The Soul and Body of an Army. E-book. Formato PDF Ian Hamilton   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

The Armies thus differ more typically than their nation, but where an Army is based upon voluntary service it may be conceded that it represents that part of the nation which has responded to a high appeal, and in so responding has left the residue below par. Our British Army was the pick of the nation (speaking broadly), and the balance (still speaking broadly) consisted of its leavings. The whole of the young virility of town and country-side ?ows into the ranks, and so, in war, an Army becomes dominant to the civilian crowd left at home, who are, in Mendelian phrase, recessive. The impact of the opinion of a Victoriously returning Army upon the people who had remained behind should produce the same result as the impact of a black bull upon a red heifer: i.e. The black or dominant colour should appear in the calf, or post-war policy, although that calf may carry in it the factors, the germs, the potentialities, of reasserting in time to come a recessive character or colour.

A Staff Officer's Scrap-Book: During the Russo-Japanese War. E-book. Formato PDF Ian Hamilton   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

IT is difficult to convey to the peaceable citizens of Greater Britain a true picture of that glorious and impressive survival from heroic times, a nation in arms. The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that military history must be always to some extent misleading. If facts are hurriedly issued, fresh from the mint of battle, they cannot be expected to supply an account which is either well balanced or exhaustive. On the other hand, it is equally certain that, when once the fight has been fairly lost or won, it is the tendency of all ranks to combine and recast the story of their achievement into a shape which shall satisfy the susceptibilities of national and regimental vain glory. It is then already too late for the painstaking historian to set to work. He may record the orders given and the movements which ensued, and he may build up thereon any ingenious theories which occur to him; but to the hopes and fears which dictated those orders, and to the spirit and method in which those movements were executed, he has for ever lost the clue. On the actual day of battle naked truths may be picked up for the asking; by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms, If the impressions here recorded possess any value, it will be because they do faithfully represent the facts as they appeared to the First Japanese Army while the wounded still lay bleeding upon the stricken field. Further than this they do not profess to go.