MR. BRODRICK'S TASK.
MR. BRODRICK'S task is a great one. He has, in fact, to give us a new military system, and yet to give it us in such a way that we can use up in the new building all, or almost all, the old material, for that old material is essentially sound though at present badly disposed. But great as is the task, we believe that Mr. Brodrick will be equal to accomplishing it, for we hold that he brings to the work the proper type of mind. He is cautious and conciliatory, but at the same time he is not likely to be overawed by a petrified professional opinion. In his large experience at the War Office he has seen the military Mandarins of Pall Mall too often wrong to make him adopt an attitude which is sure to be fatal in Army administration,—the attitude of the civilian who says "Well, that seems to me contrary to common-sense, but I suppose it must be right as soldiers who have had war experience urge it upon me." Mr. Brodrick will, we be- lieve, be able to steel his mind against such arguments, and to judge military advice as the wise man judges all expert advice on matters of vital importance. He accepts it, not as the ruling of an infallible authority, but as an opinion amenable to the tests and checks of common-sense.
But though we feel great confidence in Mr. Brodrick's judgment, we desire that the whole question of military organisation shall be thoroughly threshed out by public discussion, and we shall therefore make no further apology for continuing and repeating the criticisms and sugges- tions which we have already set forth in these pages. In dealing with our military needs we shall omit all question of internal War Office organisation, which is an entirely separate matter, and shall consider only,—(1) the Regular Army ; (2) the Militia and Yeomanry ; (3) the voluntary forces, both organised and inchoate. We desire to take each of these in turn, and to make one or two suggestions in regard to them. First, then, for the Regular Army. Here we would keep in the main to the territorial Cardwell system, which, on the whole, has worked so well, merely endeavouring to meet the chief objection which has been urged against it.. The prime objection has been that while the Cardwell system gives us a good Army abroad, it gives us no Army at home. Under normal con- ditions the home Regular Army, it is said, and with some truth, is not an Army at all, but merely a number of recruiting depots. The normal home battalion is merely the squeezed lemon,—the juice having been strained off and sent to India, Egypt, or elsewhere. Hence to make the battalions at home—the walking depots as they have been called—fit for active service it is necessary to call out the Reserves, which Reserves thus become, in the words of the opponents of the Cardwell system, not Reserves but our first line. No doubt the fact that almost all the home battalions are squeezed lemons is a serious evil per se. But since the system which produces these squeezed lemons also provides very efficiently for military needs abroad we would not alter it. What we would do in order that there should always be a certain number of Regular regiments in England up to full strength, would be to return to the system under which the Guards never served abroad in peace time. In this way we should have twelve infantry battalions (we assume that the Irish Guards will ultimately have three battalions) always at home and always up to their full strength. We would also have, besides the Household Cavalry, three other regi- ments of horse, which should be in the position of Guards, that is, should never go abroad except in the case of war. Lastly, we would make the term of service with the colours in all these Guards regiments two years. By this means the Guards Reserve would become a very large force, and on a war emergency we should be able to count on a body of men who, since their organisation was in no way compli- cated by foreign service, would be specially easy to handle. In other words, we should accept the squeezed- lemon battalions as a necessary part of our Imperial military system, but provide against the chief evil of the Cardwell scheme by having always at home the Guards infantry and cavalry. We were, theoretically, very near the plan we propose before the wasteful and stop-gap plan of send- ing the Guards to Gibraltar-was adopted. We could now, thanks to the extra battalions of Scots Guards and Cold- streams and the Irish Guards, make the proposal a very useful reality.
As to the Militia and Yeomanry, our plan would be to maintain the present system, but greatly to improve it. We would, to begin with, take the Militia seriously,—i.e., not regard it as a puddle into which the Regulars may dip their bucket, but as a true home defence force, fully organised and provided with its own Reserve, its own mobile organisation, and its own complement of artillery, engineers, army service corps, and transport,—the cavalry, of course, being supplied by the Yeomanry. The organisa- tion should indeed be such that, supposing the Regulars to be blotted out, the Militia would still present a complete Army ready and able to take the field. For this reason we would have Militia Generals as well as Militia Colonels and a Militia Staff. No doubt the chief posts would, as a rule, be held by men who had gained distinction in the Regular Army, but they would belong to the Militia organisation, and not to the Regulars. In the case of war, Militia regiments would be able as now to volunteer for the front. In this respect no alteration should be made. As to the personnel, the aim should be to pass as many men as possible through the Militia, and when trained to keep them in the Militia Reserve. Thus, after men had had their six months' recruit training, and had once or twice come up for the annual training, they should as far as possible be granted leave to go into the Militia Reserre,—care being taken that they kept up their rifle practice. This keeping up of rifle prac- tice could, as a rule, be easily arranged without interference with employment. Into the question of pay and bounties, either in the Regular Army or the Militia, we do not desire to enter here, but there is another condition of service which is of the utmost import- ance, and to this we would draw special attention. As far as possible we would make our Militiamen day- boys rather than boarders,—thus saving expense in barrack-building, and also making the Service popular. That is, we would in the case of the towns locate the Militia drill grounds, depots, and headquarters in a populous district, and let the Militia recruit live at home during his six months' training, and come in every day to learn his duties, just as the workman comes into the factory. Let no one imagine that this is the wild dream of a civilian. The thing can be done, and has been done. Unless we are greatly mistaken, till a very few years ago one of the best regiments in the Militia (the 5th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade) was trained on this day-boy system. The headquarters of the battalion were in the East End of London, and the men who joined lived in their own homes, and came in daily to be drilled and made into soldiers.—The annual monthly training under canvas took place, of course, as in the case of other regiments.—The recruiting of the battalion was excellent, and equally satisfactory was the result on the discipline and the general efficiency of the regiment. The battalion was always well supplied with men, and a. good type of man was easily secured. Strange as it may seem, the War Office abolished the system, not because it produced an unsatisfactory Militia regiment, but solely because under the plan we have described the regiment sent on very few recruits to the Regular Army. We desire that the system should be re-established, not merely in all districts of London where it would be likely to be success- ful, but in all our large towns. In this way we believe that the Militia might be made far more popular, and a great deal of expense in the way of barrack-building be avoided. What is unpopular with the recruit is not the severity of the drill or the real military discipline and obedience, but the irksomeness of ordinary barrack life,— of the life led out of office hours, so to speak. Think what effect would be produced on the police force if all policemen had to live in barracks and to spend, not their time of duty, but their own time in a kind of confinement. No doubt for the Regular Army a good deal of barrack life, and so barrack confine- ment, is unavoidable ; but where it can be avoided, and so military service made more popular, by all means let it be avoided. Needless to say, in the case of county Militia regiments the day-boy system would not be possible. All we ask is that the system should be used where it is applicable.
As to the Yeomanry, we desire to see a great extension of the force. But here, again, we would rather expand than make revolutionary changes. We would keep the nature of the force what it is, but we would lessen the expenses, make it more businesslike, and greatly add to its numbers. In the matter of adding to its numbers the first thing to be considered is, of course, the nature of the inducements which can be held out to the Yeoman. Our plan would be to copy from the Boers. The Transvaal Government used to give a " commando " horse to every burgher who was likely to prove him- self efficient. We would give a serviceable cob or pony to any Yeoman (1) who .could show that be could already shoot up to a fairly high standard of marksmanship ; (2) who had the means to keep the horse; (3) who would undertake to maintain the horse in pibod condition ("fair wear and tear alone excepted"); and (4) who would attend the annual Yeomanry training. Such a present would be most acceptable to farmers and farmers' sons, and would act as a very efficient recruiting agent; provided, of course, that the farmer had not also to rig himself out in a fantastic uniform, but might wear a suitable dress.
We have stated in very rough outline some of the things which we would do in the case of the Regulars, the Militia, and the Yeomanry. On a future occasion we hope to be able to say something as to the purely voluntary forces. Before, however, we leave the subject we should like to draw the attention of our readers to the excellent article dealing with our military system contributed by Dr. Conan Doyle to the Cornhill for January. His paper strikes us as conceived in exactly the right spirit, and as affording a complete answer to the fantastic criticisms to which the military suggestions made by Dr. Conan Doyle in his " History of the Boer War have been subjected. Dr. Conan Doyle's words are well worth weighing, and we hope and trust that they will receive due attention. Whether he has or has not worked out exactly the right numbers for our military requirements is a matter open, of course, to discussion, but that his article shows tact, temper, and good sense in handling a, series of most difficult problems is beyond all doubt. We have noticed, indeed, that the better and the more experienced the soldier the more certain he is to take criticisms of the kind made by Dr. Conan Doyle seriously. It is only the raw subaltern, or the old soldier whose mind has been hypnotised by the constant whirl of the professional mill, who resents criticisms as worthless because they are made by a mere civilian.
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