TRAINING SOLDIERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1917, Page 6

TRAINING SOLDIERS.

ADVICE PROM GENERAL RUSSELL. Extract from a letter received by Colonel Gibbon from Major-General Sir A. 11. Russell, dated 30tii June, 1017: ''You should put all your money on to turning out reinforcements with a soldierly habit of mind and body. It is j quite unnecessary to give them such I technical instruction as is nc-cessary to trench warfare. I think you will quickly appreciate the fact that even six months' I absence from the trendies puts a man i out of it as regards the latest type. I do not think that, in ■XTew Zealand, you need bother your heads about anything which was not included in the old 1914 manuals. The science of war has not changed since the days of Napoleon, and its art only to very slight degree. I will tell you what they are teaching them at Sling, and what I propose should be cut out there. At Sling they got a thorough course of bombing, bayonet fighting, trench digging, rapid firing and gas, but they do not do any open warfare. I am going over „o England next week and shall suggest that both gas and bombing be cut out of the j course of instruction there. I am dong this on tho grounds that, in the case of bombing, we have absolutely overdone the subject. We teach them bombing in England, we teach them, bombing in Staples (our infantry base depot) we teach them bombing in battalion schools and in divisional schools, and we have carried it to such a length that many men have forgotten that they have a rifle and tiling that the only thing to do is to throw a bomb. We are paving for it every day. As a matter of fact there is very little to teach in bombing. A stout heart, a little practice and a shortcourse of instruction is all that is needed to make an efiicient bomber, (.'as T would cut out because it is impossible to get men so far removed as they are in England from the chance of being gassed to really appreciate the extreme necessity of thorough and cllicient gas drill and protection. , Once tlicv get over here and have met a few gas shells they take quite a different view and assimilate instruction very readily. In England it is perfunctory At Etaplcs it is a necessity, and we give them further instruction before allowing them to go to the trenches, in our Divisional Reinforcement Camp, flow far you teach tliese subjects in New Zealand I am not aware, but. with the exception of . bayonet lighting on the latest system, I would cut the rest out. Go for open warfare all tho time. The principles which govern open warfare govern trench 'warfare as well. It is only a matter of the application of the principle, j I repeat that tho soldierly habit of mind I and body is what we want, plus all you ! can teach them of open warfare. Tho 1 last reinforcements are reported on as | qi'.ite up to standard or even better, and ■ I congratulate you on the results. One j point I would like to emphasise is tho > insistence which is placed in France on. discipline, leadership, morale and command.