THE BRITISH ARMY.

ADAM SMITH, speaking of war, said: As it is certainly the noblest of all arts, so, in the progress of improvement, it necessarily becomes one of the most complicated amongst them.' If this maxim is applicable to armies in general, it seems specially so to that of Great Britain in the present day. The so-called great military nations of Europe apparently feel themselves compelled to maintain vast masses of trained men in readiness for war, offensive or defensive, as the case may be; but their armies are not dispersed in foreign lands, nor are they called upon, as a rule, to undertake distant expeditions. Their arrangements no doubt entail gigantic efforts and great personal sacrifices, but they are not enhanced by abnormal causes; and therefore a system of compulsory short service, with large trained reserves concentrated at home, affords them the means of meeting their essential requirements.

With us, however, the problem is very different, and in some respects far more complicated. Whilst our insular position relieves us from the necessity of maintaining very large forces in this country, still we have to provide means for home defence and be prepared to take a certain part in European contests; and, in addition to these, our foreign and colonial dominions entail upon us responsibilities from which the continental powers are practically free. In fact, the duties of the British army are so arduous, and its services both in peace and war are so constantly required in distant scenes, and under such an infinite variety of circumstances, that to create and maintain an organisation suited to these numerous and abnormal requirements is not only a matter of great intricacy, but one which naturally forms a constant topic of discussion, and indeed of anxiety. And when we consider that within the last few years the conditions on which our soldiers are enlisted have been almost entirely altered, with a view of giving the army an elasticity and a reserve of power which it has long sought for, but has heretofore never realised; when, I say, we consider the great change thus brought about but not yet fully matured, it is not surprising that the circumstances should be carefully weighed, and even earnestly criticised. Those who have taken any part in effecting these recent reforms have no reason to complain of the attention now

paid to the subject, their sole aim having been that the armed force of the nation shall not lag behind in regard to augmented power, but shall be in better condition to meet those varied duties which year by year become more onerous, owing partly to the greater preparations of other powers, and partly to the extension of our dominions in every quarter of the globe.

Before proceeding to describe the present organisation of the British army, which has been so much affected by the introduction of 'short service and reserve' in lieu of the former system of long service with a life pension, it will be well to look back for a few moments at the arrangements which preceded it, and which are still regarded by some as having attained the desired standard of efficiency. In what may now be almost styled the olden time-that is, in the days of Wellington and the Peninsular war-our ranks were filled by men enlisted for unlimited service, who continued to serve until old age, combined with foreign duties or campaigning, had rendered them incapable of further active work. Soldiers in those days remained for many years consecutively abroad, often in unhealthy climates, and a large proportion never returned to their native land; and although we fought and won many a battle under that régime, it was not only a costly but a harsh and an inefficient system,' many of the men being physically unfit for prolonged campaigning. The late Duke of Wellington at all events did not feel able to speak well of the arrangements of those days, or of the condition of the army. Writing in 1829, he said:

In the moments of the greatest distress in the country recruits cannot be obtained for the army. . . It was the object of Mr. Windham's Act to make the army a popular service in England, by making service therein profitable as well as honourable, but his measures totally failed. The man who enlists into the British army is in general the most drunken, and probably the worst man of the trade or profession to which he belongs, or of the village or town in which he lives. There is not one in a hundred of them who, when enlisted, ought not to be put in the second or degraded class of any society or body into which they may be introduced; and they can be brought to be fit for what is to be called the first class only by discipline, and the precept and example of the old soldiers of the company who, if not themselves in the same second or degraded class, deserve to be placed there for some action or other, twenty times in every week.

In 1847 the period of service was shortened to ten years, with the option of re-engagement to twenty-one years and upwards, carrying a pension, and this plan with slight modifications remained in force

As an instance of the excessive cost of those days, it appears that in 1812 the cost per head for recruits was as follows:

until 1870. It is the one under which the older officers of the present day grew up, and to which a large number are much attached. It had the advantage of maintaining a body of soldiers who, for the most part, were in the prime of life, who were well drilled and disciplined, who knew their officers and were known by them, and who, so far as their numbers went, were to be well relied on. It had therefore much to recommend it. But an army so constituted had several drawbacks and one fatal defect; nor was it in reality so efficient a fighting machine as is often assumed. A considerable proportion of the men towards the termination of their service were rather too old for prolonged campaigning, or even for colonial duties in tropical climates. A large number were married, either with or without leave, and their domestic ties were not only a source of trouble and expense to the country, but involved hardships and evils on the wives and children, especially in war. Further, it was not possible under a long service system to remove the objection so justly felt of retaining a large number of men of mature age in a state of celibacy. These may by some be thought minor matters, but in reality they were serious inconveniences and drawbacks, and did much to lower the social condition of the army and to injure its popularity. By the introduction of short service, although the system has not yet reached maturity, the Government have already been enabled to lower the percentage of married men,2 and will probably proceed still further in the same direction. Men who are only called upon to remain for a few years in the ranks will suffer no hardship by not marrying until they pass into the reserve.

Many of the non-commissioned officers under the former system were too old, and their promotion was very slow. No man could hope to become a sergeant until after many years of service, and this had a depressing effect on all ranks. It is no doubt important that a certain proportion of this valuable class of men should be induced to prolong their services in the army beyond the first period of enlistment; and the increased pay and pensions,3 the more rapid promotion from rank to rank, and the opportunities now afforded them not only of obtaining commissions, but of rising to responsible positions in the Commissariat and Store Departments, are all inducements to that end. The non-commissioned officers of the army have always been highly and deservedly esteemed: they are far better educated as a class now than they were in former years; and their comparative youth, and improved prospects of pay and promotion, are highly advantageous both to themselves and to the service.

But whatever may have been the merits or drawbacks of the old

2 See Army Circular, December, 1876, reducing the married men from 7 to 4 per

cent.

3 Ibid. June, 1876.

4 Ibid. February, 1879.

arrangements in minor points, they undeniably suffered under one defect which was always important, and in these days is vital. Efficient or not, the army was absolutely inelastic, and entirely devoid of reserves; and no means therefore existed either of quickly augmenting its numbers, or of replacing the casualties which war, and the diseases and sickness which always accompany war, invariably and rapidly create. The force of 25,000 men which landed in the Crimea in the autumn of 1854 was a fair sample of the British army of those days, and it entered on the campaign full of hope and courage. In less than two months, however, of its landing, it had lost upwards of 5,000 men in action, by death, and wounds, whilst at the same time its ranks were being thinned at an alarming rate from overwork, exposure, bad food, cholera, and other causes. During the two years that the war lasted we buried upwards of 21,000 men. It may perhaps be said that the instance is rather an exceptional one; it certainly was so, in some respects; but after all it was chiefly a siege, and the troops were for the most part stationary and provisioned by the fleet, and exempt therefore from many of the casualties of a rapidly marching campaign. At all events, it affords a striking proof of the condition to which an army may be quickly reduced which takes the field deficient in reserves. Lord Raglan, who, in obedience to the orders of the Home Government, had embarked on the expedition, found himself in the winter of 1854 standing on the bare plateau before Sebastopol, with an army, not only deficient in commissariat, in transport, and in other establishments necessary for the field, but, worse than all, with a force whose ranks were rapidly diminishing in front of the enemy, and yet England had no trained men to send him in his dire necessity.

The Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on 'The State of the Army before Sebastopol' says:

At the date of the expedition to the East, no reserve was provided at home adequate to the undertaking. Mr. Sidney Herbert states in his memorandum of the 27th of November: 'The army in the East has been created by discounting the future; every regiment at home, or within reach, and not forming part of the army, has been robbed to complete it. The depôts of battalions under Lord Raglan have been similarly treated.'

Again :

The men sent out to reinforce the army were recruits who had not yet become fit for foreign service, and the depôts at home were too weak to feed the companies abroad. The order to attack Sebastopol was sent to Lord Raglan on the 29th of June. The formation of a reserve at Malta was not determined upon until early in November. It will be seen, by the correspondence between Lord John Russell and Lord Aberdeen, that Lord Raglan had reported that he wished he had been able to place in the position of Balaclava, on the 26th of October, a more considerable force; and also that, on the 5th of November, the heights of Inkermann were defended by no more than 8,000 British infantry. When the Duke of Newcastle acquainted Lord Raglan that he had 2,000 recruits to send him, he replied that

those last sent were so young and unformed, that they fell victims to disease, and were swept away like flies,-he preferred to wait.

In December the power of reinforcing the army with efficient soldiers was so reduced that the Government thought it necessary to introduce a Foreign Enlistment Bill, for the purpose of raising a foreign legion.

Such are the extremities to which an inelastic army of old soldiers may be quickly reduced by the casualties of war. Its only hope of reinforcements lies in young recruits, hastily collected after the war has begun, and sent out half trained to the scene of action.

Our experience in India, subsequent to the Indian Mutiny, was of much the same character. In the Report on Recruiting, of 1867, the Commissioners speak as follows:

We would wish to call attention to the serious defect at present existing in the extreme youth and short service of the soldiers sent abroad as reliefs.

A return prepared for us, of the ages and periods of service of men sent out as drafts to India during the last two years (between the 1st of January 1864 and the 31st of December 1865), shows that out of a total number of 5,622, no less than 2,093 were under 20 years of age, and 796 between 20 and 21 years. Thus there were more than one-half (2,889) under 21 years of age, and in some regiments the proportion was much greater.

It is perhaps not necessary to enlarge further on the defects of an army devoid of reserves, except to emphasize the fact that our forces under the old system always entered on a campaign with a proportion of men rather too old for arduous service; and that no other means existed of replacing its casualties than hasty recruiting whilst the war went on. The history of every war in which we have been engaged in recent times has told the same story and revealed the same defects.

The subject of reserves had indeed occupied attention for years previously to 1870, but without much result. The Commissioners above referred to, in their report, after referring to the horrors of possible invasion, go on to say :

Under these circumstances we must look more to our army. We think its present strength is barely sufficient for a period of peace, and the question is how can we most readily and speedily increase it through the means of a reserve force, consisting of men who have already received their training in its ranks, but may have fallen back into the ordinary duties and callings of civil life.

We have already stated the fact that the army of reserve force as constituted under the warrant of 1859 has been a complete failure, and the measures which we have proposed to induce more men to re-engage in the regular army will no doubt tend still further to check its increase. Under these circumstances we are not prepared to propose any plan as one that may be relied on to secure a large army of reserve.

Short service seems indeed the only solution of the problem, and is the one adopted in one shape or another by every military nation Report of the Commissioners on Recruiting for the Army. Lord Dalhousie Chairman. 1867.