‘You must do something,’ was the final order.
The air commander, realising that it simply meant ordering a junior to go to his death, went up himself, and was KILLED!
In Mesopotamia, a naval cutter was ordered to rush a bridge and break the boom across the river. The commander knew it meant death to the man who did it. So he took the hatchet himself, jumped over the bow, and commenced to hack at the hawsers. He was shot DEAD.
Now, this sort of thing, and this sort of man, we appreciate. Personal bravery is a quality which can stir and develop the best in tyros at the military game. It was these glorious soldiers who gave the New Army the confidence to go on, the ability to stick it, and showed us the need for some sort of discipline, and the use of comradeship and esprit de corps to effect our purpose. What I want you to appreciate thoroughly is this: Militarism is a hateful creed, but the military life does show whether a man has ‘guts.’ War is not our business as a nation, but in war we, I think, are one of the toughest and bravest peoples on earth. The forte of the New Army is its intelligent grasp of the principles for which we are fighting. But only one British general has said we are out to destroy the brutal doctrines of war.
That general was Sir William Robertson.
Now, at the school we got all sorts of excellent technical stuff which was absolutely necessary, and which we thoroughly appreciated. But we did not get what I have been writing about. We often talked about this. And all of us were agreed that it is dangerous to neglect the frank discussion of the principles, the politics, and the creeds which affect a nation in arms. War to-day is a complicated business. An officer must not only have mastered the technicalities of the military profession; he must be acquainted with the broad principles of high policy which guide the action of his army. He must appreciate the value of moral, and the need of educating it and sustaining it. But he cannot do so if he ignores the principles for which five millions have enlisted. It is all very well to know how to ‘form fours’ and ‘slope arms;’ but if an officer cannot distinguish Hindenburg from Liebknecht, Lloyd George from Lenin, Enver Pasha from the simple Turk, or Clemenceau from Bolo, then he is NOT educated. This knowledge can be given either in pamphlet form or in a couple of lectures. At present the voice of the New Army man is drowned by the louder cries of ‘the old school.’
I am only a youthful person at this business, but I do feel that in this great and terrible war we should have an opportunity to pop our ideas into a collecting-box which will be taken direct to the War Office and opened by a bright, sympathetic young soldier of the General Staff.
Sir Henry Wilson will agree.
He, like General Maude, is a man of imagination.