Manual of Military Training: Second, Revised Edition

The Story

The manual begins by stating its purpose plainly: it is meant above all for cadets in military schools and for company officers in the National Army, National Guard, and Officers’ Reserve Corps, with regular Army officers as a secondary audience. Its aim is not abstract theory but the making of “efficient fighting COMPANIES” and the preparation of officers for the responsibilities of company command in wartime. Even before the instruction begins, the book presents itself as a working tool, widely adopted and widely distributed, and it tells the reader to study it with a companion pamphlet of questions so that “every point mentioned in the manual” is brought out and emphasized.

From there, the manual moves into the practical foundations of drill. It teaches the soldier how to stand, how to hold the rifle, how to fix and unfix the bayonet, how to inspect arms, and how to dismiss a squad. These are not presented as ceremonial details alone; they are the beginning of a larger system of control. The squad becomes the first unit of discipline and instruction, and the corporal becomes its fixed leader. A squad is made up of a corporal and seven privates, though the manual explains how larger or smaller groups are adjusted into squads or platoons. The corporal’s place in the ranks, the movement of his rear-rank man when he steps out to lead, and the care with which every movement is executed all show the same underlying idea: order starts in the smallest unit and spreads upward.

Once the squad is formed and controlled, the manual builds outward into company and battalion movements. It gives precise directions for changing from column to line, forming columns of companies or squads, and turning front into line. The language is exact because the problem is exact: men must move together, in sequence, over ground, without breaking alignment or losing their guides. The captain’s position beside the right guide, the repeated commands, the way each company takes its place in relation to the one ahead, and the insistence that each movement be done at the right pace all reveal a system meant to hold bodies together under pressure. This section shows the company as both a tactical instrument and an educational one; it must be trained until movement itself becomes instinctive.

The manual then turns to combat, and the tone becomes more urgent. In the firing line, the reserve, the position of sections, the assignment of front, and the use of machine guns all depend on terrain and danger. The text warns that a position is not fully occupied until an infantry attack begins, and that fire alone cannot be trusted to stop an attack. Troops must be ready to use the bayonet if necessary. Here the manual’s logic becomes clear: fire, movement, and shock are not separate arts but parts of one system. The commander must divide the front into sections, hold some troops in reserve, cover dead space, avoid unnecessary dispersion, and keep battalions intact when possible. The aim is to create a line that can absorb attack, return fire, and then counterattack from the flank when the moment comes.

Patrols and advance guards carry that same logic into movement before contact. A patrol leader must receive orders, ask questions, estimate the situation, inspect his men, and explain the mission so clearly that everyone understands the place to rally if scattered. The manual gives a vivid example at York, where a captain orders Corporal B and three men to reconnoiter toward Oxford and along the Valley Pike. The corporal repeats the order, then assigns distances and watchpoints to his men. The advance guard is treated with similar precision: it is mostly infantry, ideally with cavalry well in front, and it must be far enough ahead of the main body to allow deployment before serious engagement. The manual even gives concrete yardages for different sizes of commands. Between the advance guard and the main body, connecting files maintain communication, usually by signal. The column is therefore not merely a marching mass but a string of coordinated eyes and hands spread over distance.

The outpost and camp instructions deepen this sense of constant preparation. When troops halt, the outpost is posted quickly so the rest can sleep. The outpost commander issues orders from the map or after reconnaissance, and subordinates receive exact sectors, supports, detached posts, and reserves. The manual then shifts to camp administration: how to pitch tents, how to place rifles, bayonets, and shelter halves, and how to keep the tent lines uniform by using equal guy ropes. It also tells where to collect wood, how to guard water, and how to keep streams from being polluted by different uses. Water is divided into places for drinking and cooking, watering animals, and bathing or washing. If water is unsafe, it should be boiled and aerated. The camp is thus not simply a resting place; it is another battlefield of order, sanitation, and responsibility.

From camp the manual moves into a more disciplined inner life. It explains the proper position of attention in painstaking anatomical detail, rejecting stiffness and exaggeration. The body must be lithesome, balanced on the balls of the feet, with the chest naturally arched, the abdomen in, the shoulders loose, and the head erect. The instructor is told to correct each man individually until he can assume the posture without strain. This is characteristic of the whole book: military efficiency is not built by force alone but by correct habit, economy of motion, and trained coordination. The same concern appears in the sections on firing kneeling and sitting, where the instructor adapts position to the soldier’s build and teaches him to avoid strain and recoil injuries.

The final movement of the manual goes inward from drill to ethics, health, and citizenship. Discipline is governed by nine principles: duty must be required of everyone; subordinates must be responsible; orders must pass through proper channels; interference must be avoided; reward and punishment must be certain; and above all, control of others begins with control of oneself. Then come the health lessons: soldiers are told that disease is caused by germs, that it is caught by breathing, swallowing, touch, insect bites, or inheritance, and that they must avoid contaminated air, food, and water. The manual closes on respect, especially in saluting, and on honors to the National Anthem and the colors. Even at retreat, the flag is lowered with ceremony. The book ends where it began, with a disciplined body in a disciplined order, but now the order includes hygiene, obedience, and ritual respect as part of the soldier’s duty.

The People

• The cadet and company officer are the main learners the manual addresses. They want competence: to command a squad, form a line, post a reserve, pitch camp, and keep men healthy. What stands in their way is not a single enemy but inexperience, impatience, and the temptation to let detail slide. By the end, they are meant to think of command as a chain of exact responsibilities rather than a title.

• The corporal is the clearest working figure in the book’s organization. He leads the squad, repeats orders, places men at intervals, and keeps the unit moving or reconnoitering. He wants the patrol or squad to stay together and understand its mission. What stands in his way is confusion, scattering, and incomplete orders. He ends up as a model of small-unit leadership: close, practical, and accountable.

• The captain appears as the organizer of company movement and patrols. He assigns tasks, determines the mission, and places companies in line or column. He wants the company to arrive at the right place in the right order, ready to act. What stands in his way is terrain, distance, and the need to keep subordinates informed. He becomes the figure through whom orders are translated into motion.

• The instructor is a constant but mostly unnamed presence. He wants men to learn positions, firing, and drill without strain or error. What stands in his way is habit, rigidity, and the false idea that military bearing means stiffness. He ends up as a corrective voice, insisting on coordination, anatomy, and individual adjustment.

• The soldier is the broad human subject of the manual. He wants clarity, safety, and the ability to perform. He is told to salute correctly, avoid disease, respect the anthem, and obey discipline. He begins as someone whose habits must be shaped and ends as someone expected to control himself and serve the unit.

In Its Own Voice

The manual states its practical goal at the start, making the purpose of the whole enterprise unmistakable:

"the aim being to make efficient fighting COMPANIES"

Later, when it turns from drill to combat, it gives a hard rule about the limits of fire alone:

"Fire alone can not be depended upon to stop the attack."

And when it turns to discipline, it insists that command begins inside the officer himself:

"He who can not control himself can not control others."

What It's Really About

At its deepest level, the manual is about conversion: the turning of isolated men into a functioning military body. Nearly every section, whether on saluting, tents, patrols, or firing positions, serves that purpose. The book does not treat discipline as a separate moral issue from tactics. Instead, discipline is the form that tactics take in daily life. A soldier learns to stand properly so that he can move properly; he learns to handle water properly so that he can keep fighting; he learns to receive and repeat orders properly so that the unit can survive contact.

Another strong theme is chain of command. The text repeatedly insists that responsibility must stay where authority is placed. Subordinates should control their own commands; orders should pass through proper channels; superiors should not meddle; and the person who gives an order must see it carried out. This is not just bureaucracy. The manual sees discipline as a system in which confusion is deadly, and clarity of responsibility is part of combat power. Even the patrol example at York dramatizes this, because Corporal B does not simply receive a mission — he translates it, checks his men, and assigns each one a role.

The book also treats the soldier’s body as an instrument requiring exact training. The long passage on attention, the care taken with kneeling and sitting fire, and the advice on avoiding injury all show an unusually physical understanding of command. The body must be economical, poised, and ready. The manual distrusts strain, rigidity, and exaggeration, and prefers coordination and naturalness. In that sense, it argues that military effectiveness is not brute stiffness but controlled adaptability.

Sanitation and health are also central, not peripheral. Disease is presented as a battlefield threat, and the manual gives the soldier practical habits against germs, polluted water, and careless coughing or spitting. That emphasis reveals a modern army’s concern with attrition beyond combat. The soldier is expected to survive camp life, long marches, and crowded conditions. Health becomes part of readiness, not a private matter.

Finally, there is a moral argument beneath the technical one. The manual ties obedience to self-command, courtesy to discipline, and national ceremony to military identity. Respect for the anthem and colors is not ornamental; it belongs to the same order that governs drill and sanitation. The soldier is expected to be precise, restrained, and publicly honorable. The book’s world is severe, but it is not casual about dignity.

Why Read It Today

Readers who like procedure, military history, or the practical language of early twentieth-century institutions will find a great deal here. The manual feels intimate in an odd way because it is so concrete: it tells you where a corporal stands, how far ahead an advance guard moves, how to pitch a shelter tent, and how to boil water. It shows an army thinking in terms of habits, distances, and habits made into distances.

What stays with you is the book’s relentless seriousness about ordinary acts. Standing, saluting, boiling water, posting a reserve, or keeping a patrol from scattering all become part of a single system of readiness. That gives the manual a distinctive texture: it is not dramatic, but it is never vague. The reader comes away with a sense of how much of military life is made of repetition, correction, and exact timing.

It also has limits that a modern reader will notice immediately. Its period assumptions about rank, obedience, and national ceremony are explicit. Its view of health reflects the germ knowledge and practical medicine of its time. Its language is formal and sometimes austere, and the sheer amount of detail can be tiring. But that very density is part of its value. It does not flatter the soldier’s life; it explains it. For readers deciding whether to continue, the appeal lies in seeing how an army tries to turn principle into posture, posture into movement, and movement into survival.