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COPYRIGHT BY E. MULLER, JR.

MARINES STANDING AT ATTENTION ON BOARD THE UNITED STATES SHIP ARKANSAS

THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM E. PARKER

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

"An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds of things

Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to them 'eathen kings;

'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an' 'e drills with the deck on a slew;

There isn't a job on the top of the earth the beggar don't know nor do.

You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, to paddle 'is own canoe;

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse-soldier and sailor too." -Rudyard Kipling.

I

T is probably true that the majority of our citizens know so little of our naval and military establishments that they fail to discriminate between the United States marine and the United States bluejacket or sailor. This is in part due to the fact that the Marine Corps is comparatively a small corps, and in part to the fact that its operations are so intimately associated with those of the navy as a whole that they often pass without special emphasis in press despatches, just as reports of army operations often omit detailed accounts of the parts played by its various arms.

But while the Marine Corps is a co-ordinate branch of the naval service, it is none the less a separate and distinct organization, with its own officers, both line and staff.

Although the marine is essentially an infantryman, the attribute which especially distinguishes him is the fact that he is amphibiousequally at home on land or sea; he has been called the "web-footed soldier." And this employment of infantry as a part of the regular complement of war-vessels may be traced back to remote antiquity.

The distinction between the sailor and the marine appears to date from about 500 B.C., when, with the progress of naval science and the increase in size and difficulty of management of biremes and triremes, it became expedient to enlist for naval service two distinct classes of men-the rowers, or seamen proper, who had the management of the vessel and sails, and the marines or fighting men.

In 1664 the corps of British marines was organized, and in 1740 three regiments which were raised in America were assembled in New York under the command of Colonel Spotiswood, of Virginia, for service in the colonies. This organization was the prototype of our present Marine Corps, which is

the oldest branch of our naval establishment; for, having, on the 8th of June, 1775, voted to dissolve the compact between the people of Massachusetts Bay and the Crown, the. Continental Congress, on November 10, 1775, "Resolved, that two Battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors and other officers as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to offices or be enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war with Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress ; that they be distinguished by the names of First and Second Battalions of American Marines."

On December 13, 1776, Congress directed that thirteen ships of war be built, and on the 22d day of the same month passed a resolution declaring Esek Hopkins Commander-in-Chief, and appointed officers for all vessels in the service.

This was the first step taken toward the creation of the navy which has won imperishable glory for the United States, and these are the facts upon which is based the claim of the Marine Corps that it is the "oldest in the service."

In February, 1777, a battalion of three hundred marines under the command of Major Nichols was landed from Commodore Hopkins's fleet on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, assaulted and captured the English forts and took a large quantity of cannon and military stores. This, the first battle of the American navy, was won by the marines.

From this small beginning the Marine Corps has grown to its present strength of over ten thousand officers and men, and it has in all our wars, foreign and civil, maintained the prestige of its Grecian, Roman, and British predecessors for valor, loyalty, and discipline.

The rather common, though false, idea that

our sailors aboard ship are in some way subordinated to the marines is due to two facts: first, because the latter do the sentry duty, enforce police regulations, and thus exercise a certain authority aboard ship over marines and seamen alike; and, second, because of certain historical facts connected with the conduct of marines on the occasions of several serious mutinies in the British navy. In the days of "wooden ships and iron men" the sailors had many grievances, which were doubtless largely shared by the marines, but such was the esprit de corps and discipline of the latter that in nearly every instance they remained loyal to their officers and aided them in suppressing the mutiny.

Happily for us, our seamen have never been driven to mutiny, nor has there ever existed a condition of serious antagonism between them and the marines, though the latter have ever jealously regarded their historic traditions as a military body par excellence as distinct from the seaman branch of the service. As evidence of the spirit of mutual co-operation which exists between our sailors and marines of the present day, the Secretary of the Navy, in his last annual report, referring to the active preparations in Nicaragua in 1912, said: "A most commendable feature during the campaign was the

perfect harmony and comradeship which existed between the enlisted men. [sailors] and marines. They worked together in perfect accord under trying hardships, and showed a spirit of eagerness and readiness to face the dangers before them."

Throughout the Revolutionary War the marines were in the front rank of our country's defenders, and were zealous participants, on land and sea, in practically every expedition or action in which our naval forces were engaged.

The army, the navy, and consequently the Marine Corps, were all disbanded at the end of the Revolution, leaving nothing behind save the records of their suffering and glorious deeds; but on April 30, 1798, the Navy Department was formally created, and on July 11, 1798, the Marine Corps was again established.

During the war with Tripoli, in 1803, the Marine Corps figured prominently in a remarkable march of nearly six hundred miles across the desert from Alexandria to Derna, where, upon their arrival, they stormed and captured the native fortifications, hauled down the Tripolitan flag, and, for the first time in our history, hoisted the American flag over a fortress of the Old World. Thereafter the word" Tripoli" was inscribed on the banners of the Corps.

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THE UNITED STATES TRANSPORT PRAIRIE READY TO SAIL WITH MARINES FOR MEXICO

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A COMPANY OF MARINES WAITING FOR SMALL BOATS TO TAKE THEM ASHORE

During the War of 1812, in the glorious victory of the Constitution over the Guerrière, the first officer killed was Lieutenant Bush, commander of the Marine Guard; and in all the naval battles of that war the Marine Corps rendered distinguished service.

While marines have generally served in conjunction with purely naval forces, they have on many occasions been attached to the army for work ashore, for the time being having no occasion for exercising their distinctively maritime characteristics. Thus during the war with Mexico several detachments of marines served under the command of General Scott and General Taylor. The battalion assigned to General Quitman's division was among the first troops who triumphantly entered the City of Mexico and unfurled the Stars and Stripes over the Palace; this completes the explanation of the inscription since found on the banners of the Corps," From the shores of Tripoli to the halls of the Montezumas."

These identical Mexican heroes were in 1853 seen marching through the streets of Yeddo, Japan, as the military escort of Commodore Perry on his celebrated expedition which opened the Land of the Rising Sun to the commerce of the world.

We next see marines in 1858 engaged in a fierce conflict with natives of the Fiji

Islands, and in Paraguay protecting the lives and property of foreign residents from mob violence. The next year, 1859, they distinguished themselves at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, where, under the orders of Colonel Robert E. Lee, then an officer of the United States army, they captured John Brown and quelled the insurrection of which he was the leader.

During the Civil War marines had their share of service ashore and afloat, from the first Battle of Bull Run, in which a full battalion participated and lost forty-four killed and wounded, to the capture of Captain Semmes, of the Confederate cruiser Alabama, in 1865; but, generally speaking, they won their laurels in those operations and engagements which were essentially naval in their character.

Marines were employed in fighting savages in Formosa in 1867 and 1870; leading the advance against the natives of Korea in 1870; landing in Alexandria, Egypt, to preserve order and prevent pillage in 1882; in Panama to keep transportation open across the Isthmus in 1885; in Valparaiso to protect the American Consulate, and in the Bering Sea to suppress seal poaching in 1891; in Honolulu during the Hawaiian revolution of 1893 to protect American interests and to protect American lives in

Korea and China, where they were sent in 1894, and again in 1897.

In the Spanish-American War a small detachment of marines successfully held Guantanamo Bay as a naval base against an overwhelming force of the Spanish army, and in the naval engagements at Manila and Santiago they distinguished themselves by their display of marksmanship at the secondary batteries, which, in fact, inflicted more damage to the Spanish ships than did the great guns.

During the Boxer uprising of 1900 in China marines rendered conspicuous service at the siege and capture of Tientsin and the march of the allied forces to the relief of the besieged Legations at Peking, while the conduct of the Legation guard of marines during the many weeks when all reliable communication with the outside world was cut off added one of the brightest pages to the recent history of our navy.

There is probably no incident in the annals of the Corps which for novelty is more striking than the diplomatic mission on which, in 1903, a representative of our Department of State was sent for a conference with King Menelik. What could be more incongruous than the spectacle presented by our representative's military escort, a company of "seagoing" marines mounted (as were also their stores) on camels, and navigating the uncharted wastes of the Abyssinian Desert ?

The same year marines were again sent to protect the American Legation at Seoul, Korea, and in 1906 to Panama to supervise what promised to be a turbulent election.

Throughout the second military occupation of Cuba a regiment of marines served for over two years as an integral part of the Army of Cuban Pacification. Detachments of marines had, however, been landed from our war-ships at the outbreak of the revolution in September, 1906, and had completed the disarmament of the insurrectos before the army was called upon to guarantee the permanent tranquillity of the island, and to establish an effective and stable civil government.

In 1908 marines were once more sent to Panama to police the polls during a riotous election which seriously threatened the overthrow of that country; in 1909 and 1910 to Nicaragua to guard threatened American property; in 1910, during the revolution which marked the advent of China into the growing family of republics, marines were sent to

augment our forces already at the Imperial city; and again in 1912 the marines were called upon to occupy Nicaragua and quell a serious revolution, the most notable event of which was the assault and capture of the hitherto impregnable rebel position known as Coyotepe Hill. In this, the final action of a three months' active campaign, four marines were killed and many wounded.

This brief summary of the deeds of the Marine Corps is here given to explain why the globe, which is its "theater of operations," forms a part of its corps device, and to indicate in a general way its extremely varied and often little appreciated activities. I say little appreciated because in many instances the timely employment of our naval forces has accomplished the solution of serious foreign situations, which, had they not been wisely dealt with in their incipiency, would have later been written large in history instead of being scarcely recorded outside the official Government archives. It is for this reason more than any other that the general public knows so little of the Marine Corps, who, as the infantry branch and landing force of the navy, are the first men on the ground and the first to smell powder in case of trouble with foreign Powers.

In 1809 the strength of the Marine Corps was increased to 1,300 men, and thereafter gradually until at the outbreak of the SpanishAmerican War it was over 2,500 strong, and for many years it enjoyed the anomalous distinction of being the largest military organization under the command of a colonel. In May, 1898, Congress increased the permanent strength of the Corps to 3,073 men, authorized the enlistment of 1,500 men to serve during the war, and elevated the rank of the commandant to Brigadier-General. The Corps was again increased in 1908 and the rank of the commandant raised to MajorGeneral, and a further increase in 1912 brought the Corps up to its present authorized strength of 342 officers and 9,921 men, including its staff officers, adjutants, and inspectors, quartermasters and paymasters.

Every well-balanced fleet must include in its organization a land force properly trained and equipped to defend adequately an advanced position against the sorties of a strong and alert enemy. This need in our navy is fully met by the Marine Corps, which as an expeditionary force furnishes not only infantry companies, but, in addition, batteries of field artillery, engineer troops, and signalmen

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