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Quick Training for War
This authentic 1914 training manual by Robert Baden-Powell, who later founded the modern scouting movement, draws heavily on his experiences as a British officer from 1876-1910. Advocating a training system based on Edwardian moral values, Baden-Powell emphasizes the “the four Cs”: Courage, Common sense, Cunning, and Cheerfulness--qualities that would prove of little value in the conflagration about to engulf Europe. Full of engaging anecdotes and poignant glimpses of a bygone age, Quick Training for War offers modern readers a unique insight into the mindset of the British officer class at the outset of World War I.
- GenresMilitary FictionHistory
128 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 2011
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47 people want to read
About the author
Robert Baden-Powell
289 books104 followersRobert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell , British general and first baron Baden-Powell, founded the Boy Scouts in 1908 and with his sister Agnes Baden-Powell founded the Girl Guides in 1910.
This also known lord and lieutenant in the Army wrote of the movement.
Charterhouse school educated Baden-Powell, who afterward from 1876 served in the Army in India and Africa until 1910. In 1899 during the second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the besieged city of Mafeking. He wrote several also read military books for reconnaissance and training in his African years. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys , which Pearson published in 1908 for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas on Brownsea island through a camping trip that began on 1 August 1907, now seen as the beginning.
Baden-Powell and notably Olave Saint Clair Soames, his wife, after their marriage actively gave the movement. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died.
This also known lord and lieutenant in the Army wrote of the movement.
Charterhouse school educated Baden-Powell, who afterward from 1876 served in the Army in India and Africa until 1910. In 1899 during the second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the besieged city of Mafeking. He wrote several also read military books for reconnaissance and training in his African years. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys , which Pearson published in 1908 for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas on Brownsea island through a camping trip that began on 1 August 1907, now seen as the beginning.
Baden-Powell and notably Olave Saint Clair Soames, his wife, after their marriage actively gave the movement. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 23, 2014
I love primary sources. I know there's a place for the pre-digested historical summaries that come from universities, but for me there is nothing quite as good as a book or diary that comes from the very era that is being studied. So consequently it should come as not surprise that I very much enjoyed QUICK TRAINING FOR WAR.
Baden-Powell published QUICK TRAINING FOR WAR when WWI broke out, and he meant the book to be used by new officers. Thus he writes then about esprit de corp, and about the FOUR C'S. The latter being Courage, Common Sense, Cunning, and Cheerfulness. In addition he discusses more technical approaches to war, including but not limited to, Trenching and Sand bag Defenses, and cavalry training.
When it comes to the leadership sections, I particularly enjoyed the stories he used to illustrate his examples. I don't know if he made them up, but we can assume that they were included because he felt there was truth in them.
I remember an officer who was a bit of a martinet, who, by his cursing and punishing the men, had roused amongst them a thorough hatred of himself; but he was plucky, there was not doubt whatever of that. One morning when ordered on an expedition with his force, he formed the men up and said, "I know you hate me, and you mean to shoot me in the back at the first opportunity. All I can advise you is not to do so just yet. We have a got a rough time before us to-day, and it wants a bold push. If you stick to me I'll take you through. You can shoot me as much as you like afterwards."
In addition, there are juicy little bits that he shares with us. They express common sentiment in a way that an academic's summary probably couldn't do justice to:
No one will deny that in drill and drill-book lore the German is far ahead of the Belgian; yet the elan and intelligence of the latter render him an equally good soldier.
As for the technical areas of the book, they aren't overly drawn out. I found the bits about trench construction oddly engaging. Considering what is coming in France it's at once interesting and horrifying.
And because I'm not a student of WWI, I was excessively delighted to learn about things like cholera belts. Cholera Belts are an entirely ridiculous thing, by the way. A bit a silk or flannel meant to keep the humid damp away from the body's mid-region. It was supposed to keep the wearer healthy. As if cholera could be defeated by a reduction of humidity.
*****
QUICK TRAINING FOR WAR is an enjoyable read that is not taxing in length. There are all sorts of things to learn. The author shares his discussions with the German Emperor and quotes Ulysses S. Grant and Nogi. There are diagrams that explain techniques and strategies. And there are good stories.
(read as ebook. review copy)
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October 8, 2020This is a small book, almost a pamphlet, was written for men in Britain joining in the Great War. This is by no means a soldier's manual, but a book for those joining up and something to ease the anxiousness of joining the military. I remember getting a similar book in the 1980s when I joined the Marines. What is really striking about the book is how wrong it could be for World War I. Baden-Powell (of Boy Scout fame) based much of the information from the Boer War. There is still talk of calvary attacks and small protected trenches-- C and S trenches. Called "Common Sense" trenches they were named after the shape trenches. Little did Baden-Powell know just how extensive the trench system would become in the war and it had little to do with common sense. There is some good personal advice in the book particularly about hygiene and confidence.
As a historical document, Quick Training for War demonstrates how ill-prepared in scope and scale the nations of Europe were for the war that developed. Wars never go as planned, but World War I proved to be a war that no one's plans were executed as expected, and that, in itself, created a huge tragedy.
No star rating because it is a historical document.
As a historical document, Quick Training for War demonstrates how ill-prepared in scope and scale the nations of Europe were for the war that developed. Wars never go as planned, but World War I proved to be a war that no one's plans were executed as expected, and that, in itself, created a huge tragedy.
No star rating because it is a historical document.
December 16, 2014
This pocket-sized book was written and published during the first few weeks of The Great War, in four “editions” or printings amounting to 65,000 copies, but there’s no evidence that any of them ever made it to the battlefields. Who bought all those books?
Baden-Powell is sufficiently vague about some topics, that one can be forgiven for finding a marketing motive behind the simultaneous pairing of references to his Scouting books along with his hints of sage advice. But British military officers, NCOs, and the adult soldiers they led presumably were all at least a few years beyond reading such publications.
A careful examination of the cover illustration reveals the book’s true audience. It portrays, in silhouette, a dapper, tight-capped, mustachioed military officer, who is haranguing a quintet of raw recruits who have apparently just reported for duty (despite their possession of rifles). Four of these, by virtue of their poor posture and mismatched, unmilitary headgear, are obviously meant to be slack-jawed yokels. The fifth silhouette, shorter than all the others and at the far end of the ragtag and bobtail rank, but nattily attired in regulation paramilitary pinched-crown sombrero and crisp neckerchief, is clearly identifiable as a Boy Scout.
The message: The Boy Scout is The Officer of The Future.
Unfortunately, The Future had already arrived, and it needed more and better officers (and it needed them sooner) than the retired Baden-Powell could produce. The fact that the author had begun his military career back in the days when people wore woolen or flannel belly binders in the belief that they prevented cholera (and because he didn’t bother to define the term “cholera belt” when telling that story), is but an early instance of the kinds of incongruities that would plague the prosecution of the First World War by its illustrious leadership.
For example, his suggestions for the construction of trenches and their appropriate placement are insightful, but they’re still governed by the assumption that warfare would always be a matter of brisk movement, with heavy dependence upon horses to carry the day, instead of the immobile abattoir that modern artillery and machine guns had already made of it, by September of 1914.
When he makes the apparently perplexed statement, “In the South African campaign we had 18,000 men admitted to hospital for wounds, but nearly 400,000 for sickness, though South Africa is not such a very unhealthy country,” only to follow it 30 pages later with, “The old soldier who carries his ‘billy’ filled with the scraps from the last meal and merely has to heat it up on a little fire at a convenient halt is the envy of all his comrades, and is the healthiest and cheeriest among them,” we can tell he’s writing purely from the position of an officer who’d always had a batman to cook fresh food for him at every meal not eaten in an officers’ mess.
In 1914 the importance of refrigeration was well known (even if a refrigerator was still an icebox), and the microbiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910) had long before established the principles of bacteriology (including his verifying the bacterium that causes cholera, which previously had been isolated in 1854). If Baden-Powell had ever had to eat unrefrigerated leftovers that had been incubating bacteria for many hours in an unsanitary mess kit, he might have made the connection between food poisoning and the excess morbidity among the troops during the Second Boer War. There’s nothing enviable, healthy or cheery about nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration (with its risk of death) from food-borne gastroenteritis.
Novelists will find Quick Training for War to be a handy period resource for character attitudes, as well as some combatant practices of the day. Airsoft aficionados (or youngsters who have access to a few acres of empty ground and a spade to play with), may enjoy digging and inhabiting “C. S.” trenches for their war games. But for safety’s sake, a casual reader should confine attention to the author’s motivational aphorisms, which do have some psychological validity.
Baden-Powell is sufficiently vague about some topics, that one can be forgiven for finding a marketing motive behind the simultaneous pairing of references to his Scouting books along with his hints of sage advice. But British military officers, NCOs, and the adult soldiers they led presumably were all at least a few years beyond reading such publications.
A careful examination of the cover illustration reveals the book’s true audience. It portrays, in silhouette, a dapper, tight-capped, mustachioed military officer, who is haranguing a quintet of raw recruits who have apparently just reported for duty (despite their possession of rifles). Four of these, by virtue of their poor posture and mismatched, unmilitary headgear, are obviously meant to be slack-jawed yokels. The fifth silhouette, shorter than all the others and at the far end of the ragtag and bobtail rank, but nattily attired in regulation paramilitary pinched-crown sombrero and crisp neckerchief, is clearly identifiable as a Boy Scout.
The message: The Boy Scout is The Officer of The Future.
Unfortunately, The Future had already arrived, and it needed more and better officers (and it needed them sooner) than the retired Baden-Powell could produce. The fact that the author had begun his military career back in the days when people wore woolen or flannel belly binders in the belief that they prevented cholera (and because he didn’t bother to define the term “cholera belt” when telling that story), is but an early instance of the kinds of incongruities that would plague the prosecution of the First World War by its illustrious leadership.
For example, his suggestions for the construction of trenches and their appropriate placement are insightful, but they’re still governed by the assumption that warfare would always be a matter of brisk movement, with heavy dependence upon horses to carry the day, instead of the immobile abattoir that modern artillery and machine guns had already made of it, by September of 1914.
When he makes the apparently perplexed statement, “In the South African campaign we had 18,000 men admitted to hospital for wounds, but nearly 400,000 for sickness, though South Africa is not such a very unhealthy country,” only to follow it 30 pages later with, “The old soldier who carries his ‘billy’ filled with the scraps from the last meal and merely has to heat it up on a little fire at a convenient halt is the envy of all his comrades, and is the healthiest and cheeriest among them,” we can tell he’s writing purely from the position of an officer who’d always had a batman to cook fresh food for him at every meal not eaten in an officers’ mess.
In 1914 the importance of refrigeration was well known (even if a refrigerator was still an icebox), and the microbiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910) had long before established the principles of bacteriology (including his verifying the bacterium that causes cholera, which previously had been isolated in 1854). If Baden-Powell had ever had to eat unrefrigerated leftovers that had been incubating bacteria for many hours in an unsanitary mess kit, he might have made the connection between food poisoning and the excess morbidity among the troops during the Second Boer War. There’s nothing enviable, healthy or cheery about nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration (with its risk of death) from food-borne gastroenteritis.
Novelists will find Quick Training for War to be a handy period resource for character attitudes, as well as some combatant practices of the day. Airsoft aficionados (or youngsters who have access to a few acres of empty ground and a spade to play with), may enjoy digging and inhabiting “C. S.” trenches for their war games. But for safety’s sake, a casual reader should confine attention to the author’s motivational aphorisms, which do have some psychological validity.
October 3, 2014
This book was originally published in 1914 as an attempt in speeding up the training of non-professional soldiers for World War I. It gives advice on what parts of training are/aren't useful in the field, and practical suggestions on various aspects of military life. It's really quite interesting to see the attitude of an experienced officer at that time, as it all seems a bit like a big game. The book is filled with solid advice and is written in a very pleasant tone. My only criticisms are that the book is very short and doesn't quite give enough detail about how to achieve certain aims.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews