Out of such a situation nothing can lift the force, that is confronted with difficulties, but quick thought, speedy action, and sure command. And that is the leadership so hard to obtain.
Men essentially want strength in their leaders. They will go through fire and brimstone for a good leader, and never be at a loss. Is it not a mistake to rely too much on discipline as a factor of strength? May it not be misleading to judgment of fighting strength? Drill and discipline are somewhat automatic and ornamental, and it is just that surface which is rudely swept aside in the first shock of battle.
Drill and discipline, in moderation, are good, but one should not overdo it or overvalue it. Husband the high spirit of youth as long as one can—it is the spirit that fights a winning battle.
Above all it should be remembered that soldiers are not schoolboys, or mere tools, but men, often with high-strung feelings, who have put their lives at the disposal of their country. The British soldier is essentially a practical man; he has, in peace time, been an engineer, a boiler-maker, an electrician, a mason, a farmer, or in a score of other trades, and he does not easily lose the character of his long training; nor should we expect it. He wants to be considered seriously, and as a man. He wants to do his best, within reason, and, given a fair chance, he never fails you. And, finally, he considers he has the right, at all times, to be the keeper of his own soul.
Leadership imposes a wide knowledge of human nature, and a wide responsibility; but tact, great patience, and a durable enthusiasm will carry one far on an undertaking that is full of difficulties.
Criticism
A soldier said to me the other day: “I have been fifteen months out here—I may be fifteen more—I may be shot to-morrow.”
To him it was a commonplace remark without a note of complaint. He merely wished to show he had had time to think of the subject he was discussing from a serious point of view.
And he had been discussing the folly, the uselessness, the narrowness, the meanness of some of the newspaper and political criticisms so rife in his home papers—the home that now he passionately hoped would emerge from bloody battle-fields purified, serious, content, and aged to a greater wisdom.
He thought some journalism at home and, incidentally, politics had been, since the date of war, very disappointing. War had brought the golden opportunity, while the State was in trouble and distress, to raise the standard of thought to high Idealism. Yet had it carried on, on the whole, as before, the chief forte criticism; sometimes uttered in weak alarm or blundering foreboding—always in attack or defence of a narrow circumstance.