THE BRITISH ARMY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 184, 5 August 1940, Page 5

THE BRITISH ARMY.

KNAPSACK TO BATON. HOW THE SCALE ASCENDS. PRIVATES, N.C.O.'S, OFFICERS. The instances of a progress from private's knapsack to field-marshal's baton are extremely few—except in those musical-comedy, those "jazz" armies in which, in South America, there are almost as many officers as men. The verbal ascent is less difficult (says a writer in "John o' London's Weekly"). A private was originally a private eoldier, a term that seems to have come from the ranks: to do away with the implications of common soldier and to emphasise the fact that the men were volunteers even though they were without recognised rank. To-day, however, to be a private, a gunner, a sapper, a trooper, is to have a rank. Privates insist on their little joke. If of long or meritorious service, they claim to be full privates or front-rank private (their drill and their soldierly deportment enabling them to pass, with veteran composure, the raking glances and inquisitorial stares of the strictest inspecting officers). Recruits or slovens are apt to find themselves called rear-rank privates or even lance-privates. Adopted from the French. The last is on the analogy of lancecorporals (commonly called lance-jacks), those "on appro" corporals who do all the dirty work with little, or no, compensation. But corporals have authority over their sections —and better pay. Corporal is one of the many military terms adopted , from French (modern French caporal): perhaps because he is in charge of a small corpus or body of men. In the vocative, to his friends, he is corp. Above him is the eergeant (in the vocative, sarge or sarga; or, with the surname, sarnt), also from French: sergent, from s Latin word meaning "to serve." Aβ e non-commiitioiiecl officer^

in charge of a platoon (his commissioned overman being the lieutenant), he is a man of some weight. The sergeantmajor (literally, "greater sergeant") was originally of commissioned rank; whether C.S.M. or R.S.M., he is, as ii were, a non-commissioned adjutant whereas the old colour-eergeant carried the regimental colours or standard. The Lieutenant's Pip. Coming to officers (in ascending order: subalterns, captains, field officers, general officers), we pass from lieutenants and captains to their superiors. A lieutenant (slangily a loot) is the French for "place-holder," with which compare the synonymous Latin locum tenene: he is the representative of a higher authority: a" field officer's deputy. Beginning as a.second lieutenant with one star, he becomes a first lieutenant with two etars: from a one-pipper (not, as in the last war, "one star, one stunt") he becomes a two-pipper. First and second lieutenants are generically subalterns 01 "inferiors" —and addressed as Mr. A captain, who may, or may not, have charge of a company (a company commander) or is perhaps an adjutant, derives his title from the French capitaine (Italian capitano); he is a chief, the word coming from Latin caput, the head; "the heads," in slang, are one's remote superiors. An adjutant is that officer who is the maid of all work: he helps the -battalion commander: Latin adjutans "(a man) helping." Major, literally "greater (officer)," k fehe lowest rank of field officer. Hie, too. is a title adopted from French and coming ultimately from Latin, major >bein« the comparative of iuagnus (great), Carrying a crown on the shoulder of hi* uniform, he ie a man of importance: and by virtue of hie rank, he passes automatically into "Who's Who." Above him is a lieutenant-colonel, "one whc takes the place of a colonel." He may or may not be in charge of a 'battalion whereas a colonel has charge of a ibattalion or even, until hie promotion goes through, of a brigade. Before about 1650, he was coronel, a Frencl word derived—via Spanish—from Italian : colonnello in (charge of a colonna, a < column or a regiment); the form in -1 was partly caused by folk-etymologj i association with Latin corona, a crown He commands a regiment or a Ibattalion

Now for general officer: all the ranke tbove a colonel. A general command* in army ("General G-ough of the Fifth the largest component of the "orces (force, power or strength), and the word occurred, at first, only in combination — captain-general, colonel-gen-eral, sergeant-major general; as still in brigadier-general, lieutenant-general major-general; compare chaplain-genera and quartermaster-general, supreme chaplain and supreme quartermaster Oddly enough, a lieutenant-general ie o] higher rank than a major-general, foi whereas the former commands an armj corps, the latter commands a division; a brigade has a 'brigadier-general General c/Jmee, via French, from Latir Efeneralte, "concerning the whole of * jlass or kind." The general formerly designated th< commander of the entire military forces of a state. But the conimander-in chief (he who, at the head of the army puts his hands to the work: manus' dat) has now the rank of field -marshal, » designation bestowed also on severa general officers of royal degree or particularly distinguished service, as an hon orary title; "the field-marshal," however is the commander-in-chief: the Italiar generalissimo. At first he was, in the English army that staff officer who had charge of th< army's sustenance and camping arrange ments. Field refers to the field o1 battle; marshal is of lowly origin, the word originally meaning, in Old English i horse-servant; as a military title field-marshal comes from the moderr Serman feldmansch-all, and was not use<J in England until two centuries ago, 01 some 90 years after the Civil War, the war during which, or as a result oi which, so many military titles took or a, sense the same ae, or at least th« ipproximating to, the modern one, ae perhaps did quartermaster (originally a naval term with a slightly different origin) —the officer that, known as "tht quarter 'bloke," is in a battalion the master of quarters (as in army headquarters). The Napoleonic Wars and the militarj reforms of the early 1880'e finally determined the exact sense of a>ll the words noted here, whether of rankere (privates and non-commiseioned officers; iience, officers risen from the ranks) 01 jthere.