THE ART OF TAKING COVER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 12, 15 January 1915, Page 7

THE ART OF TAKING COVER.

This war would seem to have demonstrated up to the hilt the superior-

ity of the British troops in the art of taking cover, perhaps the best lesson | of all that we learnt in South Africa; and is it satisfactory to find that the new.unit': are being trained strictly on practical utilitarian lines in this respect. Indeed (says a writer in the , “Naval and Military Record”) it might well cause a martinet of the old school to turn in his grave,to learn how lightly we are now dispensing with the old ceremonial trimmings; for troops while skirmishing are not required to keep more than an approximate line, and they re certainly not required to keep in step,and may advance in any manner /suite I to the ciicmustances, e.g., at a run, bonding low, or even crawling. ; The art of skirmishing we knew prior j to the Boer war, or rather we thought we did, for while troops were operating i’i the enemy’s country were often moved in extended order, they were expected to “keep their dressing to maintain step, and so on, until surprise after surprise taught us the wisdom of the practical in war. This wisdom v.e are now teaching the Germans, our men l seeming to know by

instinct as much as by training that rny conspicuous; object or any hard or brittle object, is not the best cover. , that one should never tiro over the top of cover but round it, that simple folds in the ground sometimes afford the best of all kinds of cover, that trenches should not be made conspicuous by banking earth up in front of them or exposing them on the sky-line, rnd all tin other innumerable facts to learn which wo paid such high fees to the wily Boer tutors; and the martinet today who might shudder at hearing one of these new commanders shout to his men “Line that bank,” or “Fall out and form up on the other side ol the hedge,” should know that such orders are now admitted by the drillbook, and that the elaborate procedure of the past often led to disaster.