STAFF COLLEGE ESSAYS.* WE wish to take advantage of the
appearanee of this book in order to draw our readers into the consideration of a bye-corner of the now all-important question of our military condition. We think we can promise them that that consideration will be neither uninteresting nor unworthy of their attention.
The book which now lies before us represents a somewhat ex- ceptional experiment in education, and one which, if we may judge from a story current in military circles, the country at large scarcely knows to exist. It is said that when the Royal Com- mission on Army Education, which reported last year, and which bad been certainly selected with considerable judgment from among those who were best qualified for the task, went down first to the cadet college (which then prepared boys from the public schools and the crammers for commissions in the Army), and then repaired to the not distant building known as the "Staff College," the first difference which struck one of the commis- sioners, when he heard generally the rules of the place, was that "the young gentlemen remained somewhat longer then at this establishment than at the other." Now it happens that the book before us, consisting as it does of a very able series of critical essays, giving in almost every page evidence of a thoroughly independent study of a large number of authors in many different languages, and treating the question always from the point of view at least as much of a man of the world who has seen and thought as from that even of a careful professional student, though the care and the study are alike admirable, must have been in course of composition at the time that the Commission visited the Staff College. Its author, as we see from the list of students then resident at the College, was, in Army rank, rather one of the juniors than of the seniors, and by no means in mere age one of the elder men ; yet he had already served for more than eleven years in the Army, had been for years an active and efficient secretary to a colonial governor, had on a previous occasion been one of the most useful and painstaking officers under another most important Royal Commission, and was soon after to give before this very Commission on military education more valuable and practical evidence than they received from almost any of the witnesses they examined, evidence, more- over, to which the Commission paid the greatest compliment that could have been paid,—they very largely adopted the suggestions contained in it. We note these points, because it is very evident, from the remark we have already quoted from the Commissioner whose first knowledge of the existence of the College was acquired when he was sent down to report how it was to be amended, and • from similar instances which it would be easy for us to quote if necessary, that many whom it much concerns to know the charac- ter of the place are entirely ignorant of it.
Young officers on first joining the Army usually know just as much and just as little as is known in general English society about the profession which they intend to adopt. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of an accurate knowledge of all facts concerning the Army to the nation at a moment when it has decided to take into its own hands the question of military reform. It is therefore of no small moment, whether for the sake of young officers, or for that of the efficient service of their master, the nation, that they should understand that if, as Mr. Cardwell says, nothing can be more objectless and wretched than the exist- ence of a young ensign often is, there certainly, even before Army reforms of any kind are carried out, is no excuse for it, and that he has no one to thank but himself if it be so. If they want to be convinced of this, let them study this book of Mr. Baring's, and enquire how it came to be written. They will find the same course open to all young officers which he adopted. They will find that there is scarcely a modern language which they can study which will not be of direct professional advantage to them ; that these will be the keys by which they can enter into the great study of military history, while they possess an inestimable value of their own ; they may see for themselves in these pages that the study is neither a dull nor an abstruse one ; they will find that they can 'argely prepare themselves for further study in a dozen subjects of which this is only one,—in the sciences of fortification and artillery, in a thorough study of all books on army administration and organization, in military drawing and topography ; and if these be not enough to occupy them for the five or six years before they can possibly compete for admission to the Staff College, they may 'betake themselves with advantage and with direct professional interest to any out of almost all branches of science,—to telegraphy,
" -Staff College Essays. By Lieutenant Evelyn Baring, Royal Artillery. London: Mongmans. 1870.
chemistry, geology, photography, according to their taste or fancy.
Such individual study is doubtless almost inevitably somewhat discursive and loose, and would be valueless if no means were pro- vided for giving it concentration and solidity at a later stage. These are provided in the "Staff College," which is open only to officers of over five years' standing, not below the rank of lieutenant, and who are qualified for their captaincy ; practically, most of those who go up to the College do so considerably later in their service. But what we want our readers to understand is, that the College is essentially a place for assisting the work of officers who have carefully studied their profession and have learnt to take an interest in it. If the voluntary previous study is apt to be too loose for practice, the two years at the College are too short to be of much value without the previous more discursive and more elaborate reading. We are the more anxious to draw attention to this subject, because we observe that a great many even of the most zealous Army reformers are not aware of the actual state of the case with reference to military education, and we fear least they should be disposed to under rate the actual value of the Staff College as it at present exists.
There appeared recently in the columns of the Army and Navy Gazette a rather feeble, very ill-informed, and not very wise letter, apparently from some brave but unfortunate Pole who desires to set up in this country as a military crammer, who innocently sug- gested that his love of England led him to wish that those who had to teach her staff officers should be men who studied present facts, rather than the doctrines of books. The innocent remark was only faulty in this, that the good man had neglected himself to study the present facts with reference to the place of which he spoke. In whatever other cases, selection has proved impossible, it has been found possible, and to do him bare justice, we believe mainly thanks to the Duke of Cambridge, to obtain for those professorships at the Staff College which require an intimate knowledge of passing military events and large military experi- ence—we speak more particularly of fortification and "military history "—a set of men who in an exceptional degree have combined large personal experience on active service with a knowledge of the latest changes of all kinds adopted by foreign armies.
We have made Mr. Baring's book the text for so much that we desired to say with reference to the place which has given it its title, that we have left ourselves no space in which to do justice to the book itself. We the leas regret this because, interesting as the papers are to those who desire to study the special portions of history discussed in them, it is evidently rather as models than as historical sketches that they will be specially valuable. Considered in a literary point of view, the first essay, which treats of the changes in the art of war from 1792 to 1815, is certainly of the most permanent value and interest ; that on the campaign of Ulm is perhaps the most masterly and complete ; while that on Napoleon's Polish campaign of 1806 lifts the veil from an obscure corner of history, of which the chief interest is the sight of the great Emperor struggling morally and physically in mud, and of his not undignified efforts in that not too dignified situation.
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