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 THE MODERN SOLDIER CAN NOT BE 
 MADE IN A DAY 
 
 THE ARMY IS A LEARNED PROFESSION, WITH INTRICATE,:CLEARLY DEFINED, 
 
 AND DIFFICULT SPECIALTIES, AND MEN MUST BE CAREFULLY 
 
 AND THOROUGHLY TRAINED- 
 
 By HENRY BRECKINRIDGE 
 
 ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
 
 1915 
 

 D, of D. 
 FEB 3 1916 
 

 ^ THE MODERN SOLDIER CAN NOT BE MADE IN A DAY. 
 
 By HENRY BRECKINRIDGE, Assistant Secretary of War. 
 
 Five years ago about this time I was sitting in the office of a 
 prominent Baltimore attorney. I was talking army to him. He 
 Avas an unusually intelligent man, conservative, fairly learned, at 
 least in the law, and with a reasonable knowledge of affairs. In 
 the course of the conversation he asked me — 
 
 Why should a man go into the Army? What is there in it to 
 make it a life work? After he has learned to drill and shoot, his 
 life is simpl}^ a matter of routine. Larger talents do not bring any 
 larger financial returns. And, altogether, I can not see that the 
 Army is any place for a man who wishes to make the most of his 
 resources of intellect and character. 
 
 The attitude of this man is not an uncommon one among intelli- 
 gent Americans. The European war has drawn the attention of 
 the public mind to things military to an unwonted degree. But 
 there remains on the part of many people a lack of appreciation of 
 what the military service is, of what is required to make a soldier 
 and an officer, and of the fact that the military profession, of a 
 verity, is a learned profession. Despite the vivid demonstration of 
 the last year, there still lingers the impression in some quarters 
 that all you have to do to make a soldier is to put a uniform on his 
 back, shoes on his feet, rifle in his hand, give him ammunition, a 
 knapsack, and the untrained American patriot is prepared to cope 
 with the best trained soldier in the world. The task yet remains to 
 dispel completely the illusion that a sword in the hand, a strap on 
 the shoulder, and the fire of patriotism in the eye of the American 
 volunteer are all that is required to make an officer fit to lead the 
 improvised soldier to victorious conflict with trained armies. 
 
 What is endeavored to be demonstrated in this article is that the 
 Army is a learned profession; that to be a successful officer of 
 the Army requires as high a development of the intellect and char- 
 acter as is needed for success in any other learned profession; that 
 the Army is not only a learned profession, but that it is a learned 
 profession with as many intricate, clearly defined, and difficult 
 specialties as are to be found, for instance, in the great profession 
 of medicine. 
 
 There are two great divisions of the military profession — first, 
 technical, and, second, tactical and strategical. 
 
 (3) 
 
I. — Technical. 
 
 As medicine has a surgeon, oculist, aurist, gynecologist, pediatri- 
 cian, psychiatrist, and other specialists, so the Army has its surgeon, 
 judge advocate, quartermaster, ordnance officer, engineer, and signal 
 officers. The average officer is no more or less fit to perform without 
 preliminary instruction the duties of an ordnance officer, for in- 
 stance, than is an obstetrician fit to perform an operation for 
 cataract. 
 
 ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Where do the rifles, bayonets, pistols, scabbards, cartridges, packs, 
 harness, field guns, and mammoth Coast Artillery cannon come 
 from? Wlio makes them? Who designs them? The officers of 
 ordnance. A small cartridge looks a simple thing. We speak 
 glibly of great numbers of rifles. Smokeless powder and other high 
 explosives we know to be essential, but we have very little appre- 
 ciation of what it means to provide them. How many of us appre- 
 ciate the intricate chemical and mechanical processes required in 
 the manufacture of smokeless powder? How many of us realize 
 that 33 complete chemical and mechanical operations have to be 
 gone through with accuratelj', precisely, carefully, before white 
 cotton, mixed with sulphuric and nitric acids, becomes smokeless 
 powder? And after, with elaborate processes, the powder is made 
 at the Picatinny Arsenal, it must travel from Dover, N. J., to the 
 Frankford Arsenal, outside Philadelphia, there to be but an element 
 in the 40 complete manufacturing and assembling operations that 
 are required to make a rifle cartridge. 
 
 A rifle is a more or less simple-looking mechanism, but to make 
 this rifle 1,223 separate manufacturing operations must be executed. 
 
 One round of 3-inch shrapnel means 355 operations; to make an 
 automatic pistol, 614; and for the terrible little mitrailleuse or 
 machine gun, 1,990. The lightest 3-inch field gun costs $1,400 and 
 requires in the making a number of different operations, the enu- 
 meration of which would be exceedingly tiresome. 
 
 And through the different calibers we come to the 14-inch coast- 
 defense gun made at Watervliet Arsenal at Albany, weighing 
 when finished 138,000 pounds and costing $55,000 and wound about 
 with 37,000 pounds of wire. The disappearing carriage for this 
 mighty weapon that lifts it above the parapet to hurl its mighty 
 missile and racking charge a half score of miles to sea — to attempt 
 to describe its intricacies would but confuse my own and the 
 reader's mind. One of these carriages involves as many as 3,000 
 separate parts. 
 
 It is the officer of the Ordnance Department that must conceive, 
 plan, design, manufacture, issue, and repair all this category of 
 
material which goes to make up the implements of an army. Wliat 
 must he know to perform these functions'^ What must be his 
 training to guide with efficiency the labor of the 6,000 workmen 
 in the six great establishments where the ordnance material of the 
 Army is made ? 
 
 A designer and constructor of ordnance must be a mechanical 
 engineer capable of computing the stresses brought upon the parts 
 of complicated structures by the control of masses set in motion 
 by the action of immense forces which he must be able to determine. 
 He must master the methods of arranging and proportioning the 
 parts of the structures so that they may withstand the forces of 
 which he shall have previously determined the magnitude, and he 
 must be familiar with the processes of the constructive arts which 
 are concerned with the fabrication of machines, in order that he 
 may take full advantage of their possibilities and may not produce 
 impracticable designs requiring the impossible. He must under- 
 stand chemistry, which enters into the composition and action of 
 explosives, his main source of supply of primary power, and the 
 art of metalhirgy, which supplies him with his usual material for 
 utilizing and controlling power. He must be equipped with the 
 loiowledge of an electrical engineer, that he may deal with that 
 power which is finding increasing application in the operation 
 of ordnance constructions and plants for producing them. He 
 must be familiar with the science of optics, in order that tele- 
 scopic and other optical instruments for sights and fire-control 
 instruments may be properly designed and inspected. And his 
 knowledge of these subjects must include a specially sound mastery 
 of principles, as he is generally without the aid of handbooks and 
 practical treatises so useful in cojnmercial work. 
 
 In addition to the material that is manufactured in the Govern- 
 ment arsenals large quantities are purchased from private manu- 
 facturers. Procurement by manufacture requires expert knowledge 
 of manufacturing processes, including machine operations, foundry 
 work, forging, pattern making, leather working, woodworking, 
 pressed steel construction, plating, w^heel construction, brass draw- 
 ing, manufacture of powder and high explosives, grinding of lenses, 
 assembling and testing optical instruments, forging and testing 
 armor-piercing j^rojectiles, etc. It further necessitates expert 
 Imowledge of power plants, fuels, oils, .machinery, raw materials, 
 and electrical instalhitions. In short, it requires all of the expert 
 loiowledge necessary for the economical operation of large manu- 
 facturing plants, and the greater part of it pertaining to manu- 
 facture of the most exacting type. Chemical testing and research 
 work for powders and higher explosives, as w^ell as analyses and 
 
6 
 
 tests of oils, paints, etc., are carried on at the Picatinny Arsenal, 
 and metallurgical, chemical, and physical tests and research work 
 are carried on at the Watertown Arsenal in connection with the 
 manufacture of iron and steel, physical tests of material for com- 
 mercial purposes, and microscopical and physical tests for the 
 department. This class of employment requires very exact scien- 
 tific attainments of the officers in charge. 
 
 Experimental work in general, tests of powder and material, are 
 conducted at the Sandy Plook Proving Ground. For this employ- 
 ment intimate knowledge of interior and exterior ballistics, action 
 of powder and explosiA^es, and manipulation of delicate electrical 
 and other testing instruments arc required. 
 
 So it is readily seen that though many a patriotic citizen, when 
 the country is in danger, might rush forward to be an officer of 
 ordnance, he would not be of very much use after he had rushed. 
 
 SIGNAL COKPS. 
 
 One of the greatest advances made in the art of war during recent 
 years has to do with the service of information. The motor cycle, 
 the swift automobile, the land military telegraph line, field tele- 
 phone systems, field wireless telegraph outfits, and the aeroplane 
 have revolutionized the system of communication and of obtaining 
 information. The great service of information is specialized in by 
 the Signal Corps, and the efficient handling of all the apparatus 
 that pertains to this service can only be by highly trained and 
 experienced individuals. In case of war a thousand patriots might 
 rush forward for service in the aviation corps. By the time the 
 war was over they might have obtained sufficient Iniowledge to make 
 them useful. 
 
 ENGINEER CORPS. 
 
 The engineer is another essential military specialist. The swift 
 building of a pontoon bridge over turbulent streams may be required 
 to win a victory or save an arm3^ Military engineering consists, 
 broadly, of the application of engineering science for the accom- 
 plishment of military purposes. And military' engineering, there- 
 fore, requires an extensive knowledge of military art and also of 
 the art of the engineer. He builds all the harbor defenses. He 
 must be an expert in field engineering in all its branches, including 
 fortifications, the use of explosives, construction of bridges, roads, 
 and field railroads, reconnoissance and survey, including field 
 astronomy, photography, and lithography. He must have knowl- 
 edge of electrical and mechanical engineering, which is required in 
 the operation of searchlights, electrical mines, lighting plants, and 
 power machinery for carrying out all sorts of field work. 
 
MEDICAL CORPS. 
 
 It is very natural for the query to arise in one's mind as to why 
 any good doctor would not make an efficient medical officer of the 
 Army. There are many reasons. In the first place, the problem 
 of administration in the Army Medical Corps presents features 
 not dealt with in private practice. And the great field of military 
 sanitation as applied in the military service by medical officers is 
 a distinct specialty. It embraces the subjects taught in post- 
 graduate courses in some of the most progressive medical schools 
 under the caption of "Public Health and Preventive Medicine." 
 It includes also those special measures which have been developed 
 entirely within the military service for the care of troops in the 
 field, where large bodies of men are brought together without the 
 modern methods of waste disposal available in towns and cities. A 
 few years ago it was considered impossible for troops to continue 
 to camp on the same ground for a longer period than two weeks 
 without camp diseases becoming epidemic. At the present time 
 in the United States Army, even under unfavorable conditions of 
 climate and terrain, troops remain on the same ground under 
 canvas for indefinite periods with a continuously low sick list. 
 The special knowledge necessary to inaugurate and maintain these 
 conditions is of the highest importance to the health of the army 
 and to its battle efficiency. Again, the recruitment, instruction, 
 and control of the Hospital Corps and the Army Nurse Corps is a 
 special field for the military surgeon. 
 
 The establishment of aid stations, dressing stations, hospitals, and 
 other formations for the care of sick and wounded on the field of 
 battle; the medical officer must understand where these formations 
 should be established in order to obtain the best results and at the 
 same time not interfere with the movement of ammunition trains, 
 reserves, or other bodies of troops necessary to battle success. To 
 enable him to perform these duties successfully and to obtain a 
 reasonable degree of protection from fire for his wounded, a medical 
 officer must have knowledge of the range and trajectory of pro- 
 jectiles; he must be able to read a map and to estimate therefrom 
 the places most protected from rifle fire, from artillery fire; the 
 most direct lines of aid to the front and for the evacuation of 
 wounded to the rear; the slopes that are prohibitory for wheeled 
 vehicles, the places where watercourses may be forded, etc. In 
 short, the Medical Corps of the Army is the great conserving 
 agency of a destructive organization. To wage w^ar successfully, 
 the greatest amount of destruction must be visited upon the armed 
 forces of the enemy. For this end is required the utmost conserva- 
 
8 
 
 tion of the health, energies, and life of the Army. And to this 
 great end the highly trained and specialized Medical Corps is 
 absolutely essential. 
 
 QUARTERMASTER CORPS. 
 
 The capacity for organization and administration required of 
 officers in the Quartermaster Corps of the Army is at least equal 
 to that required in the great supply departments of any of the 
 combinations of capital and units of economic production in the 
 world. Problems of paying, feeding, clothing, and transporting 
 armies and their supplies are full of complexities and difficulties, 
 the enumeration of which space does not permit. Nothing is more 
 true than the oft-quoted and vigorous statement that an {irmy 
 marches on its belly. A single weak link in the chain of the supply 
 sj^stem may lose a battle, and an uneducated and untrained quarter- 
 master is as useless and defective as would be a novice in the control 
 of the great power plants that have harnessed the Falls of Niagara. 
 
 JUDGE ADVOCATE. 
 
 It may seem a strange statement that the Army must have attor- 
 neys and counselors just as much as the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration must have them. For instance, the present Judge Advo- 
 cate General of the Army, upon the institution of American gov- 
 ernment in the Philippine Islands, completely organized the various 
 departments of government on the civil side. Of his work. ex- 
 President Taft, the president of the Philippine Commission which 
 succeeded the military governor as the governing authority in the 
 Philippine Islands, said tliat "Col. Crowder's activities were limited 
 only by what would be the limitations of a civil government and 
 legislature." Under his administration there were prepared cus- 
 toms regulations, coast trade regulations, and the municipal law 
 of the Philippine Islands which intrusted the people of the prov- 
 inces and municipalities with a great part of the management of 
 their local affairs, thus preparing them for the exercise of self- 
 government. He so amended the Spanish code of criminal pro- 
 cedure by a military order as to make it conform to our common 
 law and constitutional principles. This order still governs criminal 
 procedure in the Philippine Islands. He reorganized the courts 
 of the Philippine Islands and was an associate justice on the civil 
 side of the supreme court for the first year after its reorganization. 
 During the intervention by the United States in Cuba, from 1906 
 to 1909, the present Judge Advocate General was acting secretary 
 of state and justice. He was legal adviser to the provisional gov- 
 ernor, president of the advisory commission, and in charge of the 
 electoral administration. Laws regulating the registration of 
 voters and the conduct of elections were framed. 
 
9 
 
 In citing this individual record of service in the Army's law 
 department I do it to show what may be the career of an Army 
 kludge Advocate and what is required to enable him worthily to 
 meet the demands of such a career. 
 
 II. 
 
 Let us now turn from the consideration of the great technical 
 specialties that are so necessary to the efficiency of an army and 
 consider why it is that the soldier who walks or rides and shoots 
 and fights can lay claim to the respect that is due worthy members 
 of a learned profession. 
 
 Why is it that any man who can tote a pack and carry a rifle can 
 not be transformed immediately into an effective infantryman? 
 Why is it that one who adds to these capabilities some knowledge 
 of horsemanship can not in the tAvinkling of an eye, by the donning 
 of a uniform, be a worthy cavalryman, or, with a little training in 
 pointing a gun, l^e a pretty good artillerist? And in the higher 
 fields of leadership, why can't any good American organizer, with 
 sound judgment and courage, attain military success in larger 
 operations ? 
 
 THE QUEEN OF BATTLES. 
 
 Dashing Cavalry may effect a brilliant raid in the rear of the 
 enemy and in a hundred ways vindicate and justify its existence 
 and necessity. Many a critical situation may be saved by the 
 steadfastness and power of the Field Artillery. But the founda- 
 tion of the Army structure is the plodding, trudging, digging, 
 sweating, burden-bearing infantryman. When the lay mind has 
 been persuaded that the technical specialists can not be improvised 
 and that even the cavalryman and artilleryman must have some 
 modicum of training before efilcienc}' is attained, extremel}^ per- 
 sistent is the tendency still to think that the very foundation of 
 an army can be summoned into being as if by magic. Many 
 present-day Americans have no experience Avith horses. And the 
 individual's conviction that one who is a horseman is therefore 
 superior to himself in that particular line is what makes it fairly 
 easy to convince the lay mind of the necessity of adequately trained 
 Cavalry. The same thing applies to the Field Artillery or any 
 branch of the service that has to do with implements more or less 
 mysterious to the ordinary individual through lack of his acquaint- 
 ance therewith. But everybody knows he can walk and carry a 
 pack on his back at least a little ways and point a rifle and pull a 
 trigger. And thus there seems to have been in the minds of our 
 people, from the first until the present, an abiding illusion that an 
 infantryman can be improvised. But he can't. 
 
10 ■ 
 
 A very simple thing it seems to care for one's feet. But as a 
 matter of fact the care of the feet in marching is an art in itself, 
 and if unlearned the ignorance of it will destroy a command. And 
 marching. An improvised army would be marched to death by 
 trained troops before any physical contact need be gained. In ma- 
 neuvering for position untrained and unhardened troops would 
 wilt and drop by the wayside in exhaustion while trained armies 
 were playing hide and seek with them all over the terrain. The 
 mere factor of physical condition and not general physical condi- 
 tion, but the particular and special physical fitness trained to per- 
 form the peculiar task and meet the special exigencies of service 
 as an infantryman in the field, can only be come at by the most 
 rigorous training. 
 
 Anyone can charge across an open field. But on that field, seem- 
 ing from a short distance as flat as the palm of one's hand, the 
 trained infantryman, with his laiowledge of the use of ground for 
 cover, is about half as likely to die in such a critical undertaking 
 as the unknowing novice. 
 
 The modern rifle, is an efficient weapon. Its trajectory is flat up 
 to a considerable range. That is, the bullet in passing through its 
 course over a given distance goes on a level in a plane, putting 
 everything in its way in danger, and does not have to describe a 
 curve going up and coming down in order to reach a fairly distant 
 mark. The trained soldier loiows this and knows that the slightest 
 depression in the landscape will give him more or less safety from 
 an enemy rifleman. For instance, a greenhorn, in seeking cover, 
 would naturally choose the slope of a hill away from the enemy, 
 when a trained infantryman would know that he would be in 
 greater safety on the other side of that hill where he would be 
 closer to the enemy, but within that range where the enemy's bullets 
 would travel in a flat trajectory and give him a chance to take 
 advantage of the safety afforded by the slightest depression in the 
 ground rather than remain behind that hill to suffer the long-range 
 plunging fire of the enemy. 
 
 How little does the ordinary citizen realize the difficulty of becom- 
 ing a sharpshooter or expert in the use of the military rifle? Most 
 of us have a vague impression that accurate shooting means merely 
 straight pointing. The ordinary layman has little conception, for 
 instance, of the influence of a slight wind on the course of a rifle 
 bullet at a thousand yards' range. For accurate long-distance 
 shooting this influence of wind upon the bullet must be accurately 
 estimated and allowed for by a graduated instrument on the rifle 
 called a wind gauge, and success or failure in sharpshooting and 
 sniping may well depend upon the accuracy or inaccuracy with 
 
11 
 
 which the problem of windage is solved. There is little understand- 
 ing by most of us of the effect of light conditions — that with one 
 condition of light there is a tendency to aim too high and with 
 another condition of light that there is a tendency to aim too low, 
 and that all this must be taken into consideration and accurately 
 estimated and provided for in all fine rifle shooting. 
 
 Space does not afford to do more than suggest the thousand details 
 that must be mastered by the proficient officer of Infantry. Prob- 
 lems of organization and problems of equipment have to be worked 
 out by the most painstaking and scientific observation and deduc- 
 tion. For instance, only large experience and accurate estimate has 
 established the general principle that the load of the infantryman 
 must not exceed one-third the weight of the individual soldier if 
 the best efficiency is to be obtained. One loiows vaguely that 
 soldiers ar^ organized into companies, battalions, regiments, bri- 
 gades, divisions, and armies, but why is each unit organized as to 
 number and material as laid down in tables of organization and 
 drill book ? The most profound study of experience has taught that 
 certain organizations are best adapted for the handling of given 
 masses of troops. For instance, the company contains the greatest 
 number of men in which the relation of the personal influence of 
 the individual leader or his subordinates can be maintained. And 
 the battalion has worked out to be the normal fighting unit that can 
 best be handled in actual combat by one man's directions when in 
 the fighting are involved large numbers. And the regiment has 
 been found convenient for the purpose of obtaining a proper super- 
 vision of the three battalions. The brigade is organized similarly 
 as a convenient organization in which to combine three regiments, 
 while the division, combined as it is of all arms. Infantry, Cavalry, 
 Artillery and auxiliary troops, comprises that mass of men most 
 suited for transportation on a single road and for action as a unit 
 in great operations where large armies are involved. 
 
 Never has the stress of war called forth the moral qualities which 
 present war conditions require of the Infantry : To face destruction 
 by the enemy's Artillery when he is 5 or 6 miles from a point where 
 he himself can inflict injury in return, suffer casualties in advancing 
 over great stretches of ground without firing a shot, to face the 
 thunderbolts of large caliber guns and howitzers, to endure the rain 
 of death of shrapnel and high explosives, to meet the withering hail 
 of the hell-spitting mitrailleuse, to face the steel-jacketed sheet of 
 rifle fire, even to suffer death at the hands of one's own supporting 
 Artillery, cut the wire entanglement, mount the parapet, to give or 
 receive the death thrust of the bayonet's cold steel. This is what 
 modern warfare requires of the infantryman. To meet the test 
 
12 
 
 he must be faithfully and arduously trained. And to give him this 
 training there must be develojoed the learned and successful officer 
 who comprehends his task. 
 
 CAVALKT. 
 
 The cavalryman must be reasonably proficient in all that pertains 
 to the lore of the infantryman, but of course in a lesser degree. In 
 addition he must be a master of the horse. He must know how 
 best to train man and horse, for the trained man increases the power 
 of the horse to render service, and the trained horse makes infinitely 
 less demilnd upon the physical strength of the rider than does the 
 untrained horse. Mobility is one of the decisive factors in war. 
 Napoleon said that "The power of an army, like the quantity of 
 movement in mechanics, is measured by the product of its mass by 
 its rate of motion." Nothing requires more care, laiowledge, and 
 practical experience than is needed to develop proficiency in con- 
 serving the energy and power of the horse. The Cavalry officer 
 must be an expert in this, as also he must be an expert in the use 
 of the pistol and the sword. Despite the condition of the western 
 European battle front, with its trenches and intricate field fortifi- 
 cations, highly trained and powerful bodies of Cavalry are as 
 essential to the successful conduct of war as ever. 
 
 FIELD ARTLLLE15Y. 
 
 Fine appreciation of wh^t Field Artillery means in modern war 
 was shown by the colored applicant for enlistment in one of the 
 so-called immune regiments recruited in a Southern State during 
 the War with Spain. A colored recruiting sergeant discussing 
 warfare in general and in particular waxed fervent in his exposi- 
 tion, finally ending an animated account of the excitement of war 
 by telling the applicant that in the armies of the world there were 
 even guns that shot a thousand pounds of steel from 10 to 15 
 miles. "Great Lawd!" said the discouraged patriot, "none of that 
 for me. A man would run all day and get shot at sundown." 
 
 This conversation accurately exhibited the present conditions of 
 war as far as the effects of artillery fire are concerned. Until 1896, 
 when the French developed the long recoil rapid-fire field gun, the 
 artillery always occupied direct laying positions — in other words, 
 positions from which the targets could be seen from the guns. 
 After the adoption of the long recoil system the general rule was 
 and is to occupy masked or indirect laying positions : in other words, 
 positions from which the targets remain invisible to the gunners at 
 artillery ranges hitherto unheard of in war. But now all normal 
 combats are carried on between gunners that can not possibly see 
 one another. The officer who is observing the fire of his battery 
 
13 
 
 may be a couple of miles in front of his guns, tucked away in an 
 observation trench, perched in a tree or in a haystack, connected 
 Avith his batter}^ by land telephone. Or the observer may be hover- 
 ing over the enemy objective a half mile or more in the air, bringing 
 back or signaling back information as to the effect of the fire. To 
 meet these changed conditions a precise system of range finding by 
 various angle-measuring instruments and intricate optical devices 
 has been wrought out and mastered. 
 
 The responsibility for accurate shooting by the Artillery is greater 
 than ever before. It is impossible for the Infantry to advance with- 
 out the fullest support from the Artillery. It is necessary that this 
 support be continued until one's own troops are very near to the 
 enemy, so that the enemy fire may be beaten down. But to render 
 this support at the last moment without slaughtering one's own 
 soldiers in the excitement and heat of battle is a great problem. 
 Nothing will destroy the morale of Infantry more quickly than lack 
 of confidence in its supporting Artillery, with the consequent fear 
 that in an assault on an eneniy position not only will there be danger 
 from foe, but equal danger from friend. It is easily seen that the 
 most thorough and arduous training is necessary to attain the re- 
 quired degree of perfection. The Field Artillery officer must be 
 an expert in the erection of field telephones and buzzers, in map 
 making, scouting, and panoramic sketching. He must be a horse 
 master, an expert in the conservation of human and animal energy, 
 a good mathematician, a field astronomer, and possess a character 
 reliable for coolness, steadfastness, and endurance. 
 
 COxVST ARTILLERY. 
 
 The great Coast Artillery service really demonstrates itself to the 
 ordinary mind. Kespect is compelled for the men who handle the 
 giant guns of our harbor defenses, operate the intricate machinery 
 necessary for their manipulation, and execute the complicated cal- 
 culations that have to be made in estimating ranges. A gun that 
 shoots a projectile weighing a ton 20,000 yards and develops a 
 muzzle energy of approximately 126,000 foot-tons speaks for itself. 
 These are the guns that make it possible for the fleet to seek the 
 enemy wherever it may be advisable, leaving strategic harbors and 
 important cities to the protection of the Coast Artillery as far as 
 the danger of attack from a hostile fleet is concerned. This is 
 the service that offers an asylum to the fleet in case it needs such 
 asylum in the face of a superior enemy or after having been 
 roughly handled. It must not be assumed that the Coast Artillery 
 protects the coasts. We have about 5,000 miles of coast line, 
 about 300 miles of which are under the potential protection 
 
14 
 
 of coast-defense guns. But the Coast Artillery does perform the 
 absolutely essential service of giving freedom to the fleet by the 
 protection of cities and harbors. The guns vary in caliber from 
 3-inch to 16-inch, their respective projectiles weighing from 15 
 pounds to 2,400 pounds. The Coast Artillery officer must be an 
 expert in the management of power plants and electrical devices. 
 He must be familiar with the operation of searchlights, telephone 
 systems, angle-measuring instruments, observing instruments, plot- 
 ting boards, range-correction })oards, deflection boards, speaking 
 tubes, anemometers, psychrometers, and other minor appliances. 
 The elements of fire control are mounted at various parts of the 
 fortifications, and the care and operation of the system involve a 
 fundamental knowledge of all the apparatus and its application to 
 the service of the guns. And it must be remembered that the 
 normal target for the Coast Artillery is a swiftly moving vessel, 
 and the problem resolves itself often into the seemingly impossible 
 task of hitting Avith a solid shot a vessel 6 or 7 miles away, moving 
 at the rate of from 20 to 30 miles an hour. The problem seems 
 more difficult of solution than shooting ducks with a rifle rather 
 than a shotgun. Weather conditions must be taken into considera- 
 tion as Avell as the motion of the target. As conditions vary from 
 day to day they affect materially the flight of the projectile. The 
 density of the atmosphere as affecting the resistance offered to the 
 projectile in flight; the velocity of the wind, which operates in like 
 manner; and the height of the tide, as affecting the relative eleva- 
 tions of the gun and vessel, all must be taken into account. Obvi- 
 ously, all observations and calculations must be completed in a very 
 brief period of time, and the most careful training is required to 
 bring about that coordination of all the elements necessary to permit 
 one of these huge guns to be fired accurately once every minute. 
 
 If it has in any wise been demonstrated that those who are en- 
 gaged in the training and administration of the units and branches 
 that go to make up an army merit the respect that is due to worthy 
 members of a learned profession, then it is obvious that general 
 officers, exercising the higher commands in which it is necessary to 
 bring together and coordinate and in war direct to a common end 
 all the elements that make up an army, must be men of the highest 
 capacity and best judgment. 
 
 Every profession has not only its technicalities and requirements 
 for efficiency, but it also has its ethics. Whatever else may be said 
 of the Army as a learned profession, there is no doubt of the fact 
 that the ethics of the profession can not be surpassed by those of 
 any human profession. Every worthy officer realizes that shoddy 
 work, slovenliness, lack of industry, and proficiency may and will 
 
15 
 
 mean not the loss of property but at the very least the destruction of 
 human life. And without affectation and without cant, there under- 
 lie the work of the true soldier the loiowledge and belief that as 
 long as human nature remains as it is, the very honor and life of 
 his nation some day is bound to depend on the thoroughness and 
 fidelity with which he executes his trust. The code of ethics of the 
 military profession may be summed up in the tAvo words "Honor" 
 and "Fidelity." And in the Army of the United States the code is 
 lived up to with a strictness that is full of reassurance that any test 
 will be met in accordance with the best traditions of soldiers. 
 
 [Reprinted by permission of the New Yorli Times from its issue of December 
 5. 191.5.] 
 

 
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