The training of an infantry company

by E. Kirkpatrick

VI.

As regards the moral of the men, I.T., 1 (4 to 10) must be referred to. You must introduce discipline—the habit of subordinating personal inclination to the orders of the superior promptly and without cavil. If your men are raw, you have to go slow just at first till they all know what is expected of them. Let them understand that orders are not given haphazard, but are invariably based on some good reason, which, being so, there is no need for reasons to be always stated, nor for recipients of orders to feel unhappy for want of them. If you can induce a feeling among the men that slackness on parade, slowness in obeying orders, and so on, are bad form, and tend to disgrace the company, you will do well, and this good spirit will enable you to enforce discipline without having recourse to punishment, if you are vested with the power of inflicting it.

I have already said that when in close order during tactical exercises, you should maintain discipline in the ranks. I now go further and say that you should maintain it when the men are extended or detached from the company singly or in small groups. Evidently the discipline here needed is something more than mere mechanical obedience. What it is, is to be found in T. & M.R., 39 (4), and F.S.R. 12 (13), and I.T., 116 and 117. Make the men understand that when they are extended they must obey their unit commander’s orders and signals as to fire and movement at once, and without hesitation, and must be always on the look-out for them. Allow no talking, except what relates to the business in hand, such as passing of orders or information, results of fire, and so on. Hold the men responsible that if they are out of reach of the control of their leader, it is their duty to carry out the spirit of the orders under which they set out. To bring their responsibility home to them, you must make a point of calling men occasionally to give an account of what they did when detached, and why they did it, so that they may pause for a moment if they are of the sort that take advantage of opportunity to sit behind a hedge and smoke a cigarette when they ought to be up and doing.

Here you will naturally say that this is all very well, but how is one to look after men scattered here and there over several hundred yards of rough country? Here come in the non-commissioned officers, of whom, so far, no mention has been made, and also your subaltern officers. Since success in battle will depend largely on the efficiency of fire unit commanders, and the normal fire unit is the section (I.T., 6 (4)), it is evident that the section commander is a very responsible person, and much must be expected from him.

Your subalterns and platoon sergeants you must use as your delegates in supervising and leading the platoons to which they belong, except when they are needed to act specifically as platoon commanders, keeping themselves constantly on the move among the men, looking at the details of the work, sighting of rifles, aiming, use of cover, choice of lines of movement, not lying down themselves nor participating in the operation as combatants. When you wish to give them practice in setting exercises themselves, turn the whole company over to one of them and act yourself as critic, or act as subaltern under his orders. This is one means of supervision.

The next is your non-commissioned officers. They are in direct command, and you must hold them responsible for their sections, but when their units are acting in conjunction with others, it is evident they cannot act both as commanders and instructors unless certain concessions are made, for if the non-commissioned officers as well as the men of a section were to act as they would have to do under real fire, each non-commissioned officer might be able only to supervise a man or two on his right and left, the rest being too far off. Therefore, at the beginning of an exercise, you should tell the non-commissioned officers whether, in addition to giving executive commands, they are to be at liberty to move about freely and act as instructors also. Needless to say, in instructional exercises, and until the men are quite seasoned, you should let them do this, but, on the other hand, in exercises meant to illustrate actual conflict and the limitations imposed by the presence of an enemy, they should pay attention to those limitations so that they, as well as the men, may be prepared to endure the disabilities imposed by Service conditions.

Next comes yourself. Once you have given your subordinates your orders for any exercise, leave them to carry it through, and make yourself as ubiquitous as may be in supervision. Keep criticism for the end, and interference only for the prevention of absurdities. To make yourself ubiquitous, the best way is to use your horse, and make the noble animal do the running about with you on his back. You can then get through about six times what you can on your own feet, by cantering from one section to another, and you get a better view of the whole performance, but you must remember when correcting anything the men are doing that you are mounted, while they are probably kneeling or lying, and much that you see is invisible to them. Equip yourself with a pair of field glasses, and also with a megaphone, which latter should be about fourteen inches long, and carried by a strap over the shoulder, the strap punched so as to be capable of being made long or buckled up close under the arm, according as you need to use the megaphone, or wish to get it out of your way. Use your glasses to look at what sections and individual men in them are doing. They will reveal to you small mistakes that escape notice at some distance with the unaided eye. The megaphone saves you a lot of small excursions to get to earshot of men, and also a lot of shouting at a distance, which is fatiguing, and is apt to lead to exacerbation of tempers, both of the shouter and the listener. Moreover, it enables you to hear as well as speak from a distance. This is done simply by holding it aimed at the other man with your ear instead of your mouth at the mouthpiece. Use your whistle to call attention to orders or signals, carry it in your hand, not in your pocket, and put a loop in the cord and pass the loop over your middle finger, or you will be always dropping it. Instead of a cane, carry a small semaphore flag, and give your signals with it. This saves a good deal of arm-waving, and tends to smarten up movement, as it is more easily seen than the arm. By bringing all these aids into your service, you will find that you can make your influence felt, although the sections are separated by the greatest distances which they are ever likely to be called on to take up in battle.