Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-09-11
RUSSIAN ARMY
As IT REALLY IS
Great Transformation
Wrought in Cars Forces
Since War with Japs.

Petrograd, Sept. 10.-Due to their
experience in the war with Japan, the
officers of the Russian army were
said to be the best trained in Europe
at the beginning of the present titanic
conflict. The education of the mod
ern officer has radically changed dur
ing the last few years. The develop
ment of present-uay warfare has
rendered it necessary for him to
acquire an ever increasing burden of
knowledge so that on the cont nent
today the military officer is celtain-
bers of the community. Every year
manoeuvers are made more realistic.
But after ALL the best training for
war is war The Russian army to-
day contains the only men ii Europe
who have had this training, as far
as war on vast scale is concerned.
Tens Of thousands of Officers and
men who are in the field witt the
Russian army today have haG The
actual experience in modern warfare
on which the text books of the other
contending armies are based
Among the endless battaliCns who
are now on the Prussian and Aus
trian frontier fighting the Gesrmans
and their allies, are any nrplber of
officers who have made thy newt
abel mistake committed by troops
facing fire for the first time.
1t is probable that every regiment
OF Russian troops in action today
contains seasoned men who faced th-
inferno of Japanese fire at Port
Arthur, Mukden and the other deadly
combats of the Machurian campaign.
Military experts understand the in
appreciable moral effect Which the
presence of such veterans mas on
untried recuits.
Again these fire tried We Grams are
opposed the Germans with tnei' forty
four wears ceaseless drilling and pre-
paration for war The conflict Of
1914, five weeks old, has not yet
demonstrated whether or lot book
training is equal to experience. The
world is eagerly watching the test.
The Russian officer r. social
standing and in his relations with his
men is a sort of mean between the
German and French officer. Like the
German he is of official caste and
perhaps may come from the lobilty
but often, like most of the French
officers. he comes from humble ORR
gin, and therefore is no frlendLs and
intimate terms with the men under
him. The Russian officer enters the
military academy very youaY, seven
years or Whereabouts, and remains in
training ten or eleven years before
he is given a commission.
The difficulties confront ns, the
Russian General Staff is the presnt
war are many and great. While the
British army knows something Of the
guarding of frontiers by its expert
ence in Indian, and the Germans and
French have had their Alsace-L or
ralne frontiers OF look after. huge
Russia has seven frontiers TO be pro-
tected. The great empire - vulner-
able from seven angles, by land and
sea, and While sending her hordes Of
invaders into Austria and Prussia,
must always keep big force at home
to look after her thousands of miles
OF borders.
1t is an axiom of war to be prepar-
ca TO out-number an enemy at given
point, but Russia has to be :eady to
otu-number her enemy a. many
points, hundreds and Sometimes
thousands OF miles from each other.
Another grave obstacle in he way
OF the Russia General Staff ROW are
the traditions of bribery and corrup-
ton which still remain in certain cir
Gle sof the Russian bureaucracy.