THE COMING CAMPAIGN.
wHAT are we to expect from the coming Campaign on the welds of the South-West ? The break-down of the larger Berkshire project will be effaced from the memory of all, save partizans, if this experiment in a new line can be made to succeed. The confidence of the public in the War Office and Horse Guards will be increased, or rather general doubts will be lessened, should the new model act tolerably well under the very limited ordeal to which it is to be sub- jected. For although the strain of a peaceful campaign is far less than the strain of actual war, though its exigencies can never be so severe—we do not mean the exigencies of deadly combat, but those arising from rough surprises, sudden marches, rude bivouacs in harsh weather—though the tests applied to any department can never be so complete, yet the nearer the conditions are pushed up towards reality the less imperfect will be the test, and the more closely shall we have gauged the capacity of our military organization. Hitherto we have been content with little. For above a quarter of a century the ruling policy at head-quarters was to keep the Army out of sight. The camp at Chobhana was the first sign that the Horse Guards, or rather the War Office, had broken with the past ; Chobham led to Aldershot—an institution of doubtful value—and Aldershot led to grand reviews, and sham fights were no longer a novelty. Then came "flying columns," and mimic warfare on a very small scale indeed ; and thus by slow degrees, ranging over a period of twenty years, we have reached the threshold of a campaign to be conducted as nearly as pos- sible on the model of actual operations in the presence of an enemy.
The sham fights of the last twenty years have been truly shams, chiefly drills on a considerable scale with blank cartridge ; useful in so far as they enabled officers to handle bodies of all arms, but nothing like what would have happened had two hosts been wrestling for victory. Nor, except to a slight extent, when flying columns were employed, did any of these manceuvres test the strength and weakness of the non- combatant administration. The soldier went from his bed to battle, and from his battle to bed. He marched out of a per- manent homestead, called a camp, to the dusty hills and vales, and marched back to an establishment maintained and fed by routine. Neither the ingenuity of the soldier nor of his purveyors was tried by contact with the unforeseen, so common in war, and the aptitude in dealing with which, on the part of high and low, of combatant and non-combatant, goes so far to make up the excellence and effectiveness of armies. The work of all was, mainly, cut and dried, whereas in war it has to be cut frequently before it can be dried ; and all the com- ponent parts of the great machine called an army, whatever may be the "system," have to live more or less by their wits ; to improvize temporary lodgments, temporary cooking-places, temporary field-works ; to abandon all at an hour's notice and begin the work over again ; while the transport and supply services have to adapt their exertions to military exigencies, and respond promptly and effeotively to every new demand. So far as the purely strategic and tactical movements were concerned, there has been nearly always hitherto the same defect in the practice—the commander knew where to find his enemy, and his enemy knew where to find him ; it was all arranged over the breakfast-table. But in war, of course, you have to find your enemy and lose sight of him at your peril ; you have to feel for him, watch him, and circumvent him, knowing all the time that he is intent on circumventing you ; in short, you have to use your wits in working out a game the elements of winch may be perpetually
new, instead of executing a series of combinations pre-arranged on both sides. It is towards the realization of the actual that our campaigners must approximate, if their labours are to have any value, and the nearer they approximate the severer the test and the greater the usefulness, even if the result be absolute or comparative failure.
Mr. Cardwell has undertaken to prove that he can bring together one of his corps d'arinde, a body of from 30,000 to 34,000 men, composed of three different sets of forces,—Regu- lars, Militia, and Volunteers ; to subdivide this corps into handy little armies, feed and maintain them in the field, while the purely military men manceuvre them one against the other in a defined and restricted area. In executing this design he will work under the most favourable circumstances, for he will have at hand all the resources of Aldershot ; but while this diminishes the test as regards the Control Department, it does not do away with the test altogether. For some reason or other, not perhaps far to seek, the Control Department was unequal to the necessities of a campaign on the Berkshire Downs, and even for a campaign close to the south-western camp has had to borrow horses, carts, and drivers from the Artillery. This, we maintain, is discreditable to the War Office, which should have kept up a transport service equal to the supply, at least, of one of the nine Army corps it is proposed to organize. As it is, the re. sources of the Control Department have been eked out by forced loans from a service already enfeebled by distributions which are practically reductions of the effective force of each battery ; and if the transport and supply of the campaigning army are adequately maintained, they will have been maintained by means illegitimate in themselves, and such as no Minister who knew his business would dream of adopting in actual war. It is the worst economy, in fact not economy, but waste, to enfeeble the Artillery ; for while you can create Infantry soldiers at short notice, you can only obtain good gunners by long and assiduous training. Nevertheless, while we should never forget that part of the transport was borrowed from a combatant arm, yet to all intents and purposes the Artillery horses and waggons will be (le facto portions of the Control establishment during the campaign, and must count as such in estimating the work done. That the mode in which it is done will be narrowly scrutinized is undoubted, for the enemies of the Department abound, and are certain to be loud-tongued enough throughout the next six weeks. Nor will defenders be wanting, so that between the two the impartial on-lookers may obtain grounds for a correct opinion. The most interested person, however, is the responsible Minister, and it should be his first care to have an exact account of the actual work done, the mode in which it was done, the labour and matciriel required to do it, from some trust- worthy and unbiassed quarter. What the partizans may say will have to be taken for what it is worth ; but a Minister should be able to secure a "reporter," if we may use that word, competent to report what he sees and knows with- out fear or favour. Within such limited frontiers as those marked out by the Act of Parliament the commanders of corps should be able to move with rapidity, in absolute reliance on the ability of the Control Department to be always up to time and never in the way, and every failure should be rigorously and truthfully reported to the Minister of War.
But it will be a great mistake if the dead-set which will be made upon the Department of Control should be permitted to obscure the merits or defects of the combatant ranks. Their operations, methods, and discipline should be scanned not less, but more narrowly than those of the other service. Recent wars have not only tried experiments for us, but have set up standards whereby we can, in some sort, measure our own proficiency. Nothing is worse than servile imitation, or less likely to bring about the end in view,—a force as compact as a granite rock and as pliable as a sword-blade. In the small space allotted to the mancouvres there is no scope for strategy on any grand scale, but plenty of room for tactics, and for an ample display of the qualities required in moving troops when separated from each other by a few miles only. Experience shows that even when rival armies are near together it is ex- tremely difficult for one to ascertain, with that precision which is so desirable, what is the real position and aim of the other ; and officers in command of outposts, the outposts themselves, and even the private soldiers, have frequent opportunities of obtaining useful or decisive information. There i need for unceasing watchfulness, for abounding patrols, for cool and just observation, and the prompt forwarding of clear and exact information to head-quarters. The Cavalry will be able to prove that they can perform moderately hard service without causing sore-back, and that they can execute with alertness and intelligence the multifarious tasks which make them far more useful than they are likely to be again on great battle- fields. The Infantry will be tried in marching and prompt manoeuvring and outpost duties ; while the Artillery should have scope for the development of the new methods of attack which the power of the gun has rendered possible. The great thing will be to impress on all concerned, from the com- manders to the privates, the expediency of acting throughout as if their lives and the safety of their country depended on each man. That can only be done by the energy of those upon whom the final responsibility for the operations depends.
And the responsibility is not a light one. For the first time we shall have gathered together, for a period longer than a day, the three forces upon whose combined action, in the event of peril, we have chosen to rest for the defence of this commonwealth. It is to be regretted that while the Regulars and Militia furnish the bulk of the corps, the Volunteers supply only a weak brigade, composed of fragments which will have to be organized in the camp into heterogeneous battalions, diversely clad and unaccustomed to act together. The experiment, so far as they are concerned, will be very imperfect ; and no satisfactory results can be obtained until we have homogeneous battalions engaged in our autumn manoeuvres. Nevertheless, the Minister will obtain some data on which he can form an opinion as to the practicability of welding the three forces into a whole, of making them work together, and of testing the amenability of the men, used to the freedom of civil life, to the restraints of military discipline. For our parts, we hold the present scheme to be an imperfect approximation towards the sort of institution needed for a sound military organization of the United Kingdom ; but at the same time the tentative experiment on which the Govern- ment have entered is one well deserving of trial. The great danger to be guarded against is the attempts that may be made on , either side to extract political capital out of the coming campaign. What we are entitled to look for is a sober, impartial, and, so to speak, national estimate of the results, as they affect the administration, the discipline, and the tactics of the Combined Army. If Mr. Cardwell and the Duke of Cambridge can show the country one corps d'arrnic in effective action, the creation of nine such corps, on a similar basis, will begin to appear feasible in the eyes of a suspicious public. The War Office and the Horse Guards are on their trial.
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