A Generals Letters to His Son On Obtaining His Commission

tes the essential difference between an army and a collection of men with muskets. Without it genius, hardihood, and endurance are wasted. It is discipline which enables men to hold on and stick it out when all seems up. It was discipline which enabled our Expeditionary Force to get back from Mons, and it was discipline which enabled some battalions to get back with comparatively no losses from stragglers, whilst others lost many. In a well-disciplined unit men find it almost impossible not to obey the commander's voice, however tired they may be, or however terrible the order. They thus work as one man. When, during the Mutiny, the Residency at Lucknow was besieged by the mutineers, their trenches were in some places only forty or fifty yards from ours. We know how brave some of the native races of India are ; they outnumbered us by twenty to one ; and if they had, directed by a single leader, made a charge on a large front, they could undoubtedly have got in, but as they had no confidence in their commanders, and no discipline, the Residency held out until it was relieved. Had the Boers had discipline on Waggon Hill on January 6th, 1900, they could have taken it; but, fortunately for us, they had not, and Ladysmith held out. It is discipline which puts it within the power of the commander by sacrificing part of his force to save the rest. Napoleon used to say that the moral is to the physical as three is to one, and among moral forces none is for the so...