Читать книгу Organization: How Armies are Formed for War - Hubert Foster - Страница 13

Two, three, or four Battalions form a Regiment, designated by a number or by a permanent name, territorial or personal. In the Regiment are embodied the honourable traditions which have accrued in history, and the esprit de corps engendered by them. The officers are on one Regimental List for promotion, and so serve continuously in the Regiment. They thereby acquire a camaraderie, professional feeling, and personal intimacy with each other and with their men, of the greatest value in war. In foreign armies, with short service of two years, it is hardly too much to say that the Regimental Officers really constitute the permanent army, through which there flows continuously a stream of recruits, receiving a professional impress from their officers.

The Regiment is in foreign armies commanded by a Colonel (with sometimes a Lieutenant-Colonel), assisted by an Adjutant and a small Administrative Staff. The British Regiment is merely a peace organization never found as a whole in war, and the Battalion, with its Colonel and his Staff, its Colours and band, its traditions, history, and esprit de corps, represents what in foreign armies we find in the Regiment. The battalions of the foreign Regiment are merely its tactical units, just as the companies are to the Battalion.