Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison

by James F. J. Archibald

Fighting is what the soldier longs for and lives for; it does come sometimes, although infrequently; and during the intervening routine of work he almost forgets the fighting. The public at home reads of battles, several of them perhaps occurring within a week; but those actions cover the entire theatre of the war, and consequently one command may rarely see two fights in succession. There is none of the glitter that the romancers depict; the glory begins and ends with the triumphal march through the streets to the transport. Up to the time that the last line that connects with home is cast off, and the great troop-ship turns her prow to the land of the enemy, the soldier feels the true excitement and exhilaration of war; the cheers of the crowd along the line of march still ring in his ears; the brave words of speeding that were spoken by local officials, and the thoughtful attentions of the ladies’ committees at the wharf are all bright memories of the start towards fame and glory on the battlefield. But about the time the jingling bell in the engine-room tells the official at the throttle that the ship is clear of the harbor, and that she may settle down to her long voyage, the soldier begins to realize that war is no romance, but a stern reality that will take him away for a long time from everything and everybody that he cares for, with the possibility that he may never come back at all.

When he thinks of this, he pictures himself staggering back from the crest of some hill that is to be taken, with a rifle-ball in his heart. A few weeks later the cause of his not going home means some slow, consuming fever, or other wasting disease, which gives him plenty of time to repent the day he ever thought of going to war. Or instead of that neat bullet through the heart, a ragged chunk of shell rips off an arm or a leg, or tears its way through his side, dropping him in the mud or dust, to lie until some one finds time to pick him up, and take him in a springless wagon to a crowded field hospital, where a surgeon gives but hasty attention to his needs. There is no “dying for the flag” sentiment; no tender nurse, such as we see on the stage, to take the last message home; instead, it is a helpless sort of death, without any one near who has time to give even a drink of water. There is no resemblance that would come so near my idea of a soldier killed in battle as that of an unclean, sweating, and unshaven unfortunate of a crowded city, struck by a street car, and thrown, bleeding and torn, into the mud. Then, if no one had time to pick him up, and he should lie there for hours, or perhaps days, the picture of a soldier’s death would be complete.

After the first few weeks the whole idea of war becomes a dread, and the one thought is, When shall we go home? After a few months have passed, a helpless, “don’t care” feeling settles over every one, and after that any change is highly welcome, no matter whether it be home, the hospital, or the trench. The tedium of war is more telling upon the volunteer than upon the regular, as the former soon begins to think of his interests at home that are perhaps suffering. The volunteer never thinks that his services will be needed more than two or three months at the most; and when the service drags well on toward a year, it becomes almost unbearable. The regular does not mind it so much, for his apprenticeship of worry has been served with the early months of the first enlistment, and any change from barrack life is an agreeable one.

Dangebhoy hospital cart used in South Africa.

After a soldier has been in the field for a few months there is not much of the military appearance left to him except his gun, and there is not the slightest trace of the smart, well-kept man on home duty. It does not matter about his appearance, however, for the man himself is there, and of all sorts and conditions of men in all creation, the true fighting man is the manliest. He works day after day like a galley slave, endangers his life night and day, and yet he is but the tiniest portion of a great machine, of whom no one has ever heard, and who will be forgotten before the ink is dry on the treaty of peace. For a day he may be carried on the shoulders of a victory-maddened crowd, and compelled to drink rare wine from silver goblets; nothing is then good enough for him—the victor. But let him ask a favor from sovereign or subject, from Congress or people, a year after, and no one remembers him. His days and nights in the field, suffering that the nation’s honor may live, are all forgotten, and the fighting man is pushed to one side to make room for the trade of peace that this same man has made possible.

No honor is too great to render to the men who go out to fight, whether they be regulars or volunteers. The wage they receive would not pay any man at home to undertake half so hazardous a task. Within two years I have had the opportunity of seeing the work of four different armies in the field, fighting for what they thought was right. Among those four—Spaniards, British, Boers, and Americans—can be found a curious variety of methods of warfare, and there is much that has never been told.

The common soldiers of every land are brave; it is but a question of leaders, methods, and numbers that decides which will be victorious; for losing or winning, they show much the same valor. Nothing could be more magnificent, nor reflect more credit on the men of Spain, than the manner in which they met defeat at El Caney, at Santiago, and on the seas in the conflicts with Sampson and Dewey. They went down in defeat in a way that won the admiration of every soldier and sailor in the American army and navy; they were brave, dignified, and courteous at all times, even the rank and file.

The fighting methods of the Boers and the Americans are very similar, and if the Boers were trained in military tactics their military character would be almost identical with that of our troops. They possess the same natural instinct of a hunter to keep under cover that our men have, and their methods during an advance are the same. The British army has just taken its first lesson in this sort of work, and although it has been a costly one, it will pay in the end; and it is England’s great good fortune that she did not have a powerful European foe for a tutor, instead of the two little republics whose entire male population would not make a good-sized army corps.

At the autumn manœuvres of the British army at Aldershot, just before the South African war broke out, I was watching the attack and defense of a hill by several battalions of infantry. Standing with me was an officer of the Twelfth Lancers, and we watched the progress of the action with alert interest. When the attacking force made its advance, I noticed that neither the officers nor the men made any attempt at keeping under the cover of the trees or rocks which were numerous in the zone of fire. Of course the men were using only blank ammunition, but in the same work our men would be compelled to crawl along from tree to tree, or to keep under the shelter of the rocks. I remarked to my companion that I should imagine the officers and men would take greater interest in the work in hand if they went at it as though it were real, and keeping to cover.