No soldiers in the world are fit to cope with the British soldier in bayonet fighting. Their training is intensive, and a man must be physically fit in every respect to be good at this element of warfare. A good boxer is usually a good bayonet fighter, and I notice that in the U.S. National Army there is great attention being paid to boxing as a means of making the men proficient at this game.
I remember an amusing incident which took place in the "bull ring." We had our bags suspended from horizontal bars by strong cords. These cords had a thin piece of twine tied between each bag. The bayonet fighters were placed in a trench, and at the word "Go," they had to run a distance of about fifty yards, jump over another trench, and make a lunge with a bayonet at the bag. One man, who did not notice this twine which was between the bags, made his lunge, then ran between the bags and did not stoop. The twine caught him right on the point of the nose, taking all the skin off it, and throwing him back into the trench. He could not realise how he had been thrown there, and it was only after he had been assisted out of the trench and was led up to the bags that he believed he had not been assaulted by some of his fellow soldiers. He said afterwards he never noticed the string between the bags.
Bayonet Exercise at a Training Ground Somewhere in France
Particular attention is given to all musketry instruction. This subject is always interesting to lecture on. I was giving a lecture one day on what we call the use of combined sights, which is only used when a platoon or company fires at a range of a thousand yards or over and they are not sure of the exact range. For instance, if I wanted the men to fire at a given target, I would give a fire order as under:—
No. 1 and 2. Platoons at 1050.
No. 3 and 4. Platoons at 1150. Five rounds rapid fire.
I do not use the term yards, because it is understood that 1050 means 1050 yards and 1150 means 1150 yards. We would thus have a range of a hundred yards between each platoon's fire, so we would be almost sure to get the enemy in the intervening range.