TEAM-WORK” IN WAR.*

J O U R N A L

OF THE

United States Cavalry Association.

VOL. XVII.

JULY, 1906.

No. 61.

TEAM-WORK”

IN WAR.*

-. . .

BY MAJOR GEORGE 0. SQUIER, SIGNAL

CORPS, U. S. ARMY, ASSETAST

COMMANDANT

OF THE U. S. SIGNAL

SCHOOL.

I L’union far? fa force. \ HE underlying cause of the Russian defeat by the Jap- T anese in the recent war was irresistible team-work.” The Japanese infantry soldier was no better, their artillery materiel and their cavalry were inferior, the numbers engaged were approximately the same; yet from the beginning to the end of the conflict the Japanese were successful. Never before in the world’s history has there been seena gigantic team of forty millions of people bending every effort so completely to one common purpose at one given time. From the Emperor of Japan to the lowest coolie in the rice paddies at home, each did his part, great or small, to defeat Russia. On the one side were organization and combination of effort, while on the other were disorder, lack of harmony and intrigue. The principle of “team-work,” when applied to guide *Abstract of a lecture delivered at the U. S. Signal School, Fort Leavenworth. Kansas.

TEAM- ORK IN WAR.

6 rw human endeavor, is the paramount discovery of the present century. It is the principle which has made it possible for the Standard Oil corporation in a minimum time to plan a campaim and defeat its enemies in any part of the world. It is the principle which enables the citizen to travel in comfqrt and d e t y from Chicago to San Francisco, a distance of 2,000 miles, in less than. three days. It is the principle which has concentrated at San Francisco, after the recent appalling earthquake disaster, unprecedented assistance and succor of all kinds. In fact, it is this industrial discovery which h a placed the United States ahead of the world in , material progress. * * + The one unchanging factor in warfare is the individual physical strength of a man. The soldiers of Cresar's army were physically no stronger nor weaker than our own. Progress in the art of war, therefore, consists in ,the realization of certain fundamental conceptions from time to time, and the seizure of one idea at a timp working it out in de- * tail, and applying it before an enemy realizes its importance. These fundamental ideas have been slow to impress themselves upon milit& leaders, and, therefore, that nation hi& first takes hold of a new fundamental principle in war, z d works it out with the greatest perfection in ti%e of peace, possesses an insuperable' advantage when suddenly the conftict is precipitated. Frederick the Great inherited an army which had been trained in peace, and he soon found that he could march all mound his enemies and strike them where he pleased. 'Napoleon, for the first time. grasped the importance of the relation between the ground and the battle, and developed ,this single idea until the French nation led the world in war. The electric telegraphbPas then unknown, but it is not too much to say that if there had been on duty with Napoleon's army at Waterloo a single trained company of signal troops, such a9 is now at the U. S. Signal School, the history of modern Europe would probably have been different. The strictly modern art of war began with the campaign c '

TEAM- WORK I N WAR.

7 of Metz and Sedan in 1870. The greatest of the fundamental ideas introduced in the art of war at that time concerned the mobilization and accurate assembling of great armies upon the field of battle. The army of the North German Confederation in the peace establishment numbered I 2,000 officers, 285.000 men and 73.000 horses. The order to mobilize was telegraphed on July 16. Between July 23 and 25 the army was increased to 22,000 officers, 932,000 men and 193,000 horses, ready for war. The mobilization having been completed in eight to ten days, in eight to ten days more a force of nearly half a million of men and 1,200 guns, with first and second lines of trains complete, was assembled on a line of about ninety miles from Treves to Germersheim waiting for the order to advance. This result was effected by using railroad facilities to an extent unknown before. With the increased accuracyand range of military weapons and the great size of modern armies, a modern line of battle, as at Jlukden, may extend a hundred miles or more, and involve a terrane with widely varied military features. The most fundamental truths are usually learned from the simplest experiments. Did not the falling of an apple give us the great law of gravitation? 7 A modern battle may be likened in many respects to that of a foot balldgame on a grand1 scale, in which the various .elements of an Brmy correspond to the individual players of the team. The end players correspond to the cavalry on the flanks; the center, guards and tackles to the infantry and artillery of the front line; and the half-backs and full-back, to the supports and reserve, ready to be thrown into the line at a weak point. Offense and defense depend upon which side has the ball.

GESERAL RULES OF THE GAME.

I. 6'Team-work" with individual intelligence a&gres-

2. Individual excellence without " team-work'' is abso- 3. The whole object is to secure a team in which no siveness is necessary to success. lutely certain to fail. .

8 TEAM- WORK rN. WAR. one man shows out as a star; because if one man is a star The object of the team, on both offense and defense, is to move so quickly that the opponent will be met in his own terribry and not on neutral ground. 5. Any trick in which more than one man of the eleven is d for deception alone, is discardeh.

6. The offensive team starts its game by trying its different m e W s of attack, and the different points of the oppo-nemt'e line. As soon as a weak point is found it is hammered successively,. with the object of destroying completely the weak individual or individuals who protect that point. This point is continually hammered in general, but other plays must bel used enough to prevent its being a certain'ty, before each plaip, that the weak point will be attacked. It is a fundamental rule that every play must be as simp%in execution aS possible. The plays should be so chosen by the team captain, that e v e q play is a surprise and is strong enough to prevent loss of ground if the surprise fails. In the selection of plays every play is discarded in which each man does not have a definite part to perform. the machime is imperfect, and is weak as a whole.' c 4 7. . 8. 9 n + * * The above rules of football which were furnished by one of the leading authorities of the game in the United States emphasizk a fundamental truth, illustrated by a simple example &miliar to all. They apply in principle,' almost witbout:change. to the conduct of modern battle. The dominadt feature throughout is the necessity for the development of 6steam-work;' to its highest efficiency in order to win the game. The analogy is not without its convincing lesson: It is not. therefore, the efficiency of the separate arms of the sedce which measures the strength of an army; it is .their complete coClperation and mutual support; or more definitdy, the strength of an army is measured not by the number of men it contains, but by -the number of rifles and guns it can put into effective action at any one time.

TEAM- WORK IN WAR.

9 It is a significant fact to note in this connection, that during the entire Civil War there was never a battle in which there were more than 2 0 , 0 0 0 men engaged on either side at any one time. Electricity is a messenger which travels at a rate of over seven times around our earth in one single second of time, and is therefore practically instantaneous for any distance involved in war, whereas any other available messenger requires not only an appreciable time to travel one mile, but of n e c a y requires twice that time to accomplish two miles. It must be evident then that the only way to attain that perfection of control of the different h i t s of an army which success demands, is through electrical lines of information which follow aLl the movements of the elements of an army and enable the commander-in-chie to operate his entire force at all times, with the same preci ion he would attain were he directing the movements up0 a map before him. In short, it must be possible for the commander-in chief of an army, surrounded by his expert staff, to remain in his tent, and from the map before him play the game of war over a front of a hundred miles with the overwhelming force of perfect '' teamwork." He need not, and best should not, be distracted from his great responsibilities by the excitement incident to proximity to the actual combat. The only hope of securing this is by the development and use of electrical lines of information by highly trained signal troops in number far exceeding that authorized at present for any army in the world. This service must be insured at any cost, since it is the service that welds the whole army into one massive team, capable of being handled by one central intelligence to carry out a definite plan at a definite time. to apply to the utmost the principle of combination of effort to a single purpose in the shortest possible time; in short, it is the attainment of the complete co6peration of the different arms. In general terms, the army which can effect this cooperation to the highest degree, other things being equal, will win in war. l The professional task before the army at present, is 0