THE NEED FOR AN ARMY. T HE Daily Chronicle of Wednesday
gives an interesting account of a paper read at the Aldershot Military Society by Colonel Hutton, late the Officer Commanding in New South Wales. The subject of the paper was "Our Comrades in Greater Britain," and in it Colonel Hutton gave a most interesting account of the way in which the Australian Colonies have organised their mili- tary forces for defence purposes. By applying the principle of federation they have been able to arrange for a system fitted both for local defence and for common action. A Council of Federal Defence has been agreed upon, and in the case of war this body would nominate a military com- mander for the whole force, and act as "a species of Com- mittee of Public Safety." Under this scheme each Colony will provide a force for home defence, and also a mobile force to be used when needful outside the Colony. This, it is said, will give "at least a mounted brigade and an infantry division." This is most excellent news, and shows that in case of danger the Colonies will do their part. It is also most satisfactory to know that Colonel Hutton found an excellent spirit in the forces with which he was connected. "Accustomed," he said, " as I have been, in the mounted infantry, to command the flower of the British infantry in England and elsewhere during the ten years immediately preceding my command in New South Wales, I shall always look back with pride, pleasure, and profit to my association with my Australian comrades, and shall bear to my grave the ineffaceable recollection of their excellent military qualities, their zeal, devotion, and loyalty upon all and every occasion." That an officer of ability should be able to say this is, as we have said, most satisfactory. It is, however, necessary to speak a word of warning to those who may be inclined to jump to the conclusion that this organisation of the Colonial forces in any way relieves us at home from the duty of providing for a thoroughly sound and efficient Army,—an Army which in numbers and equipment and mobility shall be equal to the arduous tasks that are by necessity laid upon the national forces. Nothing could be more fatal than for the English people to imagine that because their fellow-citizens over-sea are awakening to their military needs, we may go to sleep and not trouble ourselves about the condition of our Army. An Army, and an efficient Army, we must have, if we are to occupy that position of absolute security upon which our greatness and inde- pendence as a nation rests.
Let us endeavour to consider what are the various duties to perform which an Army is wanted, and then ask how far our Army is capable of performing them. The need of an Army, as regards home defence, may not be so clear as the need of a Navy, but it is none the less a real need. Though we do not for a moment doubt the truth of the dictum that the Navy is our first line of defence, and that everything must make way for the efficiency of the Navy, we hold that it would be treason to the nation not to try to make them realise that an Army is also needful. To begin with, the Navy cannot do its work properly unless it is supported by the Army. We fully admit the theory that it is primarily the duty of the Navy to repel invasion by controlling the sea, and so make it impossible for any hostile force to embark on the salt water which, both sentimentally and practically, we have to consider our domain. If the Navy can sweep the sea of all hostile fleets, then we are absolutely safe. If it cannot do this we are not safe. If it can do this we are so entirely safe that we need think of no second line of defence. Therefore all we have to do is to create a Fleet strong enough to give us the complete command of the sea. So runs the sailors' syllogism. 'Do not then,' they say, 'allow your minds to be distracted by thinking of any other defence against invasion except the Fleet. If you do you will run the risk of falling between two stools. All the energy engendered by the dread of invasion must be concentrated on the essential means of defence,—i.e., the Navy. The Army has other and very great offensive uses, and must be kept in good order, but it must never be regarded as an insurance against invasion. The work of stopping invasion can be far better done by the Fleet.' This, no doubt, is perfectly sound in theory, but in practice a nation, like a person when he has something very priTious to guard, may reasonably adopt two plans for safeguard- ing it, and may adopt the second one without weakening the attention he gives to the first. Though we may rely upon the Navy to repel invasion, and may make it strong enough to do so—alas ! we write hypothetically, for, as we have shown in another column, our Navy is at present unable to give us the absolute control of the sea—yet it is still wise to have an Army which, if some accident were to lose us the control of the sea for a week, would be aide to repel such a military raid on London as the foreign Staffs believe to be practicable. Here, then, is one need for an Army. Another need is to supply those garrisons for the naval bases and coaling-stations, which Lord Lansdowne told us last week already use up thirty thousand men, and really require a far larger number. These coaling-stations and naval bases are, as Lard Lansdowne said, in reality workshops for our ships. But an Army is wanted to supply guards and watchmen to the workshops. Another need for an Army is that winch may be described as the need for an Imperial police. The Empire is subk et to constant outbreaks like those in Ashantee and in Matabeleland. When they take place we have to send from home a force sufficient to put them down. Hence we need an Army to supply us at any moment with a force of four or five thousand Imperial constables. We have another, and the greatest, need for an Army in the need for garrisoning India,—and we may now add Egypt. Our power in India rests ultimately on the presence of the white garrison. But to keep seventy thousand men in India under the conditions which we have found to be the best condi- tions, we have to keep an Army in England which shall act as a reservoir for the Indian Army. There are yet other needs for an Army. We are all agreed that England is to remain supreme at sea. But sea-power can only be exercised in a negative sense as long as you have only ships. You can say to foreign Powers, We hold that great highway which men call the sea, and neither you nor yours shall pass along it as long as you do us wrong ; ' but you cannot say more than that ; you cannot add, 'and we will seize your ports and your islands unless you do us right.' To say that, and so to use what is often the most effective aspect of sea- power, the ships must be supplemented by a mobile force of soldiers. Every detachment of marines on every battleship or cruiser is, theoretically, supplying the ship with this positive aspect of sea-power, but as regards all but savage or very minor States, only theoretically. When an important State is concerned you want to be able to put a small army on board ship,—to do the thing which the marine's red tunic on the deck symbolises. Hence England needs an Army to supply her ships, when required, with a marine Army,—an Army to be used to make sea-power a positive as well as a negative force. For example, if we were to determine to use our sea-power to coerce the Sultan we should instantly find that we needed an Army to supply us with fifty thousand men. The last need for an Army is to supply a force which will, if necessary, support the civil power in carrying out the law. The Judge when he signs a decree or issues a mandamus or an injunction is in the last resort obeyed because the soldier will fire to support the decree. If the soldier could not be told to fire and uphold the law, we should soon find the recalcitrant millionaire organising a force of footmen who would soon settle the poor man's claim to exercise this or that right to property or liberty which was disagreeable to his rich neighbour.
With all these needs for an Army, can it be said that our present Army can perform any of them except the last in a manner which is really adequate ? The Army could not give us one hundred thousand men as a second line of defence in case the Navy were to meet with a temporary disaster. It cannot, again, provide adequate garrisons for our coaling-stations and naval bases. Next, though it an just garrison India, it cannot provide for that reservoir of troops at home which is essential to the proper working of our system. It can, however, and does, provide for meeting what we have called the need for policing the Empire. As was shown in the case of the Ashantee and Matabele wars we can send off a small body of constables to the place where the disturbance is with con- siderable ease. The providing of a force of, say, sixty thousand men on an emergency to enforce our sea-power, and render it positive as well as negative, is, however, quite beyond our Army,—at least is beyond it unless other and essential work is neglected. We could, no doubt, send sixty thousand men to Constantinople, but it would only be by withdrawing them from places where they were already doing essential work, and. work which if they did not do it would be undone, and undone with peril to the Empire. In plain English, then, we need a larger Army than we have got at present. That this should be so cannot be regarded with any astonishment. Since 1880 we have not only added Burrnah to India and greatly enlarged our frontiers to the North and West, but we have occupied Egypt, have doubled the area of our possessions in South Africa, have made a new Empire on the East Coast and another on the Niger, and have greatly extended our responsibilities in the Far-Eastern Archi- pelago. But though we have slightly increased the numbers of our Army in these sixteen years, we have not done so in anything like the proper proportion. We have increased the Empire by the area of three or four of the great European States, and we have added enough troops to garrison a couple of islands. Such economy is the merest folly. No farmer takes on a new farm of large size and only increases his staff by a boy and a donkey-cart. If he does, and expects the men and horses who could only just manage the ploughing before to plough the new ground also, he ends by ruining his business. Into any calculations of the exact number of extra troops required we do not intend to enter at present. We do, however, most strongly urge upon the country that the need for enforcing the rule that every battalion abroad shall have a battalion to represent it at home ought to be strictly adhered to. If this will entail, as Lord Lansdowne says, the raising of eleven extra bat- talions, by all means let those extra battalions be raised. If that were done, and the rule were in future strictly observed, the Army might grow automatically with the needs of the Empire. At the same time that the Army was increased in numbers we believe it might also be improved by a judicious cutting down of useless expendi- ture. That our Army is far more costly than it ought to be, and that we do not get full value for our money, is admitted. by almost all the experts. Our Army is over- centralised, and this means a great expenditure on non-effectives. Again, we believe that the civilian element at the War Office might be largely reduced, and this with advantage and economy. Depend upon it, if we were to give a free hand to a reforming soldier he might save half the money required. for the extra men wanted for the Army without in the least impairing the efficiency of the systems.
That the nation will be incurring a real danger if it neglects to keep the Army up to a high standard of efficiency is a statement with which all Englishmen will agree. The real question is of course, What is the proper standard ? That question we cannot attempt to discuss. We will only say that at present our Army is not equal to meet nearly all the needs which we have just enumerated.
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