THE BRITISH ARMY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21556, 19 January 1940, Page 4

THE BRITISH ARMY

Trying Democracy

Officers And Their Men

It is a remarkably different British Army from that which from 1914 to 1918 confronted the Germans on the Western Front, writes Harold Denny from France to the “New York Times/' Not only has it been mechanised and reorganised out of any semblance to the weary foot battalions that fought on against devastating losses, often needless ones, its human aspect, too, has been largely reorganised. Apparently the British High Command in London has recognised that in the last war there was overmuch of the impersonal and that in this war, if Britain is to win, more thought must be. given to the men as individuals, down to the last private, expending his last ounce of strength and courage to achieve victory. In the last war brave young subalterns, just out of school, led their platoons against formidable objectives, knowing nothing of the relation their desperate little battle had to the operation as a whole. Often they died gallantly and their men with them, without knowing what for except that they were to take a little bit of ground directly ahead of them or to defend the tiny sector on which they stood. Now an effort is being made to change that radically. It is one of the objects of the British High Command that everyone, down to section commanders and privates, shall know what he is about, in the belief that officers and men will fight better if they know why they are fighting. The High Command does not want young officers and soldiers just to die bravely. It wants them to win battles. Demoeratisation Needed Thus the desire for intelligent participation of all grades and ranks necessarily calls for a degree of demoeratisation in the British Army. That army, like the United States Army, has included the caste system. The officers are gentlemen, the men are just men. The American Army kept that form throughout the World War though in essence it was greatly moderated. Such a system may be and probably is suitable for a relatively small and professional peace-time army, but in a war which calls out most of the ablebodied males of a country—educated and uneducated alike —it seems out of place. The caste system in the British Army has been far more rigid than that in the American forces because Britain has castes in a way unknown the United States. Almost all officers are drawn from the upper social classes and at this point in the moulding of the British wartime army they still are. That does not imply any harshness or even excessive stiffness in the attitude of the officers towards the men. In fact, one of the outstanding impressions this correspondent has received in more than two weeks on the British front is the cordial relations existing between the officers and men of the regular army, where the officers are of the aristocracy and the men are of lower castes. There is no trace of Prussianism. The officers speak affectionately of their men and their attitude seems that of elder brothers. In the direction of demoeratisation two more concrete steps have been taken. One te the removal of the ban on officers associating with enlisted men off duty. In the last war such a step would * have been inconceivable. The other is a regulation that officers may be chosen from the ranks. Some Head-shaking There is some shaking of heads among officers here as to how the latter will work. Some officers say enlisted men resent taking orders from men of their own class and that they prefer obeying orders of higher social grade, speaking with an accent that goes with a more favoured origin. But the new regulations surely will result in a much larger number of educated and hence socially-superior youn» men entering the army as privates, receiving the actual training of warfare, and gradually entering the officers' ranks. Although the officers of the British Army will still be predominantly patrician the door will be wider open that ever before to men of humbler origin who have the brains, courage, and native talent to command. , . , The personalities of the higher officers commanding the British forces, both in England and here, are in keeping with this new move to humanise the Army. In the writer’s contacts with the British Army recently in London and here he has met many generals, but not one stuffed shirt. One can take the three generals who are at the top of all Britain’s military forces on land, two of whom he has had occasion to meet. The three are Viscount General Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force; Sir Edmund Ironside. Chief nt the Imperial General Staff; and General Sir Walter Kirke, InspectorGeneral of the Home Forces. They are relatively young for such high military posts, the eldest, General Kirke being 60. Every one is what is known as a “soldier’s soldier.” Everyone has had a most varied military experience, including service on the Western Front in the last ln which all three distinguished themSel Gerieral Gort’s record is especially one to appeal to the soldier in the firing line, for he won his V’ctoria Cross and other decorations for heroism While only a Jimwr °® c “ ™ the World War. To see him go g about among his troops on front-taa Inspection tours confirms the ffist m pression that here is a man of aobon. a man with an eye for essentials with little concern for formality.