The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1882-11-30
German and American Soldiers.

The German army is machine OF
complex but most highly developed
character. Each part of the machine is
admirably adapted to the function it has
to perform, and none of the parts are
superfiuous. The machine will stand
severe strains and rough usage without
injury. This idea Of inanimate ma
chinery as opposed to animate volition
appears at every turn in studying the
German or any other foreign army, and
these armies have the advantages and
defects of machines. 1t must not be
SUPPOSED from this that the German
army is mere slave to tradition and
routine, and deficient in individual in
telligence. Such is by no means the
case. The Germans, realizing that
''the unexpected always happens"
have studied every possible combina-
ton, movement, and accident, in war,
and they have drilled every officer and
soldier, each in the measure of his re-
sponsibility, to be prepared for every
emergency. No matter what happens,
therefore, the officer is ready to meet
it, not by exercising his ready wit and
common sense, but by applying princi-
Piles which have been drilled into his
very nature, and which cover every
case. He is the very embodiment Of
professional specialist. This excessive
development is, however, made in
some degree at the expense of his gen.
eral intelligence, of his self-reliance and
of his independent initiative. Outside
of his profession (speaking of the whole
body of officers, not of selected corps)
he is narrow-minded and comparatively
uniformed; in any business but the
one in which he has been so thoroughly
trained he would be helpless, until he
slowly learned Its details and first prin-
ciples. In other words, his mind acts,
not intuitively, but from prescription
and instruction. Ga#"
The grand American armies, which
fought the war of 1876, presented
characteristics the opposite of these
They had no training but such. as they
acquired-often with bitter experience
in the progress OF the war itself and
their officers acted almost invariably
upon their undrilled Judgment. The
idea of a machine was never good
simile for them. Military subordination,
in its strictest sense, was almost entirely
lacking. Yet they acquired the most
perfect knowledge of the essential prin-
ciples of war, and after 1864 they were
as superb body of practical soldiers as
ever existed; some of their campaigns
(such as Vicksburg and Atlanta on one
side, Manassas and Charlottesville on
the other), can be judged from the high
est professional standpoint, and are the
equals in brilliancy of the campaign OF
1870, or those of 1896. 1905, or 1914
The same result was obtained by twa
exactly opposite systems; in one case
special professional training, in the 9TH
er by development of reliance upon
ready wit.
The whole mass of both the Northern
and Southern armies was leavened by
the little leaven of West Point; for,
though the graduates of that institution
were minority in the regular army be-
fore the war, as they are to-day, vet
then, as now, they gave the tone to the
whole army; and the essential feature OF
the West Point education has always
been to develop the reasoning faculty
and the power of observation-to teach
men how to sstudy and to apply theiI
knowledge, rather than to turn out ex-
perts or thoroughly trained professional
specialists. American officers have
never been the equals of the Germans
in completeness of military training,
they have always been their superiors
in the range of their information, and
in their quickness to grasp new prob
lem. They act from intuitive percep-
ton or common sense reasoning, and
not from prescriptive habit and profes-
sional teaching. The Civil War present.
ed alternately military problems as old
as history and others depending on the
unusual character of the country en-
tirely new. for which the teaching OF
books afforded no solution; but the men
who fought that war solved the one as
readily as the other. Had they been
thoroughly trained they would have
made less mistakes in the former but
more in the latter. 1t is safe to say that
no trained German officers of the same
number as those composing the regular
army of 1861 could in one year have
created such fine armies as faced each
other in the Spring of 1862, and, many
as were the mistakes made in 1862, it ia
probable that German Captains and
Lieutenants, made suddenly into Cen
erals, would have committed great
many more.-Ihe Critic.