Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Our raw recruits
OUR RAW RECRUITS.
The proportion of men who actually fall in battle is inconsiderable compared with the number of those who sink under the toil of drill and the fatigues of forced marches. The mortality amongst our raw recruits—the one or two year old soldiers, if we may so term them—is enormous. Even of that vast multitude which passes muster under the surgeon’s hands, hundreds break down during the process of seasoning, and are obliged at the end of twelve months or so to be dismissed the service. Those who are a little hardier bear up manfully, and by dint of painful patience and perseverance, become firm and sprightly-looking soldiers, the pride of the paternal colour-sergeant, and on parade and at a review they look wonderfully fine fellows.
But send these men away on foreign service, let them encounter a campaign or two, and be brought face to face with harassing marches, with the toil of actual warfare, with the fury of the elements, heat and cold, frost and sun, and the muster roll shows a rapid diminution, even before a shot has been fired or bayonet crossed bayonet. Why is this? It is simply that the physique of the majority of the men is incapable of bearing up against the insidious and lethal attacks of fatigue;—the trials to which their strength is put are overpowering for them. With all the courage and ardour in the world, they are stricken down like children by exhaustion and disease.
The cause of this unsound state of things, however, is well ascertained: our regiments are composed too extensively of immature youths. “Wanted, a few fine growing young men, about eighteen years of age and five feet ten inches in height!” How often may such a notice be seen any day placarded on the walls of the Horse Guards, or outside the tavern which the recruiting sergeant has converted into his head-quarters. Eighteen years of age and five feet ten in height! What do these figures represent? Taken together they can refer only to a raw lad run up like a bean stalk, whose frame is as yet undeveloped, and who must be deficient in that stamina which is requisite to bear even the minor fatigues of even a monotonous and incessant drill. In time of war the ranks composed of such feeble material become quickly decimated. They melt away like snow. “I must have grown men,” said Napoleon after the Battle of Leipsic; “boys only serve to fill the hospitals and cumber the road sides.”
Now to Englishmen this is a subject of no slight interest. We pay millions every year for the maintenance of our armies. Each soldier costs this country 100l. a year. Therefore, financially considered, this is a matter which ought to be looked into and seriously discussed. Let us adduce a few facts with a view to show how far the physical training of the young soldier now in vogue conduces towards the evils of which we have spoken. According to the statistical report of the Army Medical Department for 1859, it appears that there were 16,553 soldiers under twenty years of age, and 30,389 men under twenty-five years of age. Now if we look into the returns of the military hospitals for any one year, it will be seen that sixteen per cent. of the patients are recruits under two years’ service. The diseases under which they labour are those peculiar to physical weakness intensified by excess of labour.
In order to appreciate some of the causes which may be producing and extending this loss of strength in our army, it should be recollected that physical growth and development are in the greatest perfection when age, weight, and stature correspond according to a regular natural scale. The due relation between these three conditions is the best test of the normal and healthy physical development and growth of a young man which we possess, and it is unnecessary to observe that physical maturity is of unquestionable importance when considered with reference to the military strength of a nation. So essential, indeed, is it, that the subject is commanding the attention of physiologists, of medical men, and of the military authorities in various parts of Europe. Those who attended the International Exhibition last year might have seen in one of the departments of the Austrian court, the curious collection of Dr. Leharzik. This collection consisted of models of the human figure, male and female, from babyhood up to mature age, moulded with a view to illustrate this concurrence of age weight, and height. A little examination would have revealed some interesting facts. As, however, it is probable many of our readers may not have had the leisure to investigate closely in the crush and hurry of that great tide which was ever surging through the labyrinthine avenues of that forbidding structure, we will supply them with a few figures relative to this subject. A lad of eighteen whose height is 5 feet 4.34 inches, ought to weigh about 8 stone 10 lbs.; if he be a healthy, and what the recruiting officer likes so much, a “growing lad,” on his next birthday he ought to measure 5 feet 4.94 inches, and weigh about 9 stone 5 lbs. At twenty-five he will have attained in stature 5 feet 6.3 inches, and weigh 10 stone 5 lbs. These statistics, of course, are only an average struck from the maximum and minimum of height, weight, and age of a large body of men. However, they are trustworthy, and will serve to indicate the importance of paying due attention to these particulars in the selection of our future heroes. It may also be observed, that a young man who has reached the average height at eighteen years of age, may still be expected to grow more than two inches before he is fully developed. Our farmers, and the trainers of racing horses, have begun to understand and appreciate the importance of this truth; for experience has long since pointed out to them the injudiciousness of putting a young colt too early to the plough or into harness. But Science is gradually opening the eyes of the present generation, and Wisdom enforces the truths of her handmaiden with irresistible eloquence.
Still, though the voice of Wisdom speaketh so loud, her precepts are not always devoutly attended to. How does the case stand with regard to our own military authorities? Are they on the alert to avail themselves of new knowledge? According to the existing army regulations, soldiers are not entitled to reckon service under eighteen years of age, and to claim for a pension. What is the consequence of this? Why, that recruits are frequently induced to represent themselves of the standard age, when in fact they are many years younger. Provided a young fellow has attained the minimum height, seems to be a “growing lad,”—provided, in fact, he promises well, the recruiting sergeant lays hold of him as a valuable prize: he is for the future a veritable soldier. When there is a dearth of recruits this evil is still greater; the ordinary standard height is either lowered, or if dwarfed Bœotians are enlisted under the regulation stature, the fact is winked at by the authorities. At one time, I think in the year 1804, a premium of two guineas was even offered to parents who brought a boy under sixteen years of age, provided only he was five feet two inches in height. These were “raw lads” indeed; and, according to the advanced notions of the present day, hardly worth their premium. The hospital was more likely to see the first and last of them, than the field of battle.
There are, then, three essential requisites—age, height, and stature; and it cannot be too frequently repeated that age is only one of the three most important elements. Age, weight, development, and strength are closely co-related, and their due proportions are absolutely necessary to qualify a soldier, or any other living being, to endure the hardships incident to a military life. The anatomist well knows that the skeleton framework of the body is still growing up to thirty years of age, and that the whole man is only then arriving at maturity. What is true in this instance, with regard to a civil life, is also true with regard to the soldier. Excessive labour up to this epoch of man’s existence is sure to impair the strength and lay the seeds of future disease.
Young lads from sixteen to two or three and twenty, who are so fond of exhibiting their feats of strength, should be warned in time. From the over-straining of their muscles at this immature age, general debility is too frequently generated; they pine off before they have crossed even the very threshold of manhood, and consumption lays them low in a green grave. The early bloom of the fruit was not a sign of ripeness, but a symptom of decay.
Let us examine briefly, as physiologists, the condition of the bones—in the recruit and young soldier under twenty years of age. At this period the embryo soldier has still ten years to pass, before the framework of his body has arrived at maturity. In the early state of the long bones—such as those which compose the arm and leg—the bone commences to grow in the middle of the shaft, and progresses towards either end. The shaft of the bone is thus formed. Large portions at either end of this shaft remain for variable periods of time in a soft cartilaginous growing state, till at last separate and distinct points of bony growth appear in them also. They become gradually converted into bone, and as bony processes, they remain separated for a time from the principal piece, by an intervening soft substance, which for the time being glues them to the shaft of the long bone. There are portions also on the ribs, where they hinge upon the spine, which at the age of eighteen have only commenced to develope from soft material into bone, and their mysterious transformation is not completed till the twentieth year of life. The ribs, therefore, are not fully grown till that age. The shaft of the arm-bone continues to increase in length till the twenty-fifth year of life; and so long as this change continues, a portion of soft vesicular and growing tissue intervenes between the shaft and the head of the bone. It is not till about the twentieth year of life that this soft substance is converted into bone, and the principal bone of the arm becomes consolidated. The lower end of the bone of the fore-arm, to which the hand is mainly fixed at the wrist-joint, is also at the age of eighteen still incomplete, but it is finished at about twenty years of age. The lower end of the other bone of the fore-arm also unites about the same time. Shortly after the twentieth year the head of the thigh bone, which forms part of the hip-joint, unites to the shaft, and the end which forms the knee-joint becomes united to the principal piece also. The lower ends of the two bones of the leg at the ankle-joint, likewise coalesce with the shafts between the eighteenth and twenty-fifth year. Again, the breast-bone is composed of five pieces; the fifth coalesces with the fourth soon after puberty, and the fourth with the third between twenty and twenty-five years of age, whilst the body, or greater piece of the breast-bone is usually not completed by the junction of the third to the second before the thirty-fifth or fortieth year. In fact, the process of ossification is constantly going on in various important joints, and until that work of nature is settled, the full strength of manhood has not been attained; to say nothing of another fact to be taken into account, the growth of the bones and the muscles in a due relation to each other.
We must now go a step further, and examine into the effects produced by excess of training upon other portions of the body. Take, for example, the frame-work of the chest, in the cavity of which are situated those organs which seem especially to suffer whenever the recruit and the young soldier are subjected to over-exertion. Next to the inspiration of bad air, the imperfect, or continuously obstructed inspiration of the chest, tends more than any other cause known to bring about disease of the lungs and heart. The influence of pressure in the unfinished condition of the bones is, therefore, of vital importance, and demands the most anxious and incessant consideration. As the twig is bent so will the branch grow. We have seen that till the twentieth year of life some ribs are still imperfect, being soft at their joint-ends where resistance and motion occur. They are still growing. The breast-bone in front is in a similar condition. The slightest reflection, therefore, will make it evident that a perpetual pressure upon these parts from before and from behind must exercise a material influence in moulding the future form of the chest. The cartilages of the ribs in front of the breast-bone ought to have full freedom to rise upward and advance forward at every inspiration, the diameter of the chest being naturally increased by every act of breathing. Any weight upon this portion of the human frame exerted when the bones are still growing, must necessarily tend to set the bones themselves in an unnatural direction. To maintain the vital capacity of the lungs, the capacity of the chest cavity from side to side must necessarily be increased; and at what cost? At the cost of the mal-formation of the chest. The capacity of the lungs goes on increasing with age and height, so that men from five feet to six feet high inspire from 174 to 262 cubic inches in a progressively ascending scale. Moreover, the growth of the heart goes on relatively to the growth of the body.
From all that has been said, the reader must have been convinced of one fact—the importance of attending to the co-relative conditions in a recruit of—age, height, and weight. If eighteen years of age is to be the minimum fixed for the enlistment of growing lads, then the height should be as near as possible five feet four inches, and the weight 112 pounds. A height below this average will prove to have been as a rule the result of defective feeding in early life, tending to the diminution of the normal rate of increase of the body. Under such circumstances, stunted development and diseased vital processes are the inevitable consequences. Constitutional tendencies of the future man are thus more or less certainly fixed at an early age; and although at eighteen the recruit may have no evident disease, yet a minimum height and weight will indicate a constitutional defect which requires only extraneous circumstances to develope. On the other hand, again, the excessive growth of the body generally, compared with the expansion and vital capacity of the lungs, becomes sufficiently obvious by the contrast of the tall body with the narrow and flat chest, in which the apices of the lungs approach close to each other. Generally in such cases the reparative organs are out of proportion to the body which has to be sustained. If the height of the soldier is the main qualification to be regarded in selecting men, age should be considered in accordance. If men five feet eleven inches or six feet are in request, they should not be less than twenty to twenty-five years old, and the weight should be about 160 to 180 lbs. The Romans understood this necessity well. Vagacius, who wrote in the fourth century, declared that an army raised without regard to the proper choice of its recruits, was never yet made a good army by length of service, and he warns us against the error of looking for great height among young soldiers. From his statement it would appear that the minimum height of the young Roman soldier was not more than 62.9939 inches, and in our own day the height of the young French soldier for general infantry service is only 61.41855 inches. In the Roman army, too, other conditions were respected. The military authorities of those days proportioned the period of probation for recruits to their physical capacities. Before a Roman conscript was finally approved, he underwent a probation of four months’ duration. When at the end of that period it was proved he had activity and strength to enable him to surmount the hardships of a soldier’s life, and that he appeared possessed of the requisite mental capacity, and a due degree of courage, the military mark was indelibly imprinted on his hand. But with us, as we have already shown, such precautions have not hitherto been taken. The result of an improper selection of “growing lads,” and the injudicious exercise through which they are put,—as they have not been trained according to true physiological principles,—have rendered them in the first instance incumbrances to the military hospitals, and, if the system has not led to the premature death of the young recruit, he is sooner or later thrown upon the civil population with one or more of his vital organs injured for the remainder of his life. The service of such young men, observes Dr. Aitken, in his valuable lectures on the subject, who are no sooner out of the hospital than they are in again, can only be regarded as merely “nominal” service, and the “strength" of an army, if composed of such material, can never constitute a very formidable phalanx.
Happily this subject is attaining some degree of consideration amongst the authorities at the Horse Guards—and not before it is time, nor before it has been thrust upon them from various quarters, and especially from their own generals. Lord Hardinge complained that many of the men who were sent to the East as a reserve were young recruits, and that instead of being composed of bones and muscle, they were almost all muscle. However, his was not a bitter complaint, for he felt satisfied that he could make very good soldiers of them in two months. He imagined, however, that fixing the age at nineteen would give him the requisite “bone and muscle.” He overlooked the fact that in sixty days the young recruit may break down so completely under the exertion, that before two years pass over his head he may be a dead man, or, having spent most of his time in hospital, he may be discharged from the service for heart or pulmonary disease, and thus become a permanent burden upon the civil population during the remainder of his life. There is, fortunately, a growing conviction both at home and abroad—and this, it must be observed, is the hard lesson of experience—that men are in general unable to surmount the fatigue of a military life under twenty years of age. Recruits of eighteen years of age, says M. Coche, are commonly unfitted for the duties of an army; if they do not possess unusual strength, they pass two or three, or even four years out of service in the hospital, if they are not discharged the service before that time. Sir James McGrigor records, that the corps which arrived for service in the Peninsula were always ineffective and sickly in proportion as they were made up of men who had recently joined the ranks; and he made a calculation in the field that 350 men who had served in the field four or five years were more effective than 1000 who had just arrived, unused to the harassing duties of service. Many examples are also to be found in the records of our Russian experience in 1854, which proves that young and growing lads are much less able to endure the fatigue of marching than mature men. When the Duke of Newcastle informed Lord Raglan that he had 2000 recruits ready to send him, he replied that “those last sent were so young and unformed that they fell victims to disease, and were swept away like flies; he preferred to wait.” The Duke of Cambridge tells us that the young men suffered two or three times as much as the men who had been there all the time, and Sir De Lacy Evans also states in the fifth report on the army before Sebastopol, that the drafts sent to him were composed of men too young.
Such is the testimony borne against the evil practice of selecting men who have not the necessary physical strength. As Napoleon said, they are only fit to encumber the road-side. In countries where the conscription drags into the military net any number, and where the population have no choice when they have drawn the numero noir, but to follow the career of a soldier, this question is of comparatively slight importance; but in this country, where “soldiering” is purely gratuitous, it is altogether another matter. We have to pay a high premium for our men; they have to be induced by a pecuniary bribe to enter the service, and when they are enrolled they each cost us, as we have already stated, 100l. per annum. If then it is a matter of urgent importance that the health of the soldier should be carefully looked after when he has been enlisted, much more essential is it that he should be free from flaw when he enters. It behoves, therefore, the authorities at the Horse Guards, now that they are cognisant of the principles on which recruits ought to be selected, to see that none are admitted but such as can answer faithfully to these scientific requisitions.