Arizona republican., 1902-04-09
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, APRIL g, 1902.

THE and Military Lessons MODERN of Recent Wars by SOLDIER. Professor C. W. Larned
 of the West Point mili tary academy. The conclusion reached by Professor Larned, as by many others who have carefully considered the events of recent years. is that the day of the automaton soldier. obedient to orders but never thinking, a mere cog in a great machine, has passed away, that in the future the fighting unit will be. not the company of which the captain represents the brain, but the individual, and that the object of military training should be the develop mert of individual qualities. In dis cussing the war in South Africa the ground is taken that England has given a wonderful exhibition of resources in organizing, equipping and transporting an army of two CT three hundred thousand men a distance of ten thous- and miles with dispatch and safety that the material in the ranks is equal to anything in the armies of Europe. Tommy Atkins of today being in no wise inferior to the British soldier of the past; but that beyond this the record is not so pleasant.
 The conditions of warfare which the British army had to face were new to it and it has not been able to adapt itself to them. Of the leaders, Pro- lessor Larned says: "The British of- ficer has not modified. to any appre- ciable extent the combination of qualities which had become charac- teristic in Frederick's time and which Carlyle has described in an epigram- matic phrase. Without knowledge of war, without fear of death,' seems as fair a summary of him today as ever. Up guards and at them however, is no longer the equivalent of technical knowledge, neither do gallant dandies in uniform hurry from the ball rooms of 'Belgium's capital to epoch-making Waterloos.'' The glitter and tinsel of war belongs to the past; it must now be waged in a hard common sense way, SlIlppSu Ol SN CI llliiS SPCNIeANdAe'i or theatrical. Gorgeous uniforms and impressive manoeuvers may have 6 place about the courts of the old world monarchies, but they have as little to do with real efficiency as the gongs and hobgoblins of the Chinese soldiery or the war paint and feathers of the North American Indian. With the passing of these must also pass the vocation of the old wooden soldier, So dear to the martinets of the barrack- yard. a man obedient to the word of command. but without volition of his own, a machine only, that can march and pull trigger. Their passing be- gan with the development of the Amer ican soldier on the frontier, was hast ened by our civil war, and is now being consummated by the alert, practical Yankee as he appeared at Santiago and in the orient. and the uncouth, mobile. harp-shooting Boer of the veldt." Europe has been slow to recognize this fact, but might have taken warning from many of the battle fields of our NdTS Nllil E-ilSld Even as lar Ddch as the colonial days when, "who would have thought it" were the dying words of Braddock after he had seen his troops miserably routed by a handful of French and Indians without discip- line but who shot straight
 The need of good craftsmanship has been accentuated by the improvement in modern firearms It is well to have the best of tools, but 1t is also neces- sary to know how to use them to the best advantage. In connection with this topic and also as regards the need of highly trained officers, Professo. Larned thus speaks of the battle oi Modder river:
 Thin lines of more or less reluctant boys, middleaged and old men-dirty ununiformed, uncrganized, undisci- plined, extended in rude. unmilitar! trenches, and with little control iron their officers-demoralized and de stroyed by the corrosion of their fir, the best and bravest troops EaglanC could hurl against them. The Englisi soldier fought as he had been taught as the best continental troops would have done had they been in his place They 'deployed' and rushed after tn fashion Of the modern academic attack and they begged away with their owl rifles in the indiscriminate method O the school of the soldier and infantr marksmanship, but to their amazemen they got left'-many of them in thei tracks-by these uncouth boys an bearded ranchmen of the veidt. Tn British officer all the while was
 pathetic spectacle. From all account