How the Warring Armies are Fed.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XXI, 21 May 1904, Page 54

How the Warring Armies are Fed.

SOLDIERS OF JAPAN ARE BETTER FORAGKRS THAN AKE THOSE OF RUSSIA. . t The war in the Kant i* affording a teat of the transport and coiainixgariat Byatcrna of Russia and Japan. By the Russian system an army corps of 45,000 men is supposed to bo accompanied by 2400 waggons, say 3 the New York •‘Sun.” When campaigning, the Russian soldier is supposed to carry two days* rations on his person. The regimental trains carry rations for each man for two days longer, and the divisional train for from two to four days. It is reckoned that fresh supplies should always be obtainable from the surrounding country or along the line of communications within the six. or eight days allowed.

The system is a good one, but the transport and commissariat broke down miserably in every important war waged by Russia during the last century. The experience of the past indicates that the Cossacks are the only Russian soldiers who are mobile and well fed in a campaign. They are mobile because they always have large numbers of spare horses — often two for each man: they are well fed because of their skill in, foraging. j DRAW ON PRIVATE FUNDSRussian officers spend freely out of their private funds during a campaign, in order to remedy the defects of the official transport and commissariat. They have been obliged tu do So even during manoeuvres. The example was set by SkobcloiT, Russia’s greatest General of' modern times, during the Russo-Turkish war. He was a rich man, ami every rouble ha owned ;vas at the disposal of his beloved soldiers when they needed it. All the official arrangements for feeding the mon and caring for the sick and wounded broke down utterly, and Bku.beIcff was always putting his baiur in his pocket through that campaign. On one occasion ho spent 15,000 roubles to charter a steamer to take a number of wounded mon to Odessa for treatment. He never recovered from the Government the large sums he expended. When »Skol>p’eff was praised for his generosity toward his troops, he replied unaffectedly: “1 owe everything to those men, and the least I can do is to spend a few thousand roubles to help them in their need.” That spirit animates most officers in the Russian army to-day. General Kuropatkin, General Grodskoff, and other famous Russian officers trained under ♦Skobeleff followed his example. Now it is regarded as the regular thing in the Russian army for an officer to have to spend money on his men to remedy official shortcomings. It is to be feared that graft has a great deal to do with those short comings. These defects are, however, largely offset by the patient endurance of the Russian soldier, born of his dog like loyally to the Czar. The American military attache was impressed by that quality. SPIRIT OF THE SOLDIERS. ‘‘When -his battles result in defeats, when his biscuits are full of maggots, when his clothes arc shabby, when his boots drop to pieces, the Russian soldier,” he said, “reasons it all out slowly and can only come to the conclusion, so pathetic in its simple faith: ’Ah, if the Czar only knew!' “Every one within his reach he freely discusses, criticises and blames: he half suspects that his Generals may be fools, and he is sure that his commissaries are rascals; but no thought of censure ever crosses his mind against the Czar.” It is hardly necessary to point out the value of this mental attitude as a military asset.

The Russian soldiers appear, as a general rule, to lack the ability to shift for themselves in matters nf transport end commissariat. If their elaborate Bystem of baggage trains breaks down,

as it may well do under the strain of a hard campaign—they are utterly at » loss, unless they are Cossacks, Kalmucks or Turcomans, accustomed from boyhood to picking up their meals wherever and whenever they can find them. JAPANESE TRAVEL LIGHT. The Japanese, on the contrary, showed during their war with China a remarkable ability to create their transport and commissariat apparently out of nothing as they went along. They did not trouble much about baggage trains; they had them, to be sure, well supplied and welt organised, but the troops moved so quickly that they were out of touch with their waggons half the time. They travelled in the lightest possible order and picked up any old native earts or mules or coolies they chanced to meet, making them serve the necessities of the moment, and then letting them go and getting others further on.

The only drawback of this system was that as the campaign advanced the armies became clogged by large numbers of coolies an 1 other camp followers, who created a great deal of trouble and commit led excesses, which were wrongfully charged to the regular troops. Some of the Japanese commanders adopted a short way with these obnoxious persons, driving them out of the army on pain of death as soon as their services were over. After the war it was pretty generally agreed that no similar nuisance should be tolerated in another campaign. During the advance to the relief of the besieged legations al Peking the Japanese commissary was. by common agreementof the foreign officers, better than that, of any of tin* European troops, and the Japanese soldiers showed a genius for foraging and accommodating their appetites to the food available in the country.

In.lead of using heavy waggons liable to be bogged or to tire out the horses, the Japanese had a great number of light hand carts —much like the push carts of the Italians in New York and other American cities. These carts were drawn by coolies or by the soldiers themselves, ami they were so lightly laden that they interfered little, if at all, with the mobility of the force. The horse aud mule carts were of the smallest type, and lightly built. Spare animals were made io carry their own fodder, and that of the other animals as well.

These measures were rendered necessary by the smallness and weakness of the Japanese horses, which are about the scrawniest animals of their kind. The Russians, on the contrary, are well supplied with large, strong, well-bred horses. In th? Turcoman campaigns in Central Asia camels were employed, but they are hardly ever used to-day by Russian treops. Thousands of dogs are pressed into service, mainly for transporting soldiers and supplies in sledges across I.ake. Baikal.

RATIONS Ol' THE TROOPS. In the present campaign the Mikado's lighting man is carrying a great deal more food with him than his Russian adversary. Against the latter's two days’ rations he carries two cooked rations of rice, in addition to six emergency rations. These are contained in an aluminum mess pan, and as the rice has been boiled and dried in the sun, the entire weight, is trilling. It is commonly supposed that the Japanese soldier lives entirely on rice and dried tisli, but such is not the fact. He can live, and fight well, on that spare diet, if necessary; but he is given meat and other sustaining foods whenever practicable, as well as beer or sake. Several years ago a military commission was appointed by the Mikado to ascertain why the physique of the Japanese troops was inferior to that of the British, German and other armies. The commission came to the conclusion that beef and beer helped to build up the stalwart frames of Occidental fighting men, and since then beef and beer have been included in the diet scale of the Japanese army.