SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS'S RECEPTION.
THE country has got one thing, and only one thing as yet, out of the Afghan war,—and that is a new General, and it does quite right in acknowledging its acquisition. A new General, a military leader who can plan a campaign, induce his officers to carry it out heartily, and lead his soldiers to victory on lines preconceived by himself, is an addition to the strength of any nation,—a great addition, and one which, just at this moment, this country greatly required. There are Generals, we do not doubt, in plenty in the British Army ; but what with the Horse Guards, which has favourites, and public opinion, which has favourites, too, and some accidental circumstances, it had come to this,—that whenever effective work had to be done, Sir Garnet Wolseley was summoned in hot haste and set to do it. Sir Garnet was quite competent, and has neither been over-employed nor over-rewarded, particularly if he is not to get the Indian chief command; but Sir Garnet could not be in two places at once, and the effect of his monopoly of public confidence was that he could summon a ready-made staff to accompany him on an expedition, and no other General could. Now, after the relief of Candahar, there is another General whom the public will trust. The march from Cabul to Candahar was not a feat of arms of the very first class, not like a successful march through a European country in arms, or success in a pitched battle with a European foe, or command in a great invading expedition by sea, but it was a very con- siderable feat. Sir Frederick Roberts had to carry an army of ten thousand men, not too well supplied, and composed of men of two civilisations, over a forced march of four- teen days through a roadless country, with no depots, no base, and no intelligence; the route lying the whole way at the foot of mountains ten thousand feet high, filled with clans bitterly hostile to his enterprise, and sure to attack him at the least disaster. Had he failed for an hour, every rock would have disclosed an enemy. We all know, from the example of General Phayre's force, how it was possible to fail in such an enterprise ; but General Roberts succeeded, avoided all disaster, kept his men together, and in heart, and in such condition that he was able, after twenty-four hours of reconnoitring, utterly to defeat an enemy who had twice his own numbers and artillery,
who had his own choice of position, and who had the prestige of recent victory over a British Division. And he defeated him completely, with imperceptible loss. It is easy to underrate such a triumph, and say the enemy never really fought ; but they would have fought, if they had had what in their own judgment was a chance ; and if Sir Frederick Roberts had stranded his army half - way, as many a British General would have done, or had delayed his attack, or had missed his spring when he made it, or had struck, in the regular British fashion, straight in front, as Ayoub's counsellors expected he would do, we might have had to reconquer India, and certainly should have had to fight another and still more serious Afghan campaign. The man who wins at the right moment such a success for his country does as much for her as any but the greatest statesman, and should not be grudged reward or honour, even though our " system " is cumbrous and costly, and though our roll of retired General Officers is of Spanish length and ab- surdity. If any servant of the State is worth the money expended on his career, it is the officer whose victory prevents further fighting ; and if any man is useful, it is the General who can be trusted to make a machine like a British army, the costliest of all the implements of civilisa- tion, actually do successfully the work for which it is kept together. War is not the noblest work of man, and this Afghan war was one of the most detestable ever waged ; but a successful General is an efficient servant of the State in great affairs, and this General did not by his services begin, but terminate the war. But for the folly and half-heartedness of politicians, the kingdom might at this moment be wholly free of Afghan complications, and at the end of an affair which will cost at least twenty millions, and produce abso- lutely nothing,—unless it be, as we said, General Roberts himself.
We are heartily with the Radicals in deploring the cum- brousness of the British Army, and that weakness in its organ- isation—the result of conflict, as we think, between demo- cratic ideas and aristocratic manners—which so enfeebles it that, after all our large outlay, we never have a complete corps d'armee ready to go anywhere at a few hours' notice. But we have no sympathy with them in their latent feel- ing that military efficiency is not desirable, or that every soldier who succeeds is over-rewarded. A great many soldiers are over-rewarded, being worth exactly nothing ; but a soldier who, like Sir Evelyn Wood, can lick raw men into shape while on service, or like Sir Donald Stewart, can surmount all difficulties of inadequate force, and hold a great city safely without terrorism, or like General Roberts, can, at a critical moment, inspire his troops with an energy which doubles their strength, and then lead them to victory over a stronger force, seems to us an invaluable servant of the State ; and certainly, under our system, he is not over- paid. People praise him very much, and he occupies a posi- tion very dear to soldiers, a position of exceptional honour ; but his reward in money never equals that of a successful barrister, he does not obtain rank quicker than a successful politician, and of power he very rarely, except under most unusual circumstances, enjoys any at all. Sir Frederick Roberts is an exceptionally fortunate man, as he may, before he is forty-eight, without help either from birth or interest, have obtained by fighting a full General's commission, a baronetcy, and an appointment, the Madras command, worth £10,000 a year, with, of course, the possible reversion of the still richer post, the supreme command in India. But these appointments are held for limited terms, they involve great expenses, and those who obtain them, even in rapid succession, rarely or never accumulate what is now regarded as a fortune, and is gained by men who have shown the same exceptional capacity in other lines of life. Soldiers attain peerages much seldomer than banisters do, and in a country like this their weight in the State and influence over the general current of affairs, which is the reward of the civil politician, can never be very great. They are kept down at once by the democratic dislike, and by the royal jealousy of allowing command to pass out of the reign- ing Honse,—a jealousy which robs every great soldier in England of the hope of ever commanding the whole Army. Wellington .00narnanded it, because his services were transcendent, and his personal " loyalty " of the kind that Kings admire ; and Lord Hardinge commanded it, because there was no Prince ready ; but those instances establish no precedent. A Prince in England who turns soldier has not only the bitton in his knapsack, but in his pocket. If one officer is as good as another, or if first-rate Generals are invariably self-sectificing anchoreta, why, cadit quaestio, and good Generals are over- paid ; but if, as we believe, successful soldiership is a kind of genius, as rare as any other genius, and is often found among men greatly moved, like Napoleon, by ambition, or like Marlborough, by greed, it is well that the career should offer at least average chances to the ablest men who will follow it, and who, when the hour of action comes, are indis- pensable. The soldier who fails may be the most meritorious of men, but no merit can in a battle compensate the State for the absence of success ; and if we need success, we must offer its usual rewards, or trust to an accident, which in the Crimea, at all events, did not occur. Cincinnatus can decline them, and fight on. Soldiers in an Army like ours will not rise out of turn too often. It is, therefore, with distinct pleasure that we notice the public recognition of General Roberts, and the evident desire that he should be rewarded, a desire in no way diminished by the fact that he won his reputation in an un- popular war, and that his opinion is believed to be in favour of the retention of Candahar. The fault of the war rests with the civilians who ordered it, not the General who ended it so brilliantly ; as the keeping of Candahar is the error, not of the officer who gave his opinion, but of those who took it. Neither circumstance ought to diminish Liberal cordiality towards an officer whose opinions on politics do not signify, because he may at any critical hour make a policy which he disapproves supremely successful on the field. It is not the opinion of the gunner, but his capacity for laying his gun, for which he is valuable, and ought, if war is justifiable at all, to be rewarded.
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