New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-10-18
BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.


the course of some comments which
made upon the sighting remarks about
our army by General Won Bernhard,
observed: at may be noted that Cen
eral Won Bernhard has a poor opinion
of our troops. This need not trouble
us. We are what we are, and words
will not alter it. From very early days
our soldiers have left their mark upon
Continental warfare, and we have no
reason to think that we have declined
from the manhood of our forefathers."
tack.
With that curious power of coming
after deep study to the absolutely dia-
metrically wrong conclusion which the
German expert, political or military,
appears to possess, he says in his "War
of To-day: "The English army, trained
more for purposes of show than for
modern war" adding in the same SEN
tence a sheer at our inferior colonial
( levies."
He will have an opportunity of re-
considering his views presently upon
.
and surely, so far as our own are con-
cerned, he must already be making
some interesting notes for his next edi-
ton, or, rather. for the learned volume
upon Germany and the Last War"
which will, no doubt, come from his
pen. He is a man to whom we might
well raise statue, for | am convinced
that his frank confession of German
policy has been worth at least an army
corps to this country. We may address
to him John Davidson's lines to his
enemy:
Unwilling friend lot not your spite abate.
| spur US with scorn and strengthen ms with
hate.
There is another German gentleman
who must be thinking rather furously.
lie is a certain Colonel Gadke, who APP
peared officially at Aldershot some
years ago. was Hospitality entreated, be-
ing shown all that he desired to see,
and on his return to Berlin published a
most deprecatory description Of our
forces. He found no good thing in
I them. ] have some recollection that
General French alluded in public
speech to this critics remarks, and ex-
pressed a modest hope that he and his
men would some day have the oppor-
tunity of showing how far they were
deserved Well, ne has had his oppor-
tunity, and Colonel Gadke. like so many
ether Germans, seems to have made a
mscalculation.
Germans Untried in War.
An army which has preserved the abb
surd parade schritt, an exercise which
is painful 10 the bystander. as he feels
that II is making fools of brave men,
must have tendency to throw back TO
earlier types. These Germans have
been trained in peace and upon the
theory of books. In all that vast host
there is hardly a man who has stood
at the wrong end of a loaded gun. They
live on traditions of close formations,
vast cavalry charges, and other things
which will not fit into modern warfare.
Braver men do not exist, but il is the
bravery of men who have been taught
to lean upon each other, and not the
cold, self-contained. resourceful brav-
cry of the man who has learned to
fight for his own hand. The British
have had the teachings of two recent
campaigns fought with modern weapons
that of the Tirah and of South Africa.
Now that the reserves have Joined the
colors there are few regiments which
have not fair sprinkling of veterans
from these wars in their ranks. The
Pathan and the Boer have been their
instructors in something more practical
than those imperial grand mannuvres
where the all-highest played with his
puppets IN such a fashion that one of
his generals remarked that the chief
practical difficulty of a campaign so
conducted would be the disposal of the
dead.
Beers and Pathans have been hard
masters and have given many a slap to
their admiring pupils. but the lesson
has been learned. 1t was not show
troops, general, who, with two CORPS.
held five of your best day after day
from Mons to Compiegne Il is no re-
proach to your valor, but you were up
against men who were equally brave
and knew great deal more of the
game. This must begin to break upon
you, and will surely grow clearer as the
days go by. We shall often in the
future take the knock as well as give t.,
but you will not say that we are a show
army If you live to chronicle this war,
nor will your imperial master be proud
of the adjective which he has demeaned
himself in using before his troops had
learned their lesson.
The South African Lesson.
The fact is that the German army,
with all its great traditions, has been
petrifying for many years back. They
never learned the lesson of South
Africa. 1t was not for want of having
it eXpounded to them, for their mill
tary attache-" i'm with the spatch-
cock on is emet," as ] heard him de-
scrbed by a British orderly missed
nothing of what occurred, as is evil
dent from their official history of the
war. And yet they missed it, and with
all those ideas of individual efficiency
and elastic independent formation
which are the essence of modern SOL
eiering. Their own more liberal think
ers were aware of it, Here are the
words which were put into the mouth
of Guntz, the representative of the
Younger school, in Beverlein's famous
novel.
"The organization of the German
army rested upon foundations which
had been laid a hundred years ago.
Since the great war they had never seri-
ously been put to the proof, and during
the last three decades they had only
been altered in the most trihing details
In three long decades! And in one of
those decades the wc-ld at large had
advanced as much as in the previous
century.
"Instead of turning this highly devel-
oped intelligence to good account, they
bound il hand and foot on the rack of
an everlasting drill which could not
have been more soullessly mechanical
in the days of Frederick. 1t held them
together as an iron hoop holds together
a cask the dry slaves of which would
fall asunder at the first kick"
Lord Roberts has said that if ten