WAR MISMANAGEMENT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16500, 30 July 1919, Page 7

WAR MISMANAGEMENT .

CAPTAIN ROOSEVELT'S EXPOSE ■; ‘ OF AMERICA. i I I SAN RRAXCISCO, Juno 1. ' AIL America has boon shocked by tho startling exposures nuiclo by Captain Archibald itooscvelt into the war bunginig on the part oi tho Lnilod Slates, the brilliant sou of tiie loi.vi Amen can President charging gross aiemcieucy and mismanagement by the American War Dopai m training, i equipping, and caring lor the country s soldiers. . . bj>easing at tho officers' training i camps in the United States at the time “wc had been pulled into the wai, Captain Roo seven. says there was tearful confusion at ivuiilsourg tamp, ' where omcer.s ol the Regular Army were wlldfy and without system rushed to other camps. "itcuce, ’ he says, : ‘‘we had the retnarkaUle spectacle ol i artillery officers attempting to tram ; infantry uni is. How amused our infantry company a as when the artillery officer iu command used 10 order us to close in at the rear of the battery.” “Though poorly trained, the person- , uel were good. Bjit model'll material . was entirely lacking. The automatic ■ rifle and tho maelnuc-guu wore uu- : known, not only to the student officers, ’ but to nearly all the officers ol the ! Regular Army. The Lewis automatic | rifle, for three years successfully used | by the British and Belgian Armies in I actual warfare, had been, alter several : highly successful trials, condemned by i our War Depai I incut; heueii its advnnj tages were Known only by a few who i had seen the trials. 1 was with General Wood when these trials were given iu 1916. The Bcuet-Mereier, too heavy ; to be carried by a 'dough-boy.’ yet not j placed on fixed rests, had the disad- | vantage of being neither an automatic rifle or a machine-gun. | NO MODERN WEAPONS. “Steel helmets had never been used. The grenade . . . had never been seen by most of our regular officers; neither had (he I'iiio grenade or Stokes mortar. United States Army aeroplanes had never been used by the iraining equips up to the rime 1 Icfo iu June, 1917. Lack of artillery and cavalry equipment rendered training in these branches ludicrous mull long after the i camps had begun. In spite of the weili known employment of poison gases by tho Huns and our Allies, not one man l in our army had ever been equipped or trained with the gas mask until long after onr first division had landed iu , France. ; “Hie authorised bayonet training was, with its system of fair and foul blows, and its complicated footwork, j more benefiting to tho ball-room than i to the battlefield. What could bo more i absurd than to expect a man fighting ! for his life to refuse to hit a treachcr- ! ous Gorman below the belt? In corI tain organisations, indeed, tiie drill was done to music. ] “Many a weary hour have we, wasted on wig-wag and semaphore signalling ■ only to find out later that tho European Armies had long since abandoned these methods as impracticable and substituted the blinker lights, T.P.18. (ground wireless) ami wireless. Not until Jong after I lauded iu France did I oven hear of those methods, to say nothing of learning how to handle them. In tactics wo were far behind. Airplanes were mentioned but casually, and armies wore considered as supplied by mule wagons.” Speaking of his “good fortune” to parade, with tho first American soldiers in Baris on July 4, 1917, Roosevelt says iu his article; “Like nearly everyone else in. tho United States at ; that time. I, too. believed that the i Regular Army itself (outside. the < Bluttsburg Camp) was sufficiently web j organised, trained, and equipped. T j had heard of the small but splendidly i equipped Regular Army which tho PrcI sideut finally alluded to in Franco on I Juno 26, 1917. For fear of giving in- ! formation to our enemies, all informaI lion as to its size and manner of equipment was kept secret from everyone—except the Germans. “BADLY ARMED MOB.” “Never have I seen such rejoicing as that of tho French populaco when one battalion of the Sixteenth lufuutry paraded through Baris in 1917. And yet at that time there was little, reason for our Allies to rejoice. It did not take an experienced' eye to perceive that the reviewing battalion, like tho rest of the First Division—alas! like all -tho rest of thu United States Army —was a badly armed, undisciplined mob of splendid recruits. “Men were picked iu wild haste. Some were snatched from recruiting camps before they knew tho butt of a riflo from tho muzzle. And probably i not more than 40 per cent, of our men had ever fired a service, riflo in their Jives before embarking for Europe. ; “The management of gas defence is I typical of the confusion engendered bywar in tho War Department and army. ! Onr division landed in Franco with no 1 gas masks. Late in July wo wore supplied with French gas masks. Wo later adopted what was supposed to ho an improved British respirator typo, ! manufactured iu America. Fortunate- i ly, tho chemical service of tho Aracri- j can Expeditionary Force discovered in i time that tho so-called improvements j made the masks leak when subjected ; to ono of tho most dangerous German ; gases—tho mustard gas. So General ■ Rorshing had to obtain directly from | England the British respirators.' j “SWIVEL-CHAIR EXPERTS.” j “Nothing daunted, the swivel-chair | experts of tho United States produced i another child of their mighty intellects. I This time, built on tho same model as : the British respirator, it was so en- i cumbered with safety devices that, in I spite of minor improvements, the i weight of the mask was a serious liau- I dicap. _ in another absolutely safe typo i of respirator sent by the United States, tho salety was obtained by having tho ’face piece fit so tightly that after fifteen minutes circulation was stopped. As a gas attack often lasts eight hours, a. man wearing such a mask was either obliged to remove" the’mask and die by gas poisoning, or else ho was apt to lose consciousness from tho effects of tho face piece. When I left Franco, twelve months after wo ■ had drifted into tho war, lho„ new American gas masks were in the same place as the Liberty airplanes, the Liberty trucks, and tho Browning machine-guns. All were figments of the imagination. Tho automatic rifle fiasco is perhaps even more glaring than tho airplane, because even loss excusable. Even in August. 1918, no Browning automatic rifles or machine-guns had been employed with any of the fighting divisions of the United States Army. “BRAIN TRUST.” “In grenades, the ‘Brain Trust’ at home—as our ‘Douabboys’ called tfcij

; . I general staff—adopted their usual dila- j i lory experimental methods. While wc ; I were fighting with grenades borrowed I 1 from tho liard-pressod French, the Gov- , j ; eminent officials were, experimenting | i with tho idea, of obtaining a jierfoctly { : safe grenade. They found it. It was j i safe both for us and the Germans. | : Only a trained mechanic, in a large j ■ quiet field could set it oil. With j • j riflo grenades onr ease was more hull- i i crons.” Antiquated French grenades j ‘ bad i,o bo used, and American soldiers I j 1 bad to ho disarmed of their own rifles, 1 i and were, handed old-fashioned French 1 equipment from which to- lire the j } grenades. Exposing Americans when ’ 1 ■ flag-wagging enable the qnemy to shoot j > the observer, and tho semaphore train- > j mg was entirely wasted. I After describing a. long list of dc--1 i ficicncics of tho United States Army in ' I Franco, Captain Roosevelt added:— | “Lark of equipment and lack ol train- ■ I ing and organisation made it imposj 1 sible to start our actual training in ! modern warfare, based on the lines del i velopod by the. English, .French, and i 1 Germans itntil July 24, 191,7—0ne i : month less two days’ after onr arrival i \ in Fraitee. And, oven thou we could - ■ only stimulate the varied equipment re- " ! qnired by an infantry company in mod- ) ora warfare. Snell vitally necessary I articles as gasmasks and steel helmets - i did not arrive until August, 1917. 1 1 ; j “BORROWED REGALIA.” , ( “Eventually, most of our borrowed I ; | regalia- did come, and in October wo i ■ were to go to tho trenches. The on- j 1 i ihnsinsm was somewhat hampenod, ] , i | however, when about two weeks before i I ; we started we found all our 1917 rifle j ( ■ | ammunition to be defective. It bad | ■ | passed the factory tests and the. care- I • i j less eyes of Government inspectors, - ! and had been sent to us overseas. | ; t ; where the difference between perled - ■ I and imperfect ammunition meant ihe I . ■ difference between life and death to our j • ! soldiers. | ; | “1 believe if, was October 8,19 L. I . j that wc moved tip for the first lime I , i into the firing line. Nearly four j | months after landing in France, onr I ‘splendidly equipped and trained’ Rogn- ! , i hir Division was considered by the AI- 1 i ! lied command 'only sufficiently (rained j ■ , to he placed in the line with the pro- | . j portion of one American battalion to . ' 1 | ono regiment of three battalions. Nor ] ; j did the Allied command place Aniori- j ! can troops in the line at this time for i . ! lighting purposes. ’They were placed 1 . i there for simply part of their training, [ , : and the Allies had to supply us with j . most, of the transportation and all of ■ the higher officers. • LEFT WITHOUT FOOD. [ I “Then wc had for the first time tho , experience of employing rolling kitch- ; ; ons. Before entering the war, the ; 1 United States Army had what in tho j ; year 1913 was considered a very mod- j j ern cooking equipment. But tho war i , had developed kitchen wagons drawn j . by horses, and so constructed that the I I : cooking could be carried on during the ! . j march. No ter were they officially in- i ; j troduced into our army until after our I I first, division had been over throe | 1 1 j months in France, and even then we I , I had to borrow from France. The 1 j j American company was considerably 1 I I heavier than the French, and in the f [ ’ Arrccourt sector wc also had some on- J ; ginccrs attached to ns. Consequently ; |i wo had a very hard time cooking 1 [ . enough food for all. Adding to alt ' , this, the supply system, commanded by i , • officers ignorant, of supplying large i I units in rho field and depending too | . i much upon mule, teams and light ! ; trucks, utterly broke down, and we I [ ; were often left without food. Though ! i our stay in the line was short, yet the i , I good it did was inestimable. Oup own I . ! Regular Army officers on the General i . , Staff and lino, trained in tho antiquat- j . ' ed schools, could give no information | ; | on tho subject of modern war. Only ; , | by our own experience could wo learn. , j and experience, the effective, is a cost- | 'ly teacher. But most important of all, ■ * the younger officers—l am not so sure . about tbe older—discovered their absolute ignorance of modern warfare.”