THE CALL TO ARMS

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13989, 26 August 1909, Page 7

THE CALL TO ARMS

CURSE 01'' INCOMPLETENESS. Melbourne Argus," August 12tJi.) Hotter a sharp tomahawk than a blunt axe. When a hundred practised marksmen assemble they are not a fighting unit, though their pockets lie lilied with cartridges and their riHes be in their hands. They want a commander to direct them, with liis subordinate officers to see to carrying out of his instructions. They cannot march, for they have no transport ; nor camp, for they have no food or shelter; nor fight, for they have no ammunition for more than the preliminaries of' battle, and no entrenching tools to throw up cover. , Give them transport, food, ammunition, spades, and they became a real means nf offence and defence. Take a score, or a hundred, or a thousand of such effective units, they .ire not an army. They must be grouped. . The groups must be. officered. Groups must, in turn, be organised, in larger bodies with their comnianders, and so 011 till we reach cite chief commander, who, through his immediate staff, controls the whole. And their we have not an army. For this organised, disciplined, and controlled body is of riflemen only. Armies require cavalry (or their Australian substitute, light horse) for protection, for information, for special speed of movement. They want artillery to support the infantry. Engineers are needed to maintain communication, to make or break bridges, to mend or ruin roads. Signallers are required for transmission of orders. Ammunition columns are more indispensable than ever in these days of quick-firing guns, magazine rifles, and week-long battles, in order to provide in wheeled vehicles replenishments of shrapnel and of bullet for the firing line. The ' food for men and horses, and the waggons which carry it, must be properly assembled in supply columns. The sick and the wounded must have their field ambulances, i All these must lie ■ m the--proportions experience has decreed. *^ll needs much more than shooting at a target to make a soldier, and infinitely more than soldiers to make an army.

Campaigning, despite a prevalent impression to the contrary, does not consist of a series of bloody battles, with the combatants returning; home to lunch in the intervals. The battle which counts is but the culminating ooint of years of peace preparation, and weeks or months of marching in war. It is the final test of the army which fights it, but has been preceded by a' long line of other tests, which must have been successfully' passed to enable the last to be tried at all with any prospect of victor} - . Uie power to manoeuvre depends on the fitness and completeness of the instrument-, the army, ana the capacity of the general, its wielder. On the power to manoeuvre depends the possibility of engaging the enemy on terms which justify engaging him at all. Judged by these standards, and there are no others known to history, how fares'it with our Australian army"-' Well, worse than it is pleasant to conless. Be it remembered that the backbone of our land defence, is neither the guns in our forts nor the men who man them. There are certain places in this continent, the holding of which is strategically so important that we are bound to build forts to protect them and provide garrisons to guard them. Sydney is by far the most notable instance. But such strategical points are only pivots, kept for ourselves, denied to the foe, for those operations nlielcl or afloat, which alone can decide a war. When Wellington took Badai"s and Ciu'dad Rodrigo he had but cleared the ground for the marching, ihe manoeuvring, and the fighting which, drove the French beyond the Pyrenees, and brought them to Raris. Therefore we must look beyond our garrison troops to the " mobile field force" of six. Light Horse brigades and three infantry brigades, which we possess — on paper. They are not mobile, so cannot take the field; if they took the field they would not be a force. Otherwise their title is rather apt. At its war strength of 30,000, of whom some two-thirds are actual combatants, this body of .men cotikl do much ; and whether it be or be not sufficient to meet all probable attacks, would assuredly be more potent to save us, if made really mobile, than five times its number made half-ready, as Parliament has up till now made everything. The Federal Treasurer's Budget speech will tell us if we are once more to have our hopes deferred. The enterprising idiot who exhausts his funds in building the walls of 12 houses i'nd roofing none becomes a bankrupt. The prudet man, who builds six finished dwellings finds tenants and prosperity. There is 110 single part of our defence force, garrison or field, which has been made ready for. mobilisation in- all details, and the one burning military need of this country to-day is to complete: and make real our small army, as its one damning military delect has been to leave this undone in order to meet political clamour. To divert money from this need to other military purjioses is both crime and blunder. The details of what is wanted may be considered another day: meanwhile it is true, at the end as at the beginning, that a sharp tomahawk is better than a blunt axe.

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