The Russian Army and the Japanese War, Vol. 2 (of 2) / Being Historical and Critical Comments on the Military Policy and Power of Russia and on the Campaign in the Far East

by A. N. Kuropatkin

Improvement of the Regulars.

I have more than once pointed out how excellent the regulars were as regards military qualifications, and how much more reliable in the first fights than the reservists, especially the older ones. But we must look to the nation itself for the cause of the shortcomings of both. The lack of education in the peasant is reflected in the private soldier, and the non-existence of a martial spirit amongst the masses, coupled to the dislike for the war, resulted in the absence of a military spirit in our troops in Manchuria. Their ignorance made the conduct of modern war, which demands a much greater spirit of combination and initiative from the individual than formerly, very difficult for us. Consequently, while behaving with the utmost gallantry when in close order—in mass—our men, when left to themselves without officers, were more inclined to retire than to advance. In the mass they were formidable; but very few of them were fit for individual action, and this is a point in which the Japanese had a great advantage. Their non-commissioned officers in particular were better educated than ours, and on many prisoners—private soldiers as well as non-commissioned officers—we found diaries written not only grammatically, but with a general knowledge of what was going on and of what the Japanese were trying to do. Many of them drew well. One prisoner—a private—drew on the sand an excellent diagram of our position and that of the enemy.

It is never easy to turn in a short time an ignorant, illiterate recruit into an intelligent and keen soldier, capable of individual action; and the recent reduction[33] of the term of service has made the task still harder. The greatest difficulty, however, is to get good non-commissioned officers; even with the four to five year period with the colours we were not able to do this satisfactorily. The mass of our recruits are so illiterate, and so much book knowledge is required in the schools from our non-commissioned officers, that there is a natural tendency to pick the men for these posts on account of their education and outward sharpness. This is a mistake, as these qualities are often superficial. The simple recruits of the deepest and strongest characters are usually slow and uncouth and do not shine externally; consequently many of them never become selected for non-commissioned rank, and finish their service as private soldiers. But a surly man of some character often makes a better soldier than his smarter comrade. With the reduced term of service we can do nothing without a considerable number of time-expired men. The present conditions under which these men are kept on in the ranks are sound enough, but the men dislike doing time-expired, or what they characterize as “mercenary,” service. We must get over this dislike, and therefore as much as possible raise the position of sergeant-major and other non-commissioned officers.

Another burning question, and one with which we shall be confronted more and more in the future, is how to keep the destructive tenets of the revolutionary parties out of our barracks. Drastic action will of course be taken, but if we do not succeed in crushing these parties among the people, we can hardly expect to be able to keep the army from infection.

One of the most important requirements with our short term of service is that our men should not be taken away from their work for police duties. The part so frequently taken by the troops in putting down civil disorders by force of arms is particularly harmful to discipline. To turn to another point, owing to the inadequate funds allotted, our soldiers have always been treated worse than those of other armies. The Germans, for instance, spend twice as much per head upon the maintenance of their army as we do. Some improvement in this direction has already been made, especially in the feeding. With a serviceable cadre of time-expired sergeant-majors and non-commissioned officers, and with the living conditions of the men improved, we can face the future calmly even with a three-year term of service. But we shall only succeed if we relieve the troops of the large amount of extra regimental work which falls to them (tailoring, shoemaking, and other workshop work, care of reserve stores, etc.), and if we lighten their guard duties. Our recruits are free from this work and from guards only in the first year of service.