The Plattsburg Manual: A Handbook for Military TrainingGarey, E. B. (Enoch Barton)
History
The Plattsburg Manual: A Handbook for Military Training
Garey, E. B. (Enoch Barton)
Military training camps -- United States; United States. Army -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
(4) The baggage train (less that of the 3d Inf.), escorted by
one squad, 2d Inf., will start from D at 6-15 A. M. and follow to
P where it will await further orders.
(5) Reports will reach the brigade commander at the head of
the main body.
By command of Brig.-Gen. X:
Y,
Adjt. Gen."
Copies by Adjutant to Col. B. 1st Inf.
Col. C. 2d Inf.
Col. D. 3d Inf.
Maj. A. 1st Inf.
Capt. E. Tr. A 7th Cav.
Capt. F. Hospital Corps.
GENERAL IDEAS AND RULES FOR SOLVING MILITARY PROBLEMS
The cave man knocked over his foe with a rude club. The operation is
greatly refined to-day. The technique of war changes with the ages, but
human nature remains the same. Whether with grenade or gas, from
submarine or aëroplane, a man after all possible woe and suffering is no
more than killed. Human nature will submit to losses in battle up to a
certain point, after that the frailties are asserted. The instinct of
self-preservation dominates. Organization and discipline and reason are
dissipated. A condition ensues similar to that which we have in theaters
during fires.
Napoleon's success as a military leader was due to his knowledge of men
and how to handle them, common sense, and in a lesser degree to what he
learned from books. Upon such a basis the young managers of industrial
concerns would be most valuable material from which to select and train
successful military leaders. They know men, and it is necessary to
possess a world of common sense to acquire any such knowledge. Many of
those elements that make success in a military man are exactly the same
as those that make a man successful anywhere. A president of a
university, a lawyer or banker or merchant or engineer, has exactly the
same kind of daily problems to solve, and requires much the same talents
as those possessed by a military leader.
Since success in battle is the thing at which we are driving in all
military training, it is common sense to prepare a machine that will do
the business. Every officer and noncommissioned officer has got to know
how to play the game. A good private makes a good corporal, a good
corporal makes a good sergeant, a good sergeant makes a good
lieutenant--a good colonel makes a good brigadier general--all exactly
as in civil life.
Prussia has had her greatest military success when she devoted her
energies to manœuvers and to the solution of tactical problems. Her
defeats and humiliations have come when she has neglected this work. And
there's nothing mysterious about the way Prussia or Napoleon or anybody
else has solved their military problems. No occult forces are involved,
any more than there is in building a canal or hunting tigers. The real
general is, in a sense, a postgraduate hunter, or an advanced,
all-American quarterback.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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