COMEATANT ARMIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 27 May 1915, Page 3

COMEATANT ARMIES.

MEN ACTUALLY FIGHTING

rhe habit which the public have fallen .into in this war of estimating tne strength o£ the combatant armies in millions gives tsays the Auckland btar) a very vague idea of the actual numbers engaged. In the first place, of the total' number of soldiers trained and equipped, only a proportion can be! piaced in the fighting line of a battle JNapo.eon estimated that one did well if one brought to the battle five men out of eight. There is always a large floating mass of sick, slightly wounded and convalescents with the army, still more scattered about the Home country where the depots, too, are crammed with men waiting to be sent up as reinforcements, and where a large number of officers and N.C.O.'s are occupied in training fresh men. Behind I the fighting line, too, there are large numbers of officers and men of the Medical Corps, all counted in the total of the army, as are also the great numbers necessarily employed in the transport and supply services, in the store department dealing with the immense quantity of ammunition to be sent to the front, and in the railways administrationco...qv.T ?F.' s7a —?—? ? tered by the military authorities.' All these men are soldiers, and are counted in the total of the army. In the actual organisations at the front—armies, army corps, divisions— one-third or more of the total strength are not actually fighting. Thus, in a j German Army Cor.ps, the total strength ] is 41,000 men, 14,000 horses and 2400 vehicles; while the fighting strength is 25,000 rifles, 1200 sabres, and 126 guns. In the British Cavalry Division the total strength is nearly 10,000 men and horses, and 550 vehicles; while the fighting strength is under 6000 sabres, with 24 machine guns and 24 guns. , Even of the actual combatants, by no means all o.re actually engaged in fighting personally. The commanders of all units, from the Commander-in-Chief of the whole, and the commanders of armies under, him, down to the brigadier and the colonels of regiments, together with all their staff, total up to a large figure in the great armies, but are directing and not personally fighting. The cavalry, too, during most of the war, are practically auxiliaries to get information to enable the infantry to. fight to the best advantage. When they do fight, however, it may be noted that au orficers. from the brigadier downwards, are fighting in the front line just as much as the men, which is seldom the case in infantry warfare. It is | difficult to say, too, that of the thousands of artillerymen in an army cor.ps, many are actually engaged in the fight —perhaps only tne actual men who aim and fire each gun. The others of tlie personnel of the battery are drivers of guns and waggons, men supplying the guns with ammunition, range-finders, telephone men, observers, etc. There ar.e also the officers, and the baltery, brigade, and divisional artillery staff, who are not actually lighting. The eUgineers, too, are generally engaged with their professional duties, dangerous enough in battle, but are seldom actually fighting as they w ; ere during the crisis at Ypres in October, or in the defence of Ronke's Drift, in the. Zulu War. In addition, the officers' servants and the company cooks in a large army "must be reckoned by tens of thousands. In short, it is not too much to say that, accurately speaking, it is only the rank and file of the infantry, and, on ncaasions of the cavalry, who are fighting.