WHAT THE NATION OWES TO THE NATIONAL RESERVE.
lATE doubt whether one person in a thousand realizes what the nation owes to the National Reserve. The National Reserve, in spite of the appeal which one would have thought it would make to men's hearts and beads, has always had "a bad Press." Not only have the greater part of newspaper readers always been possessed of the notion that it consists of a few crippled and picturesque old soldiers, but the greater part of the leader-writers and newspaper reporters have shown by their comments during the past five years that they have not the least notion what is the real constitution, aims, and objects of the National Reserve. Unfortunately, this tradition of a bad Press pursues the National Reserve in war time as in peace. We have heard a great deal—and who could hear too much ?—about the Regulars ; we have read pleasant things about the Territorials, and, Heaven knows, they have deserved every word of praise that they have got ; we have been told day by day, and not one word too many or too strong, about the splendid spirit of the new Army. Of the National Reserve, however, we have heard literally nothing.
There are two principal reasons for this fact, neither of them discreditable to the National Reserve, or, indeed, to any one concerned. The first is that the National Reserve required no whipping up, no patting on the back, no encouragement to do its duty. Its members just slipped into the places assigned to them without fuss, without ostentation, and without friction. They filed out at the word of command in absolute silence like the well-trained professional guard they are. The second reason is that, as the War Office, probably for perfectly sound reasons, decided not to use them as a body, but to distribute them throughout various combative units, they never became visible as a corporate entity to the naked eye of the nation. No paragraphs ever appeared saying that 200,000 or 250,000 National Reservists had been sum- moned back to the colours and were mustered at such-and- such centres. Therefore no figures were or could be given at any particular moment as to the numbers of National Reservists who had joined the Army. There were a hundred taps or more fitted to the reservoir, and out of these there was a steady flow in as many different directions, but the amount drawn was at no time ascertain- able. As a matter of fact, this invisibility of the National Reserve was largely brought about by the fact that a considerable discretion was given to the men in the early part of the war, for they were then allowed to enlist as individual ex-soldiers, and not as National Reservists, in the Territorial Force or in the new Army. They thus went in ones and twos and not in battalions, and largely without any record of their doings being made. It has only been in the last few weeks, when the last remnants of the National Reserve have been called up, that the Reserve has been used in any sense in units.
No doubt at the end of the war, when the authorities have leisure enough to compile statistics, we shall be able to get approximate figures of the total number of National Reservists that have gone to the colours. When the war began presumably there were something like 250,000 National Reservists registered, and we may estimate that altogether 50,000, or possibly 100,000, have joined since, though that is only a guess. The figures, at any rate, look as if about 300,000 National Reservists in all must have been on the registers, and that of these about 200,000 were capable of active service and have joined the colours. That is a glorious record. And observe that the movement was a soldiers' move- ment, a. movement the whole vitality of which came from the men and officers themselves, and not from any appeal made by the War Office or by our statesmen. To be just, it must be stated that the military authorities, though a little puzzled at first, were always at heart sympathetic to the National Reserve movement, and felt a soldier's pride in it, even though they were not quite sure in peace time how to utilize it, nor sure that they could utilize it at all. They found out easily and quickly enough, however, in war what a blessing it may be to have useful " oldish " but still perfectly good material stored away in a supernumerary cupboard, especially when the oldish material stored itself, as we may say, without any expense or worry to the country. As for the statesmen and politicians, very few of them ever understood what was happening in the National Reserve, or were at the pains to give the organization a moment's thought. It grew up like a bed of unrecognized and uncultivated mushrooms on the lawn, which the gardeners thought looked very untidy, but which the householder was in the end glad enough to eat. It may be true that the original sugges- tion may have been a civilian suggestion, but that was nothing. It was the old soldiers and the old officers, most of these last ex-Volunteers, who made the National Reserve what it was and what it is. Nothing has shown more clearly than the National Reserve movement what a school of patriotism the Army is, and also how true it is that under liberal institutions and in a free country the soldier is not a. worse but an infinitely better citizen than he who has never borne arms.
But the National Reserve deserves something better from us than a general laudation. In order to give the country something more tangible to go upon we should like to quote the figures—we think we may do so without indiscretion or without bringing the Censor down upon us—of the National Reserve in one county, the county of Surrey. Surrey has no monopoly of the National Reserve, and therefore we may feel sure that what has happened there has been happening silently all over England. In Surrey close on 1,000 men (970, to be exact) have entered and been used as Class I. of the National Reserve, and have passed automatically into the Special Reserve, which, we may explain, provides the drafting battalions out of which the Army at the front is regularly and systematically fed. Every regiment fighting abroad has its shadow Special Reserve battalion here, from which drafting is continually carried on. Then some 240 ex-non-commissioned officers of the National Reserve have been sent as instructors to the new Army ; next, 170 men have joined the Territorials as National Reservists ; and finally, 39 officers and 1,525 men —1,564 in all—are being employed in small National Reserve units—i.e., as companies guarding railways, water- works, powder factories, and other vulnerable points. This means that some 3,000 National Reservists (2,944) are actually accounted for at the Surrey Territorial offices. But this is by no means the whole tale. It is well known that a large number of National Reservists did not wait to be drafted or used for railway guard work, but, careless whether they missed or did not miss their bounties, went off "on their own" and enlisted straight into the new Army or into the Territorials, and so were merged unrecorded in the general recruiting. Though regular members of the National Reserve, they did not communicate the fact to the recruiting officers, but simply presented themselves as ex-soldiers. In all probability the number of men thus offering themselves must have been something close on 1,000. That this is not too high an estimate is proved by the fact that on August let there were 3,818 men of all classes ou the books of the Surrey National Reserve, and that since August let a very large number of men have joined. Another fact to be noted is that at the present moment the Surrey National Reserve has been swept clean. Everybody available has been used in one form or another. To say, then, that the Surrey National Reserve has supplied the fighting forces of the nation with about 4,000 men is probably not much above, and possibly below, the mark.
If we take Surrey as a sample or index county, and assume, which we think we have a right to assume, that what has been done there has been done proportionately in other counties, we can get a rough estimate of what the National Reserve has done for the nation as a whole.
The population of Surrey is about one-fiftieth of the population of Great Britain. If, then, we multiply the 4,000 by 50, we get the approximate total figures which the National Reserve has supplied—i.e., 200,000.
That we expect will turn out to be in fact below the actual total. The number of men anxious to serve would, of course, be higher, for the National Reservists, like other classes of the population, have had many disappointments for medical reasons. Men who believed themselves to be hale and hearty had to be rejected, to their infinite chagrin, after examination. All honour to the men who were thus on the casualty list before the firing began. They deserve, if ever men did, the honour of the salute to the wounded.
We should like now to make the suggestion that National Reservists in the ranks in their various ,corps should be not only allowed but encouraged to wear the National Reserve badge of their several counties. If this becomes the rule, the services of the National Reserve will become visible to the nation and to the Empire, and the National Reserve will be placed on a far firmer foundation than it is now. It is good that the country and the Empire should know what it owes to the National Reserve. It is a badge of honour if ever there was one. And, what is more, it is a badge that has already been officially recognized and authorized by the military authorities, and is no mere fancy decoration.
We may add that, should the secretaries of Territorial Associations find time to send us figures of what the National Reserve in their counties has done, we shall read the accounts with great interest and publish the figures. Considering the pressure on our space, we could not, of course, go into great detail, but there would always be room for statements as to the numbers of men sent to the colours as (1) Special Reservists, (2) instructors, (3) railway and waterworks guard com- panies, (4) Territorial and ordinary ex-soldier recruits. The men who throughout England and Scotland raised the National Reserve, or, shall we say ? forced it on a drowsy and indifferent public, deserve the nation's thanks. And now by way of postscript let us meet the objection, which is sure to be made by people who have not seen the National Reservists at work, that as units " they would be perfectly useless in the field." The present writer happens to have seen a good many of them at work of late. Last Saturday he saw the National Reserve company attached to the Reserve battalion of the 5th Queen's at the end of a longish route march, and a finer and hardier- looking company he never saw. Their bearing was superb. On Tuesday he visited a place where 140 National Reservists hold a most important and anxious guard. It was the same story of vigilant, efficient, and soldierly work. Unfortunately he did not see, though he heard at first hand, how at sudden notice on Monday some 300 Surrey National Reservists were called out for special duty, and, to reach their destination, had to march through the City. The City just now is pretty critical in regard to troops, but so striking was the bearing of the little contingent that they were loudly cheered. The National Reserve in general, and the Surrey National Reserve in particular, are not afraid of criticism or of any standard of physical fitness that can be properly applied to them. Nor is this mere civilian opinion. We understand that the Staff officers who have had to deal with the Reservists are perfectly satisfied.
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