The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-30

LorQ NOrtncl11fe'S 11SnC TOT WHaL IS called the Characterization of the ar my, now being carried on in his var1- cus newspapers, is not, as some people seem to imagine, fight against any social caste, but against the profess sional military caste. He contends that whereas there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100000 officers of the various British armies, drawn from civilian life, they are virtually barred from promotion to any rank above that of Brigadier-Gengal, all the more responsible commands being restricted to the professional military r en, who today number about 10, 900. He argues that among the stores of thousands of officers drawn from cl- viiian life, there may be plenty of lat ent military genius, waiting to be dis covered and which can never be dis covered as long as small privileged professional military class is allowed to monop0liZe all the higher ranks and commands.
 Now this is a problem which inter- ests the American people in very special degree, since the overwhelm- ing majority of the officers of the new army are drawn from civil life. Lord Northcliffe insists that the present var has revolutionized in every way the system and conditions of warfare that the methods formerly comprised in the curriculum of professional mili- | rary education and training are of lit tie use today.
 In this connection it may be said that the officers drawn from civil life seem to Ee more adaptable to the new conditions of warfare, and more will | ing to learn, than officers of the pro- | fessional military class. That is the opinion very freely expressed by the French and English officers assigned | to initiate their American comrades into the new arts of warfare deTNelopeG during all the fighting that has been | in progress in the Old World for now near four years. Officers who have seen active service in the Philippines are less disposed to learn, failing to realize the enormous difference that exists between fighting the untrained savage Moros and the equally savage Eut highly trained troops of the Kais CT.
 Indeed, it was but the othex day | L1ldL d 5dlldIiL NOlOIlNAi III CO1uIlduu Ol a regiment now training in America, fc1 service at the front in France, a West Point man, with a brilliant rec ord in the Philippines, after giving most Interesting account of the manner in which he was getting his regiment into shape, wound up with the extraordinary remark, that he did net take much stock in the bombing by hand grenades, and in bayone; fighting" that it appeals neither tc his officers nor to his men, and that the real fighting by the American soldier would be done by means oi the rifle, his national arm"
 Now every one knows tSat the hand grenade and the bayonet have become the arms par excellence of the in fantry in the present war. The rol, which they have played is fncafc1 1able. Single men, armed with dog CT. hand grenades have routed and il some cases taken prisoner. entire com I anies, officers and all, while the Ger mans have developed such a dread O the bayonet that there has been com parativcly little hand to hand fighting along the French and British front oO14 4ll'S llAC past yOd4. OA o NOAOlAG in command of an American regimen about to leave for the front with hi
 men to thus publicly deprecate tn use of the bomb and the bayonet, doe not speak well for his adaptability t. the requirements of, up-to-date war fare.
 In all other respects the democra tization of the British army may b said to have made wonderful progress and to have reached a stage littl short of revolutionary. In England as in France, one finds the man o wealth, of birth and of breeding con tent to serve as a private in the rank
 under the command of an officer wh
 before the war may have been hi
 chauffeur. his head groom, his gar
 dener, a petty tradesman, who ma
 not have an 'h'' to his composition : It who has won promotion to tn rank of an officer by bravery and re
 sourcefuIness on the battlefield. l At least a score of peers of tn
 realm, if not more, enlisted as pri
 yates, including the twenty-sevent | earl of Crawford and the multi-nil lionaire Marquis of Butte, and hay
 served cneerfully a1d obedieDtly un lder officers drawn from the yer