Читать книгу The Art of Strategy: Napoleon's Maxims of War + Clausewitz's On War - Carl von Clausewitz - Страница 65

MAXIM LX.

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Every means should be taken to attach the soldier to his colors. This is best accomplished by showing consideration and respect to the old soldier. His pay likewise should increase with his length of service. It is the height of injustice not to pay a veteran more than a recruit.

NOTE.

Some modern writers have recommended, on the other hand, to limit the period of service, in order to bring the whole youth of a country successively under arms. By this means they purpose to have the levies, en masse, all ready trained and capable of resisting successfully a war of invasion. But however advantageous at first sight such a military system may appear, I believe it will be found to have many objections.

In the first place, the soldier fatigued with the minutiæ of discipline in a garrison, will not feel much inclined to re-enlist after he has received his discharge, more especially since, having served the prescribed time, he will consider himself to have fulfilled all the duties of a citizen to his country. Returning to his friends, he will probably marry, or establish himself in a trade. From that moment his military spirit declines, and he soon becomes ill adapted to the business of war. On the contrary, the soldier who serves long, becomes attached to his regiment as to a new family. He submits to the yoke of discipline, accustoms himself to the privations his situation imposes, and ends by finding his condition agreeable. There are few officers that have seen service who have not discovered the difference between old and young soldiers, with reference to their power of supporting the fatigues of a long campaign, to the determined courage that characterizes the attack, or to the ease with which they rally after being broken.

Montécuculli observes, that “it takes time to discipline an army; more to inure it to war; and still more to constitute veterans.” For this reason, he recommends that great consideration should be shown to old soldiers; that they should be carefully provided for, and a large body of them kept always on foot. It seems to me, also, that it is not enough to increase the pay of the soldier according to his period of service, but that it is highly essential to confer on him some mark of distinction that shall secure to him privileges calculated to encourage him to grow gray under arms, and, above all, to do so with honor.