Albatross-Taube Model 1914
The Officers
With all the technical aids and inventions, however, the decisive factor in a war remains the men and more especially the officers.
Albatross-Taube Packed for Shipping
I recently overheard a well-known Boston woman teacher holding forth with the positiveness of complete conviction on the subject of the German officer and commiserating him on the life of idleness circumstances forced him to lead “except, of course, during the three or four hours a day when he is obliged to exercise.” The remark was addressed to a distinguished Harvard professor—anti-military, however, to the core—who had no contradiction to offer. I should have marked both of these great people zero for flat ignorance of the subject had I had them in a class. The German officer, I grant, may occasionally seem as idle and as frivolous as the son of a new American millionaire: the only difference would be that the American conceals his idleness under a show of industriousness, sending telegrams when he has nothing else to do, while the German conceals the fact that he has been up since four in the morning training a mass of raw recruits, that he has spent several hours at the Kriegsakademie studying languages, geography, political economy and the like and that he has as a permanent job some important problem in tactics to work out. Those who know the methods of the Prussian government could never accuse it of giving its employees too little work. A list is kept of all officers in which their industry, their interest in their work and their general good conduct is noted. The ideal that is kept before them may not be exactly our ideal, but it is a wonderful one of knightly virtue all the same. The man may never forget that he is a leader of men; he must grip his standard of honor, such as it is, like grim death and be willing unhesitatingly to lay down his life for it. If he flinch or falter in physical encounter or in any way is “guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer” he has to resign his position. He has to conform not only to the rule of his superiors but also to the code of his fellow officers. There are things in that code that one would like not to see there and one misses much that might well be included, but to down the profession as a sinecure “except, of course, during the three or four hours a day” is the purest folly.
Double Monoplane
And peace-time is the mere waiting-period, the period of training for the real work. In war-time the fate of the whole country hangs on the officer. An Italian, Mangiarotti, recently inquired of some two thousand soldiers who had just taken part in the African campaign regarding their sensations when facing the enemy. “The great ideals of God, king and fatherland,” he writes, “incorporate themselves in one single personality, the officer.” The lieutenant who does his duty in the firing line is an absolute hero to his men. But only real superiority of mind and body can keep him at this height.
