Friday, March 8th, 1861.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD LOVAINE, M.P. in the Chair.

MILITARY TRAINING

CONSIDERED PRINCIPALLY WITH REFERENCE TO THE MEASURES ADAPTED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL EXCELLENCE.*

BY

LIEUT.-COL. A. CUNNINGHAM ROBERTSON, 8th (The King's) Regiment.

The subject of the address which I am about to read is of considerable practical importance, and I venture to hope that the discussion of it in this place may possibly lead to beneficial results.

If any of the suggestions which I shall have the honour of submitting to you be true in principle, and practically expedient, there are members belonging to this Royal Institution who have both the will and the power effectually to promote the adoption of any measure which may, in their judgment, be calculated to improve the efficiency of our military institutions.

But the utility of discussing such a subject as military training is, to a certain extent, independent of the correctness or incorrectness of any particular conclusion.

Even although the considerations which I am about to submit to you may not be sufficient to prove that any specific measure is expedient, yet these considerations will not be altogether destitute of value if they suffice to attract your attention to a particular aspect of the subject of military training, and if they tend to show that, in order to render the training process effective, we must endeavour to render it interesting and attractive. The efficiency of the training of an army depends

1st. Upon its comprehending provisions for the attainment of every species of knowledge and of every species of skill susceptible of a useful military application.

2nd. Upon the excellence of the methods of instruction made use of.

3rd. Upon the amount of time and energy which the officers and soldiers composing the army can be compelled or induced to devote to the work of instruction.

It is principally to the third of these three essential conditions of a complete system of military training that I am at present anxious to direct your attention.

I shall endeavour to present to you, with as much fulness as the time at my disposal will permit, an exposition of those means which, it appears to

* Several extracts from an article contributed by the author to Colburn's United Service Magazine in November, 1856, are incorporated in this paper.

me, are likely to operate most efficaciously in inducing the officers and soldiers of an army to devote to the work of training that amount of time and energy which it is indispensably necessary should be devoted to that work, in order to secure the development of individual excellence.

But before entering upon this exposition, it will be convenient to say a few words regarding the nature of the objects of military training, and the principles that must determine the selection of the means which are appropriate for the attainment of these objects.

The question-What is the object of military training? may perhaps be most perspicuously answered by changing its form, and asking what qualifications are desirable for the perfect performance of the duties of the different military grades?

Bravery, strength, agility, habits of obedience and temperance, skill in the use of arms, expertness in drill and in the various exercises, operations, and processes incident to service in the field, these are the qualities, the possession of which constitute a thoroughly efficient private soldier; to which must be added, if he belongs to the cavalry branch of the service, a perfect knowledge of all that relates to the management of horses.

In addition to these, a non-commissioned officer should possess the rudiments of education. He should possess a sound knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, and book-keeping.

Ascending to the next grade: firmness, energy of character, equanimity of temper, skill in horsemanship, a thorough familiarity with the principles and special provisions of military law, and with the rules and regulations of military service, together with an elementary knowledge of the sciences of artillery, fortification, military history, military geography and tactics, are the additional qualifications necessary to constitute an accomplished regimental officer.

Attainments, the same in kind, but superior in degree, are those which it is desirable should be possessed by staff officers and officers of the corps of Engineers.

An officer selected for either of these special services should be thoroughly acquainted with the principles and familiar with the practical applications of the sciences of artillery, fortification, and military engineering.

He should have attentively studied the history of the principal modern campaigns, and should be well acquainted with the military geography of the countries which were the theatres of those campaigns. He should be master of the special tactics of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and of the theory of strategy and general tactics. He should be a clever draughtsman, an expert surveyor, and so good a linguist as to be able to speak and write fluently the principal modern languages, and to be able to acquire with facility a colloquial knowledge of any other dialect which may be spoken in the country in which he is serving.

Finally, let us suppose an officer who, possessing many of the attainments and all the qualities desirable for the performance of all the duties of the staff with perfect efficiency, shall also be pre-eminent for the firmness, the energy, the self-reliance, and the resolute boldness of his character; for a penetrating sagacity quick to detect the designs of an enemy, and for inventive faculties ever ready to devise skilful combinations, and to arrange

well-digested plans. In a word, let us suppose military genius to be united to military science, and we have the perfect model, the beau idéal of an accomplished general.

All the particulars of this detailed enumeration of the qualifications desirable for the perfect performance of the duties of the different military grades are comprehended in the general statement, that the two great objects of military training, are

First. To impart to the individual officer, and to the individual soldier, whatever qualities, whatever kinds of knowledge, and whatever species of skill, are necessary to enable him to fulfil every function of his grade in a perfect manner.

Second. To instruct soldiers and officers collectively in regular systematic modes of performing all exercises, operations, and processes which are necessary for the purposes of offensive or defensive warfare, or which are conducive to the comfort and efficiency of troops employed in field service.

The objects of the processes of individual and of collective training, though perfectly compatible with one another, are essentially different in their nature.

Each object requires for its attainment the use of certain specific means, and, as will be afterwards shown, the means appropriate for the attainment of the object of individual training are radically different in principle and in their manner of operation for their attainment of the object of the processes of collective training.

In a perfect system of training, suitable provision will be made for the attainment of both objects; and if either be neglected, the troops will, in certain respects, be inefficient and imperfectly fitted for the purposes of war.

In the middle ages we have an example of a system in which individual training was carefully practised, and collective training altogether neglected. The many interesting and exciting circumstances attending the celebration of tournaments, the wide-spread renown, the high personal distinction, the favour of the fair, and the admiration of the brave, which were the rewards of the victors in those splendid trials of skill, were means admirably fitted to fill the ranks of the medieval armies with soldiers thoroughly accomplished in the use of their arms, and skilful in every warlike exercise.

But these soldiers, individually terrible in battle, were destitute of that collective training necessary to render them proportionably formidable when acting in masses, necessary to render the results such soldiers were capable of achieving proportional to the numbers employed.

The modern method of training armies, introduced by the great Frederick, furnishes an example of a system precisely opposite to that of the middle ages. In this system, the sole object aimed at is to regulate the movements of masses of troops with mathematical precision.

Individual training, except in so far as it is subservient to collective training, is altogether neglected.

The recruit, after going through a process of setting-up drill, and being taught how to face in whatever direction he may be ordered, is very carefully trained so to regulate the length and quickness of his pace as to be able to march steadily at a perfectly uniform rate of motion.

He is also taught to go through the manual and platoon exercises.

This, previous to the Crimean war, was the whole amount of individual training bestowed on our infantry soldiers.

To develope individual excellence, or in any way to turn to account the special endowments or acquirements of the infantry soldier, was not, either directly or indirectly, the object of this training.

Its sole object was to ensure precision and uniformity in the subsequent processes of collective training.

It may, perhaps, be said that the annual ball practice had a different object; but though ball practice was no doubt intended to train men to hit the mark, that is, to use their arms skilfully, it was so conducted as to be quite incapable of producing any effect as a means for obtaining this end.

In the year 1844, when quartered in Dublin, I have known a regiment march down to the sands at the Pigeon House, and expend, in a single day, the whole of the season's allowance of practice ammunition, which was got rid of principally by firing volleys into the sea.

Previously to the adoption of the Hythe system of musketry instruction, ball firing was practically nothing more than the last lesson in the platoon exercise. It taught the recruit to load, and accustomed him to the recoil of a ball cartridge. This was all it actually did. This was all that, in the nature of things, it was capable of doing.

To find an example of a system in which due provision was made both for individual and collective training, we must go back to the military institutions of the Romans.

In the time of Julius Cæsar the admirable legions of that great military power were perhaps the most perfectly trained and the most formidable troops ever employed in warfare.

Not only were these legions collectively instructed in all the processes necessary for the accurate formation of the line of battle, and for enabling its position or direction to be changed with the utmost possible rapidity, but the personal qualities of each individual legionary soldier, his bodily vigour, and his expertness in the use of his arms, were carefully cultivated by the assiduous practice of appropriate methods of training.

The Romans did not consider it sufficient that their soldiers should excel in that training which enables the united efforts of the feeble to overcome the separate efforts of the strong, which makes a disciplined band of pigmies more than a match for an undisciplined mob of giants; they were also solicitous so to train their soldiers that each individual soldier, when acting by himself, should feel himself superior to his adversary.*

Since the time of Frederick, to render the soldier individually superior to his adversaries has not been an object of military training in European

armies.

Regularly trained European soldiers when acting together in masses are formidable, but those regular troops who defeated the Highland clans at Culloden, or the Mamelukes at the Pyramids, would, generally speaking, have felt themselves no match for their adversaries in individual combats.

There can be no stronger proof of the excellence and of the great * In No. 12, vol. iv. of the Journal of the Institution will be found an interesting sketch of the military institutions of the Romans.

importance of collective training, than the well-ascertained fact that regular troops are able to contend successfully against adversaries superior to them both in numbers and in personal qualities.

But although the conditions of modern warfare are such, the completeness of the collective training of troops is a more important element of success than the perfection of their individual training, yet it would be a very great mistake to suppose that personal qualities have little or no influence in modern warfare, and that the development of individual excellence by appropriate training processes will have little or no influence in increasing the efficiency of an army.

In studying the circumstances of such combats as Culloden or the Pyramids, the point on which it is profitable to fix our attention is not on the results which follow when two bodies of troops contend, one of which is deficient in collective and the other in individual training, but on the results which might be expected to be obtained by troops equally perfect in both kinds of training if matched against adversaries inferior to them in either the one or the other of those kinds.

The individual training of the private infantry soldier should embrace instruction in

1st. Marching and setting-up drill.

2nd. In gymnastic exercises, including swimming.

3rd. In the use of his arms and of entrenching tools.

4th. In field cookery.

His collective training should embrace instruction

1st. In field exercises and evolutions.

2nd. In heavy gun drill and in the management of artillery.

3rd. In the method of constructing trenches and batteries in presence of an enemy.

4th. In escalading.

5th. In the method of pitching tents and constructing huts.

6th. In the method of using tackles, and in the modes of applying some of the simpler mechanical contrivances for moving heavy bodies.

In addition to all that is taught the private soldier, the training of officers ought to include regular and systematic instruction

1st. In the regulations of military service.

2nd. In military law.

3rd. In the method of tracing field works, and of distributing working parties.

4th. In the method of attacking and defending posts, and of conducting the various minor operations of warfare.

I imagine there would be no difficulty whatever in devising inexpensive arrangements for habitually exercising infantry soldiers in every process and operation which forms part of the regular training of a gunner belonging to a reserve company of artillery.

I do not, however, forget that the special training of the sapper is a costly process, and one which cannot be carried on excepting under conditions which it would be impossible to fulfil, and with appliances which it would be impossible to procure, at many stations where infantry are quartered.

But although some of the processes in which the sapper is instructed