Form your local battalion into sections, platoons, companies. A section approximately numbers 100 men, under a section leader. A platoon numbers 35, under a lieutenant. A company numbers 200 under a major or captain. Four companies go to a battalion which probably numbers 800 men—or thereabouts.
For convenience and efficiency’s sake you may choose that each section of your battalion consists of men living near one another. Thus at a sudden alarm a whole street may turn out and the complete battalion be formed as the men step from their doors. And news, advice, or orders could be passed to the complete battalion without a moment’s loss of time.
Make no mistake, an organized people could turn-to almost with the quickness of regular soldiers. And such a support to a hard pressed army would be beyond compute.
If an alarm came during work hours, the case would be different but very similar. Each man would be a fighter even though away from his suburban mates. He would fight in a Factory Battalion, or Wharf Battalion, or Street Battalion, or out in the farmlands or bush squad—just where he happened to be if fighting suddenly broke out around him. If no actual fighting was taking place there, but was threatening his suburb or township, farm or district, he would make all haste back to his Guerrilla Band or Suburban Battalion, as the case might be.
Nothing can be surely foreseen in warfare, particularly in this present warfare. All that we can do is to carry on with our work all over the continent, and be prepared to act and to fight immediately danger threatens.
There is only one proved certainty in this war and that is: given weapons a people can fight and fight exceedingly well. Those weapons will make all the difference in the world to us, our families, and our country.
Elect your own leaders and sub-leaders. It is not necessary that all leaders of a complete battalion should be men with previous war experience. The majority ought to be. The others should be level-headed men who can listen to a proposed line of action, think for and against, then probably suggest an improvement, or a better move still: men who can reason and plan, then act.
Such men in the councils of a battalion could make it very strong. Your battalion may elect a “fire-eater” as colonel, a good soldier who in a short time could train you to put up a jolly good show against a strong enemy. When that enemy came along the fire-eater would be eager to “try you out” which of course would be his job and you’d have to follow him. Well, the job of the “thinkers” among your leaders would be to follow the colonel too, but also to point out to him ways of bettering his plan. The result would be that the battalion would be a better job and suffer fewer casualties.
Remember if war bursts upon your city, your town, your farm, there are going to be casualties. You want as many as possible of them to be on the enemy’s side.
I have seen quite a lot of war, practically four years in the front line. And every time it was the level-headed colonel, or the colonel with cool, thoughtful advisers who gave the enemy the hardest knocks while suffering the fewest casualties. So choose your leaders well. We may and will have to fight as scattered individuals, as scattered sections, or platoons, or companies, or battalions, or Guerrilla Bands. Your success and your life depend upon how your leaders have trained you, no matter whether you find yourself fighting alone or with the tiny section, or the entire battalion—perhaps in company with a far flung line of battalions.
Hence, choose your leaders carefully. Avoid the old-time sarg-major stuff, that belongs to the parade ground of old-time soldiering. No matter whether you are one of the Auxiliaries, or a “trammy”, or the manager of a great business, you are a worker whose precious spare hours are being given to training to fight for your home and country. And every minute of that precious time must be devoted to the things that really count: to the better handling of a weapon, to the learning of fighting craft that will make you and your section and platoon and company and battalion a better fighting unit in team work.
As you train into a dangerous fighter so your section will grow into a dangerous fighting section. So with the platoons and companies, until your whole battalion becomes a fighting unit to be reckoned with.
If populated Australia becomes thick with such battalions and the bush with mounted regiments then we need not fear. Should the enemy infiltrate, as of course he will, then let him do so if we are not there to stop him—there is plenty of country. But we will infiltrate behind him. Our great continent is so built that two can play at the same game. Should an enemy break through the regular army he would find us everywhere; he could never take us, never beat us.
If the leaders of your battalion are the right men, there should be no waste time. Every moment, step by step, should be devoted to the things that count. During the day the leaders will plan out the programme for the evening, the teaching for every platoon, for every man. It will mean a lot of extra work for those leaders, but then their hearts, like yours, will be in the job.
CHAPTER II
The Rifle
THE rifle is a deadly weapon. In the hands of a marksman it still is one of the deadliest weapons in warfare. It is the easiest to come by, and is a one man weapon. It will be the weapon of large numbers of the Regulars, and of the Auxiliaries.
Learn to shoot straight. That is the one thing that counts. Every man will treasure his rifle, for at any moment it may save his life, a fact that the regular soldier fully realizes. The auxiliary soldier, if his leaders plan their job well, will within a few hours learn the few axiomatic principles of his rifle, and realize the necessity of keeping it clean and ready for instant action. The main thing he must really work for is to learn to shoot straight. As he will be in deadly earnest about this he should master the art quickly indeed.
First, realize the tremendous fighting power of the rifle. By you and your comrades first understanding your weapon you become not only better soldiers but your battalion becomes a fighting power to be reckoned with. You cease to be a loosely strung mob of auxiliary pot-shotters; you develop into a fighting battalion capable of holding up an enemy battalion. But at the same time, by virtue of being guerrilla and understanding guerrilla tactics, you hold the immeasurable advantage of being able to split up into fighting groups, then of coming together again as the action demands. If we thus increase the efficiency of every battalion of the Auxiliary Army then an enemy will soon find he has bitten off more than he can chew.
A poor rifleman would only kill an enemy by luck or accident, even at fairly close range. At 500 yards such a rifleman might fire 1000 shots and not hit his man. And if that man were a slightly better shot, he would kill the poor rifleman.
A battalion of poor rifle shots could be wiped out by fifty trained rifle shots.
Thus, if you get up against a better rifle shot than yourself then out you go—for keeps. If your battalion of 1000 men get up against a few better rifle shots then out the whole battalion goes—for keeps.
Moral. Learn to shoot straight. Then learn to shoot straighter still at varying distances under varying conditions. It will then be you who will live to tell the tale and fight another day. And exactly in proportion as you live and fight so will your families and country be safer, and the enemy’s man power dwindle away.
A good rifleman may kill his man first shot, or he may kill him in ten. He and his mates are then safe at least from that man, and he has only used up ten bullets. So that ammunition does not worry him for the present. If he were a poor shot and had lived long enough to use up 1000 rounds, then ammunition would worry him for the enemy may appear all around him and most of his ammunition will have gone.
It is not always possible to hurry ammunition to a regular firing line. Groups or sections or platoons or individuals of an Auxiliary Force may find themselves fighting under conditions where the only ammunition the individual can depend upon is what he carries in his own bandolier.
Hence, a good shot not only saves his life by shooting his enemy quicker, he also saves his life a second and third and fourth and fifth time by still having sufficient ammunition to shoot other enemies as they may appear. Think it out for yourself. There are numerous reasons