England Rendered Impregnable. By H. A. L., "The Old Shekarry."
(Rivington.)—" The Old Shekarry " has drawn out a scheme which, we have no doubt, would, could it be carried out, fulfil the promise of his title, and render England impregnable. We are to have six armies, three for England, two for Ireland, one for Scotland. Each army is to consist of two divisions, each division of five brigades of infantry, one of cavalry, one of artillery, corps of engineers, and control corps. In the brigades are to be included regulars, militia, and volunteers, all three grouped together in a regular system which at present we are wholly without. This is indeed the chief feature of the plan, which strikes us as being well conceived, and which, or something like to which, we shall probably carry oat, after we have suffered some frightful disaster, after, for instance, our friends from the Rhine, improving so magnificently on the example of their robber ancestors, shall have levied on us a contribution of two hundred millions. The "Odd Shekarry's " plan would give us the following forms :—regalars, 183,600; militia, 255,600; volunteers, 244,200; out of which about 20,000 would be sappers and engineers ; 120,000 artillery with 1,368 guns; 37,800 cavalry ; and 492,000 infantry, the balance being made up of ordnance, commissariat, and ambulance services,—not at all an unreasonable number, when we consider what we have to pro- tect, and whom we have to protect it from; but the prospect is not a hopeful one, when we reflect that we are getting to the end of the nine- teenth century, of the era of "peace on earth," and reflect that Rome kept her world in order with about half the number of men. The author draws up his scheme with the greatest minuteness, fixing the head- quarters of each division, &a., and further suggesting a number of im- provements in military equipment. Among the pamphlets which this topic has called out, we may mention the Constitution and Organization of Lund Forces Reformed (Stanford), the author of which very properly exposes the dangerous fallacy that the wealth of a country is its best pro- tection, and proposes a system of defence which would be founded on the ballot. The ballot is also the main idea of Army Reorganization: a Defensive Scheme, by J. C. Fife (Mitchell), and Offence and Defence, by
,t0176; (Mitchell); we say the "main feature," because really the pro- blem is solved when we have got the men, or rather, got at the men, for they are ready to our hand.
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