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THE MILITARY POLICY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.* WE rejoice in the republication of Pasley's famous essay, which made so wide a stir amongst our grandfathers and called forth the passionate eulogy, though a eulogy tempered

with strong criticism, of the poet Wordsworth. So great was the sensation caused by the work of the gallant "Captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers" that edition after edition was called for, and women as well as men, indeed the whole of the reading and thinking public in the country, devoured the essay. For example, we find several references to it in Jane Austen's letters. She expresses her delight in her own inimitable fashion : "I never sighed for a soldier before." It may be remembered that Jane Austen was, as a rule, "all for the Sea Service." Her brothers served in the Navy.

The edition which we have under review, an edition which has been appearing in the United Service Magazine ever since

September, 1912, is not a complete reprint. The editor has cut out a great deal of what he considered only concerned Pasley's own time. In fact, he has aimed rather at repro-

ducing the essential parts of Pasley's essay, together with a good deal of comment, than at republishing it. The method is open to criticism, and has certain very obvious disadvan- tages. We are, however, so grateful to Colonel Ward for his services that we do not intend to look his gift horse in the mouth. Pasley's noble and far-seeing book was written in 1810, when Napoleon was at the very zenith of his power, and when most people in these islands had despaired of the republic, except on the sea, and considered that it was useless to attempt to interfere with Napoleon's domination on land. It was Pasley's glory that he bade his countrymen not to despair, but to look for the coming of the day of deliverance which he predicted was at hand. A second edition of his book appeared in the spring of 1811, and a third in the autumn of that year. A fourth was published in 1812, when Napoleon's army was in full retreat from Moscow. The publication of a fifth edition was contemplated in the winter of 1848, but Pasley's intention was never carried out.

Pasley's main idea is that we cannot be safe unless we have military power as well as naval power, that we have the capacity for making ourselves into a strong military Power, and that what we chiefly need is its adequate direction. He

points out that our difficulty is not lack of soldiers—of these we possess enough—but the knowledge of how to use them, and also a clear understanding of what we want—i.e., a true objective. If we have not got a well-defined military policy, we are sure to fail in our military operations. That, of course, is as true now as it was then. Here are Pasley's own

reflections in his own words :—

" I must observe, in the strongest manner, that no Great Power, in the critical situation in which Great Britain now stands, was ever saved by coalitions. We must trust atone to our own arms. Wherever we display our standard, we must draw the sword with the spirit of principals, not of auxiliaries ; and we must never cease to increase our own power by conquest, until we make ourselves the strongest Power in Europe, by land as well as by sea. If we neglect to use every exertion in our power to effect this purpose, it may prove of little use to us or our posterity should we, by any chance, escape being enslaved by France. For if that Empire were to fail to pieces, new difficulties and dangers would gather around us. Germany might become so powerful as to act the sates part in Europe which France now does. Spain might, as she formerly did, threaten to reduce us to a province ; or, if we ever suffered ourselves to dwindle into a third Power, how could we promise to ourselves, that two of the neighbouring states might not coalesce, in order to divide our country between them."

Pasley, of course, wrote with Napoleon always before him, but it is a proof of the penetrating quality of his mind that he is • The Mlitary Policy of the British Empire, By Captain C. W. Pasley, R.E. Edited by Colonel B. E. Ward, R.E., Organization Society. London : Clowes and Sous. [3s. 6d. net.]

able to look beyond the immediate struggle and see, as in one of the passages we have italicized, that the day may come when a German ruler will play the part of the great Corsican. In writing in 1849 on the circumstances under which the essay was first published, Pasley gives a very interesting criticism of his own book which is well worth quoting :—

" 'As our naval superiority now opposed an impsnetrable barrier to all attempts at invasion, which nothing but peace with Napoleon could break down, I became convinced that the best defence of our own country, under these circumstances, would be to attack the enemy.' Disheartening as all previous military failures, including the disastrous Waleheren expedition, bad been, 'yet,' he continues, • considering, on mature reflection, that it was not too late to adopt a more vigorous system of warfare, I endeavoured, in the first part of my Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire, published in November 1810, to combat the desponding opinions which then prevailed of the superiority of the French armies, generals, &c., and of the irre- sistible, or, as it was termed, dreadful power of Napoleon, recom- mending the abandonment of those desultory expeditions, which, with the exception of that to Copenhagen, had ended, without effecting any useful object, in retreat, re-embarkation, and dis- grace; and the adoption of a more vigorous system of warfare, with a view to the destruction of the great empire formed by that extraordinary man, for which I recommended the employment of our whole disposable army in Spain, no longer as auxiliaries of the Spaniards but as principals in the war. These opinions are admitted to have produced more effect on the public mind than any of the numerous publications on the defence of the country, or on the management of the war, that appeared in those days of national danger and difficulty, and therefore my essay contributed, so far as such a work could possibly do, that is in a comparatively humble degree, to the success of the war."

In the fullest sense Pasley's essay is a great book by a great man. It shows on every page of it the authentic spirit of patriotism. If Pasley is often wrong in detail, in the highest sense he is always in the right. He has the true vision. He may be on occasion a little too emotional, but, on the other hand, he ii never inhuman. He never anticipates Nietzsche or the "ruth- less, relentless, remorseless" war policy which now governs the minds of the ruling caste in Germany. Indeed, it is remark- able to note here the difference between Pasley's work and that of .Clausewitz, the great metaphysician of war, from whom the soldiers and statesmen of Germany.draw their inspiration in the matter of military policy. Clausewitz is a cold-blooded logician. Pasley insists always on the need of observing right and justice and fair play to other countries. Is a contemporary writer said, the essay shows "the true English spirit which is allied to zeal in the general cause of humanity." Pasley will have nothing to do with the idea that war means the suspension of all moral considerations, and that it is to be carried out with the sole object of destruction. Our German enemies would no doubt call him a trimmer; but it is the trimmers, the men who temper their logic with humanity, who win in the end, be the immediate successes of the Frederick the Greats and the Napoleons never so awe-inspiring.

We wish we could quote from the main portion of Pasley's essay, but space, unfortunately, fails us. We would advise our readers, however, most strongly to read the book for themselves. They will gain from it many useful lessons. Meanwhile, we may quote one or two of the maxims which the editor has drawn from the essay in order to illustrate Pasley's insistence on justice and fair play as factors in military policy :—

" National ambition is only criminal or unjust when it passes the limits of necessity."

"It is an advantage in war to show moderation and justice, when these qualities are united to a martial spirit." "A scrupulous adherence to the law of nations and an inflexible constancy in the cause of deserving allies is the only sound

policy." •

The following passage from the first chapter of Pasley, in which, of course, he has in mind the still recent French Revolution, shall be the conclusion of our notice :- "We confess that we ourselves are not a military nation ; but It is generally idnatted that the French are ; and certainly they have a better claim to that title, at the present moment, than the people of any other country. But as it is impossible to think of the French, without the lone' train of crimes and miseries which they have inflicted and suffered; without anarchy, despotism, confiscations, massacres, and conseriptions, passing in review before. Us: we are unfortunately too apt to associate these horrible ideas with their success in war, and consequently the very thought of our becoming a military nation (which we fancy the French to be) always makes us shudder, in spite of our secret sense of the necessity of it. Nothing, however, can be more erroneous than such a notion. The successes of the French have been gained, not by means, but in spite, of their sufferings and injtustiee. Cruelty and heroism are so seldom combined in the same person that the notion that those hands only which have been stained with the blood of fellow-citizens are fit to wield the sword of war, is very unphiloisophical ; and the opinion that they alone who have trampled upon laws at home, or who tremble for their lives and property at the smallest caprice of a domestic tyrant, are capable of vanquishing the enemies of the state abroad is, in itself, equally false and pernicious."

Note that if we substitute" German" for "French" the lesson here conveyed is as good as when Pasley thought and wrote it.