THE AUXILIARY FORCES. liTE trust most sincerely that there is
no truth in the V V statement which has been widely circulated of late, that it is the intention of the War Office to abolish the special Department established to deal with and supervise the Auxiliary Forces. The establishment of that Depart- ment was one of the new features specially insisted on by Mr. Brodrick in his speech last year. Those who, like ourselves, desire to see the Auxiliary Forces strengthened and developed by every means consistent with a due regard to the still more vital matter, the efficiency and power of the Regular Forces of the nation, welcomed the establishment of that Department as a matter of the greatest possible importance. Nay, more, Mr. Brodrick himself clearly held it to be a vital part of his scheme, for he dwelt on the proposal with no little emphasis. Under these circumstances we cannot believe it possible that there is any real intention of abolishing the Department and of returning to a system which was - condemned so short a. time ago as injurious to the interests of the country. We cannot, then, help believing that the rumour must be due to some contemplated change the character of which has been misunderstood, and that what is pur- posed is not the destruction but the development of the existing Department. We are strengthened in this belief by the knowledge of the sympathy and practical appreciation of the nature and uses of the Auxiliary Forces which , Lord Roberts has always shown. Of this sympathy and appreciation he lately gave conspicuous proof in his appointment of the Committee to reconsider the new Volunteer Regulations. A weaker man, or one who had not at heart the interests of the Volun- teers, would have refused all further inquiry, and would have insisted that the Order in Council should be applied at all costs and without further debate. The implicit confidence and trust reposed in Lord Roberts by the nation would have enabled him to carry the point had.he wished to insist even against the extraordinary volume of public opinion on the other side. His willingness to hear all objections, and to modify his first decision provided he can be fairly and rightly convinced that injury would be done to the Volunteers, gives a strong guarantee that while he is at the head of the Army he will not allow the Auxiliary Forces either to be starved and neglected, or have applied to them conditions which are unsuitable to the special character of the Volunteers, Yeomanry, and Militia The great importance of having a special and separate Department in the War Office to attend to the needs and organisation of the Auxiliary Forces will be apparent to any one who gives the matter careful consideration. The character of the Auxiliary Forces, and especially of the largest of them, the Volunteers, is so special and, peculiar that it is essential that a departmental tradition should be established for dealing with them. No doubt in theory a Department dealing also with other subjects, and in common with the rest of the Army they are always it in another way, if the Auxiliary Forces are dealt with never obtain for them a really satisfactory hearing. To put those connected with the Regular Army, might be able to obtain all the necessary knowledge ; but as a matter of fact, unless the Auxiliary Forces are controlled by a Department which is specially set apart to deal with their affairs we shall sure to have to play - the part of Cinderella. All the energy of the Department will naturally go into what will seem, and will-be indeed, the more important part of the work,--i.e., the work connected with the Regulars. Only if the heads of the Department have the Auxiliary Forces as their sole object of attention will these forces obtain full attention. Under the plan of a mixed administration nothing but the scraps of time will be their portion. We cannot, of course, presume to lay down what should be the final form of the 'departmental organisation adopted, but we cannot help thinking that the more important the Department is made, and the abler the officer in supreme authority, the better the results we shall obtain. But though we want to see the Department made as autonomous and as strong as possible, we do not suggest for a moment that it should in any way be " run " by Anviliary officers. The Department must be in charge of a General, and be as much in the hands of the Regular Headquarter Staff as any other. Only it must make a special study of the requirements and interests of the Auxiliary Forces. It must hold those forces firmly in the -grip of our general military system, but it must study them and know them. Hitherto there has been a lamentable want of such study and knowledge, as can be shown by recalling the ante-bellum condition of the Auxiliary Forces, and. the attitude of the War Office towards them. Let us take first the case of the Yeomanry. It is notorious that before the war the official military authorities thought less than nothing of the Yeomanry. The proposal to abolish them was repeatedly discussed, and it was generally understood that they were only maintained because of the social consideration and stand- ing of the commanding officers. The notion was that the Yeomanry were in reality allowed to exist so that a certain number of county magnates should be able to don a Hussar or Dragoon uniform. In a word, the War Office never took the Yeomanry in the least seriously. But if there had been a proper Department for dealing with the Anviliary Forces this ignorance would never have existed, and the authorities would have been better informed than they were. Plenty of examples of the unsympathetic attitude born of ignorance adopted by the War Office towards the Militia might be given, but we will choose only one. The War Office for the ten, nay, twenty, years before the war always neglected the Militia, or let us say, not to prejudice the matter, always treated the Militia as merely a recruiting ground for the Regular Army. There was no attempt to think of the Militia apart from the Regulars as a serious force. Take this case. There was a London Militia regiment which was always kept at its full strength, and got as recruits an excellent class of men. There were practically no desertions, and the regiment was in every way a success. This was very largely due to the fact that during the recruit training the men did. not go into barracks, but lived in their own homes, and came in to drill by day just as they would come to work in a factory. The men were day-boys, not boarders, and. the system was extremely popular. But the Wax Office found that the regiment sent very few recruits into the Army, and they attributed this, rightly or wrongly, to the system we have named Accordingly they ordered it to be discontinued, with the worst possible results to the regiment, but also with the result that the new kind of Militiamen obtained did occasionally volunteer for the Regular Army. Of course this refusal to think of Militia interests, and the insistence on the one fact, Army recruit- ing, were not due to any deliberate desire to injure the Militia It simply came from ignorance, and from, its being nobody's business at headquarters to protect the interests of the Auviliary Forces. If there had been a strong Department concerned solely with. the Auxiliary Forces we cannot doubt that the matter would. have received proper consideration, and a very valuable system, that of day-boy Militiamen, would. have been preserved,—a system which could, we believe, be applied with the best possible results to all Militia regiments recruited in urban districts.
If we take the Volunteers, we shall find that their interests have suffered even more seriously than those of the Yeomanry and Militia from want of a Department at the War Office which could. study-and represent their interests, *not a Department,of course, which could place any veto on, or even obstruction in the way of, the deliberate decision of the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of State, but. which could keep the great military chiefs well informed,. and supply a mass of information as to Volunteer needs and aspirations. For example, if the present Department for dealing with the Auxiliary Forces had been more firmly established, and had enjoyed a higher status—we gather that though the Department has been in existence during the past nine months, its position has not been one of any great weight or authority—it is more than likely that it would have been able to gauge Volunteer opinion as to the new Regulations before those Regulations were finally promulgated, and that in this way the heads of the War Office would have been saved a great deal of worry at a time when they were fully occupied with matters of far greater moment. In the case, indeed, of the Volunteers the need for a Department is specially strongly marked. Only if the nature of that force and its peculiar ex- cellences- and peculiar weaknesses are studied and understood will the nation be able to get the best results out of the Volunteers. If we are to treat the Volunteers as imitation Regulars we shall never make anything of them. If the military authorities get to know what the Volunteers are, and how they ought to be handled, they may yet be a force of the utmost service. In other words, if once a strong Department, with a General of eminence at its head, can get into real touch with the Volunteers, that Department will in time be able to place the military authorities ea rapport with the Volunteers, and make them understand what can be, and what cannot be, got out of Volunteers.
Take it as a whole, then, we believe that one of the most essential needs of the Army is a strong separate Department for dealing with the Auxiliary Forces. What is wanted is not the abolition of the present weak and not fully organised Department, but instead the establishment of a Department which shall be a real help and support to the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief in dealing with this side of their work.
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