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ILLINOIS

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MILITARY
DISCIPLINE

By H. L. WEST

CHICAGO

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
407-429 Dearborn Street

Copyright 1903, by M. A. Donohue & Company, Chicago. IllMILITARY; DISCIPLINE

By H. L WEST

However important the temperance question may be in th
civil or social life of a nation, it can have no standing in a
army. The army is a mere instrument and the purpose of a
army organization is: to place into the hands of the executiv
power of a state the absolute control over the individual conduc
of the soldier and to prescribe his every action and behavior. <
all professions the profession of arms is the most honorable, and
nothing is more shocking and strikes the mind with a greater
horror than a mob of drunken soldiers. Drunkeness in a soldier
is inexcusable and is caused by a defect in army organization.
The essence of all military science is discipline. Yet military dis-
cipline is little understood. It is not alone a mystery but a mijr-
acle. All history teaches only one lesson. The general who has
discovered the secret of a military discipline has been successful
beyond belief. Armies into which this principle has been intro-
duced became not alone invincible in the field; they revived in
the nation all human virtue: Obedience, sobriety and industry.
The armies of Alexander, Caesar and Cromwell were remarkable
for their discipline. They were never beaten in the field and
never, regardless of numbers, failed to break in pieces any force
opposed to them. Such armies have always fostered the very
highest excellence of human conduct. True military discipline
introduces among a people an element of greatness which has al-
ways placed*the nation at the head of affairs in the polity of the
world. To this rule the United States is no exception. After
the Civil War its political elements were organized by the remark-
able discipline of^its volunteer army.

During the entire life of the American republic many persdns
have reached the highest eminence. We name with pride George
Washington, the father of his country, and Abraham Lincoln, the
liberator of its-slaves. There are many gems of literature whichhave been read either in the original or translation by every
educated person in the world. We possess the great inventions
of the age, the steam-boat, electric cable, sewing-machine and
binder. Our financiers influence the capital of the world. In
each individual case the statesman, the poet or novelist, the in-
ventor and financier was allowed to ripen in an atmosphere of
his own and he thus became the exponent of the genius of a great
nation. The giant strides made in the civilization of the last
hundred years originate in the fact that in America each individ-
ual, even the most lowly, can become great in any branch of
human development.

To this rule there is a notable exception. There are to-day
at least ten thousand young men, the flower of American youths
and the true possessors of the ingenious learning of the nation,
studying military tactics and practicing military exercises in the
private military schools of the nation. In the event of a great
war these persons will officer the volunteer army of the United
States. They are excluded from the regular army because con-
gress has retained a military system which was borrowed from
Prussia in the decline of the eighteenth century. The brilliant
victories of Fredrick the Great had made this system popular and
it was introduced into the United States before its defects, in
the wars of Napoleon, had caused those military disasters which
threatened Prussia with an extinction from which she has es-
caped only by a miracle.

Of all the nations of antiquity Carthage- alone had a similar
system. Her troops were mercenaries. Besides these she had a
select body, a .kind of school where her nobles learned the rudi-
ments of "warfare, and it was from this school that her officers by
land and sea were selected. This system was necessary to keep
the multitudes of her subject provinces in submission. To keep
an army from fraternizing with a people, a class of commanders
is created, whose interests differ from the interests of the masses.
This system is best illustrated by an African or Sepoy regiment
in which the rank and file are natives and the officers are white
men. This is a white man's army for all impulses come from
the white men. As soon as the natives rebel they are without
an organization and become a self-destroying mob easily put down
by a few companies of loyal troops. To create such a class of
commanders in the Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies there was created a nobility by patent, and titles of nobility
\yere given to all younger sons. All officers aboveKthe grade of
sergeant were selected from this class. In France this was car-
ried so far that a person was obliged to verify pure blood in four
generations of ancestry before he could receive a commission, even
a,s a subaltern of militia. This system made a^traffic in military
slaves possible. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Denmark and all German states sold young men to England
ajnd Holland. Hesse Cassel alone with a population of 400,000
&bld 19,000 for the sum of 17.000,000 of our money. Ofthese 12,000 returned. They were injured in health and
passed the remainder of their lives in an invalid existence.
English commissioners examined these men and they were sold
by their government as if they had been cattle. The bishops of
Munster sold his Catholic subjects to Protestant England. Lady
Craven the mistress of Alexander von Ansbach sold 1,200 to Eng-
land and upon their refusal to march they were transported out
of the country in chains. The slaves of Hanover were stationed
at Gibraltar while the Hessians fought Hyder Ali, Tippoa Saib
and George Washington. The cause of Seume was peculiar. He
was himself an ardent republican. While traveling through Hesse
he was thrown into prison. He was sold to England and trans-
ported td America where he was incorporated into the Hessian
contingent of the English army. His perusal of Horace attracted
the attention of his officer who made him a sergeant. George
Washington with the accidental loss of four men captured a
thousand of these slaves at Trenton./ The adoption of the mili-
tary system of ancient Germany has created in the United States
a regular army of mercenary troops in which the rank and file
are procured by enlistment. These men are governed by officers
whose appointment is permanent and depends almost exclusively
upon political favor/ As soon as the officer receives his patent
he has a permanent right to his salary during active life with a
pension at his retirement. The number appointed is arbitrary,
and without regard to the size of the army. This was one of the
features of this system in Germany. In Saxony there were one
hundred and sixty-eight generals with an army of seventeen thous-
and. Bavaria had six thousand soldiers, of which number
two thousand were commissioned officers. The bishop of Mayence
had twelve generals with an army of three thousand, while
Limpurg Stirium had an army of one general, six colonels and
two privates.	j

To train her officers the United States has provided a school
at West Point. Here, by tacit consent, a code of ethics has been
established. The banquet and the dancing hall play a promi-j
nent part in the life of West Point. The abstainer, the religious j
or the studious person who has no taste -for a social life is con j
sidered unfit for an officer. Life to him is made unbearable'
and he is crowded out of the army before he has obtained hiij
commission.

Results have always been disastrous when the law granted t<.
a single school the exclusive monopoly of one branch of science
Knowledge in such a school degenerates into pedantry. Th,
student is filled with his own importance. Originality of though!
is suppressed. The student is formed after a model and wi.|
himself become a model until, in a few generations, all semblancl
to the original model is lost. "This course of education cause!
the same features that are brought about in a herd by a coursl
of constant inbreeding. The effects of this inbreeding of thougm
are now the most prominent features in the regular army, il

4military science has become imbecile. A large army in the
United States must be built from the ground up, and must first
learn, by experience, what science would reap from the experience
of the past. This was Lincoln's great difficulty in the Civil War.
In our war with Spain a small army of two hundred thousand
was mobilized. It was at once infected with typhus. With
its enormous resources, its fleet of fast steamers, and an open
communication, the United States failed to supply a handful
of men at the battle of Santiago with necessary supplies.

In the dawn of German histor}^ the company, or hundred,
formed the unit of the military establishments of her races. To
each soldier, during his service, a farm was given. The farms
of the company were a county, and one of their number who
stood upon a footing of equality with the rest and had an allot-
ment was their officer, called "Earl." In the course of time
the earlship became hereditary, or was granted by patent. The
earl became an outsider. He retained his title, his duties were
performed by the sheriff. In modern times no farms are granted
to the soldier during enlistment. In all else we have only
changed names. The earl to-day is called a captain. He is
created by commission. He is an outsider and has no practical
knowledge. He has the title and authority. The duty is per-
formed and the practical knowledge is furnished by the sergeant.
The regulations of the United States make the non-commissioned
officer responsible for the discipline in camp. Under this regula-
tion a small army was concentrated near Chickamauga. The
sanitation of this camp was similar to the sanitation of the in-
famous bull pen of Andersonville prison. The soldiers drank
the water of Chickamauga creek, which was contaminated by
the excrementa of regiments and the effluvia of their horse camps
and hospitals. In less than thirty days fifty per cent were in
the hospitals, and the railways were carrying dead and dying
soldiers in every direction. The president ordered a prompt
investigation. This published the fact that most .of the United
States camps were in a state of sanitation which had not existed
since the days of Gustavus Adolphus. No blame could attach v
to the sergeant. He was unable to enforce a discipline which
vdoes not exist in the army of the United States, and which can
be introduced only by an act of congress. The captains and
higher officers had no concern in this matter. To keep a camp /
clean was plainly outside of the sphere of their duty. In Europe
and America the employment of irregular troops finds no favor.
There exists in the United States an irregular troop called "State
Militia." The volunteer army was largely recruited from the
State Militia, and on this account there was much crimination.
Yet, the militia, as such, had failed to exist. The officers and
men had been properly incorporated. They were subject to the x
regulations, they had become part of the regular army and
their death rate was no greater than that of the regular regi-
ments. Their officers at once fell into the ways of the regular

5officer. Their commission from the United States swept away
the small amount of discipline which exists in the militia; for, in
the latter, an incompetent officer can readily be ejected. These
officers promptly divorced title from duty, and authority from
responsibility. During the Spanish War there was issued a ration
of canned beef. This food was wholesome, but unpalatable to
persons not accustomed to food in a southern climate. It should
.be the duty of the commissary officer of every company to make
a report of any defect of the supplies, and a thousand reports
should have flown through the channels of the commissary depart-
ment to the commissary general. The sergeant has no authority
to make this report. The authority is with the captain. He
is an outsider, has a ration of his own, and does not partake of
the soldiers' food. The reports, therefore, were never made
and the commissary general was unadvised until the matter was
forcibly brought to his notice by the commanding general, wl^o
destroyed tons of this food by casting it into the sea. At the
investigation an attempt was made to throw the blame for the
sickness of the army upon the commissary contractor. There
exists a parallel case in history. In the reign of Ferdinand the
Catholic, during the Italian wars, the Spanish army, although
without supplies and under the most unwholesome conditions
while encamped in the overflown fever swamps of the river Gari-
gliano, preserved its health, while the French, who were located
on higher and healthier ground, with plentiful supplies, were
corrupted by sickness and were finally totally overthrown. The
French king arbitrarily hanged the commissary contractors.
The French disaster, however, originated in the absence of all
discipline, while the Spanish success was caused by the admirable
discipline, introduced into Spain by her greatest captain, Gonsalvo
de Cordova. A discipline which, for several generations, made
the army of Spain the terror of Europe and gave to a few ad-
venturers the treasure of Mexico and Peru.

Without doubt the sergeant is an officer of the first importance.
It is recorded of Cromwell that, in the beginning of his military
career, he often familiarly invited some one of his non-commis-
sioned officers to pass the night with him in bed. The German
soldier calls this officer his "Company mother." The late Presi-*
dent McKinley, when holding this office at the battle of Antietam,
cooked food with his own hands and carried it to his men in the
fighting line. Afterwards, when commissioned, he provisioned
Hooker's entire army. Campaigning in the Civil War was a failure
until such men of affairs and practical knowledge assumed author-
ity over the companies and battalions of the nation.

In all bodies of men there are natural leaders. All through
history we can trace the observance or violation of this trait of
human character. The success of all military expedition depends
on the conduct of the officer. Whenever any qualifications,
except the ability to lead men, is made the standard of appointment
to office, then the decay of the military life of the nation is at

6once perceptible. Nothing is so dishonorable to a man of spirit
as to serve under an incompetent officer. The satrap, proud
of his birth, his family, his revenue, his title, and his political
influence always adopts a false standard of glory. To him the
measure of greatness is social distinction and luxurious profussion.
He treats with disdain the man who has risen by the force of
his own character, and looks upon him as an upstart to be put
down on all occasions. This treatment is resented whenever
possible. The instinct of the masses turns to their natural leaders
and it often happens that the army, instead of being lead into the
face of the enemy, is unaccountably dissolved. This principle
is illustrated by the most prominent battles of ancient and modern
times. It always denotes absence of discipline.

1.	Our childish fancy has been stimulated by the story of Xerxes, who set in motion
the known world in order to crush two small cities, Athens and Sparta. We can hardly
understand how a few men could not alone resist but destroy such great disparity of numbers.
The secret is explained when we consider that the Persian soldier was taken from his home
by force, and was officered by men who were most prominent on account of wealth, birth,

^luxury of entertainments, splendor of equipments and the number of their guards, slaves,
^houses, eunuchs and women. The Greek, on the other hand, was a volunteer, whose
officer was carefully selected on account of military ability and fitness for the position.

2.	Ten thousand hostile Greeks traversed the Persian empire and defied its colossal
military power. It was as if a small body of ten thousand Europeans had been deprived
of their officers, had been turned loose at Chicago, had successfully traversed the states
and had safely arrived at the port of New York, after compelling the people on their way
to yield their provisions and treasure. We at once think of the telegraph and rifle, yet
Persia possessed fleet horses, and the sword when matched against the sword has
proven as deathly as the rifle. After their officers had been treacherously slain, these Greeks
were obliged to establish a true military discipline, by selecting their ablest men to lead
them.

3.	The resources of ancient Carthage far exceeded the resources of Rome. The
former had absorbed the wealth of the Mediterranean. She possessed large parts of Africa,
all of Sardinia and Corsica, as well as half of Sicily and Spain. She was unable to cope
with the military establishment of Rome. The success of Hannibal is traced to his allies,
those warlike Gauls and Germans, who inhabited the south of Italy. His African rein-
forcements were easily defeated and when he was obliged to return to Africa and had to
depend on mercenary troops, officered from the military school of Carthage, his fame was
eclipsed at once and forever.

4.	Pompey, to whom the people of Rome had given the title of "The Great," was ap-
posed to Caesar at Pharsalia. His army outnumbered, twofold, the army of Caesar. His
officers were men who had always been called the better classes, on account of birth, wealth,
education and polite manners. Caesar, on the other hand, had enforced a strict discipline
and had dismissed from his legions all officers who were incompetent and had received
their appointment by favor. In two hours the battle was over and Pompey's camp was
taken. Entire legions had fled without striking a single blow.

5.	On the 15th November, 1757, at Rossbach, Frederick the Great sat in his tent
at dinner. Around him was encamped his army of 22,000. The imperial and French
officers, who had been selected on account of their noble pedigree, with an army of 50,000
were eager to surround him and to close to him every avenue of escape. All at once, the
Prussians formed into line of battle. A panic took possession of the French and the battle
became a hunt in which Prussians became the huntsmen.

6.	At Valmey, on the 20th September, 1792, the Prussians refused to charge the
troops of Kellerman. 'King Frederick William went in person to compel them to advance.
He was obliged to withdraw after a useless cannonade. The French soldier here learned
that an army officered from the ranks is superior to a machine officered by the scions of
great houses and from that day the French army walked through Europe on the wings
of victory.

7.	On October 14, 1806, at Jena, the Prussians were unable to avoid a battle, for
the French army came pouring upon them through two valleys and attacked them on
both sides at once. They fled in wild confusion. The same morning, twelve miles from
Jena, a detachment, under Devoust, came upon the main army of the Duke of Brunswick.
The Prussians here were of vastly superior numbers. Blucher, ignorant of grammar or
rhetoric, attempted a cavalry charge. He was carried away in the rout of his men. A
single day before it had fairly commenced had seen the destruction of the best drilled army
the world has ever seen. The officers had lost all control and the army was rapidly dispersed.
Blucher, alone, was able to collect a small remanant. He threw himself into the ancient
city of Lubeck, here he fought in the streets like a tiger. On November 17th, he surrendered
upon honorable terms, with eight thousand men. He wrote with his own hands to the
convention: "I capitulate because I have no bread and no ammunition left."

8.	At the first battle of Bull Run, a northern army officered by political favorites,
first gained a victory and then dispersed itself. Broken accoutrements of war littered
the road to Washington and whole regiments disappeared as if swept away by a cyclone.

7The word discipline is derived from disciple, which means
a follower. It is an honorable and impartial subordination
and applies impartially to every person in an army. Over all
is the commander-in-chief. All must alike obey him. He has
absolute control over all and may summarily punish any act of
insubordination. Philip, who introduced this principle into the
Macedonian army, punished with death a soldier who ought to
have stood by his arms but laid them down. SinGe the general
has this absolute power, he alone can be held responsible for any
misbehavior. In a well-disciplined army all men are ranked,
and he of the highest rank must a'ssume the power and
responsibility of the absent chief. All acts done in his pre-
sence are presumed to have been done by his command, expressed
or implied. In a mob of hazing of riotous soldiers he of the
highest rank, who should have assumed command and exerted
the power of the absent chief, is called the ringleader,* and
he alone is responsible and should be punished. This is the
only discipline by which the police regulation of an army can be.
made perfect. Over every subdivision of an army is placed
an officer who, in his department, has the power and responsi-
bility of the commander-in-chief. The condition of his depart-
ment reflects his ability or his incompetency and neglect. His
standing is rated by the efficiency of his troops and he is rewarded
or punished accordingly. In the German army of the present
day at each fall maneuvre there is a critical inspection. Im-
partially, all officers whose troops show a training below the
average are retired, while those whose troops excel are promoted.
Less than twenty per cent of the German officers belong to the
ancient nobility. It is this discipline which has placed the small
kingdom of Prussia at the head of military affairs in Europe.

This admirable discipline has been introduced into the railway
service of the United States, and it alone has made large corpora-
tions practical. A railway official is held responsible for every
act done in his department. A young man who finds himself
in a railway office of trust, if unable to run his department, without
friction, is soon thrown out of employment. This discipline
has done for the railway men what the discipline of CsBsar and
Cromwell did for the soldier. The drunken roustabout of fifty
years ago has become sober and industrious. He is now a prop-
erty owner and taxpayer, reliable and respected. A railway
commission of foreign experts has lately published a report on
this branch of our national life, with its wonderful discipline,
its exemplary behavior of the men, and its expeditious traffic,
at a cost much below Europe. Philip, by introducing it among
the Macedonians, revived the national courage. Marius, who
introduced it among the Romans, enlisted men of the lowest
condition, vagabonds, who were a burden upon the state, and

*Insubordinate soldiers sign their names in a circle. He of the highest
rank puts down his name first, hence the words circle ring or ringleader.he converted these men into soldiers so obedient, so patient
and industrious that they were called the mules of Marius. These
men became most determined in the face of an enemy and destroyed
those large armies of Germans who were irresistible when opposed
to other Roman generals. Where all persons are treated with
impartiality; where the best soldier is made a corporal; the best
corporal a captain and the best captain a general, there is pre-
sented to the new recuit a model of superior mental and physical
excellence, after which he is obliged to mold himself. It was
this principle which enabled Cromwell to convert bankrupt trades-
men and serving-men, out of employment, into those invincible
Ironsides, in whose presence the possession of property and female
virtue was sacred.

To make this subject more comprehensive, a military discipline
is here described as it must exist in the first inception of this
subject, and as it does exist in a modified form in every army.
No claim is laid to originality. Each item is copied from some
army regulation:

1.	The rank in each grade is established by seniority; i. e., the
officer or man with the oldest patent or enlistment is the senior
of his grade.

2.	The army is sized in such a manner that the men in each
company are practically of the same height.

3.	The exigencies of war require a fighting line, a support and
a reserve; therefore, all men are divided into groups of three.

4.	All enlistments are for three years so that one-third will
expire each year.

5.	Each group of privates is composed of a man in his first,
a man in his second, and a man in his third year of service. To
these is added a fourth, who has been retained after his service
on accQ^mt^^L^ellent conduct. He is the officer of the four.

o; rnreeiours form a squad,with a corporal. Three corporals
and their men form a section, with a subaltern. Three subalterns
and their men form a company, with a captain.

7.	All men are stationed according to their seniority, this
applies to all commands which are stationed according to the
seniority of the officer.

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8.	In the absence of his officer, the senior of the grade below
at once assumes the place and duties of his superior.

9.	All assignments of men are permanent. There is a series
of inspections. The rating of each group is carefully recorded,

9and the average record of each group establishes the honorableness
of the officer.

10. A vacancyisfilledbythemosthonorableof the grade below.

In this discipline; as in the army of King David, every person
is one of three. The person most honorable of his three is made
their captain. In such an army every man has his place and
upon the sign of battle being given the army rises spontaneously
into battle formation. For every fallen officer or man there
is a substitute until the support and reserve are exhausted. Strag-
gling is impossible and flight nearly so, for the coward would
meet a surer death from his officer who, having been selected
on account of soldierly qualities, would prefer death to dis-
grace. The three privates and their officer are in constant perso-
nal contact. They march in a body, eat at the same table and
sleep in the same tent. A reformation of the most criminal
is possible. The bowl would be snatched from the lips of the
drunkard and the officer, although himself under great suffering
from hunger and thirst, would prevent his men from eating
unwholesome food or drinking foul water.

1.	The first inovation is made when the reserve or third
rank, together with the officer designated as a corporal, is omitted.
The number of the section, inclusive of its officer, is now twenty-
five. To bring the company up to its one hundred, a fourth section
is added.

2.	The enlistments are next irregularly made. The men
are stationed from right to left, by height, and the leaders of
fours are omitted. All seniority in the ranks is now at an end.
There is no substitute for a fallen soldier, every causalty throws
the company into confusion and the death of a section leader
is fatal to the section. In ancient armies mechanical means
were substituted for discipline. The shields	to-
gether or the men were chained to each"*'other. In the modern-
army the presence of the officer is necessary and the company
must be constantly reorganized by word of ^command, which
must often be accompanied by insurmountable difficulties, so
that in a spirited action the men of regiments, brigades and
divisions may intermingle in confusion.

3.	The section leader is now called a non-commissioned offi-
cer. The company is divided into platoons, and over each platoon
is appointed an officer, whose qualifications are no longer honor-
ableness in the service. In Carthage, he was a citizen of the
city. In royal France, he was a nobleman of the purest blood.
In the United States, he must be a graduate from West Point.
In each case there is no practical knowledge of the duties of a
soldier, and as a rule the officer lacks that mental adaptability
so necessary in a soldier, for the soldier, like the poet, cannot
be made by citizenship, nobility or education. Generalship,
like poetry, is the divine gift of genius, most often conferred
upon him who is born in obscurity and among lowly surroundings.

104.	The army is next removed from the criminal jurisdiction
of the law courts. The officers' crimes and misdemeanors are
tried by a court martial, composed of men of his own class, who
look upon military license and arbitrary power as the pre-
rogative of their own order. In like manner, the soldier is made
the slave of his officer and jurisdiction over him is conferred
upon a court martial of his officers. Censorship is established.
The freedom of speech is denied and the publication of all facts
about the army is forbidden.

5.	The last vestige of discipline disappears when all promotions
'are made by seniority. The most incompetent now reach those
exalted stations of rank, which nature has reserved for men
of the highest mental endowment.

As the presence of discipline reforms, elevates and changes
the soldier into a being, as it were, superior- to other men, so
does its absence degenerate and degrade him. Absence of discipline
always manifests itself by military outrage. This reached its
climax during the religious wars in Germany, when every captain
recruited his own troop and became a law unto himself. The
water cure, which has made its appearance in the American
army, was then of usual practice. It was called a Swedish drink.
The German farmyard is paved and all liquid manure is carefully
collected in a cistern. The victim of the Swedish drink was
tied 10 a pole and in, his helpless condition was drenched from
the contents of the farmyard cistern. The word, tropical craze,
has been invented to deceive the ignorant and the vulgar. To
the student the savage licentiousness of an undisciplined army
presents the same features in all climates and among all races.
The captain who ill-treats a Philipino prisoner is in close fellow-
ship with captain Wirtz, who was hanged for the cruel treatment
of Union men aW - :lersonville prison. The American captain ;
who presses, wooden pofc'° the most sensory parts of a civilian
to make him confess, and' the Belgian captain who stakes .
negro children to ant heaps in t order to attract by their cries
the wild beasts of the still moonlight tropical forest presents the
same type as the imperial captain who, within fifteen degrees
of the artic circle pierced tjie human tongue with a one-eyed
awl and inserted into the wound a stretched horsehair or twisted
a knotted cord with a stick around the base of the skull, until
the head burst. This disgusting subject presents to the learned
the very lowest degeneration of mankind. An undisciplined
army is a moral leprosy, which depopulates the district in which
it is stationed, and threatens the unhappy native with all that
is most horrible a*nd dreadful in human nature.

Under the ancient system, the exigencies of war have often
found the nation with a dearth of persons legally qualified to
command. In this event, it became necessary to promote men
from the ranks, or to commission persons from the private walks
of life. In royal France these were called "Blue Officers," and
they were looked upon as the only competent persons in the

11army or navy of that nation. In the United States such men
are called volunteer officer^, and these have always gained the
highest respect of the nation. Their military title has been
a passport to all places of trust or profit. Both in the North
and in the South they have furnished the foremost statesmen
of the nation. During the Civil War, in the northern army, these
officers were carefully selected under Abraham Lincoln, himself
a self-educated leader, who had sprung from obscurity by the
force of his own mental powers. This discipline placed a mark
upon the best elements of American manhood. After the Civil
War this element took possession of the civil government, and
raised the nation to its present height of prosperity and power.
During the war with Spain volunteer officers were the only soldiers
who gained the applause of the nation. In this the United States
presents a singular phenomenon. The volunteer officers are selected
on account of merit, a standard most highly approved by history,
while the foundation of the regular army is political favorj a
standard considered among all races and in all ages as most
pernicious. The volunteer has always worked towards reform.
His efforts have been made nugatory by the traditions of the
regular school, and the United States is the only nation that
has not profited by its successful armies. The obscurity of the
regular army has prevented its reformation. The Spanish War
has made it prominent. The late President McKinley, himself
a volunteer officer and competent soldier, showed his distrust
of our military system by excluding from his cabinet any person
connected with the regular army. His secretary of war was,
a civilian, selected on account of his practical knowledge. Up
to this time this secretary of war has been retained by President
Roosevelt, who is also a popular volunteer officer. As for reform
in the army, it will be found impossible. Everything in this
direction is overborne by the men of the regular school and the
trend of affairs is in an opposite direction. One after another,
all the features of the military institutions of Europe are added
to our army. These find a congenial climate so that, like the
Russian thistle, oxeyed daisy, and English sparrow, they present
only the noxious side of their existence.

After the German system, with its military school, had taken
a firm root, and about the time of General Scott, the regular
army rejected the tactics of George Washington, Anthony Wayne,
Andy Jackson, and Sam Houston, and introduced into the army
the tactics of Europe. These are the only tactics now taught
in the United States. Our people may speak with contempt
of the English warfare in South Africa and with derision of the
English fighting line, yet, the English and American fighting
lines are identical and differ in this only: The English soldier,
when deploying, steps to the left of his file leader, while the Amer-
ican steps to the right. These tactics originated in the night of
Anglo-Saxon mythology. In Odin's Valhal, each gate was
of a width to admit eight hundred abreast. The English company

12has eight sub-sections, each of a maximum of ten files. This
makes a front of eighty, and in a battalion of ten companies.,
eight hundred, the exact number that could enter a gate of Valhal.
These battalions were formed into columns and represented
the wedge formation of the northern races that was hurled at
the enemy. The English quarter column is similar to the Mace-
donian phalanx, and has the prestige of the latter in an attack
or resistence. In these tactics the English have surpassed.
In their greatest battle the English used the ancient tactics of
Hastings. At Waterloo, as at Hastings, the English battalions
were massed upon the brow of a hill. Wellington did not commit
the error of King Harold, who confused his battalions by charging
the retreating French. At Waterloo the English were kept
at their station. The French cannon plowed furrows through
their naked ranks. Napoleon, too, used the tactics of the North
and hurled his wedge-shaped columns upon the English and,
although the English officers and men begged to be allowed to
advance, they were kept at their places until evening, when the
Prussian cannons proclaimed the end of the battle.

The ponderous formation of the charging column, like the
Egyptian square and4)he Macedonian phalanx, is without mobility
and has proven disastrous on many a field of battle. It no doubt
caused the destruction of those large and numerous armies of
Germans that invaded the Roman empire as long as Rome kept
up a military establishment. To crush, with numbers, has been
the warfare of the Germans in all ages, and Germany to-day
can mobilize millions of trained soldiers. On the other hand,
the Romans depended on discipline and science. Roman victories
are recorded in which, after slaying large numbers, the Romans
took more than their own number of prisoners.

These ponderous tactics of Europe were personally criticized
by America's greatest soldier, George Washington, and they
have proven especially disastrous to the English at New Orleans,
where an English army was destroyed by a small number of
Americans. These traditions of American history are taught
in the public schools. The American youth, when he first gets
possession of a modern rifle, will dream of the time when he will
come into contact with an enemy that uses these tactics. Little
does he know that our school has borrowed them from Europe
and that he will be called upon to perform an act which, from
his infancy, he has been taught to look upon as foolhardy. There-
fore, when ordered to hurl himself upon the enemy, he promptly
rejects his battalion formation. The brave American in this,
the greatest extremity of his existence, rallies around his battle
flag. His courage is no longer guided by art. He uses the instinct
of the pack, which gives tongue and precipitates itself upon
the quarry. In the face of stubborn resistence, the loss of life
is frightful. The genius of the nation turns to mechanics, and
arms to annihilate large bodies of troops have been invented.
These engines of destruction are used in the face of the foolish

13and plagiarized tactics of Europe and this has made warfare in
the United States exceedingly bloody and destructive. The result
of the Confederate charge at Gettysburg is well known. At Cold
Harbor, ten thousand Union men were killed in fifteen minutes.
It is reported that at Santiago an entire company was destroyed
by the explosion of a single shell. In a century the development
of military science has brought us back a thousand years. From
the tactics of Washington who, with the loss of four men, captured
a thousand Hessians, and of old Hickory who, with a loss of seven
men, annihilated an army of twelve thousand, the nation has
returned to the tactics of Blind King Harold Hildetant. Odin
himself then taught the art of destruction and the dead were
so numerous on every field of battle that only noblemen could be
counted. German tactics cause the nation to rely on numbers.
The United States finds itself in the position of Pompey, who
boasted that with a stamp of his foot he could fill all Italy with
soldiers. The nation counts its able-bodied men by millions
and can well afford to call out hundreds of thousands to be used
as food for the cannon and to be piled up in heaps of slain at every
strategic point.

In military retrogression another step #has been taken. To
the system and tactics of Germany its ancient military staff
has been added. Its importation is quite recent and its effects
in the army of the United States is not yet known. It is said
that one of the first duties will be the selection of songs for the
army. The civilizing influence of patriotic and moral music
is to be tried in its reformation. The establishment of a General
Staff in our republic may appear to many illogical, yet others
see in it a deep purpose. In every known army the officer cares
nothing for the soldier. His only care is promotion. In every
undisciplined army the promotion is made by political favor
and every effort is made by the officer to be present at a nation's
capital. In this manner an undisciplined army is burdened
with intrigue and the latter is the most destructive element
in an army. We have a fine example of this principle in the
armies of France. There is a vein of Gallic blood in this nation,
and its undisciplined armies have always shown that want of
organization for which this race is noted. All Celtic races possess
great individuality and have been unsurpassed when properly
disciplined. Their military successes foster individual ambition,
and the latter has rapidly caused the decadence of discipline.

The efficiency of the German army does not consist of its gen-
eral staff, its system, or its tactics. Without discipline these have
proven of no account. This discipline was introduced into Prussia
after the disaster of Jena, and was rigidly enforced by King
William, the first emperor of reorganized Germany. Every able
man in his kingdom was a soldier and his army was officered
by a scrupulous selection. In his army promotion was the reward
of merit and retirement was the result of incompetency. The

14fatter can always be impartially established by inspections, con-
ducted by different persons acting independent of each other.

The absence of discipline among the officers of an army causes
the ill-treatment and degradation of the soldier and leads to deser-
tion, dissipation and disease. No General Staff and no amount
of education can cure this defect of army organization. The only
possible reformation is the establishment of an impartial discipline
over all. The only substitute for the rejected canteen would
appear to be a law making it the duty of every citizen to notify
the secretary of war of any cause of intoxication in the army.
If, upon trial, the intoxication is proven, then the captain of
the troop should be promptly dismissed from the service and a
black mark should be placed against the name of every superior
officer in whose department the offense had been committed.
The same remedy should be applied in all causes of desertion.
This would assure the honorable treatment of the soldier. The
regulations of the United States are copied from the principal
armies of Europe. Under these regulations the soldier is unable
to drink a single drop of water without the knowledge of his
officer. That these regulations are copied without thought
and proper digestion appears upon their face. That their practical
application is not understood appears from the state of our army.
In this the military science of the United States differs from
all other branches of human knowledge. The nation leads in
agriculture, commerce, industry, transportation, mining, etc.,
and Americanized the world. In military science alone it copies
and aims to adapt itself to institutions that are irreconcilably
opposed to the spirit and genius of the nation. In Cuba, Porto
Kico and the Philippine Islands the private volunteers repaired
the highways, railwa}^s and locomotive engines. They laid a
network of telephone and telegraph lines. At the large camps
near Havana the water works, built by the incompetent engineers
of the army, collapsed and flooded the camp. They were promptly
reconstructed by private volunteers. When these men were
mustered out of the army they tossed their officers in blankets.
In Chicago they refused to be received as an organization, and
one regiment, the second Louisiana, promptly reorganized and
forcibly ejected its old officers from the home going trains. The
experience of one volunteer is particularly of notice. He was
the son of wealthy parents. He was in his senior year in an
eastern college when the war broke out, and enlisted with en-
thusiasm in a regular regiment. When the war was over and
so many soldiers were dying with filthy diseases his father applied
to the member from his district and was informed that a discharge
would be granted upon proper application. The young soldier,
however, refused to leave the army until regularly mustered out
with his comrades. His good sense and excellent habits carried
him safely through the dangers of infection, never serious to one
of his education, and he arrived in good health at his father's
home. The father is one of those old-fashioned persons who

15lay great stress upon the manners of their children, and almost
one of the first questions asked was: "Did you shake bands
with all of your officers and* bid them 'good-bye'?" This was
too much for the young soldier, who laughed into his father's
face at the idea* of shaking hands with an officer of the regular
army. The old gentleman, in recounting this conversation,
remarked that his son had always been truthful, or he would
not have believed that such a thing could exist in the United
States. He had himself in his younger days shaken-hands with
Abraham Lincoln. In the United States this dishonorable
relation of the soldier to his officer is all that remains of that
most wonderful of all human sciences called--"Military Discipline,"
and is in itself a true indicator of the absence of discipline in the
army.

The true definition of the word "Military Discipline" is: The
selection of the most meritous persons in an army as leaders.
All others must become their disciples, and are compelled to
subordinate their opinion and behavior to these. The object
of this science is: To cultivate the mental, moral and physical
nature of each individual and to cement an army with a firm
union of mutual confidence and honor. In the United States
this art has been brought both to its highest perfection and lowest
degradation. Fifty years ago the brakesman, who is the lowest
grade in the railway service, and the private soldier stood upon
a perfect footing of equality. The intelligence, ability and
honorableness of the former, now far surpasses the average of
laborers, while the dull listless and unmentionable behavior
of the soldier has attracted the attention of the legislator. The
contrast has been brought about by the presence of discipline
in the railway service, and its absence in the army, and so wonder-
ful is this science that the same individual, although bright and
honorable in the railway service, will become apathetic and
vicious when incorporated into the regular army.This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival

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which meets the requirements of
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