ARMS AND MEN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1324, 30 December 1911, Page 7

ARMS AND MEN.

BUILDING A WAR MACHINE. SOMETHING ACCOMPLISHED. EVENTS, EEFLECTIONS, AND HOPES

[Br Echelon,]

With our new citizen nnny, organised 'on paper by.tho first soldier of tho Em-pire—Field-Marshal Viscount Kitchenerr— and ratified by legislation in 1910, the past year has been a year of getting ready. It is an article of faith with tho officers of the Imperial General Staff that you-must not'on' any account make a movo before yon are ready, and when you do move you must keep moving. Our new army, is not yet quite, ready, they say. In a review article, written at the close of 1910, a few weeks after tho arrival in New Zealand of Afajor-Geueral A. J. Godloy, C.8., General Officer Commanding tho Now Zealand Forces, the writer expressed tho opinion that thcro was already in evidence sufficient justification for tho belief that the General was a man who could get things done Now, a year later, one is in a position to measure the deeds and tho manner of this accomplishment—in military parlance, to "appreciate the-situation." Building the War -Machine. Plans and specifications—in the shape of an Act-of Parliament, and certain valuable data which. had been collected by the Chief of the General- Staff (Colonel A. W. Eobins, C.8.), prior to the advent of tho Imperial staff officers from England—awaited Gcnoral Godley : when he arrived at 'his new Headquarters, and the building' of the Dominion's new war machine was commenced. by placing in position, so to speak, its structural elements. As a working basis for a proper appreciation of tho Kitchener type of army, think of a spider's web, dissevered from its piratical purpose by tho elimination of the spider. In the very centro of the web let us place the General Staff at Headquarters—tho nerve centre of the army. -Radiating- from this centre, and in constant touch with it, are tho Now Zealand Staff Corps, the Citizen Army, tho the reserves, and the senior cadets. From his plans and specifications, General GodIcy had to reorganise tho Now Zealand General Staff at Headquarters, and creato and place in position as structural elements in the war machine, the New Zealand Staff Corps, the citizen array, and the senior cadets. Further. : since the Act of -Parliament which clothed bim with authority, merely set forth guiding principles, there remained to be written a set of regulations which would interpret these principles in language sufficiently clear and direct to preclude, as far as. might bo humanly possible, all risk of misunderstanding, when tho machine was in motion.

All these things were not accomplished with a "hoy, presto!" and a wavo of n wand. Three months . passed before the staff of area officers and non-commis-Bioned officers were counted ready to proceed to their several districts to tako up Hip work of registering the young men of the country and . posting them to their various regiments. It was' six months beforo the regulations which were 'to serve as heacons to the intelligence, of administrators high and low appeared in the paces of the New Zealand Gazette In the all-important task of reorganising his headouarters staff, the General found a lack of suitable material, and had to send to England for more officers—lmperial Staff Officers cannot be dispatched via .wireless or cable. So the foundation work of tho machine.had,-.perforce, to proceed slowly. ...About a month after the area officers and non-commissioned officers were posted'to their various stations throughout New Zealand,' tho Genoral toured the Dominion on a campaign; of public enlightenment. Ho made speeches, and cave interviews. Evcrvwhero lie went ho w'aahflartily-welcomed. Ho succeeded in dispelling nopular misconceptions amkroiwiyiuKS. atjoub his new_ war machine,-cVnciliatod""tiie hostile;;, hardened up tho doubting Thomases, and fired the enthusiasm of supporters. Tho tour was_ an • inspiration,. , and, • to'' the general's, infinite credit, it wasa success.

■'.:, The Army to Date.' .. Tho most. remarkablo feature of this year of organisation has been the almost entire absence of serious criticism. As if by common consent, everybody with any intelligence at all seems,to have been agreed that, at tho very least, this new Bcbemo of military ' defence should be given a fair trial. The noisy "anti-con-Bcnphon' protests wbich have been heard from some Socialists and other people in certain quarters have been treated hv the public generally neither with - silent contempt or frank ridicule. And so the. path of the general has not been anything like so rough as it might well have been —as a good many, observant students of New Zealand public sontiment and opinion expected it to be. ■■ Now, at the end. of. a year, -our new citizen army consists of a highly-organ-ised General Staff at Wellington, the military headquarters of New Zealand; four district staffs for the administration and trnmimr of the commands in tho Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury-Nel-Bon-West Coast, and Otago military districts; a complete staff of area officersand non-commissioned .officers for. the administration and training of the area groups into which each military district has been subdivided; a territorial army, complete on paper, but atteudated in being; and tho Senior Cadet Corps,, also with gaps in its ranks. So far no organised attempt has teen made to insist upon the registration of those youths who have failed to fulfil tho obligations imposed upon tho-young -non of the country by an Act of .Parliament. .The application .of tho- compulsory provisions of the Defence Act can elono make our : citizen army in being what it now is on paper, and fill up the gap 3 in the ranks of the Senior Cadets. It is the foundation of the system,- of .the discipline of tho army It is tho law of tho land. Will the Defenco Minister—bo ho Sir Joseph Ward or anyone else—enforce it? Wo shall see. Training is to commence at tho end of the first.month of tho new pear. - The Architect's Principles. Everybody who read Lord Kitchener's report upon-tho military defenco of Australia and New Zealand will probably remember with what emphasis and reiteration ho • stressed certain important considerations in. tho building up of. tho New Zealand ■ Staff' Corns. But tho -public memory is fickle. At this season of sober reflection? and virtuous resolutions,''it may not be amiss to repeat them:— ; ; 'The first and imperative- principle for the enrolment and maintenance of these men as inn efficient citizen ■ force is." ho wrote, that tho nation as a whole should take a pride in its defenders, insist upon the organisation being real- and'designedfor'war purposes only, and provide the moans tor properly educating, training, and equipping their officers ami men. ■-Unless •'. these - requirements be mot, no militarv system can bo devised which : will bo other than an illusion and' a source of wasto of public funds. The second principle for a successful citizen force is a complement pf tho first. .Tho force must be nn integral portion of the national life. Tho citizen should bo brought un from boyMod to look forward to the day when lie will bo enrolled as fit to defend his country; and ho should be-accustomed to practise those habits of-self-denial, of devotion to and emulation in the execution of his duty, of reticence, and of prompt obedience to lawful authority, which are essential to the formation of patriotic and efficient citizen soldiers. These considerations show how completely a citizen force should Ijo kept outside partv politics. Political feeling in an annj' is always a carious drawback to efficiency, and "may become a danger to the State." '

The Area Officer—His Metier. Speaking of tho area officer, he said: "Each area should bo designed to provido a definite proportion of a fighting unit, and should bo in charge of a thoroughly trained permanent 'instructional officer ussistcxl % one or two non-commissioned officers. By this means a trained officer will -bo supplied to live permanently amongst a definifconumbor of the citizen forces, whoso military proficiency will entirely depend on his efforts to assist them in homo training, as well as in maintaining tho military spirit of selfdenial and esprit do corps amongst not only thoso who arc under training, but also tho whole community. Ho will thus bo readily available on all occasions to assist both officers and men in his area to their endeavour to render themselves

efficient defenders of their country; and when tho unit that ho has trained joins its battalioj, and tho battalion its brigade, each will vie- with the. other, and in this way promote a healthy spirit of emulation and competition in the force which will fostor and encourage true and real efliciency. Tho estimation of the good servioes of these officers themselves will depend upon tho comparison between the units provided by tho various areas. ... No social considerations, no influence, nothing but efficiency, should 1)0 allowed to affect the selection and promotion of these officers." It is rather interesting, after the lapse of a vear, to re-read these pertinent obasrvfttions especially tho reference- to area officers. Wo are apt rather to dissociate ourselves from our army mid regard it as a separate institution, to lie admired or criticised from the side-walk, than to think of it as quite a different kind of army from any that has ever been raised anywhero in the British Empire. Our anny is to bo a civic concern, thoroughly democratic, essentially as much a part of our worldly interests as thio public school. That is what Kitchener intended it to be, and that is what we as a people have to' make ■it. From personal observation a fairly intimato knowledge of the making of tho now system so fnr as it has gone, tho Field-marshal's injunction with regard to the area officer-Hind this applies to any officer whose position brings him into frequent touch with young lads— now appears to mo in the light of a very solemn warning to those whose business it is to appoint these officers. On parade, off duty, in his social life, the area officer is endowed with a status which should enable him to eiert. a tremendous personal influence with,- tho yduth of the community to which ho is posted for duty. Nobody wants to seo a goody-goody officer inculcnlin;r priggish ideas in the young men of his command, but everybody is most emphatic on tho point that no officer whose personal habits are such as to taint tho characters of those with whom he is brought into contact shall bo set in authority over youths who are compelled by law to submit to his discipline. What I want to say is this: I am not satisfied that the system under which_ certain officers were appointed to the Now Zealand Staff C6rps adequately protects the public from the risk of having imposed upon a community an undesirable* officer. In two instances that I know of the system failed to do that.