CUBAN ARMY.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 397, 2 April 1937, Page 2

CUBAN ARMY.

250,000 STRONG Some Novel Promises. Colonel Fulgencio Batista, Chief of Staff of the Cuban Army, and “strong man” of this island republic has revealed the real strength of Cuba’s military reserve •■’orps. He says it totals 250,000 officers and men, writes a correspondent. The reserve coips was organised by Batista in Decejnber, 1934, and is an integral part of the active army of 18,245 officers and men. The reserves include 10,000 officers taken from amDng ihe republic’s professional men—lawyers, engineers, physicians, dentists’, veterinarians, university and high tchool professors, teachers, newspaper men, members of the Senate and House of Representatives, Cab’net members and bankers. Batista said reserve non-commis-sioned officers ard privates include men who are expert jn. every trade and job—carpenters, machinists, salesmen, office clerks, stenographers, public employees, bricklayers, chaffeurs and farmers. Although the reserve corps is a voluntary organisation, it.' members can be called into active service whenever the Government deems it necessary—“whenever the stability and independence of the republic are deemed in peril from an attack by a foreign power or a grave internal disturbance or civil war.” Its member are subject at all times to army discipline and regulations and military courts. Regulations of the active army forbid Batista to appoint an officer before he has served at least for two years as a private, and then only through examination for competency and progressive promotion.

The active army, however, was in dire need of educated professional officers for hundreds of hospitals and clinics, for the auditing and engineering departments and as teachers for the 1200 recently organised army rural schools.

Thus Batista drew on his supply of excellently qualified professional men by calling into service gradually several thousand reserve officers. In this way he “gets round” the

law, and civilians overnight jump into the required two years’ service as privates. When field officers are needed these must invariably come from the rank and file of active soldiery and through competitive examinations, Batista explained.