The Star. Delivered evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1914. NOTES ON THE WAR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 September 1914, Page 4

The Star. Delivered evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1914. NOTES ON THE WAR.

THE GERMAN MILITARY SYSTEM

"En Avant," the writer of an article in the latest number of the London Magazine, challenges the prevalent Old World belief that the German army is "the finest, greatest, and most sphudid fighting machine now on earth." In suing his reasons for regarding this •:; inion as being, in a singular Jbgrep, a popular fallacy, he says: "Their* arc a hundred and one qualities wh'vh are supposed theoretically to *.i-dke"for efficiency in the army, such as numbers, material,' discipline, leading, pl:ys'<;ue, training, organisation, and so forth, but the great deciding factor —and tlose who have as much modern 'battle-field experience as myself will doubtless agree with me—is the capacity of the individual soldier to endure, hardship and his individual determination to win through. Now, the German system of life and of military training is not designed to encourage individual effort/ but rather to stultify it, and to reduce

the individual mau or unit to the state of a disciplined automaton. In most professions and trades such a training is excellent, for by dint of much practice each individual and unit becomes 'part perfect'—each learns to fit into his appointed place1, just as do the component parts of nicely adjusted pieces of : mechanism. The business of an army, however, diffei's from any other, for it cannot be practised in peace time. What men do at manoeuvres is no criterion whatever of what they will do in war. An army can never really practise war until it is in the presnece of the enemy. The army that has not been proved in war is like the piece of machinery that has never been set in motion. Now, the more nicely adjusted the machine the more fatal will be the catastrophe when anything unforeseen occurs—^take the Titanic as an example—and it is common knowledge that it is always the unexpected that does occur in war timel. Wherefore an army should be as elastic as possible in its organisation and training. This is precisely what the German army is not," says "En Avant," and he mentions an utter lack and discouragement of personal initiative as-the dominant characteristic of the German officer and soldier. Then.(he says, further) "the German cavalry always reminds me of the leaden soldiers, with which I used' to play in childhood. They look simply splendid, and they are seen at their best when delivering an impossible charge; but the German is neither a horseman nor a horse master; as a scout he is beneath contempt. The German infantryman has two great faults '. he is too fat, and tries to carry too much weight on his back, with the result that he can neither march far nor fast. There is also the additional disadvantage that, like our own men, he requires a plentiful supply of food to -keep him going at all. When in close formations the work of the infantry is distinctly ;good., and their drill is splendid, but once the men get into anything ; approach;ing open order, all initiative ceases. The German infantryman lacks the dash of the French, the doggedness of the Russian, the fatalism \of the Turk, or the practical adaptability of his British rival." Finally, and altogether, "The German army is a machine in which all the parts are in an everlasting state of unoiled friction against each other. In short, in spite of all the alarmists say," concludes the writer, "there is much hope in the idea that German military power is a highly inflated bubble, of brilliant hues, but susceptible of being pricked and burst. The only question is: Who is to burst it, and when?" The writer states his case strongly, but naturally people throughout the British Empire will expectantly hope to see his views justified by events in the present campaign in Europe.