'Russia and India in 1903' [‎14v] (28/68)

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RUSSIA AND INDIA IN 1903.
are left at the base, and the improvised staffs pushed
up to the front, instead of the precisely contrary pro
cedure which common sense would dictate. Nor in
the absence of any officer of high rank with authority
over the whole staff, has experience of the theatre of
war been the sole passport to staff employment on the
frontier.
As with the staff, so with brigades. They are
improvised and even to a large extent so are regi
ments. The field strength of a battalion at home is
1,010 of all ranks. In India, where sick and casualties
are many, the field strength of a British regiment is
for some inscrutable reason only 850, and of an infantry
battalion of the Indian Army only 750. The conse
quence is a weak brigade—often not more than 1,200
or 1,300 men—and greatly increased difficulty to the
brigadier, who before giving an order must first inquire
what the strength of a battalion may be, and almost
of each of its weak companies. This weakness of
units in the British Army is the more strange as all
modern experience is exactly in the contrary direction.
It is costly in officers, and affords little scope for the
development of individual responsibility. In the
Indian Army battalions work rather on the double
company system, each under a British officer, and it
gives excellent results.
Field training in India has hitherto been conspicuous
by its absence, although there never was a country so
well suited for it, almost throughout its length and
breadth. In a recent estimate the amount allowed for
field training was under ^1,500. But it is evident that
a very different feeling now prevails on the subject.
In the matter of Mounted Infantry Sir Power Palmer,
recently addressing the assembled generals, said :
“ We have only been able to collect a small body of
mounted infantry, as its organisation in India is still
in its infancy. It has been proved that it is impossible
to have too many mobile infantry in a country adapted to