CIVILIANS AND INVASION.

MR. H. G. WELLS'S letter i to the Times and the correspondence that is going on n most of the newspapers on the subject of what action should be taken by civilians in the event of invasion are rightly and properly attracting a great deal of attention. We do not our- selves think that an invasion or raid is in the least more likely to succeed now than at any other time since the beginning of the war, though no doubt it is more likely to be attempted. Nevertheless, we are most strongly of opinion not only that the Government should take all the precautions on land as well as on sea necessary to meet and overcome a landing of hostile troops, but that individual civilians are quite right to concern themselves with the matter and to consider how they could best help. Further, we hold that the Government should take counsel how they can encourage and direct the energies of civilians into useful and helpful channels, and prevent the serious embarrassment that might come from misdirected zeal.

(1) The first thing, the most essential thing, to remember is that the best way to help the nation just now and to protect us from the horrors of invasion is to join the armed forces of the Crown, as a soldier—in other words, to enlist. No man between the ages of nineteen and thirty-eight, or, if already trained, between the ages of nineteen and forty. five, has any right to talk about his willingness to sacrifice everything to defend his country if he is unwilling to enlist. That at the moment is the first duty of the man of military age. We are well aware that there are a considerable number of people who for what seem to them, and indeed often are, good and sufficient reasons feel it their duty not to enlist. That matter must be left to their own consciences. But be that as it may, these persons have no right to clamour that special provision should be made for them to take part in the defence of the country—in other words, special provision of a softer and easier way of doing their duty than that which has already been chosen by a million of their countrymen. Those who are unlucky enough to be so circumstanced as to be unable to enlist must grin and bear it.

(2) For the men of military age, then, the path is perfectly clear. But how about the lads between sixteen and nineteen who are quite capable of carrying a rifle in home defence, and how about the ordinary civilian over thirty-eight, and also how about the men whose health and stature and chest measurement have been declared by the doctors to unfit them for general enlistment, but who yet feel that there is a great deal that they could do in the combatant line within these islands P What is their duty to the State ? How can the Government help them to help the country ? Before we answer this question directly we must lay down three principles which govern the whole subject. (a) Civilians must loyally obey any orders or instructions given to them by the Government if invasion should occur. Till it does occur they are, of course, free men, and may prepare themselves in any way they think fit provided that such action includes every effort to induce men who are of military age and capacity to join the colours at once, and that no efforts of theirs in training themselves are capable of impeding the raising or training of the new Army. For example, they must not, if they want to learn their drill, occupy the time and services of drill instructors required by the War Office to drill and instruct Regular troops. For civilian bodies to bribe or otherwise induce drill instructors to teach them rather than Army recruits would be conduct of the most reprehensible kind. They must, in. the matter of in- struction, be content with men who are not wanted for the troops. Fortunately there is quite a considerable supply of men well fitted to teach the elements of drill to civilians, but who are not up to the standard required by the War Office for instructors. (b) Directly the standard of age or height is altered the men who by this means become of military age and capacity must at once leave the civilian organization and enlist. (c) All civilians not of military age and capacity must remember that no action taken by them in isolation—that is, not in co-opera- tion with others in a definite organization and under definite instructions—will be of the slightest use. T,he man who says that if the Germans come he intends to take down his gun and go out and shoot them when and where he can, rules of war or no rules of war, may be, and very likely is, a brave man, but his contribution to the defence of the realm will literally be nil. To be of use he must act with others under orders, and in a coherent, disciplined, even if un-uniformed body. (3) We now come to the main consideration. What should the men of non-military age do to prepare them- selves for helping their country if the supreme need caused by invasion should arise ? Our answer is exactly the answer we gave in the first fortnight of the war. Let such persons form. themselves into Town Guards and Village Guards, and acquire, when, they can do so without inter- fering with or impeding the training of the Regular recruits, (a) the capacity to shoot straight with a rift e ; (b) the elements of drill and military discipline. In this context we cannot do better than reprint the proposals which the editor of this paper, as Sheriff of Surrey, put forth at a conference of the Rifle Clubs of the county. His suggestion was that, if Town and Village Guards were needed, the country would find in the Rifle Clubs an organization ready to hand. All that would then be necessary would be to add drill to rifle instruction and to welcome into the Rifle Club all persons either too young or too old to join the colours. Here are the suggested steps for forming TOM Guards and Village Guards out of Rifle Clubs :-

(1) Call a Rifle Club General Meeting.

(2) Inform them of proposal.

(8) Form Town or Village Guard.

CONSTITUTION OF GI7A_RD.—All members of Rifle Clubs over 38 years of age to be Members. No men under that age to be taken, except only men who have offered to enlist and been rejected by the Doctor.

OBJECTS AND DUTIES OF TOWN AND VILLAGE GUARDS.

(1) To make arrangements for guarding places in the Town, Village, or Parish, such as Railway Bridges in which the Village is situated, and for assisting the Police and Magistrates, or Mayor and Municipal Authorities, in the maintenance of order, and relieving the Police in case of emergency and sudden calls. The object is not the creation of a permanent or standing force, but purely of one of the emergency order. No one will be called on to neglect his ordinary work or duties except there is peril to the Town or Village.

(2) To use all possible endeavours to induce men of 38 and under to enlist, and to assist men willing to enlist to get their names enrolled. Promises of employment at the end of the war to be obtained. Recruits on the Town or Village list may feel that the Town or Vilhge has a special responsibility in regard to them.

(3) To get in touch with all men in the Town or Village who are eligible for the National Reserve, and to induce them to register their names at once, and to join Class I. or Class II. of the National Reserve.

(4) To support the Sheriff in any way he may order in case he should be obliged to call out the able manhood of the county to assist him in repelling the King's enemies.

ORGANIZATION OF GUARD WHEN FORMED. Steps to be taken.

(1) Choose a Captain of the Town or Village Guard. When elected let him put himself in touch with the nearest Magistrate, and also inform Local Police of his appointment.

(2) Let the Guard be divided into Sections of ten men with a Section Leader in addition, and Subsections of five men each, one of the five to be chosen as Subsection Leader.

(3) During the first two months after formation lot as many as can of the Guard meet each evening. Let them find some one who is competent to instruct in company drill and let him drill the Guard each evening. Let those who own rifles bring them to the place of meeting. Small stocks of ball cartridge should be pro- vided by those individuals who own rifles, but no cartridges should be taken to drills or on duty unless at the special request of the Police.

(4) Captain should get information as to where picks and shovels can be procured in the Village in case of a sudden demand for means to entrench a position. He should also ascertain that the Town or Village Guard men know how to use these implements.

(5) The Captain in consultation with his men should discuss plans for guarding Village and for keeping order should any request come to him to do so. He should provide himself with a good map (scale : 1 inch to a mile). He should keep in touch with the Town or Village Guards bordering him. He should report from time to time to the High Sheriff, or the person who is organizing Town and Village Guards in the County, who will endeavour to inspect the Guards by himself or Deputy.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS.—Men who are already in some other organization like Red Cross on no account to resign from

those bodies in order to take up Guard Duties. This is most important. The Town Guards and Village Guards are super- numerary, and must not be allowed to interfere with existing organizations. Above all, they must consider themselves as under the orders of the Police. If required to do so, they should be sworn in as special constables. In all cases of doubt let Torn or Village Guards look to the Police and Magistrates for instructions. They should consider themselves a kind of voluntary Police.

We are sorry to say that the proposal when made proved premature. Almost all the Rifle Clubs of Surrey repre- sented at the Conference expressed themselves as unwilling or unable to adopt the suggestions given above. There was, however, one notable exception. The Mitcham Rifle Club at once took up the idea, and a Town Guard, amount- ing now to some three or four hundred men, was formed, and has been regularly drilling ever since. Even six weeks ago, when they were inspected by the Sheriff of Surrey, they showed themselves to be by no means ignorant of the elements of drill, and perfectly able to execute in an intelligent way the orders of their officers. Since then the Guard have still further improved in drill and marks- manship, acquired at the miniature range of the Mitcham Rifle Club, which is the base of the organization. The Captain of the Mitcham Guard (Captain Williams Till), who has proved to possess signal powers of organization, is an ex-Captain of that highly trained semi-military body, the Cape Mounted Police. We say without hesita- tion that if every town and urban district and village in England had a Guard formed on the lines of the Mitcham Town Guard, something would have been accomplished that might prove most valuable in the event of invasion.

We shall no doubt be asked by many military critics whether we really believe that these Village and Town Guards, composed of boys under nineteen and middle-aged men from thirty-eight to sixty-five, would be of any sort of use from the military point of view. Our answer is, in the first place, that men who have learned the use of the rifle, and still more have learned how to act together under orders, cannot be regarded as less worth having than citizens who cannot shoot and cannot drill, and have no sort of organization and no leaders. They would not, of course, be of any use to pit against the best German troops, or to carry trenches held even by the latest levies from the Landsturm. To put them at the lowest, however, they would be of very great use in steadying the civil population, and, if they got intelligible orders, in helping the military authorities in preparing what we may call "emergency positions" with the spade. By this we do not mean constructing great entrenchments, which are more in the nature of temporary fortifications, but helping to throw up field works, obstructing roads, or, again, clearing away obstructions made in the roads by the enemy. It would be one thing for the military authorities vaguely to tell people of a village that they had got to fell the trees in a particular road or ravine and obstruct the German advance, and quite another to tell the leader of a coherent body of three hundred to four hundred. Town Guards to take his men and use them to do a particular piece of work with the hatchet or the spade. Such work would be done far better and far more quickly by a Town Guard or Village Guard than by a leaderless mob.

But we will go further than this, and say that in many cases—that is, in cases where the Town Guard or Village Guard had thrown up a leader or leaders of courage and capacity—it is conceivable that the Guard, if they were armed with rifles, might do a certain amount of combatant work in delaying an enemy's advance. Now comes a very crucial matter. We not only think it might be quite worth while to form Town Guards and Village Guards under proper orders and discipline of the kind we have suggested, but we think it would also be worth the Government's while to give such persons rifles and ammunition, provided—a very big proviso, we admit —that the Government had the rifles and ammunition to spare, i.e., had not other and more advantageous means of using them. When we speak like this we must not be supposed to be suggesting that the Government are short of rifles. Their difficulties in this respect have, we know, been surmounted, and they are now well supplied. Still, no Government has an unlimited supply of material, and the military authorities must be left to decide the best way in which to make use of their rifles and cartridges. It would be madness for civilians to make such a clamour to be armed that the properly organized military units should go short or be in danger of going short.

That Town Guards and Village Guards could provide themselves with rifles at a moment like this is most unlikely. We doubt whether there are more than ten to twelve thousand private rifles, if that, in the country. As to shot guns, we doubt their being of any use.

Though we express a doubt whether the Government would be in a position to deal out rifles to Town Guards and Village Guards—they very likely might require a million of them—that, in our opinion, is no reason whatever against the formation of those bodies on the lines we have suggested. They would, as we have said, steady the civil population, and their organi7ation would, we believe, prove most useful to the authorities, civil and military, in case of invasion. If the military authorities knew that in every town and every village they went into there was always to be found a coherent body of men under recognized leaders, capable of doing appropriate work, and, at any rate, always capable of keeping order, they would feel a sense of relief. If the authorities are sceptical now as to the advisibility of supplying arms, it might well be that the men who formed the Guards would in many cases show such a record of trustworthiness that the Government might at the last moment be inclined to issue rifles and cartridges to them, as well as that distinguishing mark which would give them the full rights of combatants under the Hague Convention. We believe that in many- cases soldiers who are now sceptical might, after a couple of months, say that this or that Town Guard was really quite worth arming as likely to do useful, if subordinate, work.

Again, and this is perhaps the most important point of all, if the supreme appeal had to be made to the nation, and men of any age capable of shouldering a. rifle were asked to join the Regular ranks, the man who had learned rifle shooting and the elements of drill in a Town Guard or Village Guard would make a far better recruit than the man who had never been in such an organization. Imagine if a. million men of non-military age were at once to form Town Guards and Village Guards throughout the country and to drill and practise with the rifle. We are quite certain that in two months' time, or even in a month, out of that million, ten per cent.—that is, a hundred thousand very useful men—might be selected to pass into the Regular Army, and to pass, not as raw recruits, but as half-cooked recruits, men who would be fit to replenish the firing line in a great emergency.