The recruit when thoroughly taught
requires a certain amount of experience in field operations or
manoeuvres. This he would obtain during the summer immediately following
upon the recruit training; for the three months of summer, or of summer
and autumn, ought to be devoted almost entirely to field exercises and
manoeuvres. If the soldier is then called out for manoeuvres for a
fortnight in each of four subsequent years, or for a month in each of
two subsequent years, I believe that the lessons he has learned of
operations in the field will thereby be refreshed, renewed, and
digested, so as to give him sufficient experience and sufficient
confidence in himself, in his officers, and in the system to qualify him
for war at any moment during the next five or six years. The additional
three months' manoeuvre training, beyond the mere recruit training,
appears to me indispensable for an army that is to be able to take the
field with effect. But that this period should suffice, and that the
whole training should be given in nine or ten months of one year,
followed by annual periods of manoeuvre, involves the employment of the
best methods by a body of officers steeped in the spirit of modern
tactics and inspired by a general staff of the first order.
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