Soldiers' Rations

Abstract

THAT Soldiers' Rations are not without influence upon a campaign no one will dispute. It is not enough to have murderous weapons and big battalions to insure conquest nowadays, and in the last two little wars in which this country engaged these were indeed of secondary importance. The Abyssinian campaign, when our troops marched nearly four hundred miles across a rugged and unknown country, has been justly termed a victory of engineering, while the Gold Coast expedition, by reason of the efficient sanitary arrangements which reduced to a minimum the deadly effects of a terrible climate, may be fitly called a doctor's war. No doubt in the case of European struggles, far more depends upon the purely military element; but if the Prussian needle-gun contributed in a great measure to the defeat of the Austrians at Sadowa, it is none the less true that the famous Erbswurst, or peasausage, of the Germans had much to do with their maintaining the siege of Paris during the long cold winter months of that capital's investment.