THE DRUM.

FOR a generation the French Ministry of War has intermittently threatened the drum,-.—the pride, the symbol of glory, the solace, and the epitome of the French Army. Threatened lives live long, and the dram is not yet dead. The latest threat is ominous, because it is indirect. The Minister for War explains that the law of 1905 reducing the conscript's term of service to two years makes it more than ever necessary that the whole term should be given to military training proper ; and consequently young drummers will not be placed in the hands of the drum-majors till a year after they have joined the Army, and then their practice must be conducted outside the hours of ordinary drill and training. It will not be, as in the old days, an exclusive occupation. " If," concludes the Order, "this arrangement interferes with the normal recruiting of drummers, the heads of corps will gradually replace their drummers, as it becomes necessary, by buglers." The insidiousness is in that sentence. The French piou-piou will no longer be able to cry death to a French Minister who tries to abolish the drum, for the Minister can retort that it is the soldier's own lethargy which is abolishing it. But perhaps even ambushes will not get rid of the drum, which so far has discomfited and survived all its enemies. The Minister for War apparently believes that the drum will remain in only a few regiments where enthusiasts make it a point of regimental honour and tradition. And he desires this result quite honestly, because he does not think that even the veneration of the French people for the drum, which has throbbed through and above all the turmoil of their history, justifies its retention at the cost of making thousands of men simply drummers instead of soldiers.

The Ministry of War has become shrewder since 1879. Then General Ferro abolished drums by a direct attack—by a stroke of the pen—and provided for his successor the opportunity of becoming enormously popular by the simple act of restoring them. He also provided a small fortune for an astute speculator who bought up most of the abolished drums and resold them to the Army when the time came. ge knew the time would come; that was his astuteness ; and we

dare say that there are speculators to-day who would think it worth while to take the same risk. Whether the visible or economical disadvantages of retaining the drum are greater than the hidden or moral advantages has yet to be proved. Napoleon called the drum the king of instruments. It alone ensures the brisk, cadenced step in marching. What per- centage of soldiers can profitably be excused from carrying rifles and bayonets in order that they may inspire others to carry them with a deeper endurance and a better spirit ? That is the problem. We have beard that when Lord Raglan broke up the British bands in the Crimea in order that the bandsmen might serve in the ranks some observers doubted

whether he did not lose in moral what he gained in personnel. The British soldiers standing chilled and disconsolate in the

snow cast jealous eyes on the French, who, equally chilled but less disconsolate, could be seen gathering round their bands. One of the most popular poems in the French language is Frederic Mistral's "Le Tambour d'Arcole":—

"Baftant, &Want is charge, Ensemble, it les fait bondir."

It is the tale of the drummer who used his drum to strike terror into the enemy. Rataplan, rata plan, rataplan ; no more; but the circumstances were those of surprise, and the buoyant reiterations of the drum invisibly coming nearer turned the Austrians to rout. Andre Estienne was the drummer's name ; he crossed the Adige on a sergeant's back at the battle of Arcola beating the charge. The Austrians could not see what was happening for the smoke, and, hearing the drum, they thought the French had crossed the river in force, and were on their flank. They paused, and in the interval of doubt the gunners deserted the batteries com- manding the bridge. Napoleon seized it, and Arcola was wqn. Afterwards Napoleon gave Estienne drumsticks of ivory and gold. At Marengo this same drummer was wounded by a shell, and Napoleon, recognising him after the battle, took the Cross from his own breast, and pinned it on his. Visitors to Paris may see a memorial to Estienne where David carved the episode of Arcola on the frieze of the Pantheon ; and legend says that when Estienne was an old man he saw it for the first time, and fell dead of emotion in front of the building. Massena is said once to have seized a drum from a dying drummer, and rallied his men at a crisis by beating the charge with his Marshal's baton. But there is little need to pick out incidents, for the drum has long since become the abstract of the French Army, as the Army is the compendium of the nation. No military monument in France which has not a drum in its composition (if there is such a monument) is truly soldier-like or truly French. Thaekeray seized that point when he wrote his ballad, " The Chronicle of the Drum." The same throbbing rhythms which consoled the French as they fell away before Marlborough helped them to advance again triumphantly under Napoleon; and the same sounds throbbed again to a different purpose when Louis XVI., on the scaffold, tried to raise his voice above the crowd :— " Ho, drummer ! quick, silence yon Capet,' Says Santerre, with a beat of your drum.' Lustily then did I tap it,

And the son of Saint Louis was dumb."

Again the scene changes and the drummer speaks "I loathed to assist at such deeds,

And my drum beat its loudest of tunes

As we offered to justice offended the blood of the bloody tribunes."

The strong beat of the drum quickens the pulses of humanity to fever. There was once a thirsty Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Tom Warton—afterwards Poet-Laureate- who would come rushing out from whatever tavern he was in when he heard the sound of drums and fifes, and the tears would stand in his eyes. Much less can plainer souls resist the fierce challenge to their sensibilities. The " elastic thunder " of the drum is more compelling than the flute of Orpheus. It is a generous, vivifying note, a note, as Mr. Meredith has said, of " vast internal satisfaction" ; and "if monotonous, the one note of the drum is very correct." The repetitions of the drum are not ineffective; under their influence half-savage men have been known to return to their primal state,—the awakened senses of civilisation numbed, stupefied, and put once more to bleep. In such states they may become unconscious

of pain. They are in an ecstasy. No wonder that the compelling drum is the best recruiting-sergeant in the world. Reason may be powerful, but a drum-tap can shatter it, as • Bret Harts understood :-

" Let me of my heart take counsel;

War is not of life the sum : Who shall stay and reap the harvest, When the autumn days shall come ?

But the drum Echoed Come: 'Death shall reap the braver harvest,' said the Solemn-sounding drum."

Gibbon in his account of the capture of Constantinople remarks that the mechanical operation of sounds in quicken- ing the circulation of the blood and the spirits has more effect on the human machine than all the eloquence of reason and of honour. The side-drum is not an instrument of music, but a marker of rhythm. But the kettle-drum is a subtle thing ' which has been more and more studied and employed since Beethoven virtually promoted it to be a solo instrument, and Berlioz wrote in its praise with enthusiasm. One of the inimitable eights of a military procession in London is the traditional flourish of a Life Guards' drummer as he plays the kettle-drums at the head of the regiment. The very action of the horse makes it seem that he, too, understands the dignity and the potent use of the instruments he bears. But here we speak not of kettle-drums, but of the plain, banging foot- soldier's drum, which has been associated with his triumphs and agonies through generations. It is easy for an official to say that bugle-calls are much easier to distinguish than drum-calls ; that learning to play the drum properly is an unconscionable waste of time ; and that the French Army drums are a Moloch which require the sacrifice of twenty-five thousand good fighting men. Two divisions of infantry, it is a tremendous official argument ! On the other hand, there are the exhilarating drum-taps which as they come down the street make the citizen forget argument and remember only that the skin of the French drum passed everywhere over the plains of Europe; that it was parched in Spain and shrunk in the rains of Pomerania, and was covered with snow in Russia; that it was the furious • encourager of gallantry and the muffled mourner for the dead; that it was the table for sparse meals in bivouacs and the place of judgment at drum-bead Courts. The intellectual may say with Bordereau that the drum blisters his ears, or the cynic with General Gallifet that drums at all events do not make so much noise as retimd Generals. But -will the French people, and the French fantassins, part with their venerated symbol,

with

"The story of two hundred years

Writ on the parchment of a drum"?