THE IDEAL MANOEUVRES.
ALTHOUGH the Military Manoeuvres which were held this autumn were in many respects very successful, considered both as a test of efficiency and as a means of affording instruction, in one particular they were lacking in interest and in value. It is, indeed, a particular in which all manoeuvres on a large scale over English ground must be lacking, unless it is assumed that it is necessary for officers and men to contemplate active service only in a foreign country. They lacked—at all events to a very large degree—the element of surprise. The problem set to the generals commanding the opposing forces was, no doubt, an exceedingly interesting, and in some respects a very difficult, problem. But it was a problem which could only have occurred as one of a series of problems raised in the course of a military campaign in full swing, and— most important point of all—it could never have arisen on English ground. It could never happen in England that a fully equipped army corps would be marching on London from the West of England, and that the only troops by which it would be opposed would be another fully equipped army corps of Regular soldiers and a sprinkling of Yeomanry. It might happen on the Con- tinent that an English army corps would be marching against a foreign army corps ; but it could never happen on English soil that the commander of a foreign army corps would be able to calculate the disposition and the strength of the opposition he would have to meet so nearly as Sir Evelyn Wood was able to calculate the disposition and strength of the defending army corps,—that is, the element of surprise was, to a con- siderable degree lacking to the problem set before the attacking general. Nor could it ever happen on English soil that the commander of the defending force would. know the strength and the limitations of the force of his antagonist so exactly as Sir John French knew the strength and the limitations of the attacking army corps,—that is, the element of surprise was to a large degree lacking to the problem set before the defending general.
In a word, the conditions under which the Manoeuvres were carried out were those of a Continental campaign. But are those the conditions of ideal military manoeuvres for the British Army ? If the problem of invasion enters into the problem to be solved, they certainly are not. And now comes the question : Would it not be worth while to organise manoeuvres which should be carried out as far as possible—of course, you cannot produce all the conditions—under the conditions which would govern an attempt at invasion of England by a foreign Power ? For our part, we believe that manoeuvres of this kind would be of inestimable value to a Secretary of State for War anxious to provide us with the Army we need ; which is not a bloated and unmanageable mass of Regulars and Auxiliaries with no fixed pro- vinces assigned to each, but an Army that would consist of (1) a comparatively small number of highly trained men "able to go anywhere and do anything," and (2) a thoroughly organised and efficient force to act as a fire brigade at home,—that is, able to put out the sudden flame of invasion just in the same way as the London Fire Brigade puts out fires. If once a Secretary of State for War were sure of the country's safety as regards invasion —which happens to be the last thing that is commonly considered by War Secretaries—he would be free to deal with the difficulties of providing an efficient Army for ser- vice abroad. Up to the present, all the energies of Secre- taries of State have been directed in the first instance towards securing the Army for foreign service, and the problem of the Army for home service has been neglected. Let us assume, then, that a War Secretary had decided to tackle this problem of invasion with the idea of trying to see to what extent he could allocate their respective duties to the Army for home service and the Army for foreign defence. What is the first question he would have to ask himself ? Just this. If England were ever invaded at all, under what conditions would it be invaded, and what kind of force would invade ? And clearly the answer would be something of this kind. An in- vasion would have to be a surprise, or we could cer- tainly ensure its failure ; it would be most likely to take place when our Army for foreign service was actively engaged abroad ; and it could not happen at all if our Navy held command of the Channel. Let us grant those three premisses, and let us suppose that three army corps of Regular soldiers have left our shores and are engaged in a campaign with a Continental Power ; let us suppose our Channel Fleet decoyed away to the West Indies or the Azores, or anywhere out of striking distance of the English coastline ; further, let us suppose a Continental Power engaged in silently preparing a light-riding column of twenty thousand men, to be launched in transports at a moment's notice and landed with all possible speed within as short a distance of London as is practicable,— that is, a force prepared to strike the " blow at the heart." Let us, in a word, imagine the possibilities of a raid on London,—a raid which would be made by a force landing at any point between Portsmouth and Lowestoft (a distance of some three hundred miles of coastline), and by a force whose landing would be opposed, not whose landing would be taken for granted, as has hitherto usually been the case when military manoeuvres have been arranged.
Would not military manoeuvres with that problem set before the opposing generals be of exceptional interest and value ? ' But, it will be objected perhaps, however interesting and valuable such manoeuvres might be, the answer must be non possum= ; you could not arrange them. You could not provide all the necessary elements of surprise. Granted, you could not provide all, but you could provide a good many,—far more, certainly, than were forthcoming in the recent Manoeuvres. Let us, at all events, sketch our plan. First, we would select a month in the year during which an attempt should be made to give camp training for a week, or a fortnight, or the whole month, just as might suit the capabilities of the different arms, to all the Auxiliary Forces in the kingdom. Under this plan there would always be under canvas, somewhere within a moderate distance of London, many thousands of Auxiliary troops, to whom the defence of London and our coast would be actually (to-day it is only nominally) entrusted. These troops—Yeomanry, Militia, and Volun- teers—would compose the defending force, the Blues. The attacking force, the Reds, would be composed of Regulars. And what would be the problem ? This, that the Regulars—twenty thousand would be a better number than ten, but ten thousand would do—would be sent to sea in transports early in the month, and their com- mander would be told to strike at London on the best opportunity he could find. Since the essential idea is that the attacking force would be able to land within a few hours—perhaps during the night—after launching from a Continental port, defending torpedo-boats would be ignored, and all the opposition that the attacking force would have to encounter would be opposition from land forces. When once the attacking force, the Reds, were at sea, the problem before the commander of the Blues would be exceedingly interesting. All he would know would be that the Reds were going to land somewhere— near Bognor, Shoreham, Eastbourne, Rye, Sandgate, Sheerness, Gravesend, Colchester, or Southwold—and he would have to make his provisions accordingly. It would be exactly the problem which would confront a general commanding forces for home defence if a raid were expected in time of war. And now, situated thus, what would he do ? One point would be irresistibly borne home to him which would be that of all qualifications that an ideal defending force should possess mobility is the chief. And how far would the forces at his disposal be mobile ? The least mobile of his forces would be the Militia and Volunteer infantry, who could only be launched to meet attack at the pace at which a foot-soldier could march. More mobile would be the Yeomanry, well mounted on small, active cobs ; most mobile of all, the cyclist sections. Each part of the fire brigade would be sent to get to the fire as soon as possible,—and who doubts which would get there first ? Of course it would be the cyclists,—with no horses to saddle and no horses to feed, and able to get to any point thirty miles distant inside two, or at the most three, hours. How, then, would the Blue general dispose his forces ? There would be infantry camps, each with its proper complement of artillery, ready in marching order, as near the coast as possible, at intervals from Portsmouth to Lowestoft. Each camp, too, would possess its body of cyclists and Yeomanry, able to take up a line of defence as soon as possible, whenever and wherever the flame of invasion broke out. But behind all these coast- line camps, at two centres, one north and one south of London (say at Colchester and at Aldershot), would be large reserves of cyclists, Yeomanry, infantry, and artillery. Where the flame broke out, thither would these troops be despatched, each in the order of their quickness of going ; each, too, ordered, if pressed, to fall back on this or that line of defence. Thus, the further the raiding troops advanced the thicker would be the line of defence ; but always it would happen that the first troops the invaders met would be the fastest movers over English roads,—the cyclists. Would the attack be pushed home ? That is the great question to which an answer is wanted.
We have no space for a detailed scheme ; such a scheme would be no doubt superfluously stated here. All we wish to do is to point out a line on which we believe military manoeuvres could be organised in the future with far greater advantage to the nation than has been secured by military manoeuvres in the past. We believe that if our scheme were carried out, it would incidentally be realised how enormously powerful for purposes of home defence a force of cyclist riflemen would be found to be,— able, as they would be able, to fulfil every function of the foot-soldier at four times the foot-soldier's pace. But, in any case, and generally speaking, we should at least come near learning one important lesson ; which is how far, in the opinion of competent judges, the Auxiliary Forces, contending against Regulars, could be trusted to undertake the task of home defence. That is a problem which has never yet been tackled ; it would immensely strengthen the hands of a Secretary of State for War if it could be, even provisionally, settled.
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