
 authorities wanted to send him to prison, 
 but a friendly high personage intervened 
 and he got off. Individually, the Ger- 
 mans are not a match for our men, but 
 in disciplined bodies are, as we well know, 
 very formidable antagonists. Prince Ho- 
 henlohe in his Letters of Cavalry, written 
 89
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 after the Franco-German War, states that 
 it is in disorder that the French are most 
 dangerous ; and a German officer of high 
 rank, who was in the Franco-German War, 
 admitted to me that in wood-fighting or 
 in any place where the fighting spirit of 
 the individual man came into play, the 
 Germans were not a match for the French, 
 although in disciplined bodies they at 
 that time always beat them. All this is 
 being proved over and over again in the 
 present war. Another thing which makes 
 the Germans so formidable as a nation 
 is their industry. A friend of mine, who 
 was in a commercial town in the Far East, 
 asked how it was that the Germans had 
 increased so much in prosperity. It was 
 evening when he asked the question, and 
 all Englishmen had long before gone to 
 their amusements or their club. The man 
 to whom he put the question pointed to 
 the windows of some German firms, where 
 lights were still burning, and said, " That 
 is why." 
 
 German education is most thorough, 
 90
 
 On What we are Fighting Against 
 
 and so is the recruit's training ; it is 
 wonderful what the recruits who join" in 
 October know by February, when they 
 are inspected by the Divisional Com- 
 mander. I have heard what were stupid 
 yokels questioned, and have been astounded 
 at their answers. Among other things 
 they had been taught to express them- 
 selves clearly, and have learnt how to 
 direct you intelligibly to any place they 
 themselves know. It is very seldom in- 
 deed that you can get an English recruit 
 to do this clearly. 
 
 The memoirs of Bismarck and other dis- 
 tinguished Germans clearly prove, if proof 
 be necessary, how absolutely unscrupulous 
 they have been in the attainment of their 
 aims. We are fighting about the most 
 ndustrious, and certainly the most dis- 
 ciplined, nation of modern times. The 
 leaders of the nation have staked every- 
 thing on victory, for if the Germans be 
 defeated I am convinced that we shall 
 hear no more of Hohenzollerns, of Haps- 
 burgs, or Prussianism, and the people will 
 9'
 
 A General 's Letters to His Son 
 
 take terrible revenge. The leaders of the 
 nation know all this much better than we 
 do, and they will fight to the bitter end, 
 for they are fighting with a rope round 
 their necks. But the end is not yet. 
 
 You must remember that the German 
 people are, as a whole, particularly gullible, 
 and ready to believe anything which has 
 the official mark on it ; the vast majority 
 are firmly convinced of the justice of 
 their cause, and that their " German 
 God " is fighting for them. Their army 
 has, as we know, suffered tremendous 
 losses, but by making use of the popula- 
 tions of the territories they have con- 
 quered, by utilising their prisoners of 
 war, and by the organisation of labour 
 in their own country, they have managed 
 to withdraw every man of fighting age 
 from civil pursuits, and to put him in the 
 army. The consequence is that the army 
 numerically is very nearly as strong as 
 it was at the commencement of the war, 
 and is a huge and formidable fighting 
 machine, which, however, as well as the 
 92
 
 On What we are Fighting A gainst 
 
 motive force behind it, is founded on 
 materialism and brute force. Force, as 
 stated elsewhere, must be met by force, 
 but the greatest of battle chiefs has 
 declared that the moral is to the physical 
 as three is to one; and if, besides equal- 
 ling him on the material plane, the whole 
 attitude of our people and of our Army 
 gives us a right to claim that as a regene- 
 rate nation the moral forces are on our side, 
 we shall be invincible and must conquer 
 but don't forget the " IF." We aren't 
 doing it yet, and time presses. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 93
 
 10. 
 
 ON WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR 
 
 January 15th, 1917. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 You ask me what I consider the conse- 
 quences to us of defeat, or of only a partial 
 victory, would be. I will try to answer 
 your question. We are fighting not only 
 for all that makes life worth living for us 
 Englishmen, but also for everything which 
 makes the world a place worth living in. 
 If our victory should be only a partial 
 one, or if we should be compelled to make 
 peace without once and for all crushing 
 Prussianism by which I mean the party 
 and the spirit which acknowledges no 
 right but might, and is for ever clanking 
 its sword we should only be postponing 
 the evil day. The war would have to be 
 fought again later on, and would probably 
 be forced on us at a time which best 
 
 94
 
 On What we are Fighting For 
 
 suited our enemy, aud when all the Allies 
 at present fighting for freedom were not 
 prepared to take up the quarrel. Until 
 either one side or the other is thoroughly 
 defeated, Europe will be an armed camp. 
 I have been very much struck by hearing 
 women, in absolutely different grades of 
 society, say that, although they have 
 everything dear to them fighting, they 
 wish the war to continue until we have 
 an absolute victory, because they so dread 
 the idea of an inconclusive peace, and 
 the whole thing having to be done again. 
 The possibility of our being beaten is too 
 terrible to contemplate, but it is best 
 to look everything in the face. At the 
 commencement of the war we imagined 
 that it would be over well within a year. 
 After it had continued for a year the 
 Germans had not lost, but had added 
 to the territories which they had con- 
 quered. When it had lasted two years 
 they had added a great deal more, and 
 now Roumania has also fallen to them. 
 Our position has never been so perilous 
 95
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 as now that we are faced with the 
 submarine menace. 
 
 In every step they have been before us. 
 They were prepared when we were un- 
 prepared. They have always appreciated 
 the situation, and acted according to its 
 needs before we have done so. At an 
 early date they took steps to control 
 their supplies of food, and later they 
 mobilised labour. In all these things 
 we have followed suit very tardily, 
 and in a very half-hearted manner ; in 
 fact, they have throughout out-jockeyed 
 us, and if we are going to win we 
 must sit down and ride for all we are 
 worth. 
 
 That we should be defeated seems to 
 us inconceivable, and were we to be so, 
 it is not difficult to imagine what our 
 fate would be, dominated by the power 
 which has shown itself to be barbarous, 
 cruel, and grasping, and without a particle 
 of honour or any regard for treaties 
 or undertakings. The victory of Kultur 
 would put back for a thousand years 
 q6
 
 On What we are Fighting For 
 
 the hands of the clock of true civilisation 
 and progress. 
 
 Those who have had anything to do 
 with the native races subject to Germany 
 can testify to the fact that die Schwarzen, 
 as they invariably call them, are treated 
 more brutally than dogs. I know the 
 case of a prince with an historic name, 
 belonging to a German Cuirassier Regi- 
 ment, who overstepped even the German 
 bounds, and was awarded penal servitude 
 for brutality to a woman in West Africa. 
 
 The Union Jack floats over something 
 like one-sixth of the whole earth, and, 
 take it all round, we have ruled our 
 dominions justly and well, and we owe 
 it to the races who are now subject to us 
 not to allow them to fall again under the 
 sway of the Junker. 
 
 I consider that our newspapers, and 
 public opinion generally, have been much 
 to blame in allowing the impression to 
 gain ground that we were winning the war, 
 and that, although it was costing us a 
 great many lives and a great deal of money, 
 97
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 the possibility of defeat was out of the 
 question. Perhaps it has been thought 
 advisable to assume this tone in order to 
 impress the enemy ; but whether it has 
 impressed him is open to grave doubt. 
 As regards our own people, I think that 
 with all our faults we cannot be accused 
 of chicken-heartedness, and we are not 
 disposed to be cowed by looking danger 
 in the face, but, on the contrary, to fight 
 an uphill battle well is a British character- 
 istic ; it is not until the game is nearly 
 lost that the true British spirit comes 
 out. Nee aspera terrent, which is a Guelph 
 motto, applies to the British race. If, 
 however, he thinks all is well, the Briton 
 is loath to adopt extreme measures or to 
 inconvenience himself unnecessarily. Be- 
 sides the stupendous issues which I have 
 touched on, we are fighting to preserve 
 the lives and the honour of our defence- 
 less loved ones, for the danger of invasion 
 is not yet over. Another incentive which 
 men at the front have to do their best, 
 is the pride those in their homes in England 
 98
 
 On What we are Fighting For 
 
 take in their deeds. If a non-commissioned 
 officer or man gets the Military Medal 
 the whole village feels honoured, and the 
 town which produces a V.C. is prouder 
 than if it had been raised to the rank 
 of a city. On the other hand, the dis- 
 grace of the family representative must 
 be very bitterly felt, and it is difficult to 
 imagine the feelings of parents when in- 
 formed that their son has been shot for 
 desertion or for cowardice. In all times 
 and in all countries an illustrious ances- 
 try, giving high ideals to be lived up to, 
 has proved a great incentive to noble 
 deeds, and in behaving with gallantry 
 himself a man is giving a standard for 
 the future generations of his race to 
 emulate. I believe that in most cases 
 the knowledge of the joy which a man 
 has that his decoration will give to his 
 belongings is the greatest pleasure which 
 the award brings. I can imagine the 
 pride of the mother who had eight sons 
 at the front, and also the poor time she 
 gave the other woman who had seven 
 99
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 sons, all of whom had avoided going out. 
 For many years our nation has become 
 more luxurious, less industrious, more 
 money-loving and more pleasure-seeking. 
 Those countries where the inhabitants 
 have been ravished and murdered have 
 awoke from their sleep and are taking 
 the war seriously, but no man can learn 
 his lessons by proxy, and we are not yet 
 awake. 
 
 Hundreds of millions are yearly being 
 spent on drink. The healthy population 
 of the countryside has decreased, and the 
 slums are congested on account of false 
 conceptions with regard to money- making, 
 which has become the national god. When 
 the eyes of the nation are sufficiently open 
 to see things in their proper perspective, 
 we may be considered fit to win ; but we 
 have still to go through that mill which 
 grinds very fine, but is necessary to turn 
 the wheat into flour. 
 
 Money and luxury now are everything, 
 and the very population of the country 
 is depending on their sway, 
 ioo
 
 On IVhat we are Fighting For 
 
 The law of nature is that young people 
 should marry and rear families ; now, how- 
 ever, especially in the upper and middle 
 classes, the very classes which can best 
 afford to educate their children, the age 
 of marriage is very much later than it 
 was in the olden days, and consequently 
 families are smaller. This is by no means 
 the only cause of small families ; a more 
 important reason is that parents wishing 
 to have a " good time " take precautions 
 to ensure that they shall not "be fruitful 
 and multiply." It is said that Napoleon 
 always refused to take notice of a married 
 woman who had no children. He knew 
 what France wanted. 
 
 If the result of the war be the raising 
 of the national ideal, it will, in spite of 
 all its horrors and all its sacrifices, prove 
 to be a blessing and not a curse. Ruskin 
 says : "I found, in brief, that all great 
 nations learned their truth of word and 
 strength of thought in war : that they 
 were nourished in war and wasted in 
 peace ; taught by war and deceived by 
 
 IOI
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 peace; trained by war and betrayed by 
 peace ; in a word, that they were born in 
 war, and expired in peace." War gives 
 to the men actually taking part in it 
 high ideals ; it brings out courage, gener- 
 osity and self-sacrifice, and generally brings 
 men up against the realities of life. It is 
 less our soldiers than our people who have 
 their lessons still to learn. All our Allies 
 have fought magnificently, and the chief 
 burden of the war of the West rested for 
 a long time on the French ; but now every- 
 thing depends on us English. I have 
 told you what we are fighting for viz. 
 everything we hold sacred and it is 
 incumbent on us, not only for our own 
 sakes, but for that of the whole world, 
 both present and future, in every way 
 and by using every force that lies in us, 
 spiritual, intellectual, and material, to 
 leave no stone unturned to obtain victory. 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 1 02
 
 11. 
 
 ON HONOURS AND REWARDS 
 
 February 1st, 1917. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 You tell me that your friend Jack has 
 received the Military Cross, and that 
 although he is a good fellow and un- 
 doubtedly merited it, Ronald, who de- 
 served a decoration twice as much, did 
 not even receive a mention in dispatches. 
 Except in that it will give great pleasure 
 to his relations, I don't suppose that Jack 
 is much happier than Ronald, if the latter 
 is the man I believe him to be. He 
 knows that he has done his duty, and he 
 further knows that his friends are aware 
 of it. Had he also gained a Military 
 Cross, this Military Cross would not, to 
 the outer world, be distinguishable from 
 any other which had not been so well 
 deserved. 
 
 H IO3
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 You also remark that it seems that the 
 farther you are away from the firing line 
 the more chance you have of being decor- 
 ated, and that you hear that junior officers 
 and men in the trenches resent the same 
 decorations, which have been issued to 
 them at the rate of about one to every 
 twenty or thirty casualties, being dis- 
 tributed with a proportionately freer hand 
 to others who have never got much farther 
 than the base. You must remember that 
 the work for which these men have been 
 rewarded is, as a rule, more important 
 for the general well-being of the force than 
 the work of individual men in the trenches , 
 and that this work, as a rule, requires 
 special qualifications. Moreover, many of 
 the men who do not succeed in getting 
 farther than the base would give their 
 eyes to be in the firing line, though I 
 admit this is not always the case. Never- 
 theless, I agree with you that it would be 
 much more popular amongst officers and 
 men in fighting formations if some other 
 distinctions besides the V.C. could be 
 104
 
 On Honours and Rewards 
 
 reserved for work done in the face of the 
 enemy. I also wish it could be found 
 possible to give every man who actually 
 passed one hundred nights in the trenches 
 some distinctive badge of honour. In 
 order to be a hundred nights in the 
 trenches, the Division to which the man 
 in question belonged would, as a rule, 
 have been at least seven or eight months 
 in the line whilst he was present with 
 it, and this means something. 
 
 But, after all, what do these decorations 
 really matter ? Is it a greater satisfaction 
 to a man to own a little piece of silver or 
 bronze than to know that he has done 
 his duty to the best of his ability ? Do 
 you remember the extract from the diary 
 of the German soldier, which appeared 
 in one of our papers, and read as follows ? 
 
 Monday. It rained heavily, and our 
 Lieut. Miiller was drunk. 
 
 Tuesday. The English shelled us, and 
 our Lieut. Miiller was very drunk. 
 
 Wednesday. The English shelled us more 
 105
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 heavily, and our Lieut. Muller was drunk 
 and incapable. 
 
 Thursday. We were ordered to attack. 
 Our Lieut. Muller called out to us from his 
 dug-out to advance more rapidly. 
 
 Friday. Nil. 
 
 Saturday. Nil . 
 
 Sunday. Our Lieut. Muller received the 
 Iron Cross. 
 
 The fact that he had so thoroughly 
 deserved it no doubt very much added 
 to the value of " our Lieut. Miiller's " 
 decoration. 
 
 It is significant that those decorations 
 which are most prized are usually those 
 of the least intrinsic value. The bay 
 leaf cost even less than the Victoria 
 Cross. What becomes of decorations, to 
 obtain which has been some men's highest 
 ambition ? 
 
 A friend of mine, who takes a great 
 
 interest in everything connected with the 
 
 history of the British Army, has made 
 
 a collection of medals and now has many 
 
 1 06
 
 On Honours and Rewards 
 
 thousands. Nearly all of them had been 
 in the hands of pawnbrokers before they 
 found their way to him, although many 
 of them are inscribed with illustrious 
 names. 
 
 The following story of the German 
 Emperor was told me by a highly placed 
 German officer who knew him well. The 
 old Emperor could always be distin- 
 guished from his Staff by the fact that 
 he wore no decoration except the Iron 
 Cross. This simplicity, however, did not 
 suit the gaudy taste of the present Kaiser, 
 and he very much envied the right to 
 wear a certain handsome aiguillette which 
 was worn by nobody but the Emperor's 
 personal Staff, and he objected to being 
 the only plainly dressed man among a 
 glittering assembly. The order decreeing 
 that this aiguillette was only to be worn 
 by the Staff was an ancient one, with 
 which he did not like to tamper, but he 
 was not to be beaten, and on the anni- 
 versary of the birthday of the old Emperor, 
 in honour, as he decreed, of the memory 
 107
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 of his grandfather, he appointed himself 
 and all his direct descendants in the Crown 
 of Prussia as Aides-de-Camp to the dead 
 Emperor, and from that day he has worn 
 the aiguillette. I mention these incidents 
 to show how valueless an Iron Cross, how 
 ephemeral a medal conferring honour on 
 a family, or how ludicrous the acquisition 
 of a decoration may be. The only reward 
 really worth having is the knowledge that 
 you have done your duty, and whether 
 your work be recognised, or whether you 
 be blamed and others get the credit for 
 what you have done, should not worry 
 you as long as you have this knowledge 
 in your heart. Your motive must be to 
 do the best you can for your country 
 and not to play to the gallery in order 
 to obtain a reward. Do not give way 
 to selfish vanity ; it is not the acquisition 
 of honours and rewards, but the abnega- 
 tion of self that has wrought out all that 
 is noble, all that is good, and nearly all 
 that is useful in the world. 
 
 The man who does work which comes 
 108
 
 On Honours and Rewards 
 
 under the eye of those in high position is 
 likely to receive a decoration. The man 
 who, day after day, and night after night, 
 works unremittingly under shell fire in 
 the trenches, waist-high in water, is much 
 more likely to get a bullet than a men- 
 tion, but he may have got farther through 
 that mill about which I was talking, 
 and through which all the corn has to go 
 before it becomes flour, and he may have 
 learnt and acquired things worth more 
 than decorations. Again, do you think 
 success has made those of your friends to 
 whose lot it has fallen to obtain it pleas- 
 anter men to meet ? Is it not true that 
 the only men who are not spoilt by it 
 are those who do not care one straw 
 about it ? How many of these do you 
 know ? 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
 109
 
 12. 
 
 ON FACING DEATH 
 
 March 1st, 1917. 
 My dear Dick, 
 
 You ask me whether I believe in 
 Kismet. It is a difficult question to 
 answer, and one I cannot undertake to 
 discuss in this letter. In many ways I 
 agree with the men who say, " If you 
 are for it, you are for it," and a man 
 who is always trying to save his own 
 skin may be killed by a stray bullet a 
 mile behind the line, or run over at a 
 street crossing in London when he comes 
 home on leave. All the same, a man 
 who is always " asking for it " is sure to 
 get it in the long run. I am fully aware 
 that what I have said is illogical ; but 
 without entering into a long discussion, 
 which I have no intention of doing, I 
 cannot better explain myself, though I 
 no
 
 On Facing Death 
 
 think I can give you some practical rules 
 to govern your conduct. 
 
 Should you ever be called on to per- 
 form a task which looks like spelling cer- 
 tain death, and honour and duty demand 
 your doing it, you must, of course, not 
 hesitate. On the other hand, unless your 
 duty demand it, you should take all 
 ordinary precautions to avoid being shot, 
 remembering that any man who is of 
 value to his country and all of us are 
 at the present moment of value to our 
 country and who allows himself to be 
 shot unnecessarily, is doing not a good 
 but a harm to his country, and is perform- 
 ing an unpatriotic act. 
 
 There are many sorts of vanity, and 
 perhaps the least inexcusable is a man's 
 pride in his courage ; but even this is 
 vanity, and for a man to expose himself 
 unnecessarily on account of vanity, and 
 in order to show how brave he is, is not 
 playing the game. He holds his life in 
 trust for his country, to spend if necessity 
 demands its sacrifice, but not to throw 
 in
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 it away. There are, on the other hand, 
 occasions when the necessity of giving an 
 example renders it necessary for an officer 
 to run a great risk of being killed, and, 
 if the situation demand it, this risk must 
 be taken. The ruling factor must always 
 be the good of the cause, and you must 
 not forget that a trained officer is not 
 easy to replace, and he should not per- 
 form dangerous duties which can equally 
 well be discharged by a private. It may 
 be argued that the man's life is as dear 
 to the man as the officer's is to the officer, 
 but that is not the point at issue. A 
 trained officer is of more value to his 
 country and harder to replace than is 
 the man. Do you throw down a shilling 
 for an article which a penny will buy ? I 
 have heard of small patrols consisting of 
 two officers and three men penetrating far 
 into the enemy's lines. These two officers 
 were, without doubt, capable men who 
 could not be spared, and for them to 
 undertake this duty was wrong. If there 
 had been sixty men it would have been 
 
 112
 
 On Facing Death 
 
 justifiable to have sent two officers, but 
 with three men it was not right. 
 
 In spite of assertions to the contrary that 
 I have often heard made, I do not believe 
 any man likes being under fire, and when a 
 man make6 this assertion I am more 
 inclined to doubt his veracity than to 
 admire his courage. I know, however, 
 that some cool, brave men can think as 
 clearly when under hot fire as they could 
 do if they were miles away, and to obtain 
 this command over your nerves should 
 be your ambition. 
 
 Whenever you think that by doing 
 some deed you will undoubtedly further 
 your cause you must do it, irrespective 
 of all consequences ; but before you 
 commit yourself to doing it be certain 
 that the game is likely to be worth the 
 candle. 
 
 I always remember the story of an 
 Indian Native officer on the frontier, who, 
 seeing a ghazi on the point of pressing 
 his trigger at his Colonel, rushed forward, 
 and himself took the bullet, thus saving 
 "3
 
 A Generals Letters to His Son 
 
 the Colonel's life. He said as he died, " I 
 did this for the good of the Regiment, 
 which could not spare the Colonel Sahib." 
 From the Regiment's point of view he 
 was putting down a shilling to save a 
 sovereign. The epitaph of the good Earl 
 of Courtenay, quoted by Gibbon, ran 
 as follows : " What I spent I had, what I 
 had I lost, what I gave I have ; " and I 
 think the words apply as much if the gift 
 be life as they do if it be pelf. 
 
 We all have to die, and it is not a matter 
 of much moment whether it comes a 
 little sooner or a little later. How many 
 months of your life would you care to live 
 over again ? If there should be one or 
 two you are fortunate ; there are cer- 
 tainly no whole years. There was always 
 a little worm in the pleasure which pre- 
 vented its being quite perfect. You are 
 young and think that there are hundreds 
 of perfect months for you in the future, 
 but they don't come. All the same, it is 
 your bounden duty to your country not 
 to lose your life unnecessarily. 
 114
 
 On Facing Death 
 
 If you consider the matter you will, I 
 think, admit that the keenest joy you have 
 ever had has been the result of some 
 action which has given joy to other people, 
 and the greater the sacrifice you have 
 made, the greater, as a rule, your pleasure 
 in contemplating what you have done. 
 If so, the greatest joy should follow the 
 greatest gift. I am presuming, of course, 
 that in giving his life a man is doing it, 
 not for any selfish or ambitious reason, 
 but wholly because it is his duty and 
 his country demands it. 
 
 In some book about the Russo-Japanese 
 War I read the speech a Japanese Colonel 
 made to his Regiment before a night 
 attack. It began, " Some of us will not 
 be so fortunate as to have the honour 
 of giving our lives for our country to- 
 night, and we must endeavour not to 
 give them unnecessarily, as they may be 
 wanted for another occasion, . . . etc." 
 One soldier in going forward was heard 
 to say, " Let thy soul meet mine to- 
 night at the tomb of our mother." The 
 "5
 
 A General's Letters to His Son 
 
 spirit which governed this attack was 
 invincible. 
 
 Of one thing I am quite sure, and that 
 is that this existence is only a phase in 
 our lives, and that we all have to learn 
 our lessons sooner or later. Who knows 
 but that the very periods which we are 
 in the habit of looking on as waste and 
 fallow, when we are conscious of injustice, 
 when everything goes wrong, when we 
 are thwarted and baulked in our en- 
 deavours to help our cause, and are not 
 in a position to pull our full weight, are 
 not the very periods when we are advanc- 
 ing most, fitting ourselves for greater 
 things, and making most progress to- 
 wards obtaining decorations which will 
 not find their way to the pawnbroker's ? 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 " X. Y. Z." 
 
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