Our Army at the Front

ng was in swing was to segregate the officers for special

raining as the soldiers had, but at a sharper pace, inclusive also of more theory, and to increase their executive ability in action; second,

here were many, of t

into the fighting was one having about 300 men, situated in the s

perfected on the first contingent, and partly because they were destined for a longer stay in the line before they were hauled back for training others. This process was duplicated in sc

fantry officer with long experience in the Philippines to draw on, and a convict

oops to aid them, and they were put into company formation, o

white for bayonet experts, blue for the liquid-fire throwers, yellow for the machine-gunners, red for the rifle-grenadiers, orange for the hand-grenadiers, and green for the riflem

eral Sibert, and General Bullard that the way to learn to dig a trench was to dig it, and that nothi

sed young French officers, in pre-war days, and

m, carried them through the herculean programme devised by

tomatic rifles, service-shells, bayonet work, infantry formation for attack, and gas tests. T

e intensively than the first of the doughboys. "The rifle is the American weapon," was Gen

as a need they did not meet, a need first practical,

merica, acting in one of its rare snatches of spare time, had ordered

er than a corporal could enter it. This was on the theory that a man in the ranks who had ability showed it soon e

before Christmas, with everything conne

of divisions or other separate units, and by the chiefs of departmental staffs, to the commander-in-chief. Before these recommendations could be made, the record of the applic

ucceeded, his place was waiting for him at his gradua

in the lines were filled. And rank, within them, proceeded in the same manner as in any other division. Their chief difference was that

d two-thirds by men in line of promotion within the uni

heir place in line, and those who had not yet had any assignments. To keep up a sufficient

fighting-line, and its instruct

mill of officer-making that the experiences of other armies had shown to be so trag