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Show 8Y0NEmnCI0R'' THAT WEAPON AND FIELD GUN8, )T. HAS BECN PREDICTED, ' WILL WIN THE WAR. DISLIKED BY THE GERMANS " " .Tjhcy Are Nat Quite Quick Enough In Ita Use Drltlth Bayonet Drill to De Tauoht neerults In the New American Amer-ican Army. By EDWARD B. CLARK. Washington. A day or two ago nn order was lsiud, or nn Intimation was given (hut It was to lie Issued, that the iccrults of the now Ami rlciiu army would be taught the lliltlsh buvoiiet xlrill Instead of Hint which bus been In Ufco in the American armies for good maiij veiirs The unsoti Is ijulto plain. The lc-sous of tiu pret-ent wur, In which tin re Ins boon nn tinminse amount of hand to hand lighting, have InliKhti the ltrltlnh that new feint and cutH nnd thrusts with the buvonet-tlpped buvonet-tlpped rllle are nn essential to success. The war has brought u good mun rhiinges In lighting methods, and the change In the, use of the liiivnuct has not been the bust of them. "Field guns utid the bayonet will win the wur for America and for Its allies." This Is the word frequently siken by army men In Washington. Of course, It takes no thought of the possibility pos-sibility of nucleus of the (termini submarine sub-marine campaign, nor of the possibility possibil-ity of a gn.it (Senium iiiimiI letory, for these two results, ltnl from the Herman point of lew, are considered so remote of nccoiiipllsliimnt tli.it they 1 do not enter Into the military man's 1 calculations. Bayonet by No Means Obsolete. I It was onl 11 few jenrs ago that the ' military authorities of the world ciune I to think tlmt the bnonet as a weapon I of offense wns becoming obsolete. I There bus been a complete lenisnl of opinion. 'I lie llrltlsh and tho Flench have won many u tiemh mid nmti a hand-to-hand conlllct In the open by the u.e of the bu.Minet. Ilaonits are 1 gruesome weapons, Imt they ipilciJy put nn end to an opponent's niiibltlnn to light if he Units Unit he Is outpointed out-pointed bj his adversary In the use of this partluilar Implement of warfare. When the ptesent war began un Ainrrlcnn who had simi sen Ice In the regular urm, nnd who ilurlug the time had been Instructor of recruits, snld that soon report Mould begin to come In that the (tcruiuu troops did not "like the lujomt." The Gorman army droe Its wny Into France and theie was comparatively little opportunity for a few wiel.s to Judge of the com-imnitUo com-imnitUo merits of the men of the opposing op-posing armies as bayonet fighters. Af-tr Af-tr the buttle of the Marne hatid-tn-hnnd lighting In came more common, and as tho llrltlsh and the French advanced ad-vanced the hajonct came more and more Into use. The prediction of tho American scftdler was borne out. Frequent Fre-quent cable messages said : "Tho Germans Ger-mans do not like the buyonet." It Is puly due to an enemy to say that the German Is Just ns brave as any other fighting man. The reason for his dlslIKe of the Imjonot Is that he has been trained to light, not ns an Individual, but ns part of a machine. IIu Is taught the bajonet exercise, but the machine-like movement Is evident In bis uso of parry, thrust, lunge uud butt to the front. Why Germans Dislike It. The inuu who In the American army hud instructed recruits In tho bu)onet exercise gave his reasons for saying that the German would be found to be "shy" when bajonet met bnjonct lie said that In the day that bo taught recruits In the American nrny there were no restrictions on enlistments en-listments except phvslcul restrictions, nnd that among men entering the serv-Ice serv-Ice were many recently landed (lef-mans (lef-mans who hud served their time In the urmy of the empire. It was found that It was dlmcult to teach the German recruits the uso of the bajonet so that they could handle the weapon with the lightning-like lightning-like speed that the man of vlrtuully every other nation could handle It-The It-The German wus always a fraction of a second late. He came to "a guard" without any of the littleness of the men of other nationalities, ami while he feinted and thrust and lunged perfectly per-fectly so far as movement was concerned, con-cerned, thero was an appreciable slowness slow-ness about the tiling wblih would bo deadly In conflict. Of course, tho Germans In the American Amer-ican army soon overcame the result of 'their machine-like training abroad, but It took time to mako them us expert ex-pert us their comrades of other nations were. When a man reallres that bis opponent op-ponent In a hand-to hand conflict with the bnjonet Is IiIh superior In quit lines, li-nes, ho losts heart und, losing heart, loses tho fight. The American troops nro to be taught tho tm of the bajonet and they will be taught It In a large sense Individually. Indi-vidually. Individual Instruction Is olio of the marked methods of tho American Ameri-can si nice. It gives a man Initiative, self reliance, aggressiveness, nnd u spirit which no other kind of Instruction Instruc-tion an give lilm. The American sol-die sol-die is with the form of Instruction which they receive, supplemented by , tho knowledge of the lessons which the war has taught, will become for- I mlilalilc with the bajonet, and It may I bo true that "the bajonet and the ar- I tlllerj will win the wur." |