TOPICS OF THE DAY.
SIE REDVERS HULLER AND THE FIRST ARMY CORPS.
WE cannot but hope and, believe that there is some mistake in the statement that Sir Redvers Buller has been appointed to the command of the First Army Corps. That statement, unless it can be qualified, means that for the next few years the most carefully trained and organised portion of the British Army, the force which would be despatched abroad in any case of diffi- culty, will be under the control of Sir Beavers Buller, and that he would take the field with it as the General in supreme command. Now we have no desire to say any- thing personally disparaging of General Buller, for we believe him to be a man of peerless courage and actuated by the sincerest desire to serve his country. But remember what was the pledge given by Mr. Brodrick when he announced his army corps scheme, and that it was largely on the strength of that pledge that we and others supported his scheme against the hostile criticism with which it was assailed. It was, as the Outlook points out in a courageous and forcible article—fol- lowing in this respect an equally vigorous and timely protest from the St. James's Gazette, which is very greatly to the credit of our contemporary—distinctly asserted by the Secretary of State for War that no General should henceforth be appointed on the peace establishment who would not be fit and capable to under- take his command in war-time.' But if this means any- thing, it means in the case of commanders of army corps that they shall be the men -who could and who would be entrusted with the duty, of leading their actual army corps in war. The chief reason for establishing the army corps system was that in future there would be no scratch forces sent abroad. made up out of odds and ends, but that a complete army corps commanded. by its accustomed officers, from the General in chief com- mand'and the Generals of Division and Brigadiers to the subalterns,' would go out together. The arguments for such an arrangement are obvious But does any reasonable person suppose that if war were declared during the next few years General Buller would. be allowed to take the command in the field, and would be sent abroad with his army corps ? Un- questionably he ought not to be, and in our belief he would not be, as no Government would. face the protests that would be raised, not merely by the "man in the street," but by the instructed public opinion of the nation. It is this certainty that General Buller could not be and would not 'be sent abroad. in supreme command of the First Army Corps which, in spite of all the statements in the Press, makes it still seem incredible to us that the story can be true in its present form. Mr. Brodrick and Lord Roberts cannot surely. have determined to stultify their scheme at the very beginning. If the appointment is , to .be a five-year one, and to be maintained intact, it will be utterly impossible to get the nation to believe in the seriousness of the new Army scheme, for, for good or evil --;-for good as we believe—the whole system of reform in the training of the troops and officers and in the direction of decentralisation of responsibility rests on the army corps organisation. But that system, with its proposed. freedom from red-tape and officialism, has many enemies both able and vigorous, and if the plan is to be made a farce at the very outset it will soon become a mere paper organisation, like the three army corps of former times. The badness of the appointment, if it is to be a five-year one, is brought out all the more strongly by the two other nominations. Sir Evelyn Wood is to command the Second Army Corps on Salisbury Plain. But the physical reason—his deafness—which prevented that garitnt soldier from being sent to South Africa in spite of his earnest desire to be the field would prevent him also from going abroad, and we have, therefore, the Second.Army Corps commanded and trained by an officer who could not command it in war. The Third Army Corps is also in the hands of a General, the Duke of • Connaught, who would not be sent abroad in time of war. We sincerely believe that, the Duke of Connaught is a very capable and devoted officer, and that he would prove a sound commander in the field, but we are equally sure that whatever mai. be the intentions of the Gofernment in peace, the prejudice against placing a Royal Duke in command in war rued prevail, and would prevent his employment abroad, jud as it has prevented it during the present campaign. Thua we have the three. army corps which would be the corps to be sent abroad in case of any serious war all com- manded by men who for various reasons would not be able to take the field with their troops. In the case of the Duke of Connaught we admit that there is a great deal of excuse for the appointment, for not only is IA as we have said, a vigorous and capable soldier, but the Irish Army Corps is far less likely to be sent abroad than the First and Second. Taken as a whole, however, the three appointments, unless it be clearly understood that two of them at least are only temporary and stop-gap nominations, must be admitted to go far to imperil the whole of Mr. Brodrick's scheme. We should, indeed, feel infinitely more hopeless than we have ever felt in regard to War Office reform if we did not cling to the belief that the explanation of the whole incident is that in reality other Generals have in truth been named for the First and Second Army Corps, and that Sir Rebell Buller and Sir Evelyn Wood have merely been asked to hold their appointments till the men who will really mould the army corps and place the new system on a firm foundation come back from South Africa. If the appoint- ments art/ only to last a year or six months they are endurable, and we should feel no more obliged to protest than we did when Sir Redvers Buller originally went back to Aldershot, because we believed that the appointment was only of a temporary character, and due to the absence from England of so many general officers. We most devoutly trust, then, that it may turn out that our present protest has been made under a misapprehension.
But it will be said, perhaps, that we have no right to challenge the War Office in regard to the appoint- ment of General Buller, even if that appointment is meant to last and. is not merely temporary. "Why do you assume," we shall be asked, "that General Buller is not in every way competent to lead in the field and could not be sent abroad ? The War Office, which is far better able to judge of such matters than an editor, may consider that General Buller was merely unlucky in South Africa. They may, that is, still have the unbounded confidence in his military powers that they had in 1899, and would be fully prepared to send him and the First Army Corps abroad. in case of a great emergency, feeling certain that the troops could not be in stronger or more capable hands." We quite admit that the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of State for War are far better able to judge of a General's merits than we are. We admit also that it is logically possible that they might hold General Buller to be the most competent of Generals ; but as a matter of fact we and every- body else who has eyes ' to read a Blue-book mist know that the Commander-in-Chief and the Secre- tary of State for War do not hold this view of General Buller's military powers. If they did hold it, it is absolutely inconceivable that they would have published the despatches which they did. publish in February last. If they held that General Buller was a man whose capacity was only equalled. by his ill-luck in having insurmountable difficulties before him in the Natal campaign—the view of those who believe that General Buller suffered no loss of military reputation in South Africa—what could. have induced them to publish despatches which could not but undermine all con- fidence in Sir Redvers Buller as a soldier? The unin- etructed public view had. been that General Buller was a grim fighting bulldog after the model of General Grant,—a man who would. push forward. and sur- mount every obstacle before him at all costs. Yet the despatches showed. General Buller bewildered and de- pressed. Instead of being dogged and impervious to depression, we see him suggesting that his task was hopeless, and asking Lord Roberts whether the chance of relieving Ladysmith was worth the loss of two or three thousand men. As we pointed out on the publication of the despatches, General Buller was obviously asking Gm ca, those questions that expect the answer "No." But Lora Roberts, to his eternal credit, refused to give. that answer.: and replied to General Buller in words that we hoec never be forgotten by the British Army. In his "narra- tive" " despatch Lord Roberts states :—" On the same day [i.e., on the day i y o n which he received General Buller's telegram asking f the chance was worth the cost] I "plied that Ladysmith must be relieved even at the cost anticipated. I urged Sir Redvers Buller to persevere, and desired him to point out to his troops that the honour of the Empire was in their hands, and to assure them that I had no doubt whatever of their being successful." The man of iron determination and bulldog tenacity was not before Ladysmith, but at Cape Town. But we do not want to go any further in the hateful task of raking up General Buller's failure in the field in almost everything but a noble personal courage and the kindliest solicitude for his men. Those who are still not satisfied as to how the Commander-in-Chief and the Secre- tary of State for War judged General Buller's capacity for war had better refer to the despatches, and then ask themselves the simple question,—Is it conceivable that these despatches would have been given to the world it the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of State for War still believed that General Buller was competent for high command in the field, and held that the events of December, 1899, and January and. February, 1900, were merely regrettable and unlucky incidents which could be entirely ignored ? We do not, of course, profess to say, on our own judgment, that General Buller has not the gifts of leadership, for it may fairly be urged that we do not know all the facts, and are not competent to form an opinion. What we do assert is that those who did know all the facts and were competent to form an opinion could not possibly have published the despatches if they held the view that General Buller was merely unlucky, and got into difficulties through no fault of his own, and so could most properly be again employed in actions of great moment. In other words, the Com- mander-in-Chief and the Secretary of State for War have appointed a man to command the First Army Corps whom they have declared by the publication of the despatches to have failed in the essentials of command.
Needless to say, the task of writino, as we have written is anything but a pleasant one. One who, instead of fighting for his country's cause in South Africa, has merely sat at home in peace and comfort cannot possibly avoid a sense of keen disgust in having to censure a man who so gallantly and so unselfishly risked life and happi- ness in the battlefields of South Africa as did Sir Redvers Buller. There is something that seems almost cowardly in attacking one who has endured so mucb, especially when the assailant has made no personal sacrifice. And yet if journalists allowed such notions to prevail there would be no hope of Army reform through public criticism,—and except through public criticism no reform in things military is possible. It is absolutely necessary to speak out, however odious the process, for in that way only can the journalist do his share in the matter of reform. If all military defects and incapacities are to be ignored because an officeris brave and honourable and self-sacrificing, we had better abandon the work of Empire as one too hard and painful for our finely edged feelings and emotions.
To sum up : the appointments of Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller can only be justified as mere stop-gap appointments till the war is over, and. even then, as the St. James's Gazette very properly points out, it would have been really far better to have appointed young men as stop-gaps than to have violated at the very outset the essential condition of army corps efficiency for war. But in truth the whole incident seems-to us little short of a mystery, and we still await the possibility of some explanation which may place the matter in a different light. Unless that explanation can be, and is, given, it will be impossible to deny that the War Office has dealt its own scheme a deadly blow.
Previous page
