Berlin and London Merge Their Armies Into One Battalion Drilling Side by Side on the Same Parade Ground
German and British defence ministries have agreed to share a single training regiment, with recruits now rotating between Bundeswehr and British Army barracks every other week.
Germany and Britain have agreed to fold their armies into a single training regiment, and recruits on both sides are now required to spend every other week at a barracks on the other side of the Channel. The arrangement, announced in Berlin, takes effect at the start of the new training cycle and applies to all infantry cadets under the age of twenty-six.
The Bundeswehr has begun converting a former tank depot outside Hanover into a bilingual mess hall, with signs in German and English and a second kitchen serving tea at fixed hours. British contractors have been flown in to lay a parade ground that is exactly the same size as the German one, so that drill sergeants from either country can march their platoons across it without consulting a map. Officials said the measurements had been taken twice, once in metres and once in yards, and that a compromise figure had been reached by a committee that met for eleven days.
Cadets now carry a passport-sized card listing the commands for both armies, and the ministry of defence in London has begun requiring its officers to pronounce German orders correctly before being promoted. A spokesman said the aim was to ensure that no soldier would ever again stand in a field and fail to understand what he was being told to do. Asked whether the rotation would continue if the weather turned, he replied calmly that the regiment had already purchased umbrellas for both armies.
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