THE ARMY MANCETTVRES.
THE Army Manoeuvres are over, and we are now face to face with a good deal of heated controversy as to the way in which they were carried out, and as to the dis- positions of this or that General. Into these controversies we do not propose to enter, but will merely deal with some of the broader lessons which may be drawn from the opera- tions, and especially as they affect the non-Regular forces of the nation,—i.e., the Yeomanry, the Territorial Infantry and Artillery, and the Special Reservists. No one who saw the Regulars at work could have failed to be impressed with the fine quality both of the men and of the officers. One felt not only that they knew their job, but that they were keenly interested in it, and that the best spirit of the soldier animated all ranks. The British Regular Forces are small in number, but unquestionably they compare favourably, man for man and officer for officer, with any European force. A good. deal has been said about "inefficient Staff work " ; but even assuming that the Staff work was defective, we feel sure that the only way to cure it is by more field-work and on a larger scale. It is one of the phenomena of war, whether mimic or real, that the difficulties of Staff work increase in geometrical progression with the number of troops in the field. and the size of the area covered. The truth is that Staff work is an exceedingly difficult business. If we could see the reports on the Host of Heaven which, "When Heaven's deep-domed empyrean rang to the roar of an angel onset," overthrew the- forces of Hell, we may be pretty certain that we should find an enormous record of blunders made and opportunities lost. There never was perfect Staff work, and there never will be. We all criticise military operations, and it is quite right that, we should ; but at the same time it is well that the public should remember the extreme complication of the work and of the conditions under which it is accomplished. Suppose that in a great undertaking like a railway the work were not done from day to day and from hour to hour all through the year, but, instead, the railway were only put into operation and the trains run and the men sent to their posts during one week in the year. All the rest of the year the railway staff, from the general manager's office to the guards, engine-drivers, and porters, would merely be engaged on theoretical work, or at best be taking out the engines and trains for little trial runs of an hour or two at a time. Would not the week in which all the rolling-stock was suddenly put upon the line, and thirty or forty trains each way set going, prove to be a period of utter confusion? Yet that is really what the Generals and the Staff of an army have to accomplish at manoeuvres. They have got to turn their theory into practice, and to work an organisation which, instead of being built up and supplemented, improved and repaired from day to day, lies, we had almost said, derelict for fifty-one weeks out of fifty-two. Before dealing with the work of the Yeomanry and Territorials in detail the present writer, who had under view a small portion of the operations, may be allowed to record a personal impression. When he saw the lessons in. endurance, discipline, alertness, and self-sacrifice which were being learnt, and learnt with cheerfulness and discretion, by the Yeomen and Terri- torials who had the good luck to take part in the manoeuvres, he was again and again impressed by the feeling that it was hardly less than a national crime to withhold the immense benefits of such a training from the general mass of the population. We now give to a. small number of self-selected youths what could be given, and ought to be given, to the whole of our youthful male population. The plea for universal national service may be urged upon many grounds, but in our belief the strongest of all is the benefit, moral, physical, and intellectual, which the nation would receive therefrom. The best possible continuation-school for our lads would be to make the service in the Territorials universal, and to add thereto a recruit training of four months between the ages of seventeen and eighteen.
If the Yeomanry brigade which, under the command of Colonel Le Roy-Lewis, formed half of the cavalry force which operated on the right of the Red army is a. fair sample of the Yeomanry of this country, as we believe it is, then unquestionably Lord. Midleton, to whom the credit of the formation of the Yeomanry Force is mainly due, did. the nation a great service. The men who formed the Yeomanry regiments of which we write were about half-and-half townsmen and countrymen ; but one and all they showed themselves to be possessed of a spirit which is the foundation of every sound army. No doubt the work of the Yeomen and their officers, if compared in detail with the work of a highly trained cavalry regiment, exhibited occasionally a certain slowness and hesitancy. The non-professional cannot be expected to be as quick and dexterous as the professional. For practical purposes of defence, however, we believe that the Yeomanry on the first day on which it was called. out to repel invasion would prove of value, and that after it bad been under arms for a, week it would rapidly begin to approach the standard of our best mounted troops. And here we may note a criticism that has been made on the Yeomanry in the manoeuvres. It has been asserted that the Yeomen charged too often and exposed themselves too much to fire, and generally showed the faults of military indiscretion. No doubt they did ; but then so did the Regular cavalry against whom they were pitted or side by side with whom they worked. If the Yeomen galloped about too freely and too recklessly, so did. the cavalry. The truth is that in time of peace the exhilaration of horsemanship is always a little too much for mounted troops. But that exhilaration is soon tamed by the presence of war conditions. Not unnaturally the vexed question whether the Yeomanry should have swords has come much under discussion during the manoeuvres. The present writer can only give his opinion for what it is worth. Though undoubtedly all mounted troops, whether they are called. cavalry or mounted infantry, will in the future rely more and more on rifle fire, yet at the same time, and especially in enclosed country where cavalry is operating against cavalry, there are bound to be sudden excursions and alarms which will end in hand-to-hand scrimmages, and in these scrimmages the men who have no swords to draw will come badly out of it. If the possession of a sword must by some physical law lead to the neglect of the rifle, no mounted men, whatever the name of the corps, should be allowed to possess it. To suggest, however, that if the War Office give the •Yeoman a sword they will not be able to prevent him from neglecting the use of his rifle seems to us a confession of weakness of which the authorities—provided they entertain it—should be heartily ashamed.
A good deal has been said in criticism of the Territorial Artillery, and especially of the horse artillery. No doubt on paper it does seem as if an impossible task had been set the lads who form that branch of the Territorial Army. To learn to lay and fire guns is difficult enough, and when in addition they have to learn to ride and to drive, is it conceivable that the Territorials can find time to acquire even the grammar of their business ? For that reason we have hitherto felt a certain amount of sympathy with those who have declared that under Mr. Haldane's scheme the Territorial Artillery is very much overworked. The present writer, however, is bound to confess that if the half-battery of Hampshire Territorial Horse Artillery which accompanied the Yeomanry brigade at the manoeuvres was anything like a fair sample of the whole, Mr. Haldane's action has been justified. The battery did not exist last September, and therefore within less than a year the men belonging to it had to learn not only to handle their guns, but also to ride and drive. Yet though they had on the first day of the manoeuvres to take over horses which they had never seen before, and horses also which had no previous experience of moving heavy guns across country, they did their work with extraordinary pluck, energy, and success. Strange as it may seem, the lads who accomplished this miracle—for really that is how the operation ought to be described—were not countrymen accustomed to horses, but, as we have said, had only learnt to ride and drive within the year. The present writer recalls how, on the first day of the manoeuvres, he saw two converted fifteen-pounders—guns a good deal heavier, remember, than those which have to be dealt with by the Royal Horse Artillery—taken down a steep and slippery hillside on a chalk down without accident and without difficulty, and then dragged at a fast pace across a very considerable ditch and bank. It can of course be said that although the men may be able to move their guns about smartly and get into action quickly, their firing would be utterly useless, as they would be unable to hit a mark,—in fact, that though they could fire very well with blank, they would do nothing with live shell. The answer to this is that the records of artillery practice by the Territorials show that though they may not be very successful at moving targets, their firing at fixed targets was in no sense discreditable. Guarding ourselves again by the assumption that the section of Hampshire Terri- torial Horse Artillery is a fair sample, we can only say once more that in our opinion the nation has a real asset in its Territorial Artillery.
We have left ourselves little space to speak of the Special Reservists. There seems, however, to be a general consensus of opinion that on the whole they acquitted themselves exceedingly well. The physique of the men was good, and though they were not of course in condition for long marching, no undue proportion of them fell out from foot-soreness. Generally they showed that the plan of six months' recruit training has been a very great success. At this result the readers of the Spectator may be allowed to feel no small sense of satisfaction. It may be remembered that the Spectator Experimental Company was formed and trained with the idea of showing how the Militia might be improved by giving them a six months' training. Our first article (October 7th, 1905) asking for subscriptions was entitled " A Plea for an Experiment in Militia Training " In the end, and as we think unfortunately, the Militia was abolished ; but the Special Reserve was substituted for it, and the basis of the Special Reserve is that six months' training the good results of which were first exhibited in the Spectator Experimental Company..
Of the samples of the British Army—Regulars, Special Reservists, and Territorials—which were seen at the manoeuvres, we feel inclined to quote the words which the Duke of Wellington used to Creevey when he saw a British soldier going up the steps of a church in Brussels a day or two before Waterloo :—" It all depends upon that article. The only question is whether there is enough of him." As our readers know, we should like to make sure that there will always be enough of him for home defence by following the patriotic example of the Swiss and Norwegian peoples, and giving the whole youth of the nation a training in arms. It would ensure us having enough men to meet and over- throw any invading force, and at the same time, as we have said above, would confer upon the nation immense benefits, moral, physical, and intellectual.
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