BOOKS.

IMPERIAL STRATEGY.*

TEE services which the Military Correspondent of the Times has rendered to his country of recent years by his courageous attempts to make clear and plain to the most inexpert of his readers all the complicated problems of organisation, strategy, and tactics with which the question of our Army is concerned can hardly be overestimated. Many of us have read his singularly instructive and readable articles with the intention of putting them carefully by for future reference and closer study ; but few of us have ever had time to carry out our intention, or to get out our maps and spend the hour or two over them that many of the articles so well deserve. A considerable reading public will therefore be grateful to the writer for having decided to republish a selection of these essays in book form, and to set them out with the help of a series of excellent maps. His decision not to embark for the present upon that grand treatise on the art of war for which, despite his disavowal, he would appear in many respects to be so singularly competent, is frankly regrettable. Meanwhile we are content to accept this volume as an instalment. There is permanent as well as great present value in nearly every chapter of it, and a solid foundation has been laid for real constructive work, whether from the pen of the same writer, or from that of another who may prove to be less diffident of his prowess as a student of the art of war.

How far the Military Correspondent of the Times may be said to have inspired the strivings after progress which, slow though they are, do for all that mark a definite advance, and how far he is the mouthpiece of the pro- gressive school which is gradually gaining the supremacy in the military councils of the nation, it is impossible exactly to determine. But the fact remains that in many important details, and notably in his presentation of the objects and duties of a General Staff, what progress there has been, has been along the lines which he had already indi- cated. Thus, from his own point of view at any rate, the most satisfactory commentary upon his article on the General Staff, published in May, 1905, is the postscript which appeared as an Army Order from the pen of Mr. Haldane in September, 1906. Much no doubt yet remains to be done to bring the postscript into line with the article,—witness, for instance, the curious fact that Mr. Haldane's recent Army Order made no mention of the Chief of the General Staff himself. This important omission will, we trust, be made good in course of time. Meanwhile, to those of us who are sceptical enough to doubt the success of this wholesale trans- plantation of a German product to an English climate, the most pertinent passages in the essay are those in which the writer reminds us that the German system, even in Germany, possesses the defects of its qualities, and that unless the Chief of the General Staff is an absolutely first-class man the Staff may rapidly deteriorate. "Unity of views may- not always continue to be broad views, nor always wise views. Principles themselves may be debased into debilitating dogma. Methods of war handed down by the ancients may pass out of use, or remain only relatively useful. Unanimity, when ex- pressed by belief in the prompt and easy triumph of a foreign Army which gets soundly beaten, may not readily be distinguished from agreement in error." In other words, the prime reason for the success of the General Staff which Moltke built up round him was Moltke himself, and we confess to a suspicion that, now Moltke has passed away, the German Army, in respect of its General Staff, is only emulating the formalism which at the beginning of the nineteenth century was all that a generation of mere Staff officers could retain of the once formidable Frederician system. The result in 1806 was the rude awakening of Jena, and a century later a second Jena from similar causes seems, to us at least, by no means unthinkable. A • Imperiai Strategy. By the Military Correspondent of the Times. With Maps. London s John Murray. [21s. net.)

General Staff without the inspiration of a great chief may be but an arid desert of futile pedantry; it may even be an obstacle to the impulsion of modern ideas. Devised to impregnate the whole Army with the ideas of a great chief, in the absence of such a chief it is unlikely, military officialism, both in Britain and elsewhere, being what it is, to have ideas of its own, and may quickly degenerate into a mere machine for the minuting and docketing of waste-paper.

In these circumstances, it is well that the nation should be as fully informed as possible upon the outstanding features of the military problems of our Empire, so as to supply, if need be, a wholesome corrective of common-sense to the enthusiasm of the experts. Herein lies the great value of the collection of essays before us. For instance, the interesting new chapter on the Low Countries sets forth in black and white our obligations in those important coastal provinces on the other side of the North Sea, and shows us what are the material interests which may force us at any time to land a large army in the Low Countries for the preserva- tion of their independence. Again, in other chapters we are shown why it is that the defence of India is the " most serious liability that has ever been incurred by the British Army." As regards the North-West Frontier, indeed, round the problem of the defence of which, as Mr. Balfour once reminded us, the whole larger problem of our military organisation pivots,

the situation as presented to us by the Military Corre- spondent of the Times is hardly reassuring. He reminds us that while we are " formally and completely committed to the defence of Afghanistan," and have, as Lord Lansdowne declared so lately as June 2nd, 1905, " assumed a definite liability to go to the assistance of the Amir of Afghanistan

in the eventuality of unprovoked aggression upon him' yet we have not fully recognised, neither have we made provision for, the necessary consequences of the policy which we have deliberately embraced We are continuing that fatal error in our national policy which lost us our American Colonies, nearly lost us South Africa, and which will lose us India unless we take steps to remove it." This error is nothing more nor less than "failure to measure our engagements by our power." For the interesting, and, we think, absolutely conclusive, arguments

which induce the Military Correspondent of the Times to pronounce so damning a verdict we must refer our readers

to the volume itself :—

" The security of India and the fulfilment of our pledges require that we should be able to place 50,000 men at Kabul in six weeks, and 250,000 men on the Helmund in eight months—to be increased to 500,000 men within eighteen months—together

with 100,000 men on our lines of communication Our total liability on the frontier is thus 650,000 field troops, and this should be maintained by a systeth which will allow us to keep the ranks full during a three years' campaign by a flow of drafts at the rate of 50 per cent. per annum. If we desire to make sure of victory we must add 50 per cent. to the above strength of our

field army on the Helmund Even so the action here fore- seen is the tame submission to Russian initiative, which at best can only promise a campaign of successful repulsion, and cannot lead to the decisive results required by our circumstances to bring Russia to her knees."

When we turn to our available resources we find that there are but a hundred and fifty thousand men of the Anglo-Indian Army (leaving eighty thousand for the internal security of India), plus the six divisions of infantry which Mr. Haldane is organising for us, and which must be despatched to India immediately on the outbreak of war, thereby entirely account- ing for the whole of our existing organised Regular Forces in these islands. Consequently we arrive at the appalling conclusion that a war with Russia in India would find us short of at least four hundred thousand men at the end of the first year, with an obligation to provide a further three hundred thousand for every succeeding year of the war.

What, then, is the remedy which the Military Correspondent

of the Times proposes for us ? The Japanese Alliance has given us a brief space which we must utilise for thought

and action. But we must never for a moment consider that it can do more, or relieve us ultimately from the necessity of meeting our own enemies alone in the gate.

How we are to be enabled to do so is not, indeed, set down in black and white. The writer has a wholesome aversion to the framing of irresponsible schemes. But his views are, for all that, very definite, and can be gathered from many pregnant passages up and down the book " We can carry on, with the regular forces we possess, war for

six or eight months. What we have to provide is a second line army which will ensure the constant flow of reinforcements beginning about the sixth month and reaching its culminating point about the eighteenth month of the war."

"Fortunately, the chances are that we shall not have to deal with a very highly trained veteran or professional army, but with a force partaking more of the nature of a Militia army."

" Next, whether we deal with the invasion of England or India, or even the defence of Egypt, we shall not in all human probability be pressed for time."

"This condition, of course, sharply differentiates our position from that of Continental soldiers, who have to mobilise their forces with the utmost rapidity, and anticipate that the decisive battles of the campaign may be within the fourteenth and twenty- first days of the war."

"The need, then, is for a second line army, and what we have to ask ourselves is not so much what training this second line army should have undergone at the moment hostilities began, but rather what training it should receive in peace time, so that, after units have been embodied at the outbreak of war, and subjected to additional training for six to eighteen months, they may be fit to encounter Russian troops, or such other enemies as may he able to threaten us on a land frontier."

The Military Correspondent of the Times does not advocate universal compulsory service. Apart from the fact that "compulsion is not applicable to service abroad in time of peace, and is not required in service at home," the writer considers that "it has not yet been proved that the voluntary service of our Militia and Volunteers will not, in the first place, give us just as many men in times of peace as we can usefully demand from conscription ; and secondly, that it cannot endow us with enough trained men to meet all our wants in war." He is convinced that " the people of this country will never consent to conscription until the Government have made a serious and unsuccessful effort to utilise to the full all those forces which voluntary effort offers to their hand." " We must not, then, like certain soldiers at the War Office to-day, wisely shake our heads, mutter ' conscription,' and return to fumble with the papers

on our desk."

On these grounds he considers that "the regeneration of the auxiliary forces is the really vital question of the moment." The second line army should be representative of the man- hood and intelligence of the country, and in order to achieve this end we must suit the terms of set-vice to the conditions of labour, and must impose no liability which may prevent good men from joining. Though "it is true that by refusing to impose liability to serve abroad . . . . we harass the souls of strategists who wish to tabulate upon definite numbers with the desirable certainty," Yet " there is nothing whatever to suggest that the second line army of the future will he wanting in patriotism," and, while we must instil into the minds of all that their services are confidently expected at the post of danger wherever that may be, we must have no signing of formidable legal contracts. Instead of this, " we may rest quite confident in the belief that there will be no want of enthusiasm if the word goes round that the Empire is in danger."

The Military Correspondent of the Times bases his hope for the future upon a paradox. In his last chapter, which welcomes Mr. Haldane into office, he tells us "that one of the advantages of the British Constitution is that every now and then a statesman is appointed to high office with no particular knowledge of the business confided to his charge. At first sight the advantage of this seems not apparent, but upon closer investigation it is easily discovered Into the enervating atmosphere of the official donjon the new man enters like a draught of fresh air in a heated ballroom. Some dowagers are chilled, but the general company is in- vigorated." In fact, the problem of Imperial strategy is only to be solved by new methods, and in Mr. Haldane we have the new man. Our only doubt about Mr. Haldane—we do not know whether the Military Correspondent of the Times would go so far as to share it—is that at present not enough " dowagers " have been " chilled " ! But then, of course, it may take a good deal to chill them effectually.