Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
There are in addition schools of musketry, a school for instruction in
machine-gun practice, instruction in infantry battalion practice, a
school of military gymnastics, of military equitation, officers'
riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where
officers may study the technical engineering and communication
services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery
school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a
cavalry telegraph school, and the staff colleges.
Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience
in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with
which I am familiar I venture to pass judgments in the class-room. I
have visited many of these class-rooms, and listened to the teaching
and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography,
and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par
with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say
where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to
listen to.
The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or
staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the
technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work,
or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who
succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the
general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own
field.
The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet
schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners,
physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the
Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would
deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may
be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a
country bumpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is
almost unbelievable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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