september - october - Fort Sill

FOREIGN MILITARY JOURNALS A
CURRENT RÉSUMÉ
ENGLAND
The Journal of the Royal Artillery, July-September, 1926.
"One Army Not Two," is the title of the first article in this issue of the
Journal of the Royal Artillery. It is written by Major S. R. Wason of the
British Artillery.
In any future war on a large scale, the English plan to expand their
military forces through their Territorial Army,—meaning by this latter
what corresponds to our National Guard. Major Wason, in this article,
discusses the organization and training of the artillery, Regular and
Territorial, to meet the requirements of such a system.
The author concludes that, in peace-time, officers and
noncommissioned officers from the Regular Artillery should be detailed
as instructors with the Territorial Artillery. This proposed method seems
to resemble very closely our present policy in the United States. Then,
when war breaks out, the author proposes to use still more members of
the Regulars with the Territorials, in order to speed up the final
preparation of the latter. This system makes for considerable mingling of
the Regulars and Territorials and gives rise to the title of the article,—
"One Army Not Two."
It is interesting to read the author's description of what happened in
England in the World War, when practically all the Regulars were used at
the front. He writes as follows:—
"The batteries of one of the New Army divisions were formed in
September, 1914. Up to the beginning of the following January they
were almost completely without Regular officers and noncommissioned
officers. To give an illustration of the shortage of noncommissioned
officers, the battery sergeant major of one battery was a gunner who had
been left behind on mobilization as storeman. His late captain had
classed him among his "broody hens"—those that never had laid (the
gun) and never would lay; consequently he never qualified for
proficiency pay and so could not be promoted. The quartermaster
sergeants were usually incapable, sometimes worse. The noncommissioned
officers were usually those who had asked for the job. Equipment was
desperately short and so was uniform. But what there was, was wasted. In
one battery, out of sixteen saddles and bridles given by Lady Roberts'
Fund, none were serviceable after two months. The men lost, wore out, or
sold, on the average one pair of boots each per month, and an even larger
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