{"id":10252,"date":"2014-12-16T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10252"},"modified":"2014-12-16T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T11:00:18","slug":"training-a-company-for-war-in-1914","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/training-a-company-for-war-in-1914\/","title":{"rendered":"TRAINING A COMPANY FOR WAR IN 1914"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Wednesday, December 16, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>In Camp, West Down South, Salisbury Plains<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day:<em> \u201cGeneral training.\u00a0 Battalion drill, and company in attack.\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=9817&amp;preview=true#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY: During the period leading up to the declaration of war, the British Army was revising its training manuals, based on its experiences in the South African Wars.\u00a0 The Canadian Army was doing the same to a somewhat lesser degree.\u00a0 Andrew Irocci, in his book <em>\u201cShoestring Soldiers: The 1<sup>st<\/sup> Canadian Division at War, 1914-1915,\u201d<\/em> has written:-<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Rapid Training of Company for War<\/em> is the title of one such supplemental publication that first appeared in November 1914.\u00a0 Its author was Captain Arthur Percival Birchall, a career officer whose service in the 7<sup>th<\/sup> Royal Fusiliers dated back to the turn of the century.\u00a0 In 1913-14 Birchall partook in an exchange program with the Canadian militia, working on its instructional staff in western Canada.\u00a0 As a company officer with the Royal Fusiliers, Birchall had already gained much experience leading regular troops, but his work in Canada revolved around the citizen soldiers who served in the Active Militia, so he was well placed to comment on the intricacies of turning ordinary civilians into disciplined fighters.\u00a0 Birchall admitted that raising and training an effective citizen army under wartime conditions was an ambitious undertaking, but he remained optimistic, believing that the solution to the Empire\u2019s crisis lay in efficient training tempered with a good dose of common sense.\u00a0 Birchall soon practised what he preached as commanding officer of the 4<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion on Salisbury Plain.<\/p>\n<p>As a career soldier, Birchall knew all too well that citizen soldiers \u2013 even those who had eagerly served in the Active Militia \u2013 had a great deal to learn.\u00a0 Training and practice were essential, and <em>Rapid Training <\/em>urged readers to make the best of limited time.\u00a0 During heavy rain, field activities could be replaced by indoor instruction.\u00a0 It was advice that would come to resonate especially deeply for thousands of Canadian soldiers camped on the flooded Salisbury Plain.\u00a0 More generally, Birchall condensed the goals of basic company-level training into a series of topics, including physical fitness, marksmanship, small unit tactics, defensive work and fortifications, and night operations, as well as various specialized skills (scouting, machine guns, and signalling).\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Dec 16, 1914.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Andrew Irocci, \u201c<em>Shoestring Soldiers: <\/em><em>The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914-1915<\/em>, Toronto, Ontario, University of Toronto Press, 2008, pp. 33-35.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, December 16, 1914 In Camp, West Down South, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cGeneral training.\u00a0 Battalion drill, and company in attack.\u201d\u00a0[1] THIS DAY IN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}