IN RE COLONEL DAWKINS.
PE military scandal which has been seething so long, which has now boiled over and set the Clubs, and the War Office, and the House of Commons by the ears, involves matters of great moment. There is something more at stake than the personal interests of Lieutenant- Colonel Dawkins. There is the interest of the public. If this were only a military quarrel we should have nothing to say about it, but the conduct of the friends of Colonel Dawkins has carried the matter beyond the region of the Guards' Club and the Horse Guards, and has given the country at large a stake in the issue. Over and far above the case of the complaining Guards- man is the case of the public, and considering all that the latter involves, the discipline of the Army and the safety of
the State, it is by far the more momentous of the two. Let us glance first at the lesser question.
The case of Colonel Dawkins is twofold. There is the ease as it now appears before Parliament and the country, and the case as he has stated it himself in a sort of memorandum pub- lished in The Army and Navy Gazette,—perhaps the worst piece of writing from the pen of an educated man that ever found its way into print, being in some parts absolutely unintelligi- ble, and, as a witty reader remarked, not language at all. The case, as it appears, shows us Colonel Dawkins as the victim of a foul conspiracy. Here is a meritorious officer, who served in the Crimea, a punctilious soldier in time of peace, who has only once had the misfortune to break the Queen's regulations. He is beset by a band consisting of two lords, an untitled major-general, three or four colonels, and two or three adjutants. These conspire and combine against him, instigated by one Colonel Newton, and make his life a burden to him. One lord puts him under arrest for refusing to shake hands, another lord reprimands him in the presence of juniors, and finally deprives him of command. One adjutant ingeniously contrives to exclude him from a Royal Ball, another ad- jutant is insulting and insubordinate in general, while Colonel Newton, the arch-conspirator, actually is found dogging the steps of Colonel Dawkins even after the said Newton had left the gallant Coldstreams, and, clad in plain clothes, is heard at a field-day uttering words of command to the wing of the battalion then under the orders of Colonel Dawkins. For fifteen years this unhappy officer was persecuted by Col- onel Newton ; when the Colonel became a major-general he still continued the persecution. To use the wonderful English of "The Case of Lieutenant-Colonel Dawkins," pub- lished by himself, " the snowball of ill-feeling and in- jurious opinion started by Colonel Newton at an early date, visibly set rolling by him on the accidental absence [of Colonel Dawkins] from muster in 1859, accumulated by the treatment employed by Lord Rokeby at the instigation of Colonel Newton at Ash, in 1860, which, having received no decision as to its merits from the military authorities, bore visible fruit, in the want of deference to Lieutenant-Colonel Dawkins's authority evinced by junior officers in the position of adjutants, and showed what an extent of evil could arise- from the subtle infusion of adverse views without facts to warrant them." We apologize for giving our readers the trouble of puzzling through this sentence, but really the mode of stating the case is part of the case, and this extract will serve as a natural connecting link between the picture of Colonel Dawkins as he appears just now before the public, and his aspect as he paints it himself in his ingeniously- confused and confounding memorandum.
How does he there appear ? In 1859 he was absent from muster. This is a serious offence. How does the offender treat-it ? He implies in his statement that the fault lay with Captain and Adjutant Monck, who gave him short notice. This is a bad beginning. He was let off with a reprimand, —easy but fair terms. Not satisfied with this, he complained officially of the style and circumstances of the punishment. Colonel Newton may have been unnecessarily harsh—he seems to have been rude of speech and conduct—but surely an officer who has neglected to appear at muster is not exactly is a position where it becomes him to be tetchy and critical. In 1860 the Queen gave a ball. The Adjutant asked Colonel Dawkins if he wished to go. The letter did not reach its destination in time, and the name sent in was " Dudley Carleton," not " W. G. Dawkins." Thereupon the owner of the latter made complaints, in the course of which he insinuated that Captain Monck had contrived to pass him over. Now this was a serious insinuation, it was seriously taken up, and as Colonel Dawkins somewhat sneeringly refused to withdraw it, the matter was laid before Lord Rokeby, who used strong language, after the manner of the Guards apparently, in condemnation of the conduct of Colonel Dawkins, but could not prevail on the latter to withdraw the insinuation. Any cool reader of this memorandum will soon come to the conclusion that Colonel Dawkins is one of those men who call themselves " firm," but who are called by others " obstinate " or unyielding,—wanting in the give- and-take element which makes social intercourse, especially in a regiment, practicable. Lord Rokeby, in this very case, had apparently repented him of his rudeness, for shortly after- wards, at Ash Camp, in a crowded mess-room, Lord Rokeby offered his hand to the offended junior. What did the junior do? Instead of taking the proffered palm, he rose up from table, coolly saluted his commanding officer, and remained standing till Lord Rokeby had gone. This was an offence against good taste, but it was not a military offence. Colonel Dawkins had made himself unpleasant, and had given an unequivocal proof that he resented the view which the Major- General took of the Royal-Ball quarrel. And now Lord Rokeby, hitherto in the right, put himself in the wrong by placing his sulky subordinate under arrest, and leaving him in durance for eleven days. This was a flagrant infraction of those Articles of War which have been justly called the Habeas Corpus of the Army. Colonel Dawkins ought to have been liberated before he had been eight days under arrest, or else brought to trial; but the better plan would have been to have left him to the enjoyment of his peculiar temper. In 1861 Colonel Dawkins came, by virtue of seniority, into the position of Acting Major. The next year he had command of a wing at a field day on Wormwood Scrubs, Colonel Mark Wood commanding the battalion. Colonel Newton was present in plain clothes, and seeing some looseness in the marching gave some sort of command. It was an impertinent thing to do, and although the offence was really offered to Colonel Wood, Colonel Dawkins took it seriously as an insult to himself, and framed a solemn com- plaint, which he desired should be sent to the Duke of Cam- bridge " as a specimen of the military views" which regulated the conduct of Colonel Newton. Now this was a foolish pro- ceeding, and Colonel Mark Wood, being satisfied that no insult was intended to him, asked Colonel Dawkins to withdraw the letter, which he declined to do unless Colonel Newton apolo- gized. We may safely say that had the Commander-in-Chief or the Adjutant-General been present in plain clothes, and had either uttered a command to the men of the Coldstreams, Colonel Dawkins would not have framed an official complaint. We cannot go more deeply into the memorandum. Quarrels and disputes increased, especially with the adjutants. We have only one side of the case before us, but that side is set forth by the complainant. What is manifest is that for some reason or other Colonel Dawkins was always in hot water, and that at length Lord Frederick Paulet superseded him in command at a parade in Hyde Park. Then came a Court of Inquiry, which ended in a decision " in some measure adverse," as the Colonel says, but, as he shows, a decision based on the ground that there had been faults on all sides, and that it would be well to forget and forgive all round. Colonel Dawkins world neither forgive nor forget for his part, and threatened an appeal to the House of Commons. Another Court was held, and this Court found in effect that it would not be beneficial for the public service that Colonel Dawkins should command a bat- talion of the Guards. One officer, Colonel De Bathe, did not agree to this finding, but signed it nevertheless " under protest," as he says, but without affixing his protest to the document. This was an act of great weakness, and unfair to the Commander-in-Chief. The Duke of Cambridge, acting on the finding of the Court, gave Colonel Dawkins the option of selling his commission. If he declined, then the Duke notified that he should recommend the Queen to place the Colonel on half-pay. Thereupon Colonel Dawkins appealed to Lord De Grey and demanded a court-martial, publishing his letter to the Secretary for War before he got an answer. The whole series of transactions is not creditable either to the Guards or the Horse Guards, and shows a great want of a firm and fear- less and equitable hand in the management of the Army, so far as we can judge from the ex-parte statements of Colonel Dawkins.
The case of the public is much simpler. The discipline and the management of the Army are entrusted to the Execu- tive. The Commander-in-Chief is responsible for his conduct. If he prove to be unworthy of the trust, the House of Com- mons has the power of expressing its want of confidence in the administration of the Army. The House of Commons is not a body which is competent to decide on matters of dis- cipline. All authority in the Army would be gone were officers who feel aggrieved, or who have been declared in- competent, encouraged to appeal from the decision of the I Commander-in-Chief to the potential branch of the Legis- lature. Lord Lucan abused his position as a Peer when he brought his grievances before the House of Lords. No com- manding officer in the Empire could fulfil his duties with, confidence if he knew that any officer or man might appeal from him, not to the Commander-in-Chief, but to the House of Commons. Without discipline and due subordination in the Army there is no safety for the State, and discipline is struck at its root when the authority of the immediate com- mander is destroyed. When therefore Mr. Darby Griffiths, supported by many score members, asked the House to interfere between Colonel Dawkins and the Executive, to decide a matter of discipline, he asked them to do a very unwise and dangerous thing. If it came to be the practice, we should soon have disputes of this kind decided on party grounds; and were that to happen, the British Army would very soon be quite as bad as the sepoy army which mutinied in 1857. It is now extremely difficult to shelve an incom- petent officer ; had Mr. Darby Griffiths succeeded, the task would have been nearly impossible. When the Duke of Cam- bridge was asked to select commanders of battalions, he said he could only do it if he were supported by public opinion,— because. the officers of the Army are more or less a club, and they act together to protect each other and shield incom- petence. What has happened in the case of Colonel Dawkins shows that the Duke had some reason for what he said, although at the time his expressions were held to imply moral weakness.
Now the House of Commons might very properly pass a censure on the Commander-in-Chief if it were discontented with his administration. There is no medium course. So long as he is retained in command he must be trusted and his decisions upheld, or his authority is gone and anarchy must ensue. The real lesson to be derived from this scandal is that the hands of the Commander-in-Chief should be strengthened, that he-should be directed to exercise a rigid but just control over the Army, with the understanding that he will be held strictly responsible, and that he will be removed if he fail. But, for the sake of the best interests of the country, we must guard with all our might against angry attempts to make the House of Commons a court of appeal on military discipline.
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