The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-21
Must Be Instant Readiness to Meet Attack, He
 Tells Committee
ADVOCATES MOBILE
 FORCE OF 131,O0O
Submits Statement Upon Which Gar risOn Based His Continental Army Plan-Smaller Regiments and
 More Units Better

Washington, January 2O.-Any military policy adequate to the nations needs must recognize the fact that wars come sud- denly and there must be instant readi- William H. Carter, recently retired, in a statement today before the Senate mili- tary committee.
 War is a condition which may be forced upon as any day through diplo- matic notes,' he said, without action by Congress-" Great Britain's declaration of war against Germany and the Japanese attack upon Russia were cited as illus | trating the possibilities.
 General Carter gave the committee a report he made to the Secretary of War last April, before his retirement It was prepared at the secretary's request for his views as to a proper military policy | for the United States, and it seemed evil dent, he said, that it formed the basis 1 for the continental army scheme, now 1 contemplated.
 INCREASE THE ARMY | General Carter recommended increa sing | the standing army to make available in the United States a mobile force of 131 800 1 that the federal volunteers be organized and trained 6n the basis of an infantry | regiment to each congressional district and that additional appropriations be made for the militia. Instead of a period | of intensive training for federal volun- | teers he proposed that a colonel for each volunteer regiment be appointed from the | regular army and also noncommissioned staff; that the troops be enlisted for two years and trained in such ways as might | be found practicable In that time he said about the same amount of instruc- | ton could be given as in six months of | intensive training.
 l Like all other regular army officers l who have appeared before the military committees, General Carter thought com- pulsory military service was the only
 means of fully insuring the nation against | attack, though he believed it unWise to attempt to enact such a measure at
 present, saying that the young men of the country should be given opportunity l to volunteer.
 1 General Carter suggested a radical 1 change in organization for all arms which would produce smaller regiments
 and therefore a greater number of units. | The huge regiments of several thousand
 men used in some european armies, he said were wholly unsuited to American conditions and he dismissed as not worthy of consideration the suggestion that 16- l inch howitzers would be needed for the
 mobile troops.
 PREVENTED BY-ROADS 1 American roads would not permit the use of such weapons he said, and ill any defensive war the country might become involved in there would be much | open fighting and little trench warfare. He said the training Of general officers 1 for field operations was imperative. He l remarked that he was himself the only ! American army officer who had com
 manded tactical divisions in the field in | the last 40 years.
 At the hearing today before the House military committee two "emergent situa- tions" as to coast defenses-one at New | York and another San F'rancisco-Where enemy battleships with long range guns | could Lombard portions of the two c1rIes without danger from the present land works, were described by Brigadier Gen. eral Weaver, chief of coast artillery. He said the war departments plans con 1 templated placing 16-inch guns and beside l that, he said, 40 surplus 12-incn guns be- 1 ing remodeed at Sandy Hook to give 1 them greater range, will be placed Tn | various forts One or two such weapons, he said would be enough for any fort and more than offset long range guns gun ashore was eight times as great as 1 that aflOat
 1 General Weaver told some of the plans I for the forts overseas. Corregidor, at the entrance to Manila bay, he said, was stored for a years siege and the troops would be massed there for defense until command of the sea was determined. If help could not be gotten to in a years s I time, he said, the defenses must fall.