And State Papers 



75 



requirements in a soldier, you have got to show 

 far greater fertility of resource and far greater 

 power of individual initiative than has ever been 

 necessary before if you are to come up to the highest 

 level of officer-like performance of duty. 



As has been well said, the developments of war 

 fare during the last few years have shown that in 

 the future the unit will not be the regiment nor 

 the company nor troop ; the unit will be the individ 

 ual man. The army is to a very great extent going 

 to do well or ill according to the average of that 

 individual man. If he does not know how to shoot, 

 how to shift for himself, how both to obey orders 

 and to accept responsibility when the emergency 

 comes where he will not have any orders to obey, 

 if he is not able to do all of that, and if in addition 

 he has not got the fighting edge, you had better 

 have him out of the army; he will be a damage 

 in it. 



In a battle hereafter each man is going to be to 

 a considerable extent alone. The formation will 

 be so open that the youngest officer will have to 

 take much of the responsibility that in former wars 

 fell on his seniors; and many of the enlisted men 

 will have to do most of their work without super 

 vision from any officer whatsoever. The man will 

 have to act largely alone, and if he shows a tendency 

 to huddle up to somebody else his usefulness will 

 be pretty near at an end. He must draw on his 

 own courage and resourcefulness to meet the emer 

 gencies as they come up. It will be more difficult 



