Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1895 — NEW STYLE OF MARCHING. [ARTICLE]

NEW STYLE OF MARCHING.

Captain Raoul’s System for Attaining High Speed With Little Exertion. Capt. Raoul, of the French artillery, began five years ago a special study of the military march. He concerned himself especially with the question whether the method of marching adopted generally by the armies of the civilized world answers to needs of war well. He wished to devise a system that should permit certain young troops to acquire a resistance to fatigue and a speed unknown to European armies. Very robust young soldiers are occasionally found to acquire by training great speed, but they are always exceptions to the rule, and in reaching the object aimed at they are often greatly fatigued. After much study Capt. Raoul thinks he has found a solution of the question in the method instinctively used by peasants iu their rapid walking. "I am able,” suys Capt Raoul, “totake the first comer between the ages of 20 and 60 years and teach him to run his legs as long as his legs will upbear him, without his feeling the least inconvenience in the matter of respiration.” It is found thnt men without the least training are able to ma'ke 'by this system more than six miles at the first trial. By the ordinary system of running such a man could not, without pain, cover a tenth of that distance. Captain Raoul’s method is to mainbain the body straight, to hold the head high and well free from the shoulders, to expand the chest without special effort, and to hold the elbows a little behind the haunches. The runner begins gently, with steps of about thirteen and three-quarter inches, lifting the feet only just high enough to clear the irregularities of the track, the hums strongly bent, the upper part of the body inclined forward as much us possible, so that the man must run In order to maintain his equilibrium. In fact the man is kept chasing his own center of gravity, which tends to fnll in advance of him.

In the training exercises the soldier begins by running the first kilometer (about 1,084 yards), in ten minutes, the second in nine minutes thirty seconds, and so on with increasing speed. After several weeks the soldier makes from the third kilometer a speed of six minutes or even five minutes forty-five seconds. After the experiment had been tried upon several regiments some years ago, a soldier made r«ther more than twelve and three-tenths miles In a trifle less than two hours. As the muscles employed in this feat were not those especially In demand in the ordinary method of marching, the soldier was able at once co take up the usual step with as good spirit as when he left the barracks. Captain Raoul recommends that after a little training the soldier run the first kilometer in seven minutes and fifteen seconds, the second in six minutes five seconds, the third in five minutes forty-five seconds, and from the sixth on, each kilometer in five minutes thirty seconds. He recommends that this last speed l>e not exceeded.