GENERAL SIR GEORGE BROWN.
To our minds the discreditable conduct of Sir George Brown in the business affords ample proof that he was utterly unfit for any post of large responsibility whatever. What he did in re- gard to the Dowie boot he did in regard to many other things, and his rank in our military history is that of a brilliant fighter, but poor general, and a rude, unenlightened, and perverse administrator. If our military institutions have been improved, if the lot of the soldier has been ameliorated since 1852, these things have been done in spite of the strenuous and stiffnecked hostility of the Sir George Browns. ,We might indglge a hope that the race has now died out, 'but it would be delusive. The other day a battalion was inspected, and declared by the highest authority to be all that a battalion should be. Thereupon its com- mander, inflamed by this praise, duly communicated it to the men, and then—ordered them an extra drill per diem ! This is drill-sergeantcy run to seed. The anecdote, truer than most, is a specimen of that zeal without judgment which, when qualified by military bigotry and set in high places, works like poison in the blood, and tends to the destruction of the military system. The best and most enlightened soldiers should be placed at the fountain-head, not the most logton was not a deity. Surely he erred, sometimes, . obstructive and least capable. THERE is—would that we could say there was l—a type of officer common to all armies which the world alternately admires and condemns—the brave martinet. To him the regulations are as a gospel, and you may be sure he will carry them out, but to him also innovation is an offence and im- provement "humbug." He holds that the organization of the army is perfect, he thinks it his duty to obstruct every change, good or bad, unless indeed it be ordered by the supreme military authority, and then, whatever his private opinion may be, he will carry it out because it is ordered. He would lead his company, regiment, or brigade against the infernal legions under Satan himself, and do his uttermost to occupy and hold the gates of hell, if he were ordered. His valour indeed and his obedience are his two good military qualities, and it is the exhibition of these, and all besides that they imply, which wins for him unfeigned admiration. The other side of him is not admirable. If he is a regimental commander he is almost certain to over-drill his men—in fact to forget that they are men, and to think of them as animated machines made to carry firelocks. He will carry out strictly every regulation, and he will resist every proposal or suggestion of improvement. The more power he possesses, the older he grows, the narrower and more rigid his mind becomes, and if he is placed in a position of real authority he is simply an obstruction and, certainly without intending it, an enemy of the public good. Rarely possessed of real military talent in a quantity much beyond the average, he will shine for nothing in action but his brilliant valour ; and indeed how should he, seeing that his mind is hide-bound, dependent, without spontaneity, fenced off rigidly from the influence of ever-changing opinion, impervious to the discoveries of science, hostile to the progress of invention? A man of this stamp, whose mind ceases to expand when his body ceases to grow, can never become a good, much less a great general. He can only command our admiration for his fiery courage or his bull-dog tenacity, and we can only respect him in any way when it is manifest that the man acted fully up to his genuine but narrow-minded idea of duty.
An officer of this stamp, whose name has been for many years before the public, General Sir George Brown, has just died at a good old age, and at the risk of infringing the maxim de inortuis we intend to say our say about him. His early career commands our admiration. Though he was not the highest typo even of a regimental officer, it would be ungrateful to say that he was a bad type. In the stirring times of the Peninsular War none were more forward than George Brown. Never tired, never daunted, prodigal of his blood, like so many other gallant men in the famous Light Division, he served his country with all his heart, with all his mind, and with all his strength: lie made himself known as a man who could be relied on at all times and seasons, and for any service. In those days a man was precious who was steadfast, punctual, obedient—and George Brown was all these. They helped him into notice, but at a critical moment, had not friends found the needful means, he would not have obtained, towards the close of the war, the highest rung of the regimental ladder. Had he lived and died .a regimental officer, or had he risen in due course and late in life to see his name on the list of general officers, perhaps it would have been better for the country, for at the best he was only a superior kind of drill-sergeant, and quite unfit for what he became, first, Deputy-Adjutant-General, then Adju- tant-General, afterwards a divisional commander in the army we sent to the East, and finally, Commander-in-Chief in Ire- land. We shall be told that this is a very ill-natured opinion, very ungracious, very unfair, to a dead man. But let it be understood that we do not blame Sir George Brown for being what he was. It was not for him to refuse these appoint- ments. The censure falls not on him, but on those who from all the officers of the British army picked out a mere lion- hearted martinet to fill these most responsible positions. It may be said, and the retort by some will be considered trium- phant, that the Duke of Wellington brought Sir- George Brown to the fore. Granted, but surely the Duke of Wel- like other folk; and his chief defect was a defect akin to that which grew to perfection in Sir George Brown- e repugnance to change. But the Duke was slow to suggest or adopt improvements, because he feared the Parliament would not sanction the expense required to make our military system efficient. He thought if it were touched it might be lost altogether. Sir George Brown had no such reason. He simply hated change. He argued that what was good enough for men in his young days was good enough for men in his old days, forgetting that if he had not grown the world had. He believed in pipe-clay, he was a fervent adorer of the stiff stock, he seems to have looked upon the razor as a mili- tary weapon. No doubt he was good-natured—when you let him have his own way ; kind—when you did not obstruct him ; obedient—when the Duke was his master. But essen- tially the man was hard, and arrogant, and shallow, and even his obedience was in the nature of fetish-worship, for while he would obey the Duke, whom, it pleased him to think, he imitated, he would not obey civilians, although they were his lawful masters. Thus when Lord Herbert sonic years ago invited officers and others to lecture to the men iii winter time, and an officer in Dublin tendered his services, General Brown admonished the officer that it was his place to confine himself to his duty as commander of his company ! In this matter General Brown went clearly beyond the line of his duty, and we do not hesitate to say that for so doing he ought to have been recalled. But had Lord Herbert recalled him for disobedience, he would have outraged the opinion of all the old officers in the army, and even in these days the Minister for War is not strong enough to go against the opinion of that powerful club. A man like this at the Horse Guards could not fail to be actively obstructive. He was a military bigot. Instead of being keen after improvements he was eager to prevent them, and he showed more skill in defeating a "pestilent civilian innovator" than he did in leading the Light Division at the Alma. Mr. Dowie invented a boot which would enable the soldier to march with ease. During Lord Hill's reign at the Horse Guards there was some chance that Dowie's boot would be adopted. It was manifestly a good boot; the proof of that is to be found in the fact that the very men who would not let the soldier have it, wore it and wear it themselves. When Sir George Brown entered the Horse Guards every chance of the adoption of this boot disappeared. He had made up his mind that a tight pressure on the feet impeding motion was as essential to good soldiering as a tight pressure round the throat and across the chest impeding respiration. The detest- able old ammunition boot was good enough for soldiers, and he resolved that no change should be made. Mr. Dowie, with a tenacity equal to that of Sir George himself, pressed his boot upon the authorities, and a board looked into the matter and reported upon it in terms as favourable to the boot as could be expected. What did Sir George do ? He deliberately perverted the report, set it at naught, persisted in his hostility and his perversions of fact to the last, and died with the consolation of having so managed that, so far as we know to this day, the feet of the British soldier should be thrust into boots that diminish his marching power by 50 per cent. and his hourly comfort by an incalculable sum. If any one wants to know what an obstinate, unenlightened Adjutant-General can do towards crippling the efficiency of the British infantry, let him peruse the Parliamentary papers on this boot question. To our minds the discreditable conduct of Sir George Brown in the business affords ample proof that he was utterly unfit for any post of large responsibility whatever. What he did in re- gard to the Dowie boot he did in regard to many other things, and his rank in our military history is that of a brilliant fighter, but poor general, and a rude, unenlightened, and perverse administrator. If our military institutions have been improved, if the lot of the soldier has been ameliorated since 1852, these things have been done in spite of the strenuous and stiffnecked hostility of the Sir George Browns. ,We might indglge a hope that the race has now died out, 'but it would be delusive. The other day a battalion was inspected, and declared by the highest authority to be all that a battalion should be. Thereupon its com- mander, inflamed by this praise, duly communicated it to the men, and then—ordered them an extra drill per diem ! This is drill-sergeantcy run to seed. The anecdote, truer than most, is a specimen of that zeal without judgment which, when qualified by military bigotry and set in high places, works like poison in the blood, and tends to the destruction of the military system. The best and most enlightened soldiers should be placed at the fountain-head, not the most logton was not a deity. Surely he erred, sometimes, . obstructive and least capable.
Previous page
