224 ARMIES 



I hold it as an article of faith that the 

 British Army is not excelled, man for man, by 

 any in Europe, but does greatly surpass all 

 others in its power of adapting itself to new 

 conditions, maintaining its powers at great 

 distances from its base, and perfecting in its 

 troops the highest ideals of manhood. And 

 yet in all armies men are taught to obey before 

 they think, and, thought being secondary to 

 discipline, is rather apt to lag. The discipline 

 which creates a mob into a weapon tends to 

 disable men in army trades other than that of 

 fighting, so that the departmental or thinking 

 departments are less efficient than the execu- 

 tive. Character is trained to a supreme degree, 

 and the military courts are cleaner, quicker and 

 more direct than the civil in doing justice. 

 Yet intellect takes its chance of surviving 

 discipline. In a world which is managed by 

 men too old to be receptive of new thought, 

 the person with original ideas is looked upon as 

 a public enemy, and the Arm}^ is always 

 certain he must be an awful bounder. The 

 aeroplane, for example, was more important 

 as a military idea than anything since the 

 invention of gunpowder, but the inventors and 

 manufacturers in several countries went bank- 

 rupt while they waited in vain for orders from 



