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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  SOUL    AND    BODY    OF    AN   ARMY 


BY  GENERAL 

SIR    IAN    HAMILTON,    G.C.B. 

Author  of 

"  A  Staff-Officer's  Scrap  Book," 
"  Gallipoli  Diary,"  etc. 


LONDON 

EDWARD   ARNOLD  &  CO. 
1921 

[AU  rights  rtserved] 


College 
Library 

u 


Hi  755 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I  STRANGERS  YET  ! 1 

II  KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARMIES 18 

HI  HIGHER  ORGANISATION 24 

IV  ORGANISATION  GENERALLY           ....  52 

V  MILITARY  ORGANISATION 67 

VI  DISCIPLINE 91 

VII  TRAINING 146 

VIII  NUMBERS 177 

IX  GENIUS 187 

X  PATRIOTISM 206 

XI  APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION       .         .  226 

XII  APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  THE  TROOPS   .  259 

XHI  APPLICATION  OF  DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM  291 


vii 

1141500 


CHAPTER  I 
STRANGERS  YET! 

The  Romans  knew  what  they  wanted  when  they 
set  about  making  an  Army.  The  very  name  they 
gave  to  the  weapon  to  be  handed  to  a  Consul  or 
pro-Consul  embodied  a  clear-cut  idea.  "  So  sensible 
were  the  Romans  of  the  imperfections  of  valour 
without  skill  and  practice  that,  in  their  language, 
the  name  of  an  Army  was  borrowed  from  the  word 
which  signified  exercise."1  Exercitus  was  the  Roman 
notion  of  an  Army — a  body  trained  to  do  in  peace 
what  they  would  have  to  do  in  war.  ST/HXTO?  is 
the  word  the  Greeks  employed  to  convey  their 
notion.  Not  with  them  a  nation  determined  to 
win  as  a  result  of  sheer,  straightforward  work, 
but  a  confederacy  trusting  to  art,  to  generalship, 
to  inspiration,  expecting  victory  to  crown  the  more 
brilliantly  led.  The  quick-witted  Greeks  relied  upon 
that  reflection  cast  by  Divinity  upon  the  sensitive 
soul,  that  flash  of  light  we  call  Genius  ;  the  matter- 
of-fact  Romans  upon  putting  their  backs  into  the 
business.  Or,  to  put  it  more  technically,  the 
Greek  spirit  led  its  leaders  to  study  strategy,  the 
art  of  manoeuvring  into  some  position  from  which 
the  greatest  possible  results  would  follow  upon 
victory  ;  whereas,  the  Romans  aimed  at  the  victory 
itself  and  concentrated  rather  upon  tactics. 

1  Gibbon. 

1  B 


2    THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Some  day  the  historian  may  endeavour  to  recon- 
struct our  dead  Empire  (as  the  antediluvian  may  be 
built  again  from  one  bone)  by  following  Gibbon's 
example  and  cogitating  upon  that  little  word 
"  Army."  Did  those  master-builders  of  empire, 
the  British,  he  may  ask,  look  to  skill  or  work, 
numbers  or  quality,  free  service  or  forced  service, 
when  they  fashioned  their  imperial  instrument, 
the  military  forces  of  the  Crown  ?  Were  they  so 
far-sighted  that  their  famous  legionaries  were  always 
just  half  a  lap  in  advance  of  the  times  ?  What 
was  actually  the  yolk  whose  eggshell  was  formed 
by  those  four  primitive  signs  ARMY? 

Heaven  knows  into  what  patterns  our  slant- 
eyed  historian  that  is  to  be  will  weave  his  fancies 
over  our  graves,  but  the  truth  is  that  before  '14  the 
people  of  these  islands  knew  nothing  about  their 
Army.  They  never  got  a  chance.  Their  school 
syllabus  was  as  silent  upon  the  subject  of  soldiering 
as  if  some  indelicate  secret  rendered  an  Army 
unfit  for  children's  ears.  The  censorship  laid  upon 
experts  was,  and  remains,  more  severe  than  in  any 
other  Army  in  the  world  ;  stricter  than  even  in  the 
Japanese  Army.  There  could  hardly  be  a  better 
proof  of  lack  of  interest.  The  freest  people  and 
Press  in  the  world  are  the  most  hoodwinked  by 
military  regulations  for  secrecy  made  in  their  own 
War  Office  !  If  the  public  had  been  keen  about 
their  Army  they  would  never  for  a  moment  have 
stood  orders  framed  to  shield  the  War  Office  from 
independent  criticism.  In  those  half-dozen  years 
before  the  war,  at  any  rate,  much  greater  freedom 
of  discussion  existed  in  the  stiffly- disciplined  German 
ranks  than  in  our  otherwise  easy-going  Service.  As 


STRANGERS  YET!  3 

the  Bavarian  Press  sarcastically  remarked  on  the 
occasion  of  the  issue  of  our  amended  muzzling  regu- 
lations in  1908,  "the  British  public  are  evidently 
so  well  educated  hi  military  matters  that  they  do 
not  mind  gagging  their  instructors." 

In  the  nineteenth  century  the  people  were  not 
all-powerful,  so  they  were  allowed  to  hear  and  see. 
By  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  however, 
it  was  clear  that  Demos  was  out  to  rule  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  name.  He  could  only  be  dodged  by  the 
politicians  as  the  man  with  the  handkerchief  over 
his  eyes  is  dodged  during  the  game  of  blind  man's 
buff.  So  it  came  about  that  anti-Press,  anti- 
publicity,  Official  Secrets  Acts  have  kept  step  with 
loud  professions  of  belief  in  open  diplomacy  and  the 
wisdom  of  the  sovereign  people.  Contrast  the 
regulations  which  were  thought  good  enough  when 
the  people  had  not  much  power,  with  the  regulations 
framed  against  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  people, 
i.e.  their  Press,  when  their  will  was  apparently 
law.  In  a  word — our  regulations  governing  the 
publication  by  soldiers  of  their  views  on  military 
matters  (Appendices  I  and  II)  are  veritable  Lettres 
de  Cachet,  consigning  the  intellects  of  our  Democracy 
to  the  Bastille  of  ignorance. 

Yet,  surely,  if  the  watchdogs  already  began  to 
wear  muzzles  in  those  days  before  the  war,  there 
was  still  the  common  sense  of  the  nation  ?  They 
saw  their  Army  daily.  They  were  hi  personal  touch 
with  the  officers  or  the  rank  and  file,  each  in  his 
own  grade.  In  the  great  towns  of  the  Midlands 
and  of  the  North,  towns  which  supplied  the  Army 
with  its  recruits,  the  drab  streams  of  humanity 
flowing  up  and  down  the  pavements  on  a  winter's 


4    THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

night  would  be  brightened  here  and  there  by  a 
bit  of  "England's  bloody  red"  lending  colour  to 
the  life  of  a  mill-girl ;  by  the  band  of  the  regiment, 
the  glitter  of  the  bayonets;  by  the  Army  making 
itself  at  home. 

What  an  idea !  Our  famous  regiments  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  people,  and  so,  in  the  loneliest 
tracts  hi  the  kingdom,  at  the  Curragh  of  Kildare 
and  on  Salisbury  Plain,  hideous  barracks  were 
built  at  vast  expense  to  make  the  lives  of  the  men 
dull  as  ditch-water,  and  to  encourage  enlistment  by 
keeping  the  people  at  arm's  length  from  their  Army 
until  they  really  half  forgot  that  it  existed. 

These  would  be  some  of  the  facts  which  a  yellow 
historian  might  strike  upon  when  he  was  preparing 
for  his  digest  of  the  pre-war  British  and  their  method 
of  maintaining  a  vaster  system  of  voluntary  service 
than  that  of  Imperial  Rome.  At  first  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  method,  nothing  but  madness ;  but, 
as  he  went  on,  he  might  discover  a  little  bit  of 
statecraft  half  hid  under  this  semblance  of  insanity. 

The  British  Empire  has  been  raised  to  its  present 
dizzy  height  by  the  profound  imaginings  of  a  mere 
handful  of  great  men.  Consider  the  slowly- acquired 
scientifically- dispersed  chain  of  fortresses  binding 
Hong-Kong  to  London  and  holding  back  Asia  from 
the  Antipodes.  Give  Napoleon  or  Von  Moltke  a 
clean  map  of  the  world,  a  free  hand,  and  a  year  to 
think  matters  over,  and  they  could  not  improve 
upon  what  a  lot  of  rather  heavy  Britishers  have 
.Appeared  to  do  by  chance. 

Cardwell  was  one  of  the  great  men ;    or,  if  not, 

I     at   least   he   was   greatly   advised.     Consider   that 

exquisitely  cunning  device,  that  system  of  his,  which 


STRANGERS  YET  I  6 

guarantees  the  sovereign  sheep  against  their  own 
sheepishness ;  which  silences  their  baas  and  bleats 
whenever  and  wherever  they  endeavour  to  increase 
the  pennies  in  their  purses  (and  thereby  the  tempta- 
tions to  robbers)  at  the  expense  of  the  numbers  of 
their  watchdogs.  When  Cardwell  came  in  he  found 
a  system  of  overseas  armies  of  occupation  built 
on  the  classic  model  of  the  old  Roman  frontier 
garrisons  except  that  our  regiments  had  not  been, 
since  the  Indian  Mutiny,  permanently  localised 
like  the  Legions.  The  weakest  point  of  the  Roman 
model  was  that  if  one  of  the  frontiers  was  hard 
pressed  it  could  only  be  reinforced  by  withdrawing 
troops  from  another  point  on  the  circumference. 
Cardwell  determined  to  provide  a  central,  home- 
service  reserve,  and  he  did  it  this  way  :  the  foreign 
service  units  were  duplicated  at  home,  and  these 
home  battalions  could  be  quite  truthfully  described 
by  Cardwell  to  his  pacifist,  liberal  colleagues  and 
constituents,  as  being  nothing  more  formidable  or 
militaristic  than  the  necessary  recruits  who  were 
being  trained  to  keep  the  overseas  garrisons  up  to 
strength.  But  they  were  so  well  trained  (not  in 
depots,  as  formerly,  but  in  skeleton  battalions) 
that  when,  on  mobilisation  being  ordered,  their 
cadres  were  filled  up  by  the  reservists,  these  modest 
units  became  Contemptibles — best  soldiers  in  the 
world  bar  none.  To  get  the  reservists  short  service 
had  to  be  brought  in,  and  to  get  the  duplication  of 
units  battalions  had  to  be  linked,  and  the  old,  famous 
numbers  had  to  be  scrapped.  The  present  generation 
could  never  have  been  brought  to  imagine  the 
savage  outburst  of  rage  with  which  these  two  pre- 
cious gifts  of  Cardwell's  were  received  by  the  Tories, 


6    THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  Military  Clubs  and  the  regimental  officers, 
had  they  not  themselves  witnessed  an  even  greater 
stroke  of  military  policy  than  CardwelTs,  followed 
by  an  even  fiercer  outburst  of  wrath.  If  Cardwell 
was  the  Castor  of  our  military  firmament,  Haldane 
was  its  Pollux.  How  splendidly  did  he  shine  out 
during  those  dark  nights  when  we  might  all  of  us 
"  sleep  in  our  beds  "  -and  a  long  last  sleep  it  would 
have  been  had  Haldane  really  believed  in  soporifics- 
Cardwell  had  left  the  Army  in  the  following 
state : 

(1)  Bare  minimum  garrisons  for  India  and  the 
overseas  territories  and  fortresses  ; 

(2)  Reserves  for  these  foreign  service  troops  which, 
by   his   clever   organising   skill,    were    represented 
to    the   taxpayer   as   being  mere  depots,    whereas 
they    were    really     duplicate     training    battalions 
capable  of  quickly  taking  the  field  as  fighting  units  ; 

(3)  A  disorganised  mass  of  militia,  yeomanry  and 
volunteers,  supposed  to  be  adjuncts  to  the  martello 
towers  of  the  South  Coast,  as  defenders  of  our  hearths 
and  homes. 

Came  Haldane  the  Organiser,  and  cut,  pruned, 
shuffled,  grafted,  drafted  until  he  had  grouped  (2) 
into  an  Expeditionary  Force  of  six  Divisions  whilst 
making  (3)  partly  into  a  special  reserve  for  that 
Expeditionary  Force  and  partly  into  fourteen  fight- 
ing divisions,  complete  with  engineers,  artillery, 
cavalry,  transport,  supply  and  medical  services. 
When  I  look  back  on  this  period  and  think  of  the 
jungle  filled  with  hissing  adders  which  Haldane 
broke  up  into  a  symmetrical  and  delectable  garden, 
I  do  really  feel  uplifted  to  think  I  was  privileged 
to  watch  his  address,  his  artistry,  his  perseverance, 


STRANGERS  YET!  7 

and  even  to  lend  at  times  a  hand.  The  war  was 
won  when  Haldane  stepped  into  the  War  Office : 
most  miserably  must  we  have  lost  it  had  he  failed 
us.  To  say  this  is  common  justice — no  more.  We 
abound  in  Ministers  who  can  spend  more  and  produce 
less :  Haldane  spent  less  and  less,  yet  quadrupled 
the  value  of  the  outfit !  Be  it  carefully  borne  in 
mind,  these  skeleton  battalions  and  batteries  of 
recruits  which  formed  Haldane' s  skeleton  divisions 
were  so  modestly  tucked  away  into  holes  and  corners 
of  the  country  that  it  was  impossible  for  the  average 
citizen  to  work  up  much  interest  in  their  existence 
or  to  imagine  that  they  could  possibly  play  a  part 
amidst  the  enormous  conscript  Armies  of  the  Conti- 
nent. Democracy  is  inclined  by  nature  to  believe 
in  quantity  rather  than  quality  ;  before  the  war 
they  were  indeed  provokingly  humble-minded  about 
the  fighting  value  of  their  own  troops,  which  were 
probably — I  say  probably — the  best  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  The  nation  forgot  them,  clean  forgot 
them,  and  what  martial  enthusiasm  the  people 
possessed,  and  what  spare  cash  also,  was  preserved 
in  loving  and  undisputed  allegiance  to  the  spear- 
head of  their  attack  and  their  last  ditch's  defence 
—the  navy  ;  to  the  bluejackets  who  were,  in  the 
public  eye,  propagating  good  opinions  as  well  as 
young  ideas  in  every  port  in  the  Empire. 

We  see,  then,  that  it  was  not  so  easy  for  the 
citizen  to  get  into  touch  with  his  Army,  and  we  see, 
further,  it  was  as  well  he  did  not  do  so,  as  it  might 
have  weaned  him  prematurely  from  his  mother, 
the  Navy.  Since  then,  it  may  be  said,  all  has 
changed,  for  the  nation  itself  has  been  run  through 
the  mill  of  the  Great  War,  and  what  it  does  not  know 


I 


8         THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

about  its  Army  cannot  be  worth  knowing  !  If  that 
is  being  said-  and  I  have  heard  something  like  it- 
nothing  could  be  more  wide  of  the  mark.  Quite 
true,  after  four  and  a  half  years  of  war,  our  people 
recognize  differences  between  an  Army  Corps  and 
the  Army  Service  Corps.  The  girls  have  worn  khaki 
and  served  overseas  ;  they  can  spot  a  V.C. — likewise 
an  O.B.E.  But  those  who  have  listened  to  conver- 
sations innumerable  may  agree  perhaps  with  me 
that  as  soon  as  ex-Service  men  and  women  get 
outside  their  own  little  circles  they  are  lost :  they 
have  seen  nothing,  heard  nothing,  know  nothing  of 
the  working  of  the  enormous  piece  of  machinery  of 
which  they  had  formed  part.  They  think  they 
know  everything  because  they  have  felt  certain 
cogs  catch  and  play  upon  other  cogs  ;  the  relations 
of  a  Government  to  its  Army  they  really  realise 
no  more  than  a  fly  on  a  coach  wheel  realises  the 
relations  between  the  driver  and  his  horse.  The 
strongest  contrast  to  this  conceited  ignorance  is 
found  in  the  humble  pose  taken  towards  the  Navy. 
Politicians,  whether  of  the  House  of  Commons  or 
house  of  bitters  variety,  though  they  may  gaily 
start  off  armies  to  march  without  transport  into 
the  Balkans,  would  think  twice  or  three  times  before 
they  took  liberties  with  an  ironclad.  As  to  women, 
their  experiences  on  steamers  bound  for  Margate 
incline  them  to  extreme  reticence  on  saltwater 
topics.  So  the  Scapa  Flow  mists  hang  impenetrable 
around  our  brave  sailors  and,  in  some  ways,  the 
Senior  Service  scores.  The  Admiralty  is  the  only 
surviving  department  of  Government  which  still 

dares  tell  a  newspaper  combine  to  go  to  h .     I 

dare  not  myself  write  down  that  wicked  word  in 


STRANGERS  YET!  9 

the  same  sentence  with  a  highly  respected,  indeed 
almost  sacred,  body — and  what's  more,  I  won't. 
The  War  Office  has  to  surrender  at  discretion,  for 
the  Army  has  become  a  plaything  to  P.M.'s,  M.P.'s 
and  P.O.,  by  which  I  mean  Public  Opinion.  Soldier- 
ing seems  familiar  :  sailoring  is  an  occult  science. 
But  the  truth  is  rarely  what  it  seems.  Just  as 
civilians  are  apt  to  know  less  about  the  Army  than 
they  think  they  do,  so  they  probably  know  more 
about  the  Navy  than  they  think  they  do,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  Navy  is  much  more  simple 
than  the  Army.  Any  Admiralty  clerk  can  order 
so  many  weeks'  supply  of  munitions,  petrol,  food, 
drink,  to  be  shoved  on  board  a  battleship,  and  there 
she  is  ready,  in  the  material  sense,  for  anything  ! 
No  line  of  communications,  no  transport  question, 
no  worry  about  water,  weather,  or  bread  and  butter. 
The  ship  carries  everything  in  her  belly,  including 
most  of  the  anxieties  and  conundrums  which  break 
the  heart  of  a  longshore  fighter. 

Quite  plainly,  I  do  not  think  the  average  voter 
of  Great  Britain  has  grasped  the  significance  of  an 
Army,  and  I  feel  that  the  half  knowledge  he  has 
gathered  from  his  own  experiences  during  the  war 
may  tend  to  become  more  dangerous  than  the 
pre-war  no  knowledge,  which  still  holds  good  as 
regards  the  Navy.  Otherwise,  it  would  be  impossible 
that  in  Midsummer,  1921,  our  organisation  should 
remain  essentially  what  it  was  in  Midsummer,  1914, 
although  meanwhile  the  factors  to  be  encountered 
by  that  organisation  no  longer  exist.  There  is  no 
balance  of  power  in  Europe  ;  there  is  no  question 
of  an  invasion  of  these  islands  ;  the  whole  problem 
is  entirely  and  utterly  changed  since  Haldane 


10   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

created  the  Expeditionary  Force,  the  special  reserve 
battalions  and  the  fourteen  Territorial  Divisions. 
Weapons,  too,  are  on  the  move,  and  yet  we  are  resting 
on  our  oars ;  seem  to  think  that  because  there  are 
difficulties  in  the  way,  because  Ireland,  Mesopota- 
mia and  Germany  have  put  too  great  a  strain  on 
our  troops  to  enable  us  to  work  experimental  Bri- 
gades, that,  therefore,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done. 
There  is  everything  to  be  done,  yet  the  only  original 
step  we  have  taken  is  to  stick  a  compulsory  service 
clause  into  the  Territorial  agreement — like  a  sting 
in  the  business  end  of  a  scorpion. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that,  under  existing  regulations, 
no  serving  soldier  can  tell  his  fellow-countrymen 
anything  about  an  Army  which  is  not,  (1)  quite 
commonplace ;  (2)  an  expression  of  the  views  of 
the  Authorities  of  the  moment.  If  he  is  very  senior, 
and  feels  he  has  friends  at  Court,  he  may,  of  course, 
break  the  rules  and  take  the  risk  :  but  his  example 
is  very  bad  for  discipline.  If,  again,  he  is  a  brilliant 
junior,  he  may  break  the  rules  by  stealth  and  put 
forth  his  views  anonymously  ;  but  our  best  officers 
would  not  break  the  rules  by  stealth,  and  the  residue 
who  might  do  so  would  find  that  a  nameless  article 
would  pan  out  like  a  brushless  fox — not  worth 
following.  I  began  this  paragraph  by  saying  "  the 
worst  of  it  is,"  but  there  is  a  worser.  The  "  Authori- 
ties of  the  moment "  are  the  P.M.,  the  S.  of  S.  for 
War,  and  the  C.I.G.S.,  of  whom  the  last,  the  Chief 
of  the  Imperial  General  Staff,  is  the  actual,  vigilant, 
responsible  custodian  of  the  gates  that  lead  from 
the  Army  to  the  public.  Is  it  not  putting  almost 
too  great  a  strain  upon  a  great  and  overworked 
man  to  ask  him  to  decide  yes  or  no  about  a  book 


STRANGERS  YET!  11 

which  might  select  him  to  be  the  paladin  of  its 
romance  ?  Suppose,  further,  it  should  so  have 
chanced  that,  in  the  very  same  volume,  several  of 
his  rivals  and  enemies  have  been  severely  trounced, 
— his  better  nature — his  chivalry — must  rise  up  in 
arms  against  the  idea  of  passing  so  invidious  a 
work — and  yet — the  book  might  be  well  worth 
publishing  !  I  have  said  there  was  a  worser,  but 
worser  may  be  followed  by  "  and  worser."  How 
if  an  Artful  Dodger  had  determined  at  all  costs  to 
slip  through  the  Customs  with  his  State  monopoly 
contraband,  and  had  prepared  to  that  very  end  a 
honey  cake  for  Cerberus  at  the  gate — prepared  it 
so  artfully  that  poor  Cerberus  never  got  farther 
than  the  honey,  but,  overcome  by  a  mellifluous 
drowse,  let  all  the  rest  of  the  gall  and  vinegar  go 
past  ?  This  would  be  bad — bad  for  Cerberus, 
bad  in  the  long  run  for  the  regulation  dodger, 
bad,  most  of  all,  for  the  public. 

These  regulations  were  intended  to  prevent  the 
public  from  hearing  anything  but  the  War  Office 
side  of  the  story.  Sweep  away  the  whole  of  these 
prussic  acid  gags  ;  permit  officers  to  use  their  own 
judgment  and  to  shoulder  a  reasonable  responsibility 
like  other  grown-up  human  beings  ;  let  them  write 
to  the  Press,  or  publish  books,  provided  they  put 
their  names  to  them.  If  they  show  independence 
of  mind  in  approaching  a  military  question  their 
brother  officers  will  make  them  suffer,  for  that  is 
the  way  of  the  herd,  and  there's  no  getting  away 
from  it.  But  Authority  must  indeed  be  in  a  bad 
way  if  it  cannot  stand  the  racket  of  a  difference  of 
opinion  with  a  subaltern.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  officer  reveals  what  isn't  his'n  (i.e.  State  secrets) 


i 

! 


12   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

he  goes  to  prison.  If  he  permits  himself  to  be 
cheeky  or  offensive,  and  says  things  which  are  sub- 
versive of  discipline,  he  can  be  tried  by  court  martial. 
I  submit  that  here  is  the  only  way  for  a  free  demo- 
cratic nation  to  make  a  clean  wipe  out  of  a  bad 
blot  which  has  fallen  on  our  military  regulations 
quite  lately  from  the  pen  of  Autocracy.  For  the 
times  are  anxious  ;  the  electors  ought  to  be  taught ; 
they  should  be  told  at  least  nine-tenths  of  the  con- 
tents of  drawers  marked  "  secret  "  and  guarded  by 
bureaucrats  whose  mothers  don't  trust  them  yet 
with  latchkeys. 

What  has  just  been  written  sounds  like  a  foreword 
to  some  sensational  disclosures  or  the  opening  up 
of  wildly  subversive  doctrines.  Nothing  of  the  sort. 
I  am  very  sorry.  This  book  is  only  an  effort  to 
convey  my  experiences  of  the  "  points  "  of  a  dark 
horse  to  his  owners — the  public.  Trainers  and 
jockeys  dislike  a  "  knowing  "  owner ;  the  British 
Government  and  its  bureaucrats,  whether  they 
wear  spurs  or  stove-pipe  hats,  dislike  a  "  knowing  " 
B.P.,  and  that  is  why  these  Press  and  Publicity 
Acts  have  been  framed.  Being  late  converts  to  the 
Continental  closure  systems,  as  usual,  we  have  gone 
farther  than  our  originals,  the  Prussians.  In  Prus- 
sia every  word  written  here  might  have  been  pub- 
lished as  a  matter  of  course  by  any  young  officer 
on  full  pay.  Here,  in  pre-war  England,  he  could 
not  have  got  it  past  the  General  Staff — not  if  he 
had  dedicated  the  work  to  Lord  French  himself— 
because  of  its  reflections  (blasphemies  they  would 
have  been  considered)  on  Cavalry.  To-day,  post- 
war, there  would  have  been  an  equal  chance — i.e. 
no  chance — of  a  permit  to  publish  because  of  the 


STRANGERS  YET!  13 

reflections  (blasphemies  they  are  called)  about 
Compulsory  Service.  Now  at  last  I  am  free  and, 
D.V.,  I  am  going  to  write  freely,  were  it  only  because 
an  insider  of  fifty  years'  standing  who  has  reached 
the  outsider  stage  without  leaving  his  senses  behind 
him  owes  that  last  duty  to  the  State.  Did  I  know 
of  any  treatise  on  the  "  being  "  of  an  Army,  I  could 
take  cover  from  the  gadfly  that  stings  sluggards 
into  effort.  But  I  do  not.  There  are  thousands 
of  books  on  war,  on  strategy,  on  tactics,  on  battles  : 
— there  are  drill-books,  field-service  regulations, 
and  King's  regulations,  but  these  are  kites  of 
another  colour. 

Perhaps  the  image  I  hold  in  the  camera  of  my 
skull  cannot  be  developed  in  the  open  ?  Perhaps 
it  has  become  too  complicated  ?  A  versailled 
Europe  is  one  vast  camp.  Babylon,  Assyria,  Greece 
and  Rome  enjoyed  no  like  spectacle.  Even  the 
men  of  the  Middle  Ages  who  were  indentured  under 
the  feudal  system  to  turn  themselves  into  Armies 
on  the  nod  would  be  astonished  could  they  see  a 
British  Army  of  the  Rhine,  a  French  Army  of 
Silesia,  a  Belgian  Army,  an  Italian  Army,  a  Greek 
Army,  Poland  an  Army,  Russia  an  Army,  and, 
as  if  this  were  not  enough,  an  Army  of  Africans 
"  laming  "  the  Germans  to  make  bricks. 

Why  this  beautiful  peace  treaty  should  need  so 
many  Armies  and  warships  to  keep  it  going  is  not 
my  present  concern.  But  the  Armies  themselves 
are  a  study,  although,  just  now,  they  are  only  doing 
police  work  for  war  profiteers.  I  am  sure  that  if 
a  philosopher  wants  to  study  his  own  or  any  other 
nation  his  best  way  is  to  go  on  foreign  service  with 
its  Army.  I  do  know  this,  because  I  am  able  to 


14         THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

see  the  pitfalls  into  which  ladies  and  gentlemen 
have  fallen  when  they  have  attempted  to  distil 
the  genuine  Japanese  spirit  from  a  jumble  of  books, 
geishas,  elder  statesmen,  merchants,  peasants,  or 
the  cosmopolitan  society  of  Tokio.  So  the  people 
of  the  U.S.A.  still  keep  buying^  Staff -Officer's  Scrap- 
Book  after  fifteen  years,  because  their  instinct 
(aroused  by  danger)  enables  them  to  understand 
that  live  Japs  walk  through  its  pages :  and  why 
live  ?  Because  they  are  microcosms  of  an  Army 
in  the  field,  and  an  Army  is  always  super-national. 

The  Armies  thus  differ  more  typically  than  their 
nation,  but  where  an  Army  is  based  upon  voluntary 
service  it  may  be  conceded  that  it  represents  that 
part  of  the  nation  which  has  responded  to  a  high 
appeal,  and  in  so  responding  has  left  the  residue 
below  par.  Our  British  Army  was  the  pick  of  the 
nation  (speaking  broadly),  and  the  balance  (still 
speaking  broadly)  consisted  of  its  leavings.  The 
whole  of  the  young  virility  of  town  and  country-side 
flows  into  the  ranks,  and  so,  in  war,  an  Army  becomes 
dominant  to  the  civilian  crowd  left  at  home,  who 
are,  in  Mendelian  phrase,  recessive.  The  impact  of 
the  opinion  of  a  victoriously  returning  Army  upon 
the  people  who  had  remained  behind  should  produce 
the  same  result  as  the  impact  of  a  black  bull  upon 
a  red  heifer :  i.e.  the  black  or  dominant  colour 
should  appear  in  the  calf,  or  post-war  policy,  although 
that  calf  may  carry  in  it  the  factors,  the  germs, 
the  potentialities,  of  reasserting  in  time  to  come  a 
recessive  character  or  colour. 

This  is  the  natural  course  of  events,  but  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  has  thwarted  Nature,  and  now  she,  outraged, 
is  taking  her  revenge.  With  us  the  dominant 


STRANGERS  YET!  15 

opinion  of  the  Army  has  never  been  allowed  its 
impact  upon  the  recessive  stay-at-homes.  The  calf 
of  my  fable,  therefore,  the  post-war  policy,  has  been 
a  miserable  little  beast. 

Through  fear  of  the  Army,  a  fear  born  of  ignor- 
ance, the  more  generous,  manly  side  of  our  race 
has  been  wiped  off  the  political  slate  during  the 
last  seven  years.  Why  that  desperate  haste  in 
1918,  that  suddenness  by  which  soldier  voters  were 
taken  unawares  ?  After  the  Elections  the  same 
mistrust  of  the  Army.  First  General  Sir  Horace 
Smith-Dorrien  tried  to  get  the  ex-Service  men  to 
come  together  into  one  great  League.  They  agreed  ; 
the  politicians  put  a  spoke  in  his  wheel — the  agree- 
ment never  ran,  never  came  to  anything.  Later 
on,  in  1918,  I  presided  over  a  conference  which  had 
for  its  aim  the  bringing  together,  under  one  umbrella, 
of  all  the  organisations  dealing  with  ex-Service 
men ;  for  what  had  lately  been  one  Army  had  by 
then  been  allowed,  nay  encouraged,  to  drift  into 
groups,  often  antagonistic  groups,  instead  of  holding 
together  in  one  confederacy.  For  months  we  worked, 
interviewing  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  ex-Service 
men  :  deputations  from  the  Grand  Fleet ;  deputa- 
tions from  Portsmouth,  Plymouth  and  Chatham  ; 
deputations  from  the  Comrades,  from  the  Associa- 
tion and  from  the  Federation.  The  representatives 
who  came  to  argue  out  the  matter  with  us  sported 
every  shade  of  political  colour  from  true  blue  Tory 
to  Extremist  red.  But  whatever  the  tinge  of  their 
neckties  they  had  all  a  tie  of  another  sort  up  their 
sleeves — the  Army,  the  Navy,  united  them  in  one 
great  family  sentiment,  a  memory  of  dangers  and 
sufferings  well  and  impartially  shared. 


16   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Right  through  those  numerous  gradations  of 
political  opinion  ran  a  vertical  column  of  steel, 
binding  them  together  and  making  possible  the 
free  agreement  reached  at  the  end.  No  one  had 
ever  even  once  suggested  at  any  of  our  meetings 
(as  had  once  or  twice  been  suggested  outside)  that 
members  of  this  League  should  "  drop  politics." 
Politics  cannot  be  cut  out  of  the  life  of  a  civilian, 
for  then  he  has  no  way  of  expressing  his  views 
except  by  a  brick-bat.  All  we  wanted  was  to  save 
our  old  war  comrades  from  being  divided,  so  that 
they  would  not,  as  a  class,  be  ruled  and  be  ruled 
out  of  it  by  the  stay-at-homes.  Had  they  held  to 
their  individuality,  no  party  would  have  cared  to 
be  unfair  to  them  as  a  class — no  trades  union  would 
have  dared.  So  at  last  all  were  agreed.  The  com- 
pact was  made  and,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  Authority 
became  persuaded  that  there  was  danger  to  the 
Constitution  in  permitting  four  million  of  the  best 
men  in  the  State  to  foregather  in  social  friendship. 

Now  in  May,  1921,  at  last  the  representatives  of 
the  Associations  have  fixed  up  a  combine.  But 
what  a  loss  of  force  ;  what  splintering  up  of  the 
soundest  views ;  what  hard  luck  both  for  the  ex- 
Service  men  and  for  their  country.  For  small  local 
unions  have  crystallised  into  independence  in  the 
meantime,  and  I  doubt  if  there  will  ever  be  the 
great  association  there  might  have  been.  I  have 
likened  the  opinion  of  an  Army  to  a  column  of 
steel  running  vertically  through  layers  of  classes 
and  syndicates,  holding  them  together,  lending 
them  a  core  of  consistency.  The  Army  was  com- 
posed of  the  best  men  in  the  country,  and  the 
ex-Service  men  are  still  the  best  men  in  the  country, 


STRANGERS  YET!  17 

but  the  Unionists  of  the  right  wing  and  the  Ex- 
tremists of  the  left  wing  have  equally  been  terrified 
lest  they  should  draw  together. 

During  three  parts  of  the  European  massacre 
we  alone  possessed  a  Volunteer  Army.  We  alone 
possess  ex-Service  men  who  are,  in  the  main,  ex- 
volunteers.  In  the  days  following  the  murder  of 
Caesar  the  letters  of  prominent  Romans  have  a 
constantly  recurring  phrase,  "  What  will  the  veterans 
think  of  it  ?  "  Who  here  cares  a  tinker's  dam 
what  the  ex-Service  men  may  think  ?  They  have 
been  divided,  split  up,  set  against  one  another,  lost. 
We,  more  than  any  other  people,  possessed  an  Army 
and  possess  ex-Service  men  whose  spirit  was  worth 
guarding  and  preserving.  What  have  we  done  with 
them  ?  Disorganised  them,  dispersed  them,  let 
them  creep  back  into  trade  (if  they  were  lucky 
enough  to  find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  men  who 
jumped  their  jobs  when  they  went  to  war) :  as  to 
the  rest — barrel-organs,  monkeys,  and  German  brass- 
bands. 

To-day  we  are  paying  the  price  for  what,  in  effect, 
is  our  ignorance  of  our  own  Army.  We  don't  know 
it  now.  We  are  afraid  of  the  demobbed  instead  of 
being  afraid  of  the  mob.  A  voluntary  service  Army 
should  be  a  mould  for  turning  out  good  citizens, 
good  settlers :  only,  they  must  be  understood, 
they  must  be  given  a  chance ;  and  the  first  step 
that  way  is  to  study  an  Army  hi  the  abstract. 


CHAPTER  II 
KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARMIES 

Never,  in  history,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  have  the 
people  had  more  variegated  chances  of  studying 
armies — their  strong  points  and  their  weak  points. 
Never  have  they  seemed  so  content  to  fold  hands 
and  continue  to  accept  armies  at  face  value — so 
many  divisions,  so  much  force. 

The  Japanese  Army  ?  We  are  anxiously  weighing 
the  pros  and  cons  of  the  Japanese  Alliance.  Have 
the  Imperial  Conference  anxiously  weighed  the 
value  of  the  Japanese  Army  ?  Have  they  thor- 
oughly satisfied  themselves  of  the  relative  "  force  " 
represented  respectively  by  a  battalion  of  the 
Grenadier  Guards  and  a  battalion  of  the  Imperial 
Japanese  Guards  ?  Have  they  been  well  posted  as 
to  the  differences  between  the  northern  and  southern 
Japanese  Divisions ;  the  Second,  let  us  say,  and 
the  Twelfth  ?  I  should  doubt  it,  and  yet  these 
are  the  vitamins  of  politics.  When  we  ally  our- 
selves to  an  Army  which  has  followed  Count  Nogi 
and  Kuroki  we  are  moored  to  the  solid  rock  ;  when 
we  try  to  fix  up  futures  with  the  Count  Okumas  and 
other  tall  talkers  we  cast  our  anchor  into  the  quick- 
is 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARMIES  19 

sands.  The  Army  is  Japan  ;  the  politicians,  mere 
veneer !  A  military  compact  comes  under  the 
code  of  Bushido  ;  a  political  agreement  comes  under 
the  Chinese  code  of  "  Squeeze."  As  military  allies 
we  may  serve  as  a  liaison  between  the  Far  East  and 
the  Far  West.  If  we  cease  to  be  military  allies  the 
Pacific  had  better  be  re-named,  for  nothing  will  then 
stand  between  the  English-speaking  union  and 
a  Russo-Japanese-German  counter-combine.  Mr. 
Harding  may  then  die  happy : — he  will  have  gone 
one  better  than  Dr.  Woodrow  Wilson. 

The  future  of  our  own  Army  ?  How  much  does 
that  depend  upon  the  feelings  of  the  ex-Service 
men  who  are  being  subjected  to  the  very  same 
influences  which  brought  about  the  ruin  of  the 
returned  Roman  Legionaries  ?  The  influence,  I 
mean,  of  the  peace  which  has  been  built  upon  their 
victory  !  During  the  Second  Punic  War  the  sturdy 
peasant  proprietors  of  Italy  were  swept  for  seven- 
teen years  into  the  conscription  machine.  When- 
ever they  won  a  victory  they  took  their  indemnity 
out,  on  the  spot,  in  slaves.  These  swarms  of 
captives  were  sent  to  Italy,  and  when  the  ex-Service 
men  got  back  they  found  combines — Latifundia 
they  were  called  in  those  days— working  groups  of 
farms,  for  nothing,  with  those  very  slaves  their 
feats  of  arms  had  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  Senators. 
They  could  not  compete ;  so  they  drifted  into 
Rome  to  eke  out  a  wretched  existence  on  unemploy- 
ment doles  of  corn.  The  situation  repeats  itself 
to-day.  The  Entente  Armies  have  conquered  the 
German  Armies.  There  are  railways  nowadays,  so 
we  don't  bring  the  Germans  actually  to  work  for 
us  in  Wales,  But  we  make  them  dig  out  the  coal 


20        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

in  their  own  country  and  hand  it  over  to  the  French. 
The  French,  getting  their  coal  for  nothing,  sell  it 
abroad  at  a  price  which  is  rendering  it  impossible 
for  our  ex-Service  men  to  compete.  So  the  soldiers 
save  their  country  and  lose  their  living — Rome  and 
the  Latifundia  once  again. 

The  Army  of  the  U.S.A.  ?  What  a  change  since 
1903,  when  I  went  all  over  the  country  seeing 
the  sparse  handfuls  of  regulars  and  manoeuvring 
with  the  States  Militia.  There  was  no  greater 
change  sprung  upon  the  world  when  the  Japanese 
put  off  their  chain  armour  and  cashiered  their 
two-sworded  Samurai  than  there  is  to-day  when  the 
Americans  have  been  led  by  self-determination 
Wilson  into  battle.  What  is  the  value  of  their 
Army  ?  Reader,  you  can't  get  near  it  without 
devoting  some  time  and  study  to  the  points  of  an 
Army ;  to  the  sweat  and  blood  and  science  and 
skill  and  spirit  which  go  to  the  making  of  an  Army  ! 

Enormous  economic  movements  are  brought  about 
originally  by  Armies  and  must  react  on  the  future 
of  Armies.  From  many  points  of  view  there  has 
never  been  a  moment  when  all  the  elements  of  the 
art  of  war  have  been  so  much  in  the  melting-pot 
as  at  present.  A  little  change  in  one  direction 
and  quality  gets  the  complete  whip  hand  of  quan- 
tity ;  a  little  change  in  another  direction  and  the 
hordes  of  Asia  may  swamp  our  Western  civilisation  ; 
a  tiny  discovery  in  a  third  and  the  whole  face  of 
war  will  be  altered  and  all  its  historical  machinery 
be  thrown  upon  the  scrap-heap.  Never,  then,  has 
it  been  so  essential  as  to-day  that  we  should  keep 
our  minds  alert,  elastic  and  open  to  the  knowledge 
of  Armies.  We  shall  best  prepare  those  minds 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARMIES  21 

for  the  future  by  working  up  what  we  can  learn 
about  the  features  of  war  in  the  first  part  of  the 
twentieth  century,  as  we,  I  will  not  say  know  it, 
but  as  we  think  we  know  it  to-day.  Let  us  make 
a  start  by  trying  to  lay  down  the  factors  which 
seem  to  have  played  leading  parts  in  the  Great 
War,  leaving  out  sea  and  air  factors,  each  a  vast 
subject  in  itself  : 

(1)  Armies    animated    by    great    traditions,   not 
resting   upon  them,  ever   jealously   keeping  them- 
selves in  touch  with  rivals  (information)  ;    armies 
up  to  date  in  all  their  appointments,  methods  and 
material ;    armies  upon  which  levies  like  our  Terri- 
torials and  K.  troops  can  form  themselves. 

(2)  The  patriotism  ;    the  tenacity  of  the  citizen 
(tradition  :  education). 

(3)  Efficiency  at  the  helm  (selection  :  Commander- 
in-Chief  versus  Chief  of  General  Staff). 

(4)  Numbers,    material,    wealth,    position,    com- 
munications. 

(5)  Pre-war    organisation,    whereby    shape    and 
balanced  harmony  could  be  given,  when  needed,  to 
the  national  assets  under  (2)  and  (4). 

These  five  axioms  will  be  traversed  from  various 
points  of  view.  Axioms  may  be — always.  Read, 
for  instance,  the  opening  twelve  words  of  the  vital 
Chapter  VII  in  our  Field  Service  Regulations,  Part 
I,  printed  reverentially,  as  might  be  a  super-axiom 
or  the  views  of  the  twelve  Apostles,  in  large  deeply- 
leaded  type  : 

"  Decisive  success  in  battle  can  be  obtained  only 
by  a  vigorous  offensive."  Here  the  War  Office  in 
one  sentence  lays  down  its  sine  qua  non  for  success, 
and  shows  at  the  same  time  that  it  does  not  under- 


22   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

stand  the  special  fighting  character  of  the  British 
soldier.  As  it  turns  out,  there  would  have  been 
as  much  sense,  neither  more  nor  less,  in  saying, 
"  Decisive  defeat  in  battle  can  only  be  gained  by 
a  vigorous  offensive."  The  phrase  entirely  begs 
the  question  of  an  everlasting  controversy  :  Napo- 
leon— Von  Moltke  versus  Wellington — Von  Clause- 
witz.  So  long  as  it  stands  enthroned  there  in  its 
leaded  type  it  is  a  dogmatic  denial  of  everything 
that  happened  in  a  war  where  all  the  worst  defeats 
were  sustained  by  a  vigorous  offensive :  i.e.  Loos, 
Passchendaele,  Verdun,  and  that  final  overthrow 
which  began  on  March  21,  1918  ;  not  to  mention 
that  the  whole  war  was  a  German  offensive,  and  that 
Germany  was  defeated  whilst  actually  in  France. 

Another  super-axiom,  always  in  the  mouths  of 
the  Westerners  during  the  war,  was  that  the  only 
objective  in  war  should  be  the  main  Army  of  the 
enemy.  Cribbed  from  the  Continent,  this  axiom, 
so-called,  became  an  absurdity  in  the  mouth  of  a 
British  soldier.  Did  we  beat  Philip  of  Spain  or 
Louis  of  France  by  overthrowing  their  main  Armies  ? 
Did  we  not  beat  Napoleon  by  seizing  and  defending 
a  morsel  of  Portugal  ?  Did  we  not  beat  Russia  by 
seizing  and  defending  a  morsel  of  the  Crimea  ? 
Had  not  Japan  in  the  last  great  war  defeated  Russia 
by  besieging  Port  Arthur  ?  Was  it  the  defeat  of 
the  German  main  Army  or  the  overthrow  of  the 
Turkish  and  Bulgarian  Armies  which  brought  the 
great  war  itself  to  a  close  ? 

So  much  for  axioms.  I  only  hope  ten  years 
hence  my  axioms  may  stand  better.1 

1  A  new  F.S.R.  has  just  been  brought  out,  but  the  argument 
as  to  axioms  still  holds  good. 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARMIES  23 

So  now  let  us  get  on  and  consider  number  (1) — 
an  Army,  the  essential  subject  of  my  book,  a 
subject  so  big  that  it  must  be  taken  bit  by  bit : 
first  organisation,  next  discipline,  then  training. 
For  these  are  the  trinity  which  go  to  make  an  Army 
(systems — codes — education)  ;  they  are  methods 
which  we  can  think  out,  discuss,  apply.  When  we 
have  done  with  them  the  back  of  this  book  ought 
very  nearly  to  be  broke — certainly  the  back  of  the 
writer ;  but  there  will  still  remain  three  other 
factors — three  other  features  of  Army-making — 
which  do  not  fall  so  obviously  as  the  first  three 
within  range  of  our  prevision  or  improvisation  : — 

(1)  Numbers,  the  gift  of  women. 

(2)  Genius,  the  gift  of  God. 

(3)  Patriotism — morale — Religion— Fanaticism  :— 
force   without  a   name — fire  stolen   from  Heaven, 
in  virtue  of  which  naked,  half -armed,  undisciplined 
Fuzzy-Wuzzy  may  break,  has  at  least  penetrated, 
that   arch-essence   of    organisation,    discipline   and 
training — a  British  Infantry  square. 


CHAPTER  III 
HIGHER  ORGANISATION 

An  Army  is  to  a  nation  what  a  "  life-preserver  " 
is  to  a  citizen — so  long  as  the  burglar  does  not  get 
hold  of  it  it  preserves.  Put  in  another  way :  an 
Army  is  a  lethal  weapon  forged  by  a  Government 
for  the  hand  of  a  Commander ;  and,  just  as  there 
are  weapons  no  end,  so  also  there  are  several  sorts 
of  Armies,  Governments  and  Commanders. 

Governments  lie  beyond  my  ken.  The  General  is 
still  caviare  to  the  General.  Here,  greatly  daring,  I 
have  taken  an  Army  as  my  theme — that  mould  of 
steel  which  fixes  bodies  and  souls  into  another  pattern 
from  those  of  agriculture  or  commerce. 

We  pride  ourselves  on  belonging  to  a  mechanical 
age ;  we  live  like  lamps  upon  oil ;  we  gloat  upon 
our  science ;  we  puff  ourselves  up  considerably 
about  petrol.  When  our  rare  skulls  are  ranged  in 
the  museums  of  a  colder  and  more  slowly-spinning 
world,  we  shall  probably  be  classified  as  the  racial 
spendthrifts  who  tore  from  the  bowels  of  mother 
earth  her  hoarded  heritage  of  coal  and  sucked  from 
her  veins  the  very  last  drops  of  her  stores  of  liquid 
sunlight.  No  matter ;  we've  got  to  go  ahead,  if 
only  to  escape  the  deluge.  Armies,  too :  they 
must  be  re-baptised  in  oil ;  they  must  learn  to 
salute  their  own  engines ;  they  will  only  be  escorts 

24 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  25 

to  engines  in  the  days  now  upon  us — or  else,  they 
will  be  destroyed  by  some  foreign  Army  whose 
General  Staff  anticipated  instead  of  being  dragged 
along,  reluctantly,  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  so  to 
say,  in  the  wake  of  Science. 

Seeing  these  things  are  to  be,  let  me  open  my 
outline  of  an  Army,  as  it  now  is,  by  a  mechanical 
parable.     Imagine    an    immense    railway    system, 
created  but  not  in  use,   held  in  reserve  to  meet  a 
definite    emergency    which    may    emerge    on  any 
indefinite  date,  a  date  certain  (with  the  British)  to 
be  fixed  by  the  Directors  of  another,  and  a  rival, 
system,  instead  of  by  its  own.     Once  a  year,  and 
once  a  year  only,  the  railway  is  allowed  to  be  parti- 
ally  opened  to  traffic  for  a   week   (manoeuvres) : 
for  the  remaining  fifty-one  weeks  not  only  are  there 
no  train  services,  but  the  locomotives  are  stripped, 
many  of  their  essential  parts  being  stacked  in  out- 
of-the-way   parts   of  the   Kingdom.     Yet,   let  the 
signal  be  given,  and  in  four  days'  time  the  parts  of 
the  engines  have  to  be  assembled,  wheels  have  to 
be  fixed  to   dismantled  trucks,   cushions   have  to 
be  fixed  to  the  first-class  carriages,  the  personnel 
must  be  at    their   posts,  the    coal — mountains  of 
it — has  to  be  on  the  spot,  and  a  huge,  complicated, 
most  rapid  and  crowded  process  of  transportation 
and    movement    comes    straightway    into    being — 
provided — the  rival  company  has  not  sandbagged 
the  manager  or  dropped  a  few  bombs  upon  the 
terminus. 

Take  now  a  piece  of  that  system — a  locomotive— 
and  for  further  illustration  compare  it  to  a  battalion. 
A  Colonel  wants  to  create  a  battalion  ;    a  manu- 
facturer wants  to  make  a  machine. 


26        THE  SOUL  AND   BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 


BATTALION. 

Raw  lads  are  enlisted. 
They  are  dressed  in  uni- 
form and  formed  into 
small  squads. 

The  squads  are  formed 
into  sections  and  are 
roughly  knocked  into 
shape. 

The  sections  are  formed 
into  platoons  and  com- 
panies and  drilled. 

The  companies  are 
formed  into  the 
battalion. 

The  battalion  is  held 
together  by  Orderly 
Room,  N.C.O.,  and 
discipline. 

A  many-headed  mob 
has  become  a  battalion. 
The  Colonel's  word  will 
act  upon  it  as  the  autumn 
wind  upon  a  heap  of 
dead  leaves  when  it  lifts 
up  the  multitude  and 
impels  them  whither  it 
listeth.  One  word  and 
it  will  spit  fire  ;  another 
word  and  it  will  advance 
to  the  conquest  of  num- 
bers. 

In  either  case  atoms,  insignificant  in  themselves, 
have   been   fashioned,    grouped   and   welded   until 


MACHINE. 

Ore  is  brought  to  the 
surface.  Metal  is  run  off 
into  ingots  of  uniform 
size. 

Parts  of  the  machine 
are  roughly  knocked  into 
shape. 

The  various  parts  are 
grouped  and  perf  ectioned. 

The  finished  parts  are 
assembled. 

The  machine  is  held 
together  by  clamps, 
rivets  and  steel  frame- 
work. 

A  heap  of  rubbish  has 
become  a  locomotive.  At 
the  driver's  touch  it  will 
belch  forth  steam,  ad- 
vance to  the  conquest 
of  space. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  27 

they  have  assumed  an  infernally  significant  aspect. 
My  battalion  and  my  machine  are  only  helps. 
A  simile  is  not  a  photograph  ;  at  best  it  is  only 
a  coincidence  between  silhouettes.  Neither  image 
gives  any  clue  to  the  genesis  of  either  the  battalion 
or  the  locomotive.  Some  one  some  inventor — must 
originally  have  conceived  the  idea :  other  minds 
must  since  have  worked  upon  that  original  con- 
ception. There  have,  as  a  matter  of  history,  been 
many  minds  at  work  on  the  business  of  Army- 
making,  and  at  least  two  types  of  mind: 

(a)  The  organising  mind — the  planning  mind — 
which  runs  backwards  and  forwards  between  the 
particular  and  the  principle ;    classifying,  putting 
two  and  two  together ;  saying  to  itself  the  balance 
of  power  is  shifting,  we  must  make  new  friends ; 
we  have  too  much  of  that  thing,  we  must  get  rid 
of  some  of  the  other  thing ;   this  is  unsymmetrical, 
that  is  an  excrescence ;   cavalry  will  have  to  make 
way  for  aeroplanes,  we  can't  afford  both,  so  let 
us  away  with  the  old-fashioned  ;  first-class  carriages 
are  anachronisms  ;   the  tank  is  a  legitimate  descen- 
dant   of    Hannibal's    barded    elephants,   we  must 
keep  a  flock  of  them ;    the  idea  has  been  tested, 
there  is  a  great  future  in  it;   or,  vice  versa,  oil  is 
going  to  run  dry ;    stud  farms  should  be  started 
forthwith  for  the  resuscitation  of  the  horse.     This, 
in  modern  parlance,  is  a  G.S.  mind. 

(b)  The  administrative  mind  which  goes  turning 
away  at  the  grindstone  without  going  beyond  the 
emergencies   of   the   moment   and   the   expedients 
necessary  to  cope  with  them  ;    without  pausing  to 
take  stock  and  reflect  whether  the  energy  might 
not  be  better  applied  on  some  quite  different  system. 


28        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Both  of  these  minds  are  staff  minds :  they  are 
staffs  to  support  the  footsteps  of  the  Commander,  a 
person  who  is,  or  was  supposed  to  be  until  1870, 
gifted  with  inspiration,  magnetism  and  impulse. 
From  1870  until  the  14th  April,  1918,  the  mantles 
of  great  Commanders  have  fallen  mainly  upon 
the  shoulders  of  Staff-Officers  ;  but  this  will  not 
endure,  and  in  any  case,  one  of  the  chief  functions 
of  whoever  holds  the  post  of  Commander  is  to 
dovetail  these  two  types  of  Staff  Officers  so  that 
each  may  work  without  friction  within  its  own 
sphere. 

Recent  history  gives  us  a  very  good  sample  of 
Army-making  in  a  hurry  and  on  the  grand  scale. 
In  1870  Japan  determined  to  adopt  Western  civilisa- 
tion. To  that  end  the  first  requisite  was  a  modern 
Army,  and  as,  with  her  distinguishing  practical 
good  sense,  she  knew  she  possessed  no  inventor,  she 
decided  to  copy.  The  moment  was  fraught  with 
vital  issues  to  the  unconscious  continents  of  Europe 
and  America.  Japan  had  the  wide  world  at  her 
feet  to  choose  from.  The  wide  world  was  hers  to 
choose  from  because  she  possessed  force.  Force 
was  hers  because  she  possessed  an  officer-caste 
ready  made  in  the  Samurai,  and  an  unrivalled 
material  for  rank  and  file  or  lower-deck  ratings  in 
a  people  brave  by  tradition  and  made  trebly  more 
brave  by  patriotism  and  religion. 

The  tremendous  question  Japan  had  to  ask 
herself  was  this :  Would  she  remain  an  island, 
choose  overseas  empire,  and  equip  herself  for  that 
task  by  a  voluntary  service  army  and  an  unrivalled 
fleet ;  or,  would  she  decide  in  favour  of  becoming 
a  vast  continental  power,  and  equip  herself  for 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  29 

the  work  by  just  as  much  fleet  as  she  could  afford 
after  paying  the  crushing  taxes,  direct  and  indirect, 
for  a  nation  in  arms  ? 

There  were  several  continental  armies  on  view, 
and  Japan  did  toy  awhile  with  the  French  type, 
but  Sedan  settled  that  question  definitely  in  favour 
of  Germany.  As  to  the  Overseas  Empire  concept, 
there  was  only  one  model — Great  Britain.  History 
holds  nothing  resembling  what  is  undoubtedly 
England's  own  great  political  invention — nothing 
nearer,  that  is  to  say,  than  Greater  Greece  and  her 
colonies  from  600  B.C.  to  400  B.C.  The  Russians, 
Germans,  French,  like  the  ancient  Romans,  aimed 
at  continuity  of  dominion,  and  like  country  squires 
were  always  dreaming  of  the  acreage  of  an  estate, 
contained  and  self-supporting,  within  a  ring  fence. 
The  British,  for  their  part,  made  no  account  of  the 
interposition  of  foreign  countries  between  the  home- 
land and  the  outlying  provinces  ;  partly  because 
they  took  a  more  imaginative  and  spiritual  view 
of  Empire,  regarding  it  as  a  union  of  hearts  rather 
than  as  a  Zollverein  or  a  taxable  area ;  partly 
because  they  looked  upon  the  seas  of  the  world  as 
links,  not  as  breaks  ;  mainly  because,  under  their 
wonderful  voluntary  system,  their  Army  was  keen 
to  see  the  world,  and  as  ready  to  take  on  a  ten 
years'  tour  in  the  tropics  as  to  mount  guard  over 
the  Tower  of  London. 

Thinking   over   things    very   carefully   since   my 
long  stay  with  the  Japanese  Armies  in  Manchuria, 
it  now  seems  clear  to  me  that  Japan  ought  to  have  I 
copied  England,  but  was  not  imaginative  enough.  / 
A  great  deal  of  imagination  would  have  been  needed, 
for  in  1864  we  had  played  a  despicable  part  and, 


30   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

in  1870,  our  attitude  was  at  best  feeble.  Prussia 
and  her  Hohenzollern  star  had  shone  forth  brighter 
and  brighter  on  each  of  those  unhappy  occasions. 
Fortunate  indeed  was  it  for  the  union  of  the  English- 
speaking  races  that  this  was  so,  and  that  the  rays 
of  the  rising  sun  were  caught  by  the  flash  of  a 
mailed  fist  in  the  West.  Else,  had  Japan  taken 
the  island  imperium  as  her  model,  had  she  raised 
a  voluntary  service,  overseas  service, -type  of  Army, 
she  was  bound  to  come  into  fell  collision  with 
Greater  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Successful, 
the  Pacific  and  its  islands  were  hers  ;  the  Chinese 
Ports,  the  Yangtse  River,  the  Malay  States  and 
Ceylon  were  inevitably  hers ;  North  America  west 
of  the  Rockies  ;  India — Australasia  !  Who  knows  ? 
Did  she  choose  the  Roman  type  of  an  Empire, 
swelling  out  continuously  and  solidly  from  its  core, 
broadly  based  on  the  absorption,  colonisation  and 
social  organisation  of  Korea  and  South  Manchuria, 
the  choice  was  equally  bound  to  bring  her  into 
collision  first  with  China,  next  with  Russia  ;  to 
absorb  her  energies,  her  capital,  and  her  people 
into  Korea  and  Manchuria ;  to  tempt  her  into 
Siberia.  The  worst  of  this  method  was  that  it 
involved  compulsory  service,  which  must  draw 
both  interest  and  cash  from  the  fleet1  and  must 
hamper  her  at  every  turn  if  she  should  ever  wish 
to  garrison  an  overseas  conquest. 

But  at  that  time  and  for  long  afterwards,  as  I 
can  bear  witness,  the  Japanese,  apt  pupils  of  Prussia, 
saw  nothing  of  the  weak  sides  of  Conscription, 
and  looked  upon  it  as  a  positive  advantage.  So 

1  Just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war,  Japan  was  forced 
to  reduce  her  naval  estimates  by  seven  millions  sterling. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  31 

the  Army  was  made,  and  the  policy  inevitably  followed 
the  type  of  Army. 

Since  Paris  awarded  the  apple,  no  choice  more 
embarrassing.  On  the  one  hand,  there  was  always 
the  greater  homogeneity  of  spreading  slowly  from 
the  centre,  of  making  good  the  Japanisation  of 
Korea  before  launching  out  into  distant  conquests, 
i.e.  of  giving  the  Japanese  girls  a  broader  foundation 
on  which  to  build  their  pyramid  of  slant-eyed 
children.  This  might  well  have  seemed  the  more 
prudent  course  to  a  prudence-loving  council  of 
elder  statesmen ;  and  there  was  always  the  hope, 
by  keeping  the  main  force  of  the  nation  intact,  of 
capturing  China  by  one  magnificent  coup.  On 
the  other  hand,  world  empire  is  glorious  ;  in  ten 
years'  time  some  rich  trophies,  very  pleasing  to 
the  national  prestige  and  pride,  might  have  been 
expected  to  adorn  overseas  adventures :  the  con- 
tinental system  of  absorbing  Korea  and  Manchuria 
must  take,  at  the  lowest  estimate,  a  hundred  years 
to  carry  into  effect ;  and  as  to  China,  had  not 
former  conquerors  mysteriously  lost  their  own 
identities  even  as  they  took  their  seats,  complacent, 
on  the  Dragon  Throne  ?  Who  sets  to  work  to 
swallow  the  Celestial  octopus  had  better  be  sure 
he  has  the  bigger  swallow.  Thus  did  the  Japanese 
waver  but  once,  the  Prussian  model  had  been  copied ; 
Japan  only  seemed  to  have  a  choice  of  policy : 
actually  she  had  lost  the  option. 

In  comparing  these  rival  systems  I  have  hazarded 
the  suggestion  that  the  Japanese  may  have  made  a 
bad  choice.  But  what  shall  be  said  of  us  who  failed 
at  the  supreme  moment  to  make  use  of  our  own 
traditional  method  ? 


32        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Amphibious  warfare,  combined  with  voluntary 
service,  is  the  peculiar  strength  which  is  our  own 
special  patent,  and  yet  we  do  not  understand  it ; 
we  have  never  got  at  the  root  of  the  secret  of  our 
triumph  over  Napoleon  and  the  continental  system 
one  hundred  years  ago,  otherwise,  surely,  we  would 
have  developed  that  same  plan  more  swiftly  and 
forcibly  both  in  the  Baltic  and  hi  the  Black  Sea  hi 
'14,  '15.  But  I  believe  myself  that  slowly  the 
lesson  of  the  Dardanelles  will  make  itself  felt,  and 
that,  whether  sea  or  air  be  the  medium,  we  will 
muster  up,  next  time,  sufficient  courage  and  faith 
in  ourselves  to  give  the  ideas  of  Pitt  an  adequate 
recognition  and  an  adequate  peace-time  organisa- 
tion. 

Anyway,  Japan  made  her  choice,  and  what  was 
a  gain  to  Anglo-Saxondom  became,  for  the  moment, 
a  loss  to  China  and  Russia.  After  some  hesitations 
she  copied  the  German  Army.  No  half  measures  : 
she  copied  it  as  closely  as  a  forger  copies  the  deposi- 
tor's signature.  "  En  gens  pratiques  que  nous 
sommes,  nous  avons  juge  que  le  meilleur  moyen  .  .  . 
etait  de  suivre  au  pied  de  la  lettre"  said  one  of  their 
General  Staff-Officers,  and  when  it  is  remembered 
that  their  supply  and  transport  regulations  were 
translated  verbatim  from  the  German,  and  that 
the  deployment  for  the  battle  of  the  Yalu  was 
precisely  that  of  a  German  Army  Corps  at  a  cut- 
and-dried  field  day,  it  will  be  understood  that  no 
dangerous  originality  was  allowed  to  intervene. 

What  we  have  to  learn,  therefore,  from  this  last 
and  greatest  experiment  by  the  Japanese  in  army- 
manufacture  had  better  be  learnt  from  the  original ; 
but  before  I  go  on  to  try  and  draw  lessons  from  the 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  33 

creation  of  the  modern  German  Army,  I  want  to 
save  myself  from  a  charge  of  having  overlooked 
the  undoubted  political  advantages  gained  by  an 
old  nation  which,  in  a  matter  of  that  sort,  is  chosen 
as  a  model  by  a  new  nation.  The  original,  in  that 
case,  gets  a  grand  opportunity  to  drive  its  roots 
well  down  into  the  vitals  of  the  plagiarist :  the 
keenest  and  best-educated  of  the  new  Army,  i.e., 
of  the  nation,  learn  to  think  and  speak  German ; 
the  unarmed  part  of  the  nation — the  women  and 
children — also,  during  the  process,  have  to  gravitate 
towards  the  German  ideal.  The  German  military 
officer  has  proved  himself  a  most  active  and  highly 
successful  proselitising  agent.  In  1908,  when  I  was 
in  Constantinople,  there  was  a  reaction  in  favour 
of  England,  but  it  was  fore-doomed :  the  German 
Army  system,  the  Great  German  General  Staff 
delegates  and  Krupp's  agent  at  the  Golden  Horn 
had  got  too  good  a  grip  of  the  Turkish  Army — the 
only  part  of  that  Empire  which  mattered.  In 
Manchuria  during  1904,  1905,  three-fourths  of  the 
Japanese  General  Staff  were  German-trained,  Ger- 
man-speaking men.  In  Kuroki's  First  Army  there 
was  only  one  Staff- Officer  speaking  Russian  and 
French  ;  one  speaking  English  ;  all  the  rest  were 
not  only  German-trained,  German-speaking,  Ger- 
man-thinking men,  but  were  spoken  of  in  German 
slang  terms  by  the  young  regimental  officers  as 
Kaisermdnner.  As  in  the  case  of  any  Conscription 
country,  the  Army  was  the  National  League  of 
Youth,  the  vital  part  of  Japan  ;  the  Navy  was 
British  in  sentiment,  but,  counting  heads,  that  was 
a  negligible  quantity.  This  penetration  of  the 
German  ideal  into  the  farthest  East  was  military ; 


34   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

it  has  yet  to  bear  its  fruits,  and  do  not  let  us  fall 
into  the  mistake  of  overlooking  a  principle  because, 
owing  to  an  almost  superhuman  effort  and  our 
fine  racial  tenacity,  we  have  smashed  those  who 
had  espoused  it. 

Who  created  this  model,  copied  by  the  Japanese, 
admired  by  some  amongst  ourselves  ?  Von  Roon, 
War  Minister1  of  the  Prussian  Army.  He,  in  his 
great  brain,  conceived  the  machine  as  a  whole, 
and  planned  it  out  into  its  smallest  details.  There 
is  no  useful  purpose  to  be  served  in  going  back 
farther,  to  Alexander,  Caesar,  Frederick  the  Great, 
or  Napoleon.  In  that  force,  created  by  Von  Roon, 
a  force  which  expired,  so  we  hope,  on  the  llth 
November,  1918,  we  have  the  latest  word  on  army 
manufacture — the  typical  army — and,  for  its  own 
especial  purpose  of  a  short  range,  short  time, 
weapon,  it  stood  supreme,  enabling  the  German 
Empire  to  throw  every  iota  of  its  strength  into 
the  contest  from  the  moment  the  word  mobilisation 
went  forth.  When  the  range  and  the  time  drew 
out  longer  and  longer,  the  machine,  and  with  it 
the  nation,  was,  for  the  time  being,  absolutely 
used  up — finished  ! 

Von  Roon's  Army  was  the  greatest  Army  the 
world  has  ever  seen:  built  only  for  a  six-months' 
spurt,  it  held  the  best  half  of  the  world  at  bay 
for  years.  The  conception  was,  in  many  respects, 
original.  How  did  Von  Roon  come  to  find  him- 
self free  to  concentrate  upon  constructing  a  new 

1  In  continental  armies  the  War  Minister  corresponds  exactly 
with  our  Adjutant-General,  so  far  as  organisation  is  concerned. 
In  addition,  he  shoulders  the  administrative  duties  performed, 
with  us,  by  the  Quartermaster-General. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  35 

machine  ?  How  on  earth  did  he  do  it  ?  The 
father  of  the  gods  begot  Minerva  by  a  thought : 
did  Von  Roon  shut  both  eyes  and  compress  his 
brow  until,  full-armed,  an  Army  broke  out  from 
his  brain  ?  Not  exactly  ;  very  few  things  in  our 
modern  world  are  as  original  as  the  birth  of  the 
Goddess  of  Wisdom.  Von  Roon  took  his  stand 
upon  the  Cabinet  Order  of  1821,  which  was  not 
original  at  all,  but  was  borrowed — translated — 
cribbed  from  Wellington's  Peninsular  system.  An 
exactly  parallel  instance  to  the  invention  of  aniline 
dyes  ;  an  Englishman  got  the  idea  ;  English  Govern- 
ment let  the  idea  drop ;  the  Germans  got  hold  of 
it  and  worked  it  for  all  it  was  worth.  (N.B. — In 
both  these  cases  the  idea  was  worth  a  good  deal.) 

In  this  order  the  actual  recruitment,  organisation 
and  maintenance  of  the  Army — the  business  of  the 
Army — was  definitely  entrusted  to  a  special  depart- 
ment, whilst  the  more  abstract  consideration  in 
the  evolution  of  Armies — the  dangers  to  be  appre- 
hended, the  best  way  to  meet  them,  the  scale 
of  preparations — the  adoption  or  rejection  of  innova- 
tions in  training,  weapons,  etc.,  etc., — was  confided 
to  another  special  department.  Only  in  virtue  of 
this  specialisation  was  Von  Roon  enabled  to  devote 
his  whole  energy  to  army -making ;  only  in  virtue 
of  this  specialisation  was  Von  Moltke  enabled  to 
focus  clear,  untroubled  rays  of  thought  upon  training 
his  War  Staff  and  covering  futures  in  war  risks. 

Under  the  German  system  we  may  imagine  the 
General  Staff  saying  to  the  War  Minister  that  their 
new  schemes  demanded  the  creation  of  an  extra 
Army  Corps.  The  request  would  probably  be 
accompanied  by  a  rough  estimate  of  cost.  The 


36   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

War  Minister l  would  criticise  the  scheme  from 
every  point  of  view.  Almost  certainly  he  would 
find  the  cost  underestimated.  The  Kaiser  and  his 
Imperial  Chancellor  would  listen  to  the  War  Minister1 
on  that  point,  for  he  is  the  responsible  official 
who  will  have  to  create  the  Army  Corps.  Eventu- 
ally, let  us  suppose,  he  agrees  the  thing  can  be 
done  ;  sanction  is  given,  and  the  War  Minister  sets 
to  work.  When  he  has  finished  all  recruit  training, 
and  has,  in  fact,  created  the  Corps,  he  hands  it  over 
to  the  General  Staff,  who  take  up  its  war  training 
and  work  the  new  formation  into  their  various  war 
schemes. 

The  term  General  Staff  is  something  of  a  pitfall 
for  the  unprofessional  professor  or  amateur  war 
correspondent.  Even  now,  after  the  war,  G.S. 
remain  to  some  extent  an  exotic  pair  of  capitals 
in  England,  and  when  our  writers  are  by  way  of 
expounding  their  true  meaning  it  often  transpires 
that  they  have  only  been  studying  von  Schellendorf, 
and  that  they  lack  intimate  understanding.  They 
are  too  much  inclined  to  run  away  with  the  idea 
that  the  great  General  Staff  does  everything.  They 
may,  under  the  heading  "  policy,"  poke  their  fingers 
into  almost  any  pie.  But  the  ideal  great  General 
Staff  should,  in  peace  time,  do  nothing !  They 
deal  in  an  intangible  stuff  called  thought.  Their 
main  business  consists  in  thinking  out  what  an 
enemy  may  do  and  what  their  own  Commanding 
Generals  ought  to  do,  and  the  less  they  clank  their 
spurs  the  better  that  business  will  be  done. 

The  General  Staff  have  to  be  broad—  wide.      They 

1  With  us  the  Adjutant-General  and  Quartermaster-General 
combined. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  37 

ought  to  be  as  wide  as  the  wide,  wide  world.  They 
should  start  from  a  study  of  the  science  of  life. 
They  should  realise  that  the  spiritual  necessity  of 
living  dangerously  is  as  exacting  to  nations  as  is 
the  physical  necessity  to  man's  body  of  a  thyroid 
gland.  The  incurable  aimlessness  of  hand-to-mouth 
politicians  is  their  enemy  at  home — their  enemies 
abroad  are,  potentially,  the  rest  of  the  world.  So 
they  must  keep  weighing  the  chances  and  watching, 
lest  we  succumb  some  day  to  a  League  of  Nations 
Combine  with  a  monopoly  of  aeroplanes  and  tanks. 
To  weigh  their  resources  against  the  resources  of 
friendly  nations  and  say  what  is  wanted — new 
formations,  an  alliance,  aeroplanes — to  redress  the 
balance  whenever  it  sinks  against  them,  that  is 
their  main  business.  As  human  beings,  as  Christians, 
our  minds  may  sympathise  warmly  with  the  states- 
men who  say  war  with  such  and  such  a  nation  is  so  un- 
thinkable, so  unnatural,  that  they  refuse  to  prepare  for 
it  even  to  the  extent  of  thinking  of  it.  But  the  General 
Staff- Officer  is  an  historian.  No  more  need  be  said. 

Policy  in  war,  the  elucidation  of  all  pending 
military  problems,  is  their  special  function  and, 
working  back  from  it,  we  get  to  peace  policy  and 
preparation  in  peace  for  war.  During  peace  the 
General  Staff  is,  or  should  be,  partly  a  thinking 
department,  partly  a  preparing  department.  The 
Adjutant-General  is  the  head  of  a  doing  department. 
The  General  Staff  think  of  things  ;  the  Adjutant- 
General  makes  them ;  the  Quartermaster-General 
moves,  houses,  feeds  them. 

The  command  and  staffing  of  armies  lies  beyond 
the  scope  of  this  treatise ;  also,  the  methods  by 
which  supply,  equipment  or  ordnance  are  provided 


38        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

or  fortresses  built.  I  have  confined  myself  to 
indicating,  in  outline,  the  relative  functions  of  the 
two  great  officers  responsible  for  determining, 
broadly,  the  size  and  type  of  Army  and  the  methods 
of  training  it  (the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff)  ;  and 
for  organising,  raising  and  discipling  an  Army 
(the  Adjutant-General).  Also,  I  may  suitably  add 
here  my  own  firm  opinion  that  these  two  officers 
should,  under  the  Secretary  of  State,  be  "  heads  "  and 
that  ordnance,  supply,  finance,  should  be  "  tails." 

During  peace  the  General  Staff  should  touch 
solid  earth  only  in  the  matter  of  training  the  troops. 
Their  metier  is  to  reflect,  aim,  plan,  plot,  weigh, 
co-ordinate  and  suggest.  They  are  not  expected 
to  be  practical — if  their  demands  keep  short  of 
insanity,  that  will  do.  They  may  ask  the  Adjutant- 
General  to  give  them  the  moon — the  onus  lies  on  him. 

The  Adjutant-General  walks  ;  he  has  no  wings. 
The  C.I.G.S.  (Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff) 
may  clamour  for  guns,  aeroplanes,  tanks,  a  new 
rifle ;  he  (the  A.-G.)  may  know  quite  well  that  a 
cubit  can  only  be  added  to  the  existing  stature  of 
the  Army  by  melting  a  limb  or  cutting  down  its 
girth.  Ordinarily  he  does  not,  as  Adjutant-General, 
question  desirability.  That  lies  outside  his  province. 
He  confines  himself  to  feasibility.  He  may,  for 
instance,  only  be  able  to  add  to  the  artillery  by 
robbing  the  arteries  :  i.e.  the  guns  can  only  be 
manned  at  the  expense  of  the  supply  and  transport ; 
or,  he  may  be  able  to  state  positively  that  the  men, 
or  the  cash,  do  not  exist,  when — cadit  qucestio  \ 
But,  if  the  ways  and  means  admit  of  it,  he  agrees 
and  sets  to  work.  The  moment  the  work  is  finished 
the  General  Staff  take  delivery. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  39 

To  a  studious  soldier,  I  and  my  remarks  may 
seem  like  a  parrot  repeating  ABC.  To  a  civilian 
they  may  seem  fresh,  but  it  will  be  the  freshness  of 
something  quite  apart  from  his  own  daily  bread, 
fortune,  career.  So  let  me  suggest  to  the  soldier 
that  if  these  military  axioms  are  stale,  he  had 
better  see  to  it  in  future  that  they  are  acted  upon ; 
and,  as  to  the  civilian,  let  me  here  assure  him  that 
he  would  be  a  happier,  richer,  more  contented 
citizen  to-day,  belonging  to  a  more  closely-knit, 
more  famous  Empire,  if  all  the  truisms  put  forward 
here  by  me  had  not,  just  before  the  war,  been 
flouted — swept  to  one  side — as  if  Wellington,  Von 
Roon,  Von  Moltke,  Lord  Roberts,  had  never  existed. 

Our  world  exists  not  only  for  soldiers  and  civilians 
but  also  for  women,  who,  we  are  told,  are  the  most 
striking  phenomena  in  actuality,  who  take,  amongst 
other  things,  an  impartial  view  of  man,  as  man, 
whether  he  wears  uniform  or  mufti.  Let  me  put 
this  parable  up  to  them  :  after  all,  when  women  do 
do  a  thing,  they  do  it  to  do  that  thing,  not  because 
they  want  to  do  other  things.  Suppose  a  woman 
was  running  a  big  house.  Suppose  also  that  her 
cook  (Chief  of  the  General  Staff)  takes  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  particularly  important  dinner-party  to 
dish  up  a  disgusting  Irish  stew  which  gives  so  many 
stomach-aches  to  the  assembled  guests  that  she, 
the  mistress,  is  positively  forced  to  make  a  show 
of  getting  rid  of  her.  So  now  the  edict  of  the  sack 
goes  forth,  and  the  good  lady  of  the  house  finds 
herself  in  a  fix  :  the  shooting  season  is  coming  on 
—and  no  cook  !  What  do  you  imagine  she  does  ? 
She  says  to  herself,  "  Our  last  parlourmaid  (Adjutant- 
General)  was  a  pattern  of  all  the  virtues.  There 


40   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

has  never  been  any  parlourmaid  in  my  house  to 
touch  her — she  was  so  honest,  hard-working,  exact ; 
a  grand  disciplinarian,  never  a  button  awry — silver 
polished  up  to  the  nines ;  the  house  used  to  go  like 
clockwork ;  all  the  other  servants  respected  her. 
I  have  it !  !  I'll  make  her  cook  !  !  !  "  And  a 
splendid  cook  that  parlourmaid  was,  so  long  as 
there  were  no  dinners  to  cook — but  then  came  the 
first  engagements  of  the  shooting  season  ! 

There  stands  my  appeal  to  women's  good  sense : 
I  ask,  would  any  woman  be  so  foolish  as  the  lady 
of  the  house  I  have  described ;  and  yet,  what  she 
is  supposed  to  have  done  is  exactly  what  the  British 
Government  did  do  in  1914.  When,  in  the  spring 
of  that  year  in  Ireland,  Hubert  Gough  forced 
the  P.M.  to  shelve  the  Heads  of  the  War  Office, 
a  new  C.I.G.S.  had  to  be  selected.  Then  it  was 
that  Mr.  Asquith  remembered  the  ex-Adjutant- 
General  to  the  Forces,  and  put  in  Charles  Douglas. 
Now,  as  a  brother  officer,  as  one  who  had  known, 
admired  and  respected  Douglas  for  forty-five  years, 
I  say  to  civilians  (the  Army  knows)  that  my 
parable  of  the  parlourmaid  does  not  exaggerate  this 
appointment.  Douglas  was  Adjutant  to  our  Regi- 
ment, the  Gordons,  during  the  Afghan  War.  He 
was  Adjutant  in  the  first  Boer  War.  He  became 
a  Deputy  Assistant-.4dJ/wto7^-General ;  then  an 
Assist&nt-Adjutant  General  at  Aldershot ;  then  an 
Assistant-Adjutant-General  at  the  War  Office  ;  then 
a  Deputy-  A djutant  General ;  then  the  best  Adjutant- 
General  we  have  ever  had  at  the  War  Office,  although 
that  great  post  had  been  held  by  great  men,  namely, 
Wolseley,  Buller  and  Evelyn  Wood.  But  Douglas 
was  not  only  the  only  Adjutant-General  we  have 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  41 

ever  had  who  served  out  his  full  time  in  that  post,  he 
was  a  better  Adjutant-General  than  any  of  them, 
because  he  had  not,  like  those  other  three  men, 
any  other  fish  to  fry,  any  hankerings  after  policy, 
intelligence,  or  coming  campaigns  to  disturb  his 
mind  from  its  lifelong  concentration  on  regulations, 
discipline,  recruiting  and  recruit-training.  All  his 
energies  and  hopes  ever  since  he,  a  youth  of  two 
and  twenty,  used  to  drill  me,  a  boy  of  nineteen,  had 
centred  on  keeping  what  he  had  in  apple-pie  order  ; 
in  doing  what  he  was  told,  and  seeing  that  others 
did  what  they  were  told  ;  never  a  moment  wasted 
on  the  why  and  wherefore  or  future  ;  all  for  attention 
to  the  business  that  lay  to  his  hand  until,  as  a 
reward  for  his  fine  services  as  Adjutant-General  to 
the  Forces,  he  was  given  the  Command  on  Salisbury 
Plain,  and  then  the  Inspector-Generalship  to  the 
Forces,  in  which  two  posts  it  became  evident  that 
he  was  through  and  through  an  Adjutant ;  that 
his  great  and  unquestioned  value  to  the  Army  was 
as  a  disciplinarian  and  administrator. 

What  made  Mr.  Asquith  put  Sir  Charles  Douglas 
into  a  post  so  foreign  to  his  character,  predilection 
and  experience  ?  What  made  Douglas  accept  it  ? 
Mr.  Asquith  may  not  have  realised  the  differences 
I  have  been  trying  to  set  forth — the  essential 
differences  between  General  Staff  and  Adjutant- 
General  qualifications ;  he  may  not  have  known 
his  man  ;  he  may  just  have  thought  that  what 
the  Army  most  wanted  at  that  moment  was  a  firm, 
just,  unbiased  disciplinarian,  and  that  nothing  else 
much  mattered.  The  last  reason  I  think  it  must 
have  been,  for,  surely,  both  Lord  Haldane  and 
Colonel  Seely  would  have  fully  informed  him  on 


42   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  two  former  ?  As  to  Douglas  himself,  the 
notion  of  becoming  a  General  Staff-Officer  had 
never,  I  believe,  crossed  his  mind.  As  an  Adju- 
tant of  the  most  strait-laced  type,  he  had  never 
gone  to  the  Staff  College.  On  my  way  back  from 
New  Zealand  I  received  a  letter  from  him  at 
Rio  de  Janeiro,  in  which  he  told  me  he  knew 
I  would  be  astonished  at  his  appointment,  and 
that  he  had  only  accepted  it  because  discipline  had 
broken  down  under  mismanagement,  and  because 
he  had  been  assured  that  the  Army  at  large  would 
welcome  his  taking  up  the  reins.  He  had  no  personal 
ambition,  he  added,  and  I  know  that  was  true. 

Lord  Kitchener  has  been  criticised  because  he 
wanted  to  do  too  much  himself,  through  the  agency 
of  a  secretary  or  aide-de-camp,  or  through  officials 
or  friends  not  directly  responsible  for  the  question 
at  issue,  instead  of  delegating  to  the  heads  of  respon- 
sible departments.  No  doubt  this  was  his  tendency  ; 
no  doubt  at  all  ;  and  yet,  there  is  no  doubt  either 
that,  had  he  wished  (as  he  did  sometimes  wish) 
to  curb  this  natural  tendency,  he  had  no  one  to 
turn  to  in  the  War  Office  as  it  had  been  handed 
over  to  him.  Except  Sir  John  Cowans,  the 
Quartermaster-General,  and  General  Callwell,  who 
had  been  put  in  to  run  the  Intelligence,  there 
was  no  senior  officer,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  who, 
when  summoned  to  K.'s  room,  walked  into  it 
with  the  firm  conviction  of  an  expert  who  is 
master  of  his  job,  and  is  prepared  to  stick  to  his 
own  views,  if  necessary,  in  the  teeth  of  the  great 
man's  opinion.  I  am  glad  my  pen  has  led  me  to 
review  these  extraordinary  events,  because  I  have 
thus  given  myself  a  chance  of  amplifying  a  remark 


43 

I  made  in  my  Gallipoli  Diary,  which,  I  think,  did 
Lord  K.  less  than  justice.  In  that  work,  which 
consisted  of  a  series  of  impressions  grouped  round 
documents,  cables,  and  other  fixed  data,  I  say  of 
the  Secretary  of  State:  "So  we  put  him  into  the 
War  Office,  in  the  ways  of  which  he  is  something 
of  an  amateur,  with  a  big  prestige  and  a  big  power 
of  drive.  Yes,  we  remove  the  best  experts  from 
the  War  Office  and  pop  in  K.  like  a  powerful  engine 
from  which  we  have  removed  all  controls,  regulators 
and  safety  valves.  Yet,  see  what  wonders  he  has 
worked  !  "  That  was  quite  true,  but  I  go  on  to 
say  of  Lord  Kitchener:  "  He  has  surpassed  himself, 
in  fact,  for  I  confess,  even  with  past  experience  to 
guide  me,  I  did  not  imagine  our  machinery  could 
have  been  so  thoroughly  smashed  in  so  short  a 
time."  Now,  the  impression  conveyed  by  these 
words  and  in  my  own  mind  when  I  wrote  them 
was  that  Lord  K.  had  smashed  the  machinery. 
But  to-day,  looking  back  in  cold  blood,  I  feel  it 
is  up  to  me  to  say  that  although,  no  doubt,  Lord 
K.  was  "  a  smasher  "  when  he  chose,  yet  in  this 
case  the  War  Office  machine  was  pretty  well 
smashed  already  before  we  invited  our  greatest  soldier 
of  the  day  to  step  in. 

When  I  wrote  my  Gallipoli  Diary  I  was  only 
noting  some  facts  which  had,  so  to  say,  knocked 
at  my  door :  I  was  not  analysing  the  situation, 
the  main  feature  of  which  was  that  there  was  no 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff.  A  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff  with  his  doctrine  and  his  scheme  is  the  compass 
to  the  ship  of  State.  Lord  K.'s  compass  had  gone  : 
he  had  to  do  his  best  to  sail  an  up-to-date,  thirty- 
thousand-ton,  thirty-knots-an-hour  steamer  by  the 


44        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

itars ;  and  the  heavens  were  very  cloudy,  the  fog 
of  war  hung  low.  A  smaller  S.  of  S.  for  War  would 
at  once  have  recalled  Sir  Douglas  Haig  from  France 
to  the  War  Office  to  help  him.  K.  would  not  do 
that. 

Take  the  question  of  the  interview  of  the  Secretary 
of  State  with  Sir  John  French  on  the  1st  of  Septem- 
ber, '14.  Lord  French  has  given  us  the  full  story  in 
his  book,  claiming  that  Lord  K.'s  action  in  coming 
over  to  Paris  to  issue  orders  to  him  was  unwarranted. 
Quite  true.  In  South  Africa  no  one  was  more  sensitive 
than  Lord  Kitchener  himself  to  any  intervention. 
In  those  days  there  was  no  Chief  of  the  Imperial 
General  Staff.  Since  then  that  great  office  has 
been  created.  In  the  melting  pot  of  war  the  rela- 
tive powers  of  Governments,  Commanders  and 
Chiefs  of  Staff  became  fluid.  The  Germans'  Von 
Moltke  and  Falkenhayn  were  supreme  till  they 
merged  in  the  Hindenburg-Ludendorf  combine. 
The  Joffre  regime  is  followed  by  something  less 
personal  till  it  ends  in  the  personality  of  Generalis- 
simo Foch.  With  us  the  powers  of  the  Chief  of 
the  Imperial  General  Staff  were  what  he  could 
make  them.  If  he  could  gain  the  P.M.'s  ear  and 
handle  the  Army  Council  it  was  for  him  to  co- 
ordinate the  Eastern  and  Western  fronts.  Wish- 
ing to  arrest  the  retreat  of  the  British  Army  he 
could  have  called  a  meeting  of  the  Army  Council  and 
have  armed  Lord  Kitchener  for  his  journey  with 
alternative  sets  of  orders  signed  by  the  Secretary, 
War  Office.  Then,  whether  K.'s  action  was  right 
or  wrong,  at  least  it  would  have  been  valid.  His 
orders  might  have  been  disobeyed  on  plea  of  tactical 
urgency,  as  Steinmetz  disobeyed  the  orders  of  Von 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  45 

Moltke,  but  there  could  have  been  no  question  as 
to  their  legitimacy. 

A  deadly  error  lay  at  the  foundations  of  our 
War  Office  like  the  wire-worm  that  waits  and  waits 
till  spring  sends  sap  through  the  roots.  This  was 
the  idea,  that  the  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General 
Staff  should,  on  the  outbreak  of  war,  be  made 
into  the  Commander-in-Chief  in  the  field,  his  place 
being  filled  by  an  improvisation.  Just  imagine  if 
the  Prussians  in  1870  had,  on  the  declaration  of 
war,  given  Von  Moltke  command  of  an  Army,  and 
had  appointed,  say,  the  Red  Prince  to  be  Chief  of 
the  General  Staff  ?  Well,  it  was  our  settled  plan 
to  do  what  we  cannot  even  imagine  the  Germans 
being  so  foolish  as  to  do ;  only,  miraculously, 
Providence  arose  when  the  appointed  hour  drew 
nigh — Providence,  the  firm  ally  of  the  British,  who, 
assuming  the  semblance  of  Hubert  Gough,  caused 
the  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff,  Sir  John 
French,  to  be  removed  some  months  before  the 
outbreak  of  war.  French  was  thus  set  free  to  rest 
a  little  before  taking  up  the  command  of  the  Forces 
in  France,  whilst  time  was  given  for  a  successor  to 
be  chosen,  a  successor  who  would  be  able  to  get 
some  grip  of  the  reins,  and  to  look  round  him  ere 
the  storm  burst.  Providence,  in  fact,  had  stepped 
in  at  the  eleventh  hour.  War  was  almost  on  us. 
The  stage  had  been  cleared  so  that  we  might  set 
our  scenery  in  order  for  the  critical  last  act  of  the 
drama.  So  we  set  to  work  and,  for  reasons  which 
could  only  have  been  political  and  peace-time  reasons, 
put  in  an  Adjutant-General  to  fill  the  vacant  post. 
Even  our  pocket  Providence,  long-suffering,  indul- 
gent, could  not  quite  swallow  that ! 


46        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Lord  Kitchener  had  a  quick,  impatient  tempera- 
ment ;  he  often  expected  his  staff  to  construct  his 
whole  thought  out  of  a  few  key-words ;  he  had  no 
use  for  men  who  were  slow  in  the  uptake.  With 
him  it  was  really  a  case  of  "he  who  hesitates 
is  lost."  In  his  own  A.-G.  work,  Douglas  was 
always  ready,  but  when  it  came  to  a  G.S.  question, 
he  wanted  time  to  take  advice  and  to  reflect,  because 
he  was  not  a  real  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  but 
only  a  mouthpiece.  Be  it  remembered,  Douglas 
had  just  been  made  head  of  a  department  whose 
workings  were  unfamiliar  to  him  ;  also  that, 
by  the  time  Lord  Kitchener  got  to  work,  this 
headless  department  had  been  eviscerated  by  the 
departure  of  its  second  string,  Sir  William  Robert- 
son, who  had  been  sent  as  Quartermaster- 
General  to  the  Army  in  France,  although  his  life- 
work  had  been  exclusively  General  Staff  as  that  of 
Sir  Charles  Douglas'  had  been  on  the  Adjutant- 
General's  side.  So  Kitchener  was  thrown  back  on 
his  real  self — a  great  master  of  expedients,  a  neophyte 
at  the  War  Office — and  the  direct  results  were : 
(1)  The  unhappiness,  illness  and  death  of  Sir  Charles 
Douglas,  who,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  failed 
to  give  satisfaction  to  himself  or  to  his  chief, 
although  he,  a  glutton  for  work  all  his  life,  had 
never  in  his  life  worked  so  hard  before ;  (2)  the 
handicapping  of  Lord  Kitchener  in  a  way  which 
can  only  be  paralleled  in  imagery  by  the  idea  of 
hamstringing  an  elephant ;  (3)  the  astonishing, 
complete  disappearance  of  the  Chief  of  the  Imperial 
General  Staff,  who  ought,  according  to  plan  and 
book,  to  have  been  the  biggest  man  in  Britain. 

Not  once  only  but  many  times  I  have  heard  a 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  47 

question  asked  and  seen  Douglas  fumbling  with  his 
papers  whilst  the  impatient  Secretary  of  State  rang 
the  bell  for  Callwell ;  not  once  only  but  several 
times  I  have  heard  an  absolute  outsider  being 
consulted  whilst  the  Chief  of  the  Great  General 
Staff  sat  silent ;  time  and  again  Charles  Douglas 
deeply  mortified  ;  time  and  again  the  whole  British 
military  machine  plunging  wildly  forward  in  the 
dark,  responding  sometimes  to  the  calls  of  French, 
sometimes  to  the  cries  of  the  French  General  Staff, 
sometimes  to  the  politicians  at  home  ;  and  all  because 
our  Army,  just  before  Lord  Kitchener  took  over  the 
helm,  had  been  deprived  of  its  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff,  of  the  Deputy-Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  and  of 
its  Adjutant-General,  and  that  these  posts  had  been 
filled  as  if  any  "good  officer"  would  do  ! 

Sad  as  was  the  fate  of  Douglas,  a  misused  servant 
of  the  State,  who,  well  used,  might  have  rendered 
magnificent  service,  that  of  Lord  Kitchener  was 
still  more  tragic.  Here  was  our  greatest  soldier, 
who  had  reached  the  "  set  "  sixties  without  having 
ever  served  at  home  or  having  any  knowledge,  first 
hand  or  second  hand  (he  made  no  time  for  study),  of 
the  geography  of  the  United  Kingdom,  of  the  consti- 
tution of  our  home  forces  or  of  the  War  Office.  He 
hated  the  English  climate,  and  was  never  himself 
amidst  the  complexities  of  Western  civilisation.  His 
ideas  were  magnificently  primitive.  When  the  Vice- 
roy of  India  was  bombed  on  his  elephant  going 
down  the  most  famous  street  in  the  East,  the 
narrow  Chandni  Chowk  of  Delhi,  Lord  K.  said 
to  me  he  wished  he  could  be  Viceroy  for  half  an 
hour.  I  asked  him  why.  He  said  he  would  pull 
down  the  Chandni  Chowk,  and  make  its  rich 


48        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

gold  and  silversmiths  rebuild,  at  their  own  expense, 
a  wide  street  unsuitable  for  bombing.  But  you 
can't  tackle  Lombard  Street  that  way,  and  it 
was  life  and  death  to  our  country  that  this 
strange  energy  should  be  exceptionally  well 
fitted  and  bitted  with  the  best  of  Staff-Officers. 
Most  vital  was  it  that  his  Chief  of  the  General  Staff 
should  possess  wide  General  Staff  knowledge,  and 
be  an  authoritative  exponent  of  its  doctrine,  a 
man  of  prestige  and  distinction  in  the  realm  of 
General  Staff  work.  A  great  Staff-Officer  so  gifted 
would  have  been  able  himself  to  make  Lord  Kitchener 
understand. 

As  it  was,  I  really  despair  of  conveying  an  idea 
of  what  happened  to  our  Army  Power  House  when 
the  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff  had  been 
replaced  by  an  ex- Adjutant-General ;  when  the  Adju- 
tant-General (Ewart)  who  knew  the  War  Office 
intimately  had  been  replaced  by  a  new  man  who 
knew  nothing  about  that  office ;  when  the  Deputy- 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff  had  also  been  removed, 
and  when  into  this  swept  and  garnished'  depart- 
ment rushed  the  prodigious  K.  Possibly  a  passage 
from  my  wife's  diary  may  give  just  a  glimpse. 
At  that  time,  be  it  remembered,  I  was  directly 
responsible  for  the  defence  of  London,  and  for 
making  every  urgent  preparation  to  frustrate  a 
landing  in  the  South  or  South-east  of  England : 

"  Wednesday,  12th  August,  '14.  Ian  has  gone  to  York,  sent 
there  and  all  sorts  of  other  places1  by  Lord  K.,  who  is  playing 
hell  with  its  lid  off  at  the  War  Office — what  the  papers  call 
standing  '  no  nonsense,'  but  which  often  means  '  listening  to 
no  sense.'  Anyway,  Ian  has  now  been  despatched  to  interrupt 

1  Edinburgh,  Perth,  etc. 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  49 

all  the  train  arrangements  for  the  Expeditionary  Army,  to  get 
together  Lord  K.'s  new  Army  of  100,000  men.  Poor  Ian  is 
very  sad  about  his  Territorials,  as  Lord  K.  intends  his  new  Army 
to  play  second  fiddle  and  Territorials  third." 

Was  this  "  the  fault  "  of  the  distinguished  officers 
then  at  the  War  Office  ?  Certainly  not !  If  anyone 
thinks  these  remarks  are  meant  critically  towards 
Lord  Kitchener,  Sir  Charles  Douglas,  or  any  other 
soldier,  he  has  missed  the  point  I  have  been  striving 
throughout  this  chapter  to  hammer  in.  All  I  want 
to  point  out  is,  that  if  we  are  going  to  learn  anything 
from  the  late  war  we  must  remember  that  good 
men  become  bad  men  when  they  are  put  into  the 
wrong  billet,  and  that  Lord  Kitchener  was  dreadfully 
handicapped  in  a  way  that  the  public  and  even 
the  Army  so  far  hardly  realise.  Imagine  any  real 
Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff  consenting  to 
co-exist  for  one  hour  with  an  executive  Commander 
who,  independently  of  him,  quitting  his  own  job, 
careers  about  the  country  extemporising  General 
Staff  work  !  The  explanation  is  as  simple  as  the 
occurrence  is  extraordinary :  there  was  no  Chief  of 
the  Imperial  General  Staff.  He  was  out  of  the 
picture.  He  had  been  wafted  away,  leaving  the 
British  Secretary  of  State  for  War  minus  that  potent 
influence  which  ought  to  have  held  serenely  and 
powerfully  on  its  own  preconceived  way,  shielding 
him  from  the  British  Commander-in-Chief  in  France, 
the  Commander  of  the  Central  Striking  Force,  the 
French  Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  and  last  but  not 
least  the  French  and  British  politicians. 

Thus,  in  a  few  days,  was  the  higher  organisation 
of  the  British  Army  destroyed — an  organisation 
evolved  through  long  years  of  practice  by  the  Duke 


60   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  Wellington  and  his  Staff-Officer,  Murray ;  for- 
gotten by  the  Victorians ;  copied  and  elaborated 
by  the  Prussians ;  recognised  as  a  prodigal  son 
and  welcomed  back  with  fatted  calves  by  the  Esher 
Commission  in  1904 ;  strengthened  by  Haldane, 
whose  work  tended  more  and  more  to  make  the 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff  right  hand  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  brain  of  the  Army ;  carried  on  by  Seely, 
whose  quick  sympathy  and  soldierly  instincts  helped 
to  hold  every  one  together — knocked  out  of  gear 
at  one  stroke  with  the  best  of  good  intentions  but 
the  most  hell-paving  results.  For  the  mischief  was 
cumulative  and  carried  on.  Sir  Charles  Douglas,  by 
his  death,  bequeathed  a  bankrupt  office  to  his  suc- 
cessor. Sir  James  Wolfe  Murray  was  an  able 
soldier  and  a  courteous  gentleman,  but  he  knew 
little  of  General  Staff  work,  and  he  was  com- 
pletely bewildered  by  the  kaleidoscopic  Kitchener. 
During  his  tenure  the  greatest  appointment  in  the 
British  Army  lay  dormant — produced  nothing — not 
even  thistles :  another  fine  character  and  career 
spoilt  by  being  put  into  the  wrong  place  ;  strange 
to  the  work  ;  strange  to  Lord  Kitchener  ;  finding 
everything  already  passed  out  of  his  hands ;  he 
who  should  have  been  It  became  it. 

Not  until  Sir  Archibald  Murray,  essentially  a 
General  Staff-Officer,  well  trained  in  those  duties 
during  peace  and  under  the  stress  of  the  South 
African  War — not  till  Murray  (who,  by  a  happy 
coincidence  bore  the  same  name  as  the  Peninsula 
War  Office  organiser  of  the  General  Staff  scheme) 
came  back  from  France  in  March,  '15,  as  Deputy- 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  did  the  moribund  depart- 
ment begin,  bit  by  bit,  to  show  signs  of  life.  But 


HIGHER  ORGANISATION  51 

the  meaning  of  the  great  appointment  Haldane  and 
Seely  had  meant  to  be  the  lever  of  our  war  machine* 
did  not  make  itself  apparent  to  our  civilian  War 
Cabinet  until  Lord  Kitchener  left  for  the  Dardanelles, 
when,  for  the  first  time,  the  Army  Council  met  and 
began  to  function  whilst  the  General  Staff  raised 
its  head  and  began  to  work  hourly  in  touch  with 
the  Admiralty.  No  man  did  better  work  during 
the  war  than  Sir  Archibald  Murray  during  the  three 
months  he  was  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff  ; 
at  last  the  round  peg  was  fitted  in  the  round  hole, 
and  so  Murray  was  eulogised  in  the  House  and 
packed  off  to  an  executive  command  ! 


CHAPTER  IV 
ORGANISATION  GENERALLY 

So  much  for  our  theory  of  higher  organisation 
together  with  an  example  of  our  practice. 

The  course  of  civilisation  follows  the  succession 
of  compromises  effected  between  two  categories  : 
(a)  the  man  attracted  by  expediency,  tradition  and 
all  the  lines  of  least  resistance ;  (b)  the  man  driven 
along  by  some  inherited  principle  of  discontent  to 
quarrel  with  fat  people  and  good  things  ;  the  man 
forced  by  some  restless  demon  to  attack  expediency, 
tradition,  fashion,  convention. 

The  clash  between  these  two  types  is  ceaseless, 
and  the  dust  they  raise  is  commonly  called  progress. 
Any  magazine,  any  newspaper  will  furnish  examples. 
I  am  writing  in  the  month  of  March,  and  the  February 
number  of  the  Royal  United  Service  Institution 
Journal  is  lying  at  my  elbow :  sure  enough  it  con- 
tains quite  a  good  sample  of  my  meaning.  "  Sub- 
stance or  Shadow  "  is  the  title  of  one  of  its  articles  ; 
a  good  title  expressive  of  the  way  in  which  type  (a), 
the  solid  man  in  possession,  looks  at  type  (6),  that 
everlasting,  that  lean  and  hungry  shadow  of  his 
which  will  never  leave  him  alone  to  sit  down  and 
digest  the  good  things  of  this  life  in  comfort.  The 
motif  of  the  said  article  runs  thus : 

52 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  53 

"  The  trend  of  expert  opinion  of  the  present  day  seems  to  veer 
rather  in  favour  of  the  mechanical  war  machine  replacing  the 
human  army  .  .  .  the  stodgy-minded  Briton  will  do  well  while 
accepting  the  tank  as  a  very  important  adjunct,  to  bank  on 
the  '  last  50,000  bayonets  produced,'  being  the  factor  which  will 
win  the  next  war.  ...  In  conclusion,  the  cavalry  will  never 
be  scrapped  to  make  room  for  the  tanks  ;  in  the  course  of  time 
cavalry  may  be  reduced  as  the  supply  of  horses  in  this  country 
diminishes.  This  greatly  depends  on  the  life  of  fox-hunting,  for 
which  the  class  of  horse  required  in  the  cavalry  is  used.  It  may 
therefore  be  necessary  in  the  course  of  time  to  stock  Government 
farms  for  this  purpose  or  import  from  Australia.  The  stodgy- 
minded  Britisher,  as  they  call  him,  does  not  mean  to  catch  at 
the  shadow  and  lose  the  substance." 

Once  the  existence  of  the  (a)  type  of  human 
beings,  i.e.,  about  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  these  islands,  has  been  recognised,  they  may 
be  left  alone,  as  they  would  like  to  be  left  alone. 
They  are  so  much  dead  weight,  but  dead  weight 
counts  in  the  tug-of-war.  They  find  leaders  of 
their  own  species  to  represent  them ;  they  don't 
want  to  do  more  than  exist,  for  they  don't  dream 
at  nights ;  the  howl  of  the  wolves  in  the  forest 
does  not  frighten  them  for  they  don't  hear  it ;  the 
gleam  of  the  Celestial  City  does  not  distract  them 
from  the  pursuit  of  the  fox  for  they  can't  see  it : 
so  they  carry  on  and  are  in  fact  every  bit  as 
necessary  to  human  progress  as  is  a  brake  to  a 
motor-car.  Yes ;  it  is  a  curious  reflection  but 
worth  noting  that  the  first  thing  you've  got  to 
think  about  if  you  want  to  go  fast  is  however  you 
are  going  to  stop.  But  in  England,  on  that  point, 
we  need  be  under  less  apprehension  than  most 
people. 

The  (6)  five  per  cent,  men  cannot  be  left  alone, 
for  they  are  an  insistent,  cut  and  come  again  sort 


54   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  person.  It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  analyse 
their  attributes.  All  I  wish  to  say  is  that  they 
may  be  divided  into  two  sub-types — (1)  the  warm- 
blooded crank  or  "  plausible  enthusiast,"  as  the 
man  of  substance  calls  him  in  the  article  from  which 
I  have  quoted  ;  the  artist  who  jumps  at  conclusions 
by  intuition ;  (2)  the  cold-blooded  scientist  who 
crawls  into  revolution  on  the  back  of  his  theories  ; 
who  collects  masses  of  evidence  and  facts,  and 
shows,  as  he  believes  logically,  the  trend  of  actual 
movements  as  yet  quite  invisible  to  the  somnolent 
ninety-five.  This  second  type  is  common  in  Ger- 
many, but  with  us  is  very  rare.  It  digs  out  reams 
of  precedents  and  then  goes  on  to  suggest  organisa- 
tions in  futures.  One  reason  (which  would  alone 
be  sufficient  for  any  but  my  own  fellow-countrymen) 
why  organisation  should  rank  first  in  the  scale  of 
the  constituents  of  an  Army  is  that,  in  any  sane 
or  civilised  system,  it  must  come  first.  A  hard 
saying,  this,  to  the  Anglo-Celt.  He  and  his  American 
cousins  will  always  (if  you  don't  watch  them  closely) 
make  units  first  and  then  try  and  fake  up  a  scheme 
to  fit  them  into  afterwards. 

The  U.S.A.  States  Militia,  as  they  were  when, 
in  1903,  I  was  privileged  to  travel  round  and  see 
them,  furnish  the  best  example  I  can  quote  of 
systematic  disorganisation.  Far  from  there  having 
been  any  notion  of  raising  the  units  on  some  sym- 
metrical or  balanced  plan,  there  was  not  any  vestige 
(not,  at  least,  any  apparent  to  a  visitor)  of  any  co- 
ordinating authority  either  outside  or  inside  the 
State.  The  units  just  grew.  One  State  might  have 
the  fancy  for  Engineers ;  another  for  Cavalry. 
When  I  ventured  to  suggest  that  each  State  might 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  55 

raise  its  quota  of  some  particular  service  so  that 
when  war  came  they  might  club  together  and  produce 
complete  divisions,  the  suggestion  was  quoted  as 
an  amusing  instance  of  an  outsider's  ignorance  of 
the  American  Constitution. 

But  we  dare  not  laugh  ;  that  would  not  be  good 
manners  seeing  we  have  suffered  so  much  and  so 
lately  from  the  beam  that  is  in  our  own  eye.  Even 
to-day  there  are  people  walking  about  outside  of 
Colney  Hatch,  sitting  in  a  House  supposed  to  be 
the  negation  of  Colney  Hatchism,  who  discuss  and 
pass  Army  Estimates  without  insisting  first  on 
being  given  a  list  of  every  unit  in  the  Army  with  a 
marginal  statement  explaining  the  precise  purpose 
this  most  expensive  item  is  intended  to  serve. 

I  say  it  is  folly  to  raise  a  single  company,  squadron 
or  battery  before  it  is  known  exactly  what  place  it 
is  to  take  in  some  definite  organisation  authorised 
for  some  definite  purpose.  The  feeblest  unit  takes 
time  and  money  and  energy  to  produce  and  it  is 
wicked  to  expend  assets  so  precious,  only  to  find, 
when  at  length  an  Army  is  organised,  that  some 
of  their  parts  are  superfluous.  Our  Territorial 
Force  was  well  organised  by  counties  so  that  groups 
of  counties  or  towns,  by  putting  their  units  together, 
made  complete  divisions — divisions  which  were 
actually  assembled  and  trained  every  now  and  then. 
So  far  so  good.  But  how  many  divisions  were 
there  ?  Fourteen.  Why  fourteen  ?  Into  what 
organised  Army  or  Armies  were  these  fourteen 
Divisions  to  fit  ? 

No  one  surely  should  be  so  well  equipped  to 
answer  that  question  as  the  Chief  of  the  Imperial 
General  Staff — and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has 


56   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

done  so.  On  1st  December,  1920,  he  spoke  as 
Chairman  at  a  Lecture  on  Man  Power  published  in 
that  very  same  useful  number  of  the  Journal  of 
the  Royal  United  Service  Institution  from  which  I 
have  already  culled  the  attack  made  by  a  man  of 
substance  upon  his  own  shadow.  Here  are  the 
words  of  the  Field-Marshal  :— 

"  One  other  thing.  This  country  of  England  believes,  almost 
alone  in  the  world,  in  a  voluntary  army.  There  are  a  great  many 
advantages  in  a  voluntary  army  ;  there  are  a  great  many  disad- 
vantages in  a  voluntary  army.  But  whatever  the  advantages, 
and  whatever  the  disadvantages,  there  is  this  constant  factor  in 
a  voluntary  army  :  it  solves  no  military  problem  alone — none. 
If  you  have  an  enormous  number  of  volunteers  you  get  an  enor- 
mous army  :  you  may  not  want  it.  If  you  have  no  volunteers 
I  imagine  you  would  get  a  very  small  army  ;  you  may  want  one. 
But  in  1914,  if  we  take  that  year,  there  was  not  one  single  cam- 
paign that  the  wit  of  man  could  imagine  where  the  right  answer 
was  :  '  Six  Regular  divisions  and  fourteen  Territorials.'  This 
country  has  gone  back  to  the  voluntary  system.  It  has  many 
advantages,  but  it  has  not  the  advantage  and  it  cannot  have  the 
advantage  of  solving  any  military  problem  either  of  peace  or  of 
war." 

So  the  pre-war  Army  Council  'pretended  that 
fourteen  divisions  of  Territorials  were  demanded  by 
a  scientific  defensive  organisation  planned  by  the 
General  Staff,  whereas  really  the  number  might 
just  as  well  have  been  four  or  forty.  Presumably 
the  number  fourteen  could  not  have  been  fixed  by 
the  General  Staff  at  all,  because  (we  are  told) 
"  there  was  not  one  single  campaign  that  the  wit 
of  man  could  imagine  where  the  right  answer  was  : 
Six  Regular  divisions  and  fourteen  Territorials  ! ' ' 
Presumably  the  number  of  these  unemployable 
Territorial  divisions  must  have  been  fixed  by  that 
dull  dog  the  Adjutant-General,  because  fourteen  was 
the  maximum  he  could  raise  for  the  money  ? 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  57 

But  how,  I  ask,  if  this  very  force  of  six  Regular 
divisions  and  fourteen  Territorial  divisions  did 
happen  to  fit  into  the  one  single  campaign  that  did 
actually  take  place  ?  What  abaht  it  ?  How  if 
these  twenty  divisions  were  a  carefully  thought  out, 
well-organised  force,  carried  in  strength  to  the  verge 
of  what  the  radical  economists  would  stand ;  of 
just  sufficient  weight  to  be  thrown  into  either  of 
the  scales  of  the  Continental  balance  of  power  so 
as  to  make  the  opposite  side  kick  the  beam,  kick 
the  bucket,  or  however  a  knock-out  may  be  best 
expressed.  No  !  it  is  all  very  well  to  rub  it  in 
that  we  are  bad  organisers — blind,  stupid  and  all 
the  rest  of  it :  it's  a  way  we  have  in  the  Army ; 
it's  what  Queen  Elizabeth  did  after  her  carefully 
organised  Regular  Navy  had  defeated  the  scratch 
team  of  Spaniards,  many  of  them  on  hired  Portu- 
guese ships,  called  the  Armada ;  it  is  our  pet 
plant,  but  I  do  think  the  men  who  have  triumphed 
through  those  six  Regular  divisions  and  fourteen 
Territorial  divisions,  and  who  would  have  been  beat 
to  a  frazzle  if  they  had  been  caught  mid-stream 
swapping  them  for  an  untried  Swiss  system,  should 
not  be  too  hard  upon  Haldane. 

So  now,  just  to  show  my  impartiality,  let  me  say 
that  I  do  not  quite  recognise  Haldane  the  Organiser 
when,  speaking  on  his  own  subject  recently  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  he  said  that  we  did  not  need  a 
supreme  Ministry  of  Defence  to  co-ordinate  Army, 
Navy  and  Air  Service,  because  "  the  Staffs  of  the 
Army  and  Navy  would  always  be  brought  up  in  a 
different  way  and  would  always  deal  with  problems 
of  which  the  others  were  not  even  conscious." 
Twice,  be  it  observed,  he  introduces  the  word 


58    THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

"  always,"  thereby  arrogating  to  himself  the  role  of 
prophet,  and  I  hope,  in  this  instance,  of  false  prophet. 
The  Staffs  of  the  Army  and  Navy  will  always  be 
brought  up  in  a  different  way  until  they  are  brought 
up  in  the  same  way.  But  the  sooner  they  are 
brought  up  in  the  same  way,  the  better  for  all  of 
us.  They  should  have  a  common  doctrine  and 
similar  methods  and,  speaking  as  one  who  has 
worked  in  closest  touch  with  the  Navy  both  in 
peace  and  war,  I  assert  positively  that  there  is  no 
more  reason  the  Army  and  Navy  should  be  "  uncon- 
scious "  of  one  another's  problems  than  that  Infantry 
and  Artillery  should  be  unconscious  of  one  another's 
problems.  Navy  and  Army  were  formerly  under 
one  head — the  King.  The  finest  Admiral,  bar  Nel- 
son, who  ever  trod  a  quarterdeck  was  Colonel 
Blake,  a  very  distinguished  soldier.  The  functions 
of  the  Fleet  are  (1)  to  cut  the  communications  of 
the  enemy  nation;  (2)  to  keep  open  the  communi- 
cations of  its  own  nation.  The  royal  road  to  success 
in  these  endeavours  is  to  defeat  the  enemy's  grand 
fleet.  The  functions  of  an  Army  are  :  (1)  to  defeat 
the  enemy's  main  force  ;  (2)  to  seize  upon  his  vitals. 
The  royal  road  to  success  in  these  endeavours  is  to 
cut  the  communications  of  the  enemy  Army  whilst 
keeping  open  its  own  communications.  Passing 
from  "  function  "  to  "  action,"  there  is  no  difference 
of  principle  in  an  encounter  between  squadrons  of 
battle  cruisers  and  an  encounter  between  squad- 
rons of  cavalry  with  the  horse  artillery.  After 
years  of  thought  I  feel  sure  that  nothing  will  make 
the  several  British  Services  become  "  conscious  "  of 
one  another's  problems  until  we  get  one  Minister 
responsible  for  the  whole  scheme  of  defence. 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  59 

Politics  have  been  the  bane  of  our  organisation 
for  years,  but  we  might  hope  that  a  Defence  Minister 
with  a  strong  United  Services  Staff  would  exercise 
a  non-party  influence,  spinning  like  a  gyroscope, 
not  on  the  Government  benches  but  on  the  top  of  the 
Speaker's  mace.  The  truth  of  it  is  that  for  years  and 
years  we  have  raised  or  disbanded  regular  or  auxiliary 
corps,  not  at  all  on  military  grounds,  not  in  the 
least  because  we  had  or  had  not  the  money,  but 
entirely  on  political  grounds.  Those  who  have 
pressed  for  expansion  have  not  perturbed  them- 
selves as  to  where,  how,  or  in  what  order,  the  new 
parts  were  to  fit ;  those  who  have  pressed  for  reduc- 
tion have  not  worried  as  to  how  the  complete  mili- 
tary organism  would  be  affected  when  a  going  part 
of  it  was  capriciously  picked  out  for  scrapping. 
The  history  of  the  relation  of  successive  British 
Administrations  towards  the  organisation  of  their 
own  military  forces  is  a  history  of  almost  incredible 
improvidence.  Penny  wise  in  times  of  preparation, 
pound  foolish  in  the  hour  of  danger,  whether  in 
their  economies  or  extravagances  equally  careless 
of  the  effects  their  action  might  have  upon  the 
organism,  they  furnish  to  mankind  the  supreme 
example  of  a  people  escaping  through  other  good 
qualities  the  penalties  for  apparent  complete  lack 
of  an  orderly  faculty.  But  with  what  effort — by 
what  desperate  expedients — do  we  achieve  those 
successive  hairbreadth  escapes  ? 

Lack  of  organising  capacity  is  by  no  means  char- 
acteristic of  individual  Britons.  The  Englishman 
has  it  in  him  to  be  a  good  organiser  and  as  soon  as 
competition  pinches  him,  he  very  quickly  shows  it. 
A  British  railway  is  better  organised,  right  through, 


60       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

than  a  German,  French  or  Russian  railway.  I 
speak  as  one  who  has  travelled  over  the  rails  of 
each  of  the  said  countries  longer  mileage  than  most 
of  their  native  inhabitants.  Foreigners  have  ingeni- 
ous methods  of  ear-marking  and  identifying  baggage  ; 
it  constantly  gets  lost.  British  porters  would  seem 
to  have  no  method.  They  dab  on  a  label  anyhow 
—anywhere — and  chuck  the  precious  portmanteau 
like  so  much  ballast  into  the  van :  invariably  it 
comes  to  hand !  So,  too,  our  shipping  companies. 
No  sooner  did  the  German  ring  begin  to  squeeze 
them  than  they  fell  into  line  and  organised  as  natur- 
ally as  a  duck  takes  to  the  water.  Even  our  coal- 
mining industry,  now  the  black  sheep  of  our  flock, 
used  until  the  war  to  be  taken  as  a  model  of  method 
both  in  Europe  and  America. 

Why,  then,  should  the  present  Government  make 
so  poor  a  showing  at  organisation,  not  only  in  the 
War  Office  and  the  Admiralty,  but  in  all  other 
Departments  ?  Why  is  it  that  we  have  hardly 
begun  to  think  of  applying  some  of  the  lessons  of 
a  war  period  to  peace  preparations  ?  Because  the 
voters  do  not  want  to  be  organised.  So  strongly 
does  their  instinct  for  freedom  move  them  that  they 
refuse  to  permit  Government  organisation  of  the 
national  services,  military,  naval,  postal,  educa- 
tional, and  what  not  to  be  one  iota  more  highly 
developed. 

The  presiding  genius  of  the  British  race  is  not  a 
logical  deity.  Sealed  pattern  schemes  mortgaging 
future  liberty  of  action  are  anathema  to  it.  "  Carry 
on  "  ;  "  Muddle  through  "  ;  "  Sufficient  unto  the 
day  is  the  evil  thereof  "  may  have  reckless  rings, 
but,  to  the  Anglo-Celt,  they  embody  a  philosophy. 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  61 

Following  the  Roman  example,  France  and  Ger- 
many make  a  colony  to  order  :  churches,  wharves, 
theatres.  Out  go  bands  of  officials,  troops  organised 
to  finger-tips,  details  worked  out  down  to  the  opera 
troupe.  Contempt  pours  upon  the  hugger-mugger 
British  whose  steam  cranes  and  ballet  girls  arrive 
years  after  the  ships  and  their  skippers.  But,  some- 
times, trade  slumps ;  colonists  stay  away.  Then 
the  churches,  wharves  and  theatres  remain  empty. 
So  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  these  strange 
British  merchants  and  planters,  who  only  beg  their 
Officials  and  Government  for  God's  sake  to  leave  them 
alone.  The  mailed  fist  is  all  very  well,  but  they  would 
rather  the  State  kept  it  in  her  pocket ;  their  own 
plain  fingers  and  thumbs  are  good  enough  for  them  ; 
they  know  that  a  highly  organised  nation  implies 
the  regulation,  registration  and  regimentation  they 
detest :  they  are  extremely  sensitive  to  any  attempt 
to  turn  them  into  machines  ;  they  seem  to  realise 
by  instinct  that  it  must,  in  the  long  run,  bring  about 
a  paralysis  of  the  individuality  and  go-as-you-please 
which  are  to  them  as  the  very  salt  of  life. 

In  the  early  'nineties  one  of  the  triumvirate,  then 
supreme  at  the  War  Office,  made  to  a  young  officer 
the  memorable  remark,  "  Organise  the  British  Army 
and  you  ruin  it."  The  subordinate,  who  had  been 
working  heart  and  soul  to  that  very  end,  looked  so 
sad  that  the  great  man  condescended  to  amplify, 
affirming  that  organisation  destroyed  initiative  and 
weakened  character.  My  friend,  who  was  then 
young,  put  down  that  remark  to  senile  irritability. 
Now  he  is  grown  old  himself  he  begins  to  suspect 
there  might  have  been  something  in  it.  In  precise 
proportion  as  highly  organised  systems  increase  the 


62   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  AKMY 

cohesion  and  momentum  of  their  mass,  so  they  must 
flatten  out  the  idiosyncrasies  and  clog  the  alertness 
of  each  of  the  component  particles  of  that  mass. 
In  precise  proportion  as  the  machine  becomes  effec- 
tive, so  do  the  chances  of  evolving  an  engineer  of 
initiative  become  smaller. 

If  a  man  is  too  long  on  a  groove,  he,  like  the 
horse  that  goes  his  daily  round  in  a  mill,  becomes 
dull  and  dispirited.  His  powers  of  making  an 
independent  choice  are  weakened.  The  organiser 
thinks  out  a  system  whereby  the  component  parts 
of  the  whole  will  be  specially  adapted  to  deal  with 
the  tasks  which  will  ordinarily  confront  them  and 
equips  them  with  every  adjunct  of  machinery  which 
will  facilitate  their  work  and  render  it,  so  far  as  is 
humanly  possible,  automatic.  The  primary  object 
of  organisation  is  to  shield  people  from  unexpected 
calls  upon  their  powers  of  adaptability,  judgment 
and  decision.  At  the  post  pillar  box  they  are 
reminded  to  stamp  their  letters ;  in  the  railway 
carriage  they  are  warned  not  to  let  their  heads  get 
knocked  off  by  tunnels.  The  worker  in  a  well- 
organised  concern  is  put  just  exactly  where  he  will 
feel  himself  most  at  home ;  where  the  probable 
contingencies  are  of  a  class  with  which  his  character 
will  be  well  fitted  to  cope  ;  where  the  strain  is 
measured  to  his  strength.  He  is  not  there  to  devise 
impromptu  means  of  dealing  with  unrehearsed 
situations. 

One  hundred  employees  working  in  a  combine, 
each  in  the  special  branch  that  best  suits  his  capacity, 
will  knock  out  two  hundred  small  shopkeepers. 
But,  at  the  end  of  the  struggle,  defeated  though 
they  have  been,  each  of  the  two  hundred  should 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  63 

be  better,  readier,  braver  fellows  than  any  of  the 
combine  servants,  bar  two  or  three  of  its  bosses. 
Inspection,  regulations  and  tail-twisting  are,  in 
theory,  educative ;  in  practice,  the  direct  hard 
knocks  of  the  world  make  character. 

Take  agriculture.  Suppose  two  virgin  reserva- 
tions to  be  opened  for  the  first  time  to  cultivation. 
Tract  "  A  "  is  handed  over  to  an  organiser  who 
hires  servants  and  fixes  up  the  whole  estate  in 
symmetrical  form,  so  that  there  is  neither  overwork 
nor  idleness  ;  so  that  no  waste  as  is  caused  by  a 
farmer  keeping  a  horse  and  cart  when,  for  the  best 
part  of  the  year,  there  is  only  work  for  three-fourths 
of  a  cart  and  horse.  Tract  "  B  "  is  cut  up  into 
small  freeholds  which  are  given  to  small  men  to 
work  with  the  aid  of  their  families.  From  the 
economic  point  of  view  there  is  no  comparison 
between  the  rival  systems.  Tract  "  A  "  will  yield 
half  as  much  again  as  "  B "  at  one-fourth  less 
total  cost  of  energy.  Nor  is  there  any  comparison 
from  the  point  of  view  of  humanity.  Tract  "  A  " 
will  have  produced,  say,  one  gentleman,  two 
bailiffs,  half  a  dozen  overseers,  and  one  hundred 
hewers  of  wood  (by  order)  and  drawers  of  water 
(by  order).  Tract  "  B  "  will  have  produced  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  yeomen — the  stuff  empires 
are  founded  upon — backbones  of  society — sound — 
independent — resourceful — such  men  that  a  society 
stiffened  by  twenty  per  cent,  of  them  remains 
morally  well  nourished  and  capable  of  pulling  through 
slumps,  strikes,  wars. 

A  member  of  a  gang  of  three  (or  four)  riveters 
spends  a  life-time  holding  a  rivet  to  be  hammered, 
or  hammering  a  held  rivet.  He  makes  better 


64   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

money  than  the  village  blacksmith  who  is  ready  to 
mend  a  baby's  pram,  ring  a  bull,  shoe  a  horse.  The 
riveter  probably  would  consider  the  blacksmith  to  be  a 
jack  of  all  trades,  master  of  none,  but  a  Commander 
prefers  the  citizen  who  has  worked  the  whole  of  his 
brain  and  not  only  one  corner  of  it. 

If  the  blows  aimed  at  our  livelihood  by  the  "  gener- 
ous emulation  of  commerce  "  1  force  us  to  it,  we  must 
go  on  organising,  I  suppose,  but  do  not  let  us  imagine 
that  the  dose  we  have  already  swallowed  has  brought 
us  any  closer  to  the  Angels.  Fishwives  in  Edin- 
burgh, trying  to  dispose  of  their  herrings  call,  them 
"  souls  of  men,"  meaning  that  their  men  had  jeo- 
pardised their  lives  to  catch  them.  Yes,  but  the 
seafaring  man,  constantly  pitting  his  wits  and 
courage  against  the  elements,  is  making  his  soul 
every  single  time  he  boldly  takes  his  life  in  his 
hands.  If  the  sellers  of  piece  goods  and  grey  shirt- 
ings were  to  advertise  their  wares  as  souls  of  men, 
that  would  be  more  to  the  point. 

One  more  try  to  strip  tinsel  off  organisation 
before  settling  down  to  weigh  its  real  merit  and  place 
in  an  Army. 

What  is  a  newspaper  ?  The  will  of  the  Proprietor 
flowing  through  a  hundred  pens  into  all  sorts  of 
flowers  of  speech.  Who  is  this  modern  Proteus  ? 
What,  sort  of  man  ?  He  may  be  a  very  human 
creature ;  fond  of  small  children  and  attractive  to 
them  ;  kind  to  his  relations  ;  a  man  often  hated 
but  not  by  those  who  come  in  contact  with  him  ; 
a  man  with  a  clear  touch  of  genius  in  his  composition 
and  armed  with  a  strange  flickering  kind  of  courage 
which  challenges  fortune  ;  dares  the  devil  to  do  his 
1  See  The  Millennium  ?  page  32. 


ORGANISATION  GENERALLY  65 

utmost ;  and  then,  seems  suddenly  to  go  to  sleep. 
I  love  him  myself — as  Brutus  loved  Caesar.  Or,  he 
might  be  a  lower  type  altogether.  A  man,  say,  of 
whom  it  suffices  to  look  at  his  face  ;  or  another, 
say,  of  whom  it  suffices  to  read  up  his  record.  But 
all  of  them,  good  or  bad,  have  one  gift  in  common 
or  they  simply  could  not  exist :  they  are  organisers  ; 
not  so  much  organisers  of  bodies  or  of  energies — their 
managers  do  that — but  of  minds.  Now,  normally, 
the  editors,  sub-editors,  leader-writers,  and  reporters 
who  barter  their  brains  with  those  bosses  are  as 
independent  as  most  men.  They  clothe  the  para- 
mount will  as  they  like  and  so  trick  it  out  with  the 
play  of  their  own  fancy  that  half  the  time  they  can 
forget  they  are  writing  to  order.  Whilst  loyally 
working  up  to  the  policy  of  the  paper,  they  manage 
to  secure,  in  fact,  a  fair  amount  of  elbow-room  for 
their  own  personalities.  If  the  screw  is  put  too 
heavily  upon  the  convictions  of  any  one  of  them, 
he  can  escape  with  his  self-respect  to  the  shelter  of 
a  rival  paper. 

Now  set  organisation  to  work.  The  boss  has 
bought  up  so  large,  so  representative,  a  group  of 
papers,  that  he  may  be  said  to  have  cornered  the 
market.  What  is  the  effect  ? 

In  the  first  instance,  the  power  of  the  press  is 
enormously  augmented.  Previously,  poison  and 
antidote  lay  side  by  side  on  the  bookstall ;  now  it 
is  only  the  colour,  size,  type,  and  general  politics  of 
the  papers  that  still  appear  to  differ.  No  longer 
are  victories  won  by  oratory  or  logic,  but  by  closuring 
the  opposition,  by  boycotting  their  letters,  by  refus- 
ing to  report  their  speeches,  by  a  process  of  sand- 
bagging, in  fact.  On  any  vital  question  of  the  day— 


66       THE  SOUL  AND   BODY   OF   AN  AKMY 

temperance,  let  us  suppose,  or  compulsory  service— 
the  whole,  of  the  arguments  laid  before  the  people 
become  ex  parie.  Yet,  ultimately,  as  in  the  case 
of  all  other  over-organisation,  the  powers  of  the 
individual  newspapers  decline.  Unless  the  pen  is 
handled  with  conviction  it  will  not  long  convince ; 
unless  the  other  side  gets  a  hearing  the  public  lose 
interest.  At  last  the  people  begin  to  take  so  many 
pinches  of  salt  to  their  leading  articles  that,  by 
degrees,  they  become  "  salted  "  like  horses  in  South 
Africa  and  are  immune  to  the  propaganda  bacillus. 

And  what  happens  to  the  journalists  ?  What  of 
Viscount  Morley's  dictum  that  "  In  literature  the 
salt  of  the  whole  thing  is  to  be  independent."  The 
calamity  does  not  overwhelm  at  once.  Slow  but 
sure  is  the  suppression  of  the  man  by  the  method, 
of  the  individual  by  the  organisation.  The  big 
writers  who  have  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  tree, 
they  survive  awhile,  but  in  the  long  run  ! 

A  brilliant  journalist,  writing  of  the  troubles  of 
foreign  countries,  remarked,1  "  In  spite  of  the  obvious 
weaknesses  of  English  political  organisation  .  .  . 
there  are  still  vast  elements  of  moral,  as  of  economic, 
strength  in  this  country."  Will  he  forgive  me  if  I 
suggest  to  him  that  instead  of  saying  "  in  spite  of  " 
he  should  have  said  "  because  of  "  ? 

And  now  to  apply  these  general  theories  to  an 
actual  Army. 

1  The  Observer,  7th  December,  1913. 


CHAPTER  V 
MILITARY  ORGANISATION 

In  the  early  'eighties  England  made  her  first 
conscious  effort  to  emerge  from  military  chaos  and 
a  young  officer  was  actually  paid  to  consider  a 
certain  abstract  law  of  proportion  called  organisation. 
As  may  be  imagined  the  bow  and  arrow  Generals 
were  very  much  upset,  but  there  was  one  fine  old 
soldier,  ex-holder  of  some  of  the  highest  adminis- 
trative posts  in  our  Army,  who  was  so  far  sympathe- 
tic that  he  came  round  a  few  weeks  later  to  size  up 
the  sweeping  of  this  new  broom.  He  asked  if  there 
would  be  anything  to  do  ?  The  young  officer  replied 
that,  barring  the  Cardwell  system,  which  gave  a 
certain  coherence  to  the  Regular  Army,  the  whole 
field  was  a  jungle,  nothing  but  a  jungle,  full  of 
overgrowths  and  undergrowths,  and  that  the  sweep- 
ing to  be  done  was  immense.  At  this  the  shocked 
veteran  rose,  "  Why,  whatever  do  you  mean  ?  In 
'78,  when  we  were  about  to  send  a  Field  Force  to 
Turkey,  every  single  detail  was  correct,  in  order, 
to  hand !  "  He  honestly  believed,  the  old  boy  did, 
we  had  perfected  our  organisation  for  war  in  the 
days  of  Disraeli.  So  did  the  Duke  of  Cambridge 
until  General  Sir  Henry  Brackenbury  went  within 
an  ace  of  giving  His  Royal  Highness  the  Field- 
Marshal  a  fit  of  apoplexy  by  telling  him  that,  on 

67 


68   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Continental  standards,  not  even  the  first  step  had 
been  taken  towards  organising  a  small  expedition 
against  savages — let  alone  war  ! 

Organisation  is  a  relative  condition  of  being. 
Marshal  Leboeuf  was  quite  sincere  when  he  said 
that  the  Army  was  ready  down  to  the  last  gaiter 
button.  Only,  he  expressed  himself  rhetorically. 
What  he  should  have  said:  "  Our  gaiter  buttons  are 
ready — compared  with  our  previous  condition  of 
anarchy  this  marks  prodigious  progress."  Which 
doubtless  it  was  ! 

Haldane  was  the  first  War  Minister  since  Cardwell 
who  poured  thought  and  science  upon  the  British 
military  muddle  (as  a  cook  may  pour  white  of  egg 
upon  a  thick  soup).  In  the  interval  the  many  good 
men  and  capable  men  who  ruled  the  War  Office 
did  not  include,  I  respectfully  submit,  an  organiser. 

Luckily  for  England,  Haldane' s  cranium  was  Von 
Roon-shaped.  England  didn't  deserve  Haldane.  Eng- 
land deserved  an  orator,  a  politician,  a  rich  noble- 
man or  perhaps  even  a  "  business  "  man.  Haldane 
saved  England — though  himself  he  could  not  save — 
by  his  philosophical  and  organising  instincts.  In 
dealing  with  a  part  Haldane  always  saw  the  whole. 
Most  politicians  only  see  a  part — their  own  part. 
In  all  the  luck  of  England  she  never  had  a  finer 
stroke  of  luck  than  that  Scotchman.  The  Fates 
never  span  a  more  impish  web  for  the  two  Kaisers 
than  they  span  when,  into  Arnold  Forster's  vacant 
chair,  slipped — with  his  singular,  side-long  step— 
Haldane !  His  Mother,  magnificent  specimen  of 
Northumbrian  femininity,  had  an  inbred  horror  of 
the  Germans.  A  cousin  by  marriage  of  her  mother's 
was  French,  and  this  lady  had  told  old  Mrs.  Haldane 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  69 

when  she  was  a  small  child  that  she  and  her  sisters 
were  locked  up  in  the  cellars  whenever  the  Prussians 
passed,  although  they  were  allowed  to  look  out  of 
the  windows  at  the  troops  of  any  other  nation. 
This  story  had  so  great  an  effect  upon  the  child's 
mind  that  when  she  grew  up  she  determined  that 
no  children  of  hers  should  ever  have  truck  with 
these  terrors.  As  usual  the  parental  prohibition 
created  the  craving.  Nothing  would  satisfy  little 
Richard  and  Elizabeth  but  Hegel,  and  a  habit  of 
thinking  carried  out  to  the  absolute  nth.  So  into 
the  big  room  at  the  War  Office,  and  on  to  the  chair 
where  so  many  budget-to-budget,  expedient-seeking 
Anglo-Celts  had  sat,  was  ushered  a  philosopher  who 
started  from  the  assumption  that  Being  =  nothing  ! 
Great  fun,  that,  really  ;  a  first-class  celestial  joke  ! 
Here  was  a  man  who  took  nothing  for  granted — 
not  even  a  Sergeant-Ma j or.  His  mind  instinctively 
recoiled  from  the  existing,  or  "  being,"  and  ran 
backwards  to  the  "  nothing "  or  starting  point. 
He  first  took  the  Rules  and  Regulations  and  created 
in  his  mind  a  model  Sergeant-Ma  j  or ;  thence,  by 
process  of  thought,  he  kept  improving  him  until, 
suddenly,  he  ran  up  against  a  live  Sergeant-Major, 
and  no  doubt  found  that  he  was  by  no  means  all 
he  should  have  been. 

Subjected  to  this  critical  analysis  several  things 
began  to  happen  to  the  British  Army.  For  the 
first  time  Authority  had  the  ordinary  pluck  to  face 
up  to  the  object  of  our  having  an  Army  at  all.  To 
the  Gladstone  type  of  mind  which  had  ruled  the 
roost  for  so  many,  many  years  there  was  no  worse 
crime  than  to  be  blunt ;  to  state  plainly,  for  instance, 
that  an  Army  was  meant  to  do  anything  so  pro- 


70   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

foundly  immoral  as  to  fight.  Haldane  went  far 
beyond  that :  he  actually  had  the  nerve  to  frame 
a  scheme  on  the  tacit  assumption  that  we  were 
going  to  fight  on  one  side  or  another  of  the  delicate 
equipoise  of  Europe— in  Belgium  or  Flanders! 
That  very  moment  everything  began  to  fall  into 
its  place.  The  appalling  hotch-potch  of  regulars, 
militia,  yeomanry,  and  volunteers  could  at  least,  and 
at  last,  be  measured  and  weighed,  not  in  vacuo, 
but  against  and  in  comparison  with  a  specific  con- 
tingency. For  the  first  time  Authority  itself  got 
(to  grips  with  the  strength,  composition  and  object 
of  the  forces  of  our  first  line,  and  if  the  voters  re- 
mained ignorant  that  was  entirely  owing  to  their 
own  accursed  indifference.  As  soon  as  Authority 
realised  where  it  stood,  Authority  began  to  lop  off 
excrescences  and  wipe  out  deficiencies — amidst 
shrieks  and  curses  no  doubt ;  but  still  the  axe 
worked  on.  As  an  example  of  a  progress  unexampled 
during  a  hundred  years  of  War  Office,  be  it  noted 
that,  whereas  in  1899  we  sent  out  to  South  Africa 
one  single  Brigade  of  Infantry,  and  one  only,  organised 
exactly  as  it  had  been  in  peace,  we  had,  when  war 
was  declared  in  August,  '14,  eighteen  regular  infantry 
brigades  organised  precisely  as  they  had  been  during 
the  preceding  year  and  ready  to  send  out. 

The  civilian  may  find  it  difficult  to  grasp  the  full 
significance  of  that  advance,  especially  as  its  value 
diminishes  with  every  week  that  passes  in  war-time. 
The  old,  rough-and-ready  arrangement  which  held 
the  field  during  the  South  African  War  and  with 
which  it  must  be  compared,  consisted  in  the  flinging 
together  of  four  battalions,  drawn  from  anywhere, 
and  appointing  to  command  them,  say,  a  popular 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  71 

favourite,  or  the  son  of  somebody,  or  a  clever  admin- 
istrative officer  from  the  War  Office  assisted  by  some 
young  Staff  Officers  who  had  never  been  through  the 
Staff  College.  I  have  inferred  that  in  1899  we  had 
only  one  Brigade  of  Infantry  to  send  out.  This 
is  not  quite  correct.  We  might  have  sent  out  three, 
but  we  deliberately  broke  them  up — all  but  one — 
so  as  to  extemporise  a  Highland  and  a  Fusilier 
Brigade.  We  deliberately  smashed  up  two  little 
pieces  of  real  organisation  to  make  two  sentimental 
organisations.  Apparently  the  last  word  in  dis- 
organisation had  been  said.  Yet,  strange  to  relate, 
these  queerly  associated  crowds  would  generally 
harden  down  into  solid,  homogeneous  blocks  within 
a  few  weeks  of  taking  the  field.  The  son  of  Somebody, 
and  the  popular  favourite,  rose  to  their  responsi- 
bilities and  faced  the  music  of  the  Mauser  like 
men.  The  clever  administrator  went  sick  or  was 
"  unstuck,"  and  made  way  for  a  war  soldier.  The 
start  had  been  deplorable — the  recovery  was  rapid. 
Good  batteries  and  battalions  as  a  basis,  favoured 
by  stress  of  war  and  the  genius  of  a  race  drilled  by 
generations  of  casual  rulers  to  improvise  things  for 
themselves,  had  worked  what  would  seem  to  be 
miracles  to  a  German. 

Now  look  at  the  matter  this  way  :  for  the  first 
month's  fighting  in  '14  each  of  the  new  brigades  was 
fifty  per  cent,  more  valuable  for  attack  than  the 
brigades  we  had  in  South  Africa.  For  defence 
it  was,  say,  ten  per  cent,  better.  After  that  month 
the  superiority  of  the  new  Haldane  brigades  would 
tend  quickly  to  disappear.  But  the  first  pitched 
battle  may  pitch  the  war  away  and  is  spoken  of  by 
serious  writers  as  being  equivalent  to  "  half  the 


72   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

campaign."  Fifty  per  cent,  of  half  a  campaign  is 
a  quarter  of  the  whole  campaign.  Quarter  of  a 
campa.ign  gained  by  Haldane's  rearrangement  of 
existing  figures  and  words  !  Yes,  that  is  an  actual 
fact.  At  no  cost  at  all ;  by  a  few  pen  strokes  the 
first  striking  force  of  our  Infantry  was  increased  to 
an  extent  incalculable  in  terms  of  cash.  Had 
French's  force  at  Mons  consisted  of  the  identical 
men,  guns,  horses,  and  had  they  been  hastily  thrown 
together  on  the  1899  plan,  I  say  most  confidently 
there  would  have  been  no  Mons  Star.  Put  it  more 
bluntly:  Had  the  Great  War  broken  out  before 
Haldane's  work  had  taken  shape  we  must  have  begun 
it  by  losing  our  foothold  on  the  Continent.  We 
have  all  heard  the  story  of  the  military  policemen 
standing  at  the  cross-roads  and  calling  out  to  the 
stream  of  retreating  men,  "  3rd  Division  to  the 
right,  5th  Division  to  the  left,"  and  of  how  that 
stream  divided  itself  and  fell  at  once  from  disorder 
into  order.  This  happens  to  be  a  true  story  and  I 
have  an  eye-witness  who  can  authenticate  it.  Well, 
under  the  1899-1906  conditions  the  men  would  not 
have  learnt  yet  to  which  division  they  belonged  and 
the  disorder  would  have  become  irremediable.  No 
end  of  instances  might  be  given,  did  space  admit, 
to  show  that  the  B.E.F.  could  never  have  held 
together  under  the  strain  of  that  retreat  if  the 
divisions  and  brigades  had  not  been  thoroughly 
homogeneous,  thoroughly  welded  together,  thor- 
oughly organised. 

So  far  I  have  spoken  of  brigades,  and  brigades 
are  big  things :  divisions  are  bigger  still  and 
divisions  are  formed  of  brigades — but  only  in  part. 
Here  is  one  of  Haldane's  principal  claims  to  a  statue, 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  73 

namely,  that  he  created  the  self-sufficing,  self- 
contained  division  which  is  the  ark  of  the  covenant 
of  our  Army.  He  alone  did  it.  On  his  head  he 
did  it.  Off  his  own  bat  he  did  it ;  lopping  off  ex- 
crescences, adding  guns,  sappers,  signallers,  field 
hospitals,  and  all  A.S.C.  administrative  services. 

This  work  was  carried  through  without  any 
active  backing  from  his  perfectly  indifferent  col- 
leagues hi  face  of  a  bitterly  hostile  Tory  opposition 
and  alone  it  would  have  entitled  any  War  Minister 
to  fame.  Yet  it  was  only  the  A. B.C.  of  Haldane's 
achievement.  Let  it  be  granted  he  was  in  luck  in 
getting  a  virgin  forest  for  his  potato  patch — even 
so,  what  a  crop  !  An  Expeditionary  Force  of  six 
Regular  divisions  ;  120,000  men  instead  of  Arnold 
Forster's  5,000  men  ;  there  is  the  sort  of  round 
figure  that  should  crash  like  a  bullet  into  the  brain 
of  the  good  citizen  who  has  been  hypnotised  with 
that  well-rubbed-in  phrase  about  Haldane's  spiritual 
home.  He  made  ready  an  advance  guard  of  160,000 
men  to  attack  that  "  spiritual  home  "  ;  his  pre- 
decessor had  aimed  at  preparing  (for  he  never  really 
prepared  them)  5,000  men  !  Each  into  their  proper 
spheres  Haldane  set :  first  line  (Regulars) ;  special 
reserve  to  first  line  (Militia)  ;  second  line  (Territorials 
and  Yeomanry)  ;  third  line,  a  machine  for  stamping 
out  reserve  formations  for  the  second,  i.e.,  County 
Associations.  He  failed  in  nothing  except  the 
Cadet  Corps,  and  there  it  was  his  nerve  that  failed. 
Officers'  Training  Corps,  that  was  a  great  success, 
but  the  Cadet  Corps  would  have  added  a  cubit  to 
the  stature  of  every  Briton.  I  must  not  say  any 
more  or  else  I  will  break  the  thread — none  too 
tenacious  in  any  case — of  my  argument.  So  I  will 


74        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

only  point  out  in  conclusion  that  the  philosophic 
lawyer  who  did  these  things  had  organised  victory. 
Obviously  we  cannot  afford  to  dispense  with 
organisation.  No  sane  soldier  would  dream  of 
breaking  up  our  brigades  and  divisions  in  order 
that  we  might  go  back  to  the  old  mob  of  batteries 
and  battalions.  Yet  great  as  has  been  the  gain,  it 
is  not  unmixed.  Formerly  the  Commander  of  a 
Battalion  was  a  big  dog.  No  Emperor  has  ever  felt 
the  sense  of  power  tingle  more  vividly  through  his 
veins  than  these  Tritons  amongst  minnows.  The 
sovereign  people  take  months  to  make  some  petti- 
fogging law.  The  Judge  is  bound  to  listen  for  hours 
to  rigmaroles  and  lies.  The  Lieutenant-Colonel  of 
old  had  the  habit  of  formulating  ukases  between 
each  puff  of  his  pipe.  Every  moment  questions 
involving  the  whole  future  of  some  human  being, 
were  it  only  a  Lance-Corporal,  trembled  in  the 
balance  of  his  brain.  And,  in  solving  them,  his  own 
character  was  being  surely  tested  also — it  was  being 
strengthened  to  meet  the  heavier  calls  which  might 
be  made  upon  it  in  the  future.  Now,  organisation 
has,  at  a  stroke,  dimmed  his  glory — lowered  his 
standards.  Formerly  Battalion  Commanders  were 
masters,  subject  only  to  an  occasional  inspection. 
Now  they  are  servants  to  the  Brigade  Commander, 
who  takes  the  lion's  share  both  of  the  glory  and 
responsibility.  What  is  the  result  ?  In  knowledge 
and  education  the  Lieutenant-Colonel  gains  benefit 
by  working  under  the  eye  and  at  close  quarters  to 
a  Colonel,  who  should  be  the  pick  of  the  men  of  his 
standing,  but,  all  the  same,  the  numbers  of  the 
character-forming  billets  in  our  Army  have  been 
reduced  by  three-fourths  and  it  seems  reasonable  to 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  75 

suppose  that,  in  ten  years'  time,  we  shall  pay  for  our 
higher  level  of  education  amongst  senior  Lieutenant- 
Colonels  by  there  being  few  men  of  bold,  independent 
judgment  amongst  them  from  whom  to  select  our 
Generals. 

The  subordinate,  too,  is  subtly  affected  by  the 
more  thorough  apportionment  of  each  part  of  the 
machine  to  the  tasks  it  may  have  to  perform.  In 
the  good  old  days  a  British  subaltern  thought 
himself  equal  to  every  task  on  God's  earth.  He 
was  Athos,  Porthos  and  Aramis  rolled  up  into  one. 
Give  him  the  office  and  he  would  gaily  sally  forth, 
equipped  with  nothing  more  formidable  than  a 
toothbrush,  to  bring  off  any  sort  of  coup  in  any 
known  or  unknown  corner  of  the  globe.  With 
smiles,  kicks,  promises,  he  would  raise  some  band  of 
scallywags  and,  aided  by  them,  would  in  due  course 
present  a  thoroughly  ungrateful  country  with  a 
Nigeria  or  an  Oudh.  To-day,  the  toothbrush  touch 
is  at  a  discount.  Young  soldiers  know  that  the 
contingency  has  already  been  thought  out  for  them 
by  others  and  their  minds  do  not  turn  readily  to  the 
idea  of  improvisation.  Mesopotamia,  German  East 
Africa  and  the  Dardanelles  show  that  they  are  still 
eager  enough  to  try  their  hands  at  making  bricks 
without  straw,  but  by  the  time  they  feel  assured  that 
a  plan  has  been  pigeon-holed  for  the  conquest  of 
Greenland  and  Terra  del  Fuego,  then  they  will  look 
to  the  plan  rather  than  cudgel  their  own  brains,  a 
result  which  may  land  us  a  generation  hence  full  of 
followers  but  short  of  leaders. 

The  Japanese  had  a  marvellously  organised,  a 
very  great  Army.  They  had  no  great  Commander. 
Generals  of  character,  chivalry,  courage,  and  calm 


76        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

they  had ;  also  a  highly  trained,  closely  organised 
General  Staff  system,  for  which  very  reason,  I  feel 
sure,  the  High  Command  shed  its  personality  in 
the  anonymity  of  its  own  bureaux.  They  had  not 
one  man  who  would  have  put  the  telescope  to  his 
blind  eye.  Had  they,  instead  of  Kuropatkin  the 
administrator,  met  that  Commander,  that  latest 
reaction  from  super-organisation  and  General  Staffing, 
called  Foch — they  were  done  !  Foch  took  form 
before  system  began  to  crush  personality  ;  so  did 
the  only  other  two  men  on  all  this  overcrowded 
contemporary  canvas  who  wear  the  aura  of  greatness 
— Hindenburg  and  Kitchener. 

The  new  model  brigade  is  only  a  sample  of  what 
was  going  on  everywhere  in  our  War  Office  between 
1905  and  1912.  Under  those  conditions  we  got  to 
know,  from  Divisional  General  to  drummer  boy,  the 
exact  strength,  composition  and  object  of  the  forces 
of  our  first  line.  And  we  could,  and  did,  lay  hands 
on  every  man  Jack  of  them — from  drummer  boy 
to  Divisional  General. 

Thus  (1)  we  knew  we  had  resources  in  hand 
to  keep  the  Expeditionary  Force  fed  through  the 
first  months  of  war. 

(2)  We  had  an  idea,  less  defined,  but  still  some 
idea,  of  what  we  wanted  in  the  way  of  the  Territorial 
Force,  our  second  line.  We  knew,  but  we  had 
not  the  nerve  to  say,  that  we  wanted  eighteen 
divisions  instead  of  fourteen.  There  would  have 
been  no  difficulty  in  raising  them,  given  better  pay. 
The  cause  of  our  timidity  was  not  so  much  the 
political  or  Treasury  obstruction  as  the  strong 
hostility  of  the  London  Press,  and  of  a  great  mass 
of  gentlefolk  who  ought,  normally,  to  have  been 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  77 

the  backbone  of  county-raised  forces.  Still,  though 
short  in  cadres  and  under  strength  in  those  cadres, 
there  was  confidence  that  when  a  crisis  arose 
the  great  voluntary  idea  would  come  to  the 
rescue  ;  fill  up  the  fourteen  weak  divisions  and  then 
duplicate  them  and  triplicate  them  with  the  overflow. 

(3)  Whilst  we  had  our  County  Associations' 
machine  ready  for  stamping  out  third,  fourth, 
fifth  lines  we  realised,  only  too  acutely,  that  we 
had  no  men  pledged  in  advance,  and  prepared 
for  in  advance,  to  step  in  and  be  stamped  out  by 
that  machine :  we  had  no  civilians  ear-marked  to 
enter  the  depots — each  man  the  right  depot — the 
moment  war  was  declared.  Whilst  detesting  con- 
scription under  whatever  smooth  alias  it  might 
masquerade,  we  felt,  some  of  us,  that  all  the  man- 
hood of  the  land  should  be  registered  as  waiting 
men ;  not  necessarily  drilled  or  trained,  or  in  any 
other  way  touched  by  their  military  obligations  ; 
but  simply  pledged  and,  on  paper,  organised  to 
stand  by  ready  to  fill  up  the  depots  of  every  class 
of  unit  as  soon  as  the  imminence  of  danger  seemed 
to  justify  so  decisive  a  step. 

No  one  has  had  greater  faith  than  I  have  had  in 
the  volunteer ;  no  one  has  fought  harder  for  the 
voluntary  idea  than  I  have  ;  no  one  has  suffered 
more  for  his  faith  in  it,  whether  in  his  public  career 
or  in  his  private  friendships. 

The  Great  War  has  now  come  along  and  clinched 
my  belief  into  certainty ;  my  belief,  namely,  in 
the  ultimate  willingness  of  every  sane,  able-bodied 
Englishman  and  Scotsman  to  step  forward  with 
his  life  in  his  hand  when  his  country  calls  upon 
him  for  the  sacrifice.  But  where  is  he  to  step 


78        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

to  ?  That  point  should  be  fixed  up  beforehand, 
for  it  takes  a  generation  to  work  it  out. 

The  only  sane  objectors  were  those  who  did  not 
realise  exactly  where,  when  and  why  they  were 
being  called  up.  They  knew  they  possessed  certain 
talents  valuable  to  the  State  and  their  common  sense 
and  patriotism  were  equally  revolted  by  the  thought 
that  they  were  going  to  be  misused,  broken  and 
flung  aside — all  to  no  purpose — less  than  no  purpose 
— by  a  conscienceless,  stupid  machine.  Had  they 
known  beforehand  that  their  value  had  been  already 
intelligently  weighed  and  that  their  careers  and 
lives,  even  if  they  were  lost,  would  not  be  wasted, 
why  then,  there  would  have  been  even  less  hanging 
back  than  there  was. 

Given  a  little  more  intelligence  and  good  will, 
the  voluntary  system  might  have  beaten  its  wonder- 
ful best  and  seen  us  through  the  war.  If  Haldane's 
organised  machinery  of  the  County  Associations 
had  been  used,  as  it  was  intended  to  be  used,  to 
stamp  out  the  New  Armies  one  after  the  other, 
the  recruits  would  have  been  handled  with  greater 
knowledge  of  their  personal  concerns  and  capabilities 
and,  therefore,  with  more  tact  and  discrimination : 
also,  pride  of  county  or  of  town  would  have  been 
harnessed  to  the  recruiting  car  ;  also,  it  is  clear 
that  the  increases  in  pay  given  to  keep  a  compulsory 
service  Army  in  a  good  temper  in  1919  would  have 
stimulated  recruiting  in  1916  ! 

By  creation  of  the  part  we  begin  to  comprehend 
the  whole.  Organisation  is  the  art,  or  science,  of 
building  up  a  symmetrical  whole  by  a  number  of 
parts,  just  as  the  human  frame  is  built  up  by  heart, 
liver,  brain,  legs,  etc.  It  is  not  until  you  have  a 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  79 

forefinger  that  you  clearly  grasp  the  advantage 
of  a  thumb.  When  the  six  complete  divisions 
were  created,  they  pointed  the  way  towards  a 
supporting  organisation  of  similar  Territorial  divi- 
sions. Now  that  this  system  is  complete  in  itself, 
it  points  the  way  towards  an  organisation  of  the 
balance  of  our  manhood. 

Had  our  national  registers  been  prepared  before 
1914,  and  had  depot  arrangements  been  worked 
out  for  the  reception  of  men  to  be  called  up — why 
then  the  County  Associations  could  smoothly  and 
rapidly  have  raised  Second,  Third,  Fourth  and 
Fifth  editions  of  the  first  fourteen  Territorial  divi- 
sions. Also,  by  their  depot  units  they  could  have 
maintained,  in  a  regular  and  discriminating  manner, 
a  flow  of  drafts  for  the  whole  of  these  divisions, 
as  well  as  for  all  the  ancillary  services  of  the  National 
Armies  in  the  Field.  Instead  of  our  actual  efforts 
in  making  the  new  K.  Armies  with  as  many  mistakes, 
flounderings,  wastages  as  if  military  forces  had 
never  before  in  our  history  been  raised,  the  County 
Associations,  who  knew  all  about  making,  clothing, 
feeding  and  keeping  troops,  would  have  stamped 
out  duplicates,  triplicates  and  quadruplicates  of 
their  original  quotas  of  Territorial  troops,  without 
too  much  friction  or  effort ;  they  would,  indeed, 
have  turned  out  the  fifty-six  divisions  we  required 
quite  comfortably. 

A  man  hesitates  to  tackle  a  picture  puzzle.  He 
feels  tired  when  he  looks  at  the  heap  of  queer-shaped, 
jagged  oddments  whose  relatedness  does  not  lie 
on  the  surface  or  jump  to  the  eye.  One  day  the 
spirit  moves  him,  or  his  children  move  him,  to  set 
to  work  and  he  succeeds  in  fitting  together  part 


80        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  the  pattern.  The  deep-seated,  the  symmetrical, 
constructive  instinct  is  now  fairly  aroused :  the 
desire  to  complete  the  picture  becomes  over-power- 
ing :  if,  for  some  reason,  part  of  the  work  must  be 
undone,  he  is  careful  to  leave  the  backbone,  the 
clue,  to  the  general  design. 

When  Haldane  left  the  War  Office  he  left  his 
successor  with  his  half-finished  puzzle,  and  all 
seemed  shaping  very  nicely.  The  Army  Council 
of  1913  had  their  six  divisions  of  Regulars,  their 
fourteen  Territorial  divisions,  and  had  begun  to 
feel  that  if  they  were  required  to  expand,  they 
could  do  so,  in  such  a  way  as  to  perfect  the  whole ; 
that,  if  they  were  ordered  to  reduce,  they  could 
do  so  with  a  minimum  of  damage.  Suddenly 
arose  the  Irish  storm,  struck  the  good  ship  War 
Office  and,  in  a  jiffy,  overboard  goes  the  pilot,  the 
skipper  and  the  navigating  lieutenant.  Their  places 
are  filled — nohow,  anyhow.  Hardly  are  they  filled 
when  a  frightful  tornado  strikes  lightning-like  on 
that  ill-fated  barque.  The  whole  of  the  trained 
crew,  mates,  engineers,  stewards,  tumble  into  a 
lifeboat  and  row  for  dear  life  and  medals  to  the 
Continent.  Overboard  goes  the  new  pilot ;  over- 
board goes  the  old  pilot  who  is  recalled  and  seems 
for  a  moment  to  handle  the  helm,  and  on  to  the 
bridge  of  that  poor  derelict  vessel  is  thrust  a  Master 
Mariner  of  Eastern  Seas,  one  who  has  never  yet 
guided  any  ship  in  European  waters. 

All  seems  lost,  but,  to  the  British,  all  things  seem 
possible:  so  great  are  their  reserves  of  energy  and 
adaptibility  that  they  have  as  many  lives  as  a  cat. 
The  fourteen  Territorial  Divisions  are  shelved ; 
they  and  their  Associations  stand  down  ;  everyone 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  81 

plays  up  ;  the  tour  de  force  of  replacing  a  fine  organi- 
sation by  a  sheer  improvisation  becomes  possible 
(owing  to  the  breathing  space  guaranteed  us  by  our 
Fleet)  to  a  great  national  hero  of  resistless  push. 

He  #  *  *  * 

The  first  thing  is  to  think ;  the  second  thing  is 
to  write  ;  the  third  thing  is  to  lobby.  No  Parliament 
(remember)  accepts  the  organisation  or  reorganisa- 
tion of  anything  without  a  long,  hard  struggle,  for 
(as  is  too  often  forgotten)  Parliaments  are  out  all 
the  time  to  protect  vested  interests. 

The  genius  of  our  race  does  not  run  to  "  order." 
There  is  a  strong  tendency  amongst  us  to  sneer  at 
the  student  of  method,  or  theory,  and  to  smile  upon 
the  man  of  action,  the  "  business  "  man.  If  you 
hear  an  Englishman  say  A  is  a  theorist  and  B  a 
practical  man,  you  know  he  would  prefer  B  for  his 
son-in-law.  He  might  be  wrong.  But  all  I  say  here 
is,  each  one  in  his  place,  and,  in  Army  making,  first 
place  for  organisation  which  can  put  an  Army  in 
hand  in  the  same  way  that  in  an  egg  you  may  hold 
in  hand  the  sharp  spurs  and  gallant  soul  of  a  game 
cock.  If,  when  war  breaks  out,  you  have  thought  so 
little  about  the  problem  that  you  cannot  lay  your 
hand  straightway  upon  fighting  men — not  even  in 
embryo — then,  indeed,  despair.  Given  time,  an 
Army  may  get  as  far  as  the  egg  state  at  next  to  no 
cost  and  without  interfering  in  any  way  with  the 
ordinary,  everyday  avocations  of  the  citizens  who 
may  be  ear-marked  by  the  organiser  as  potential 
food  for  powder,  whilst  nothing  is  further  from  their 
thoughts. 

If  the  Adjutant-General  knows  exactly  who  and 
what  are  required  and  can  lay  hands  on  "  who  " 

o 


82   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

and  "  what  "  the  moment  they  are  required — if 
methods  have  been  thought  out  carefully  before- 
hand for  the  armament,  equipment,  housing  of  all 
this  raw  personnel  and  material  the  moment  it  rolls 
in,  why  then,  the  Army  is  already  on  the  stocks,  and 
if  you  have  a  first  line  Expeditionary  Force  ready  to 
go  anywhere,  a  big  Regular  Sea  Fleet  to  take  it 
there,  and  a  big  Territorial  Force  Air  Fleet  to  pre- 
vent you  from  being  rushed,  you  ought,  with  luck, 
to  have  time  enough  to  get  that  paper  Army  on 
foot. 

These  views  will  be  queried  by  many  good  officers. 
So  eager  are  some  of  my  comrades  for  perfection 
that  they  think  it  practical  to  say  they  have  no  use 
for  imperfection — that  if  they  cannot  get  highly 
trained  troops  they  would  prefer  to  have  none  at 
all !  Many  things  are  militarily  desirable,  financially 
practicable  and  politically  impossible.  Messrs.  Coats 
might  as  well  sneer  at  raw  cotton  as  an  Adjutant- 
General  turn  up  his  nose  at  a  bumpkin.  A  firm  of 
timber  merchants  have  hanging  over  their  heads  a 
contract  binding  them  to  be  ready  to  deliver,  when- 
ever called  upon,  a  larger  number  of  planks  than 
they  can  well  afford  to  stock  on  the  off-chance. 
Being  in  a  quandary,  they  are  offered  a  lien  on  the 
forests  of  the  country,  to  become  operative  the 
moment  the  heavy  demand  is  made  upon  them.  Is 
it  thinkable  that  they  would  quarrel  with  the  offer : 
saying  that  trees  in  the  rough,  not  even  trimmed  of 
their  branches,  were  of  no  use  to  them  ?  Would 
they,  as  practical  men  of  business,  reject  such  an 
option  because  in  normal  times  it  lay  dormant  ? 
So  with  an  Army.  A  well-thought-out  paper  or- 
ganisation may  seem  valueless  in  peace  time — to 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  83 

the  minds  which  the  catch  phrase  captures.  A 
"  paper  "  transaction,  preparation,  promise,  is  held 
in  very  poor  esteem  by  rascals  and  asses  ;  all  the 
same,  it  is  the  basis  of  progress  and  of  civilisation, 
and  if  the  name  of  every  likely  lad  in  the  country 
is  committed  to  paper  and  ear-marked  for  the  class 
of  job  that  best  suits  him,  why  then,  one  touch  of 
the  button  and  their  services  are  secured.  Untrained 
the  lads  may  be,  but,  as  I  shall  presently  prove,  if 
the  machinery  for  training  them  is  got  ready  in 
advance,  they  themselves  are  already  half  ready. 

Colonel  Goethals,  of  the  United  States  Army,  lately 
commanded  thirty-five  thousand  men  who,  with 
thirty-five  thousand  of  their  dependents,  were  strung 
along  the  Panama  Canal.  The  country  produced 
nothing.  Every  morning  these  seventy  thousand 
beings  were  provisioned  for  the  day  from  the  seaboard 
with  their  own  national  bill  of  fare,  from  the  pick- 
aninny's pap  to  the  Spaniard's  olla  podrida.  Neither 
food  nor  drink  of  the  right  sort  ever  failed  a  single 
mother's  son  of  the  said  heterogeneous  seventy 
thousand.  The  medical,  sanitary,  supply,  transport 
services  were  scientifically  allotted  to  the  groups 
along  the  line — in  proper  proportion.  The  Ordnance 
could  make  anything  in  their  shops  form  a  watch 
to  a  locomotive.  Nothing  was  left  to  chance.  All 
was  foreseen,  arranged  and  ordered.  The  workers 
were  told  off  into  four  sections,  what  we  in  the 
Army  would  call  divisions,  and  commanders  (three 
of  them  military  officers)  and  staffs  were  appointed 
over  them  so  as  to  secure  the  due  co-operation  of 
these  several  sections  in  working  towards  the  one 
central  purpose  of  slicing  America  in  two.  Each 
section  was  subdivided  on  the  military  idea  of 


84        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

brigades,  battalions  and  companies,  under  manager, 
deputy  manager  and  foremen.  Each  commander 
and  each  staff  officer  had  been  taught  to  realise  his 
own  power,  as  well  as  the  limitations  placed  upon 
that  power,  first,  by  the  measure  of  his  comrades' 
responsibilities ;  secondly,  by  the  measure  of  his 
chief's  responsibilities.  Down  through  these  avenues 
passed  the  central  driving  power  of  Colonel  Goethals' 
will,  reaching,  nimbly  as  the  electric  spark,  into  the 
brains  of  the  humblest  black  labourers  on  the 
isthmus. 

Most  people  would  agree  that  these  groups  of 
peaceable  labourers  working  between  Colon  and 
Panama  were  the  very  antithesis  of  an  Army.  They 
wore  no  uniform.  Few  of  them  possessed  arms. 
Since  the  Lord  came  down  to  confound  the  language 
of  the  world  at  the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel 
no  harsher  cackle  of  strange  tongues  jangling  has 
been  heard  than  the  lingo  current  in  and  about  the 
great  Culebra  Cut.  The  nasal  drawl  of  the  Yankee 
— the  exasperating  aspirates  of  the  Cockney — the 
quick,  sharp  snap  of  French  phrases — the  smooth 
rotundity  of  South  American  patois — the  gutturals 
of  the  Teuton — the  vivacious  chatter  of  the  negroes— 
a  motley  jumble  if  ever  there  was  one — and  yet,  out 
of  this  very  jumble,  organisation,  great  crystalliser, 
had  begun  her  formulative  work. 

The  rudiments  of  an  Army  were  emerging  from  an 
artificial  amalgam  of  human  beings  unbound  by 
personal  motive  or  racial  sentiment.  Whatever 
that  force  could  accomplish,  which  would  not  have 
been  equally  well  done  by  an  equal  number  of  day 
labourers,  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  organisa- 
tion. 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  85 

Suppose  now,  at  his  breakfast  one  day,  Colonel 
Goethals  had  got  a  cypher  cable  telling  him  that 
the  Venezuelan  Army  was  advancing  northwards  to 
attack  Mexico  ;  or,  if  preferred,  let  it  be  the  other 
way  on.  What  could  he  have  done  ?  Had  he 
organised  a  mere  simulacrum  of  an  Army,  or,  did  it 
possess  any  military  quality  ? 

Well,  within  one  hour  of  his  getting  that  message, 
he  could  have  his  whole  force  of  35,000  men  digging 
a  chain  of  redoubts  along  the  heights  from  the 
Pacific  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  By  the  next  after- 
noon these  would  be  wired  in  and  would  have  had 
their  approaches  studded  with  dynamite  mines 
cleverly  connected  up  with  central  observing  stations, 
thus  furnishing  any  garrison  that  could  be  put  into 
them  with  some  shelter  from  rifle  or  gun  fire,  or 
even  a  bayonet  charge.  The  workshops  might, 
meanwhile,  have  fitted  out  each  North  American  or 
British  worker  with  a  couple  of  hand  grenades ;  a 
certain  number  of  rifles  available  would  also  have 
been  issued  to  those  who  could  use  them,  a  number 
which,  in  the  case  of  the  British  (before  the  war) 
had  been  calculated  as  one  in  every  three.  Next 
day  the  small  force  of  Marines  stationed  near  Culebra 
Cut  would  be  reinforced  from  Key  West  or  Guan- 
tanamo  and  these  troops  would  find  a  pretty  fair 
line  of  entrenchments  ready  for  them  to  walk  into. 
The  professional,  fighting  Commander  would  appre- 
ciate what  had  been  done,  but  he  would  also  have  to 
find  grave  fault  with  the  sites  chosen  for  the  redoubts. 
Their  field  of  fire,  command,  etc.,  etc.,  would 
certainly  be  most  faulty.  His  censure  would  be 
justified  by  the  facts,  but  undeserved  as  addressed 
to  Colonel  Goethals,  for  the  organisation  created  by 


86   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

him  between  Colon  and  Panama  was  purely  an 
administrative  and  peace  organisation.  It  had  no 
special  thinking  department  for  war — no  General 
Staff.  Otherwise,  the  positions  and  profiles  of  all 
those  defensive  works  would  have  been  puzzled  out 
scientifically  in  advance. 

The  labour  force  organised  under  military  chiefs 
on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  was  not  an  Army,  but  it 
had  begun  to  shape  that  way.  In  its  administrative 
services  it  was,  in  fact,  an  Army.  Although  the 
fighting  men  only  existed  here  and  there  as  chance 
individuals,  still,  even  as  it  was,  Colonel  Goethals' 
force  could  have  made  short  work  of  twice  its  own 
number  of  unorganised  populace.  Also,  let  it  be 
remembered  that  to  whatever  extent  this  said  force 
exhibited  the  characteristics  of  an  Army  (as  against 
the  mere  mob  who  would  perish  miserably  of  hunger 
the  second  day  out  of  Colon)  it  owed  none  of  this 
power  to  military  discipline,  training,  homogeneity, 
or  moral.  The  disciplinary  code  of  the  Canal  was 
notably  less  strict  than  in  an  English  coal  mine. 
Any  black  labourer  could  demand,  any  forenoon, 
an  interview  with  Colonel  Goethals  himself,  and  be 
ushered  into  his  presence  right  away,  without 
intermediary.  The  rank  and  file  were  the  clear 
negation  of  homogeneity.  Moral  had  no  place  in  a 
mere  money-making  engagement.  And  yet,  so 
wonderful  was  the  effect  of  a  well-thought-out, 
perfectly-organised  system,  that,  of  itself,  it  gave  a 
distinct  touch  of  discipline,  cohesion  and  esprit 
de  corps  to  the  whole  motley  concern. 

Now  let  me  try  to  show  lack  of  organisation  at 
work.  In  all  her  long  history  England  had  never 
sent  forth  a  more  splendid  body  of  troops  than  those 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  87 

she  embarked  for  the  Crimea  in  the  spring-time  of 
1854.  The  rank  and  file  were  long  service  men 
drawn  from  a  population  which  had  not  yet  had  its 
eyes  picked  out  by  the  emigration  agents.  Nor 
had  London  or  Lancashire  yet  gained  scope  and 
power  to  sweat  hundreds  of  thousands  of  peasants 
through  their  grimy  mills.  As  to  the  officers,  they 
were  the  fine  flower  of  our  smaller  country  gentry 
— our  Western  Samurai.  The  drill,  discipline 
and  interior  economy  of  corps  were  the  best  of 
their  kind  then  existing  on  earth.  Behind  those 
forces  stood  the  traditions  of  the  Peninsula  and 
Waterloo  undimmed  as  yet  by  any  intervening 
failure. 

They  landed :  for  a  while  it  seemed  as  if  the  fair 
prognostics  of  the  past  were  to  be  fulfilled.  At  the 
Alma  the  line  of  battle  was  coolly  and  cleverly 
formed  and  the  advance  under  fire  was,  take  it  all  in  1 
all,  every  whit  as  spirited  and  as  determined  as  any 
of  Wellington's  day.  At  Inkerman  the  superior 
command,  the  intelligence  department  and  the 
Staff  work  scarcely  reached  the  standards  of  a 
nigger  tribe,  but  the  units,  fighting  as  units,  without 
cohesion  or  common  purpose,  behaved  with  so  much 
initiative,  gallantry  and  devotion  that  England  had 
cause  for  pride.  The  first  assault  on  the  Redan 
brought  with  it  for  the  first  time  unrelieved 
failure,  but  this  was  attributed  to  bad  Staff 
work — very  plausibly  so,  for  the  Staff  work  was 
horrible.  After  the  second  assault  disguise  became 
no  longer  possible;  the  Army  was  no  longer  the 
Army  of  Wellington.  Its  indomitable  spirit  hadV 
been  broken.  Charles  Gordon,  a  good  judge  and 
a  generous,  says,  writing  home,  "  We  should  have 


88        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

carried  everything  before  us  if  the  men  had  only 
advanced." 

What  had  happened  ?  The  whole  heart  and  soul 
of  the  War  Office  had  run  into  spit  and  polish.  No 
forethought  was  to  be  found  there.  On  the  spot 
G.H.Q.  had  failed  to  develop  even  so  much  initiative 
as  to  jog  the  minds  of  the  British  Government  and 
remind  them  that,  although  the  distance  from  the 
beaches  to  the  front  was  only  five  miles — 8,800 
yards — say  10,000  paces  (about  the  same  as  in  the 
Southern  theatre  at  the  Dardanelles),  yet  neither 
flour  nor  blankets  could  fly  over  even  that  short 
distance.  No  genius  imagined  a  metalled  road ; 
no  superman  had  the  happy  thought  of  a  rail- 
way. So  the  flower  of  the  Army  sank  into  their 
graves  and  the  proud  hearts  of  those  left  were 
broken. 

Not  the  skill  of  Todleben,  not  the  fighting 
qualities  of  the  Russian  soldiers,  not  G-eneral 
January  or  February,  not  pestilence,  not  superior 
armament,  but  just  the  good  old  British  national 
Generalissimo,  Sir  Muddle  T.  Somehow,  K.G.,  O.M., 
G.C.B.,  marched  our  poor  fellows  off  by  battalions 
into  another  and,  let  us  hope,  better  organised 
world. 

Colonel  Goethals  and  his  Commissary,  Major 
Wilson,  would  have  tackled  that  five  miles  line  of 
communication,  giving  it  precedence  over  everything 
except  the  actual  fighting ;  treating  it  in  precisely 
the  same  anxious  spirit  as  that  with  which  a  diver 
examines  the  tube  that  is  to  bring  down  the  vital 
air  into  his  helmet.  The  chance  of  snow  and  rain 
falling  in  the  Crimea  would  have  struck  them. 


MILITARY  ORGANISATION  89 

Having  been  educated  at  West  Point  they  would 
have  heard  how  winter,  plus  the  rotten  roads  of 
Russia,  had  combined  to  cut  short  the  careers  of 
Charles  XII  of  Sweden  and  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon. 
Being  organisers  they  would  have  understood  right 
away  that  if  a  lot  of  men  were  to  be  employed  digging 
trenches  in  very  beastly  weather,  they  must  be  fed 
and  clothed  at  least  half  as  well  as  convicts.  Indeed, 
I  will  be  bound,  had  they  been  sitting  in  a  London 
office  and  had  they  there  been  shown  a  plan  of 
harbour  and  camp,  their  very  first  anxiety  and  instruc- 
tions would  have  been  directed  towards  the  estab-' 
lishment  of  a  good  and  durable  road  between  the 
ships  and  the  Army  in  the  trenches.  But  then,  as 
I  have  said,  they  are  organisers.  We,  also,  had 
organisers  amongst  us  in  the  "  'fifties"  —for  example 
Florence  Nightingale.  But  the  Civil  or  Military 
departments  who  ruined  our  Army  in  the  Crimea 
had  not  even  an  inkling  of  what  I  am  here 
endeavouring  to  explain — the  part  played,  namely, 
by  Organisation  and  her  handmaiden,  Administra- 
tion, hi  the  life,  strength  and  victories  of 
Armies. 

From  the  Crimea  to  1914-18  is  a  far  cry  and  we 
ought  to  have  learnt  to  avoid  the  more  costly  and 
colossal  of  the  blunders  I  have  described.  Have  we  ? 
Let  each  one  think  for  himself.  As  for  me  I  feel 
I  should  only  weaken  my  argument  if  I  opened  it 
to  the  raging  of  contemporary  controversies.  But 
as  to  the  future,  we  must  be  of  good  courage  and 
resolve  to  do  better — resolve  next  time  to  have 
the  man,  the  men  and  the  machines — ready.  To  do 
this  with  any  degree  of  success  we  must  think  out 


90   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

exactly,  in  advance,  the  shape  and  size  of  the 
machines,  the  framework.  This  point  will  be  dealt 
with  in  the  last  chapters  on  the  application  of  my 
theories  to  our  actual  Army. 


CHAPTER  VI 
DISCIPLINE 

The  moment  organisation  grips  an  individual  it 
tends  to  produce  a  certain  habit ;  the  habit  a  part 
acquires  of  harmonising  itself  with  the  whole.  In 
my  simile  of  the  machine  the  parts  were  held  together 
by  rivets — that  is  to  say,  by  discipline.  From 
family  to  Empire  no  association  of  human  beings 
can  dispense  with  discipline. 

This  is  the  theory ;  nay,  more,  it  is  the  firm 
belief  of  nine  men  out  of  ten.  But  when  it  comes 
to  practice  ?  .  .  .  We  are  all  willing  to  serve  God ; 
but  who  is  to  interpret  Him  to  our  senses  ?  Actu- 
ally, we  Anglo-Celts  apply  our  belief  in  discipline 
to  those  over  whom  we  have,  in  some  way  or  another, 
got  a  pull.  With  infinite  pains  we  have  trained 
the  horse  to  be  a  useful  servant — tamed  wolves  into 
dogs — taught  lightning  to  work  telephones.  Are 
they  to  be  free  ?  Certainly  not !  With  infinite 
pains  the  State  has  educated  us  into  civilised  beings. 
Are  we  to  be  free  ?  Certainly  ! 

Those  are  our  principles  and  there  is  a  great  deal 
to  be  said  for  them;  a  very  great  deal  which  can 
be  put  into  four  words.  The  war  is  won.  Yes ; 
the  free  Briton  has  beaten  the  social-communal 
German ;  elastic  individualism  has  smashed  the 
rigid  organisation. 

91 


92   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

That  is  not  to  say  that  the  British  were  quite 
uncontrolled.  Clearly  that  would  not  be  correct. 
Uncontrolled  energy  is  like  steam  in  a  cloud  up  in 
the  sky.  You  can't  use  it.  If  it  dissolves  in  rain, 
more  likely  than  not  that  rain  falls  on  to  the  new- 
mown  hay — I  speak  feelingly.  But  stick  the  vague 
thing  into  a  machine  and  it  works.  The  war  has 
forced  us  to  crib  from  the  enemy ;  the  "  sort  of 
peace "  of  1921  finds  us  more  organised,  more 
disciplined,  less  in  the  clouds,  than  we  were  when 
we  started ;  and  we  hate  it. 

Some  races  have  worn  the  habit  of  discipline  so 
long  that  it  has  become  to  them  what  her  corsets 
are  to  a  fine  lady — a  support.  To  the  Anglo-Celt 
it  presents  itself  rather  as  an  enemy  to  freedom — an 
irksome  restraint — a  curb.  Though  he  may  long 
for  a  job,  the  moment  discipline  steps  in  and  orders 
him  to  work,  he  longs  rather  to  jib.  If  England 
has  escaped  reactions  on  the  large  scale  against 
discipline  since  the  days  when  the  pressed  crews  of 
our  Fleet  mutinied,  it  is  because  voluntary  service 
has  taken  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of  indiscipline 
and  has,  at  the  same  time,  supplied  us  with  the 
most  admirable  amalgam,  from  a  disciplinary  stand- 
point, of  officers  possessing  the  prestige  of  good 
education  and  social  status  whilst  the  rank  and 
file  are  drawn  mainly  from  the  most  easily  impres- 
sioned  classes. 

Everyday  education  is  busy  swelling  young  heads 
with  self-importance.  As  M.  Paul  Bert,  Gambetta's 
Minister  of  Education,  said  once  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  "  The  spread  of  material  prosperity, 
the  progress  even  in  education,  render  citizens  more 
susceptible  to  all  sorts  of  enjoyments  and  tend  to 


DISCIPLINE  93 

lead  them  towards  an  egotistical  indifference. 
Further,  the  spread  of  the  sentiment  of  individual 
independence,  consequent  upon  universal  suffrage 
and  the  frequent  exercise  of  sovereign  power,  is  by 
no  means  calculated  to  strengthen  respect  for 
discipline  or  even  respect  for  law.  The  military 
curriculum  appears  to  me  the  most  potent  method, 
I  do  not  say  to  create,  but  to  maintain  the  moral 
standard,  inculcating  as  it  does  reasoned  obedience 
and  legitimate  sacrifices." 

All  who  may  at  one  time  or  another  have  made 
an  effort  to  dive  beneath  the  surface  of  that  infor- 
mation-hunt called  education  must  realise  that  the 
penetrating  mind  of  this  Frenchman  has  made  its 
way  through  a  maze  of  theories  and  rules  to  the 
real   issue.     State    education   and   the   exercise   of  [ 
civil  rights  do  lead  straight  to  selfishness,  and  the 
first  task  of  any  Military  Officer  in  dealing  with 
young  civilians  is  to  try  and  knock  the  "Is"  out  ' 
of  the  egoist. 

Two  classes  of  our  community  form  an  exception 
to  the  undisciplined  majority.  By  acting  as  a 
species  of  reservoir  of  order  they  have  done  much 
to  counteract  the  disruptive  tendencies  of  competi- 
tive examinations  and  all  similar  exercises  in  the 
gentle  art  of  fratricide. 

Miners  and  seafaring  folk  possess  a  very  sound 
code  of  discipline  of  their  own  which  manifests 
itself  in  a  habit  of  orderly,  cool  obedience  to  recog- 
nised authority,  well  suited  to  those  Saxon  founda- 
tions upon  which  the  British  temperament  is  built. 

The  behaviour  of  British  miners  when  things  go 
wrong  underground  has  been  very  favourably  com- 
pared by  unprejudiced  experts  with  the  conduct  of 


94        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  miners  of  other  nations  under  a  similar  trial. 
No  rushing — no  cries — no  accusations  against  the 
company.  If  such  ideas  arise  they  are  kept  for 
next  day.  There  is  no  class  in  the  country  of  whom 
we  should  be  so  proud  as  our  miners,  and  that 
mainly  because  of  their  discipline.  How  do  they 
get  it  ?  By  the  organisation  which  at  the  same 
time  classifies  and  unites  ;  by  appreciation,  brought 
home  to  them  individually  several  times  in  the 
week,  of  the  superior  knowledge  and  experience  of 
their  managers  and  foremen ;  by  comprehension 
of  the  common,  ever-present  menace  from  the 
lurking  forces  of  nature  and  of  the  fact  that  union 
is  strength. 

Parenthetically,  I  may  here  remark  that  I  am 
trying  to  consider  my  subject  in  a  detached  and 
philosophical  spirit.  The  very  discipline  and  soli- 
darity of  the  miners  is  now  being  used,  in  the  opinion 
of  some  people,  to  get  more  than  their  due  share 
of  the  national  income.  All  I  mean  to  say  here 
is,  that  I  am  not  entering  into  these  matters ;  that 
they  must  not  arrest  my  argument ;  that  they  do 
not  affect  its  truth. 

Organisation,  as  I  began  by  saying,  in  itself  pro- 
duces discipline,  and  although  miners  may  be 
organised  on  the  large  scale  and  fishermen  on  the 
small  scale,  yet,  as  a  nation,  we  are,  as  I  have  shown, 
consciously  unorganised.  Colonet  Ardant  du  Picq 
says,  "  Organisation  and  discipline  work  towards 
the  same  end,  and  often  the  former,  if  it  is  rational, 
amongst  people  with  a  good  conceit  of  themselves 
like  the  French,  and  possessing  French  sociability, 
will  reach  the  goal  without  its  being  necessary  to 
apply  the  coercive  methods  of  the  second."  A  law 


DISCIPLINE  95 

ordering  a  man  to  serve  in  a  certain  contingency — 
asserting  the  right  of  the  State,  that  is  to  say,  to 
make  him  do  something  he  may  not  like — contains 
in  it  a  germ  of  discipline  even  if  it  is  never  applied. 
Yet  more  unmistakably  is  this  disciplinary  effect 
produced  when  organisation  quits  paper  and  takes 
the  field. 

In  1885,  during  what  was  called  the  Pendjeh 
scare,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  above  all  things  anxious 
to  distract  the  attention  of  the  public  from  the 
death  of  Gordon  and  from  the  Quixotic  idea  that 
we  should  go  up  to  Khartoum  to  show  that  national 
heroes  should  not  be  speared.  So,  in  a  species  of 
cold  frenzy  (clever  political  scheming  masked  as 
burning  sympathy  for  Central  Asian  scoundrels), 
the  drum  was  beat,  the  bugle  was  blown,  and  certain 
categories  of  the  Army  Reserve  were  summoned 
to  the  Colours. 

Now  this  was  the  first  time  the  reserves  had  ever 
been  called  out :  indeed,  until  the  'eighties,  there 
had  never  been  any  reserves  to  call.  Perhaps  then 
belief  that  the  men  would  actually  put  in  an  appear- 
ance was  not  so  implicit  as  was  pretended.  Cer- 
tainly the  arrangements  made  for  their  reception 
were  altogether  inadequate.  But  the  men  did  turn 
up  in  full  force  ;  there  was  no  sufficient  organisation 
ready  to  take  them  in  hand,  and  it  will  be  in  the 
memory  of  many  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
indiscipline  and  crime. 

In  1899  the  reserves  were  again  called  out,  but 
this  time  the  organisation  was  ready  for  them.  They 
were  met  at  the  railway  stations  ;  taken  off  to  the 
depot  with  the  band  playing  at  their  head  ;  clothed  ; 
equipped  and  given  a  hot  meal,  before  they  could 


96        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

ejaculate  "  Jack  Robinson."  No  one — not  even 
the  bitterest  of  our  critics — has  ever  said  one  word 
against  the  conduct  of  those  men  either  before  they 
embarked,  on  their  voyages,  during  the  war  or  after 
they  came  home.  Bad  organisation  had  bred  bad 
discipline  in  1885  and  good  organisation  had  bred 
good  discipline  in  1899.  As  to  1914 — it  can  only 
be  said  that  the  first  hundred  thousand  were  delib- 
erately deprived  of  the  organisation  made  ready 
by  Haldane  for  their  reception  and  that  their  sur- 
vivors know  better  than  most  what  lack  of  organisa- 
tion means  in  breeding  discomfort ;  disease  ;  ineffi- 
ciency. If  they  triumphed  over  these  miseries 
—unnecessary  miseries — it  was  because  of  a  redhot 
enthusiasm  which  rivers  of  cold  water  and  acres 
of  mud  were  entirely  unable  to  damp.  But  these 
men  do  know  what  a  heart-breaker  muddle  can  be, 
and  they  will  understand  as  Britons  would  not  have 
understood  ten  years  ago  how  the  entire  lack  of 
organisation  manifested  by  the  French  mobilisation 
of  1870  must  have  lessened  the  discipline  of  the 
reservists  by  a  percentage  equivalent  to  an  Army 
Corps. 

"  Military  "  discipline — Wellington's  stand-by- 
Napoleon's  sheet  anchor  (not  his  propeller) — subjects 
the  minds  and  bodies  of  organised  men  to  a  special 
course  of  instruction,  part  moral,  part  physical. 
Up  to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  discipline 
took  the  form  of  bodily  exercises  and  appealed  more 
to  the  physical  and  instinctive  than  to  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual.  This  type  of  discipline  was  incul- 
cated by  curses,  blows  and  punishments  so  that 
only  the  lower  range  of  moral  qualities — pride, 
shame,  fear,  and  habit — were  played  upon.  The 


DISCIPLINE  97 

monotonous  character  of  the  drill,  whereat,  year 
after  year,  command  played  with  obedience  and 
crushed  initiative,  excluded  independence  of  thought 
— and  was  so  intended.  The  martinet  aimed  at 
getting  control  of  the  instinct ;  about  the  reason 
he  did  not  care. 

In  its  results  that  old  rigid  discipline  took  the 
form  of  a  mechanical,  subconscious  obedience  to 
the  percussive  shout  of  the  commander  ;  a  bark-like 
sound  violently  ejected,  propelling  lines  or  columns 
of  men  against  one  another  with  almost  as  little 
volition  on  the  part  of  the  individual  as  is  felt  by 
a  projectile  dispatched  from  the  mouth  of  a  cannon.  ; 
Or,  the  obedience  was  passive  but  equally  divorced 
from  the  ordinary  emotions  and  inclinations  of 
humanity.  "  Stand  there  till  you  are  relieved ; 
happen  what  may ;  lava  belching  forth  from  the 
mountain,  the  tide  pouring  in  from  the  sea,  a  city 
rising  in  its  wrath,  the  entreaties  of  the  girl  you 
love,  the  orders  of  your  own  Emperor ;  sentry — 
stand  there !  " 

Where  action  was  by  shock  of  soldiers  marching 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  the  more  mechanical  the  move- 
ment the  more  irresistible  the  effect.  Men's  bodies 
respond  to  instinct  more  effectively  than  to  will. 
The  quickest,  the  handiest  steersman  and  poleman 
going  up  the  Nile  to  the  relief  of  Charles  Gordon 
were  those  who  could  neither  read  nor  write.  An 
involuntary  sneeze  is  more  explosive  and  violent 
than  a  voluntary  blowing  of  the  nose.  A  hand 
inadvertently  touching  a  hot  iron  is  jerked  back 
more  quickly  than  the  same  human  being  can  move 
it  by  his  will. 

Therefore,  the  first  great  object  of  Commanders, 


98   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

from  Frederick  the  Great's  time  to  the  Revolution, 
was  to  have  their  men  half-hypnotised  by  habit  so 
that  the  Mesmerist  (the  Commander)  could  fling 
them,  as  cohesively,  as  unthinkingly,  as  if  they 
had  been  a  salvo  of  cannon-balls,  straight  upon  the 
bayonets  of  the  enemy.  Generals  did  not  so  much 
aspire  to  direct  and  to  control  the  intellects  of  their 
soldiers  as  to  manipulate  their  limbs  without  any 
disconcerting  interposition  by  the  intellects  of  the 
victims. 

To  this  end  the  rank  and  file  were  removed  as 
far  as  possible  from  the  influences  of  family  life. 
They  were  not  encouraged  to  be  either  moral  or, 
in  the  larger  sense,  patriotic.  A  fanatical  loyalty 
to  the  person  of  the  Reigning  Sovereign  and  an 
intensely  sectarian  esprit  de  corps  were  the  nearest 
they  were  allowed  to  approach  to  elevating  motives. 
Who,  precisely,  invented  this  character  mould  it 
is  impossible  now  to  discover.  The  process  was  in 
full  action  when  I  myself  joined  the  Army  and  it 
still  survives,  an  anachronism,  but  a  lucky  one  for 
Authority.  When  the  lesson  had  been  mastered 
by  the  soldiers  they  passed  muster  and,  in  course 
of  time,  when  they  had  been  mastered  by  the  lesson, 
then,  at  last,  a  brutal  routine  had  created  a  machine 
which  would  trample  down  the  noblest  enthusiasm. 
A  thousand  men  standing  up  in  the  open  with  arms 
in  hand,  each  anxious  to  fight  himself  but  each 
uncertain  of  how  far  his  fellows  meant  to  fight, 
were  liable  to  be  scattered  like  chaff  by  a  mere 
handful  of  soldiers  hypnotised  by  habit  into  respond- 
ing as  one  individual  to  the  orders  of  their  sergeant. 
Although  based  on  the  ignoble  idea  of  making  men 
dread  their  captain  more  than  the  enemy,  more 


DISCIPLINE  99 

than  the  Devil  himself l ;  although  founded  on  the 
illogical  principle  of  obtaining  bravery  by  teaching 
terror ;  the  incidental  results  of  that  old,  iron 
discipline  were  in  many  respects  admirable. 

Discipline  waged  constant  war  against  dirt,  irregu- 
larity and  slackness.  Discipline  could  turn  to  good 
account  not  only  the  willing  and  keen  but  also  the 
dull  and  apathetic,  curbing  these,  spurring  those. 
Good  discipline  was  proof  against  panic.  I  have 
seen  one  isolated  company  of  a  well-disciplined 
regiment  stand  to  their  arms  and  hold  their  ground 
steady  as  a  rock  when,  crying  out  with  terror, 
hundreds  of  men  suddenly  startled  from  their  sleep 
and  imagining  that  the  dervishes  were  upon  them, 
rushed  past  them  down  to  the  boats.  The  instinct 
of  the  organism  was  so  cultivated  that  the  common 
men  in  the  ranks  were  able  to  override  the  weakness 
and  cowardice  of  humanity.  By  inculcating  impli- 
cit, abject  obedience ;  by  inspiring  each  man  with 
confidence  that  he  would  not  be  left  in  the  lurch  ; 
discipline  gave  the  mass  ten  times  the  weight  of 
the  aggregate  of  its  atoms.  Napoleon  has  told  us 
how  two  Mameluks  would  beat  three  French  soldiers, 
but  that  one  thousand  French  soldiers  would  beat 
one  thousand  five  hundred  Mameluks.  Yet  the 
Mameluks  had  some  tincture  of  discipline ;  they 
were  accustomed  to  fight  together.  Indeed  discipline 
has  seemed  to  some  capable  even  of  creating  quali- 
ties ;  or,  if  this  is  considered  impossible,  it  can  at 
least  develop  out  of  all  recognition  qualities  latent 

1 "  It  was  an  inflexible  maxim  of  Roman  discipline  that  a 
good  soldier  should  dread  his  own  officers  far  more  than  the 
enemy." — Gibbon,  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
Chap.  I. 


100      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

until  it  touched  them.  But  its  penalties  were 
cruel ;  its  methods  damaging  to  initiative  and 
self-respect. 

A  well-known  example : 

During  the  Silesian  Campaign,  Frederick  the 
Great  was  going  the  rounds  of  his  camp  after  "  lights 
out."  Observing  the  glimmer  of  a  taper  coming 
from  a  tent  he  entered  and  found  Captain  Zietern 
engaged  in  sealing  up  a  letter.  The  culprit  fell  on 
his  knees  and  begged  for  forgiveness.  "  Take  a 
seat,"  said  Frederick,  "  and  add  a  few  words  to 
what  you  have  already  written."  Captain  Zietern 
obeyed,  and  wrote  at  the  dictation  of  the  hero  of 
Prussian  history,  "  To-morrow  I  die  on  the  scaffold." 
Next  day  he  was  duly  executed,  in  the  interests 
of  discipline,  and  also  no  doubt  that  the  bon  mot 
of  the  monarch  might  be  underlined  in  red.1 

The  method  of  Frederick  the  Great  had  been 
Caesar's  and  Alexander's  before  him  and,  long  before 
those  heroes  took  the  field,  Sun  Tzu,  the  Chinaman, 
had  shown  them  the  way. 

By  this  type  of  discipline  the  backbone  of  the 
British  Army  was  fortified  (and  mortified)  from  the 
time  it  was  first  raised  until  the  year  1881.  In 
1857,  112  of  our  soldiers  had  the  privilege  of  dividing 
between  them  a  total  of  5,249  lashes.  Looking  over 
returns  of  admissions  to  hospitals  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean garrisons  I  came  across  the  following  tit-bits. 
At  Malta  in  1863  there  were  twenty-two  admissions 
to  hospital  as  the  result  of  corporal  punishment. 

i  The  irony  is  not  levelled  at  the  penalty.  Where  disobedience 
or  carelessness  may  sacrifice  the  lives  or  liberty  of  perhaps  20,000 
comrades,  they  become  great  crimes.  But  the  occasion  did  not 
lend  itself  happily  to  epigram. 


DISCIPLINE  101 

At  Gibraltar  in  the  same  year,  1863,  there  were 
twenty-nine  admissions  to  hospital  as  a  result  of 
corporal  punishment.  Although  the  actual  floggings 
were  done  away  with  amidst  the  threats  and  head 
shakings  of  the  martinets,  the  theories  of  Sun  Tzu 
and  Co.  remained  on  the  code  until  the  last  year 
of  last  century. 

Of  all  the  rich  windfalls  garnered  by  Greater 
Britain  from  the  South  African  War  one  of  the  best 
was  her  new  Discipline.  Lessons  learnt  amongst 
the  nullahs  and  jungle  during  the  Tirah  Campaign 
of  1896-1897  against  the  Afridis  had  prepared  our 
minds  for  the  change,  and  the  fresh  experiences  of 
kopje  and  veldt  soon  convinced  our  officers  that, 
in  open  country  and  during  daylight,  the  ancient, 
mechanical  discipline  of  the  intensive,  iron  type 
simply  could  not  be  applied  to  the  new  tactics. 
Armament,  necessitating  (as  it  seemed  then)  wide 
extensions,  isolated  the  individual.  Neither  by 
voice  nor  revolver  could  the  captain  of  the  opening 
year  of  this  century  dominate  a  firing  line  extended 
at  five  to  ten  paces  interval  through  the  uproar 
and  confusion  of  the  battle. 

We  have  come  to  the  last  little  bit  of  safe  cover  for 
close  formations.  The  scouts  have  reported  on  the 
ground  lying  open  to  our  front.  The  captain  makes 
up  his  mind  to  break  cover,  open  out  and  rush.  The 
order  is  given.  Desperately  the  human  souls  dart 
forward — flights  of  bullets  whistling  past  their  ears  ; 
shrapnel  cracking  in  the  air  above  their  heads — each 
bent  double,  going  all  he  knows.  Many  fall  by  the 
way,  some  dead,  some  wounded,  some  shamming. 
But  our  one  little  bit  of  humanity  is  a  chip  from  some 
old  Norman  or  Viking  block.  He  gets  there — drops 


102      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OP  AN  ARMY 

in  the  heaven  of  shelter  behind  a  rock — and  finds 
himself  alone.  He  is  safe— for  the  moment !  The 
bullets  go  on  pouring  through  the  air — did  he  put  his 
cap  on  the  end  of  his  rifle  and  hold  it  up  it  would 
soon  be  as  full  of  holes  as  a  pepper  castor.  But — so 
long  as  he  keeps  his  head  down  he  is  safe.  No  captain 
or  subaltern,  not  even  a  sergeant  or  corporal,  to 
give  him  an  order — and,  if  they  did  give  him  an 
order,  how  could  he  hear  it? 

In  that  position,  any  man  trained  to  depend  so 
implicitly  on  orders  that  his  independent  ideas  have 
degenerated  into  instincts — the  man  whose  bravery 
consists  in  terror  of  his  officer — is  at  liberty  to  sit 
tight,  and  does  so ;  for  he  never  gets  the  kick  of 
his  accustomed  word  of  command. 

The  magazine  rifle  with  its  low  trajectory  and 
smokeless  powder,  spoke  volumes  to  the  captain 
of  1899-1902.  It  told  him  he  could  still  conduct 
his  company  into  the  zone  of  aimed  fire,  but  that, 
having  got  them  there,  he  must  either— 

(1)  Keep   his   direct    command   at   the   cost   of 
double  losses. 

(2)  Let  each  little  group  understand  the  common 
objective.     Then  leave  them  to  the  promptings  of 
their  own  consciences  of  what  was  right  rather  than 
to  the  dread  of  doing  wrong. 

Since  the  South  African  War  trench  warfare  has 
come  into  being  and  its  bearing  upon  military  ethics 
will  be  discussed  later  on.  But  it  may  be  stated 
here  that  although  from  the  material  and  practical 
standpoints  it  has  given  breathing  space  and  renewed 
possibilities  to  (1),  yet  in  our  Army  we  have  never 
since  South  Africa  looked  back  or  ceased  to  strive 
for  the  principle  exemplified  in  (2). 


DISCIPLINE  103 

Now  what,  under  that  principle,  happens  to  our 
lonely  soldier,  aged  twenty,  lying  in  momentary 
precarious  shelter  from  the  ceaseless  attempts  of 
terrible  people  called  the  enemy  to  deprive  him  of 
his  life  ?  If  discipline  has  become  a  matter  of 
conscience  he  will  still,  though  he  can  only  see  one 
or  two  of  his  comrades  and  speak  to  none,  feel 
himself  surrounded  and  upheld  by  those  comrades. 
Abstract  ideas  of  duty  and  patriotism  do  not  help 
a  young  man  in  such  a  tight  corner — not  much. 
Fear  will  not  help  him — not  at  all.  The  self- 
disciplined  mind  ;  the  proud  superhuman  feeling ; 
"  These  bullets  and  shells  won't  stop  me  !  "  The 
knowledge — the  conviction — that  the  captain  means 
to  rush  forward  again  upon  these  cursed  foreigners 
and  that  the  company  will  follow  him  to  a  man : 
there  is  his  loadstar  of  conduct. 

So  it  comes  that  the  balance  point  of  discipline 
has,  at  least  in  the  British  Army,  insensibly  shifted/ 
during  the  past  twenty  years.     Soldiers  of  all  ranks  \ 
are  being  taught  the  reason  why  orders   must  be  I 
obeyed ;     why    an    unwise    command    wisely    and  \ 
unanimously  carried  out  will  carry  further  than  a   \ 
wise  order  hesitatingly  executed  ;    why  individuals    \ 
must  stoop  if  they   wish   the   nation   to   conquer. 
Force  of  habit  of  mind  has  replaced  force  of  habit 
of  body.     The  momentum  of  the  opinion  of  comrades 
has  been  enlisted  on  the  side  of  duty,  and  although 
punishment  cannot  be  altogether  dispensed  with  as 
a  factor,    yet   our   officers   have   decided    to    seek 
discipline  for  the  future  more  largely  in  the  domain 
of  respect  than  of  fear  ;  in  the  effect  of  good  example  ; 
in  the  upholding  of  a  high   level   of   camaraderie ; 
in   being  wiser,   better  men  themselves   and  thus 


104      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

deserving,  earning  the  confidence  of  their  sub- 
ordinates ;  in  the  intelligent  comprehension  by  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  why  and  wherefore  of  an  order 
and  in  their  keenness  to  carry  it  out ;  above  all, 
in  the  gradual  conversion  of  their  subordinates  to 
the  belief  that  self-assertion  plays  no  part  in  their 
scheme  of  creating  discipline  :  that  they,  the  officers, 
are  just  merely  so  many  humble  servants  of  the 
State,  but  that,  whenever  they  issue  an  order,  they 
voice  the  will  of  the  nation. 

Once  more,  there  are  two  sorts  of  discipline, 
distinct  in  principle  although  sometimes  they  may 
overlap  in  practice. 

The  one  is  born  in  coercion  and  sets  the  soldier 
outside  the  ring  of  homely  sentiment  which  sur- 
rounds the  ordinary  citizen  from  his  cradle  to  his 
grave.  On  parade  the  Prussian  martinet  wished  to 
stop  the  men's  breathing  because  it  made  the  points 
of  their  bayonets  tremble :  off  parade  these  same 
martinets  try  to  control  the  heart's  beats.  This 
type  of  discipline  isolates  the  soldier  in  barracks  : 
prevents  him  from  marrying  :  gives  him  pride  of 
caste  :  teaches  him  to  think  of  the  rest  of  his  country- 
men as  civilians :  places  the  honour  of  the  corps 
above  personal  ambition  or  politics  :  detaches  his 
generous  enthusiasms  from  himself  and  his  fellows 
to  pin  them  securely  on  to  the  regimental  colours. 
All  through  it  is  a  narrowing,  but  it  is  also  an  inten- 
sive, process.  When  someone  is  shooting  at  him 
round  the  corner,  the  average  man  is  not  endowed 
with  either  the  wealth  of  imagination  or  force  of 
energy  wherewith  to  grasp  a  great  Empire  in  his 
purview.  Coercive  as  the  old  discipline  may  be, 
it  by  no  means  despises  the  moral  factor.  It  tries 


DISCIPLINE  105 

to  make  a  religion  of  something  very  near  and  real, 
yet,  at  the  same  time,  high,  intangible,  romantic 
— the  Regiment !  Under  Frederick  William  I,  the 
Sergeant  King,  this  science  attained  its  highest  refine- 
ment, for  he,  the  said  William,  went  so  far  as  to 
breed  his  own  Grenadiers.  Since  Napoleon's  day 
the  tendencies,  whether  of  society  or  armament,  or 
organisation,  have  been  against  it :  yet,  certainly 
it  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  any  Army  can 
dispense  with  it  entirely. 

The  other  sort  of  discipline  aims  at  raising  the 
work-a-day  virtues  of  the  average  citizen  to  a  higher 
power.  It  depends : 

(1)  Upon  a  sense  of  duty  (res  puhlica). 

(2)  Upon  generous  emulation  (force  of  example). 

(3)  Upon  military  cohesion  (esprit  de  corps). 

(4)  Upon   the    fear   a    soldier    has    of   his    own 
conscience  (fear  that  he  may  be  afraid). 

Therefore,  the  modern  discipline  possesses  the 
merit  of  being  practically  a  continuation  class  of 
that  patriotism  which  is,  in  a  sound  and  healthy 
body  politic,  being  constantly  taught  by  mothers 
and  hi  the  schools.  Had  our  British  scheme  of 
State  Education  been  framed  by  idealists,  instead 
of  by  materialists,  there  would  be  no  break  in  the 
moral  training,  no  friction  or  loss  of  time  in  teaching 
a  new  mechanical  trick  of  implicit  obedience  when 
a  lad  joined  the  Army.  For  once  a  corps  is  animated 
through  all  its  members  by  a  wish  to  act  towards 
the  same  end  :  and  once  they  have  realised  that 
their  officer  is  best  qualified  to  show  them  how  to 
achieve  that  end :  then,  as  regards  that  act  the 
corps  are  already  disciplined.  All  they  need  now 
is  time  wherein  to  let  this  reliance  upon  their  officers 


106      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

and  their  comrades  develop  into  a  habit  of  mind  : 
habit  being  the  instinctive  refuge  of  every  one  in 
trouble.  Had  we  only  universal  Boy-Scouts  Service, 
follow-my-leader  and  shoulder-to-shoulder  would 
have  quite  a  familiar  ring  to  the  young  recruit. 
The  Centurion  has  to  be  the  better  man,  and  he 
has  to  prove  himself  so  to  his  legionaries  every 
single  time  that  an  occasion  happens  to  arise.  This 
is  the  idea  in  a  nutshell  and  it  is  a  good  idea. 

From  a  moral  standpoint  there  is  no  question  as 
to  which  of  these  two  disciplines  is  the  finer — and 
I  have  already  shown  that,  from  an  infantry  stand- 
point also,  the  new  discipline  fits  in  with  the  condi- 
tions of  the  modern  battlefield  better  than  the  old. 
But  the  tactical  bearing  of  discipline  differs  in  the 
several  branches  of  our  military  service,  and  I  will 
try  to  make  clear  my  meaning  by  giving  an  example. 

The  hands  of  the  Officers  of  the  Royal  Navy  and 
Royal  Artillery  have  not  been  forced,  as  have  those 
of  the  Officers  of  the  Infantry,  by  the  tactical  necessity 
for  very  wide  extensions.  With  them  the  principles 
of  tactics  remain  constant :  only  the  mechanical 
conditions  have  altered.  In  a  battleship  all  hands 
are  still  concentrated  under  authority,  and  through 
his  telephone  the  voice  of  the  actual  commander 
dominates  every  hole  and  cranny  even  more  com- 
pletely than  was  possible  in  the  days  of  Nelson. 
Gun  detachments  also,  in  the  field,  work  in  as  close 
order  and  are  as  much  under  the  officer's  control  as 
ever  they  were.  The  soldier  of  the  line  has  a  different 
set  of  problems  to  solve  from  the  sailor  or  gunner. 
Whenever  he  gets  away  from  the  ken  of  his  officer, 
i.e.,  whenever  he  comes  under  heavy  aimed  fire  or 
is  sent  out  as  a  scout,  he  has  to  act  on  his  own 


DISCIPLINE  107 

initiative  and  use  his  own  judgment  as  to  what  he 
ought  to  do.  But  a  seaman  or  artilleryman  is  told 
what  he  is  to  do  ;  he  has  to  use  his  wits,  not  as  to 
what  he  ought  to  do,  but  as  to  how  a  specified  job 
is  to  be  done.  A  private  of  the  line,  aged  twenty, 
may  be  on  patrol  and  may  have  to  decide  for  himself 
whether  to  advance  ;  stand  fast ;  fall  back  ;  remain 
concealed  or  shoot.  All  sorts  of  alternatives  open 
out  before  him  in  one  second  and  on  his  decision 
may  depend  the  fate  of  an  Empire.  A  seaman 
ensconced  in  the  bowels  of  a  ship  gets  a  message 
to  send  up  a  common  shell.  The  hoists  are  jammed. 
He  has  got  to  get  the  shell  up  somehow.  He  knows 
what  to  do,  but  he  may  have  to  use  ingenuity  in 
doing  it. 

The  bluejacket  has  more  responsibility  than  he 
used  to  have,  and  discipline  is  maintained  more  by 
love  of  the  Service,  pride  of  ship  and  emulation  of 
crew  than  it  used  to  be.  But  the  very  fact  that 
in  the  Navy  and  Royal  Artillery  an  officer  is  always 
close  at  hand  in  peace,  and  will  be  close  at  hand 
in  war  must,  and  does,  affect  the  temper  and  tone 
of  the  discipline.  If  my  readers  want  to  know  how 
—I  can  only  say  this,  that  its  aim  is  not  so  lofty, 
but  that  a  low  trajectory  is  more  likely  than  a  high 
trajectory  to  hit  the  mark. 

Just  as,  with  us,  the  Navy  and  Royal  Artillery 
remain  nearest  the  old  type  of  discipline,  so  the 
Royal  Engineers  have  got  further  than  any  other 
corps  in  trying  to  work  out  their  salvation  by  the 
new  type.  No  more  interesting  study  in  the  science 
of  discipline  than  to  watch  parties  of  bluejackets 
and  sappers  working  side  by  side  building  bridges 
for  the  embarkation  of  big  guns.  The  one  Service 


108      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

(popularly  supposed  to  be  so  free,  easy  and  go-as- 
you-please)  under  the  strictest  control  and  super- 
vision. The  other,  pipes  in  mouth,  laughing,  talking, 
but  all  the  time  putting  their  backs  well  into  their 
work  and  responding  like  one  man  to  the  occasional 
orders  of  their  officer.  These  are  no  odious  com- 
parisons ;  both  services  are,  to  my  thinking,  equally 
admirable;  they  are  examples  illustrating  the  elas- 
ticity of  discipline. 

Some  further  illustrations,  drawn  this  time  from 
abroad.  Cultivated  in  the  hothouse  atmosphere 
of  very  short,  very  arduous  service,  Continental 
units  grow  up  symmetrical,  pleasing  to  the  eye, 
and  as  like  as  two  peas — superficially  !  Take  them 
out  for  a  campaign  in  the  open ;  expose  them  to 
heat,  drought,  tempests  ;  it  will  be  found  that  their 
tap  roots  strike  down  into  two  essentially  different 
strata  for  their  discipline. 

Continental  Armies  are  modelled  either  on  the 
French  or  upon  the  Prussian  system.  In  the  spring 
of  1 914  there  was  no  longer  any  fundamental  cleavage 
between  the  two  systems  as  regards  organisation, 
training  or  patriotism.  There  were  divergencies, 
hotly  debated  divergencies,  especially  as  to  tactical 
methods,  but  each  Army  employed  numerous  officers 
who  believed  rather  in  the  theories  of  the  other 
Army  than  in  their  own. 

The  radical  difference  between  the  French  and 
the  Prussian  systems  did  not  show  up  in  peace. 
The  roots  of  a  tree  are  hidden  from  the  casual 
observer  and  in  calm  weather  a  deep  or  a  wide 
spread  root  seems  to  serve  their  purposes  equally 
well.  But  the  difference  was  there  and  it  lay  in 
the  sharply  contrasting  temperaments  of  the  two 


DISCIPLINE  109 

nations.  Before  the  Boer  bullets  had  knocked  new 
ideas  into  our  British  skulls  the  French  had  begun 
to  depend,  perhaps  too  confidingly,  upon  the  new 
discipline,  the  discipline  of  camaraderie ;  respect 
and  self-respect.  Not  so  the  Prussians;  not  even 
to-day  when  they  attribute  more  than  ever  the 
great  fight  put  up  by  their  Army  against  the  World 
to  its  old  world  discipline,  the  discipline  of  coercion. 

When  I  see  the  queer  mistakes  made  by  eminent 
Continental  writers  about  our  little  Army,  I  realise 
how  hard  it  is  to  put  oneself  into  a  foreigner's  shoes. 
The  absurd  errors  these  authors  have  often  com- 
mitted are  warnings  to  Britishers  to  be  careful. 

So  I  will  explain  my  claims  to  have  any  opinions 
at  all.  At  the  impressionable  age  of  17-18,  I  spent 
a  year — the  year 1 — in  Saxony  amidst  a  purely 
military  society.  Visits  were  made  by  me  during 
that  time  to  the  French  prisoners,  to  whom  (under 
a  less  ferocious  aspect  of  war  than  that  of  to-day) 
I  was  allowed  to  make  little  presents,  when,  natur- 
ally, I  seized  the  opportunity  of  hearing  as  much 
as  I  could  of  their  adventures  and  battles.  Later 
on,  I  went  through  three  manoeuvres  with  German 
troops,  including  a  precious  three  weeks  in  Saxony 
when,  very  generously,  I  was  allowed  the  privileges 
of  a  Divisional  Staff  Officer.  A  year  was  spent  by 
me  in  intimate  contact  with  the  Army  of  Japan, 
and  from  April,  1904  to  the  middle  of  next  February 
I  was  on  active  service  in  the  field.  In  1903  I  was 
privileged  by  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  inspect 
a  number  of  regular  U.S.A.  units  and  to  see  man- 
oeuvres with  the  State  Militia  in  the  Middle  West.  In 
1906, 1  took  part  in  the  Teschen  manoeuvres  with  the 

1  1870-71. 


110      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Austrian  Army  (Bosnian,  Hungarian,  Polish,  Czech 
and  German  troops).  Two  years  later  I  saw  the 
partial  mobilisation  for  war  of  Austria,  Hungary, 
Bulgaria,  Serbia  and  Turkey.  Finally,  I  have  made 
three  visits  to  Russia  seeing  divisional  and  Army 
manoeuvres.  During  these  many  visits,  every  chance 
was  seized  of  seeing  the  company  or  battalion 
training.  Later  on,  at  the  Dardanelles,  two  French 
divisions  served  under  my  command.  So  much 
experience  should  surely  afford  some  foundation,  I 
do  not  say  for  comprehension,  but  certainly  for 
that  sort  of  impression  which  is  left  by  long  and 
close  contact  with  any  foreign  body.  That,  at 
least,  is  my  claim  and  my  excuse. 

Abroad  the  Army  is  the  nation.  In  each  com- 
pany Socialists,  pacifists,  men  who  have  no  stomach 
for  a  fight  (every  nation  has  them),  elbow  lawyers, 
artists,  swells,  clodhoppers  and  the  very  highest 
martial  types.  Some  of  these  must  often,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  be  cleverer  ^than  their  own 
officers.  Few  of  them  stand  there  of  their  own 
free  will. 

THE  FRENCH  TYPE  OF  ARMY. — To  achieve  leader- 
ship by  sheer  weight  of  personality  over  the  crowd 
of  cannon-fodder  I  have  sketched  is  a  tall  order, 
for  the  time  is  short — one,  two,  or  at  the  most 
three  years.  These  free-thinking  French  rank  and 
file  cannot,  in  so  short  a  service,  lose  their  heads 
and  be  re-equipped  with  don't-think-but-do-as-you- 
are-told  minds.  Nothing  would  be  more  wholesome 
to  the  Gallic  constitution  than  a  good  strong  dose 
of  "  don't  think,"  but  the  short-service  conscript 
Army  is  an  epitome  of  the  nation  and  the  very 
least  that  would  serve  to  break  it  clean  off  from 


DISCIPLINE  111 

its  matrix  is  seven  years  of  service  with  the  Colours. 

The  sine  qua  non  to  real  success  in  France  (as 
in  Australia  and  New  Zealand)  is  that  the  officer 
should  be  conspicuous  by  his  character,  his  personal 
disinterestedness,  his  zeal,  devotion  and  technical 
knowledge.  I  speak  here  mainly  of  peace  training : 
in  wartime  a  shining  and  distinctive  courage  will 
cover  many  other  shortcomings,  and  this  is  so  well 
understood  that  I  have  known  very  senior  officers 
play  up  to  the  gallery  by  swank  effects  ;  by  pitching 
their  camp  in  the  middle  of  a  hot  corner  ;  by  climb- 
ing as  if  unconcernedly  out  of  the  trenches. 

Put  in  another  way  this  means  that  the  officer 
must  be  the  salt  of  the  nation — chosen  from  the 
nation,  without  favour  or  affection,  on  his  personal 
merits.  In  France  (with  which  I  again  in  this 
connection  bracket  Australia  and  New  Zealand)  it 
gives  a  man  no  pull  over  his  troops  to  be  wealthy 
or  to  be  an  aristocrat — rather  the  contrary.  There 
is  nothing  left  then  for  the  officer  to  fall  back  upon 
but  his  own  sheer  self.  Now,  in  these  armies  very 
many  officers  are  promoted  from  the  ranks  under 
the  impression  that,  somehow,  this  is  a  democratic 
proceeding.  But,  if  a  nation  wants  to  get  the 
best,  why  in  the  name  of  fortune  limit  the  field  of 
choice  ?  To  give  then*  own  system  a  fair  chance 
the  least  they  can  do  is  to  be  truly  democratic  and 
choose  then:  officers  from  the  whole  of  the  nation, 
not  from  that  section  of  the  nation  called  the  Army. 
The  democratising  ot  an  Army  does  hot  mean 
handing  over  its  conduct  to  a  Soviet,  to  a  body 
without  experience  of  the  world  or  of  its  manners 
and  customs.  The  long  and  the  short  of  it  is  this— 
the  new  style  of  discipline  works  splendidly  where 


112       THE   SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

the  officers  are  exceptional  men ;  where  the  rank 
and  file  are  amenable,  young,  patriotic.  But 
where  the  officer  is  mediocre  and  where  the  reserv- 
ists come  back  to  the  Colours  animated  by  a  critical 
or  hostile  spirit,  then  the  new  discipline,  left  to  its 
own  resources,  discloses  some  ugly  fissures :  then 
the  Commander  begins  to  look  over  his  shoulder 
to  the  old  days  and  to  wish  he  had  at  his  back  a 
little  of  the  old  coercive  prestige.  The  new  discipline 
is  the  only  possible  discipline  for  the  truly  demo- 
cratic peoples,  but  at  present  it  leaves  too  much 
upon  good  will — bonne  volonte — and  upon  the  myth 
that  men  are  brave  naturally  and  that  all  will  do 
their  best. 

THE  GERMAN  TYPE  OF  ARMY. — Whereas,  in 
France,  the  corps  of  officers  are  just  as  mixed  as 
their  men,  and  whereas  they  are  thus  debarred 
by  birth,  so  to  say,  from  posing  as  rigid,  superior 
inaccessible  beings,  the  Prussian  officer  may  be 
said  to  be  born  in  spurs  and  a  helmet.  Being  so 
"  born "  (geboren :  the  word  is  so  vital  and  so 
incessantly  used  in  the  German  system  that  it  is 
usually  abbreviated  "  geb  ") — being  once  so  "  born," 
I  say,  he  has  won  half  his  life's  battle  in  advance 
and  the  nation  he  springs  from  is  quite  ready  to 
accept  him  as  a  leader  if  only  he  will  work  twelve 
hours  a  day  and  despise  profiteers,  both  of  which 
he  does.  The  people  have  a  penchant  for  discipline  : 
they  have  feudalised  for  so  many  hundred  years 
that  they  have  developed  a  taste  for  it :  the  officer 
who  would  establish  sincere  human  relations  with 
them  will  not  be  met  half-way  ;  the  rank  and  file 
feeling  more  comfortable  when  treated  in  the  good 
old  de  haut  en  bos  style.  The  officer  corps  in  Prussia, 


DISCIPLINE  113 

Bavaria,  Saxony,  Austria,  the  countries  I  knew 
best,  constituted  a  veritable  caste  apart.  By  that 
fact  alone  their  disciplinary  problem  became  totally 
different  from  the  problems  of  France,  Australia 
and  New  Zealand  where,  as  I  have  said,  the  officers 
have  to  rely  very  largely  upon  good-will  which 
may  not  always  be  on  tap.  The  Prussians  make 
no  mistake  here  :  they  believe  in  men  doing  what 
they  are  told  to  do  and  no  why  or  wherefore.  Not 
that  they  ignore  changed  conditions,  as  the  following 
reminiscence  will  show.  On  my  way  back  from  the 
Russian  Manoeuvres,  on  the  30th  August,  1909, 
at  Berlin,  I  put  on  my  uniform  and  went  to  call 
upon  General  von  Moltke,  Chief  of  the  Imperial 
General  Staff ;  I  had  not  seen  him  to  talk  to  since 
the  Frankfurt-on-Oder  Manoeuvres  in  September, 
1902,  when  the  question  of  his  being  brainy  enough 
to  succeed  to  the  Command  of  the  Guards  Division 
was  hanging  by  a  hair.  His  Excellency  was  a 
kindly  giant  and  had  no  enemies ;  these  were  his 
prime  qualifications :  in  other  respects  he  was  as 
far  removed  from  the  genus  General  Staff  as  he 
was  from  the  genius  of  his  great  namesake. 
Amongst  other  interesting  subjects  (including  my 
own  summing  up  of  the  training  of  my  own  troops 
on  Salisbury  Plain,  dated  27th  October,  1908, 
which  he  had  by  him,  reprinted  in  German)  we 
discussed  the  twentieth-century  discipline  and  the 
colossal  difficulties  of  running  obedience  to  superiors 
and  independence  of  character  in  double  harness. 
At  the  end  of  our  conversation  he  said  he  would 
send  me  out  by  motor  to  look  at  some  company 
inspections.  I  gladly  accepted. 

Whether  by  design  or  by  accident,  I  struck  on 


114      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

as  well-marked  an  instance  of  the  new  discipline 
as  anyone  could  desire. 

About  a  dozen  miles  out  of  Berlin  we  came  to  a 
big  fir-wood  and  were  guided  through  the  trees  to 
where  a  company  of  the  Queen  Augusta  Regiment 
were  grouped  about  their  piled  arms.  I  was  intro- 
duced to  the  Captain  who,  though  he  must  have 
felt  it  outrageous  to  be  pestered  by  a  foreigner  at 
a  moment  of  so  great  a  tension,  had  the  self-control 
to  seem  pleased  to  meet  me.  The  signallers  now 
reported  the  approach  of  the  redoubtable  Regi- 
mental Commander  and  the  Captain  fell  in  his 
Company.  Having  done  so,  he  proceeded  to  address 
them  in  a  very  friendly  way,  and  something  to  the 
following  effect :  "So  now,  my  lads,  we  are  about 
to  be  examined.  What  I  want  you  to  remember 
all  the  time  is  that  you  have  got  to  keep  cool  and 
not  lose  your  heads.  I  ask  this  of  you  not  only 
for  your  own  sakes  and  for  my  sake,  but  for  a  much 
higher  thing,  the  honour  of  the  Company.  Please, 
boys,  don't  go  and  forget  all  the  infinite  pains  I 
have  taken  with  your  education ;  for  my  part,  I 
promise  you  I  will  give  every  order  feeling  sure 
each  one  of  you  is  not  only  going  to  carry  it  out 
to  the  letter  but  is  going  to  go  one  better  if  he  can." 

The  response  was  enthusiastic.  The  Regimental 
Commander  duly  appeared  and  was  heavily  defeated. 
The  Company  was  Colonel-proof  and  would  have 
been  equally  fire-proof  had  war  been  declared  that 
moment. 

The  experience  was  the  exception  which  makes 
the  rule.  No  doubt,  there  is  a  sincere  wish  on  the 
part  of  the  more  thoughtful  of  the  Prussian  Officer 
class  to  get  into  human  touch  with  their  men,  but 


DISCIPLINE  115 

compulsory  lessons  are  not  the  best  jumping-off 
ground  for  that  purpose,  and  the  task  is  doubly 
difficult.  I  always  remember  the  Japanese  soldier 
who  outraged  the  senses  of  patriotism  and  duty  in 
his  superior  officer  by  saying,  "  In  Osaka  I  would 
get  five  yen  for  digging  this  gun  pit ;  here  I  only 
get  criticism."  When  people  lightly  speak  of  an 
aristocratic  caste  breaking  through  century-old 
barriers  and  gaining,  instead  of  the  old-fashioned 
respect  and  fear,  the  affection  and  confidence  of 
their  men,  they  are  only  visualising  one  side  of  the 
equation.  They  forget  that  the  men  also  are 
"  born  "  with  the  hierarchic  stamp  of  mind — the 
Briton  must  keep  these  facts  hi  the  foreground,  or 
he  will  become  unfair  to  the  Junkers.  If  the 
officer  feels  it  infra  dig.  to  step  down,  neither  is 
it  the  "  place  "  of  the  N.C.O.  or  man  to  step  up. 
Another  obstacle  to  the  development  of  that  "  off 
duty  "  spirit  which  pervades  all  ranks  of  our  British 
voluntary  services  is  that  there  is  no  "  off  duty  " 
in  the  German  Army.  The  mass  of  technical  work 
to  be  got  through  is  in  itself  an  almost  insurmount- 
able barrier  to  social  intercourse.  Every  year  the 
Company  officers  are  given  a  huge  batch  of  recruits 
to  turn  into  trained  soldiers  by  next  manoeuvres. 
The  time  may  be  just  sufficient  to  impart  the  actual 
training ;  it  leaves  no  margin  for  amenities ;  in 
fact,  training  is  one  thing ;  camaraderie,  as  well 
as  discipline,  are  other  things.  A  perplexing  number 
of  personalities  of  all  grades  of  intellect — ranging 
from  perfectly  illiterate  Poles  who  speak  no  German 
to  the  still  more  troublesome  Socialists  who  speak 
too  much  German — have  been  caught  by  the  meshes 
of  universal  service  and  have  been  handed  over 


11«   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

to  the  Regiment  as  captives.  A  certain  effect  has 
to  be  produced  at  the  inspection  of  the  Company. 
The  captain,  therefore,  sets  to  work  feverishly  in 
much  the  same  spirit  as  a  writer  who  has  promised 
his  publisher  to  deliver  a  biography  within  a  year 
begins  to  unpack  and  re-arrange  portmanteaux 
full  of  the  bills  and  old  love-letters  of  the  defunct. 
How  is  the  author  going  to  cope  with  the  sheer 
mechanical  side  of  his  job — in  the  time :  how  is 
the  captain  to  make  a  real,  lasting  moral  impression 
by  his  own  personality — in  the  time  ?  Quite  apart 
from  the  conventions  of  feudalism  he  has  not 
leisure,  as  in  our  Army,  to  play  football  and  cricket 
with  the  young  soldiers  and  teach  them  good  temper, 
"  give  and  take  "  and  the  sporting  side  of  life — in 
his  shirt  sleeves.  So,  in  four  out  of  five  cases,  he 
falls  back  on  the  letter  of  the  law  ;  on  rule  of  thumb 
interpretations  thereof :  on  parades  and  on  field 
training.  In  the  course  of  his  work  he  may  incident- 
ally gain  affection  as  he  generally  establishes  respect. 
But  when  all  is  said  and  done,  I  am  sure  I  am  right 
in  saying  that  in  the  very  large  majority  of  cases  a 
continental  soldier  belonging  to  the  Prussian  type 
of  Army  passes  to  the  reserve  regarding  his  officer 
as  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  particularly  glorified 
and  awe-inspiring  Sergeant-Ma j  or.  This  sort  of 
awe  may  make  a  man  spring  to  attention  at  the 
clank  of  a  sword  on  the  barrack  square  ;  it  may 
keep  a  grip  upon  him  in  the  trenches  ;  it  will  not 
help  him  much  in  the  open  field. 

I  remember  a  magnificently  drilled  and  dis- 
ciplined British  battalion.  The  non-commissioned 
officers  and  men  were  the  smartest  in  Asia.  By 
their  very  gait,  by  the  way  they  held  themselves, 


DISCIPLINE  117 

by  their  salutes,  you  could  distinguish  its  soldiers 
from  any  others  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  But 
the  Brigade  went  on  an  expedition.  The  pressure 
could  not  be  kept  up :  slackened — everything  went 
to  pieces.  The  best  in  barracks  became  the  worst 
in  war.  The  discipline  had  been  of  too  intensive 
a  type.  The  peg  upon  which  the  habit  had  been 
hung  was  fear ;  fear  of  one  man,  as  it  happened ; 
and  that  peg  had  snapped.  In  no  sense  spontan- 
eous ;  on  the  march,  in  column,  it  might  serve — 
it  did  not  survive  a  few  skirmishes  over  ground 
where  the  dominating  eye  could  not  follow.  Now 
had  that  one  man  who  dominated  the  battalion 
been  able  to  jam  them  into  a  trench  he  could  have 
maintained  his  discipline  with  the  best  of  them,  ; 
but  I  am  speaking  of  the  Black  Mountain  whenji 
extensions  were  at  least  five  paces. 

The  trench  !  There  we  find  the  main  factor  which 
enabled  the  Prussian  discipline  to  stand  firm  for 
years  against  the  most  tremendous  all-round  ham- 
mering. The  reason  is  simply  tactical  and,  prob- 
ably, non-recurrent.  Trench  warfare  favoured  the 
system  which  was  based  on  the  baser  elements  of 
human  nature.  The  first  battle  of  Ypres  was  the 
last  occasion  when  men  in  those  open  formations 
which  give  individualism  and  the  new  discipline 
fair  play  met  the  close-order  formations  which 
are  so  necessary  if  direct  control  is  to  be  given  to 
the  captains  and  to  their  old  "  by  order  "  discipline. 
The  results  are  historical.  From  that  time  onwards, 
both  sides  went  underground,  and  underground  men 
can  still  be  held  together  under  the  eye,  tongue 
and  auto-pistol  of  the  captain,  whereas  the  indivi- 
duality, which  had  been  three-quarters  of  the  battle 


118      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF   AN  ARMY 

in  the  wide  extensions  of  a  war  of  movement,  was 
now  wrapped  up  in  a  napkin.  But  trench  warfare 
is  already  dead.  The  tank  and  aeroplane  are 
inaugurating  an  era  of  economic  strategy  which 
was  demanded  indeed  by  the  situation  during  the 
last  war,  but  was  demanded,  alas,  in  vain.  Next 
war,  machines  will  no  longer  be  denied,  and  wide 
encircling  movements,  followed  by  distant  battles 
fought  between  comparatively  small  forces,  will 
be  the  order  of  the  world  to  come.  No  longer  will 
the  British  Fleet  sit  like  a  hooded  falcon  upon 
Britannia's  wrist.  The  old  days  will  be  revived 
and  the  coast  line  of  the  enemy,  wherever  it  may 
be,  Black  Sea,  Yellow  Sea,  Red  Sea,  will  be  our 
frontier.  These  ideas  pertain  properly  to  the  chap- 
ter on  training :  I  only  refer  to  them  here  to  show 
that,  movement  and  distance  being  prime  factors, 
the  encouragement  of  initiative,  i.e.  of  the  new 
discipline,  is  more  than  ever  essential.  Trench 
warfare,  in  fact,  gave  Frederick  the  Great  his  last 
chance,  and  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
misled  by  the  very  good  use  der  alte  Fritz  made 
of  it  to  believe  in  it  as  a  living  force  for  the  future. 
The  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  is  this :  under  a 
system  of  Universal  Service  it  is  difficult  for  the 
officers  of  the  French  type  of  army  to  gain  sufficient 
coercive  hold  over  troublesome  men,  whereas  for 
the  officers  of  the  Prussian  type  of  army  it  is  difficult 
to  secure  the  close  human  touch  demanded  by  the 
new  discipline.  The  different  degrees  and  levels 
in  the  intellects,  characters  and  social  status  of 
the  men,  the  national  temperaments  and  the  short- 
ness of  the  time,  are  causes  constantly  at  work  to 
prevent  either  type  of  army  availing  itself  to  the 


DISCIPLINE  119 

full  of  all  available  resources  wherewith  to  build 
up  discipline. 

THE  BRITISH  TYPE  or  ARMY. — Tirah  and  South 
Africa  taught  us  their  lessons,  Manchuria  put  her 
seal  upon  them.  The  first  of  these  campaigns  was 
wireless  and  trenchless ;  the  second  used  up  all 
the  barbed  wire  and  all  the  horses  in  the  world, 
and  guns  of  position  came  into  the  field ;  but,  the 
trench  and  the  horse  fitted  badly  together  and 
spadework  was  rather  the  exception ;  the  third 
employed  trenches,  barbed  wire,  machine-guns 
and  big  guns  more  and  more  with  each  successive 
battle  from  the  Yalu  to  Mukden.  Still,  even  up 
to  the  end,  they  had  not  quite  paralysed  movement 
or  put  the  stopper  upon  wide  extensions.  Up  to 
the  end,  extensions  of  attacking  infantry,  though 
never  on  the  South  African  scale,  were  tending  to 
increase  in  their  width.  One  after  another  of 
these  wars  of  swift  movement  and  wide  extensions 
came  to  teach  us  that  we  must  recast  discipline; 
that  we  must  manage  so  as  to  make  our  discipline 
carry  on  although  personal  touch  with  the  officer 
had  been  temporarily  lost.  Fear  of  the  officer, 
we  had  to  recognise,  could  no  longer  be  the  main 
motive  of  an  attack,  unless  indeed  close  formations 
were  to  be  adhered  to  and  human  lives  be  looked 
upon  as  trifles.  Obstinately  we  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  trench  which  yawned  at  us  more  and  more 
widely  from  the  fields  of  each  successive  battle; 
the  trench  which  was  going  to  grant  a  fresh  lease 
to  the  old  "  by  order  "  system.  No  one  is  more 
to  blame  than  I.  I  saw  those  trenches  with  my 
own  eyes,  and  yet — I  might  just  as  well  have  been 
blind.  Before  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  South 


120      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

African  War,  I  was  the  only  witness  who  urged 
that  masses  of  guns  of  position  should  accompany 
our  infantry  into  the  field.  Whilst  the  Battle  of 
Liao  Yang  was  actually  raging,  I  sent  home  a 
dispatch  saying  the  only  thing  the  cavalry  could 
do  in  face  of  machine-guns  was  to  cook  rice  for 
their  own  infantry  and  in  a  set  phrase  announced 
the  death  of  shock  cavalry  for  purposes  of  European 
war.  I  relate  these  perceptions  as  pleas  in  mitiga- 
tion for  not  grasping  with  my  mind  what  the  revival 
of  the  entrenchments  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  might 
mean,  and  how  they  must  affect  discipline,  tactics, 
everything.  That  is  the  sort  of  experience  which 
makes  a  man  ask  himself,  "Am  I  not  perhaps 
to-day  again  staring  at  tanks,  aeroplanes,  seaplanes 
and  not  seeing  them  ? "  Anyway,  the  trench 
system  did  develop  into  a  monstrous  retrogression 
in  war,  and  thrice  fortunate  was  it  for  the  British 
Army  that  it  had,  whilst  throwing  itself  unreservedly 
into  the  new  discipline,  retained  almost  as  firm  a 
grip  upon  the  essentials  of  the  old  discipline  as 
those  central  European  Powers  who  had  held  on 
to  it  all  the  time.  For,  although  we  aim  now  at 
enlisting  discipline,  "the  main  force  of  armies," 
less  by  constraint  than  by  consent,  the  unique 
conditions  of  our  society  and  of  our  service  auto- 
matically exalt  the  authority  of  the  officer  and 
render  his  two-fold  task  easier  than  that  of  his 
continental  comrades. 

The  Army  with  us  is  not  the  nation — nothing 
resembling  it.  During  the  war  it  became  so,  but 
already  that  phase  has  passed  completely  except 
for  a  diminishing  proportion  of  officers  who  have 
risen  from  the  ranks.  The  youths  now  at  Woolwich 


DISCIPLINE  121 

and   Sandhurst   are   practically   identical   in   type 
with  their  predecessors  who  worked  there  in  1913 
and  did  so  well  during  the  war.     In  the  ranks  are 
few  of  those  men  of  Belial  known  as  sea-lawyers; 
and    certainly    no    pacifists    nor    C.O.'s.     Gunners, 
drivers  and  men  of  the  line  come  from  poor  but 
honest  parents,   so  it  should  be  easy  as  shelling 
peas  for  an  officer  who  has    had  a  much  better 
start  in  life  to  become  guide  and  philosopher  to 
his  young  friends.     Half  our  Army  serves  abroad 
where  the  rank  and  file  are  withdrawn  from  associa- 
tion with  tub-thumpers,  flappers  and  other  similar 
distractions.     Then,  again,  we  have  seven  to  eight 
years'  service  and  ten  per  cent  of  these  men  (veterans, 
according  to  continental  standards)  may  go  on  to 
complete  twenty- one  years  with  the  Colours.     Thus, 
automatically,     our     Army     remains    brimful    of 
esprit  de   corps.     This    spirit   is   not,    as   used   to 
be  the   case   in  Germany,    brewed   by  the    State. 
Clerks   in  the  War    Office   used  to   be  always  on 
the  nibble  at  any  speciality  in   custom   or  dress 
upon  which  corps  took  a  particular  pride.     Nor, 
in  posting    to   corps,   did    the    Military  Secretary 
treat    ancestors    very    nicely.      On    the    contrary 
three  generations  in   a   regiment  count  for  less  in 
the  eyes  of  our  Army  Council  than  three  miserable 
marks    in    a    miserable    competitive    exam.     Still, 
the  spirit  is  brewed  and  flows  in,  so  to  say,  on  its 
own.     Officers  as  well  as  men  manage  to  get  back 
into  the  old  corps  in   which   served  their  fathers 
and  grandfathers.     Units   have  their   own  private 
gala  days ;    uniforms  and  colours  blossom  out  with 
roses  again  on  each  1st  of  August  hi  memory  of 
the  battle  amongst  the  roses  at  Minden  in  1759; 


122      THE    SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

badges  are  fixed  to  the  back  of  the  helmet  to  com- 
memorate 1801,  when  cavalry  were  beaten  off  by 
the  rear  rank  facing  "  about "  instead  of  forming 
square ;  mourning  lace  is  worn  by  the  corps  which 
took  part  in  the  burial  of  Sir  John  Moore  at  Corunna 
or  of  Wolfe  at  Quebec.  In  fact,  in  any  and  every 
possible  way,  tradition  puts  its  marks  upon  some- 
thing of  which  helmets,  lace  and  nicknames  are 
only  the  outward  and  visible  signs.  One  way  or 
another  the  roots  of  tradition  strike  down  deep. 
The  soldier  feels  the  regiment  solid  about  him. 
The  Regiment !  It  is  impossible  for  the  foreigner 
to  realise  what  that  word  means  to  a  British  soldier. 
The  splendour — the  greatness — the  romance  of  this 
awe-inspiring,  wonderful  creation  in  which  he  him- 
self is  privileged  to  have  his  being  !  At  the  end  of 
five  years'  reserve  service  the  Highlander  (I  speak 
of  what  I  know  best)  belongs  more  to  the  old  corps 
than  he  did  when  he  was  serving  with  it  :  forty 
years  later  he  has  become  still  more  enthusiastic  ; 
he  will  travel  a  hundred  miles  for  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  one  of  his  old  officers. 

In  the  autumn  of  1884,  my  company  took  their 
seats  in  eleven  small  row-boats  to  struggle  hundreds 
of  miles  up  the  Nile  and  save  Charles  Gordon :  a 
vague  and  typically  British  adventure — just  like 
a  fairy  tale.  We  carried  with  us  food  for  110 
days :  white  lead,  tacks,  sheet  tin  and  tow  were 
stowed  for  repairs ;  200  rounds  per  rifle  were  in 
reserve.  Our  feelings  were  nearly  as  possible  those 
of  a  party  of  Boy  Scouts  dressed  up  like  Red  Indians 
and  let  loose  in  a  flotilla  of  canoes.  Each  boat  of 
eight  rowers,  a  poleman  and  a  coxswain  was — and 
had  to  be — a  self-supporting,  independent  unit. 


DISCIPLINE  123 

At  the  best,  the  company  got  together  about  once 
in  ten  days,  when  the  negotiation  of  a  cataract 
called  for  combined  effort  on  the  drag  ropes  or  for 
a  portage  of  stores.  If  a  boat  failed  to  put  in  an 
appearance  at  the  rendezvous,  the  captain  had  to 
unload  his  own  boat,  and  thus  lightened  row  back 
down  the  river  to  find  the  lame  duck  and  help  it 
along.  The  tale  has  the  ring  of  a  glorious  adventure, 
and  so  it  was,  only,  at  the  time,  incessant  toil ; 
much  of  it  waist  deep  in  water,  bad  food,  broken 
nights,  the  lack  of  any  drink  but  sand  and  water ; 
the  resultant  scurvy ;  all  these  wore  health  and 
nerves  to  fiddle-strings.  Never  in  their  whole 
lives  had  the  men  worked  so  hard.  The  very 
thought  of  the  work  would  make  a  Labour  Union 
strike  !  Yet,  there  was  no  crime,  no  stinting  of 
effort,  no  grumbling ;  no,  not  even  if  after  spending 
two  days  struggling  inch  by  inch  painfully  up  a 
cataract  boats  had  to  be  sent  flying  down  again  to 
the  rescue  of  wrecked  companions. 

Part  of  the  preserves  loaded  into  each  boat  were 
taboo ;  delicacies,  not  to  be  looked  at,  much  less 
touched  until  we  got  into  the  zone  of  the  actual 
fighting.  Australian  boiled  mutton,  cheese,  jam 
and  such-like  wonderful  baits  to  a  poor  man  with 
a  sweet  tooth :  cases,  also,  labelled  hospital  comforts 
which  contained — it  was  an  open  secret — two  bottles 
of  port  wine.  All  these  were  forbidden  fruit, 
although  we  had  to  handle  them  continually,  but 
we  were  encouraged  in  continence  by  an  order 
emanating  from  Headquarters  to  say  that  when 
we  got  to  Korti  we  should  get  these  good  things 
as  our  regular  rations. 

Hearing  that  in  some  cases,  isolated  boat's  crews 


124      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

belonging  to  another  regiment  had  prematurely 
sampled  their  consignments,  I  thought  it  well  to 
fall  the  company  in  along  the  bank  and  say  a  word 
of  warning  to  them.  I  pitched  it  in  as  strong  as  I 
could,  saying  the  port  wine  was  meant  to  save  the 
lives  of  wounded  comrades  and  it  might  save  their 
own  lives ;  also,  that  if  we  were  so  wicked  as  to 
eat  the  boiled  mutton  now  we  could  not  eat  it 
afterwards,  in  the  heat  of  the  conflict,  when  we 
should  want  it  much  more.  After  I  had  done,  an 
old  soldier  named  Cameron  asked  the  Colour- Ser- 
geant to  bring  him  up  as  he  had  something  to  say. 
What  he  said  to  me  was,  "  Some  of  us  would  like 
you  to  know,  sir,  that  though  we  mean  to  obey 
the  order,  we  have  served  too  long  to  believe  that 
that  jam  or  cheese  will  ever  come  the  way  of  our 
bellies."  Nothing  I  could  say  would  persuade 
him  that  the  Guards  and  the  cavalry  would  not 
get  hold  of  it,  but,  in  fact,  not  a  pot  of  jam  or 
an  ounce  of  cheese  was  short  when,  on  arriving  at 
last  at  Korti,  we  were  ordered  to  hand  it  over  to 
the  cavalry  and  Guards  and  were  duly  filled  up 
again  with  the  weary  stuff  from  Chicago  and  the 
weevily  biscuit.  Once  again  the  aristos  and  that 
old,  cold  shade  of  the  Peninsular  war  ! 

Now  what  was  the  force  which  kept  the  half- 
starved  men  of  the  Gordons  going  dry  for  weeks, 
whilst  the  port  wine  gurgled  at  their  feet  ? 

Reason  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  for  they  did 
not  believe  the  order,  saying  they  were  bringing  up 
the  stuff  for  themselves.  Fear  may  be  set  aside 
at  once.  Punishment  was  impossible,  and  they 
knew  it.  An  exhausted,  underfed  soldier  could 
not  be  set  by  his  captain  to  tramp  up  and  down 


DISCIPLINE  125 

the  bank  in  heavy  marching  order  through  the 
night  watches  when  that  same  captain  wanted  to 
squeeze  every  ounce  of  energy  out  of  that  same 
soldier  next  day,  starting  with  the  first  streak  of 
dawn.  At  the  most  an  entry  might  be  made 
on  the  man's  defaulter  sheet,  and  who  cares 
about  a  black  mark  on  paper  when  a  battle  is 
coming  along  which  will  square  all  accounts  for 
ever  ? 

The  ordinary  disciplinary  apparatus  had  disap- 
peared. No  Lieutenant-Colonel :  no  Adjutant :  no 
Sergeant-Major.  A  single  boat  was  often  separated 
for  days  and  nights  from  the  others,  and  might  be 
in  charge  of  a  Corporal.  As  for  duty  or  patriotism, 
there  was  small  scope  for  these  high  motives  in  a 
punitive  expedition  so  remote  in  every  sense  from 
home  and  home  interests.  The  imagination  of  the 
junior  officers  and  of  the  rank  and  file  had  not  yet 
been  in  any  sense  touched  by  the  idea  of  Gordon 
or  of  his  peril.  The  thought  that  the  British 
Cabinet  had  elaborately  worked  out  this  stupendous 
campaign  so  that  every  one  should  just  be  too  late 
had  not  dared  present  itself  to  our  humble  and 
somewhat  trusting  minds.  Yet  "  D  "  Company  of 
the  Gordon  Highlanders  worked  feverishly — crime- 
lessly — incessantly.  The  worst  characters  worked 
hardest  and  gave  least  trouble  because  they  had 
most  character,  but  all  played  up.  Had  every 
soldier  been  going  to  his  bridal  he  could  not  have 
been  in  a  greater  hurry  than  he  now  appeared  to 
be  to  exchange  his  bullets  with  the  spear-thrusts 
of  swarms  of  exceedingly  nasty  fanatics.  By  what 
pull — by  the  use  of  what  leverage — did  the  captain 
obtain  so  much  for  so  little  ? 


126      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

By  working  upon  the  men's  esprit  de  corps,  upon 
their  religion — the  honour  of  the  Regiment. 

The  special  type  of  discipline  we  possess  at  this 
moment  is  excellent.  Whereas  one  Continental 
form  depends  too  much  upon  good  will,  and  the 
other  not  enough  on  good  will,  and  whereas  both 
of  these  forms  must  expect  to  be  half-submerged 
on  the  first  outbreak  of  trouble  by  the  flow  of  outer 
civilian  sentiment  into  the  ranks,  our  own  discipline 
will  be  strengthened  by  the  reservists.  Our  own 
discipline  has  fairly  solved  the  problem  of  a  real 
camaraderie  between  officers  and  men  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  was  Haldane  who  managed,  one 
drowsy  afternoon,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  with 
me,  the  Adjutant-General,  perspiring  in  the  back- 
ground, to  carry  a  measure  entirely  against  the 
trend  of  the  times  and  the  sentiment  of  the  voters 
by  doubling  the  Commander's  legal  powers  of 
punishment ;  not  with  a  view  to  his  inflicting 
severer  punishment,  but  with  the  idea  (and  it  has 
proved  well-founded)  of  doing  away  with  the  need 
for  any  punishment  at  all !  What  this  has  done 
for  discipline,  and  how  much  it  helped  us  to  win 
the  Great  War,  is  quite  unsuspected  by  the  young 
soldiers  now  serving  with  the  Colours. 

Here  stands  our  Army  ready  to  take  from  the 
nation  the  poor  and  unsuccessful  and  give  to  their 
characters  the  coping-stone  of  courage  and  to  their 
minds  the  stimulus  of  travel  and  of  great  traditions. 
We  use  any  patriotism  or  civil  virtue  we  can  find, 
but  strive  to  focus  them  on  the  Corps  ;  on  something 
definite  instead  of  something  vague.  We  do  big 
spadework  in  fields  which  should  long  ago  have 
been  ploughed  and  sown  by  the  Education  Depart- 


DISCIPLINE  127 

ment  and  by  the  Church.  But  we  have  a  lot  to 
do,  for  neither  Church  nor  State  schools  nor  parents 
impart  to  British  youth  the  high  type  of  patriotism 
on  which,  for  instance,  the  Swiss  boys  and  girls  are 
brought  up.  Our  lads  come  to  the  recruiting 
sergeant  with  a  crude  notion  that  they  are  better, 
wiser  and  braver  than  foreigners,  but  national 
conceit  is  but  bastard  patriotism  at  best.  Still, 
we  take  that  raw  material  and  work  wonders  with 
it,  establishing,  as  we  go,  a  happier,  more  brotherly 
tone  between  officers  and  men  than  obtains  in  any 
other  European  Army. 

A  British  military  unit  is  a  standing  object  lesson 
to  the  civil  population  in  order,  cleanliness,  politeness, 
punctuality,  and  good  feeling.  It  exemplifies  the 
Socialists'  dream,  only  that  the  officers  are  imposed 
from  outside.  How,  then,  if  they  were  drawn, 
like  the  non-commissioned  officers,  from  within  ? 

I  have  said  that  the  new  discipline  demands  of 
an  officer  that  he  should  prove  himself  a  better 
man  than  his  men.  But,  in  peace,  how  ?  At  his 
job  ?  Yes ;  more  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
business  in  hand ;  greater  force  of  character  and 
competency ;  a  higher  standard  of  education ; 
these  tend  to  give  their  possessor  the  whip  hand 
over  his  associates.  And  whereas,  as  I  have  tried 
to  show,  this  should  be  easier  for  our  officers  to 
achieve  than  for  their  Continental  comrades,  yet 
every  year  that  passes  the  standards  go  up.  British 
non-commissioned  officers  are  now  well  read,  clear- 
thinking  individuals,  and  what  would  have  satisfied 
a  sergeant  fifteen  years  ago  will  hardly,  to-day, 
pass  muster  with  a  corporal.  Our  officers  will  have 
to  play  up  for  all  they  are  worth  to  maintain  this 


128      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

moral  ascendency  over  men  who  already  are  some- 
.  times  their  superiors  in  technical  knowledge  of  the 
\  detail  of  their  profession.  Why,  then,  should  not 
the  non-commissioned  officers  themselves  be 
promoted  regularly  into  the  commissioned  ranks  ? 
Because  of  the  temperament  of  the  British  crowd 
which  must  here  be  diagnosed ;  for  no  General 
dare  neglect  it.  An  increasing  number  of  us  look 
out  upon  the  world  with  eyes  of  another  colour, 
but  I  am  talking  of  the  class  from  which  we  draw 
our  soldiers,  and  what  I  say  is  true  as  regards  three 
out  of  four  of  them. 

In  England  social  position  is  an  aid  to  discipline : 
in  Scotland  gentle  birth.  In  the  Commonwealth  or 
the  Dominions  these  are  rather  handicaps  than 
helps :  in  the  United  Kingdom  they  still  carry 
some  of  their  ancient  prestige.  The  English  soldier 
is  extraordinarily  immune  to  the  stings  of  envy 
or  the  serpent's  tooth  of  contrast :  no  more  generous 
disposition  and  (if  a  disposition  can  be  large-minded  ?) 
no  more  large-minded  disposition  exists  anywhere 
in  the  world.  Where  the  German,  Frenchman, 
Spaniard,  Russian,  and  Japanese  are  always  asking 
themselves  bitterly,  "  Why  should  So-and-so  have 
this  and  I  only  get  that  ?  "  the  British  soldier  sings 
quite  philosophically  to  the  mess  bugle,  "  Officers' 
wives  have  puddings  and  pies,  but  soldiers'  wives 
get  skilly."  He  states  an  interesting  fact  and 
that's  all  about  it.  He  is  not  anxious  that  the 
status  of  his  officer  should  be  lowered ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  tickles  his  sense  of  proprietorship  that 
his  captain  should  cut  a  dash  with  his  polo  ponies 
and  be  a  man  of  quality  and  class.  There  are 
masses  of  people  going  about  the  world — frightful 


DISCIPLINE  129 

snobs  themselves  in  their  own  special  way — who 
will  call  this  rank  snobbery.  They  would  call 
Christ  a  snob  for  saying  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's."  Anyway,  the  truth  is 
the  truth,  so  why  not  be  brave  enough  to  bring  it 
out  ? 

The  Scottish  soldier  for  his  part — very  likely  a 
Socialist  by  conviction — keeps  up  his  sleeve  a  queer, 
old-engrained  liking  for  the  Laird  (if  he  is  real ;  not 
a  Carnegie  or  a  Me  Abraham).  When  one  thinks 
of  the  thousands  of  radical  school-mistresses  striving 
to  eradicate  sentiment  and  tradition  from  their 
pupils  and  to  plant  in  their  places  a  paltry  egoism, 
the  fact  seems  supernatural,  but  fact  it  undoubtedly 
remains. 

Social  distinctions  with  us  carry  right  away  down 
in  very  fine  gradations  from  Throne  to  Workhouse. 
In  an  English  Yeomanry  corps  it  is  difficult  to 
make  the  man  whose  father  employs  two  labourers 
upon  his  farm  a  non-commissioned  officer  over  the 
head  of  a  man  whose  father  employs  eight  labourers. 
The  Commanding  Officer  may  insist,  of  course,  but 
only  at  the  expense  of  discipline. 

In  the  maintaining  of  a  high  standard  of  discipline 
nothing  should  be  neglected,  least  of  all  race.  We 
Northerners  have  a  cult  for  heroism,  for  imagination 
and  for  legislation.  But  amongst  us  are  embedded 
strangers  from  the  South.  These,  too,  have  their 
great  virtues  and  their  cult  for  intelligence  as 
opposed  to  imagination  and  for  commerce  as  opposed 
to  law.  We  like  these  sojourners  who  have  come 
to  stay.  We  admire  them  as  true  and  patriotic 
citizens.  But  (if  we  do  not  know  it  already  we 
should  know  it)  they  find  it  difficult  to  maintain 


130      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

discipline  over  British  soldiers.  There  are  excep- 
tions. Amongst  the  Australians  there  was  a  notable 
exception  during  the  war.  On  the  whole,  admirable, 
devoted  as  they  may  be  as  officers,  they  can  neither 
say  "  come "  nor  "  go "  as  a  British  Centurion 
ought  to  say  them  to  a  British  soldier.  If,  there- 
fore, they  are  employed  as  combatant  officers  it 
must  be  at  the  expense  of  discipline ;  although 
they  may  fill  the  top  notches  of  staff  work  to  the 
admiration  of  other  officers  in  the  Army. 

Again,  the  British  soldier  will  not  accept  an 
Asiatic  officer  even  in  peace-time.  He  declines  to 
salute  him.  In  a  narrow  sense  this  is  unfortunate. 
It  cuts  us  off  from  the  Russian  methods  of  satisfying 
the  legitimate  aspirations  of  dark-skinned  races.  A 
General  Alikhanoff  is,  as  yet,  an  impossibility  to 
us.  Still,  there  it  is  !  Personal  Pride  is  half  the 
battle  in  a  drawing-room,  but  racial  pride  is  the 
whole  battle  in  an  Empire.  If  it  were  not  for  that 
pride  we,  the  rulers  of  millions  of  Asiatics,  would  have 
contaminated  the  purity  of  our  blood  and  have 
already  let  ourselves  down  into  half-castes.  If 
the  North  Americans  had  not  inherited  some  of 
that  sin  from  us,  they  would  already  have  ruined 
the  New  World  by  marrying  ten  million  negroes. 

Too  many  promotions  from  the  ranks  strain 
discipline.  One  of  the  grounds  on  which  these 
have  been  advocated  is  that  the  officer  who  has 
been  through  the  mill  (like  the  butler  who  has  been 
through  the  pantry)  knows  all  the  ropes ;  all  the 
tricks,  and  that  is  exactly — so  it  happens — the 
main  argument  against  him :  the  ranker  knows 
too  much.  He  gets  on  the  nerves  of  the  men : 
does  not  handle  them  as  tactfully  as  do  the  graduates 


DISCIPLINE  131 

of  universities  and  of  Sandhurst ;  is  harder  on  them 
all  round.  In  short,  it  is  not  likely  ever  to  be 
desirable,  on  military  grounds,  to  change  the  present 
system  of  commissioning  a  privileged  class  of 
officers.  For,  whereas  the  theorist  can  pick  a 
hundred  holes  hi  the  method,  the  truth  remains 
that  British  soldiers  steadily  refuse  to  think  by  the 
rules  of  logic,  and,  whereas  the  democrat  is  out- 
raged by  inequality,  the  British  soldier  is  suspicious 
of  his  equal.  Yet,  as  nothing  but  smashing  disaster 
will  stop  a  political  trend,  some  day,  probably,  the 
present  system  will  be  revised.  When  that  day 
comes  may  the  guardian  angel  of  the  British  Empire 
whisper  into  the  ear  of  whoever  may  be  at  its  helm-^ 
democratise  the  Army  if  you  must,  but  if  so,  do  it 
by  promotion  from  the  ranks  of  the  nation  ;  not, 
except  as  a  special  reward  for  a  special  service, 
from  the  ranks  of  the  army.1 

If  birth  ;  social  position  ;  manners  ;  and  a  public 
school  education  in  character  and  leadership  are  to 
be  cast  aside — do  let  us  at  least  have  the  one  and 
only  military  merit  we  can,  to  some  extent,  gauge 
and  guarantee.  Do  let  us  have  brains  and  let  the 
competition  be  thrown  right  open  to  the  nation. 
As  to  the  future  career  of  the  democratic  competition 
wallah  we  have  our  model  at  Duntroon  in  Australia. 

1  In  case  anyone  should  remind  me  of  my  personal  respon- 
sibility for  the  arrangement  whereby  the  names  of  three  non- 
commissioned officers  were  secretly  noted  for  promotion  to 
Commissions  from  the  ranks  of  each  unit  in  case  of  war,  I  would 
anticipate  such  criticism  by  pointing  out  that  these  were  to  be 
nominations  by  the  Commander  and  were  to  be  based  on  charac- 
ter and  manners,  not  on  an  examination  in  which  all  the  orderly- 
room  clerks  would  come  out  on  top  and  all  the  fighting  leaders 
be  at  the  bottom. 


132      THE   SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

From  the  moment  the  boys  pass  they  must  not  cost 
their  parents  one  sixpence.  They  must  be  fed, 
clothed,  educated  free,  and  must  be  given  State 
pocket-money  into  the  bargain.  They  should  be  at 
least  three  years  at  the  Military  College  and  when 
they  join  they  must  be  paid  a  living  wage.  These 
should  be  good  value,  and  that  is  more  than  could 
ever  be  said  for  old  non-commissioned  officers, 
who  fall  short,  be  they  French  or  be  they  British, 
through  lack  of  the  sense  of  perspective.  No  matter 
how  clever  ;  how  brave  ;  how  successful ;  here  is 
the  rock  which  wrecks  them  in  the  end.  They 
can't  distinguish  between  the  vital  and  the  trivial ; 
the  significant  and  the  insignificant.  Nine  times 
out  of  ten  the  command  of  a  battalion  is  their 
limit. 

Finally,  lest  anyone  should  quote  the  Marshals  of 
Napoleon,  it  may  be  as  well  to  remind  him  that  they 
rose,  not  of  a  peace-time  Army,  but  from  a  nation 
in  arms.  Those  splendid  adventurers,  sons  most  of 
them  of  the  smaller  bourgeoisie,  would  never  have 
sprung  from  the  ranks  of  a  small  voluntarily  enlisted 
Army ;  to  a  man  France  had  entered  for  the  baton. 

Popularity  helps  discipline.  In  Napoleon's  Army 
affection  was  ever  a  stronger  lever  than  apprehen- 
sion. In  1831  a  gunner  of  the  Imperial  Guard 
wrote  thus  to  General  Drouot  under  whom  he  served 
in  1810  : 

"  The  main  thing,  say  I,  is  to  make  oneself  liked  by  the  soldier, 
because,  if  the  Colonel  is  disliked,  no  one  is  extra  keen  to  get 
himself  killed  by  the  order  of  someone  he  detests.  At  Wagram, 
where  it  was  as  hot  as  they  make  it  and  where  our  regiment  did 
so  famously,  do  you  suppose  that  if  you  had  not  been  popular, 
the  gunners  of  the  Guard  would  have  manoeuvred  so  well  as 
they  did  ?  As  for  me,  my  General,  never  have  I  found  another 


DISCIPLINE  133 

Colonel  who  knew,  as  you  did,  how  to  speak  to  a  soldier  ;  you 
were  severe,  certainly,  but  just ;  no  word  louder  than  the  other, 
no  cursing,  or  flying  into  a  temper  ;  in  short,  you  used  to  speak 
to  a  soldier  as  if  he  had  been  your  equal.  There  are  officers 
who  speak  to  soldiers  as  if  they  were  equals  of  the  soldiers,  but 
that  is  no  good  at  all,  is  what  I  say."  1 

A  human  document  this,  proving  that  no  great 
chasm  yawns  between  the  French  and  British 
private  soldier.  The  cosmopolitan  codes  of  the 
immaculate  crowds  who  talk  all  languages  and 
wear  the  same  cut  of  clothes  may  mask  totally 
different  outlooks  upon  life  ;  the  rank  and  file  of 
Armies,  although  they  cannot  speak  to  one  another, 
although  they  eat  different  food,  wear  different 
uniforms  and  possess  different  manners  and  customs, 
are  yet  very  much  of  the  same  way  of  thinking. 
The  remarks  of  Drouot's  gunner  will  appeal  to  many 
a  British  red-coat.  No  man  is  so  much  disliked  as 
the  man  who  talks  down  to  his  men.  Condescension 
breeds  curses.  So  too,  speaking  loud  at  inspections 
so  that  all  may  hear  the  feeble  joke,  "  that  is  no 
good  at  all,  is  what  I  say."  Popularity  with  our  men 
is  a  mystery.  After  a  life  spent  watching,  I  am 
none  the  wiser,  except  that  I  begin  to  believe  that 
a  mass  of  men  can  read  a  man  when  individuals 
cannot ;  and,  also,  I  do  see  clearly  enough  that  the 
sure  way  to  lose  popularity  is  to  seek  it. 

Courage  is  supposed  by  civilians  to  be  the  soldier's 
sine  qua  non.  Were  I  mischievous,  I  could  quote 
one  or  two  examples  to  the  contrary  and  especially, 
I  think,  I  could  prove  that,  owing  to  their  upbringing, 
moral  courage  is  rarer  amongst  soldiers  in  high 
place  than  it  is  amongst  any  other  class  of  the 

1  Taken  from  Notre  Armee,  by  Commandant  Emile  Manceau. 


134      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

British  community.  As  to  physical  courage,  although 
sheer  cowardice  (i.e.,  a  man  thinking  of  his  own 
miserable  carcass  when  he  ought  to  be  thinking 
of  his  men)  is  fatal,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  a  reputa- 
tion for  not  knowing  fear  does  not  help  an  officer 
in  his  war  discipline :  in  getting  his  company  to 
follow  him  as  the  Artillery  of  the  Guard  followed 
Drouot  at  Wagram.  I  noticed  this  first  in  Afghanis- 
tan in  1879  and  have  often  since  made  the  same 
observation.  If  a  British  officer  wishes  to  make 
his  men  shy  of  taking  a  lead  from  him  let  him  stand 
up  under  fire  whilst  they  he  in  their  trenches  as 
did  the  Russians  on  the  17th  of  July  at  the  battle  of 
Motienling.  Our  fellows  are  not  in  the  least  im- 
pressed by  bravado.  All  they  say  is,  "  This  fellow 
is  a  fool.  If  he  cares  so  little  for  his  own  life,  how 
much  less  will  he  care  for  ours." 

Up  to  a  point  fear  of  ridicule  is  a  potent  disciplinary 
agent.  The  officer  who  can  score  off  a  soldier 
inclined  to  be  sulky  or  cheeky  and  make  his  com- 
rades laugh  at  him  holds  a  powerful  weapon.  But 
he  must  remember  always  that  the  arrows  of  his 
wit  strike  a  man  who  is  defenceless  in  so  far  as  he 
cannot  retort  in  kind. 

"  Discipline  makes  the  main  force  of  Armies," 
say  the  French  regulations  ;  "  An  Army  is  a  people 
who  obeys,"  said  Napoleon ;  and  although  Marshal 
de  Saxe  struck  a  truer  note  when  he  said  victory 
must  be  sought  in  the  hearts  of  human  beings,  yet 
discipline  does  stand  supreme  amongst  all  the 
technical  aids.  Confidence  in  the  superior  skill, 
experience  and  character  of  the  Commander ;  re- 
spect for  his  personality  ;  devotion  to  the  regiment ; 
reliance  upon  comrades  ;  habit ;  these  give  the  type 


DISCIPLINE  135 

of  discipline  that  will  stand  the  wear  and  tear  of 
time.  As  Colonel  Ardant  du  Picq  well  remarks : 
"  Discipline  is  not  made  to  order,  cannot  be  created 
off-hand  ;  it  is  a  matter  of  the  institution  of  tradition. 
The  Commander  must  have  absolute  confidence  in 
his  right  to  command,  must  have  the  habit  of  com- 
mand, pride  in  commanding.  It  is  this  which  gives 
a  strong  discipline  to  Armies  commanded  by  an 
aristocracy,  whenever  such  a  thing  exists."  And, 
if  the  aristocracy  of  birth  does  not  exist,  or  is  not 
to  be  permitted  to  play  its  part,  let  an  aristocracy 
of  intellect  be  created. 

In  denning  the  modern  type  of  discipline  on 
page  105  it  may  be  remembered  that  I  put  first 
amongst  its  factors  "  a  sense  of  duty  (res  publica}" 
Also,  it  may  have  been  noticed  that  beyond  that 
bald  statement  I  have  said  nothing  whatever 
about  duty.  The  reason  is  that  hardly  a  flicker  of 
a  sense  of  duty  exists  in  Greater  Britain — exists, 
I  mean,  as  a  working  basis  for  business.  This 
discovery  came  to  me  with  something  like  a  shock, 
only  as  a  result  of  pondering  over  the  factors  of 
discipline. 

Why,  it  may  be  urged,  did  I  then  enumerate  the 
motive  and  even  give  it  the  place  of  honour  in  my 
definition  ? 

Because,  even  as  I  write  these  words,  I  still  believe 
in  a  strong  sense  of  duty.  Because  Nelson's  proud 
signal  must  incline  any  man  of  our  race  to  think  the 
same.  Because  there  is  hardly  a  foreign  military 
work  which  does  not  make  duty  the  backbone  both 
of  Command  and  of  obedience.  Because  I  know 
that  the  Japanese,  in  the  last  great  war  but  one, 
relied  more  upon  a  sense  of  public  duty  than  upon 


136      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

any  other  force  whatsoever,  whether  moral  or 
material.  The  following  letter  of  challenge  from 
Captain  Broke  to  Captain  Lawrence  shows  that  duty 
was  a  live  motive  in  Nelson's  times  :— 

"  As  the  Chesapeake  appears  now  ready  for  sea,  I  request  you 
will  do  me  the  favour  to  meet  the  Shannon  with  her,  ship  to  ship, 
to  try  the  fortune  of  our  respective  flags.  ...  I  entreat  you, 
sir,  not  to  imagine  that  I  am  urged  by  mere  personal  vanity  to 
the  wish  of  meeting  the  Chesapeake  or  that  I  depend  only  upon 
your  personal  ambition  for  your  acceding  to  this  invitation.  We 
both  have  nobler  motives.  You  will  feel  it  as  a  compliment  if 
I  say,  that  the  result  of  our  meeting  may  be  the  most  grateful 
service  I  can  render  to  my  country  ;  and  I  doubt  not  that  you, 
equally  confident  of  success,  will  feel  convinced,  that  it  is  only 
by  repeated  triumphs  in  even  combats  that  your  little  Navy  can 
now  hope  to  console  your  country  for  the  loss  of  that  trade  it 
can  no  longer  protect.  Favour  me  with  a  speedy  reply.  We 
are  short  of  provisions  and  water,  and  cannot  stay  longer  here." 


"  Duty,"  in  its  most  perfect  manifestation,  as 
personified  seventeen  years  ago  by  the  Japanese 
Officer,  lies  in  an  extreme  simplicity — in  a  total 
absence  of  self-consciousness,  pose  or  attempt  to 
make  capital  out  of  self.  The  officer  who  has  to 
give  an  order  feels  he  has  got  to  express  to  his 
subordinates  not  his  ideas  but  the  wishes  (as  far  as 
he  can  imagine  them)  of  the  State.  The  private 
soldier  is  not  so  much  the  captain's  subordinate  as 
in  other  Armies.  They  may  exchange  cigarettes 
"off  duty."  But  "on  duty"  both  are  equally 
State  servants ;  equally,  in  a  sense,  important ; 
equally,  in  a  sense,  worthy  of  respect;  equally,  in 
a  sense,  mere  atoms  of  transient  dust ;  also,  by 
the  will  of  the  Emperor,  it  happens,  at  that  moment, 
to  be  the  duty  of  one  selected  servant  to  point  out 
the  path  of  duty  to  another  selected  servant. 


DISCIPLINE  137 

The  slant-eyed  children  of  the  old  pirates  of  the 
Yellow  Sea  have  been  bred  for  duty  just  as  short- 
horn breeders  have  produced  milk  out  of  a  breed 
which  used  to  aim  only  at  beef.  The  dues  of  others  ; 
the  privileges  of  others  ;  the  sinking  of  the  atom  in 
the  mass  ;  these  are  what  have  been  scrubbed  into 
their  round  little  craniums  from  babyhood.  The 
British  have  bred  all  along  for  independence.  "  Our 
noble  selves  "  ;  "  those  outsiders  "  ;  "  'eave  'alf  a 
brick  at  that  furriner  "  ;  "  this  villa,  I  beg  to  inform 
you,  sir,  is  a  castle,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  So  you  may  as 
well  flog  a  dead  horse  as  boom  duty  to  Britishers. 
Vestiges  remain.  Selection  Boards  try  to  forget 
their  favourites  and  to  do  what  is  best  for  the  Service. 
But,  in  the  Army  generally,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
duty,  as  a  word,  has  lost  caste.  An  officer  says, 
"  Oh,  d —  it,  I'm  on  duty  to-morrow  !  "  A  soldier 
"  doing  duty  "  is  working  away  at  the  routines  of 
musketry,  guards,  parades,  route  marches,  whereas 
his  comrade,  the  lucky  man,  is  "  struck  off  duty." 
The  word  is  worn  out — tired.  Nelson  wrote  it  in 
coloured  bunting  on  the  sky ;  teachers  scribble  it 
on  to  blackboards  ;  poets — "  Stern  Daughter  of 
the  voice  of  God  !  O  Duty  "  :  it  never  gets  a  rest. 
We  must  try  to  console  ourselves  by  the  thought 
that  if  the  horizons  of  our  Armies  had  been  limited 
to  what  was  their  sheer  duty,  their  greatest  victory 
would  have  been  their  worst  defeat.  In  war  we  have 
all  got  to  do  more  than  our  duty — and  that  is  the 
lesson  the  British  individual  must  learn. 

Individualism  ?  The  Kaiser  is  a  queer  fellow  to 
quote — part  devil,  part  dilettante,  the  people  have 
been  taught  to  think  him — but  he  had  his  points : 
he  knew  and  admired  England ;  he  knew  and 


138      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

dreaded  Russia.  So  it  interests  me  now  to  recall 
what  he  said  to  me  about  individualism.  "  Each 
nation  its  own  characteristics  :  the  way  to  destroy 
Russia  is  to  encourage  the  individualism  of  the 
peasants ;  the  way  to  destroy  Britain  is  to  throw 
over  the  individualism  which  begot  you."  The 
idea  amused  me  almost  as  much  as  his  other  idea  of 
regenerating  Ireland  by  making  motor  spirit  out  of 
potatoes,  but  now  that  the  bureaucratic  dragon  is 
rattling  its  tail  of  three  hundred  thousand  type- 
writers, I  begin  to  think  there  was  something  in  it. 
So  much  for  discipline,  but  before  pressing  on  to 
training  it  will  be  better  to  give  a  couple  of  examples, 
drawn  from  our  own  lives,  of  the  fighting  value  of 
"  the  main  force  of  Armies."  If  ever  there  was  a 
war  made  to  illustrate  the  value  of  discipline,  that 
war  was  fought  in  South  Africa  through  1899-1902. 
At  the  start  no  one  could  class  our  organisation 
higher  than  "  indifferent."  Discipline  was  admir- 
able and,  according  to  European  or  Indian  Frontier 
standards,  units  were  highly  trained  in  the  arts  of 
reconnaissance,  security,  attack,  defence,  and  mus- 
ketry. The  Boer  Commandos  were  well  enough 
organised  for  the  very  special  conditions  of  their 
environment.  They  possessed  no  discipline.  The 
civil  law  created  the  Commando  and  handed  it  over 
in  the  raw  to  the  Field  Cornet.  As  to  training, 
officers  and  men  had  been  born  and  bred  for  the 
unique  purpose  of  veldt  and  kopje  work  over  a  vast 
semi-desert,  sub-continent  in  a  way  that  made  each 
individual  Boer  the  equal  of  half  a  dozen  European, 
American  or  Japanese  soldiers  on  that  particular 
theatre.  The  rival  organisations  then  may  fairly 
be  struck  out  as  more  or  less  equally  balanced,  and 


DISCIPLINE  139 

the  Boer  superiority  as  an  individual  warrior  in  his 
own  country  may  be  taken  to  be  neutralised  by  our 
great  superiority  of  numbers.  As  to  their  morale, 
the  Boers  were  animated  by  an  intense  patriotism, 
whereas  there  was  nothing  beyond  esprit  de  corps, 
love  of  adventure  and  medals  to  inspire  our  British 
soldiers.  Here,  as  I  hope  to  make  clear  later,  was  an 
immense  advantage  to  the  enemy.  We  have  already 
struck  out  organisation  and  training  on  either  side 
of  the  equation  and  so  we  are  left  now  with  morale 
against  us  and  only  our  discipline  to  the  good  : 
our  other  advantages  have  been  wiped  out  on  the 
cross-account  and  our  discipline  stands  face  to  face 
with  the  patriotism  of  the  Boers. 

Well,  it  was  discipline  won  against  patriotism. 
If  any  Commando  leader  could  have  relied  on  any 
number  of  his  men  to  obey  his  orders  exactly  and 
implicitly  we  should  have  lost  that  war  and  with  it, 
by  now,  after  hideous  Indian  and  Sudanese  mutinies, 
our  Empire. 

On  the  6th  January,  1900,  at  1  p.m.,  the  British, 
worn  out  by  close  fighting  for  eleven  consecutive 
hours,  were  surprised  by  the  sudden  charge  of  a  hand- 
ful of  the  enemy  supported  by  a  heavy  covering  fire 
and  were  knocked  clean  off  an  outpost  of  the  defence 
of  Ladysmith  called  Waggon  Hill  Point.  Discipline 
rallied  our  fellows  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  and  led 
them  back,  up  rocks,  through  thorn  bushes,  to  the 
counter-attack.  Just  under  the  crest  those  who 
were  careless  were  picked  off  by  the  enemy ;  those 
who  were  more  careful  saw  them  and  will  not 
easily  forget  that  tiny  forlorn  hope  of  the  Burgers  ; 
several,  firing  as  fast  as  they  could  at  the  leaders  of 
the  British  rally ;  several  with  their  heads  turned 


140      THE   SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  other  way  shouting  to  their  own  men  close  below 
for  God's  sake  to  come  up,  that  the  "  Point  "  was 
captured  and  now  had  only  to  be  held.  A  word  of 
command,  a  charge  and  within  ten  seconds  these 
heroes  had  bit  the  dust ;  Waggon  Hill  was  once 
more  in  our  hands  and  our  grip  even  a  little 
extended. 

Without  discipline  Waggon  Hill  had  been  lost! 
From  Waggon  Hill  Point,  Waggon  Hill  proper 
could  be  taken  in  reverse  at  fixed-sight  range. 
As  Waggon  Hill  Point  stood  towards  Waggon  Hill, 
so  did  Waggon  Hill  to  Caesar's  Camp.  The  whole 
southern  outwork  of  Ladysmith  town  was,  therefore, 
virtually  gone  and  with  it  many  of  the  lives  and 
all  the  stamina  and  resolution  of  the  three  thousand 
men  holding  it.  Whether  this  would  have  involved 
the  fall  of  Ladysmith  next  day  no  man  living  can 
say.  As  a  question  of  morale  I  myself  firmly  believe 
that  it  would.  But  my  point  is  that,  at  Waggon 
Hill  Point,  several  hundred  Boers  were  lying  amongst 
the  grass  and  rocks  close  below,  within  speaking 
distance  of  those  gallant  leaders  (not  more  than  a 
dozen)  who  had  made  good  the  summit ;  several 
thousand  more  crouched  within  rifle  range.  The 
Point  had  been  fairly  rushed,  though  only  by  a 
tiny  forlorn  hope,  and  it  could  have  been  held 
against  all  of  us  (for  our  forces  on  the  spot  were 
weak  and  very  tired)  had  it  only  been  possible  for 
the  Boer  leaders  to  order  up  their  supports  instead 
of  having  to  ask,  to  entreat,  and  to  entreat,  God 
be  praised,  in  vain. 

My  second  example  is  chosen  on  a  vice  versa 
principle  from  Elandslaagte.  At  that  engagement 
the  Boers  were  pinned  down  to  their  position  by  a 


DISCIPLINE  141 

frontal  attack  which  was  not  pressed  home  whilst 
the  main  attack  was  thrown  by  a  wide  encircling 
march  against  their  left  flank.  After  taking  the 
frontal  attack'to  its  ground,  the  Infantry  Commander 
and  his  staff  ran  across  and  cut  into  the  track  of 
the  flank  attack.  Coming  to  a  wire  fence  about 
300  yards  from  the  fight  then  raging  with  extreme 
violence,  he  was  painfully  impressed  by  the  long 
lines  of  dead  and  wounded  who  lay  on  either  side 
of  this  obstacle.  Close  by  him  the  Commanding 
Officer  of  the  Gordon  Highlanders,  who  had  been 
severely  wounded,  was  struggling  to  rejoin  his 
battalion,  whilst  a  hospital  orderly  was  endeavouring 
to  keep  him  back.  As  the  Infantry  Commander 
and  his  staff  paused  to  take  in  this  sad  scene,  and 
just  as  Captain  Ronnie  Brooke,  his  A.D.C.,  was 
pointing  out  that  the  heavy  loss  must  have  been 
due  to  the  exact  range  of  the  wire  fence  being  known 
to  the  enemy — suddenly,  one  of  these  corpses,  that 
of  a  sergeant,  started  to  its  feet  and  began  to  run 
towards  the  firing  line.  Another  rose  also,  dashed 
forward  some  twenty  yards  desperately  and  again 
threw  itself  flat  upon  the  ground.  The  mystery 
was  explained.  Two-thirds  of  these  men  were 
shamming  dead.  In  a  couple  of  minutes  they  were 
running  as  fast  as  their  legs  would  carry  them 
into  the  thick  of  the  bullets.  More  were  picked 
up  on  the  way  and  so  the  Commander  got  to  close 
quarters  with  something  like  a  hundred  rifles,  not 
at  his  back  but  in  front  of  him.  Once  fairly  plunged 
into  the  melee  these  lads — who  had  merely  been 
stunned — paralysed — by  their  first  introduction  to 
the  Mauser  bullet — fought  as  well  as  anybody  else. 
Had  our  soldiers  been  Boers,  i.e.,  undisciplined  men, 


142      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

not  one  of  them  would  have  moved — why  should 
they  ? — and  a  touch-and-go  affair  would  have  ended 
in  "  go." 

In  this  matter  of  discipline  our  British  Army 
stands  second  to  none ;  no,  that  is  not  putting  it 
strongly  enough — it  stands  an  easy  first  amongst 
the  nations,  on  firm  ground  well  reconnoitred  through 
many  hundred  years.  The  Army  insists  on  discipline 
and  our  chief  concern  in  these  flabby  times  is  to 
safeguard  the  prestige  of  authority.  To  that  end 
the  authority  must  be  specially  selected  as  possessing 
qualities  of  judgment  and  impartiality.  Also,  once 
the  Commanding  Officer l  has  been  thus  selected, 
power  must  be  placed  at  his  disposal,  not  so  much 
for  use  but  rather  to  be  held  in  reserve  as  a  deterrent. 
Only  let  the  Commander  be  secure  in  his  prestige 
and  then  the  rank  and  file  can  be  handled  without 
resort  to  punishment.  Once  they  have  got  used  to 
it,  to  discipline,  it  will  become  less  hard  for  them 
to  act  as  if  they  were  brave  than  to  behave  frankly 
like  cowards  ;  less  difficult  to  be  orderly,  punctual 
and  respectful  than  to  be  irregular,  sluggardly  or 
insubordinate.  Discipline  thus  administered  and 
accepted  means  certainly  that  the  troops  subject 
to  its  influence  will  behave  creditably  under  any 
test  fortune  may  have  in  store  for  them.  The 


1  On  the  1st  May,  1910,  the  powers  of  British  Commanding 
Officers  were  doubled  at  one  stroke.  The  measure  was  sharply 
opposed  by  estimable  persons  who  honestly  believed  the  best 
way  to  create  an  Army  was  to  administer  it  on  civilian  principles. 
Horrible  abuses  were  foretold.  Up  to  date  they  have  not  occurred. 
But,  since  then,  great  battles  have  been  won  by  discipline  and 
our  Empire  has  perhaps  been  saved  by  the  higher  standards 
secured  to  the  Army  by  Haldane. — IAN  H. 


DISCIPLINE  143 

French  nation  were  led  straight  into  the  jaws  of 
destruction  by  their  denial  of  the  lessons  of  history 
on  this  matter.  Some  two  years  before  the  grand 
debacle  M.  Jules  Simon  made  in  the  French  Chamber 
the  following  inimitable  appeal  to  all  the  enemies  of 
his  country  to  be  bold  and  to  violate  her  with 
impunity. 

M.  Jules  Simon  :  "  When  I  say  that  the  Army  we  wish  to 
create  is  to  be  an  Army  of  citizens  and  that  it  is  to  possess  no 
particle  of  military  spirit,  I  am  not  making  a  concession,  I  am 
making  a  declaration,  and  a  declaration  of  which  I  am  proud, 
for  it  is  in  order  that  there  should  be  no  military  spirit  that  we 
wish  to  have  an  Army  of  citizens  invincible  at  home  and  impo- 
tent to  carry  war  outside  their  own  borders.  ...  If  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  Army  1  without  a  military  spirit,  I  beg  that 
we  may  have  an  Army  which  is  not  an  Army."  (Laughter  and 
disturbance.) 

M.  Eugene  Pelletan :  "  Down  with  the  Pretorians  !  "  (Up- 
roar.) 


1  The  same  old  story — the  same  old  idea — was  alive  in  England 
but  yesterday.  No  barrack  square.  Officers  from  the  ranks. 
A  million  bayonets  invincible  at  home  and  not  only  "  impotent  " 
for  carrying  out  war  outside  their  own  borders,  but  legally 
debarred  from  doing  so.  Observe  the  programmes  of  the  various 
Leagues  and  Associations.  Read,  also,  this  extract  from  the 
Labour  Leader  of  the  last  week  in  February,  1913  : — 

"  ALL  OR  NONE. 

"  We  are  glad  it  (the  Territorial  Force)  has  broken  down. 
We  are  for  all  or  none.  Military  service  is  either  a  necessity  or 
it  is  not.  We  want  no  professional  Army  as  a  body  of  janissaries 
to  serve  the  master  class  against  the  people.  Every  soldier  a 
citizen  and  every  citizen  a  soldier,  or  no  soldiers  at  all." 

As  I  have  pointed  out  already  in  these  essays  there  is  no  worse 
motto  than  All  or  None.  By  getting  All  in  this  instance  the 
value  of  the  Army  as  a  defensive  instrument  against  foreigners 
would  be  0  ! 


144      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

There  is  warning  to  us  in  these  words — in  these 
rotten  words — invincible  at  home  and  impotent 
outside  their  own  borders.  For  offence  or  for  defence ; 
on  the  line  of  march  or  in  the  bivouac ;  overseas 
or  in  England  there  is  no  such  thing  now,  and  never 
was  nor  will  be,  as  an  Army  good  at  home  and  bad 
abroad.  In  the  'sixties  M.  Simon  was  talking  already 
as  the  Poles  and  Jews  are  talking  in  Glasgow  to-day. 
An  Army  is  good  everywhere  or  it  is  bad  everywhere, 
and  the  force  that  makes  it  insensible  to  the  local 
atmosphere  is  just  atmosphere. 

***** 

Since  this  chapter  was  written  I  have  come  across 
The  Times  Literary  Supplement  of  22nd  April,  1920. 
In  this  is  a  critique  of  the  monumental  work  by 
Major-General  Sir  Archibald  Montgomery  on  the 
work  of  the  Fourth  Army  during  the  Battles  of 
Hundred  Days.  The  critique,  after  giving  reasons 
for  our  victory,  ends  thus : — 

"  Above  all,  as  General  Montgomery  with  just  emphasis 
declares,  British  military  discipline  has  no  equal  in  the  armies 
of  Europe,  being  based  on  mutual  confidence  and  respect  between 
officers  and  men." 


CHAPTER  VII 
TRAINING 

Organisation  and  discipline  have  now  been  ex- 
pounded, feebly  perhaps,  but  faithfully.  The  one 
gives  order,  proportion,  method  ;  the  other,  cohesion, 
confidence  in  comrades.  Of  the  artificial,  applied 
characteristics  of  an  Army  there  remains  training ; 
i.e.,  the  course  of  instruction  and  exercises  whereby 
^/-confidence  is  imparted  to  the  individual  soldier 
by  letting  him  feel  that  his  mind  and  body  have 
been  well  prepared  to  play  their  part  with  credit 
in  God's  grand  competitive  examination  of  the 
nations  ;  in  the  art  of  using  space  and  time,  ground 
and  weapons  like  a  professional  as  opposed  to  an 
amateur. 

A  variety  of  causes  combine  to  give  the  public 
an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  value  of  training  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  an  Army.  I  say  rank  and  file 
because  training,  i.e.,  practice  in  handling  masses 
of  men  and  material,  is  most  precious  to  Generals 
and  Staff.  They  are  aware  of  that  fact  and  they 
boom  training.  Subalterns,  again,  who  are  judged 
mainly  by  their  quickness  and  savvy  in  the  field ; 
the  men  who  draw  honour  and  profit  from  marks- 
manship and  skill  at  arms — nay,  those  numerous 
students  who  study  war  by  its  battles,  or  the  Great 

145  L 


146   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

General  Staff  themselves  who  deal  with  and  live 
by  training ;  all  these  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking 
as  if  training  was  soldiering  and  a  trained  band  an 
Army. 

In  other  words,  training,  by  being  the  most 
obvious  of  the  attributes  of  an  Army,  has  come 
to  have  its  importance  overrated.  As  a  wholesome 
corrective,  therefore,  it  is  desirable  to  bear  in  mind 
that,  after  all,  the  Afridi  tribesman  or  the  Red 
Indian  of  the  prairie  is  better  trained  to  fight  over 
his  own  ground  than  any  regular  soldier  :  and  yet, 
regular  soldiers  defeat  these  partisans  with  ease ! 
Marshal  Bugeaud,  most  practical  of  nineteenth 
century  commanders,  has  said  that  the  technical 
training  of  soldiers  can  be  compassed  in  three 
months,  and  this  is  the  same  Bugeaud  who  declared 
that  three  years  was  not  long  enough  to  create  those 
soldiers  "  loving  the  colours,  confident  in  their 
chiefs  and  in  their  comrades  to  the  right  and  left 
of  them  .  .  .  who  form  Armies  fit  to  gain  battles  at 
the  outset  of  a  campaign."  "  All  apprenticeship  " 
(meaning  thereby  training  of  infantry)  "  can  be 
got  through  in  a  few  months,"  is  the  dictum  of 
another  well-known  Continental  authority. 

As  a  Commander  gains  experience  he  realises  that 
of  battles,  real  and  sham,  it  may  truly  be  said,  you 
never  know  your  luck,  but  that  the  best  way  to  be 
lucky  is  to  be  plucky.  He  accepts  the  battle  with 
joyous  relief  as  the  final  test  of  his  troops  and  of 
himself  ;  he  knows  he  must  be  prepared  to  be  judged 
and  to  stand  or  fall  by  that  test ;  yet,  he  knows 
also  all  the  time  that  battles  are  rare  events  and 
that,  meanwhile,  the  Army  lives,  marches,  works, 
and  has  its  being  by  organisation  and  discipline. 


TRAINING  147 

Further,  after  his  first  general  action  he  will  be 
surprised,  if  he  thinks  it  over,  to  recollect  how  very 
great  a  part  organisation  and  discipline,  or  their 
absence,  had  to  say  to  success  or  failure. 

Organisation  in  the  guise  of  internal  economy 
gave  the  men  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  before  they  entered 
upon  the  thirty  hours'  struggle  on  the  heights— a 
cup  of  coffee  without  which  their  skill  at  arms  would 
certainly  have  failed  them.  Discipline  enabled  him 
to  control  his  fire  even  in  the  tumult  and  confusion 
of  the  night  attack — discipline  which  saved  the 
situation  when  the  men  had  begun  to  use  their 
"  training  "  to  shoot  one  another. 

All  my  own  bias  is  in  favour  of  training.  The 
best  energies  of  my  life  have  been  devoted  to  fire 
tactics  and  the  cult  of  marksmanship.  The  signifi- 
cance of  our  own  lives  is  strangely  hidden  away 
from  us.  Since  the  Ingogo  when  Sir  George  Colley, 
the  British  Commander,  distracted  to  see  his  young 
troops  missing  a  whole  Commando  of  Mounted 
Boers  at  close  range,  seized  a  rifle  from  the  hands 
of  a  soldier  and  exclaiming,  "  Good  God,  you  can't 
hit  a  haystack  !  "  shot  one  of  the  enemy ;  since 
the  battle  of  Majuba  Hill,  when  the  British  lost  two- 
thirds  of  their  force  and  the  Boers  only  lost  one 
man ;  when  I  myself  was  crippled  for  life  as  a 
penalty  for  being  a  bit  slow  in  taking  aim ;  ever 
since  those  days  I  have  preached  and  fought  and 
begged  and  prayed  for  musketry.  Were  my  work 
to  be  remembered  after  me  for  a  few  years,  I  fondly 
hoped  it  might  be  in  connection  with  the  marksman- 
ship of  the  British  Army,  yet  now  that  my  member- 
ship of  the  Large  Black  Pig  Society  gives  me  some 
leisure  for  reflection,  I  do  really  believe  my  one 


148      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

year's  work  as  Adjutant-General  accomplished  more 
through  the  media  of  organisation  and  discipline 
than  my  lifetime  spent  at  tactics  and  training. 

Organisation  and  discipline  are  deeper  things  than 
training,  and  I  call  to  mind  the  first  order  issued 
by  Bonaparte  to  the  Army  he  was  going  to  lead 
across  the  Alps  to  the  superb  victory  of  Marengo : 
"  In  every  demi-brigade,  to-morrow,  the  conscripts 
must  be  made  to  fire  several  shots,  so  that  they 
may  know  with  which  eye  to  take  aim  and  how 
to  load  their  musket."  Once  again,  if  training 
was  supreme,  how  could  any  regular  troops  hold 
their  own  for  a  moment  in  the  hills  against  the 
Afridis.  We  do  not  dominate  them  by  superior 
training.  If  a  British  soldier  or  a  Sikh  gave  a 
lifetime  to  it  he  could  never  use  the  terrain  of  the 
mountain-side,  never  conceal  himself,  never  shoot, 
never  move,  advance,  retire,  charge,  like  an  Afridi! 
Organisation  and  discipline  are  the  weapons  of 
civilisation,  and  these,  handled  with  wisdom  and 
courage,  win  as  against  training. 

The  following  microscopic,  "  one  man  "  instance 
of  failure  to  rise  to  the  occasion  may  enable  an 
opinion  to  be  formed  of  the  relative  values  of 
training  versus  other  military  qualities  when  the 
soldier  finds  himself  at  bay  upon  the  edge  of  eternity. 
A  raw,  young  militiaman  went  out  on  his  first  trek 
in  1900  and,  with  the  rest  of  his  company,  held  a 
ridge  against  the  enemy.  When  the  company  had 
to  "  git "  he  was  left  behind  because  he  had  fallen 
fast  asleep  behind  a  rock  and  could  not  be  found. 
In  the  evening  he  made  his  way  back  to  camp, 
but  it  was  deserted.  The  column  had  marched 
bag-and-baggage  away.  So  he  decided  to  stay 


TRAINING  149 

where  he  was  for  the  night,  and  fell  asleep  again  in 
one  of  the  trenches  on  the  perimeter.  Early  next 
morning,  when  he  awoke,  three  Boers  were  within 
a  few  yards  of  him  searching  the  empty  camping 
ground  for  dropped  rounds  of  ammunition.  Their 
rifles  were  slung  and  they  had  no  suspicion  a  British 
soldier  was  within  miles.  He,  the  local  representa- 
tive of  the  greatest,  most  famous  Empire  of  history, 
was  armed  ;  ready  ;  and  under  cover.  The  game  was 
in  his  hands  and  so,  he  stood  up — and  surrendered  ! 
Afterwards,  under  examination,  the  lad  turned  out 
to  be  destitute  of  any  soldierly  virtue.  He  was  not 
a  conscientious  objector,  but  it  had  never  occurred  to 
him  that  he  could  possibly  do  anything  but  surrender. 
No  amount  of  tactical  training  would  have  made 
this  product  of  our  State  educational  system — 
this  unfortunate  militiaman — into  a  soldier !  All 
that  the  best  instruction  over  ground  might  have 
taught  him  could  not  have  put  him  into  a  better 
position,  relatively  to  his  enemy,  than  that  in  which 
he  proved  himself  so  impotent.  He  did  possess  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  musketry  and  the  range 
was  so  short  that  he  could  not  have  missed.  Had 
he  been  a  first-class  marksman,  perhaps  his  morale 
might  have  been  heartened  by  the  fact.  Realisa- 
tion of  skill  at  arms  may  reflect  itself  in  courage. 
Thus  a  bad  shot  requires  great  pluck  if  he  is  to  track 
up  a  wounded  tiger,  whereas  a  man  who  can  make 
a  right  and  left  every  time  at  the  running  deer  gains 
a  certain  self-confidence  and  need  not  put  it  all 
upon  his  nerves.  Still,  having  said  so  much  for 
training,  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  was  some- 
thing deeper  than  lack  of  training  which  was  amiss 
with  this  misfire  in  the  field.  Neither  his  mother 


150      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

nor  his  school  teacher  had  ever  prepared  him  for 
so  stern  an  ordeal — the  fate  of  many  another. 
Six  months  under  a  keen  Captain,  that's  what 
he  wanted ;  something  to  put  some  spirit  into 
him  ;  something  to  give  him  a  notion  of  what  a 
great  nation  expects  of  those  who  wear  its  uniform 
and  represent  it  amongst  foreigners  and  enemies. 

Another  "  one  man  "  instance  from  South  Africa  : 
when  day  broke  in  the  morning  of  27th  February, 
1881,  the  handful  of  British  soldiers  and  sailors 
who  had  climbed  the  precipitous  flanks  of  Majuba 
Hill  were  greatly  and  justly  elated.  The  key  to 
the  enemy's  position  was  held  in  their  hands  just  as 
firmly  as  if  they  had  surprised  the  citadel  of  a  besieged 
city.  From  the  lofty  summit  towards  which  during 
the  whole  long  night  they  had  been  climbing  they 
now  looked  down  upon  the  Boer  laagers  from  the 
rear  and  it  was  plain  to  everyone  that  the  enemy 
had  been  out -manoeuvred.  All  that  remained  was 
for  the  main  force  at  Mount  Prospect  to  advance 
and  "make  good." 

A  little  later  and  the  moral  atmosphere  was 
changed.  Nothing  had  happened ;  nothing  of 
importance.  The  Boers  were  still  down  below ; 
we  were  still  up  on  top.  Only  a  single  shot  had  been 
fired  by  the  enemy,  a  very  long  shot  for  those  days 
of  1,000  yards,  mortally  wounding  Commander 
Romilly  who  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  mound 
to  get  a  better  view ;  clearly  the  shot  had  been 
aimed.  Our  fellows  could  not  shoot  like  that.  The 
whole  370  or  whatever  their  number  was — myself 
amongst  them — felt  depressed. 

Striking  examples  of  the  triumph  of  training 
are  not  easy  to  give,  first,  because  training  does  not 


TRAINING  151 

in  point  of  fact  tell  so  much  in  deciding  campaigns 
as  is  usually  imagined ;  secondly,  because  what 
seems  to  be  good  training,  according  to  tradition 
and  the  accepted  standards,  may  prove  disastrous 
when  it  is  put  to  the  test  against  a  fresh  enemy, 
or  after  a  long  peace.  We  ought  in  this  summer  of 
1921  to  be  hard  at  work  evolving  an  entirely  new 
system  of  training  for  an  entirely  new  Army.  We 
are  not  doing  anything.  Well,  some  other  powers 
may  be  doing  something,  and  if  they  do  evolve  a 
new  model  battalion  it  will  probably  prove  capable 
of  knocking  spots  off  a  brigade  organised  and  trained 
as  were  the  brigades  which  wound  up  the  war. 
Volley-firing  in  its  day  and  place  was  very  superior 
to  independent  firing.  Every  volley  which  was 
fired  by  order  was  a  reassurance  of  the  grip  of  disci- 
pline over  the  ranks  and,  in  a  regular  battle,  the 
collective  method  had  been  proved  over  and  over 
again  to  be  the  more  deadly.  But  the  day  came 
when  it  was  out  of  place.  At  Monongahela,  Brad- 
dock  kept  his  men  in  their  ranks  and  made  them 
fire  regular  volleys  into  the  forest  to  their  front, 
whilst  all  around  them,  from  behind  every  tree 
trunk,  Indians  and  French  voyageurs  were  blazing 
away  into  their  exposed  mass.  The  whizz  of  a 
bullet  brings  sense  into  the  thickest  skull  and  some 
of  the  red-coats,  taking  a  leaf  out  of  the  Redskins' 
book,  got  under  cover  and  were  beginning  to  make 
a  fight  of  it.  But  to  Braddock  this  was  blasphemy 
against  the  drill  book x ;  an  outrage  upon  all  prin- 

1  At  Meerut,  in  the  'eighties,  a  Senior  Officer  gave  his  views  on 
fire  tactics  to  the  Battalion  Commanders.  On  leaving,  one  of 
them,  much  scandalised,  said  to  a  companion,  "  He  spoke 
against  the  Book ! "  meaning  thereby  the  Drill  Book.  A 


152      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

ciples  of  training.  Death  before  dishonour.  With 
oaths  the  skirmishers  were  recalled  to  their  role 
of  being  targets  in  the  middle  of  the  ring  and  after 
standing  it  a  while — they  bolted  ! 

The  part  played  by  training  is  more  easily  disen- 
tangled from  the  skein  of  the  incidents  of  a  sea-fight 
than  it  is  from  encounters  which  take  place  on  dry 
land.  Inanimate  things  and  mechanical  appliances, 
with  the  handling  thereof,  have  counted  until  now 
for  far  more  on  a  ship  than  in  bivouacs,  in  column 
of  route  or  in  attack  or  retreat  over  terra -fir ma. 
Therefore,  also,  the  part  played  by  practice  in  this 
art  of  handling  things  (which  includes  the  ship 
herself  as  well  as  her  gear)  becomes  more  vital  to 
a  Navy  than  to  an  Army.  Even  in  gunnery  and 
musketry,  where  it  might  be  imagined  conditions 
were  equal,  high  training  is  more  essential  to  the 
bluejacket.  There  is  no  use  drawing  a  bow  at  a 
venture  on  the  high  seas,  though  we  have  Biblical 
testimony  as  to  its  occasional  value  on  shore.  Thus, 
a  sailor  misses  his  ship  and  there's  no  chance  of 
anything  else  except  perhaps  a  whale.  A  soldier 
misses  a  Corporal  and,  a  mile  away,  hits  a  General. 

A  very  good  case  for  training  is  furnished  by  the 
famous  fight  between  the  Shannon  and  the  Chesa- 
peake on  the  1st  June,  1813. 

"  And  as  the  war  they  did  provoke, 

We'll  pay  them  with  our  cannon  ; 
The  first  to  do  it  will  be  Broke, 
In  the  gallant  ship  the  Shannon." 

Presbyterian  Divine  of  sixty  years  ago,  defending  the  Holy  Bible 
against  an  atheist,  could  not  have  displayed  more  concern  for 
the  finality  of  his  doctrine  than  did  this  Old  Boy  (who  afterwards 
attained  to  most  respectable  heights  in  his  career)  for  a  compila- 
tion by  British  plagiarists. 


TRAINING  153 

Certainly,  Broke  was  the  first  "to  do  it,"  and 
none  too  soon  either  !  In  1812  our  Navy  was  at  the 
zenith  of  its  glory.  Never,  since  the. days  of  the 
Carthaginians,  had  the  Empire  of  the  Sea  more 
splendidly  been  made  good.  Impressed  English 
sailors  had  met  Continental  conscript  sailors  and 
had  beaten  them  wherever  they  did  meet  them. 
"Between  1793  .  .  .  and  May,  1812  .  .  .  out  of  200 
actions  between  single  ships,  we  were  only  defeated 
five  times,  and  on  each  of  those  five  occasions  our 
vessels  were  of  inferior  force  to  the  enemy."  l  But 
British  frigates  "  manned  by  pressed  men  "  *  were 
now  to  meet  those  crews  which  had  "  enlisted  freely 
in  the  American  ships."  2 

In  the  first  seven  months  of  the  war  five  "  single 
ship "  contests  took  place  in  succession  between 
voluntary  service  Americans  and  pressed  English- 
men (three  frigate  contests  and  two  sloop  encounters) 
and  in  each  of  them  the  British  were  whipped.  We 
have  a  perfect  genius  for  forgetting  the  apprentice- 
ship of  defeats  through  a  regular  series  of  which  it 
is  our  practice  to  emerge ,  in  virtue  of  our  tenacity, 
to  the  victories  embroidered  on  our  colours.  Often 
the  defeats  were  the  memorable  happenings,  the 
famous  victories  mere  walks  over  for  lucky  dogs 
who  came  in  at  the  end  when  the  backs  of  the  enemy 
had  been  broken :  no  matter !  The  defeats  are 
so  clean  wiped  off  the  national  slate  that  only  by 
digging  into  dusty  old  chronicles  and  newspapers  is 
it  possible  to  realise  the  prodigious  effect  of  naval 
actions  which  caused  The  Times  to  commence  a 
leader  with  the  words  "  Good  God  !  "  Here  indeed 

1  Captain  H.  J.  G.  Garbett,  R.N. 

2  Clowes,  History  of  the  Royal  Navy. 


154      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

was  a  shrewd  set-back  for  the  politicians  ;  ignorant, 
then  as  now,  of  the  human  heart  and  its  bearing 
upon  battles,  they  were  dumbfounded  to  see  their 
wonderfully  disciplined  crews  strike  their  flags  to  a 
rabble  of  Americans,  many  of  them  British  deserters, 
just  because  they  happened  to  have  the  free  will 
to  fight.  Then,  at  last,  on  the  top  of  so  much 
depression ;  so  much  (in  the  words  of  The  Times) 
"  disgrace  to  our  naval  character,"  came  the  perfect 
summer's  day  when,  in  a  setting  which  must  have 
thrilled  even  a  conscientious  objector,  the  Chesapeake 
of  50  guns  and  440  men  met  the  Shannon  of  330 
men  and  50  guns l ;  when  the  flotilla  of  pleasure 
boats  put  out  from  Boston  to  see  the  great  capture, 
and  when — 

"  Brave  Broke  he  waved  his  sword 
And  says  he,  my  lads  aboard." 

But  it  was  not  bravery — it  was  not  the  sword a  that 
won  this  victory  of  conscripts  against  volunteers. 
The  Americans  were  equally  brave,  as  their  casualties 
showed.  Nor  was  it  discipline,  although  the  hearts 
of  these  Englishmen  on  board  the  Shannon  had  been 
won  to  a  deeper,  truer  discipline  than  compulsory 

1 "  They  were  tolerably  well  matched  in  size,  the  Chesapeake 
being  only  70  tons  larger  than  her  antagonist  and  her  broadside 
only  50  pounds  heavier.  The  greatest  disparity  was  in  their 
respective  crews,  the  American  force  out-numbering  the.  British 
by  110  men." — Arcadian  Recorder,  January  16th,  1813. 

*  "  Nor  was  the  American  commander  (Lawrence)  inferior  to 
his  opponent  in  courage  and  weight  of  character.  He  had  a  short 
time  previously,  while  in  command  of  the  U.S.  sloop-of-war 
Hornet,  captured,  after  a  short  and  gallant  contest,  the  sloop-of- 
war  Peacock,  one  of  the  finest  ships  of  her  class  in  the  British 
Navy." — Arcadian  Recorder. 


TRAINING  156 

service  usually  reaches  by  the  fact  that  their 
commander  was"  beloved  for  gentleness  and  equani- 
mity." 1  No ;  it  was  training  did  it ;  training  in 
gunnery  and  marksmanship.  Broke' s  own  modest 
dispatch  speaks  of  his  crew  and  of  "  the  tremendous 
precision  of  their  fire."  From  the  day  in  which  he 
joined  her  "  the  Shannon  began  to  feel  the  effect 
of  her  Captain's  proficiency  as  a  gunner."  a  Whereas 
some  British  warships  did  not  fire  at  targets  once 
in  three  years,  Captain  Broke  trained  his  men  on 
the  guns  every  day  for  one  and  a  half  hours  and 
twice  a  week  he  had  ball  practice  both  of  big  guns 
and  musketry.  Any  man  making  a  bull's-eye  got 
a  pound  of  tobacco.  It  was  his  custom  suddenly 
to  heave  an  empty  cask  overboard  and  order  the 
first  gun  that  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  it  to 
sink  it — quite  an  irregular  sort  of  fellow  it  may  be 
noticed.  And  now  see  the  result  of  all  this  training 
in  action. 

On  an  afternoon  of  dreamlike  beauty,  on  the 
1st  June,  1813,  "  the  Shannon  with  her  foresail 
brailed  up,  and  her  maintop-sail  braced  flat  and 
shivering,  surged  slowly  through  the  quiet  seas, 
while  the  Chesapeake  came  down  with  towering 
canvas,  and  the  white  water  breaking  under  her 
bow."  "  On  board  the  Shannon  the  captain  of  the 
fourteenth  gun,  William  Mindham,  had  been  ordered 
not  to  fire  till  it  bore  into  the  second  main-deck 
port  forward.  At  5.50  it  was  fired."  At  5.53 
"  the  men  in  the  Shannon's  tops  could  hardly  see 
the  deck  of  the  American  frigate  through  the  cloud 
of  shivered  and  splintered  wreck  that  was  flying 

1  Gentleman's  letter  in  Naval  Chronicle,  1813. 
a  James. 


166      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

across  it.  The  quarter-deck  of  the  Chesapeake 
was  clean  swept  by  a  storm  of  round  shot  and 
musket  balls.  Man  after  man  was  killed  at  the  wheel 
including  the  fourth  Lieutenant,  the  Master  and 
the  boatswain.  "  Six  minutes  after  the  first  gun 
had  been  fired  the  Chesapeake 's  jib-sheet  and  foretop- 
sail  tie  were  shot  away,"  and  "  at  6  o'clock  the  two 
frigates  fell  on  board  one  another."  Broke  then 
"  stepped  from  the  Shannon's  gangway  rail  on  to 
the  muzzle  of  the  Chesapeake' s  aftermost  carronade 
and  thence  over  the  bulwark  on  to  her  quarter- 
deck followed  by  about  twenty  men."  After  a 
struggle  the  quarter-deck  was  cleared,  when  up 
on  to  it  rushed  the  Americans  from  the  main- 
deck.  "  Captain  Broke  was  still  leading  his  men 
with  the  same  brilliant  personal  courage  he  had  all 
along  shown.  Attacking  the  first  American  who 
was  armed  with  a  pike,  he  parried  a  blow  from  it 
and  cut  down  the  man ;  attacking  another,  etc., 
etc."  "  At  6.5,  just  fifteen  minutes  after  the  first 
gun  had  been  fired,  and  not  five  minutes  after  Captain 
Broke  had  boarded,  the  colours  of  the  Chesapeake 
were  struck." 

Losses  :  Chesapeake — 61  killed  ;  85  wounded. 
Shannon — 33  killed  ;  50  wounded. 

"  Beyond  question,  Broke' s  men  were  far  more 
skilful  in  the  handling  of  the  guns ;  but  this  was 
only  one  of  the  factors  which  went  to  make  up  the 
victory."  l  Naturally.  Still,  it  was  a  prime  factor,2 

1  These  extracts  are  taken  from  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt's 
account  in  Clowes'  History  of  the  Royal  Navy. 

2  The  Shannon  scored  362  body  hits  to  the  158  hits  made 
by  the  Chesapeake. 


TRAINING  157 

and  this  precis  of  a  fine  story  has  been  given  just 
to  make  that  very  fact  quite  clear. 

The  battles  between  Suffren  and  Hughes  in  Eastern 
waters  must  also  be  put  to  the  credit  of  British 
training.  In  strategy  and  tactics  Suffren  was  always 
the  better  man,  yet  he  never  once  won,  because,  in 
sheer  training  (i.e.  seamanship  ;  the  art  of  handling 
ships  in  combination ;  fleet  drill,  in  fact),  Hughes 
was  his  master.  Sufifren  had  always  depreciated 
fleet  drill,  but  fleet  drill  ended  by  depreciating 
him. 

Agincourt,  won  essentially  by  the  application  of 
new  tactical  principles,  owed  its  completeness  and 
brilliancy  to  marksmanship ;  i.e.  to  training. 
Neither  in  their  lineage  nor  in  their  skill  in  the 
tournament  was  there  much  to  choose  between  the 
military  virtues  of  the  French  and  English  men-at- 
arms.  On  this  occasion  the  spirit  of  the  French 
ran  high  ;  the  English  certainly  thought  they  were 
going  to  be  beaten.  And  small  wonder !  Ten 
thousand  islanders  (6,000  archers;  1,000  knights 
and  men-at-arms  and  2,000  to  3,000  infantry)  were 
confronted  by  50,000  Frenchmen.  The  French 
attacked  and  had  all  the  advantage  of  the  initiative. 

"  When  from  a  meadow  by, 
Like  a  storm  suddenly, 
The  English  archery 

Struck  the  French  horses."  l 

Result:  English  losses — 13  men-at-arms.  French 
losses — 5,000  knights  of  noble  birth  killed ;  1,000 
more  taken  prisoners.  An  indefinite  but  enormous 

1  Ballad  of  Agincourt, 


158      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

number  of  men-at-arms,  infantry  and  cross-bowmen 
killed  and  wounded. 

Frederick  the  Great  owed  some  of  his  finest 
victories  to  training  (i.e.  to  perfect  drill ;  lines 
formed  from  column  of  route  without  confusion, 
gap  or  overlap ;  arms  handled  with  rapidity  and 
precision  :  volleys  fired  as  if  the  triggers  of  a  batta- 
lion had  been  pulled  by  one  forefinger).  His  Army 
was  capable  of  marching  right  across  the  front  of 
the  embattled  enemy  and  of  then  deploying  and 
rolling  up  that  enemy's  distant  flank  before  they 
could  conform  to  his  movement,  which,  by  the 
way,  is  precisely  what  our  own  infantry  did  at 
Elandslaagte.  Here,  also,  the  root  of  the  victory 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  idea,  but  this  idea  had 
to  be  carried  out  by  the  agency  of  soldiers  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that,  as  his  opponents  would 
be  working  on  interior  lines,  Frederick  dared  not 
have  adventured  (any  more  than  our  infantry  Com- 
mander at  Elandslaagte)  had  he  not  possessed 
confidence  in  the  marked  superiority  in  quickness 
and  handiness  imparted  to  his  troops  by  their 
training.  His  famous  oblique  order  attack  was  still 
being  practised  when  I  joined  the  Army,  and  has 
been  the  means  of  drawing  down  more  curses  upon 
my  head  than  a  youth  of  this  new,  polite  world  is 
likely  to  hear  in  his  life-time.  We  used  to  advance 
in  echelon  from  the  right  or  left  of  a  line,  whereby 
one  flank  was  refused  whilst  the  other  outflanked 
the  enemy.  So  the  matador  fascinates  the  bull 
with  his  gaudy  flag  whilst  he  manosuvres  himself 
into  position  to  destroy  his  lumbering  adversary 
by  one  desperate  lunge.  The  "  oblique  order " 
was  the  highest  perfection  of  drill  in  action.  So 


TRAINING  159 

long  as  its  adversaries  trusted  also  to  training,  it 
triumphed.1 

In  all  history,  the  cleanest- cut  case  to  be  put  to 
the  credit  of  training  seems  that  of  the  Spanish, 
Libyan,  Numidian,  Gallic  and  every  other  sort  of 
species  of  mercenary  who  fought  under  Hannibal 
during  the  second  Punic  War  ;  and  be  it  understood 
that  in  praising  the  training  of  the  Carthaginian 
troops  I  detract  hi  no  wise  from  the  undying  fame 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Carthaginians,  a  fame  not 
second  to  Napoleon's,  than  whom  no  Commander 
in  the  whole  of  history  has  owed  more  to  the  heroes 
he  had  the  privilege  to  lead.2 

Hannibal,  crossing  the  Alps  into  Italy,  got  there 
with  20,000  infantry,  6,000  cavalry  and  a  few  ele- 
phants of  whom  only  one  survived  the  December 
frosts.  Starting  with  these  at  his  back  he  went 
near  to  destroying  the  proud  Republic  of  Rome 
which,  a  few  years  previously,  had  mustered  over 
700,000  conscripts.  What  number  of  these  were 
actually  thrown  into  line  of  battle  against  Hannibal 
no  one  now  knows.  We  are  told  of  enormous 
superiority  of  force.  We  believe  that  at  Cannae 
the  two  Roman  Consuls  offered  battle  with  90,000 

1  Yet,  whenever  the  French  brought  fiery  human  souls  against 
these  clever  combinations  carried  out  with  clockwork  puppets, 
the  oblique,  and  every  sort  of  order,  very  quickly  resolved  itself 
into  the  order  of  devil-take-the-hindmost.  Vide  Chapter  on 
the  morale  of  Armies. 

a  Anyone  anxious  to  pursue  this  point  and  to  realise  tho 
incalculable  assistance  it  was  to  the  Corsican  to  be  able  to  base 
his  calculations  upon  the  indomitable  spirit  which  animated  each 
or  any  French  detachment  should  read  (if  he  can  read  crabbed 
Austrian  German)  that  admirable  work,  Oeist  und  Stoff,  by  C, 
von  B k, 


160      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

legionaries  of  whose  lives  Hannibal  took  toll  to  the 
extent  of  50,000.  We  get  a  glimpse  of  the  Romans 
standing  at  bay  in  their  own  country  against  this 
band  of  voluntarily  enlisted  professionals  with 
21  legions  (over  200,000  men),  of  whom  some  80,000 
directly  faced  Hannibal  himself  whilst  20,000 
remained  to  cover  the  everlasting  City  from  a  coup 
de  main  in  case  he  evaded  or  overthrew  the  forces 
opposed  to  him  in  the  field.  We  know  that  later 
on  the  Republic  was  so  far  put  to  it  that  she  had 
to  create  a  Legion  of  liberated  slaves,1  and  those 
who  will  consider  this  act  in  all  its  bearings,  political, 
social  and  military,  both  at  the  moment  and  for 
the  future,  will  gain  some  idea  of  her  desperate 
straits.  The  facts  seem  at  first  sight  incomprehen- 
sible. For  the  Roman  name  stood  high.  What  a 
testimonial  had  not  the  famous  Pyrrhus  granted 
the  legionaries  in  perpetuity !  Only  sixty-three 
years  before  the  meteor  star  of  Hannibal  rose  sinister 
over  the  marshes  of  the  Campagna,  Pyrrhus  saw  the 
Legions  form  line  to  the  front  from  column  of  route 
after  they  had  crossed  a  river  and,  astonished,  had 
exclaimed,  "  In  war,  at  any  rate,  these  barbarians  are 
not  barbarians  "  :  or  again  (when  he  saw  the  Roman 
dead  lying  with  their  wounds  in  front),  "  If  these  were 
my  soldiers,  or  if  I  were  their  General,  we  should  con- 
quer the  world."  The  organisation  of  the  Roman 
Army  was  excellent.  The  composition  of  the  type  of 
legion  encountered  by  Hannibal,  with  its  volites, 
kastati,  triarii,2  had  been  scientifically  thought  out. 

1  Jahns,  Heeresverfassungen  und  Volkerleben. 

2  The  Hastatus  wore  a  breast-plate,   brazen  greaves  and  a 
brazen  helmet  with  a  plume  of  black  or  scarlet  one  and  a  half 
feet  high.    His  defensive  arm  was  an  oblong  shield  and  he  carried 


TRAINING  161 

Cavalry,  slingers  and  light-armed  auxiliaries  were 
apportioned  with  method  and  with  ingenuity.  The 
supply,  transport  and  ordnance  services  were  rudi- 
mentary according  to  our  notions  but  advanced 
beyond  anything  until  then  witnessed  by  the  world. 
Discipline,  considering  the  conditions,  was  wonder- 
fully good.  "  Rome's  greatness,"  says  Ratzenhofer, 
"  depended  upon  the  solidarity  of  her  people  with 
the  State."  Direct  action  by  a  section  of  the 
citizens  was  at  that  epoch  unthinkable.  The  Roman 
character  was  naturally  disciplined  and  lent  itself 
not  only  to  making  laws  but  to  observing  them 
when  made.  I  have  said  "  considering  the  con- 
ditions," and  here  we  must  rub  our  eyes  and 
wonder  if  we  are  awake  when  we  reflect  that  at  the 
outbreak  of  war  these  famous  Roman  Legions  took 
the  field  with  less  military  training  and  fewer 
chances  of  applying  military  discipline  or  gain- 
ing military  cohesion  than  our  pre-war  Territorial 
forces. 

In  peace-time,  the  two  Legions  for  each  Consul 
were  levied  fresh  each  year  ;  i.e.  they  would  consist 
of  one  year's  service  men  instead  of  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Territorials,  four  years'  service  men.  During 
their  year  they  were  often  not  embodied  at  all. 
They  were,  in  fact,  very  much  a  paper  organisation  ; 
much  what  our  Territorial  Force  would  be  if  they 
were  compulsorily  enrolled  on  the  outbreak  of  war 
without  having  had  the  chance  of  practising  any 
preliminary  battalion  or  camp  training.  They  would 
have  learnt  to  handle  their  arms  and,  in  the  majority 

a  cut-and-thrust  sword  and  two  javelins,  one  light,  the  other 
massive.  The  Triarius  carried  a  spear  instead  of  the  javelins. — 
POLYBIUS. 


162      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  cases,  would  have  acquired  a  little  skill  volun- 
tarily, as  school  cadets,  from  some  ex-legionary  of 
the  wars.  Of  course,  a  legion  embodied  throughout 
a  long  war  by  degrees  became  professional.  Of 
course,  also,  for  a  long  time  after  a  war,  the  legions, 
though  freshly  raised,  would  contain  veterans  hi  the 
ranks  of  the  Triarii  or  sometimes  perhaps  even 
amongst  its  Principes.  Just  so  our  Territorial  Force 
did  still  contain  a  sprinkling  of  veterans  trained  hi 
the  South  African  War  as  late  even  as  1914.  But, 
in  normal  tunes,  the  old  compulsory  service  Militia 
were  half-trained ;  a  different  force  in  that  respect 
from  the  voluntary  service  legions  of  highly-  trained, 
long-service  professionals  created  afterwards  by 
Marius  as  an  instrument  of  Empire. 

So  the  Roman  Armies  facing  Hannibal  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war  were  well  organised,  moderately 
disciplined  and  collectively  untrained.  Except  that 
they  were  compulsorily  enlisted,  had  no  annual 
fortnight  in  camp  and  had  only  a  quarter  the  length 
of  service,  they  were  very  like  our  pre-war  Terri- 
torials. But  our  Territorials  used  to  be  told  once 
a  week  or  oftener  that  they  could  neither  march, 
shoot,  nor  obey  orders,  that  the  whole  Force  was  a 
"  farce  "  and  that  they  would  take  to  their  heels 
at  the  sight  of  a  foreign  uniform ;  whereas  the 
Legionaries  were  patted  on  the  back  by  what  corres- 
ponded hi  those  days  to  the  Daily  Mail,  the  Military 
Clubs  and  the  Flappers. 

They  did  consider  themselves  fine  fellows  ;  very 
much  so.  Not  yet  had  they  encountered  the  Numi- 
dian  Horse.  The  cloud  of  dust  upon  the  flank  of 
the  line  of  march  drawing  swiftly  near  and  dis- 
charging a  shower  of  javelins  ere  it  sparkled  out 


TRAINING  163 

into  a  row  of  glittering  lance  points.  Yes,  down 
there  by  the  Ticinus  the  Romans  first  felt  fear  : 
they  felt — they  recognised — their  masters.  Till  then, 
their  morale  had  held  up  its  head  under  every  trial. 
The  whole  of  the  earlier  history  of  Rome  is  one 
running  comment  upon  the  boldness  and  self- 
confidence  of  her  soldiers,  no  matter  what  the  odds. 
Arms  of  those  days  offered  an  immense  margin  for 
regular  practice ;  i.e.  for  professionalism :  they 
offered  small  margin  for  new  ideas — for  the  shatter- 
ing surprise  of  needle-gun  versus  muzzle-loader. 
Always  excepting  the  elephants.  The  Punic  equiva- 
lent to  Napoleon's  massed  artillery  was  the  charge 
of  a  hundred  elephants  in  double  rank.  The  solid 
earth  trembled  beneath  the  onrush  of  these  monsters. 
Empires,  too,  they  trembled  like  aspen  leaves  in 
suspense  as  the  enormous  mass  of  bronze-clad 
Tuskers,  maddened  with  wine  and  incense,  bore 
down  upon  the  field  at  a  long,  shambling  trot.  From 
each  mighty  chest  projected  a  gigantic  spear,  and 
flashing  steel  scimitars  were  lashed  to  the  ivory 
tusks.  Indigo  painted  ears  cocked  forward,  writhing 
trunks  smeared  vermilion,  tusks  festooned  with 
entrails,  cleaving  their  way  through  the  cohorts, 
the  elephants  of  Hannibal  transfixed  the  young 
soldiers  in  horror  until  they  were  transfixed  indeed 
by  the  rain  of  fiery  darts  pouring  down  from  the 
leathern  howdahs. 

Here  was  the  great  set  piece  of  Carthaginian 
tactics — the  idea — the  invention.  Whether  in 
Sicily,  Africa  or  Spain,  the  manoeuvre  was  ever  to 
draw  on  the  enemy ;  to  envelop  them  and  pen 
them  in,  until,  jammed  together  in  that  awful 
crush  of  battle,  they  could  hardly  use  their  sword 


164       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

arms,  much  less  open  out  a  passage.  Then  the 
Mahouts,  dressed  like  Indians1  and  crowned  with 
diadems  of  feathers,  lifted  restraining  hooks  from 
their  monstrous  chargers.  Urged  on  with  raucous 
cries  in  that  strange  elephant  language  still  in  use 
though  its  origin  is  lost  in  primeval  mists  ;  kicked 
violently  behind  their  blue-stained,  flapping  ears ; 
"Invincible,"  "Victory,"  "Thunderer,"  "Swal- 
low " 2  and  all  the  Tusker  company  began,  with 
many  a  shrill  trumpet,  slowly  to  advance.  How 
small  and  weak  the  legionaries  must  have  felt  as 
they  faced  them  :  and  then  came  the  crash  :  tramp- 
ling faces  into  smudges  with  their  feet,  smashing 
chests  with  their  knees,  transfixing  with  their  tusks, 
strangling  with  their  trunks,  obliterating,  disem- 
bowelling, dismembering  ;  on  swept  the  elephants  ; 
so  passed  the  wrath  of  Baal  over  the  stricken  fields 
of  war. 

The  war  galley  and  the  war  elephant  were  prime 
factors  in  the  tactics  of  the  Carthaginians.  Only, 
in  Italy  they  were  wanting !  The  Romans  had 
command  of  the  sea,3  the  elephants  had  died  of 
cold.  These  priceless  creatures  brought  from  India 
across  Egypt  via  Gibraltar  to  Spain  and  thence  by 

1  They  were,  actually,  Indians  except  in  Egypt.  The  Indian 
elephant  also  was  generally  used,  being  braver  than  his  African 
relative. 

1  Actual  names  of  war  elephants  unearthed  by  Flaubert. 

3  Note  here  an  instructive  point ;  one  of  the  very  few  in  which 
modern  civilisation  has  altered  a  fundamental  war  factor.  The 
Carthaginians  started  with  absoluta  command  of  the  sea.  The 
Romans,  starting  from  copies  of  a  Carthaginian  galley,  created 
a  navy  during  the  time  of  war  and  then  by  boarding  tactics 
wrested  away  from  Carthaginia  naval  supremacy.  How  nearly 
did  submarines  make  history  repeat  itself  ! 


TRAINING  165 

some  miracle  of  effort  over  the  Pyrenees  and  Alps 
where,  amidst  glaciers  and  precipices,  the  startled 
chamois  beheld  again  the  Mastodon,  and  so,  through 
terrible  battles  with  hill  tribes :  leaving  a  trail  of 
huge  carcasses  to  taint  the  air  of  pine  forests  for 
months  ;  they  had  perished  and  one  only,  only  one, 
emerged  upon  the  Lombardian  Plain.  Better  had 
it  been  for  the  bold  little  band  of  invaders  had  they 
never  learnt  to  enlist  the  brute  force  of  nature  in 
its  most  terrible  manifestations  to  aid  them  in  the 
battle.  No  surprise  superiority  could  be  theirs. 
They  were  in  the  position  of  modern  troops  cam- 
paigning against  spearmen  when  they  run  out  of 
ammunition  and  have  to  meet  cold  steel  with  their 
bayonets :  they  were  in  the  position  of  the  British 
General  who  has  based  his  plan  upon  a  tank  attack 
and  finds  he  has  run  out  of  petrol. 

The  leader  then  ?  Yes,  he  is  a  prime  factor,  but 
here  I  am  writing  only  of  the  leader's  instrument, 
the  Army.  Were  we  to  speak  of  Hannibal  it  would 
be  with  awe  ;  awe  of  what  he  did,  for  we  only  know 
for  certain  of  one  thing  that  he  said.1  Of  Hamilcar, 
his  father,2  it  has  been  written,  "  I  saw  him  go  by 
in  his  great  cloak,  with  his  arms  raised,  towering 
above  the  dust  cloud  like  an  eagle  flying  beside  the 
cohorts ;  at  his  very  nod  they  closed  up  or  rushed 
forward  ;  the  crowd  swept  us  towards  one  another  ; 
he  looked  me  in  the  face.  I  felt  a  chill  in  my  heart 

1  When  he  heard  a  sophist  explaining  the  art  of  war  to  a  royal 
personage  he  remarked,  "  It  is  all  very  clever,  but  it  is  all  non- 
sense." 

2  When,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  Hannibal  became  Commander- 
in-Chief,  "  the  old  soldiers  thought  they  beheld  the  youthful 
Hamilcar  once  more." — LIVY. 


166      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

as  though  a  sword  had  pierced  it."  x  This  was  the 
blood  and  breeding  of  the  hero,  and  has  not  Napoleon 
himself  declared,  "  It  was  Hannibal,  not  the  Cartha- 
ginian Army,  who  made  the  Republic  of  Rome 
tremble  at  its  gates."  Hannibal  stood  as  far  above 
Alexander  the  Great  as  Napoleon  stands  above 
Charles  XII. 

When  Hannibal  already  led  armies,  Alexander 
had  been  gone  but  one  hundred  years.  Doubtless, 
the  Carthaginian  often  spoke  of  the  great  King  and 
admired  his  prowess  as  we  to-day  admire  Napoleon. 
But  of  those  three  names  of  dread  and  wonder, 
a  Trinity  of  War  Gods,  Hannibal's  looms  largest. 
Alexander  inherited  an  Army  made  for  him  by  his 
father.  His  men  were  Europeans,  the  enemy  they 
overthrew  Asiatics.  Eliminate  fire-arms ;  give  us 
the  good  old  weapons ;  a  British  division  to- 
morrow, with  the  right  sort  of  leader  at  their  head, 
would  repeat  the  performance  of  the  ten  thousand. 
Napoleon  we  know  and  his  genius.  Yet,  until 
we  wore  out  the  spirit  of  his  men,  they  towered 
everywhere  like  Gods  above  the  dull  slaves  of 
Feudalism  they  encountered.  No  such  fortune  was 
Hannibal's  !  If  ever  'it  could  be  said  of  mortal 
leader,  alone  he  did  it,  that  might  be  said  of  the 
Carthaginan.  Only,  it  can  never,  never,  never  be 
said  ! 

We  British  should  be  the  last  to  deprecate  leader- 
ship. For  is  it  not  a  fact  that  out  of  a  population 
numbering  a  quarter  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
globe,  we  could  in  1900  dig  out  only  an  old  man ; 
one  small  old  man :  survivor  of  unhappy,  half- 
forgotten  wars :  one  out  of  400,000,000  to  bring 
1  Flaubert. 


TRAINING  167 

purpose  and  energy  to  bear  upon  our  troops  who 
were  wandering  along,  sheep  without  a  shepherd, 
towards  that  Valley  of  Humiliation  which  borders, 
it  may  be  remembered,  upon  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death.  There  was  no  one  else  to  do  it 
but  Bobs ;  little  Bobs  ;  but  he  himself  could  not 
have  done  it  without  foothold  and  an  instrument. 
There  was  the  nation  standing  firm  behind  him  ; 
in  front  of  him  there  was  the  Army  eager  above 
everything  to  be  used. 

Despite  every  wish  to  give  full  weight  to  the 
genius  of  the  Commander,  we  must  fain  recognise 
that  there  are  immutable  bounds  set  to  what  any 
individual  can  achieve.  We  know  what  a  Lee  can 
do  against  the  good,  ordinary  General ;  yet — there 
are  the  appointed  limits — as  Gettysburg  showed. 
A  thrust  is  well-timed  and  deadly  ;  the  over-tasked 
blade  breaks  in  the  hand  of  the  master.  The  stroke 
remains  a  master  stroke  ;  it  did  not  penetrate,  that 
was  all !  Records  we  have,  indeed,  in  plenty  of 
Europeans  meeting  and  defeating  Asiatics  out- 
numbering them  ten-fold,  twenty-fold.  The  greater 
their  number,  the  more  they  got  in  one  another's 
way,  the  more  of  them  were  killed.  But  the  series 
of  victories  in  which  Hannibal,  between  the  Ticinus 
and  Cannae,  killed  or  captured  in  battle  120,000 
Romans l  and  in  the  fifteen  years  of  his  Italian  cam- 
paigns not  less  than  300,000 — these  victories  were 
won  with  a  mixed  Spanish,  Lybian  force  of  veteran 
infantry  20,000  strong  and  6,000  Numidian  cavalry 
supplemented  and  expanded  as  the  war  went  on  by 
auxiliaries  certainly  not  so  good  as  the  legionaries. 
A  soldier  can  hardly  write  of  these  victories  and 
1  Jahns,  Heere&verfas&ungen  und  Volkerleben. 


168      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

defeats  as  simply  as  the  history  books  which  smooth 
away  all  complications  in  one  glib  sentence  by  saying 
the  second  Punic  War  was  a  contest  between  the 
individual  genius  of  Hannibal  and  the  combined 
energies  of  the  Roman  people.  The  Armies  had 
something  to  say  to  the  decision,  and  those  two 
Armies  were  of  totally  different  temper  and  com- 
plexion. We  have  seen  that  the  Roman  legions  of 
that  period  were,  at  the  outbreak  of  a  war,  well 
organised,  moderately  disciplined  and  quarter 
trained.  They  were  raised  by  compulsion  and, 
therefore,  it  is  safe  to  suppose  that  (allowing  for 
the  martial  type  of  population  evolved  by  Roman 
traditions  and  Roman  education)  one-fifth  of  them 
would  rather  have  stayed  at  home.  The  Cartha- 
ginian mercenaries  were,  as  citizens,  immeasurably 
the  inferiors  of  their  adversaries.  "  The  thief 
expelled  from  his  tribe,  the  parricide  wandering 
about  the  roads,  the  criminal  pursued  by  the  Gods 
as  the  author  of  sacrilege — all  who  were  desperate 
or  starving — strove  to  reach  the  port  where  the 
recruiting  officer  of  Carthage  was  enlisting  soldiers."  l 
Against  this  we  may  take  it  that  their  organisation 
was  extraordinary,  or  they  could  not  have  marched 

*"  The  Carthaginian  Army  was  an  assemblage  of  the  most 
opposite  races  of  the  human  species  from  the  farthest  points  of 
the  globe.  Hordes  of  half-naked  Gauls  were  ranged  next  to 
companies  of  white-clothed  Iberians,  and  savage  Ligurians  next 
to  the  far-travelled  Nasomones  and  Lotophagi.  Carthaginians 
and  Phcenici-Africans  formed  the  centre  ;  while  innumerable 
troops  of  Numidian  horsemen,  taken  from  all  the  tribes  of  the 
Desert,  swarmed  about  on  unsaddled  horses  and  formed  the 
wings  ;  the  van  was  composed  of  Balearic  slingers  ;  and  a  line 
of  colossal  elephants,  with  their  Ethiopian  guides,  formed  as  it 
were  a  chain  of  moving  fortresses  before  the  whole  Army." — 
HEEBKN. 


TRAINING  169 

from  New  Carthage  in  Spain  to  the  plains  of  Northern 
Italy  ;  crossing  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Alps  ;  subduing 
and  incorporating  whole  provinces  by  the  way ; 
in  the  five  months  occupied  by  the  transit.  This 
feat  alone  stamps  Hannibal  as  a  magician  and  his 
Army  as  a  miracle.  Discipline  was  stern.  It  was 
death  to  drink  a  cup  of  wine  in  the  Carthaginian 
Camp,  wherein  "  the  order  and  silence  which  reigned 
throughout  were  alarming."  But  it  was  in  training 
that  the  best  armies  of  the  Carthaginians  excelled. 
The  troops  were  unmercifully  drilled.  Swiftness  in 
execution  and  cohesion  of  shock  were  the  ideas,  but 
of  the  detail,  even  the  German  pedants  and  book- 
worms can  tell  us  very  little.  Finally,  the  men 
were  volunteers.  Whatever  their  former  crimes, 
however  low  they  had  sunk,  each  of  them  loved 
war,  otherwise,  why  not  choose  some  other  way  of 
escape  from  the  vengeance  of  God  or  man  than  the 
Army  of  Hannibal  ? 

Take  the  battle  of  the  Thrasymene  Lake.  The 
Consul  Flaminius  lay  at  Fcesulse  in  his  camp. 
Hannibal  trailed  his  coat  close  by  and  drew  him 
out  of  his  covert  in  hot  pursuit.  The  road  along 
which  Hannibal  seemed  to  fly  ran  between  rocky 
hills  on  the  one  hand  and  the  waters  of  the  lake  on 
the  other.  As  the  head  of  the  Roman  pursuing 
force  was  about  to  debouch  into  the  open  it  was 
held  up  by  a  detachment.  At  that  moment  the 
main  body  was  charged  in  flank  by  the  bulk  of  the 
Punic  Army.  That  Army  had  not  passed  through 
the  defile,  but  had  lain  in  ambush  on  the  heights 
whence  they  had  watched  the  legionaries  march  in 
column  of  route  across  their  front.  Was  there  no 
reconnaissance ;  were  there  no  flanking  patrols  ? 


170      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

If  so,  the  training  of  the  Romans  was  one  degree 
worse  than  seems  probable.  Were  the  subordinate 
ranks  of  the  Carthaginians  able  to  let  these  light- 
armed  detachments  almost  step  upon  them  without 
betraying  themselves,  or  did  they  manage  noise- 
lessly to  capture  or  kill  every  one  ?  If  so,  one 
more  point  to  the  credit  side  of  the  training  of  the 
force.  Anyway,  we  all  know  the  result.  The 
Roman  Army  was  wiped  out  of  existence. 

Simple — is  it  not  ?  Just  the  sort  of  trap  one 
party  of  Baden  Powell's  scouts  might  lead  another 
into.  Any  ordinary  schoolboy  could  conceive  the 
clever  trick  !  Yet,  stay.  Is  there  not  some  one 
who  has  said,  in  war  all  is  simple,  but  it  is  the  simple 
that  is  difficult  ?  Yes — the  same  man  who  said, 
"It  is  enough  to  tell  a  French  soldier  a  thing  is 
difficult  to  find  it  is  quite  easy." 

I  have  marched  miles  upon  miles  with  a  Japanese 
division  following  a  Russian  division  along  a  narrow 
road  between  a  river  on  one  side  and  a  mountain- 
side covered  with  brushwood  on  the  other.  Why 
was  there  not  a  new  battle  of  Thrasymene  ?  Was 
it  because  there  was  no  Russian  Hannibal  ?  Well, 
certainly  there  was  no  Russian  Hannibal.  Yet,  if 
there  had  been  he  could  not  have  fought  over  again 
the  battle  of  Lake  Thrasymene  because  his  troops 
were  not  fit  to  carry  out  that  staggering  coup. 
There  were  no  troops  in  Europe  in  1914  fit  to  do 
what  the  troops  of  Hannibal  did  for  him  at  the 
Thrasymene  Lake.  The  pick  of  our  British  over- 
seas battalions  ;  a  certain  number  of  French  Colonial 
battalions ;  a  few  Gurkha  battalions  or  the  trans- 
frontier  companies  of  some  Punjabi  regiments ; 
otherwise  none  in  the  world. 


TRAINING  171 

At  Majuba  in  1881  a  mixed  detachment  scaled 
at  night  a  lofty,  rugged  height  whence,  when  day 
broke,  they  saw  the  Boer  laager  at  their  feet  and 
saw,  too,  that  they  had  taken  the  enemy's  entrench- 
ments in  reverse.  The  idea  attributed  to  our 
General  (it  was  never  given  to  the  troops,  so  no 
one  can  say  for  certain)  was  that  we  were  to  remain 
thus  hidden  about  a  mile  from  the  Boer  right  flank, 
behind  it  and  overlooking  it,  until  a  force  attacked 
them  in  front  when  we  would  rush  down,  take  them 
between  two  fires  and  roll  them  up.  A  very  pretty 
plan,  quite  on  the  Hannibal  lines. 

Before  our  very  eyes,  the  unsuspecting  Boers  lit 
their  fires  and  drank  their  morning  coffee.  Before 
our  very  eyes  patrols  mounted  their  horses,  their 
wives  bustling  about  them  as  they  left  the  laager 
and  rode  out  in  various  directions.  One  of  them 
passed  beneath  us  at  close  range.  Half-way  round 
the  hill  they  rode  chatting  gaily,  and  hi  another 
minute  they  would  have  been  gone — when  suddenly, 
bang,  bang,  bang — from  our  lines.  One  Boer  horse 
killed.  The  rest  galloping  away  with  their  riders 
crouching  down  to  offer  as  small  a  mark  as  possible 
to  the  wild  hail  of  bullets  which  followed  them.  The 
whole  Boer  camp  in  a  turmoil  like  a  hive  of  angry 
bees  and  the  projected  battle  of  Lake  Thrasymene 
had  gone  wrong  !  And  yet,  some  of  these  British 
soldiers  were  of  the  Carthaginian  type  ;  long-service 
professionals,  although  it  is  fair  to  say  it  was 
not  they  who  began  the  shooting.  Sir  George 
Pomeroy  Colley  would  have  brought  off  a  second 
Thrasymene  Lake  victory  had  his  troops  been  as 
well  trained  as  were  those  of  the  Carthaginian 
Leader,  for  he  would,  at  Majuba,  have  saved 


172      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

his  country  the  South  African  War  of  1899- 
1902. 

To  turn  and  take  up  their  position  at  night  so 
that  none  of  the  country  people  should  see  them 
and  give  them  away — to  get  into  their  correct 
alignment  in  the  darkness  amongst  rough  and 
broken  ground — to  have  such  knowledge  of  the 
contours  of  the  terrain  that  not  a  gleam  from  a 
shield,  not  the  careless  raising  of  a  lance  should 
betray  them — to  remain  glued  to  the  spot  for  hours, 
motionless,  and,  finally,  to  see  the  enemy  marching 
past  them  within  bow-shot  and  yet  not  one  man 
out  of  20,000  make  one  sign :  there  was  high  train- 
ing grafted  on  to  stern  discipline — there  was  a 
specimen  of  "  nerve  "  ! 

Think  of  it.  The  legionaries  marching  rapidly 
in  column  of  route  ;  the  great  plumes  of  their  helmets 
rising  and  falling  in  measured  cadence  as  they  swing 
gaily  along  to  the  rhythmic  time  beat  of  their  flutes 
in  all  the  jovial  excitement  of  an  Army  in  pursuit. 
And  there,  crouching  in  the  brushwood,  the  Cartha- 
ginian veterans,  still  as  stone,  tense  as  drawn  bow- 
strings, watching,  waiting  in  a  sort  of  agony,  the 
signal  of  their  Chief.  Hark  !  From  the  head  of 
the  pass  a  sound  comes  borne  on  the  wind,  a  clash 
as  of  iron  on  bronze,  the  distant  yell  of  battle  ! 
A  sudden  convulsive  stiffening  movement  passes 
along  the  trailing  length  of  the  Roman  column, 
the  ranks  begin  to  close  up,  the  officers  are  running 
to  their  posts — and  then — oh  !  see,  for  it  is  a  sight 
for  the  Gods,  the  fierce  array  of  Carthage  swoop 
down  !  Supple  as  a  chain  of  iron  and  as  hard ; 
swift  as  a  volley  of  arrows ;  solid  as  the  phalanx 
of  Macedon.  The  silver  bucklers  gleaming,  the 


TRAINING  173 

dancing  of  the  naked  sword  blades,  the  thunder  of 
the  Captains,  and  the  shouting.  The  tremendous 
impact  of  steel  upon  steel  as  the  shock  falls  full 
against  the  flank  of  the  legions.  Awhile  these 
struggle  in  a  sort  of  bewilderment  to  form  front 
against  the  terrible  onslaught.  Brave  men  grind 
their  teeth — hurl  the  pilum — strive  to  free  their 
sword  arm  from  the  crush  of  disordered  comrades 
who  impede.  Awhile  the  Triarii  stand  yet  shoulder 
to  shoulder  and  shout  to  the  youngsters  to  be  steady. 
Too  late.  The  Militia  in  armour  feel  themselves 
but  sheep  in  wolves'  clothing  against  the  lightning 
dash  and  cohesion  of  the  Punic  professional  soldiers. 
Prayers  arise  to  Jupiter  Stator,  the  Stayer  of  Flights 
— in  vain.  Panic  flies  eagerly  from  rank  to  rank ; 
to  each  Roman  she  whispers  that  here  he  is  over- 
matched. The  legion  wavers ;  a  shudder  passes 
through  its  mighty  frame  as  a  nameless  terror  never 
felt  before  freezes  the  life  blood  in  its  veins :  it 
totters — it  is  riven — it  breaks — it  is  lost — we  turn 
our  eyes  from  the  rout — the  slaughter — the  blood- 
soaked  silence  of  the  stricken  field. 

Fables  arose.  They  said  amongst  themselves, 
"  The  sword  of  him  that  layeth  at  him  cannot  hold  : 
the  spear,  the  dart,  nor  the  habergeon."  We  under- 
stand better  than  before  how  next  time  the  Romans 
heard  the  trumpets  sounding  the  assault  and  saw 
the  waving  standards,  the  plumes,  lances,  bucklers, 
and  breastplates  glittering  in  the  sunlight ;  saw  the 
whole  serried  mass  advancing  marvellous  and  formid- 
able ;  we  understand  how  fear  drained  the  heart 
of  the  legion  of  its  blood  and  forced  it  in  agonised 
humility  to  recognise  its  master  and  overlord  in 
that  polyglot  crew  of  adventurers — Numidians, 


174      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Lybians,  Gauls,  Lusitanians,  Campanians,  Etruscans, 
Umbrians,  whom  singly,  they  singly,  would  have 
spurned  beneath  their  feet — but  who,  collectively, 
were  trained. 

"  Amen  !  "  the  pious  student  may  exclaim,  "  but, 
if  it  be  so,  why  do  you  shun  the  light ;  why  work 
like  a  mole  under  the  ruins  of  the  ages  ?  Hannibal 
is  half  myth :  the  Shannon ;  the  Chesapeake ; 
Majuba,  too,  are  fading  into  legends.  You  yourself 
are  not  dead  yet ;  not  yet ;  you  played  your  part 
in  the  very  latest  thing  in  wars :  why  give  both 
France  and  the  Dardanelles  the  go-by  ?  " 

My  reply  is  simple.  Training  counted  for  more 
when  men  depended  more  upon  themselves.  Spears, 
javelins,  longbows,  pikes  needed  a  lifelong  appren- 
ticeship before  a  militiaman  could  pass  muster  as 
a  regular.  The  Welsh  Archer  could  shoot  half  as 
far  again,  twice  as  fast  and  three  times  straighter 
than  the  French  bowmen  or  the  Genoese  cross- 
bowmen.  Before  the  war  I  have  seen  a  raw  Terri- 
torial battery  make  good  practice  on  Salisbury 
Plain.  No  regulars,  who  had  devoted  years  to  the 
business,  could  have  gone  fifteen  per  cent,  better. 
The  ancient  world  pinned  its  faith  upon  the  veteran, 
and  small  wonder !  After  Caesar  was  murdered 
Cicero  writing  to  Atticus,  the  Senators  writing  to 
one  another,  do  not  trouble  their  heads  about  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  half -trained  Territorials: 
the  people  they  worried  over  were  "  the  veterans  "  : 
how  do  "  the  veterans  "  feel  about  the  stroke  that 
was  struck  in  the  Forum  ?  Whatever  are  "  the 
veterans  "  going  to  do  ?  The  issue  proved  them 
right.  The  young  legions  raised  by  the  republicans 
couldn't  put  up  any  sort  of  fight  at  all  against  the 


TRAINING  175 

old  soldiers  from  Dalmatia,  Gaul  and  Spain.  I 
have  spent  study  in  trying  to  find  out  why,  and  I 
am  certain  the  main  reason  is  that,  for  instance, 
the  magazine  fire-arm  is  much  more  easily  handled 
than  the  longbow  ;  the  howitzer  than  the  catapult ; 
the  bomb  than  the  javelin.  In  no  other  way  can 
be  explained  the  successes  of  Spartacus  with  his 
gladiators  against  organised,  disciplined  legions. 
The  gladiators  were  individually  better  trained. 

Never  in  those  ancient  days  could  we  have  heard 
it  said  as  military  writers  say  now,  "  1866  was  won 
by  the  needle  gun  "  ;  "  1870  was  lost  by  the  French 
artillery."  The  latest  date  on  which  it  can  be 
claimed  that  training  made  a  real  hit  was  the  date 
of  Mons  and  of  the  first  battle  of  Ypres,  when  the 
Germans  were  led  by  the  terrific  rapidity  and  pre- 
cision of  the  British  musketry  into  mistaking  our 
professional  marksmen  for  machine  guns.  That  is 
the  greatest  compliment  anyone  can  nowadays 
pay  a  man — mistake  him  for  a  machine  !  From 
Ypres  onwards  trenches  and  barbed  wire  fastened 
their  paralysing  grip  upon  the  field.  Movement 
died  away  and  with  it  went  the  best  half  of  the 
value  of  training.  From  that  date  war  sank  into 
the  lowest  depths  of  beastliness  and  degeneration. 
The  wonder  of  war,  the  glory  of  war,  the  adventure 
of  war,  the  art  of  war  all  hung  on  its  shifting  scenery. 
For  years  the  Armies  had  to  eat,  drink,  sleep  amidst 
their  own  putrefactions.  Bit  by  bit  the  old  cam- 
paigner's memories  and  young  soldier's  dreams  were 
engulfed  in  machinery  and  mud.  In  the  higher 
spheres  intuition,  nerve  and  quick  decision  were 
about  as  much  use  as  a  cavalry  regiment  in  a  barbed 
wire  entanglement.  In  the  lower  spheres  our  rank 


176      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

and  file  who,  for  generations,  have  had  a  tradition 
of  skilled  marksmanship  behind  them,  came  down  to 
barbarism — to  bludgeon  work  with  bombs  !  Train- 
ing was  at  a  discount ;  there  was  a  big  premium 
upon  numbers  ! 


CHAPTER  VHI 
NUMBERS 

At  the  word  "  numbers  "  the  politicians  pricked 
up  their  ears.  So  then  a  battlefield  was  only  another 
sort  of  ballot  box.  What  asses  they  had  been  to 
let  those  dull  soldiers  impose  upon  them  with  their 
grand  word  "  Army  "  !  They  would  form  a  Dardan- 
elles Committee  of  the  Cabinet.  Gallipoli  was  an 
amphibious  sort  of  place  they  would  make  all  safe  by 
appointing  Colonel  Hankey,  of  the  Marines,  to  be  their 
Secretary.  Elections  had  shown  them  how  victories 
should  be  organised  ;  the  walls  of  Constantinople 
would  go  down  to  the  tune  of  "  Numbers  will  tell  " — 
"  The  weight  of  numbers  " — "  The  majority  has  it " — 
"  Carried  by  acclamation  " — "  Voxpopuli,  vox  Dei  !  v 

But  there  were  several  points  about  numbers 
which  were  overlooked  both  at  the  first  war  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet  and  at  the  Dardanelles  Committee 
afterwards. 

(1)  There  is  no  use  having  the  numbers  if  use  is 
not  to  be  made  of  them.     Every  one  must  under- 
stand, for  instance,  that  numbers  cancel  one  another 
if  they  pull  different  ways. 

(2)  Supposing  the  numbers  to  be  united,   they 
must  be  planked  down.     To  bury  them  in  a  napkin 
is  to  lose  them.     Clause witz  says,  "  The  first  rule 
is  to  enter  the  field  with  an  Army  as  strong  as 

m  v 


178      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

possible."  This  sounds  so  easy  !  It  is  not  at  all 
easy  :  it  demands  nerve  ! 

Was  the  whole  of  our  Expeditionary  Force  of  six 
Divisions  sent  off  to  France  complete,  as  had  been 
intended,  the  moment  it  was  ready  ?  No,  it  was 
not.  The  nerves  of  several  very  important  people 
gave  way  and  it  was  not  sent. 

Was  our  Army  of  70,000  men  sent  to  overthrow 
the  great  military  Empire  of  Turkey  and  occupy 
its  capital  "  as  strong  as  possible  "  ?  No,  it  was  not. 
Nerve  was  needed  to  spare  another  20,000  men  from 
the  defence  forces  of  the  United  Kingdom.  Nerve, 
we  must  suppose — a  little  nerve,  was  needed  to 
release  the  East  Lancashire  Division  and  Cox's 
Indian  Brigade  from  making  Cairo  considerably 
safer  than  London  so  that  the  landing  at  Gallipoli 
might  be  made  "  with  an  Army  as  strong  as  possible." 
But  no  :  that  Army  was  not  on  any  account  to  be 
"  as  strong  as  possible  "  ;  the  Army  was  to  be  just 
"  big  enough,"  the  "  big  enough "  being  based 
(as  it  turned  out)  upon  fallacy.  England  and 
Egypt  between  them  had  the  numbers  and  bottled 
them  up,  dealing  them  out  grudgingly,  in  a  slow, 
even,  just- too-late  succession,  afterwards  to  be 
successfully  met  by  the  somewhat  less  slowly  arriving 
Turkish  reinforcements.  Had  our  rulers  studied 
Clause witz  they  might  have  "  entered  the  fields  " 
(of  France  and  Gallipoli)  with  Armies  "  as  strong 
as  possible  "  ;  but,  as  it  was,  we  did  not ! 

(3)  Suppose  for  the  moment  that  the  advantage  of 
numbers  is  with  us,  that  our  numbers  are  united 
and  that  they  actually  "  enter  the  field  "  —what 
then  ?  Are  "  majority  "  and  "  superiority  "  equiva- 
lent terms  ?  We  know  that  in  war  they  used  not 


NUMBERS  179 

to  be  so ;  that,  at  the  time  of  the  Jacquerie,  one 
highly  trained  Knight  in  armour  of  proof  could 
take  on  several  hundred  badly  armed  peasants. 
Are  they  then — are  strength  in  numbers  and  strength 
in  efficiency  tending,  under  the  working  of  education, 
and  machines,  to  become  equivalents  ?  This  is  a 
question  of  life  and  death,  for  the  numbers  of  our 
present  generation  are  past  praying  for.  You  cannot 
increase  the  size  of  your  grandmother's  family  by 
taking  thought. 

Let  us  see.  What  with  plebiscites,  referendums 
and  other  inventions  of  the  Evil  One,  the  numbers 
boom  is  so  much  in  evidence  just  now  that  a  solitary 
quotation  should  suffice  to  show  the  trend  of  modern 
thought.  M.  Geraud,  writing  in  the  Echo  de  Paris, 
in  February,  1919,  says,  speaking  of  the  League, 
"  They  talk  of  disarmament ;  there  is  one  arm 
which  cannot  be  suppressed,  now  that  Armies  can 
be  improvised :  the  numerical  superiority  of  a 
people."  Quite  true  as  a  fact,  but  was  his  inference 
true — the  inference  that  the  military  domination  of  1 
the  Continent  by  France  was  out  of  the  question  ?  I 
Was  it  true  ?  Perhaps  ;  but  not,  I  think,  solely  or ' 
even  mainly,  on  account  of  shortage  of  numbers, 
or  because  it  was  correct  to  say  that  Armies  could 
be  improvised. 

Armies  cannot  be  improvised ;  minorities  can 
dominate  ;  but  there  is  every  excuse  for  M.  Geraud 
or  for  the  thousands  who  agree  with  him  in  the 
events  of  the  late  war  and  in  the  attitude  of  many 
of  the  Generals  during  that  war.  I  have  heard 
them  myself,  with  my  own  ears,  declare  with  empha- 
sis, with  passion,  that  the  only  way  to  win  the  war 
was  to  "  kill  Germans."  But  in  trench  warfare, 


180      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

it  was  impossible  to  kill  Germans  without  killing 
just  about  as  many  British.  So  we  get  back  to 
butchery,  to  numbers  being  equivalent  to  victory. 
Clearly,  as  manoeuvre  was  impossible,  and  as  three- 
quarters  of  Generalship  was  therefore  useless,  num- 
bers and  yet  more  numbers  were  the  sole  recipe  ! 
Probe  this  thought  a  little  deeper.  Trench  warfare 
arose  out  of  the  numbers  on  each  side.  But  a 
"  nation  in  arms  "  poorly  supplied  with  machines 
is  a  fleeting  phenomenon  of  the  moment.  A  future 
"  nation  in  arms  "  will  merely  be  so  much  additional 
fodder  for  the  machines. 

Fu  Chien,  Prince  of  Ch'in,  boasted  his  Army  was 
so  enormous  they  could  dam  up  the  Yangtsze  River 
by  throwing  their  whips  into  the  stream :  he  was 
grievously  defeated.  Xerxes  led  numbers  innumer- 
able— to  join  the  majority!  Sooraj-oo-Dowlah 
and  68,000  men  with  an  enormous  river  between 
them  and  the  hostile  Army  of  900  Europeans  and 
2,100  Sepoys  felt  tolerably  secure.  Yet  neither 
his  numbers  nor  his  position  had  the  smallest 
influence  on  the  result  of  the  Battle  of  Plassey. 

But  Gideon,  the  son  of  Joash,  despised  numbers. 
When  his  Army  got  within  range  of  the  Midianite 
host  "  which  lay  along  the  valley  like  grasshoppers 
for  multitude,"  he  did  not  howl  for  reinforcements. 
No  ;  he  gave  the  order,  "  Whosoever  is  fearful  and 
afraid,  let  him  return  and  depart  early  for  Mount 
Gilead;  and  there  returned  of  the  people  twenty 
and  two  thousand,  and  there  remained  ten  thou- 
sand." It  was  Home,  sweet  Home  for  two-thirds 
of  his  Army  and  the  results  are  written  in  the 
Bible. 

The  Bruce,  Henry  II  and  the  Black  Prince  were 


NUMBERS  181 

men  of  the  Gideon  persuasion  :  at  Bannockburn 
25,000  Scots  overthrew  100,000  English.  At  Cregy 
20,000  English  defeated  60,000  French.  At  Poictiers 
7,000  English  beat  three  or  four  times  their  number 
of  French  troops  of  the  first  quality. 

As  time  went  on  the  European  tribes  borrowed  ideas 
and  armaments  freely  from  one  another.  The 
more  alike  they  became  in  their  methods  the  less 
scope  was  there  for  the  great  surprises  of  war.  At 
Leuthen  Frederick  the  Great  was  still  able  to  beat 
80,000  Austrians  with  30,000  Prussians,  at  Rosbach 
to  beat  50,000  French  with  half  their  number  of 
Prussians.  Napoleon  at  Arcola  won  with  13,000 
Frenchmen  against  40,000  Austrians,  at  Rivoli 
with  25,000  Frenchmen  against  60,000  Austrians, 
and  at  Auerstadt  with  25,000  Frenchmen  against 
60,000  Prussians.  So  it  was  ungrateful  of  him  to 
make  that  phrase  about  Providence  being  on  the 
side  of  the  big  battalions.  He  forgot,  in  making  the 
phrase,  his  own — "It  is  not  the  men  that  count  in 
war,  it  is  the  Man." 

Yet,  mark  the  pursuing  Nemesis :  sarcastic  Neme- 
sis, so  tenacious,  so  mindful  of  our  slips.  As  Napoleon 
amassed  men,  got  together  the  big  battalions,  Provi- 
dence (who  cares  nothing  for  phrases)  turned  him 
down.  As  the  size  of  his  Armies  and  of  his  units 
waxed,  so  did  his  star  wane.  Had  the  Grand  Army 
been  half  the  strength  and  composed  of  the  troops 
of  1805,  Napoleon  would  have  moved  with  twice 
the  rapidity ;  manoeuvred  with  four  times  the 
confidence ;  and  would  infallibly  have  beaten  the 
Russians  to  pieces  wherever  and  whenever  he  met 
them.  At  Eylau  ;  Wagram  ;  Borodino  ;  the  Bere- 
sina ;  these  big  battalions  made  their  first  appear- 


182      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

ances.     The   attempt   to    impose    by    masses — an 

attempt    significant    of    the    fatigue    of    Napoleon 

and  of  the  using  up  of  his  trained  troops — was  sheer 

degeneration.     But — as    is    well    said    by    Colonel 

Ardant  du  Picq — when,  hi  1814,  Napoleon,  on  his 

last  legs,  fought  his  star  campaign,  we  hear  no  more 

>of  these  barbarous  bludgeon  strokes.1 

/       So  the  problem  stands  facing  us  fair  and  square 

X  —quantity  v.  quality.     Do   character  and  courage 

/      hold  their  own ;    or,  are  we  going  to  put  our  trust 

\  1    hi  the  fertility  of  our  females  ? 

N  Victory  comes  to  the  Army  which  is  superior  at 
the  decisive  point.  To  get  there  it  is  up  to  the 
Commander  to  make  his  enemy  think  that  the  bulk 
of  his  force  is  committed  to  an  enterprise  upon 
which  he  does  not  intend  to  embark  (strategy)  ; 
or,  that  the  bulk  of  his  force  has  reached  a  sector  of 
the  battlefield  whereon  he  has  really  but  few  troops 
and  no  intention  of  using  them  (tactics).  If  num- 
bers are  unlimited  there  will  be  less  call  upon  the 
Commander  to  exercise  these  ingenuities,  for  he  can 
then  be  superior  everywhere  ;  actually  so  as  well  as 
in  the  mind  of  his  adversary — superior  that  is  to 
say  in  numbers. 

If  numbers  are  anything  more  than  a  factor — if 

they  can  be  translated  to  mean  "  victorious  force  " 

—then  our  Armies,  faced  as  they  are  by  Africa  and 

Asia,  not  to  speak  of  Russia,  are  played  out.     But 

my  belief  stands  firm  that  we  own  other  fields  than 

I  those  of  numbers  upon  which  we  can  sow  the  seeds 

of  a  formidable  Army.     I  hold  that  efficiency  can, 

1  60,000  Frenchmen  against  something  like  300,000  invaders 
fight  fourteen  battles  and  win  twelve  victories  in  the  space  of 
thirty  days. 


NUMBERS  183 

must  and  will  learn  how  to  cope  with  numbers  before 
numbers  can  overthrow  efficiency.  The  true  reason 
why  the  world  has  remained  at  a  deadlock  since 
Homer  is  that  successive  civilisations  established 
and  embellished  by  individuals  are  successively 
swamped  by  numbers.  Released  from  external 
pressure  (dread  of  rival  powers)  the  subsoil  (numbers) 
comes  up  to  top  and  good-bye  to  the  beauty  of  the 
garden.  Lately  I  read  a  book,  written  in  1912, 
which  started  with  a  pronouncement  of  contempt  for 
"mere  numbers,"  and  went  on  to  say,  "Never- 
theless it  must  be  admitted  that  the  conditions,  in 
warfare  and  in  industry,  of  life  to-day,  as  compared 
with  life  in  past  centuries,  have  increased  the  value 
of  numbers  and  of  a  faculty  of  blind  obedience,  and 
have  proportionally  decreased  the  relative  value  of 
individual  character.  An  Asiatic  Army  to-day  is 
relatively  more  efficient." 

There  is  some  truth  in  this.  Counting  by  rifles, 
low-grade  Armies  have  become  relatively  more 
dangerous  and  it  is  the  rifles  which  have  made  them 
so.  Rifles,  simple  machines,  easily  grasped  and 
manipulated  by  savages. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  we  have  just  reached 
an  epochal  turning-point  in  the  career  of  arms,  a 
point  where  the  Armies  of  civilisation  have  got  to 
choose  between  making  a  big  imaginative  effort 
and  getting  clean  away  from  the  Armies  of  barbarism, 
or  else — plod  on  and  go  down  taking  with  them  their 
worn-out  civilisation.  Up  to  a  point  the  undeveloped 
races  can  copy  ;  certainly  up  to  the  point  where  we 
stand  now.  We  have  to  carry  on  into  regions  where 
they  cannot  follow  us  without  themselves  becoming 
so  civilised  that  their  Armies  will  no  longer  be 


184      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

a  menace.     The  world,  in  fact,  will  be  Anglicised. 

Militarily  speaking,  we  are  still  working  on  in  our 
war-worn,  worm-eaten  uniforms  and  have  only  used 
our  machines  and  inventions  to  buttress  moribund 
formations  :  therefore,  the  mechanical  side  of  our 
Army  has  been  growing  at  the  expense  of  the  human 
and  romantic  side  of  our  Army :  therefore,  numbers 
are  counting  for  more ;  characters  for  less. 

When  a  thing  is  unreal  the  life  goes  out  of  it. 
Cavalry  has  been  dead  as  the  dodo  for  twenty  long 
years,  though  the  people  who  look  at  the  effigies  in 
Whitehall  or  stuffed  specimens  in  Natural  History 
museums  have  not  yet,  in  either  case,  tumbled  to  it. 
What  about  infantry  ?  Are  they  not  too  marching 
towards  their  grave  in  some  battle  of  machines, 
due,  perhaps,  about  twenty  years  hence  ?  Unless 
quality  crawls  up  out  of  the  sea  in  its  submarine 
or  traverses  rivers  and  mountains  in  its  tank  ;  unless 
heroes  in  bright  armour  are  rushing  by  thousands 
in  their  roaring  aeroplanes  across  the  tortured  sky ; 
the  fate  of  Armageddon  will  depend  on  numbers, 
and  numbers  will  not  be  with  us. 

We  must  fix  our  minds  upon  the  thought  that  just 
as  men  seemed  to  be  on  the  very  point  of  obliterating 
the  Man — up  he  got ;  seized  hold  of  an  aeroplane 
in  one  hand  and  of  a  tank  in  the  other ;  plucked 
individualism  out  of  the  mud  and  set  it  once  more 
upon  its  feet,  in  the  open  field,  where  numbers  and 
blind  obedience  are  going  to  have  less  and  less  of 
an  innings  against  science  and  efficiency. 

Outwardly  the  battle  of  the  future  will  resemble 
battles  which  took  place  before  the  birth  of  Christ 
rather  than  those  fields  of  sinister  desolation  and 
solitude  where  we  have  suffered.  The  area  of  the 


NUMBERS  185 

conflict ;  the  use  of  tanks  and  motors  as  the  pivot 
of  the  forces  where  formerly  elephants  and  war 
chariots  manoeuvred  will  have  more  affinity  to  B.C. 
500  than  to  A.D.  1917. 

The  tank  combines  mobility,  fire-power,  shock- 
power,  and  armour.  I  do  not  see  how  the  heavy 
artillery  and  the  heavy  munitions  are  to  keep  pace 
with  them.  I  do  not  see  how  the  infantry,  either, 
are  to  work  with  them  unless  their  swiftness  is  to 
be  sacrificed.  Therefore,  there  will  be  no  infantry 
except  escorts  in  cars ;  tank  followers. 

What  an  immense  future  do  not  these  inventions 
hold  out  to  the  British  ? l  The  future  beckons  us 
on ;  the  very  same  circumspect  types  who  funked 
going  Nap  with  their  numbers  on  the  Western 
Front  and  at  Gallipoli  are  hanging  on  to  our  coat- 
tails.  As  Pasteur  says  to  an  obstructionist  who 
might  well  have  been  a  British  official,  "  Vous  dites 
que  dans  Veldt  actuel  de  la  science  il  est  plus  sage  de 
ne  pas  avoir  d' opinion  ?  "  Exactly ;  it  is  more 
prudent  to  look  wise  and  express  no  views.  Uncom- 
fortable fellows  who  press  for  progress  have  a  bad 
time  of  it  in  London ;  but  bad  time  or  good  time 
we  must  have  prompt,  bold,  big  changes  as  a  result 
of  our  experiences  during  the  war,  or,  it  may  so 
happen,  we  shall  have  bled  and  suffered  and  won, 
only  to  bleed  and  suffer  and  lose  ! 

Can  it  be  true  that  a  British  division  is  still  \ 
organised  as  it  was  in  1914  ?  That  Cavalry  horses 
still  devour  oats  ?  That  swords  are  being  forged, 
scarlet  tunics  being  embroidered  in  gold,  and  spurs 
being  polished  with  plate  powder  ?  Why  have  we 
not  had  a  manoeuvre  of  a  new  division  of  tanks  and 
1  The  Millennium  ?  pages  23,  24,  25. 


18C      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

aeroplanes  trained  to  work  together,  say  total 
strength  2,000  mechanics  against  a  1914  division 
of  20,000  horse,  foot  and  guns ;  the  capture  or 
defence  of  some  important  city  being  the  objective  ? 

One  invention  do  I  believe  might  at  present  easily 
be  barred  by  a  common  consent,  which  would  be 
more  binding  than  treaties  extorted  from  fallen 
foes  by  holding  a  knife  to  their  throats.  If  our 
Prime  Minister  were  to  approach  every  nation  on 
the  globe,  civilised  or  semi-civilised,  and  propose 
to  them  that  it  be  made  a  criminal  offence,  punishable 
by  death,  for  anyone  to  experiment  with,  propose 
to  make,  stock  or  use  poison  gas,  there  is  not  one 
nation  that  would  say  him  nay.  Well ;  why  does 
he  not  do  it  ?  Quick  ! 

From  inventions  we  get  to  inventors  :  from  inven- 
tors to  the  rare  beings  who  can  grasp  the  scope 
and  bearing  of  an  invention  ;  not  an  improvement, 
an  invention.  So  long  as  an  invention  remains 
a  brain  wave  its  value  can  only  be  measured  by  a 
brain  equal  or  superior  to  the  wave.  When  one 
man  tots  up  the  sum  of  the  contents  of  another  man's 
brain  we  get  a  recognition  by  one  intellect  of  another 
intellect.  But  a  fly  cannot  recognise  an  elephant. 
A  fly  cannot  even  see  an  elephant  although  the  ele- 
phant can  only  too  well  see  the  fly.  There  is  no 
good,  therefore,  hi  being  angry  with  the  Jacks-in- 
Office  who  spurn  the,  to  them,  entirely  meaningless 
maggot  brought  to  them  by  an  unfortunate  inventor. 
They  are  congenitally  incapable  of  visualising  the 
imago  or  perfected  creation  which  must  one  day 
emerge  from  that  envelope.  The  higher  a  man  flies 
the  smaller  does  he  appear  to  the  man  who  cannot 
fly — unless  he  has  the  vision  of  genius. 


CHAPTER  IX 
GENIUS 

Genius  ?  "  Transcendent  capacity  for  taking 
trouble  "  is  the  popular  definition,  and  naturally 
so,  for  it  tickles  the  self-conceit  of  Tom,  Dick  and 
Harry  to  think  that  they,  too,  by  taking  thought 
could  add  some  cubits  to  their  statures. 

Judging  by  an  interview  published  in  the  Daily 
Mail  of  19th  April,  1919,  Marshal  Foch  is  of  the 
same  opinion  as  Carlyle.  "  The  stroke  of  genius 
that  turns  the  fate  of  a  battle  ?  "  says  Marshal 
Foch,  "  I  don't  believe  in  it.  A  battle  is  a  compli- 
cated operation,  that  you  prepare  laboriously.  If 
the  enemy  does  this,  you  say  to  yourself  I  shall  do 
that.  If  such  and  such  happens,  these  are  the  steps 
I  shall  take  to  meet  it.  You  think  out  every  possible 
development  and  decide  on  the  way  to  deal  with 
the  situation  created.  One  of  these  developments 
occurs ;  you  put  in  operation  your  pre-arranged 
plan,  and  everyone  says,  '  What  genius  to  have 
thought  of  that  at  the  critical  moment !  '  whereas 
the  credit  is  really  due  to  the  labour  of  preparation 
done  beforehand." 

On  the  23rd  April,  1919,  Sir  John  Monash,  in 
private  life  a  business  man  of  Melbourne  City,  in 
public  life  the  tenacious  and  capable  Commander 
of  the  Australian  Corps,  followed  suit.  "  Modern 

187 


188      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

warfare  was  not  a  matter  of  genius  or  of  brain 
waves.  It  was  hard,  slogging,  methodical,  matter- 
of-fact  work." 

When  authorities  so  famous  have  slammed  the 
door  so  violently  in  the  face  of  genius  some  hardi- 
hood is  needed  by  anyone  who  would  reopen  it, 
but  the  thought  that  the  Marshal,  like  most  great 
men,  is  modest  and  is  anxious  to  disclaim  any 
transcendental  gift  gives  me  courage.  So  I  take 
the  liberty  of  saying  that  although  the  outside 
public  may  often  mistake  what  is  merely  the  result 
of  hard  work  for  the  stroke  of  genius,  this  does 
not  itself  exclude  the  genuine  stroke  of  genius  which 
fashions  creations  out  of  nothing  without  any  appar- 
ent hard  work.  Nor  do  I  think  that  Napoleon  would 
have  gone  so  far  as  his  fervid  admirer  Foch,  although 
it  has  been  stated  that  his  favourite  work  was  a 
book  of  logarithms.1  To  me  it  seems  that  even 
in  the  most  mechanical  seeming  battles  of  the  late 
war  of  machines,  the  stroke  of  genius  did  occur 
and  won  those  battles,  although,  very  possibly,  no 
higher  grade  than  that  of  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  of 
Infantry  may  have  been  illuminated  by  its  flash. 
For  rank  has  no  more  affinity  to  genius  than  has 
laborious  preparation.  Marshal  Foch  put  two  and 
two  together — as  he  now  tells  us — very  effectively. 
In  the  case  of  genius,  God  puts  two  and  two  together 
in  the  subconscious  regions  of  the  being,  and  He 
does  it  more  effectively. 

There  is  no  question  here  of  a  genius  for  friend- 
ship, or  of  a  genius  for  finance,  or  of  a  genius  for 
poetry,  or  of  a  genius  for  growing  turnips.  I  am 
writing  about  Genius,  the  faculty ;  the  intuitive 
1  By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 


GENIUS  189 

perception  ;  the  piercing  power  of  comprehension  ; 
the  innate  originality  and,  above  all,  the  intrepidity 
which  takes  all  these  and  uses  them  ;  the  intrepidity 
without  which  they  would  merely  amount  to  ima- 
gination. That  genius  about  which  I  write  is  made 
up  of  four  parts  :  one  part  imagination,  one  part 
energy,  one  part  enthusiasm,  and  one  part  courage. 

Marshal  Foch  has  shown  the  happy  results  of 
material  calculations  as  employed  (it  must  be 
admitted)  against  materialists.  He  says,  indeed,  in 
this  same  interview  that  the  Germans  "  were  great 
organisers.  In  this  war  they  had  no  men  of  insight 
or  genius."  Later  on,  I  will  prove  that  no  nation 
can  at  the  same  time  be  very  highly  organised  and 
possess  men  of  insight  or  genius.  Meanwhile,  let 
me  contrast  with  this  triumph  of  material  calculation 
an  affair  which  we  have  been  taught  by  politicians, 
not  by  soldiers,  to  think  disastrous  from  start  to 
finish — and  yet  a  stroke  of  genius  ! 

Antwerp  !  Did  the  men  of  plans  and  calculations, 
did  the  Allied  War  Councils  or  War  Offices,  realise 
Antwerp  ?  One  or  other  of  their  laborious  "  If- 
the-enemy-does-this "  forecasts  must  surely  have 
fitted  the  actual  situation  pretty  closely  at  various 
junctures  in  the  opening  phases  of  the  war.  Did 
none  of  those  forecasts  stress  the  need,  the  anxious 
need,  the  enemy  High  Command  must  be  under  to 
guard  the  right  flank  of  their  own  Army  against 
an  outfall  from  Antwerp  ?  Or,  had  they  pored 
over  the  map  for  as  long  as  the  Israelites  wandered 
in  the  wilderness  without  grasping  the  meaning  of 
Antwerp  to  the  German  right  flank  or  the  effect 
of  the  naval  operations  which  might  ensue  if  the 
Germans  got  to  Antwerp  ? 


190      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

The  truth  is  that  Foch's  game  for  dull  boys,  the 
game  of  "  if  -he-does-  this-I-shall-do-that,"  had  not 
worked  in  the  field  quite  as  well  as  it  used  to  work 
at  the  Academy.  After  the  first  move  or  two  the 
permutations  and  combinations  had  become  too 
complicated.  The  strategical  and  tactical  fields 
were  no  longer  in  orthodox  order ;  they  resembled 
rather  a  Rabelaisian  game  of  chess  where  the  board 
has  a  million  squares  and  the  pieces  consist  of  a 
dozen  Kings  and  Queens,  a  thousand  Castles,  ten 
thousand  Knights  and  so  many  pawns  that  no  one 
can  exactly  count  them.  Faced  by  this  situation, 
our  Allies  lost  their  heads,  shortened  their  line  and 
thought  of  nothing  but  saving  Paris ;  decided  to 
evacuate  Paris  ;  pulled  themselves  together  ;  gained 
the  victory  of  the  Marne  ;  advanced  to  the  Aisne ; 
began  to  move  via  St.  Omer  to  an  attack  upon 
Lille.  The  Channel  Ports  were  at  stake  and  with 
them  the  war.  Dark  was  the  outlook,  when,  of  a 
sudden,  the  whole  strategic  field  lit  up  to  the  bright 
flash  of  genius.  One  man  had  seen  what  hung 
upon  our  holding  our  ground — if  only  for  a  day  or 
two — at  Antwerp  ;  one  man  had  acted  with  all  the 
force  and  swiftness  at  his  command  to  enforce 
that  view ;  one  man  had  understood  that,  whether 
the  fortress  could  be  held  or  could  not  be  held,  the 
honour  of  England  demanded  that  at  least  the 
attempt  be  made ;  one  man  had  the  courage  to 
step  fearlessly  forward  with  what  tiny  force  of  raw 
troops  happened  by  his  own  prescience  and  God's 
mercy  to  lie  at  his  own  disposal  to  show  British 
uniforms  on  Belgian  soil.  Jealousy  may  have 
succeeded  in  hoodwinking  the  people  to-day ;  the 
historian  will  class  this  feat  of  Winston  Churchill's 


GENIUS  191 

as  one  of  the  two  acts  of  intuition  of  the  war.  Public 
opinion  lags  ten  years  behind  acts  of  genius  like 
the  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares  or  the  move 
upon  Antwerp.  Ordinary  folk  can  only  gradually 
absorb  the  truth  from  experts,  and  the  experts  are 
ashamed  to  expose  the  professionals.  The  more 
this  coup  de  main  of  Churchill's  is  considered,  the 
more  vividly  it  stands  out.  No  ordinary  First 
Lord  would  have  had  infantry  under  his  orders  ! 
As  yet  our  people  have  not  heard  that  tale  of  coura- 
geous, pertinacious  struggle  against  Sea  Lords  and 
War  Earls  which  took  place  before  even  a  start 
could  be  made  to  form  this  Royal  Naval  Division — 
and  then,  scarce  emerged  from  that  combat,  the 
Division  themselves  scarce  clothed,  Churchill  handles 
them  as  if  he  were  Napoleon  and  they  the  Old 
Guard  ;  he  flings  the  R.N.D.  right  into  the  enemy's 
opening  jaws  at  Antwerp  ! 

The  facts  are  beyond  dispute.  The  Marine 
Brigade  of  the  R.N.D.  entered  Antwerp  on  the 
night  of  October  3rd  ;  they  fought  on  October  4th  ; 
they  animated  the  Belgian  defence  ;  the  7th  Divi- 
sion and  the  3rd  Cavalry  Division  didn't  begin  to 
disembark  at  Ostend  till  October  6th  and,  had  the 
saving  of  Antwerp  been  left  to  them,  it  would 
have  fallen  a  week  earlier  than  it  did  fall ;  Ypres 
would  have  spelt  another  story ;  the  Belgian  main 
Army  must  have  been  scuppered  and  the  Channel 
Ports  would  have  gone  by  the  board.  Whilst  this 
masterstroke  was  being  played,  clubs,  offices  and 
drawing-rooms  were  in  an  uproar.  How  indecent 
of  a  man  in  charge  of  the  Navy  to  shove  his  oar  into 
a  land  battle  !  Murder,  my  dear,  sheer  murder ; 
the  poor  Marines  were  so  young  and  raw,  their 


192      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

bayonets  were  tied  on  to  their  belts  with  bits  of 
string — imagine,  my  dear,  bits  of  string  !  Yet,  in 
a  good  hour,  be  it  said,  string  or  no  string,  the 
R.N.D.  saved  the  Belgian  Army — and  more  than 
the  Belgian  Army — the  Channel  Ports — and  more 
than  the  Channel  Ports — the  honour  of  our  Arms. 

Opposed  to  genius  stand  the  men  of  logarithms, 
who,  by  their  "  if -he-does- this-I-shall-do- that," 
attempt  to  exhaust  the  cache  of  chances  which 
God  keeps  stocked  far  away  in  starland.  Genius 
is  God's  secret,  that  is  all.  Foch  thinks  he  won 
the  war  because  he  "  calculated,"  as  the  Yankees 
say.  He  forgets  that  the  Germans  equally  pride 
themselves  on  calculations.  He  either  forgets,  or 
he  is  too  modest  to  tell  us,  that  he  has  in  him  like 
a  burning  fire  a  passion  for  sheer  fighting,  a  fire  of 
passion  which  burnt  up  all  his  sums  and  figures 
when  the  moment  came.  But  if  the  great  Marshal 
had  only  told  us  this,  we  should  have  known  what 
weight  to  attach  to  his  "If  he  does  this  I  shall  do 
that." 

Anyway,  let  us  take  this  "  war  of  siege,"  won— 
so  the  prize  boy  of  the  school  tells  us — by  calcula- 
tions, and  compare  it  with  another  stroke  of  genius 
that  failed.  Only  one  condition  do  I  make  with 
my  reader :  namely,  that  he  should  first  make  a 
real  effort  to  heave  himself  out  of  the  "  nothing 
succeeds  like  success  "  frame  of  mind.  In  time  of 
war  and  under  democratic  rule  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  success  test,  I  admit ;  but  now  that  there 
is  a  sort  of  peace  going  on,  let  us  get  back  to  maps 
and  common  sense. 

After  Antwerp  had  saved  the  Channel  Ports  a 
state  of  stalemate  ensued  which  is  thus  described 


GENIUS  193 

by   the   best   authority,    Field-Marshal   Sir   Henry 
Wilson : — 

"  France  became  after  the  first  two  or  three  months  a  war  of 
siege,  and  nothing  else — no  movements  at  all.  We  had  some 
four  years  solid  of  siege  work.  There  were  many  reasons  for 
that,  but  two  anyhow  will  probably  continue  to  exist  unless  the 
League  of  Nations  steps  in.  One  was  the  enormous  numbers 
employed  on  either  side,  which  meant  a  great  frontage — and  the 
other  was  that  this  frontage  was  so  great  that  one  flank  rested 
on  a  neutral  and  the  other  on  salt  water.  That  gave  no  ragged 
edge  for  either  side  to  fasten  on  to." 

So  there  we  have  it.  The  soldiers  who  had  become 
so  obsessed  with  the  thought  of  the  frontiers  of 
France  that  they  would  spend  their  pennies  and 
their  holidays  bicycling  over  it ;  studying  its  rivers, 
mountains,  woods,  roads,  towns  ;  there  they  were 
at  last,  dreams  come  true  ;  camping  on  the  familiar 
ground :  unable  to  get  away  from  it :  their  minds 
as  well  as  their  thoughts  hemmed  in  by  it ;  Sir 
Henry  Wilson's  "  neutral "  on  the  one  side  and 
his  "  salt  water  "  on  the  other  the  farthest  horizons 
to  their  thoughts.  But  whilst  they  had  been 
studying  their  battle-ground  that  was  to  be,  science 
had  been  marching.  Space  had  shrunk  in  relation 
to  human  activities.  The  sacred  war  area  had 
somehow  got  too  smaU.  No  matter :  there  they 
settled  themselves  down  in  the  mud  ;  no  elbow- 
room  ;  no  outlet ;  no  "  ragged  edges  "  ;  nothing 
for  it  but  "  four  years  solid  of  siege  work." 

Suddenly,  once  again  that  lightning  flash  of 
genius  !  The  dark  horizons  recede.  The  idea 
sparkles  out  that  in  war  the  great  thing  is  to  have 
battles — decisions :  that,  win  or  lose,  the  one 
great  thing  for  either  side  is  to  get  done  with  the 
bloody  business :  that  if  space  has  shrunk  so  that 


194      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  whole  of  France  gives  no  ragged  edges,  then 
the  real  ragged  edge  might  lie  outside  France, 
over  the  neutral  hills  and  far  away  beyond.  The 
Dardanelles  ! 

I  had  written  twenty  pages  to  show  to  tempers 
now  grown  cooler  that  there  was  no  other  issue 
from  that  awful  "  four  years  of  solid  siege  work  " 
between  the  neutral  and  the  salt  water  except  via 
that  same  salt  water  to  Constantinople.  But  I 
have  reflected  that  it  would  be  wiser  to  have  a 
little  more  patience  and  leave  the  Dardanelles  to 
those  close-thinking  students,  the  Germans,  who, 
if  they  hate,  will  at  least  do  so  with  impartiality. 
Fas  est  et  ab  hoste  doceri,  and  I  have  no  doubt  at 
all  of  the  result. 

The  Antwerp  stroke  was  prompted  by  an  impera- 
tive impulse  to  threaten  the  enemy's  right,  and 
to  hold  up  his  advance  on  the  Channel  Ports  if 
only  for  two  or  three  days.  The  Dardanelles 
move  was  calculated  to  save  Russia  by  piercing  a 
deep-sea,  warm-sea  passage  to  her  heart,  clean 
through  the  enemy's  left.  Both  enterprises  were 
efforts  to  get  outside  of  an  overcrowded  area ;  were 
inspired  by  genius  and  were  worked  from  start  to 
finish  in  face  of  an  outcry  from  France.  Yet,  so 
true  was  the  aim  of  these  two  strokes  that,  although 
the  "  four-years-of-solid-siege-work,"  "  kill-German  " 
school  did  all  that  men  could  to  deflect  them,  each, 
during  its  time,  did  more  than  any  of  the  great 
"  set-piece  "  siege  battles  towards  carrying  the  war 
on  to  victory. 

Imagination  forms  one  of  the  four  parts  of  genius 
and  has  itself  two  clearly  marked  attributes  :  the 
one,  fancy  or  the  power  of  ornamenting  facts  as, 


GENIUS  195 

for  instance,  making  the  wolf  speak  to  Little  Red 
Riding  Hood  or  describing  the  Battle  of  Le  Cateau  ; 
the  other,  inventions  ;  not  fairy  tales  but  machines. 
Inventions  do  not  often  make  their  first  bow  to 
armies  on  the  battle-field.  They  have  been  in  the 
air  for  some  time  ;  hawked  about  the  ante-chambers 
of  the  men  of  the  hour ;  spat  upon  by  common 
sense  ;  cold-shouldered  by  interests  vested  in  what 
exists ;  held  up  by  stale  functionaries  to  whom 
the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  "  make  a  prece- 
dent " — until,  one  day,  arrives  a  genius  who  by 
his  imagination  sees ;  by  his  enthusiasm  moves ; 
by  his  energy  keeps  moving  ;  by  his  courage  cuts 
the  painter  of  tradition. 

So  long  as  a  statesman  is  orthodox  he  is  safe. 
Some  infernal,  uncomfortable  fellow  has  put  forward 
the  notion  that  shock  cavalry  are  obsolete.  Away 
with  him  !  A  Secretary  of  State  for  War  is  not 
put  in  to  try  experiments  !  So  the  only  windfall 
which  came  in  the  way  of  the  War  Office  during 
the  last  few  years  before  the  war  was  spent  on 
cavalry  horses  :  not  in  machine-guns  or  howitzers  ; 
oh,  dear  no  !  on  cavalry  horses  \ 

That  the  aeroplane  was  coming  into  its  kingdom 
was  almost  as  clear,  in  September,  1914,  as  it  is 
to-day.  The  power  of  reason  was  not  denied  to 
the  War  Office :  they  believed  the  war  would  last 
three  years :  they  strongly  suspected  that  they 
ought  to  back  their  own  opinions  by  committing 
the  public  to  a  really  big  programme  of  aeroplane 
building.  But  there  was  no  genius  there  to  see,  to 
move  or  to  strike. 

In  those  first  war  days  a  scheme  supported  by 
Lord  Fisher  was  laid  by  a  young  naval  officer, 


196   THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Neville  Usborne,  before  the  War  Office ;  a  scheme 
which  seemed  then  to  involve  a  big  plunge.  The  de- 
mand was  for  ten  million  sterling,  at  once,  simply 
and  solely  to  lay  foundations  broad  and  deep  for 
eventual  supremacy  in  the  air.  The  paper  lay 
for  some  time  on  the  table  of  the  man  who  could 
have  given  it  currency  by  putting  his  initial  upon 
it.  He  was  taken  with  the  scheme ;  he  passed  it 
on  with  the  remark  that,  although  sound  in  principle, 
the  amount  was  four  times  too  much.  Four  times 
too  much  for  what  ?  Too  much  for  the  war  ?  Too 
much  for  the  Treasury  ?  Too  much  for  him  ? 

Lack  of  the  nerve  which  goes  with  genius  was 
shown  in  another  way  on  the  other  side.  When 
the  Germans  made  up  their  minds  to  go  Nap  upon 
the  submarine,  that  was  a  bold  decision.  The 
prize  might  be  the  scuppering  of  British  sea  suprem- 
acy ;  the  penalty  might  be  war  with  the  neutrals. 
The  one  thing  there  was  no  room  for  was  half- 
heartedness.  That  was  certain  to  fail  in  destroying 
Britain  and  to  succeed  in  annoying  the  U.S.A. 
Whether  as  a  question  of  lulling  the  British  or  of 
keeping  neutrals  in  a  good  temper,  equally  the 
situation  demanded  a  pause  in  the  campaign  until 
a  big  fleet  of  submarines  was  ready. 

All  these  points  must  have  been  clear  to  the 
intelligent  Germans.  Then  why  so  uninspired,  so 
hand  to  mouth,  so  stupid  ?  They  had  organised 
genius  ;  put  a  strait-waistcoat  on  to  it :  not  one 
touch  of  transcendentalism  ;  that  was  what  was 
the  matter  with  them. 

So  much  for  the  aeroplane  and  the  submarine; 
now  for  the  tank.  By  December,  1915,  the  whole 
of  the  western  fronts  of  both  armies  were  swathed 


GENIUS  197 

in  barbed  wire ;  movement  was  paralysed ;  the 
Generals  on  both  sides  were  hanging  on  to  their 
regulations  as  a  blind  man  does  to  his  dog  ;  the 
last  three  years  of  the  stalemate  had  begun.  Then 
it  was  that  the  idea  of  the  tank  which  had  lain 
dormant  since  1903,  the  date  of  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  South  African  War,1  began  to  bestir 
itself  again  hi  men's  minds. 

A  fleet  of  landships  had  been  let  loose  upon  the 
realms  of  fancy  by  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells ;  now  men  of 
faith  and  skill  began  to  submit  inventions  and  to 
urge  action.  Over  there,  in  France,  was  the  "  hold- 
up "  ;  over  here  were  tanks  "  on  paper  "  capable 
of  breaking  through  "  on  paper."  The  tank,  in 
fact,  was  still  a  scientist's  plaything ;  a  mechanical 
elephant  had  been  drawn  to  scale  by  men  of  talent. 
The  monster  had  been  conceived  but,  before  it 
could  be  born  and  waddle  across  no  man's  land  to 
browse  upon  the  barbed  wire  of  the  Germans,  it 
had  first  to  get  through  the  wire  of  the  bureaucrats 
of  London ;  the  barbed  wire  of  the  bureaucrats 
whereon  fluttered  still  the  poor  rags  once  worn  by 
dead  inventors. 

There  had  been  no  clamourings  for  tanks  from 
the  soldiers.  No  sort  of  prompting  or  support 
came  from  G.H.Q.  in  France.  The  War  Office 
and  Admiralty  were  calmly  and  contemptuously 
sceptical.  Under  ordinary  statesmen  the  tank  would 
have  remained  a  departmental  toy  for  twenty 
years  ;  a  generation  would  have  passed  away  before 

1  Index  to  Vol.  II.  Minutes  of  Evidence,  Report  of  the  Royal 
Commission  on  the  War  in  South  Africa :  "  Shields,  steel, 
placed  on  wheels,  equipment  of  infantry  battalions  with,  advo- 
cated, 13,941  (page  112).  (Witness:  Sir  Ian  Hamilton.)" 


198      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

it  could  have  developed  into  a  line  of  battle  tanks. 
But  there  was  a  man  not  yet  ostracised  by  the 
oysters — a  man  of  genius — a  brave  man — whose 
two  and  twos  were  pulled  together  elementally — 
not  by  logarithms.  He  knew  by  the  awkward 
way  in  which  his  journalistic  and  political  admirers 
shook  hands  with  him  that  they  were  carrying 
stilettos  up  their  sleeves :  he  only  had  to  read  to 
be  able  to  see  with  the  inward  eye  rows  of  pious 
folk  praying  on  their  bended  knees  to  the  Devil 
that  he  might  slip :  he  plunged  bald-headed  into 
a  tank  with  the  purse  of  the  public  in  his  hand. 
With  money  entrusted  to  him  and  to  his  advisers 
for  good  and  profitable  and  safe  investment  by 
that  testy  Mrs.  Britannia,  he,  on  his  own  individual 
responsibility,  undivided  and  entirely  unshared  by 
those  "  responsible  advisers,"  gave  imperative  orders 
to  a  sober,  scientific  person  to  make  a  huge,  steel- 
clad  monster  to  gambol  and  snort  before  himself 
and  his  friends  over  the  banks  and  braes  of  Hatfield 
Park.  The  sober,  scientific  person  agreed,  but 
the  sum  was  a  tidy  one — £70,000  to  wit.  Our 
Genius  had  a  wife,  a  son,  a  career,  some  expensive 
tastes  including  two  sweet  little  daughters :  in 
what  queer  street  would  they  all  have  found  them- 
selves had  that  monster  jibbed  or  bolted  at  his 
trials  ?  Imagine  Winston  Churchill's  position  before 
a  Royal  Commission  trying  to  explain  how  he, 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  came  to  embark  naval 
funds  on  a  business  clearly  pertaining  to  the  War 
Office.  He  would  have  been  alone  ;  his  "  respon- 
sible advisers  "  chuckling  in  the  background  ;  not 
a  signature,  no  single  scraplet  of  writing  to  implicate 
them. 


GENIUS  199 

But  plenty  of  this  sort  of  backing,  I  daresay  : — 

"  I  regret  that  owing  to  pressure  of  current  work  these  interest- 
ing papers  have  lain  on  my  table  for  a  month.  Having  no 
military  experience,  I  am  unable  to  offer  any  opinion  upon  them. — 

B.  F."  J 

*  *  *  *  * 

"  I  venture  to  submit  that  we  have  enough  to  do  in  carrying 
on  our  own  business  without  trespassing  upon  Lord  Kitchener's 
preserves.  The  tank  crank  is  becoming  a  nuisance  :  birds  of  a 
feather,  etc.  ;  let  him  join  the  '  flock  '  at  the  War  Office.  Sup.- 
pose  we  take  up  tanks  and  they  turn  turtle — it  is  we  who  will 
find  ourselves  in  the  soup  !  My  reasoned  opinion  is  that  the 
consideration  of  tanks  ought  to  be  postponed  until  the  termina- 
tion of  the  war,  but  that,  as  dangers  lurk  also  in  a  downright 
negative,  we  should  refer  the  whole  question  to  a  mixed  committee 
of  sailors,  soldiers  and  manufacturers.  By  this  method  at 
least  we  shall  gain  time. — K.  F.  M."  2 

*  *  *  * 

"  In  principle,  I  find  myself  in  entire  agreement  with  pre-note, 
but,  as  to  the  Committee,  would  it  not  be  best  to  let  it  be  com- 
posed of  officials  ;  manufacturers  appearing  only  as  witnesses  ? 
Departmental  Committees  can  be  controlled,  but  a  mixed  com- 
mittee might  lead  to  publicity ;  publicity  might  lead  to  the 
Press  ;  the  Press  to  pressure.  Experto  crede  ! — Q.  P."  3 
***** 

"  I  concur,  but  I  hope  it  will  be  clearly  understood  that  in  so 
doing  I  express  no  opinion  as  to  the  desirability,  the  feasibility, 
or,  I  may  say,  the  propriety  of  these  tanks.  The  one  thing  I 
deprecate  is  haste.  Three  courses  are  open  to  us  :  (1)  a  depart- 
mental committee  ;  (2)  a  mixed  committee  ;  (3)  no  committee  ; 
and  whichever  course  we  pursue  I  foresee  we  shall  regret  it. — 
W.  8."  4 

Lest  anyone  should  be  scandalised  by  my  daring 
to  publish  State  documents,  I  would  explain  that, 
having  seen  cartloads  of  this  sort  of  stuff  written 

1  The  initials  are  those  of  Mr.  Bottle  the  File. 

*  The  initials  are  those  of  Mr.  Keep  the  File  Moving. 

*  The  initials  are  those  of  Mr.  Queer  the  Pitch. 
4  The  initials  are  those  of  Mr.  Wait  and  See. 


200      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

by  the  type  of  Government  servant  who  succeeds, 
I  have  been  able  to  conceive  them  for  myself.  No 
one  who  has  been  through  the  mill  but  knows  that 
the  British  bureaucrat  has  managed  to  transform 
inertia  from  a  negative  into  a  positive  force. 
Bureaucracy  is  one  huge  "sit  tight"  club.  In 
every  Government  Office  should  be  hung  up  a  text 
from  the  great  Clause witz  :  "  It  is  even  better  to 
act  quickly  and  err  than  to  hesitate  until  the  time 
of  action  is  past "  ;  and  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room,  "  He  who  makes  no  mistakes  makes  nothing." 
Howbeit,  our  genius  did  produce  his  eighteen 
A 1  tanks  ;  and  now  came  the  question  of t  using 
them.  A  new  weapon  is  put  into  a  Commander's 
hands.  Is  he  going  to  stake  his  country's  fortunes 
on  the  dark  horse  which  has  run  so  marvellously  in 
the  trial ;  or,  is  he  going  to  hedge  and  have  another, 
and  this  time,  a  public  trial  ?  For  the  first  method 
he  must  collect  a  number  of  the  new  engines  and 
make  them  the  backbone  of  his  battle ;  for  the 
second,  some  of  the  new  engines  must  be  attached 
as  auxiliaries  to  an  independent  scheme.  For  the 
one,  nothing  less  than  500  tanks  will  do;  for  the 
other,  the  fewer  the  better.  I  merely  put  the  case. 
To  be  a  fair  critic  a  man  should  know.  I  do  not 
know  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  game  played  during 
the  third  phase  of  the  battle  of  the  Somme  between 
Joffre  and  Haig  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  politicians 
and  Nivelle  on  the  other.  There  may  have  been 
good  grounds  for  giving  away  the  tanks :  the  fear 
of  the  enemy  getting  away  ;  or  some  or  any  motive 
greater  than,  and  perhaps  independent  of,  the 
motive  of  getting  full  value  out  of  a  great  surprise. 
So  a  few  tanks  were  dribbled  out  and  the  cat  made 


GENIUS  201 

its  escape  from  the  bag.  It  seems  a  pity.  The 
past  had  its  inventions  and  when  they  coincided 
with  a  man  who  staked  his  shirt  on  them  the  face 
of  the  world  changed.  Scythes  fixed  into  the  axles 
of  the  war  chariots ;  the  moving  towers  which 
overthrew  Babylon  ;  Greek  fire ;  the  short  bow, 
the  cross  bow,  the  Welch  long  bow  and  the  huge 
balista  ;  plate  armour  ;  the  Prussian  needle  gun  ; 
the  Merrimac  and  Ericsson's  marvellous  coincidental 
reply.  The  future  is  pregnant  with  inventions, 
but  where  is  the  use  of  the  invention  birth-rate  of 
the  United  Kingdom  heading  the  world  roster 
when  the  Exchequer  will  not  put  the  new-born 
ideas  out  to  nurse  and  the  General  Staff  won't 
adopt  them  ?  If  we  are  going  to  be  as  cautious  as 
in  1917,  we  may  live  to  see  the  disinherited  children 
of  our  brains  marching  against  us  in  strange  uni- 
forms, commanded  perhaps  by  those  Asiatics  who 
can  copy  and  fight  though,  thank  God,  they  cannot 
invent. 

The  year  1914  marks  the  end  of  the  old  order.  We 
are  living  in  a  new  age  and  behaving  as  if  Haldane 
had  reorganised  our  army  after  the  war  instead  of 
before  it.  Our  General  Staff  seems  to  be  saying, 
"  Let  some  of  the  other  nations  show  the  way  and 
then,  when  they  have  tried  it,  we  will  chip  in." 
That  way  lies  perdition.  The  only  chance  for  a 
nation  like  ours  is  to  keep  on  leading  with  a  strong 
inventive  originality ;  otherwise  we  shall  be  run 
over  and  trampled  underfoot  by  the  imitators. 
In  the  last  part  of  this  book  I  mean  to  apply  my 
theories  to  our  present  old-fashioned  army.  Many 
of  our  best  soldiers  will  disagree.  "  Our  Army," 
they  will  say,  "  has  come  magnificently  through  a 


202      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

prolonged,  fiery  trial.  When  you  have  a  good 
thing,  stick  to  it."  This  is,  no  doubt,  the  prevailing 
mood.  It  is  quite  all  wrong.  Not  only  is  our 
Army  out  of  date  to-day ;  it  was  already  behind 
the  times  on  the  outbreak  of  war.  Had  the  Navy 
'not  had  a  Churchill  and  a  Beatty,  we  should  now 
be  sitting  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  The  original 
organisation  was  good,  but  hardly  had  the  war 
begun  when  it  was  smashed.  The  Territorial  Force 
was  the  basic  part  of  our  pre-war  organisation ; 
the  experienced  T.F.  Associations  should  have 
stamped  out  new  Divisions,  comparatively  smoothly 
and  without  effort :  we  all  know  what  happened. 
There  were  inventions  in  those  days ;  our  mili- 
tary attaches  had  told  the  War  Office  all  about 
them.  The  most  vital  of  all  perhaps,  the  maxim- 
gun,  was  well  known  to  us.  Report  after  report 
came  in  on  the  use  the  Germans  were  making  of 
it.  We  nibbled  at  it  as  we  did  the  first  time  we 
used  the  tank.  Before  the  Royal  Commission 
on  the  South  African  War,  masses  of  heavy  artillery 
were  advocated.1  The  year  1 914  came  along :  the  idea 
had  been  ours :  the  big  guns  belonged  to  the  Ger- 
mans. The  uselessness  of  shock  cavalry  in  European 
warfare  had  explicitly  been  foretold 2 :  all  these 
ideas  and  many  others  fell  upon  stony  ground  and 

1  Report   of  the   Royal  Commission  on  the  War  in   South 
Africa,  page  111,  Vol.  II.,  Minutes  of  Evidence. 

2  Military    Attache's    Reports    on    the    War    in     Manchuria 
(omitted  in  the  version  printed  for  the  public)  :   "  For  my  part 
I  maintain  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  introduce  the  elephants 
of  Porus  on  to  a  modern  battle-field  as  regiments  of  lancers  and 
dragoons  who  are  too  much  imbued  with  the  true  cavalry  spirit 
to  use  fire-arms  and  too  sensible,  when  it  comes  to  the  pinch, 
to  employ  their  boasted  arme  blanche." — SIB  IAN  HAMILTON. 


GENIUS  203 

died.  Our  small,  professional,  expensive  Army 
ought  to  have  been  far  ahead  of  the  huge  German 
Army  when  war  broke  out.  To  give  an  extra 
two  machine-guns  to  each  battalion  in  the  German 
Army  was  a  most  serious  financial  proposition ; 
to  do  the  same  in  our  Army  was  a  flea-bite  ;  but  it 
was  the  German  Army,  not  ours,  that  got  the  extra 
machine-guns,  as  was  pointed  out  by  me  after  the 
Saxon  Manoeuvres  in  1908. 

What  is  the  moral  of  these  reflections  ?  Can  we 
do  better  next  time  ?  I  don't  know ;  but  we  can 
at  least  examine  how  it  has  been  that  we  have,  up 
to  date,  escaped  the  results  of  our  own  shortsighted- 
ness, not  to  speak  of  all  these  short  bows,  cross  bows, 
machine-guns,  heavy  guns  and  poison  gases,  and  how, 
by  continuing  on  the  same  lines,  they  may  be  able  to 
go  on  keeping  their  end  up  against  heat  rays,  super- 
Zepps.  submarine  dreadnoughts  and  whatever  other 
charming  surprises  the  future  may  have  in  store. 

For  some  characteristic  trait  has  stood  us  British 
in  good  stead  during  our  past,  else  how  do  we  find 
ourselves  poised,  at  this  moment,  upon  that  very 
fluid  and  precarious  point,  the  top  of  the  wave  ? 
This  I  say  well  knowing  it  is  the  fashion  of  our 
cousins  to  say  that  America  has  swallowed  us. 
That's  what  the  whale  thought  it  had  done  to 
Jonah  ! 

The  nations  are  astonished.  "  Where,"  they 
ask,  "  does  the  guiding  Daemon  of  England  reside 
so  that  we  may  pay  him  homage  ?  "  In  the  soil 
—amongst  the  nurseries — at  the  schools  :  is  it  on 
the  wings  of  their  detestable  East  wind  that  these 
heavy  islanders  have  nipped  on  to  the  omnibus 
and  taken  the  front  corner  seat  on  the  near  side  ? 


204      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Who  can  answer  ?  .  .  .  I  will.  The  guiding 
Daemon  of  England  resides  in  the  tenacity  of  Mister 
Thomas  Atkins.  If  only  he  could  get  a  genius  to 
lead  him,  the  whole  world  would  have  to  jabber 
English.  And  why  is  Thomas  Atkins  so  stiff  ? 
His  breeding  and  his  pride  in  it,  his  family,  county, 
country  traditions ;  in  a  word,  his  patriotism. 


CHAPTER  X 

PATRIOTISM 

Organisation  gives  the  Army  form — existence  ; 
discipline  lends  it  force — cohesion  ;  training  im- 
parts self-confidence — teaches  it  to  inflict  more 
loss  than  it  suffers.  None  of  these  touch  the  heart 
of  an  Army.  To  say,  as  has  been  said,  that  the 
Japanese  were  carried  to  victory  by  sheer  discipline, 
is  to  say  what  may  seem  to  be,  but  isn't.  I  can 
quite  understand  how  largely  discipline  must  have 
loomed  in  the  eyes  of  one  who  at  Port  Arthur  saw 
the  defile  of  battalions  march  in  sombre  procession 
against  iron  and  concrete  forts.  But,  in  the  open 
field,  where  individuality  could  spread  and  assert 
itself,  there  was  another  side  to  the  medal.  To 
show  genuine  enthusiasm  for  the  enemy  when  they 
defended  themselves  gallantly ;  to  make  light  of  a 
bad  wound  lest  the  next  day's  battle  might  be  missed ; 
to  be  so  anxious  to  meet  the  Russian  bullets  that 
officers  had  to  impress  upon  their  commands  that 
death  was  not  the  object  of  a  battle — all  these 
show  that  some  transcendental  motive  had  gripped 
the  rank  and  file. 

There  can  be  no  real  Army  without  some  form  of 
discipline,  and  yet  discipline  alone  does  not  make  a 
redoubtable  Army.  Discipline  makes  a  stubborn 
defence.  Discipline  will  bring  the  attack  up  to  fixed- 

205 


206      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

sight  range.  Discipline  lends  the  faint-hearted  a 
mask  with  a  good  face  painted  upon  it  whereby 
they  will  seem  to  keep  their  countenances  when 
faced  by  an  ugly  situation  :  it  does  not,  and  cannot 
of  itself,  create  fortitude  in  a  nation  ;  energy  in  an 
Army. 

A  shell  bursts  within  a  foot  of  a  poor,  undisciplined 
Japanese  coolie,  who  has  been  carrying  bentos  of 
rice  to  the  firing  line.  He  escapes  by  a  miracle  and 
flings  a  stone  into  the  smoking  crater  saying,  "  Take 
that,  you  Devil !  "  The  Japanese  officers  used  to 
boast — no — used  to  declare  with  reason  that  after 
two  or  three  weeks'  drill  any  one  of  their  common 
rickshaw  men  would  be  ready  to  run  a  neck-to-neck 
race  with  a  veteran  of  the  Yalu  straight  for  the 
enemy's  guns.  This  was  not,  could  not  have  been, 
in  virtue  of  his  military  discipline  or  training. 

Napoleon,  materialist  in  many  ways,  was  yet 
always  ready  to  doff  the  martinet's  cocked  hat  to 
the  invisible — the  incalculable.  Discipline,  yes. 
That  was  a  goodly  attribute.  Training,  organisation, 
equipment  and  supply,  how  well  they  were  thought 
out  and  applied  !  But  amongst  those  very  Grena- 
diers so  petrified  by  discipline  that  each  appeared  a 
mere  duplicate  automaton  of  his  fellows ;  amidst 
these  faultlessly  aligned  figures  seeming  to  be  nailed 
to  their  precise  place  in  the  ranks, — were  hearts 
that  had  throbbed  in  unison  with  the  wild  cadence 
of  the  Marseillaise.  Hearts  of  oak,  say  we — but 
hearts  aflame  were  at  the  service  of  the  Little 
Corporal.  Burning  within  the  breasts  of  the  old 
Guard ;  driving  forward  through  the  mitrail,  "  les 
hauls  tambours-majors  aux  panaches  enormes,"  was 
the  cult,  the  religion  of  la  gloire.  Advancing  like  a 


PATRIOTISM  207 

pillar  of  fire  by  night  and  a  pillar  of  smoke  by 
day  these  shapes  strode  forward  at  the  head  of  the 
old  Guard,  and  no  mortal  power  could  stand  against 
them — nothing  was  ever  to  resist  them — until  the 
white  clinging  snowflakes  of  Russia  had  congealed 
the  last  drop  that  had  flowed  through  these  valorous 
hearts.  Take  the  battles  of  Jena  and  Auerstadt — 
French  against  Prussians.  Before  a  shot  was  fired 
Napoleon  had  so  manoeuvred  his  Army  that,  by 
his  victory,  he  stood  to  win  infinitely  more  than  an 
ordinary  general  could  have  won  by  an  ordinary 
victory.  But,  even  so,  victory  had  still  to  be  won 
and  the  Prussians  did  not  realise  their  bad  strategy 
during  the  battles.  Both  battles  were,  actually 
and  tactically,  straightforward,  hard,  front  to  front, 
rough  and  tumble  struggles.  The  Prussian  troops 
were  beautifully  drilled,  thoroughly  disciplined ; 
whilst  their  parade  movements  and  their  performance 
of  the  firing  exercises  had  filled  all  contemporary 
experts  with  admiration.  The  Generals  meant 
fighting ;  the  regimental  officers  did  fight,  as 
to-day,  admirably.  The  Staff  and  departments  were, 
according  to  the  light  of  those  times,  well  organised 
although  their  supply  arrangements  were  clogged  by 
that  very  feudal  formalism  which  Napoleon  was 
engaged  in  destroying.1  Last,  but  not  least,  that 
secondary  moral  force,  the  martial  pride  produced 
in  an  Army  by  a  memory  of  Rosbach  and  Frederick 
and  by  a  consciousness  of  their  own  material  effi- 
ciency, stood  every  bit  as  high  as  it  did  before  the 

1  The  troops  were  absolutely  starving  in  the  midst  of  abun- 
dance. Requisitions  were  put  in  to  the  responsible  local  authority, 
the  great  Goethe.  No  answer  was  returned  and  the  troops  con- 
tinued to  starve. 


208      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Battle  of  the  Marne.  The  Prussian  Army  was 
indeed  enormously,  almost  uncannily,  self-confident. 
It  snapped  its  fingers  at  the  Grand  Army,  and  lo,  with 
one  kick,  the  Grand  Army  sent  it  flying. 

The  fruits  of  this  debacle  may  fairly  be  ascribed  to 
the  magic  of  Napoleon's  leadership,  but  not  the 
debacle  itself.  Auerstadt  was  a  worse,  altogether 
more  infernal,  defeat  than  Jena,  and  Auerstadt  was 
won  by  the  stout  Davout  and  his  famous  Third  Corps. 
To  read  the  memoir  of  Davout  is  to  understand  that 
the  organisation,  discipline  and  training  of  the 
Prussians  was  met  by  organisation,  discipline  and 
training  scarcely,  if  at  all,  inferior  to  it,  plus  some- 
thing else,  something  swift,  imponderable,  winged. 
The  Prussians  could  not  face  the  French.  Was  it 
haply  that  something  which  enabled  the  man  of 
destiny  to  overthrow  Army  after  Army — Nation 
after  Nation — until  only  a  handful  of  British  aristo- 
crats stood  between  him  and  the  immensity  of  the 
Imperial  idea  ? 

At  the  Battle  of  Lake  Regillus  there  appeared  two 
forms  of  more  than  mortal  stature,  mounted  on 
white  chargers,  leading  the  chivalry  of  Rome.  The 
warriors  to  whom  that  vision  was  vouchsafed  became 
forthwith  invincible,  and  so  it  is  now  and  will  be 
evermore.  The  immortals  still  mingle  sometimes 
in  the  earthly  conflict  and  not  always  do  they  choose 
the  side  of  the  big  battalions.  It  is  the  spirit,  the 
spirit  that  quickeneth. 

An  Army  is  something  more  than  a  marching, 
shooting  machine  working  in  the  grip  of  a  Draconian 
Code.  Obviously,  the  troops  must  learn  to  shoot 
and  to  manoeuvre ;  the  officers  to  command,  the 
rank  and  file  to  obey.  Practice  in  those  exercises  and 


PATRIOTISM  209 

habits  begin  to  bear  fruit  during  the  brief  course  of 
a  summer's  camp  and  the  longer  the  camp  goes  on 
the  richer  will  be  the  harvest.  But,  if  there  is  any 
truth  in  what  has  been  said  so  far,  it  is  certain, 
not  only  that  Napoleon's  pronouncement  on  moral 
values  was  true  when  it  was  made,  but  that,  from  now 
onwards,  it  will  tend  to  become  truer.  During  the 
last  three-quarters  of  the  twentieth  century,  in  fact, 
the  moral  factor  will  transcend  the  physical,  not  as 
three  to  one  but  as  four  to  one. 

Moral  forces  may  take  a  back  seat  at  Committees 
of  Imperial  Defence  or  in  War  Offices  ;  at  the  front 
they  are  put  where  Joab  put  Uriah.  There  is  a 
steady  bias  towards  material  in  every  administrator's 
mind ;  there  is  a  steady  bias  towards  numbers  in 
every  politician's  mind,  so  that,  at  last,  they  forget 
the  soul.  But  things  forgotten  do  not  thereby  in 
any  sense  cease  to  exist :  they  are  still  there  waiting 
till  time  gives  them  their  revenge,  like  a  latchkey 
left  lying  on  a  dressing-table  whilst  its  owner,  heed- 
less, far  distant,  whirls  with  his  inamorata  in  the 
mazy  evolutions  of  the  valse. 

The  latchkey  to  success  in  war  is  a  sound  moral 
outfit,  and  by  "  war  "  I  do  not  refer  merely  to  the 
clash  of  armies,  but  use  the  word  to  denote  the 
instinct  of  every  nation  to  expand  like  an  oak 
stretching  her  branches  to  the  sky  striving  against 
the  undergrowth  to  make  Tuum  Meum. 

When,  earlier  in  this  essay,  genius — ideas — in- 
ventions— imaginations  were  placed  at  the  head  of 
the  winning  factors  in  war,  campaigns  would  have 
been  a  better  word  to  use.  A  campaign  is  quickly 
over,  war  is  everlasting,  and  as  everlasting  qualities 
are  to  be  found  only  in  moral  fibre,  so  also  the  means 

p 


210      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

of  salvation  for  a  people,  whether  in  war  or  peace, 
must  be  sought  in  their  persuasion  that  they  do 
possess  brains,  hearts,  laws,  experiences  which  war- 
rant them  before  God  and  man  in  playing  some 
definite  part  in  the  development  of  the  world. 

The  moral  outfit  of  an  army  is  the  same  but  with 
a  difference.  We  have  no  word  in  English  to  express 
the  moral  outfit  of  an  Army  and  so  we  borrow  the 
French  words  morale  or  moral.  But,  although  we 
put  them  into  italics,  they  still  retain  a  savour  of 
the  English  "  moral "  which  we  apply  to  matters  of 
virtue  or  goodness.  The  simplest  way  out  of  it  (for 
we  must  have  a  word  to  express  this  special  military 
significance)  is  to  take  the  word  morale  out  of  its 
italics  and  adopt  it  into  our  language. 

The  morale  of  an  Army  is  compounded  of  enthu- 
siasm for  the  national  cause  and  of  belief  in  its  own 
arms.  The  value  to  an  Army  of  a  righteous  cause  is 
no  new  discovery.  William  the  Conqueror  man- 
oeuvred for  years  to  put  Harold  morally  in  the  wrong 
before  he  began  to  move  his  Knights  ;  he  succeeded 
and  robbed  Harold  of  his  Bishops  before  the  game 
began.  William,  in  fact,  made  much  the  same  use 
of  Harold's  oath  on  the  relics  of  the  saints  as  North- 
cliffe  did  of  Kaiser  William's  solemn  engagement  to 
protect  Belgium.  The  Papal  Bull  secured  by  the 
art  of  William  the  Conqueror  was  worth  to  him  five 
thousand  coats  of  mail,  and  the  loss  William  the 
Conquered  suffered  by  the  scrapping  of  his  signature 
was  five  million  fighting  men — no  less !  The 
materialistic  Germans  of  1914  deliberately,  quite 
deliberately,  put  geographical  and  technical  advan- 
tage above  clean  consciences  ;  had  they  not  done 
so  they  would  have  won. 


PATRIOTISM  211 

Throughout  History  religious  or  philosophical 
men  have  constantly  been  perceiving  truth  ;  i.e. 
the  reality  of  God,  and  have  even  from  time  to  time 
succeeded  in  gaining  a  theoretical  acceptance  for 
their  view  from  the  ordinary  Pagans  who  form  what 
is  called  the  Ruling  Class.  Yet,  let  the  Storm  arise, 
and  brute  instinct  reasserts  itself.  In  1914  the 
German  Great  General  Staff  had  reckoned  by  all 
the  most  profound  calculations  of  science  they  must 
win,  provided  they  started  off  on  a  dishonoured 
cheque.  Had  there  been  one  righteous  man  ;  one 
prophet  like  Isaiah  ;  in  Germany  he  would  have 
pointed  out  to  them  that  they  would  thus  raise  the 
powers  of  the  unseen  world  to  fight  in  the  enemy 
ranks — invisible  forces — incalculable  forces.  But 
since  1871  the  Germans  had,  bit  by  bit,  divested 
themselves  of  their  belief  in  things  they  could  not 
see,  smell,  taste,  or  touch.  They  wrote  about  them 
and  spoke  about  them  ;  their  Field  Service  Regula- 
tions paid  lip  service  to  them :  they  had  far  less 
belief  in  them  than  we  had.  In  other  words,  they 
were  doomed — or  damned  ;  it  doesn't  much  matter 
which  way  you  write  it. 

Although  our  William  the  Norman  took  more 
trouble  to  conform  to  the  ethics  of  his  time  than 
did  William  the  German  in  his,  we  need  not  conclude 
that  there  has  been  any  slump  in  moral  values  be- 
tween A.D.  1066  and  1914.  Ideal  wars  have  been 
fought  in  the  interval  as,  for  instance,  the  Crusades ; 
also,  there  have  been  armies  like  those  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  whose  grenadiers  cared  no  more  whether 
they  were  in  the  right  or  in  the  wrong  of  it  than  the 
Zulu  impis  when  they  sallied  forth  at  Cetewayo's 
bidding  to  wash  their  spears.  There  have,  in  fact, 


212      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN  ARMY 

been  ups  and  downs ;  yet,  take  it  all  in  all,  as 
civilisation  has  advanced,  the  morale  of  Armies  has 
drawn  more  and  more  of  its  strength  from  conscience, 
and  so,  politicians  also  have  been  more  and  more 
forced  to  cut  their  best  friend,  the  Devil,  when  they 
meet  him  in  public.  Leaving  ourselves  outside  the 
question,  we  can  see  now  that  although  the  leaders 
of  the  Germans  had  coldly  determined  to  sacrifice 
the  chivalry  of  war,  and  even  its  rules,  upon  the  altar 
of  practical  expediency,  they  had  to  try  and  conceal 
their  crime  from  the  rank  and  file  of  their  own  Army. 
It  was  all  very  well  to  take  the  honour  and  chivalry 
of  the  old  Teutonic  knights  and  nail  them  up  dead, 
as  a  gamekeeper  nails  vermin  to  a  tree  ;  there  is 
always  an  advantage  in  getting  a  free  hand  :  but  it 
would  not  do  at  all  if  those  simpletons,  Michael  and 
Fritz,  were  to  suspect  what  had  happened.  So  the 
Great  General  Staff  had  to  pretend  that  the  shooting 
of  occasional  batches  of  innocent  civilians  was  a  plan 
for  reducing  the  sum  total  of  human  misery ;  that 
it  was,  in  fact,  a  philanthropic  act;  that  (as  Mr. 
Wells  puts  it  when  vindicating  the  Bolshevists)  they 
"  did  on  the  whole  kill  for  a  reason  and  to  an  end  "  ; 
that  the  Kaiser  had  only  anticipated  the  French 
when  he  broke  the  neutrality  of  Belgium,  etc.,  etc. 
These  persuasions  were  effectual,  for  the  German 
Army  could  never  have  made  its  very  fine  fight 
for  Kultur  if  it  had  not  genuinely  believed  that  the 
German  soldier  was  a  better  human  being  as  well 
as  a  better  fighter  than  the  French  or  the  Russian. 
Hence  propaganda.  The  devil,  unfortunately,  is 
immortal.  Whenever  God  takes  a  step  forward; 
look  out !  For  sure  as  Fate  the  devil  is  at  His  elbow. 
Like  the  battle  between  big  guns  and  armour,  there's 


PATRIOTISM  213 

no  end  to  it.  Armies  develop  consciences — curse 
them  !  A  dope  must  be  invented  for  the  consciences ! 
Propaganda,  as  inverted  patriotism,  draws  nourish- 
ment from  the  sins  of  the  enemy.  If  there  are  no 
sins,  invent  them  !  The  aim  is  to  make  the  enemy 
appear  so  great  a  monster  that  he  forfeits  the  rights 
of  a  human  being.  He  cannot  bring  a  libel  action, 
so  there  is  no  need  to  stick  at  trifles.  So  he  boils 
down  his  dead  comrades  for  their  fat :  horrible  ! 
He  is  excommunicated.  To  kill  him  becomes  a  meri- 
torious act.  See-saw  ;  so  we  go  ;  and  the  problem 
facing  our  statesmen  to-day  is  how,  in  peace,  we 
may  best  knit  together  those  beliefs  of  our  rank  and 
file  in  their  own  country  and  thus,  in  war,  reproduce 
that  flash  like  a  naked  sword  which  came  in  1914 
from  the  invincible  soul  of  our  Army.  For  that  we 
must  turn  to  Patriotism. 

Patriotism  !     What  is  it  ? 

Patriotism  is  an  outfit  of  recollections,  aspirations 
and  ideals  peculiar  to  the  bulk  of  the  inhabitants  of 
some  region  ;  or  even,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Jews, 
held  independently  of  any  existing  city  or  land. 
But  I  think  there  must  be  a  territorial  basis,  if  not 
in  actuality,  then  at  least  in  old  sagas  or  dreams,  and 
that  it  is  this  which  makes  the  distinction  between 
patriotism  amd  religion.  Religion  is  the  patriotism 
of  an  angel :  she  wishes  to  extend  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  by  prayer,  by  sacrifice.  Patriotism  is  more 
earthy  in  its  texture  and  yet  retains,  or  should 
retain,  a  wish  to  do  good  at  its  heart.  The  patriot 
is  not  out  for  oil,  he  is  out  for  "  live  and  let  live." 
The  cleaner  cut  the  area  of  the  native  land,  the 
stronger  the  patriotism,  as  we  see  in  the  cases  of 
islands  like  the  United  Kingdom,  Japan,  Switzer- 


214      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY   OF  AN   ARMY 

land  and  Ireland.  This  makes  me  feel  that  Mr. 
Wells  for  all  his  brilliant  intellect  and  all  his  righteous 
judgments  has  never  fathomed  patriotism.  The 
idea  underlying  "  the  enlargement  of  Patriotism 
to  a  World  State "  will  remain  clever  nonsense, 
until,  that  is  to  say,  his  own  Martians  make  their 
long-deferred  attack  upon  our  planet. 

Almost  always  patriotism  is  founded  on  a  common 
history  illuminated  by  acts  of  more  or  less  mythical 
heroes  and  expounded  in  the  traditional  style  by 
mothers  and  schoolmistresses.  Once  grafted  on 
to  the  young  idea  the  sentiment  is  exploited  by 
ballad  makers  and  singers ;  by  writers,  artists  and 
politicians.  Hence  arises  a  public  or  national  belief  ; 
in  the  case  of  England,  a  belief  in  a  God  of  twin 
forms  :  (1 )  John  Bull,  a  jolly  old  farmer,  all  for  sport, 
hospitality  and  fair  play  :  (2)  Britannia,  a  severe  and 
heavily-armed  female  who  is  not  going  to  stand 
any  nonsense.  John  Bull  and  Britannia  are  every 
bit  as  good  as  the  Roman  Gemini  and  stand  broadly 
for  freedom,  go-as-you-please,  my-house-is-my-castle, 
and  voluntary  service  as  against,  for  instance,  the 
German  creed  of  order,  obedience,  my-house-is-the- 
property-of-the-State  and  compulsory  service. 

Patriotism  is  like  a  plant  whose  roots  stretch 
down  into  race  and  place  subconsciousness  ;  a  plant 
whose  best  nutriments  are  blood  and  tears  :  a  plant 
which  dies  down  in  peace  and  flowers  most  brightly  in 
war.  Patriotism  does  not  calculate,  does  not  profi- 
teer, does  not  stop  to  reason  :  in  an  atmosphere  of 
danger  the  sap  begins  to  stir ;  it  lives ;  it  takes 
possession  of  the  soul. 

Inherited  traditions  of  sacrifices  endured,  of 
tyrannies  overcome ;  a  present  determination  that 


PATRIOTISM  215 

these  sacrifices,  these  victories,  must  and  shall  be 
lived  up  to  and  maintained,  plus  common  associa- 
tions with  the  mountain  and  vale,  the  river,  forest, 
plain  and  city  of  the  actual  native  land — these  are 
the  emotions  which  awaken  suddenly  from  years 
and  years  of  slumber  to  the  call  of  the  tocsins  of 
war.  Sedan  binds  together  the  Hanoverians  and 
the  Prussians  ;  also,  in  another  way,  the  French 
aristocrat  and  the  French  Socialist,  lending  by  a 
common  and  yet  how  different  a  memory,  a  touch 
of  passion  to  the  patriotism  of  two  great  countries. 
So,  too,  the  mighty  Rhine  bears  on  its  bosom  to  each 
German  a  rich  sentimental  cargo  of  Rhine  maidens, 
Loreleis,  Rhine  gold ;  precious  unalterable  posses- 
sions ;  whereas,  to  the  French,  the  same  river  is  an 
emblem  of  military  conquests  and  glory  ;  an  emblem 
to  which  they  still  hold  and,  in  holding,  hold  also 
France  herself  together.  When  Field-Marshal  Foch 
arrived  at  Cologne  and  entered  a  room  filled  with 
British  officers  of  high  rank  waiting  to  have  the 
honour  of  being  presented  to  him,  he  walked  right 
past  them  as  if  they  did  not  exist  to  the  window 
which  opened  upon  a  wonderful  prospect  of  the 
Rhine.  Throwing  it  open,  he  gazed  at  the  classic 
river  as  if  he  would  drink  it  up  with  his  eyes  and 
then,  stretching  out  his  arms,  exclaimed  in  a  voice 
vibrating  with  emotion  :  "  Le  Ehin  !  " 

Scottish  women  play  their  part  right  well.  Where 
is  the  Scot  with  soul  so  dead  that  he  does  not  accept 
the  heritage  bequeathed  him  by  the  Bruce  when 
with  his  battle-axe  he  cracked  the  skull  of  "the  fierce 
De  Boune  "  ?  It  happened  a  good  while  back,  but  your 
true  Scot  can  still  hear  the  impact  of  that  blow. 
Or  else  ;  they  may  prefer  to  watch  with  the  eyes 


216      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  their  hero  the  seven  times  renewed  efforts  of  the 
famous  spider  to  forestall  Messrs.  J.  &  P.  Coats 
and  Co.  with  a  web  into  which  all  the  world  must 
fall.  Whichever  way  you  take  it,  a  Scotsman  pos- 
sessing family  traditions  of  that  sort  has  no  excuse 
at  all  if  he  fails  to  get  the  better  of  less  fortunately 
ancestored  folk.  He,  of  all  men,  is  born  with  an  old 
silver  apostle  spoon  in  his  mouth.  The  banks  and 
braes  o'  Bonnie  Doon — the  Gaudie  "  rinning " 
—still  rinning — at  the  back  of  Bennachie — they 
are  his,  those  lovely  streams ;  they  are  his  own 
ever-living  waters  in  quite  another  sense  from  the 
Nile  or  Ganges  which  might  seem  more  actually  to 
belong  to  him  ;  they  slip  away  through  the  fingers 
of  the  actual  sporting  tenants  as  evasive  as  the  snow- 
flakes  which  fall  upon  their  surface  :  they  are  Scotch  ; 
they  are  absolutely  ours. 

A  common  dislike  makes  almost  as  good  a  basis  for 
a  combine  as  a  taste  held  in  common.  In  our  wars 
against  the  French  the  propaganda  used  against  them 
was  their  habit  of  toasting  frogs  just  as,  lately, 
against  the  Germans,  the  propaganda  was  their  habit 
of  roasting  their  fallen  comrades  for  fat.  The  pre- 
judices of  race  are  as  useful  in  keeping  the  rank  and 
file  shoulder  to  shoulder  against  the  foreigner  as 
its  virtues. 

In  the  days  between  1791  and  the  fall  of  Napoleon, 
the  Swiss,  though  militarily  entirely  overwhelmed, 
over-run  ;  though  they  were  given  "  resolute  govern- 
ment "  no  end;  came  out  of  their  ordeal  more  Swiss 
and  less  French  than  ever  they  had  been.  In  the 
sphere  of  the  spirit  I  think  there  is  no  process  corre- 
sponding with  the  process  of  material  absorption ; 
i.e.  a  boa  constrictor  swallowing  a  donkey.  When 


PATRIOTISM  217 

Napoleon  tried  to  swallow  the  Swiss  they  escaped 
quite  easily  by  ignoring  the  verdicts  of  the  magis- 
trates set  over  them  and  by  accepting  tacitly  instead 
the  verdicts  of  other  magistrates,  outwardly  simple 
fellow  citizens,  whom  they,  surreptitiously,  had 
agreed  amongst  themselves  to  consider  as  their  real 
rulers.  But  what's  the  use  of  danger  signals  ? 

If  only  we  would  look  back  a  bit  and  think,  we 
would  see  that  although  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  the 
Force  which  can  kill  a  tyrant  is  "no  remedy,"  yet 
it  is  quite  true  that  "  force  is  no  remedy  "  against 
patriotism ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  stimulant. 
Force  cannot  kill  the  legend  of  Tell  or  the  legend  of 
Charles  the  Bold.  Swelled  head  is  the  Nemesis  of 
success,  and  a  swelled  head  turns  naturally  to 
Force ;  but  if  any  coolness  remains  do  not  let  us 
use  it  on  patriotism.  Free  trade,  fostering  of  native 
industries,  etc.,  have  been  vaunted  as  solvents  of 
patriotisms.  There  were  many  writers  writing  just 
before  the  war  who  prophesied  that  "  reciprocity  " 
could,  and  would,  convert  the  inhabitants  of  Canada 
into  Yankees.  But  reciprocity  never  got  past  a 
certain  challenging  double  sentry ;  the  ghosts  of 
Wolfe  and  Montcalm. 

Still,  business  relations,  Zollvereins,  are  instru- 
ments, no  doubt,  and  an  enduring  patriotism  will 
usually  be  found  to  include  some  identical  interest, 
shared  by  the  patriots  but  threated  by  foreigners. 

Patriotism  unites  a  multitude  (1)  in  remembrance ; 
(2)  in  danger  ;  (3)  in  aspiration  ;  (4)  in  the  posses- 
sive mood.  The  more  frequent  the  play  of  these 
sensations  the  more  enduring  the  mood  of  the  patriot. 
Therefore,  patriotism  needs  time  just  like  that  velvet 
lawn  in  the  quadrangle  of  Oxford  which  a  millionaire 


218      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

wanted  for  Harvard.  Heredity — age — gives  us  an 
advantage.  For  us  ten  thousand  memories,  sad 
or  splendid,  mingle  with  the  song  of  the  thrush, 
the  colour  of  the  primrose,  the  scent  of  the  sweet 
briar  to  give  us  higher  guidance  than  busy  common 
sense  can  offer  in  times  of  danger.  Other  races  may 
take  the  destruction  of  the  Legions  of  Varus  as  their 
lode-star — or  the  victories  of  the  Revolution — or 
else  they  have  been  reared  on  tales  of  clan  combats 
fought  by  gnome-like  cavaliers  clad  in  chain 
armour,  and  believe  the  cherry  blossom  to  be  more 
lovely  than  the  rose.  Well,  let  them  hug  their  fond 
traditions  and  welcome  !  We  have  no  quarrel  with 
those  worshippers  of  strange  gods  so  long  as  they 
leave  us  our  own  altars  unprofaned.  But  when 
they  approach  us  in  minatory  guise  and  bid  us  bow 
down  and  worship  in  the  house  of  Rimmon — why 
then  we  pull  ourselves  together  and  realise  that, 
viewed  in  relation  to  these  strangers,  all  those  our 
countrymen  we  had  imagined  to  be  nobles  and 
esquires,  butchers,  bakers,  bankers,  soldiers,  sailors, 
tinkers,  and  tailors  are  just  quite  simply  Britons. 
Yes,  we  pull  ourselves  together  and  say  we  are 
shoulder  to  shoulder  here  and  that  we  have  died 
by  the  million  there  and  are  ready  to  die  by  the 
million  again  sooner  than  abdicate  from  the  mighty 
Empire  of  fact  and  still  mightier  Empire  of  thought 
bequeathed  to  us  by  our  ancestors.  Here  is  at 
the  same  time  the  touchstone  and  the  whetstone  of 
patriotism.  All  our  love  of  country,  love  of  one 
another,  is  as  tinkling  brass  and  sounding  cymbals 
unless  we  are  prepared  to  lay  down  our  lives  for 
them. 

Once  more,  the  winning  quality  in  war  is  the 


PATRIOTISM  219 

cohesion  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  brought 
about  by  the  spiritual  cement  ordinarily  called 
patriotism.  The  solidarity  of  a  free  people  with 
their  own  free  state.  Where  this  exists  it  must 
manifest  itself  in  the  conduct  of  the  Army ;  in  the 
leading  of  the  officers  ;  in  the  devotion  of  the  rank 
and  file. 

Seeing  then  the  inestimable  value  of  patriotism 
can  we  not  intensify  its  force  ?  We  know  that  the 
quality  is  often  lacking  to  people  otherwise  excellent. 
Take  the  Chinese.  Work  and  output  are  preached 
to  us  day  in  and  day  out  as  the  only  true  road 
towards  national  salvation.  Well,  the  Celestials 
have  been  sweating  their  guts  out  for  at  least  one 
thousand  years  ;  yet  China  seems  further  away  from 
peace,  comfort,  wealth,  happiness — not  to  say  from 
setting  a  mark  upon  the  world — than  she  was  one 
thousand  years  ago.  Why  ?  The  Japanese  say, 
1  *  Because  she  cannot  breed  good  officers. ' '  Probably 
the  Japanese  are  right,  but  as  she  breeds  much 
better  merchants  than  the  Japanese  their  theory 
leaves  something  to  be  solved. 

The  fundamental  cleavages  between  the  character, 
"  form  "  and  outlook  of  the  upper  classes  of  the 
various  nations — of  the  classes  who  travel  about — 
has  tended  to  conceal  from  mankind  the  close  kin- 
ship existing  between  their  lower  classes.  The 
cosmopolitan  veneer  with  which  all  aristocracies  are 
equally  coated  misleads  in  the  one  direction,  whilst 
the  fact  that  peasants  are  the  guardians  of  national 
dress,  habits  and  ceremonies  leads  observers  astray 
in  the  other.  But  look  into  their  hearts,  and  no 
gulf  at  all  separates  the  German  and  British  pea- 
santry. Even  the  Turk  and  Chinaman  are  nearer  to 


220      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

us,  in  that  stratum,  than  is  generally  imagined.  I 
an  not  theorising  here  ;  I  am  speaking  from  personal 
experience  picked  up  by  living  in  farmhouses  in 
Saxony  and  Bavaria  and  by  months  spent  in  Chinese 
cottages.  It  is  when  you  come  to  the  men  in  the 
tall  hats  and  frock-coats  ;  superficially  as  like  as 
two  pins ;  that  the  contrast  in  ideals  becomes 
startling. 

Still,  there  is  one  very  real  variation  in  type 
between  Chinese  and,  let  us  say,  Japanese.  Take 
one  of  those  excellent,  honest  hard-working  Man- 
churian  farmers,  or  one  of  the  commercially  upright, 
high-principled  Chinese  merchants  of  Hankow  and 
make  him  into  a  Lord  High  Admiral,  and  he  loads 
shell  with  saw-dust  instead  of  expensive  high  ex- 
plosive and  pockets  the  difference.  Now  take  the 
commonest  little  cheating  Japanese  shop-keeper  and 
he  would  far  sooner  die  than  do  that ! 

Had  China  possessed  real  patriotism  instead  of 
a  false  spirit  of  vainglory,  Japan  could  never  have 
conquered  those  millions  by  a  few  thousands  even 
though  the  eunuchs  had  expended  the  whole  of  the 
Naval  Estimates  in  rebuilding  the  summer  palace  at 
Pekin.  The  truth  is  that  China  has  arrived  at  Mr. 
Wells'  winning  post  of  the  enlargement  of  patriotism 
to  a  World  State  and  has,  in  the  process,  lost  both 
the  patriotism  and  the  State !  A  big  issue  is 
utterly  lost  on  the  Chinaman  ;  he  can't  see  the  wood 
for  the  trees ;  he  can't  see  the  State  for  the  estate. 
These  people  may  be  conscious,  and  are  conscious,  of 
something  pleasing  to  them  in  the  society  of  their 
own  folk  as  compared  with  foreign  devils  ;  they  are 
conceited  and  exclusive,  but  they  won't  risk  a  scratch 
to  maintain  the  independence  of  this,  to  them, 


PATRIOTISM  221 

pleasing  social  group.  They  will  make  sacrifices  for 
a  master,  for  a  brother,  but  the  idea  of  the  State  is 
beyond  them.  In  the  domain  of  statesmanship,  they 
are  a  thoroughly  mediocre  lot.  They  can  do  small, 
ordinary  things  ;  they  cannot  produce  even  a  few 
selected  men,  as  the  Japanese  can,  who  will  grasp 
and  grapple  with  great  principles.  Therefore,  China 
is  not,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word — a  nation  at 
all.  It  is  a  mere  agglomeration  of  men  and,  being 
wanting  in  moral  force,  has  no  entity,  no  being,  no 
power  of  progress.  The  Chinaman  cannot  credit  a 
public  functionary,  a  Mandarin,  with  decent  motives, 
and  he  is  right.  Let  philosophers  enquire  what  the 
root  cause  of  this  vast  fiasco — this  huge  blank 
wasted  area  on  the  globe  may  be — filled  it  is  true 
with  400,000,000  human  beings  possessing  good 
brains ;  good  bodies ;  high  individual  principles 
and  gifts  all  doing  nothing  to  help  on  the  world ; 
let  them  enquire  ;  to  us,  on  the  face  of  it,  the  imme- 
diate reason  is  simply  lack  of  patriotism. 

The  period  1870-1914  incubated  the  ideas  engen- 
dered by  the  Franco-German  War ;  politically, 
socially,  agriculturally,  and  industrially  they  grew 
up  and  led  surely — quite  surely — to  the  greatest 
war  of  all.  The  older  historians  are  now  proved  to 
have  been  quite  right  in  giving  a  greater  weight 
and  space  to  wars  than  to  questions  of  politics  or 
commerce  ;  they  were  right  because,  as  we  living 
men  can  see  more  clearly  than  our  fathers,  steps  of 
progress,  or  retrogression,  are  punctuated  by  wars 
until  we  get  to  the  fullstop  or  death  of  a  nation, 
which  also  is  always  a  war.  During  that  epoch 
1870-1914  it  was  my  fortune  to  see  many  lands  and 
peoples,  and  it  seemed  to  me  then  clear  that  the 


222      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Prussians,  Bulgarians  and  Japanese  grasped  the 
extent  of  their  individual  responsibilities  towards 
the  Fatherland  more  fully  than  other  races.  When 
Von  Moltke  was  asked  in  1908  what  in  his  opinion  was 
the  first  qualification  for  an  officer  of  the  General 
Staff,  he  replied,  "  The  first  qualification  ever  since 
the  day  of  my  namesake  has  been  not  so  much  the 
possession  of  any  quality  as  the  absence  of  a  quality 
— the  quality  of  ambition.  When,  with  us,  an 
officer  of  the  General  Staff  is  a  climber — well — we 
have  no  further  use  for  him."  Every  one  of  the 
Japanese  Commanding  Generals  in  1904-1905  was 
entirely  free  from  any  thought  of  self.  I  cannot  say 
as  much  for  the  European-trained  officers  of  the 
General  Staff  ;  but  of  the  old-fashioned  Commanding 
Generals  I  do  say  with  complete  confidence  that  it 
was  so.  The  Bulgarians  were  not  on  so  high  a 
plane  as  the  Japanese,  but,  still,  they  resembled 
them  curiously  in  many  ways  and  especially  in  the 
burning,  sleepless  quality  of  their  patriotism. 

In  Great  Britain  patriotism  did  not  seem  to  stand 
on  the  German  or  Japanese  level.  This  was  because, 
with  a  system  of  voluntary  service,  the  State  was  not 
working  upon  the  patriotism  of  its  citizens  all  day 
and  every  day  for  all  it  was  worth  as,  for  instance, 
by  conscription.  Apparently,  we  had  buried  our 
gifts  in  a  napkin,  but,  as  I  wrote  in  an  essay  on 
Voluntary  Service  at  that  time,  "  the  vital  current 
still  flows  strongly  under  the  surface  where,  for  any- 
thing we  know  to  the  contrary,  it  may  be  filling 
vast  reservoirs  " — and  it  was !  Those  were  the 
days  when  millionaires  and  profiteers  used  to  write 
to  The  Times  deploring  the  fact  that  our  older 
universities  did  not  train  our  youth  to  business  ! 


PATRIOTISM  223 

But,  praise  be  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, the  one  by  its  instinct  and  tone,  the  other 
with  the  whole  force  of  its  intellect,  have  stood  out 
against  the  standards  of  Capitalism  and  the  counting 
house  and  exalted  against  money  bonds  the  bonds 
of  gentle  culture  and  of  a  common  birthright.  The 
ideal  of  our  great  universities  has  been  rather  the 
Public  Servant  than  the  Commercial  Traveller. 
Many  British  officers  used  to  serve,  not  for  their 
starvation  pay,  but  for  love  of  their  country  and 
on  the  off-chance  of  being  able  to  defend  it  with  their 
lives.  Some  of  them  were  deep-thinking,  assiduous 
men  of  business,  drawing  hundreds  a  year  when  they 
might  have  made  as  many  thousands  elsewhere. 
They  were  aware  of  the  fact  and  remained  well 
satisfied  with  the  hundreds.  Our  British  Samurai,  in 
fact,  men  of  high  honour  and  noble  tradition,  were 
bound  up  with  the  life-history  of  their  race  and  of 
their  regiments.  They  deliberately,  indeed  joyously, 
faced  up  to  a  life  of  adventure,  roving,  action,  exile, 
and  poverty  because  it  satisfied  and  reposed  their 
souls,  because  it  redeemed  them  from  the  sterility 
of  a  Chinese  career — a  life  of  sheer  egoism.  May 
they  rest  in  peace  these  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of 
younger  comrades  whom  I  have  inspected  on 
countless  parades  and  field-days,  have  trained  at 
Hythe  and  at  the  Indian  Schools  and  have  served 
with  in  so  many  wars.  They  sleep  where  the  waters 
of  the  blue  ^Egean  reflect  a  land  very  beautiful  with 
lilies  and  all  sorts  of  flowers ;  they  sleep  in  France 
and  Macedonia  ;  in  Palestine  where  Richard  Lion- 
hearted  and  their  ancestors  fought  before  them  ; 
in  Africa-East  and  Africa-Southwest,  all  over  the 
world  their  graves  stand  as  monuments  of  honour 


224      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

to  their  race.  For  they  are  dead  :  so  many  of  them 
are  dead  that  as  a  class  they  have  passed  away. 
Alas  !  for  those  thousands  of  gallant  souls  whose 
spirit  was  as  a  mirror  wherein  could  be  seen  reflected 
the  glory  of  imperial  England.  They  are  gone : 
so  I  thought — and  then — I  saw  Woolwich  and 
Sandhurst ! 

I  saw  Woolwich  and  Sandhurst,  and  lo  !  the  sun 
was  rising  again  over  the  dark  horizon  of  our  islands 
—the  sun — and  all  was  well  with  the  world.  The 
new  boys  are  the  old  boys  to  the  life ;  the  same 
type,  the  same  class,  the  same  ideals — only,  there 
are  many  more  of  them.  France  has  lent  us 
five  Officer  Instructors  to  each  of  our  Colleges  ;  they 
are  picked  men  who  have  made  their  mark  in  the 
war  and  are  now  making  another  mark  upon  Wool- 
wich and  Sandhurst.  What  do  they  say  of  our 
lion  cubs  ? 

They  say  that  whether  from  the  moral  point  of  view 
or  from  the  physical  point  of  view  they  did  not 
know,  till  they  came  here,  that  there  existed  any- 
thing quite  so  fine  as  these  two  bodies  of  English 
cadets.  From  the  intellectual  point  of  view  and 
from  the  educational  point  of  view,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  could  not,  so  they  declare,  have  conceived  so 
great  a  waste  of  good  stuff  as  was  exemplified  by 
those  same  cadets. 

Be  it  so  !  Let  the  rest  of  the  world  have  the  brains 
provided  we  keep  the  character.  If  our  Empire  is  to 
endure  let  us  rejoice  in  our  possession  of  a  coming 
class  of  officers  who  are  so  strong  and  so  sane  in 
body  and  soul  that  they  astonish  some  of  the  best 
soldiers  of  France.  We  have,  we  must  have,  a 
singular  system  of  education  if  we  produce  speci- 


PATRIOTISM  225 

mens  so  singular ;  and,  in  effect,  it  is  so  singular 
that  no  foreigners  and  only  about  one-hundredth  of 
our  own  people  really  understand  it.  The  essential 
difference  between  British  patriotism  and,  let  us 
say,  German  patriotism,  is  that  the  former  aims 
at  spreading  the  standards  of  the  good  Public  school- 
boy;  i.e.  the  ideals  of  fair- play,  of  playing  the  game, 
of  telling  the  truth.  Its  object  is  not  merely  to 
aggrandise  Britain,  to  paint  the  map  red,  but  to  get 
backward  or  less  fortunate  races  to  learn  the  value 
of  a  cricket  ball  and  of  an  honest  umpire.  Many  of 
those  who  go  out  into  the  utmost  parts  of  the 
Empire  could  not,  or  would  not  if  they  could,  put 
their  ideals  into  words,  but,  they  act  on  them  !  Our*" 
patriotism  lives  because  it  is  not  narrow  or  selfish, 
aiming  solely  at  gaining  for  one  country  and  that  its 
own  country.  The  first  time  this  high  ideal  was 
betrayed  was  at  Versailles.  May  it  be  the  last. 
Patriotism  which  is  narrow  is  bound  to  fall  in  the  end, 
just  as  Dives  who  forgot  Lazarus  is  bound  to  fall. 
These  ideas  lie  behind  Wells'  mind,  but,  marvel- 
lous as  are  his  gifts  of  expression,  he  loses  touch 
somehow  here  : — I  think  he  was  not  at  a  public 
school  and  his  doctrinaire  socialism  leads  him 
astray.  The  same  thought  is  behind  Nurse  Ca veil's 
"  Patriotism  is  not  enough."  She  saw  plenty  of 
German  patriots,  but  she  had  not  the  knowledge 
public  schoolboys  have  of  the  other  kind.  In  my 
chapter  on  the  "  Application  "  of  my  theories  to 
our  new-model  Army  I  shall  have  a  word  or  two 
more  to  say  on  the  cultivation  of  British  Patriotism. 


CHAPTER  XI 
APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION 

Shelley,  after  discoursing  to  a  fair  lady  upon 
the  beautiful  flirtations  of  mountains,  rivers,  oceans, 
and  whatnots,  suddenly  pops  out  with  his — 

"  What  are  all  these  kissings  worth 
If  thou  kiss  not  me  ?  " 

I  am  quite  sure  the  lady  agreed  with  Shelley 

that  they  were  no  d d  use  at  all  unless  they 

led  up  to  an  application,  and  so  I  will  go  right  on 
with  only  one  word  of  warning  ;  let  the  machinery 
be  of  the  best,  but,  make  it  as  good  as  you  like, 
you  can't  get  away  from  the  Man.  Taking  our 
ramshackle,  patchwork  constitution  as  it  is,  a  great 
Prime  Minister  can  still  work  wonders  with  it.  By 
making  a  couple  of  simple  changes  in  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  outfit  he  could  afford,  as  he  cannot  now 
afford,  to  dispense  with  good  machinery.  Or  else, 
take  Mr.  Asquith.  Imagine  a  hard-working  Mr. 
Asquith  with  initiative,  and  you  have  imagined  a 
P.M.  who  could  easily  do  without  aid  from  the 
mechanism  of  a  modernised  staff. 

There  is  no  way  of  illustrating  personality  except 
by  personalities.  Every  one  knows  something  of 
the  examples  I  have  chosen ;  either  we  must  get 
some  one  better  than  either  or  else  we  must  improve 
our  machinery. 

22« 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    227 

As  to  the  machinery  do  not  please  imagine  that 
the  splendid  model  created  by  Haldane  between 
December,  1905,  and  June,  1912,  remains  abreast  of 
the  times.  Although  still  in  good  working  trim  it 
stands,  in  relation  to  what  should  by  now  have 
been  launched  upon  the  Empire,  exactly  as  a  1910 
motor-car  does  to  a  1921  issue  by  the  same  firm. 
But  there  is  no  new  output.  The  War  Office  con- 
tains clever  men  but — no  Haldane. 

Until,  hi  December,  1905,  Haldane  emerged  out  of 
the  blackness  of  a  record  fog,  clutching  his  famous 
seals  of  office,  the  War  Office  was  without  form  and 
void.  The  Army  Council  had  expanded  Arnold 
Forster's  5,000  men  into  80,000  and  had  some 
forty  field  batteries  to  send  with  them.  This  was 
the  best  they  could  do  in  the  way  of  an  Expedi- 
tionary Force.  Haldane  came  like  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis.  By  skilful  reorganisation  he  doubled 
the  available  number  of  rifles  and  guns  without 
adding  one  to  their  actual  number,  and  then  went 
on  to  create,  out  of  a  chaos  of  Militia  and  Volunteers, 
a  great  special  reserve  for  the  Expeditionary  Force 
as  well  as  fourteen  new  divisions  of  Territorials 
supported  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  Territorial 
batteries ;  he  made  officers'  training  corps,  and 
many  other  things  as  well,  and  spent  less  money  ! 
That  splendid  Army  has  served  its  purpose. 

To-day  the  purpose  is  quite  different.  No  balance 
of  power  to  redress :  no  defence  of  hearths  and 
homes.  But  those  were  the  objectives  of  Haldane's 
organisation  ! 

What  do  we  want  to-day  ?  My  ideas  on  the 
subject  will  come  out  as  we  go  on.  All  I  would 
suggest  just  here  is  that  we  want  smaller,  more 


228      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

compact,  more  mobile,  more  highly  machined  forma- 
tions, each  sufficient  unto  itself,  capable  of  bringing 
the  last  word  of  science  and  skill  to  bear  upon  areas 
containing  less  skilled,  less  powerfully  armed,  people. 
Also,  that  something  drastic  must  be  done  to  weld 
together  the  old  Services  of  Army  and  Navy  and  to 
see  that  the  new  adjuncts  of  air,  under-sea  and  tanks 
do  not  break  away  from  the  main  organisation  and 
group  themselves  into  separate  Services. 

To  reorganise  the  Army  alone  would  be  like  patch- 
ing shoddy  with  broadcloth  :  the  defence  fabric  would 
not  stand  it.  As  we  get  on  with  the  Army  it  will 
become  evident  that  the  Navy,  Air  Service,  Com- 
mittee of  Imperial  Defence,  and  Cabinet  are  equally 
crying  out  for  repairs. 

The  intense  vitality  of  military  tradition,  in  so 
many  ways  an  asset  to  an  Army,  is  a  drawback  in 
this  one  way  at  least — that  it  predisposes  soldiers 
against  change.  But  now  that  so  many  civilians 
have  been  through  the  mill  there  is  a  chance  that 
we  may  for  once  take  time  by  the  forelock  and  meet 
half-way  the  unpleasant  surprises  with  which  the 
Versailles  Treaty  is  pregnant. 

For  my  part,  I  say,  now  is  the  time.  Ideas, 
like  fluttering  birds,  are  hovering  on  the  dim  thres- 
holds of  lif e.  Why  wait  ?  So,  listen  to  me  !  Re- 
organise  the  Army  from  top  to  bottom  ;  as  well 
as,  incidentally,  the  Navy  and  the  Air  Service. 
Were  we  each  to  live  one  hundred  years  longer 
we  would  not  be  likely  to  obtain  a  more  lively 
experience  of  war  in  all  its  forms  than  that  which 
some  of  us  have  survived.  The  hour  is  now :  for 
energy  directed  by  reflection  ;  for  foresight ;  for  back- 
sight ;  for  using  yesterday's  inventions. 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    229 

Any  military  reorganisation  should  conform  to 
certain  set  principles  : — 

(1)  Power  must  go  with  responsibility. 

(2)  The  average  human  brain  finds  its  effective 
scope  in  handling  from  three  to  six  other  brains. 

If  a  man  divides  the  whole  of  his  work  into  two 
branches  and  delegates  his  responsibility,  freely 
and  properly,  to  two  experienced  heads  of  branches 
he  will  not  have  enough  to  do.  The  occasions  when 
they  would  have  to  refer  to  him  would  be  too  few 
to  keep  him  fully  occupied.  If  he  delegates  to 
three  heads  he  will  be  kept  fairly  busy  whilst  six 
heads  of  branches  will  give  most  bosses  a  ten  hours' 
day.  Those  data  are  the  results  of  centuries  of 
the  experiences  of  soldiers,  which  are  greater,  where 
organisation  is  in  question,  than  those  of  politicians, 
business  men  or  any  other  class  of  men  by  just 
so  much  as  an  Army  in  the  field  is  a  bigger  concern 
than  a  general  election,  the  Bank  of  England,  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  the  Steel  Trusts,  the  Rail- 
way Combines  of  America,  or  any  other  part  of 
politics  or  business.  Of  all  the  ways  of  waste  there 
is  none  so  vicious  as  that  of  your  clever  politician 
trying  to  run  a  business  concern  without  having 
any  .-notion  of  self-organisation.  One  of  them  who 
took  over  Munitions  for  a  time  had  so  little  idea  of 
organising  his  own  energy  that  he  nearly  died  of 
overwork  through  holding  up  the  work  of  others  ; 
i.e.  by  delegating  responsibility  coupled  with  direct 
access  to  himself  to  seventeen  sub-chiefs  ! 

Now,  it  will  be  understood  why  a  battalion  has 
four  companies  (and  not  seventeen) ;  why  a  brigade 
has  three  or  four  battalions  (and  not  seventeen). 

Organisations  are  run  by  rule  then  ;  a  rule  whereby 


from  three  to  six  "  hands  "  are  shepherded  by  one 
"  head,"  each  "  head  "  in  turn  being  member  of  a 
superior  group  of  from  three  to  six  who  are  being 
wheeled  into  line  by  one.  Fit  this  axiom  upon  any 
ordinary  organisation  and  if  it  does  not  "  click," 
turn  down  that  organisation.  Who  of  us  has  not 
in  his  time  found  himself,  for  his  sins,  a  member 
of  a  committee  of  a  dozen  or  even  more  ?  All 
equal — all  pulling  different  ways — a  body  outside 
the  laws  of  organisation — an  amorphous  mass — a 
bag  of  jellyfish — a  hopeless  instrument.  The  only 
chance  the  chairman  has  is  to  assume  one  or  two 
general  principles ;  to  assume  hesitation  gives 
consent ;  and  then  to  break  up  the  meeting,  sine 
die,  into  the  typical  working  groups  of  from  three 
to  six.  As  to  whether  the  groups  are  three,  four, 
five  or  six  it  is  useful  to  bear  in  mind  a  by-law  :  the 
smaller  the  responsibility  of  the  group  member,  the 
larger  may  be  the  number  of  the  group — and  vice 
versa.  That  is  to  say,  one  N.C.O.  in  charge  of  three 
private  soldiers  would  be  too  idle ;  one  lieutenant- 
general  in  charge  of  six  divisional  generals  would 
be  too  busy.  The  nearer  we  approach  the  supreme 
head  of  the  whole  organisation,  the  more  we  ought 
to  work  towards  groups  of  three  ;  the  closer  we  get 
to  the  foot  of  the  whole  organisation  (the  Infantry 
of  the  Line)  the  more  we  work  towards  groups  of 
six. 

The  Secretary  of  State  for  War  has  been  described 
as  being  (under  the  King)  the  "  very  head  "  of  the 
Army.  That  is  the  convention,  but  actually  there 
are  the  Cabinet  and  the  Committee  of  Imperial 
Defence  above  him,  and  it  is  easier  to  begin  reorgani- 
sation at  the  top  of  the  tree  than  set  to  work  lopping 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    231 

the  branches.  A  Cabinet  consists,  now,  of  about 
twenty  members,  all  nominally  co-equal  except  that 
one  holds  a  bag  and  that  the  others  want  to  empty 
it.  This  clumsy  machine  is  as  much  out  of  date 
as  would  be  a  mastodon  in  the  Mall.  During  the 
Boer  War  it  was  already  as  dead  as  that  mastodon. 
The  country  had  never  voted  to  put  these  twenty 
into  power ;  the  country  had  voted  for  the  P.M. 
and  for  perhaps  four  or  five  of  the  best  known  of 
his  adherents.  Actually,  the  P.M.  and  his  four  or 
five  notables  did  run  the  show  ;  a  very  small  group 
was  really  responsible  for  the  policy ;  but  this  was 
irregular ;  the  irregularity  is  now  become  a  bad 
habit  embodied  in  a  form  unknown  to  the  constitu- 
tion and,  in  short,  we  are  being  governed  on  false 
pretences. 

Only  two  years  ago  the  Army  was  the  State,  and 
it  is  more  vital  perhaps  to  the  military  forces  of 
the  Crown  than  to  any  other  body  of  citizens  that 
the  supreme  Direction  of  our  native  force  (including 
"  the  forces  "  of  the  Crown)  should  cease  to  mas- 
querade as  a  Committee  of  twenty  and,  in  some 
form  or  other,  should  come  out  into  the  open.  The 
way  we  are  going  at  present  is  straight  to  the  sham 
or  ineffectual  government  which  heralds  and  indeed 
justifies  revolution.  The  Cabinet  is  too  big  for 
business,  so  it  does  not  attempt  governing  or  policy, 
but  each  Minister  contents  himself  with  administer- 
ing his  own  Department.  Meanwhile,  the  Prime 
Minister  with  a  small  band  of  picked  adherents, 
what  we  should  have  called  "  favourites  "  in  the 
days  of  the  Tudors,  runs  the  Empire.  If  we  like 
autocracy,  well,  we  have  it :  if  we  don't,  the  Cabinet 
should  forthwith  be  reorganised. 


232      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

The  few  words  I  mean  to  say  on  this  subject  will 
not  be  written  down  at  random.  I  know  something 
of  its  "  Defence  "  and  "  Imperial  "  sides.  I  have 
attended  many  meetings  of  the  C.I.D.  and,  in  my 
four  years'  travel  as  I.G.  Overseas  Forces,  I  heard 
what  impressions  overseas  statesmen  had  carried  away 
with  them.  For  what  it  may  be  worth  my  opinion 
is  that  the  overseas  Premiers  will  not  for  long  be 
content  to  attend  any  hocus-pocus  inner  Cabinet ; 
or  Committee  of  Imperial  Defence.  They  have  no 
wish  to  find  themselves  seated  in  a  small  room  with 
highbrows,  talking  "  policy."  They  are  business 
men  themselves  and  when  they  come  to  meet  states- 
men they  want  to  meet  the  actual  "Government." 
They  want  to  shake  hands  with  the  King  and  to 
transact  business  with  the  actual,  responsible, 
governing  body  of  the  Empire. 

Is  it  too  much  to  ask  that  we  should  put 
our  own  house  at  least  so  far  in  order  that 
we  can  say,  "  Gentlemen,  here  you  are.  There 
is  no  idea  of  treating  you  as  strangers  by  calling 
any  special  or  extraordinary  committee  to  do 
business  with  you.  What  you  see  is  our  own  Govern- 
ment Machine,  just  the  same  as  yours  ;  so  now  let 
us  five  nations,  equal  under  the  King,  sit  down  and 
see  how  we  can  draw  up  regulations  for  better  trade, 
communications  and  Defence." 

The  Cabinet  of  the  future  should  consist  of  about 
half  a  dozen  Ministers.  If  we  have  a  working 
Cabinet  of  half  a  dozen  of  our  best  men,  then  our 
visitors  from  overseas  would  learn  that  we  still 
carry  heavy  guns  over  here.  As  to  the  members 
I  should  say:  (1)  the  Leader  of  that  House  to  which 
the  P.M.  does  not  belong.  (2)  The  Chancellor  of 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    233 

the  Exchequer.  (3)  The  Minister  of  Defence.  (4) 
The  Minister  of  Home  Affairs.  (5)  The  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  ( 6 )  The  Minister  for  the  Dominions . 
(7)  The  Minister  for  the  Dependencies. 

Were  I  to  enter  into  a  full  explanation  of  the 
foregoing  paragraph  I  would  have  to  write  five 
more  books  and  I  am  too  old  for  the  job.  But  to 
those  who  are  young  and  have  energy  I  would 
point  out  that  we  always  follow  Rome  ;  that  we 
are  predestined  some  day  to  fall  into  an  Empire 
of  the  East  and  an  Empire  of  the  West,  and  that 
already  the  time  is  ripe  for  India,  Egypt,  Palestine, 
Mesopotamia,  British  East  Africa  to  be  governed 
by  one  officer.  So  now,  let  me  turn  to  my  own 
subject,  the  Defence  Minister. 

The  crying  need  of  the  moment  is  that  the  three 
fighting  Services  of  the  Empire  should  be  placed 
under  one  Defence  Minister,  who  will  dominate  and 
co-ordinate  Sea,  Air  and  Land  and  all  that  therein 
fight.  He  alone  should  have  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet 
and  the  elements  he  controls  must  be  administered 
by  Under  Secretaries  of  State.  The  defence  of 
our  Empire  is  surely  a  matter  which  must  imply 
co-ordination  between  the  Commonwealth — the 
Dominions,  the  Dependencies  and  the  Motherland ; 
and,  unless  that  Mother  makes  a  start  by  co-ordin- 
ating her  own  defence  services,  how  in  the  name  of 
common  sense  can  she  expect  her  children  to  embark 
their  private  capital  in  the  old  firm  ? 

No  one  who  has  breathed  even  a  gasp  or  two  upon 
our  astonishing  whirligig  can  expect  to  take  the 
bloom  off  fourteen  magnum  bonum  political  plums 
without  raising  Cain  ;  no  one  politically  weaned  will 
feel  hopeful  that  a  Prime  Minister  who  can  work 


234      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

his  will  with  any  man  or  subject  by  picking  a  small 
sub-committee,  ad  hoc,  is  likely  to  create  a  Minister 
who  will  have  a  huge  power  and  will  be  almost 
as  big,  therefore,  as  himself.  All  the  same  the 
change  will  come.  When  it  does  we  shall  get  our 
Defence  Minister  and,  with  him,  our  land,  sea  and 
air  forces  will  become  one  and  indivisible.  The 
strategy  and  tactics  of  land  and  sea  have  been 
divorced  for  many,  many  years.  Just  at  the 
moment  when  the  younger  generation  of  soldiers 
and  sailors  have  begun  to  understand  that  the 
"  overlapping,  competition  and  waste  "  l  which  took 
place  during  the  war  between  these  two  stranger 
bodies,  the  Army  and  the  Navy,  must  never  happen 
again  and  that  sea  and  land  services  must  by  some 
means  or  another  be  welded  together ;  just  at  this 
moment  arises  the  Air  Service  and  demands  a  share 
(which  many  of  us  believe  should  be  the  lion's  share) 
in  the  new  combine. 

The  Times  issue  of  21st  January,  1921,  discourses 
weightily  in  its  leading  article  upon  various  sugges- 
\  tions  for  working  the  Air  Ministry  and,  after  urging 
that  an  independent  portfolio  be  established  for  that 
Department,  goes  on  to  say,  "  But  other  courses 
have  their  champions,  who  see  the  opening  for 
pressing  their  views  which  Mr.  Churchill's  departure 
for  the  Colonial  Office  presents,  and  are  making  the 
most  of  it.  The  most  worthy  of  serious  argument 
are  those  who  advocate  a  Ministry  of  Defence, 
supreme  over  the  Navy,  the  Army  and  the  Air 
Ministry,  and  representing  the  three  in  the  Cabinet. 
This  may  be  the  counsel  of  logic  and  symmetry. 
It  is  not,  we  believe,  the  counsel  of  common  sense 
1  Letter  from  Major-General  Brancker  to  The  Times. 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    235 

and  practicability.     In  theory  a  Ty[i'niftt.|y  of  Defence 
may  be  admirable  ;   but  we  believe  that  in  pracHi 
it  would  break  down,   if  only  through  the  sheer 
impossibility  of  finding  any  one  man  competent  for 
the  mass  of  work  which  would  fall  on  the  unhappy 
shoulders  of  a  Minister  of  Defence." 

Yielding  to  no  man  in  my  deep  respect  for  that 
Titanic  institution,  The  Times  ;  believing  as  I  do 
in  Northcliffe,  Campbell  Stuart  and  Wickham  Steed 
—for  how  else  indeed  could  I  be  saved — I  must  still 
affirm  that  this  latest  fulmination  from  our  Olympus 
is  of  the  nature  of  one  of  those  rare  nods  of 
Homer  rather  than  of  the  irrevocable  decrees  of 
omnipotence.  In  making  the  above  quoted  remarks 
The  Times  has  bestowed  its  benediction  upon  a 
heresy  which  strikes  at  the  very  root  of  the  principle 
of  organisation.  Let  us  see : 

In  1896  I  was  Deputy- Quartermaster- General  at 
Simla  ;  then,  perhaps  still,  one  of  the  hardest  worked 
billets  in  Asia.  After  a  long  office  day  I  used  to 
get  back  home  to  dinner  pursued  by  a  pile  of  files 
three  to  four  feet  high.  The  Quartermaster-General, 
my  boss,  was  a  clever,  delightful  work-glutton.  So 
we  sweated  and  ran  together  for  a  while  a  neck  and 
neck  race  with  our  piles  of  files,  but  I  was  the  younger 
and  he  was  the  first  to  be  ordered  off  by  the  doctors 
to  Europe.  Then  I,  at  the  age  of  forty-three, 
stepped  into  his  shoes  and  became  officiating  Quarter- 
master-General in  India.  Unluckily,  the  Govern- 
ment at  that  moment  was  in  a  very  stingy  mood. 
They  refused  to  provide  pay  to  fill  the  post  I  was 
vacating  and  Sir  George  White,  the  C.-in-C.,  asked 
me  to  duplicate  myself  and  do  the  double  work. 
My  heart  sank,  but  there  was  nothing  for  it  but 


236      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

to  have  a  try.  The  day  came ;  the  Q.M.G.  went 
home  and  with  him  went  the  whole  of  his  share  of  the 
work.  As  for  my  own  share,  the  hard  twelve  hours' 
task  melted  by  some  magic  into  the  Socialist's  dream 
of  a  six  hours'  day.  How  was  that  ?  Because, 
when  a  question  came  up  from  one  of  the  Depart- 
ments I  had  formerly  been  forced  to  compose  a 
long  minute  upon  it,  explaining  the  case,  putting 
my  own  views,  and  endeavouring  to  persuade  the 
Quartermaster-General  to  accept  them.  He  was  a 
highly  conscientious  man  and  if  he  differed  from 
me  he  liked  to  put  on  record  his  reasons — several 
pages  of  reasons.  Or,  if  he  agreed  with  me,  still 
he  liked  to  agree  in  his  own  words  and  to  "  put 
them  on  record."  Now,  when  I  became  Q.M.G. 
and  D.Q.M.G.  rolled  into  one  I  studied  the  case  as 
formerly,  but  there  my  work  ended  :  I  had  not  to 
persuade  my  own  subordinates :  I  had  no  superior 
except  the  Commander-in-Chief,  who  was  delighted 
to  be  left  alone :  I  just  gave  an  order — quite  a 
simple  matter  unless  a  man's  afraid :  "  Yes,"  I 
said,  or  "  No  !  " 

The  moral  of  my  reminiscence  is  plain  :  the  higher 
up  the  ladder  you  climb  the  less  you  have  to  do ; 
provided:  (1)  you  have  some  courage;  (2)  you 
have  some  trust ;  (3)  you  have  your  office  so 
organised  that  you  don't  have  to  deal  with  more 
than  three  or  four  responsible  heads.  If  a  "  mass 
of  work  "  fell  upon  "  the  unhappy  shoulders  of  a 
Minister  of  Defence  "  it  would  be  his  own  fault. 
//  big  men  are  overwhelmed  with  detail  it  is  always 
their  own  fault.  If,  for  instance,  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  undertook  the  duties  of  Minister  of  Defence 
he  would  surely  have  less  work. in  his  new  office 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    237 

than  in  his  old,  seeing  he  would  only  deal  with  three 
subordinate  Ministers  instead  of,  as  formerly,  with 
some  seven  or  eight  Army  Councillors ;  and  would 
only  have  to  persuade  the  P.M.  plus  five  or  six 
Cabinet  Ministers  instead  of  the  P.M.  and  twenty 
Cabinet  Ministers,  two  of  them  (Sea  and  Air)  most 
jealous  and  most  obstructive  rivals. 

One  more  point  about  the  new  model  Cabinet 
before  passing  on  to  the  C.I.D.  The  P.M.  should 
be  supported  by  a  Chief  of  the  Staff  without  vote 
or  voice ;  a  sort  of  Roman  Augur  seeking  signs 
of  the  times,  not  in  the  entrails  of  dead  birds,  but 
by  sounding  the  deep  currents  of  human  thought 
and  by  listening  to  the  songs  of  the  live  little  birds 
who  nestle  in  the  bosoms  of  supermen  :  a  Chief 
of  Staff  drawing  £5,000  a  year  for  collating  intelli- 
gence and  for  casting  horoscopes  :  a  political  expert 
freed  from  the  executive  worries  of  the  whips ; 
from  speeches,  banquets  and  propaganda  work ; 
who  would  assemble  the  shadows  of  coming  events 
into  his  ink  bottle  and  with  them  draft  out  plans 
of  campaign  to  meet  each  successive  danger  as  it 
is  disclosed  by  the  ceaseless  invasion  of  the  future 
by  the  past.  Bolts  out  of  the  blue  would  be  dis- 
counted by  this  mentor  to  a  P.M.  and  unprepared- 
ness  might  cease  to  be  endemic  in  British  Cabinets. 
In  a  word,  the  mind  of  this  modern  Augur  would 
be  released  from  personal  anxiety  or  responsibility 
as  to  the  daily  bread  of  Parliament  and  would  be 
focussed  entirely  on  baking  loaves  for  the  morrow. 
He  would  cease  to  be  a  hewer  of  wood  or  drawer 
of  water  like  the  ordinary  secretary  to  a  Committee 
but  would  plant  acorns  or  dig  wells.  He  would  be 
a  General  Staff  man,  in  short,  and  neither  an  Aide- 


238     THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

de-Camp  nor  an  Adjutant.  To  "  practical  politi- 
cians "  this  idea  may  seem  impracticable  ;  actually, 
whenever  a  soldier  or  a  sailor  is  brought  into  close 
touch  with  big  politicians  his  criticism  is  that  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  a  thought  to  spare  for  the 
cloud  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand.  Let  anyone 
look  back  and  they  will  see  how  we  get  into  one 
scrape  after  another  owing  to  our  hand-to-mouth 
politics.  Politics  and  the  Navy  equally  suffer  from 
having  no  General  Staff.  Take  the  Suffrage  trouble  : 
had  Asquith  had  a  political  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff,  the  moment  the  law  was  broken  that  officer 
would  have  laid  before  his  P.M.  alternative  sets  of 
operation  orders  drafted  so  as  to  force  the  Govern- 
ment to  make  up  their  minds  at  once  whether  they, 
as  Liberals,  should  conciliate  the  women  or  control 
them.  Actually,  there  were  no  orders  ;  the  foolish 
rank  and  file  of  the  party  were  allowed  to  toy  with 
the  lovely  nettles  instead  of  grasping  them,  and 
the  result  was  a  loss  of  face  not  only  by  the  liberal 
party  but  by  the  whole  masculine  gender.  Once, 
in  pre-war  days,  I  took  the  opportunity  of  crossing 
from  Whitehall  Gardens  to  Downing  Street  with  Mr. 
Asquith  to  put  my  idea  of  the  glorified  Staff  Officer 
to  him  direct.  He  listened  with  his  usual  affability 
and  replied  that  if  he  could  only  lay  his  hands  on  a 
man  of  the  calibre  I  had  indicated  to  him  he  would 
be  glad  to  pay  him  not  £5,000  a  year  but  £10,000. 
Five  minutes  previously  the  P.M.  had  been  talking 
to  his  own  Secretary  on  the  C.I.D.,  Sir  Maurice 
Hankey ;  an  officer  possessing  all  the  attributes 
considered  so  rare,  except  the  political  flair.  Not 
double  but  hah*  the  £5,000  would  have  made  him 
passing  rich.  Since  then  this  very  officer,  Hankey, 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    239 

has  been  made  Secretary  to  the  Cabinet !  Perhaps 
great  minds  have  been  thinking  alike  and  my  plan 
has  been  put  into  operation,  to  the  man  and  to 
the  letter,  before  I  have  had  time  to  get  out  my 
patent  ?  I  hope  so  ;  but  I  fear  not ;  I  have  no 
knowledge,  but  I  feel  certain  that  Hankey  is  being 
used  to  draw  up  agenda  for  meetings,  collating  stuff 
bearing  on  the  subject  to  be  discussed  and  keeping 
the  great  Departments  aware  of  what  is  about  to 
happen  at  that  Cabinet  as  well  as  what  has  happened 
when  it  is  over.  These  are  big  improvements  and 
in  their  way  excellent.  They  make  Hankey  so 
powerful  that,  if  he  had  not  the  reputation  of  being 
a  saint,  a  cabal  would  have  been  formed  long  ago 
to  turn  him  out.  But,  if  I  am  correct  in  my  imagin- 
ings, this  is  not  the  sort  of  appointment  I  advocate. 
I  mean  some  one  else ;  some  one  who  has  very 
little  to  do  with  daily  exigencies  ;  some  one  left 
free  to  map  out  questions  of  policy  hi  advance ; 
to  ponder  over  the  future.  So  I  say  once  more, 
it  is  not  an  Adjutant  but  a  General  Staff  Officer 
who  is  needed  by  the  Cabinet  machine  :  a  man 
entirely  shielded  from  the  impact  of  every-day 
worries  or  every-day  work  so  that  when  an  emergency 
arises  he  may  step  forward  and  say,  "  Here,  gentle- 
men, is  a  paper  dealing  with  this  matter ;  drawn 
up  two  years  ago,  it  may  save  you  trouble."  So 
there  !  Let  us  turn  to  the  C.I.D. 

The  C.I.D.  was  conceived  hi  the  brain  of  Lord 
Sydenham  and  was  fondly  nursed  through  its 
infancy  by  Mr.  Balfour.  This  was  the  biggest  thing 
he  had  ever  handled  and  it  promised  to  be  the 
biggest  success.  But,  to  my  thinking,  he  is  our  A 
Imperial  Jonah.  Though  his  beautiful  ideas  most 


240      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

beautifully  shoot  up  luck  seems  to  be  against  them  ; 
not  one  of  them  can  live  through  the  winter  and 
become  perennial.  The  C.I.D.  did  great  work  in 
its  day  and  looked  as  if  it  were  going  to  be  an  excep- 
tion. But  now—  -  !  Alive,  it  still  is,  but  on  the 
shelf,  hardly  used,  since  its  organism  was  perverted  in 
1915  into  a  mere  blunderbuss  which  the  P.M.  can 
load  how  he  likes,  point  where  he  likes  and  discharge 
at  what  or  whom  he  dislikes. 

When  Campbell-Bannerman  came  into  his  own 
he  was  terribly  afraid  of  the  infernal  machine  left 
behind  him  by  Balfour.  He  was  persuaded  that 
it  might  become  a  rival  organism  to  his  Cabinet 
and  that  it  would  prejudice  his  own  power.  But 
when  that  shrewd  old  Scot  got  into  actual  touch 
with  Balfour's  abhorred  legacy  he  awoke  as  with  a 
start  to  two  facts  : 

(1)  A   Prime  Minister  is  either  alter  ego  to  the 
Minister  of  Defence  or  he  is  a  sham. 

(2)  A  Prime  Minister  can  only  be  that  by  pre- 
siding,  frequently,  at   the   C.I.D.  or   some  similar 
conference. 

So  C.-B.  fathered  the  C.I.D.  and  became  a  good 
friend  to  the  fighting  Services.  In  his  short  day 
some  excellent  business  was  put  through  and  the 
fact  that  the  P.M.  was  supposed  to  be  next  door 
to  a  pacifist  rather  helped  the  Navy  and  Army 
than  otherwise.  The  C.I.D.  was  not  executive,  of 
course:  oh  no,  of  course  not!  But  if  the  C.I.D. 
came  to,  let  us  call  it  a  "  view,"  with  C.-B.  sitting 
at  the  head  of  the  table  it  wasn't  more  than  a  brace 
of  shakes  before  he  rose  from  that  chair  and  sat 
in  another  chair  when  instantly  the  "  view  "  became 
a  vote.  Here  at  once  was  the  secret  of  the  power 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    241 

of  the  C.I.D.  and  the  seed  of  its  decay.  The  pro- 
cedure was  like  this  :  the  Secretary,  with  the  P.M.'s 
permission,  would  write  a  paper  suggesting  some- 
thing offensive  or  defensive  to  be  done  involving, 
perhaps,  finance,  India,  foreign  policy,  home  policy. 
The  C.I.D.  would  discuss  the  matter  and  the  P.M. 
would  perhaps  appoint  a  sub- committee  to  tackle 
it.  For  that  sub-committee  the  best  men  in  the  Empire 
were  available :  Lord  Morley,  Haldane,  Asquith.  When 
the  sub-committee  presented  its  report  the  matter 
was  again  discussed  and  the  decision,  though  only 
a  consultative  opinion  in  theory,  was,  actually,  an 
executive  decision.  Not  only  was  the  decision 
executive  in  fact,  but  it  could  be  put  in  force  very 
quickly.  Ministers  outside  the  Cabinet,  presented 
with  an  agreement  between  the  Prime  Minister, 
those  of  their  colleagues  who  were  more  nearly 
concerned  and  the  military  and  naval  experts,  were 
helpless.  Though  they  might  have  fought,  argued 
or  obstructed  for  sessions  had  the  P.M.  made  the 
proposal  to  them  "  off  his  own  bat  "  they  couldn't 
stand  at  all  against  the  organised  effort  of  the  C.I.D. 
Hence  the  fatal  idea  began  to  fix  itself  in  the  minds 
of  these  blokes  that  they  must  get  themselves 
summoned  as  often  as  possible  to  C.I.D.  meetings  ! 
Mr.  Asquith  was,  in  his  easy-going  way,  keen  on 
the  C.I.D.  ;  also,  certainly,  he  showed  up  there  to 
great  advantage.  Just  as  the  C.I.D.  was  Mr.  Bal- 
four's  biggest  achievement,  so,  to  my  thinking,  Mr. 
Asquith  brought  off  some  of  his  best  coups,  not  in 
the  resounding  halls  of  Westminster,  but  in  the  poky 
second-floor  flat  of  Whitehall  Gardens.  The  way 
he  would  cozen  indignant  Secretaries  of  State  and 
flustered  Dominion  Premiers  out  of  their  bad  tempers 

B 


242      THE  SOUL  AND   BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

was  very  miraculous.  Here  were  people  ready  to 
fly  at  one  another's  throats  and  then,  the  P.M. 
states  the  case,  when  lo  !  each  side  thinks  he  is 
stating  their  case  ! 

"  For  he  in  slights  and  jugling  feates  did  flow, 
And  of  legierdemayne  the  mysteries  did  know." 

Then  we  all  used  to  go  away  saying  to  one  another 
what  a  tremendous  fellow  was  Asquith,  but  the 
business  done  was  often  insignificant ;  for  everything, 
almost,  was  a  compromise. 

During  Asquith' s  tenure  the  dry-rot  set  in.  When 
he  took  over,  and  for  some  time  afterwards,  the 
C.I.D.  was  small,  safe  and  sound.  The  structural 
principle  on  which  it  had  been  built  up  was  that 
it  should  form  a  common  ground  whereon  the 
leading  sailors  and  soldiers  of  the  day  might  fore- 
gather and  compare  notes  under  the  direct  personal 
supervision  and  guidance  of  the  Prime  Minister  of 
the  day.  Both  the  politicians  and  the  military 
profited.  In  that  select  society  a  P.M.  could  quickly 
enough  see  for  himself  whether  the  sailors  and 
soldiers  were  whole-heartedly  backing  their  political 
chiefs.  There  was  no  cause  for  a  sailor  to  differ  in 
public  with  his  First  Lord  :  in  course  of  conversation 
the  P.M.  could  very  quickly  lay  bare  the  situation. 
On  their  side,  the  military  met  in  surroundings  less 
formal  than  usual  statesmen  with  wide  views  and 
a  highly  cultivated  talent  for  expressing  those  views. 
The  politicians  learned  that  they  didn't  necessarily 
know  everything  because  they  could  talk  about 
anything  ;  they  learnt,  also,  to  grasp  the  difference 
between  a  Service  without  a  General  Staff,  each 
man  of  it  armed  with  his  own  private  ideas  only, 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    243 

and  a  service  with  a  General  Staff  who  came  down 
imbued  to  a  man  with  a  common  doctrine.  Yes, 
there  were  quite  a  few  things  taught  and  learnt 
during  straight  talks  at  the  C.I.D. 

Those  days  passed  and  for  several  years  before 
the  war  the  C.I.D.  was  undergoing  a  change.  The 
preparation  by  departments  of  the  War  Book  gave 
Secretaries  of  State  an  opening.  The  politicians 
crowded  in  ;  the  three  or  four  soldiers  and  sailors 
could  hardly  find  sitting  room.  If  there  was  hardly 
room  for  a  sailor  or  soldier  to  sit  there  was  still  less 
opening  for  him  to  talk  !  The  Royal  Commissioners 
on  the  Dardanelles  were  unable  to  picture  the  real 
state  of  affairs  and  so  they  were  vastly  puzzled  by 
the  direct  conflict  of  evidence  as  to  whether  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  could  have  had  any  voice  in 
the  decisions.  Mr.  Balfour  and  Mr.  Asquith  swore 
one  thing ;  Lord  Fisher  swore  the  contrary.  The 
reason  of  the  misunderstanding  is  simply  that  the 
constitution  of  the  C.I.D.  had  been  steadily  changing 
and  that  the  P.M.  and  Mr.  Balfour  had  not  realised 
it  was  getting  farther  and  farther  away  from  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  and  nearer  and  nearer  to  a 
specially  convened  inner  circle  of  Cabinet  favourites. 
What  Mr.  Balfour  and  Mr.  Asquith  said  referred  to 
an  earlier  period  and  may  have  remained  a  pious 
intention ;  what  Lord  Fisher  said,  he  had  felt ; 
and  if  he,  a  self-assertive  man,  had  felt  it,  how 
much  more  would  the  average  shy  sailor  or  soldier 
feel  it  ?  The  changing  moral  atmosphere  of  the 
C.I.D.  coincided  with  a  physical  regrouping.  Origi- 
nally the  First  Lord  and  the  Secretary  of  State  for 
War  with  their  officers  sat  up  close  to  the  P.M. 
and  the  four  or  five  additional  members,  perhaps 


244      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, or  the  Colonial  Secretary  were  incidentals. 
Later  on  the  P.M.'s  end  of  the  table  was  stormed 
by  the  politicians,  the  soldiers  and  sailors  being 
pressed  to  the  far  end  towards  the  door.  No  soldier 
or  sailor  ever  spoke  during  a  discussion  in  those 
latter  days,  unless  he  was  "  billed "  to  make  a 
statement  or  first  spoken  to,  but  politicians  would 
eagerly  break  in  on  their  own  and  deliver  little 
speeches.  Searching  in  my  memory  for  an  instance 
of  either  of  the  Services  taking  the  initiative  in  a 
discussion,  the  only  exception  I  can  recollect  is  my 
own  attempt  to  tell  a  big  meeting  about  our  amphi- 
bious manoeuvres  at  Malta  when  the  two  battleships 
had  been  sunk  by  submarines  although  they  had 
ample  warning  of  the  danger.  I  had  to  get  this 
story  off  my  chest  because  I  had  promised  Lord 
Fisher  I  would  do  it,  but  the  effort  of  barging  in 
upon  these  big  men  was  so  great  that  I  should 
have  curled  up  half-way  had  not  Colonel  Seely 
given  me  encouragement. 

So  the  old  C.I.D.  merged  first  into  the  Dardanelles 
Committee ;  then  into  the  War  Committee ;  then 
into  a  War  Cabinet  and  then  into  what  they  call, 
I  believe,  a  special  Cabinet ;  each  a  little  more 
autocratic  than  the  other  ;  and  now  that  the  C.I.D. 
idea  is  past  mending  it  will  be  safer  in  every  way  to 
end  it. 

The  word  "  war  "  being  left  out  the  natural  process 
would  seem  to  have  been  to  have  reverted  to  the 
C.I.D.,  the  parent  organisation  from  which  these 
Committees  and  Cabinets  were  descended.  But 
although  nominally  alive  it  shows  no  sign  of  life. 
The  last  act  I  know  of  the  C.I.D.  having  perpetrated 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    245 

must,  I  think,  have  poisoned  it.  In  the  autumn 
of  1915  the  C.I.D.  paper  was  used  to  print,  and 
the  secretariat  were  used  to  circulate,  certain  well- 
timed  slanders  against  British  officers  and  rank 
and  file  fighting  then  at  the  Dardanelles.  The 
slanders  I  repeat  were  printed  in  the  C.I.D.  best 
style  and  must  have  seemed  to  the  personages 
favoured  with  them  to  carry  the  imprimatur  of  the 
Prime  Minister.  The  object  was  to  create  an  acutely 
painful  impression  of  general  debacle  in  which  Mr. 
Asquith  specially  would  stand  right  up  to  his  neck. 
Being  "  fey  "  he  let  them  use  his  own  C.I.D.  and 
it  downed  him  right  enough — and  itself,  and  many 
good  men  and  sound  ideas  besides. 

Here  was  the  end  of  the  C.I.D.  No  Admiralty, 
no  War  Office,  no  other  Department  of  Government 
worked  by  old-fashioned  British  machinery  would 
have  allowed  itself  to  be  used  for  a  piece  of  dark 
trickery.  A  star  chamber  had  been  created :  a 
thing  "  holding  for  profitable  that  which  pleased, 

and  for  just  that  which  profited." 

*  *  *  *  * 

If  the  C.I.D.  excrescence  has  to  be  lopped  off 
we  must  have  some  new  machinery  to  bring  the 
Services  together  and  make  their  views  permeate 
to  the  Cabinet.  A  Defence  Minister  presiding  over 
a  United  Services  General  Staff  should  answer  that 
purpose  admirably.  At  the  head  the  Prime  Minister 
fixing  policy  in  advance ;  by  his  side  the  Defence 
Minister  in  daily  touch  with  the  Under  S.  of  S.  for 
the  Army,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Sea  and  the  Under 
S.  of  S.  for  the  Air.  The  Prime  Minister  would 
have  a  closer  grip  of  the  National  Executive  than  is 
possible  with  twenty  independent  managers,  for 


246      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  direct  control  would  be  in  the  hands  of  hah*  a 
dozen  great  Ministers  with  whom  he  would  be 
constantly  in  touch. 

Take  the  Defence  Minister.  He  would  bring 
Admirals  and  Generals  out  of  their  opposite  corners 
where,  since  the  days  of  the  Stuarts,  they  have 
growled  at  one  another,  and  make  them  work  hand 
in  hand  under  his  own  eye.  The  eccentricities  with 
which  four  centuries  of  ploughing  lonely  furrows 
have  endowed  the  Admiralty  and  the  War  Office 
would  then  be  shown  up.  Instead  of  going  into  a 
third  corner  or  joining  part  the  Navy  and  part  the 
Army,  the  new  Air  Marshals  would  fall  in.  Objec- 
tors have  argued  that  a  Defence  Minister  would 
lower  the  "  status,  authority  and  efficiency  of  the 
Admiralty  Board  and  Naval  Staff."  Why  should 
he  be  such  an  ass  as  to  lower  a  part  of  his  own 
status  ? 

"  Captains  of  Industry,"  so  the  newspapers  say, 
"  are  built  on  a  perception  of  the  advantages  of 
combining  related  undertakings,  coal  with  iron, 
and  both  with  transport."  Exactly.  Then  why 
not  repeat  the  process  in  another  field  and  build 
a  "  Captain  of  War "  on  a  combination  of  the 
"  related  undertakings  "  Army  ;  Navy  ;  Air  Force  ? 
A  critic  of  the  suggested  Ministry  of  Defence  writes, 
"  A  coal- mining  company  and  a  gas  company  are 
both  engaged  in  industry,  but  they  do  not  require 
a  composite  staff !  ':  I  myself  assert  that  the 
shareholders  would  be  the  better  of  it. 

The  moment  a  Defence  Minister  turned  to  his 
new  duties  he  would  discover  that : 

(1)  The  Navy  have  no  General  Staff  and  are  so 
determined  to  be  different  that  they  are  creating  a 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    247 

"  war  staff  "  instead.  "  A  rose  by  any  other  name 
.  .  .  ?  "  I  wonder  ?  Roses  of  two  colours  have 
fought  to  the  death,  vide  York  and  Lancaster : 
anyway,  the  naval  war  staff  are  still  a  newly-formed 
body,  they  have  not  had  time  yet  to  create  a  common 
doctrine  ;  they  would  be  greatly  helped  were  they 
brought  into  close  everyday  touch  with  the  Army 
General  Staff  ;  a  Defence  Minister  can  bring  this 
about ;  no  one  else. 

(2)  The  Air  Service  have  no  General  Staff ;    a 
General  Staff  takes  ten  years  to  create. 

(3)  The  Army  General  Staff  has  been  so  busy 
since   the   war   with   policy,   politics,    Ireland   and 
Mesopotamia  that  they  seem  to  have  had  no  time 
to    trouble    about    the    Army.     They    have    cold- 
shouldered   reorganisation  by  the   usual  means  of 
a  Committee  which  blessed  the  old  order  and  then 
turned  up  its  toes. 

(4)  No  manual,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  deals 
with  the  working  together  in  war  or  peace  of  the 
three  Services.     No  one  has  laid  down,  authorita- 
tively, the  part  to  be  assigned  to  each  in  a  landing, 
an  advance  along  a  coast  or  in  working  up  a  great 
river,  or  even  in  an  inland  battle  or  a  blue- sea  battle 
where  only  two  of  the  three  would  be  employed. 
If  our  airships  blow  the  forts  of  an  enemy  harbour 
to  pieces,   what  happens  next  ?     Does  the  Navy 
make  good  or  the  Army  ?     Are  the  Commanders 
to  waste  a  week  discussing  the  good  old  puzzle  as 
to  whether  the  position  to  be  held  is  all,  or  only 
in  part,  above  high- water  mark,  and  are  spring  tides 
to  count  in  fixing  that  dividing  line  upon  which  all 
amphibious  operations  now  hinge  ?     A  sailor  landing 
with  a  box  of  ammunition  at  low  water  is  respon- 


248      THE   SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

sible  for  it  for  perhaps  150  yards  inland,  as  far  as 
high-water  mark.  If  the  enemy  captures  it  above 
high- water  mark,  that  is  no  business  of  his  ;  he  has 
discharged  his  business ;  if  the  enemy  capture  it 
on  the  beach,  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Army. 
Fortunately  soldiers  and  sailors  at  sea  and  in  the 
field  are  more  united  than  Admirals  and  Generals 
at  Whitehall.  But  is  it  really  true  that  because 
for  once  in  a  way  dual  control  happened  to  work 
at  the  Dardanelles  we  are,  therefore,  going  to  stereo- 
type the  principle  so  that,  when  an  Air  Marshal 
appears  upon  the  scene,  our  forces  will  be  commanded 
by  a  triumvirate  ?  At  the  Dardanelles  those  stran- 
gers the  Army  and  Navy  were  suddenly  flung  into 
one  another's  arms  and,  in  face  of  the  Turks,  they 
behaved  like  members  of  one  family.  But  why 
that  thankfulness  and  why  that  sense  of  surprised 
relief  ?  Why  shouldn't  we  have  got  on  always 
during  the  wars  of  the  past  ?  Why  shouldn't  we 
make  sure  we  get  on  always  in  the  wars  of  the 
future  ? 

No  one ;  not  John  Fortescue  himself,  can  fetch 
me  from  anywhere  a  finer  example  of  mutual  good- 
will and  co-operation  between  the  Services  than 
that  furnished  by  the  Dardanelles ;  yet,  even  so, 
no  one  will  pretend  we  worked  together  from  the 
outset  as  we  might  have  worked  had  there  been  a 
United  Services  Staff.  We  ourselves  manufactured 
a  United  Services  Staff  whilst  we  were  out  there. 
Admiral  de  Robeck  lent  us  some  very  fine  men 
who  mastered  the  whole  of  our  military  technique 
and  would,  in  consequence,  be  fit  to  take  high 
position  in  the  War  Office  to-morrow.  But  the 
process  took  weeks.  At  first  the  sailors  and  soldiers 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    249 

were  like  foreigners  talking  different  languages.  I 
do  not  refer  so  much  to  systems  of  signalling  and 
gunnery  but  to  basic  technical  principles.  This 
should  not  be ;  there  is  no  necessity  for  it  to  be, 
and  under  a  Defence  Minister  supported  by  a  United 
Services  Staff  it  would  not  be. 

Lord  Hugh,  the  first  flying  Cecil,  writes  to  the 
papers x  to  say  that : 

"  Only  those  who  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  the  Air 
Service  closely  can  really  appreciate  how  entirely  different  it  is 
from  both  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  how  impossible  it  is  for 
distinguished  naval  and  military  officers  in  high  command  to 
administer  the  Air  Service." 

I  dare  say  most  people  would  agree  with  Lord 
Hugh  that  air,  water  and  earth  are  absolutely 
distinct  and  yet  it  is  a  funny  thing  but  it  is  only 
by  mixing  them  up  that  we  manage  to  live  !  One 
step  farther  and  we  shall  specialise  in  fire.  Engi- 
neers will  step  into  their  watertight  box  and  explain 
"  how  impossible  it  is  for  distinguished  naval  and 
military  officers  in  high  command  "  to  poke  the  fire. 

The  whole  of  these  distinctions  are  exaggerated. 
Experts  love  to  magnify  the  technical  mysteries 
of  their  trade  to  the  non-expert ;  vide  the  conse- 
quential air  with  which  a  man  tells  his  wife  so  and 
so  is  a  "  matter  of  business."  High-flying  Lord 
Hugh  is  justly  proud  of  doing  what  neither  Jim 
nor  Bob  can  do  ;  they  and  the  mud-crushing  public 
are  his  little  wife  who  has  to  be  impressed  and  kept 
quiet  at  home  by  the  magic  word  "  business "  : 
MY  business ;  not  yours.  But  although  we  may 
not  all  have  had  opportunities  "  of  observing  the 

1  The  Times,  27th  January,  1921. 


250      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Air  Service  closely,"  we  do  know,  we  mud-crushers 
and  little  wives  who  stay  at  home,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  observing  a  subject  too  closely ; 
of  being  unable  to  see  it  because  you  are  "it." 
Having  retired  to  a  distance  I  can  now  focus  my 
gaze  and  see  quite  well  that  a  man  who  can  handle 
a  Cavalry  Division  in  action  can  handle  the  Grand 
Fleet  in  action  ;  in  fact,  he's  just  the  fellow  to  do  it. 
If  French  had  been  as  young  as  Beatty  he  would 
have  fought  on  Beatty  lines  at  Jutland,  and  if  Beatty 
had  been  as  old  as  French  at  Kimberley  he  would 
have  galloped  the  town.  All  that  they  would  either 
of  them  have  needed  would  have  been  a  Staff  Officer 
to  put  nautical  terms  into  military  and  vice  versa. 
The  same  holds  good  for  the  Air  Service  except 
that,  as  a  squadron  of  ships  moves  faster  than  a 
squadron  of  Cavalry,  so  the  air  squadrons  will  move 
by  so  much  faster  again  than  a  squadron  of  ships. 
If  Lord  Hugh  Cecil  has  Jellicoe  and  Haig  in  his 
mind  when  he  suggests  that  "  distinguished  naval 
and  military  officers  high  in  command  "  would  not 
prove  good  interpreters  of  the  dashing,  crashing 
spirit  of  the  air,  he  may  be  right.  But  that  is  not 
because  Jellicoe  is  a  sailor  and  Haig  a  soldier.  Would 
Lord  Hugh  say  that  Roger  Keyes,  the  sailor,  and 
Hubert  Gough,  the  soldier,  would  not  rise  to  the 
stormy  emergencies  of  the  air  ?  If  so,  I  entirely 
disagree  with  him,  a  thing  I  do  seldom. 

The  main,  underlying  reason  which  makes  it  so 
important  that  at  the  present  turning-point  of  our 
Imperial  history  we  should  create  a  ministry  of 
defence  is  because  there  seems  to  be  no  other  way 
of  correcting  the  centrifugal  vice  which  has  got 
into  the  very  life-blood  of  our  Services.  Only  by 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    251 

long-sustained  efforts  have  the  Artillery  been  pre- 
vented— to  some  extent — from  retiring  into  their 
shells.  Regimentally,  the  Cavalry  are  a  force  apart ; 
there  is  as  much  outcry  when  an  infantry  officer 
gets  a  cavalry  command  as  if  a  Bishop  was  seizing 
the  Woolsack.  But  it  turns  out  that  a  Cavalryman 
is  quite  competent  to  command  infantry,  and  these 
things  are  strange  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
infantryman  was  more  intelligent  in  his  youth  and 
passed  a  long  way  over  his  head  at  the  entrance 
exams,  into  the  Army  !  The  Guards  at  one  time 
had  so  worked  and  magnified  their  privileges  that 
they  were  almost  as  different  from  the  rest  of  us 
as  the  Cavalry.  The  Royal  Engineers  are,  actually, 
as  distinct  from  their  comrades  of  the  Line  and 
mounted  branches — as  much  shut  away  from  them 
in  a  watertight  compartment — as  are  the  Marines. 
Directly  the  new  Defence  Minister  was  appointed 
he  would  set  about  forming  a  United  General  Staff  ; 
not  for  the  three  branches  of  one  Service  as  at 
present,  but  for  all  three  Services.  And  he  would 
stress  urgency  as  it  must  take  five  years  before  the 
strange  elements  shake  down  together  and  another 
five  years  at  least  before  they  become  a  band  of 
brothers  putting  doctrine  above  the  interests  or 
traditions  of  any  one  Service.  An  United  General 
Staff  will  be  able  to  effect  no  real  unification  of 
the  aerial,  naval  and  military  staffs  until  the  whole 
of  its  members  have  been  penetrated  by  a  common 
doctrine.  A  common  doctrine  can  only  be  imparted 
by  an  uncommon  man.  Even  an  uncommon  man 
needs  two  years  if  he  is  to  indoctrinate  a  member 
of  an  intensely  conservative  clique  with  broad- 
mindedness.  If  possible  an  Admiral  should  be 


252       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

chosen  as  the  first  Chief  of  the  United  Services  Staff 
upon  which,  it  goes  without  saying,  the  forces  of 
the  Commonwealth  and  Dominions  would  be  strongly 
represented. 

When  the  selected  experts  from  Air,  Sea  and  Land 
have  been  assembled  they  will  profess  common 
principles.  Principles  remain  steadfast  whether  they 
are  applied  to  the  clouds,  waves  or  fields,  but  the 
methods  of  their  application  in  combined  operations 
will  require  a  new  book.  Naval  and  Air  experts 
will  feel  nervous  lest  the  existing,  more  numerous, 
General  Staff  of  the  land  forces  should  swallow  them. 
Given  an  impartial  Defence  Minister  there  need 
be  no  fear.  I  believe  the  Sea  and  Air  will  stand 
together  and  that  they  will  take  the  new  united 
Services  idea  more  kindly  than  their  military 
brethren.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  must  not  be  dis- 
appointed if,  for  a  time,  our  omnium  gatherum  of 
experts  give  no  output  commensurate  with  the 
sum  of  their  intellects.  They  are  not  likely  to  do 
so  until  recruits  begin  to  come  in  from  the  new 
United  Services  Staff  College. 

This  U.S.S.C.  is  another  sure  sequel  to  a  Defence 
Minister.  The  Imperial  General  Staff  must  be  drawn 
from  the  three  Services,  Naval,  Military  and  Aerial ; 
so  many  annual  vacancies  allotted  to  each  Service ; 
one  entrance  and  one  final  examination ;  one  resi- 
dence ;  one  lot  of  lecture  rooms ;  one  Commandant. 

We  made  a  big  mistake  when  we  created  a  separate 
Staff  College  for  India,  thereby  introducing  confusion 
into  the  spirit  of  the  General  Staff.  We  justly  attach 
importance  to  the  personality  of  the  Master  of  a 
public  school  who  has  to  put  his  own  trade  mark 
upon  four  or  five  hundred  boys.  At  a  Staff  College, 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    253 

in  place  of  a  mixed  lot  of  conscripted  children, 
drawn  almost  at  random  from  their  homes  or  from 
private  seminaries — instead  of  these  we  find  ambi- 
tious and  capable  volunteers;  selections  out  of  a 
great  Service,  in  the  first  flower  of  their  prime ; 
eager,  impressionable,  retentive.  Upon  this  plastic, 
fiery  stuff  the  Commandant  puts  his  stamp.  If  he 
is  worth  his  salt  the  whole  of  the  Staff  Officers 
passed  into  the  Army  during  his  tenure  will  have 
digested  his  doctrine.  Suppose  that,  long  after- 
wards, in  some  battle,  the  Generalissimo's  plan  goes 
wrong ;  the  enemy  are  weak  where  they  were 
expected  to  be  strong  ;  there  is  heavy  firing  from 
directions  supposed  to  be  clear  ;  the  telephones  are 
dumb  ;  the  aeroplanes  do  not  return  ;  the  fog  of 
war  descends.  Now  a  certain  Staff  College  graduate 
is  commanding  a  British  Corps  ;  a  man  of  his  year 
has  the  Corps  on  his  right,  whilst  a  man  of  a  later 
batch,  but  taught  by  the  same  Commandant,  is 
Chief  of  the  Staff  on  his  left ;  each  of  these  three 
will  know  what  the  other  two  will  do  and  what  they 
will  expect  him  to  do. 

When  the  Commandant  changes  the  doctrine 
changes.  Therefore,  a  good  Commandant  should 
hold  a  long  tenure.  Therefore,  also,  to  have  several 
Commandants  of  several  Staff  Colleges,  or  different 
Commandants  for  each  Service,  when,  by  a  little 
arrangement  and  expenditure,  the  whole  of  them 
could  be  brought  together,  is  akin  to  madness.  I 
mean  every  word  I  write  when  I  declare  here  that 
it  would  be  better  to  trust  to  mother  wit  than  to 
have  separate  Staff  or  War  Colleges  for  each  of 
the  three  Services.  If  we  wished  to  breed  discord 
and  confusion  that's  the  way  to  do  it. 


254      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

When  graduates  pass  out,  their  first  billets  should 
be  to  another  Service  ;  or,  if  that  can't  be  done,  at 
least  to  another  branch  of  the  same  Service.  During 
their  two  years  at  the  College  they  would  all  have 
been  given  more  than  a  casual  insight  into  one 
another's  work.  The  idea  of  young  military  and 
ah*  officers  going  to  sea  may  seem  strange,  but,  in 
fact,  it  is  quite  simple,  as  simple  as  making  a  sailor 
take  up  a  divisional  staff  billet  during  manoeuvres 
or  attaching  him  for  autumn  manoeuvres  to  a  battery 
or  infantry  battalion  ;  both  of  which  were  done 
by  me  on  Salisbury  Plain — done  with  a  success  in 
every  instance  so  outstanding  that  (unless  it  were 
to  be  assumed  that  sailors  were  much  better  men 
than  soldiers)  it  looked  as  if  some  new,  some  secret 
source  of  energy  was  being  tapped.  So  it  was :  a 
rediscovery  had  been  made  of  an  old  truth — the 
value  of  change  ! 

In  the  mapping  out  of  the  lives  of  State  servants, 
the  regulations  never  allow  for  the  value  to  a  human 
being  of  change.  Cabinet  Ministers  understand  its 
value  to  themselves  ;  it  is  evident  that  the  most 
powerful  of  them  are  those  who  exchange  portfolios 
most  often.  But  so  strong  a  hatred  has  the  State 
of  change  of  work  amongst  subordinates  that  it  will 
break  its  own  rules  to  avoid  it.  The  Regulations 
lay  down  that  at  stated  intervals  Staff  Officers  must 
revert  to  regimental  duty.  Are  these  Regulations 
obeyed  by  the  men  who  made  them  ?  Let  some 
member  of  Parliament  ask  for  a  return :  he  will  find 
that  they  have  been  systematically  violated.  Hence 
the  dislike  to  the  red  tabs,  brass  hats,  etc.  What 
wonder  if  they  fall  foul  of  regimental  ranks  when, 
by  their  remarks,  actions,  orders,  and  mere  attitude 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION    255 

they  show  that  they  have  worn  those  tabs  and  hats 
too  long ;  that  they  look  on  themselves  as  a  cut 
above  their  regimental  comrades. 

This  misfortune  is  accentuated  by  the  fact  that 
alone  in  European  Armies,  our  Staff  College  students 
are  between  30  and  35  years  of  age  when  they  join ; 
most  of  them  35.  By  the  time  they  have  passed 
out  and  have  done  one  Staff  job,  they  have  little 
regimental  service  left.  If  we  lowered  the  age  and 
made  it  25-30:  (1)  we  would  have  more  trained 
Staff  Officers ;  (2)  we  would  have  more  officers 
on  the  cadres  of  regiments  who  had  been  through 
the  S.C.  and  therefore  more  chance  of  having  them 
serve  regimentally. 

The  Master  of  Wellington  College  found  that  boys 
were  joining  who  had  been  crammed  with  Latin 
on  rotten  systems.  As  a  result,  they  had  lost 
heart ;  they  would  not  try  ;  as  Classics  they  were 
ruined  for  life.  So  what  does  the  Master  do  ? 
Being  an  original  character  he  asks  the  boys  whether 
they  would  like  to  drop  Latin  for  a  year  and  take 
up  Greek  ?  Greek  is  a  grand  old  lingo,  he  tells  them, 
and  Homer  beats  cock-fighting.  Every  boy  drops 
Latin  for  Greek  ;  sets  to  work  with  a  will  and  usually 
does  very  well.  After  a  year  some  of  them  go  back 
to  Latin  and  easily  make  good  where  they  had  been 
so  badly  beaten.  Just  in  the  same  way,  change 
of  service  from  sea  to  land,  and  land  to  sea,  would 
be  the  saving  of  many  young  sailors  and  soldiers 
who  are  bored  stiff  with  the  monotony  of  their  duties. 
No  sadder  sight.  The  human  soul  struggling  with 
red  tape.  The  cavalryman  sick  of  stables;  the 
sailor  nauseated  by  night  watches.  At  last  those 
agonies  are  over.  The  soul  is  dead.  The  desire 


256      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

for  change  is  dead.     Another  life  ruined  by  routine  ! 

Directly  the  Services  begin  to  dovetail  instead 
of  to  overlap  a  whole  series  of  economics  and  reforms 
would  spring  to  the  eye  of  Common  Sense.  The 
extravagance  of  the  Naval  Service  could  not  exist 
a  year  side  by  side  with  the  economy  practised  in 
the  Army.  All  those  defence  problems  now  being 
debated  at  random  in  press  and  Parliament  would 
be  studied  at  the  United  Services  Staff  College  by 
the  young  experiences  collected  there  and  would  be 
carried  to  swift  solutions.  By  the  time  Naval, 
Military  and  Air  officers  become  senior  enough  to 
attend  Cabinet  committees,  minds  as  well  as  arteries 
have  become  rigid ;  for  a  generation  each  of  them 
has  stewed  and  sweated  in  the  traditions  of  his  own 
Service,  seasoned  with  a  spice  of  contempt  for  other 
Services.  There  is  no  free  give  and  take  then,  there 
is  only  at  best  a  compromise ;  not  an  agreement 
between  friends,  but  an  arrangement  where,  like  the 
Dutch,  each  gives  as  little  as  he  can  and  tries  to 
take  too  much. 

An  agreement  between  friends  !  There  we  have 
it.  But  you  can't  easily  be  friends  with  a  man  of 
a  stranger  Service  with  which  there  is  absolutely 
no  liaison,  which  is  run  by  a  fellow  called  the  First 
Lord,  who  is  reported  to  be  constantly  exchanging 
snarls  with  the  Army  Council.  So  when  war  comes 
to  throw  the  soldier  and  the  sailor,  for  the  first 
time  of  their  lives,  into  the  same  boat,  they  are  apt 
to  get  on  one  another's  nerves  merely  through  the 
misfortune  that  they  neither  of  them  know  the 
ordinary  little  punctilios  and  etiquettes  of  the 
sister  service.  Not  until  we  remove  the  pegs 
upon  which  we  hang  our  bad  habits  will  we 


APPLICATION  OF  HIGHER  ORGANISATION      257 

get  rid  of  them — and  those  pegs  are  separate  Heads  ; 
separate  staff  colleges;  separate,  exclusive,  differently 
dressed,  differently  named,  differently  doctrined 
General  Staffs,  starting  actually  from  different 
schools.  Sandhurst,  Woolwich  and  Dartmouth,  what 
could  be  more  separate — what  more  separative? 
Why  not  turn  them  into  one  great  National  School 
where  cadets  would  begin  to  be  moulded  to  take 
their  place  in  that  vast  lethal  machine  which  we 
describe  by  the  euphemism  "  Defence  "  ?  Not  until 
they  reached  their  last  term  would  they  be  ear- 
marked for  sea,  land  or  air.  Up  to  that  time  the 
system  of  education  and  the  exams,  would  be  identical 
for  all ;  after  that,  towards  the  end,  boys  might  be 
allowed  to  specialise. 

We  know  that  men  usually  fail  if  they  don't  know 
what  they're  driving  at.  Where  are  we  going 
to  ?  What  is  our  imperial  drift  ?  There  is  no 
other  word  to  express  our  movement.  We  are 
allied  to  a  race  possessing  intense  concentration 
and  purpose,  the  Japanese.  We  are  invited  to  a 
conference  where  we  shall  be  expected  to  bell  the 
cat  for  the  U.S.A.  What  a  chorus  of  joy  and 
enthusiasm  !  Why  ?  Because  we  have  never  thought 
this  question  out ;  because  we  have  no  united 
defence  staff  which  could  pool  experiences  gained 
in  the  elements  to  the  elucidation  of  the  tangles 
of  policy ;  because,  owing  entirely  to  our  lack  of 
staff  method,  we  do  not  know  (1)  the  Japanese,  (2) 
the  U.S.A.,  (3)  our  own  minds.  Shall  we  do  best 
for  the  U.S.A.  by  holding  on  to  our  treaty  with 
Japan  ?  Shall  we  do  our  best  for  Japan  by  merging 
this  treaty  into  some  larger,  looser,  more  ambiguous 
arrangement  ?  Which  course  will  be  better  for  the 


258      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

British  Empire  ?  There  are  opinions.  Lord  North- 
cliffe  seems  to  wonder  whether  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
and  Lord  Curzon  will  make  into  an  impressive  com- 
bine at  Washington.  Others  think  they  will  work 
wonders,  seeing  one  of  them  knows  nothing  but  his 
fellow  creatures  and  the  other  everything  except 
his  fellow  creatures.  But  how  about  the  Japs  ? 
How  far  is  it  from  Formosa  to  Hong  Kong ;  how 
far  from  Nagasaki  to  Formosa  ?  No  doubt  our 
representatives  will  be  shepherded  by  a  scratch 
committee  of  soldiers,  sailors  and  airmen  ;  but  that 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  starting  off  with  the 
matured  doctrine  of  a  united  Services  General  Staff 
behind  them. 


CHAPTER  XII 
APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  THE  TROOPS 


\ 


Once  we  get  a  Defence  Minister  we  shall  begin  to 
move.  But,  as  things  stand,  we  can  see  for  ourselves 
that  nothing  more  is  being  done  than  tinker  up  the 
pre-war  machine  and  try  and  keep  it  on  the  road. 
So  I  propose  to  devote  a  few  words  to  the  changes 
in  our  own  Army,  which  must,  I  think,  in  some 

form  or  another,  take   place  as  soon  as  we  have 

•*• 

anyone  in    authority    who    has    a  little  time   for 
thought. 

In  our  Great  War  game,  the  Division  proved  itself 
to  be  the  organic  piece.  For  this  there  were  three 
main  reasons  :  (1)  the  Division  with  us  marks  that 
first  point  in  the  evolution  of  an  Army  when  officers 
and  men  feel  they  belong  no  longer  to  a  part,  or 
member,  or  branch,  but  to  an  entity.  (2)  The  units 
in  a  Division  were,  during  the  war,  left  together  so 
long  that  they  grew  together,  whereas  corps  and 
Armies  kept  on  changing.  (3)  The  Division  has 
thus  become  the  formation  round  which  the  memories 
and  feelings  of  our  Service  and  ex-Service  men  have 
actually  learnt  to  revolve.  As  the  war  dragged 
slowly  along,  officers  and  men  gradually  sank  first 
their  brigade  and  then  their  battalions  into  the 
larger  arrangement.  There  they  stopped.  The 
division,  not  the  Army  Corps  or  the  Army,  became 

259 


260       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

the  pivot  of  the  battle  ;  sharp  in  its  outline,  vibrant 
to  the  word  of  its  Commander,  crowned  with,  ever- 
green traditions. 

During  the  war  a  Division  became  to  us  exactly 
what  the  Legion  used  to  be  to  Imperial  Rome.  But, 
in  the  palmy  days  of  Rome,  the  Legion  was  never 
broken  up.  So  long  as  there  was  life  in  Rome  there 
was  no  talk  of  cohorts ;  the  Legion  was  the  unit. 
Even  during  the  chaotic  six  months  which  followed 
the  murder  of  Julius  Caesar,  even  at  the  time  when 
Mark  Antony,  Octavius,  Decimus  Brutus,  Marcus 
Brutus,  Cassius,  Dolabella,  Planeus,  Lepidus,  Pellis, 
Lucius  Marcus  had  all  taken  the  field,  the  only 
things  counted,  and  the  only  things  that  counted, 
were  the  Legions. 

The  Frontier  Force,  the  city  garrison,  the  field 
Armies,  reliefs  in  peace-time,  reinforcements  in  war- 
time were  all  by  Legions.  Later  on,  when  the 
decline  began,  the  Legions,  although  their  names 
remained  on  the  Roman  Army  List,  became  greatly 
disorganised.  The  Standards  and  Headquarters 
became  a  mere  depot,  whilst  the  cohorts  were  sent 
here,  there  and  everywhere  to  meet  the  pressing 
needs  of  the  moment.  Cohorts  from  one  and  the 
same  Legion  are  shown  as  serving  on  the  same  date 
in  Mesopotamia,  Palestine  and  Constantinople,  whilst 
the  Headquarters  remained  in  Egypt — I  had  almost 
written  Aldershot ! 

Probably  it  was  a  matter  of  course  to  the  War 
Office  that  our  old  regular  Divisions  should  be  broken 
up  as  soon  as  peace  was  signed. 

(1)  They  had  only  taken  shape  a  few  years  before 
the  war.  When  the  war  broke  out  the  battalion 
was  still  believed  to  be  our  basic  unit. 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS   261 

(2)  They  had  been  framed  upon  so  grandiose  a 
scale  that  it  was  impossible  in  the  process  of  the 
ordinary  reliefs  to  keep  the  twelve  infantry  battalions 
and  the  three  brigades  of  Field  Artillery,  etc.,  etc., 
welded  permanently  together.  The  units  comprising 
the  division  could  not  with  us,  as  was  the  case  with 
the  Roman  Legion,  be  constant :  they  were  always 
going  abroad  or  coming  home,  their  places  being 
taken  by  strangers :  the  shell  remained ;  the  con- 
tents were  constantly  shifting.  Until  the  war  had 
lasted  a  year  our  Divisions  did  not  get  the  chance 
of  becoming  what  the  Legions  of  Rome  used  to  be 
on  the  outbreak  of  war. 

Not  only,  then,  are  the  traditions  of  the  best  known 
Divisions,  as  for  instance  the  Royal  Naval  Division, 
the  29th  Division  and  the  51st  Division,  scattered 
to  the  four  winds  of  heaven  by  the  disbandment  of 
the  famous  cadre,  but  the  old,  original,  home  service 
divisions,  the  1st,  2nd,  3rd,  4th,  5th,  6th  are  not 
really  alive — will  not  become  real,  living  entities 
until  they  have  been  a  year  at  war.  How  can  they 
be  really  alive  when  two  years  is  about  the  limit 
any  unit  will  serve  with  them,  whereas,  at  the  precise 
present  moment,  there  are  no  Divisions  at  all  ?  I 
mean  to  say,  their  Headquarters  exist,  but  their 
battalions  are  sown  broadcast  here  and  there,  hap- 
hazard, by  battalions  and  by  companies  over  Ireland, 
Mesopotamia,  the  Black  Sea,  Egypt,  Palestine,  and 
Lord  knows  where.  In  India  also  they  have  no 
existence,  the  organisation  in  that  country  being 
by  mixed  brigades  of  Europeans  and  Indians  framed 
into  temporary  formations  which  are  only,  so  to 
say,  Divisions  by  courtesy.  Although  war  experience 
has  proved  up  to  the  hilt  that  the  heart,  force,  vitality. 


A 


262      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

of  a  British  Army  is  best  developed  in  its  Divisions 
and  that  the  battalion  is  not  big  enough  or  complex 
enough  to  generate  the  same  fervour,  we  have  actually 
at  this  moment  scrapped  the  Division  idea  and  fallen 
back  upon  the  effete  idea  of  the  battalion  !  Need  this 
be  so  ?  Not  at  all.  Our  Divisions  are  the  biggest 
known ;  let  them  become  the  smallest. 

I  myself  was  one  of  those  Commanders-in-Chief 
who  voted  originally  for  the  big  Division  of  three 
brigades  instead  of  the  small  Division  of  two 
brigades.  Now  I  have  changed  my  mind.  As  a 
pure  abstract  question  of  organisation  two  is  better 
than  three.  During  the  war  it  was  borne  in  upon 
many  of  us  that  groups  of  odd  numbers  of  identical, 
standardised  formations  are  a  mistake.  These  groups 
should  be  divisible  by  two — always  !  There  are 
arguments  for  the  odd  numbers ;  two  Brigades  in 
the  trenches ;  one  Brigade  in  reserve.  That  looks 
pretty  on  paper  and  will  do  very  well  for  a  week  or 
so.  But  when  your  two  front-line  Brigades  both 
get  worn  out  and  you  want  to  relieve  them,  you 
can  only  move  one  at  a  time.  The  subject  is 
arguable  perhaps ;  all  I  have  space  to  say  here  is 
that  the  balance  of  advantages  seems  to  me  to  be 
on  the  side  of  the  even  numbers,  and  I  know  that 
during  the  war  three  Battalion  Brigades  were  found 
to  be  an  unmitigated  nuisance.  A  five-company 
Battalion  would  also  be  a  curse  to  its  colonel  unless 
the  Fifth  Company  were  an  administrative  headquar- 
ters Company  which  stood  out  from  the  regular 
rosters  for  work  and  for  fighting.  War  demands  a 
perfectly  plain-sailing  system  of  relief.  One  Brigade 
in  the  trenches ;  one  Brigade  resting  in  reserve ; 
two  Battalions  in  the  trenches  ;  two  Battalions  in 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  263 

reserve.  This  should  be  the  aim.  At  the  Dardan- 
elles, more  often  than  not,  we  were  all  out  with  no 
one  in  reserve — but  that  was  not  from  choice. 

Therefore,  I  say  two^Bxigadeg  in  a  Division  is 
better  than  three,lmd  I  will  go  on  to  show  that  the 
smaller  Division  would  be  an  all-round  gain : 

(L)  The  Division  is  the  organism  which,  more 
than  any  other,  responds  to  the  character  of  its 
Commander,  and  it  should  come  comfortably  within 
the  grasp  of  that  officer,  who  should  be  able  to  make 
his  presence  felt  everywhere  and  every  day.  There 
were  one  or  two  divisional  Commanders  who  man- 
aged to  come  near  this  ideal,  but,  with  three  big 
Brigades,  the  task  was  well-nigh  overwhelming. 
With  two  Brigades  the  exercise  of  a  close  and 
constant  personal  touch  by  the  Commander  would 
become  simple. 

(2)  The  battles  of  an  Empire  are  fought  abroad. 
There  can  be  no  question  with  us  of  waiting  at  home 
for  the  enemy  to  visit  London.  We  have  to  go  for 
him,  to  get  to  him,  and  smoke  him  out  in  his  nest. 
To  make  provision  for  any  other  course  is  to  make 
provision  for  starvation.  Therefore,  our  Divisions 
should  be  small  enough  to  slip  neatly  into  our  ships 
like  swords  going  home  into  their  scabbards. 

We  need  no  prophet,  only  a  clear  thinker,  to  tell 
us  that  the  military  problems  facing  us  to-day  are 
amphibious  and  that,  behind  them  again — close 
behind  them — stand  amphibious-aeronautical  prob- 
lems. Yet  no  people  has  hitherto  been  so  hopeless 
as  ourselves  in  what  may  be  called  the  General 
Staff  work  of  amphibious  problems.  I  have  tried 
several  times  to  explain  exactly  what  is  General 
Staff  work,  but  I  will  once  more  put  it  in  a  nutshell 


264       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

by  quoting  the  famous  bull,  "  I  smell  a  rat ;  it  looms 
on  the  horizon ;  let  us  nip  it  in  the  bud."  How 
did  we  nip  the  Turkish  Army  in  the  bud  ;  a  rat  we 
had  been  sniffing  around  for  months  ? 

The  Admiralty  had  laboriously  collected  a  fleet 
of  transports  to  convey  our  troops  overseas.  This 
fleet  was  scattered  to  the  four  winds  behind  the 
First  Lord's  back  by  a  military  officer  (not  a  General 
Staff  Officer),  who  went  down  from  the  War  Office 
and  told  the  Director  of  Naval  Transport  that  Lord 
Kitchener  had  no  further  use  for  the  ships.  I  repeat, 
the  responsible  naval  authority  had  no  knowledge 
that  his  great  fleet  had  been  dispersed  by  a  soldier. 
So  far  so  good.  The  next  thing  that  happened  was 
the  final  Cabinet  decision  to  embark  the  troops. 
Between  the  date  when  it  was  finally  decided  to 
send  the  29th  Division  to  the  Dardanelles  and  the 
date  on  which  the  Admiralty  were  able  to  reassemble 
their  transports  there  was  an  interval  of  three  weeks. 
These  three  weeks  were,  in  so  far  as  foresight  could 
then  carry,  or,  in  so  far  as  afterthought  can  now 
reason — so  far  indeed  as  might-have-beens  can  be 
conjugated — fatal !  .  .  .  Another  sort  of  rat ;  that 
old,  black  rat ;  that  ancient  British,  watertight- 
compartment  rat  had  precisely  nipped  in  the  bud 
the  Dardanelles  Enterprise.  These  are  facts  ;  sworn 
to  on  the  Bible  by  witnesses  before  a  Royal  Commis- 
sion. If  this  outrage  upon  organisation  does  not 
move  us  to  have  one  Defence  Minister  over  the  three 
Services,  then — what  will  ? 

Remember  the  air  !     Within  a  few  years  a  Defence 
Minister  will  be  able  to  lend  wings  to  a  force  of  the 
and  weight  of  a  small  Division  and  will  cast 

off  like  a  peregrine  falcon  to  fly  at  the  enemy's 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  265 

eyes — his  aerodromes,  arsenals,  ports.  Think  of 
it !  Two  thousand  winged  adventurers  in  aluminium 
arms  skimming  like  mallards  over  the  ocean  whilst 
4,000  gallant  airship  fighters  follow  at  eighty  miles 
an  hour  in  their  wake.  We  stand  balancing  on  the 
very  verge  of  these  vertiginous  events ;  they  are 
here  if  only  we  had  eyes  to  see  those  shapes ;  ears 
to  hear  the  drone  of  their  engines,  the  swish  of 
then-  gigantic  wings.  Forty-five  years  ago,  when 
the  heavier-than-air  machine  was  still  safely  tucked 
away  in  the  womb  of  Time,  old  Tennyson  saw  the 
aerial  navies  grappling  in  the  blue.  Four  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  Leonardo  da  Vinci  wrote  into 
his  diary  the  words,  "  there  shall  be  wings,"  and, 
more  prosaically,  made  drawings  which  still  exist, 
to  show  he  was  hot  on  the  track  of  the  grand  secret. 
Surely  then  we  who  have  actually  witnessed  the 
Germans  doing  star  turns  over  London  and  the 
second  exodus  of  the  Jews,  surely  we  will  be  worse 
than  Thomas  Didymus  if  we  do  not  put  the  conquest 
of  the  air  on  a  par  with  the  mastery  of  the  sea  ? 
Empire  depends  on  command  of  the  best  communica- 
tions of  the  date.  Rome  fell  because  her  area  had 
outgrown  her  straight-line  roads.  Air  command  I* 
will  bind  an  Empire  :  loss  of  air  will  asphyxiate  an  \\^ 
Empire.  When  we  were  ruling  the  waves  ever  so 
majestically  our  imperium,  if  not  our  power,  was 
still  limited  by  coastline.  A  backward,  undeveloped 
State  stretching  far  away  inland  might  snap  her 
fingers  at  the  sea.  But  there  is  no  breathing  human 
being  who  will  snap  his  fingers  at  the  air.  There  is 
no  room  for  barbed-wire  entanglements  in  the  air ; 
there  is  nothing  there  but  clouds  to  hang  your  . 
torpedo  nets  upon.  Our  future  lies  in  the  air,  yet 


266       THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

see  this  year's  estimates !  Even  now  it  is  not  too 
late  to  stop  these  four  giant  warships  we  are  building, 
obsolete  before  they  are  begun,  nine-million  pounder 
Noah's  Arks ;  to  stop  them ;  to  invest  them  in 
air  bonds. 

A  joy  ride  into  cloudland  ?  Well ;  call  it  names 
if  you  will ;  we  are  studying  Armies  and  air  is  a 
military  element.  Armies  have  ever  been  interested 
in  what  was  going  on  overhead ;  now  they  will  be 
more  interested.  Divisions  will  have  to  be  portable  ; 
say  6,000  all  told ;  Engineers,  Artillery  and  all 
other  tools  and  engines  of  war. 

Time  flies.  We  must  fly  too  or  fall  sheer  into 
the  abyss  of  the  might-have-beens.  Yes ;  Time 
flies ;  Time  is  like  a  bird  upon  the  wing.  If  you 
want  to  bring  this  thief  of  life  to  earth  ;  if  you  want 
to  pick  the  gay  panache  called  glory  from  his  plumage, 
you  must  aim  well  in  front  of  him.  Every  golden 
lad  who  has  slam  his  hecatomb  of  longtails  knows 
that! 

The  burning  question  is  how  to  get  the  new  wine 
into  the  old  bottle ;  how  to  admit  quantities  of 
new  machines  into  the  old  model.  At  present 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  of  our  Army  are  infantry 
— civilised  foot-soldiers  left  to  depend  upon  their 
inherited  barbarian  qualities  when  they  encounter 
barbarians.  Unless  other  arms  happen  to  be  stand- 
ing by  him,  the  soldier  of  the  line  still  relies  in  battle 
less  upon  civilisation  than  on  the  old  fighting  blood 
and  his  discipline.  An  Arab  or  an  Afghan  wields 
as  good  a  rifle  and  bayonet  and  has  probably  been 
better  schooled  in  their  use.  The  same  thing  applies 
to  the  cavalryman  who  depends  upon  his  horse  (very 
likely  no  better  than  Bucephalus  or  White  Surrey) 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS    267 

and  his  miserable  spit  which  would  make  old  William 
Longsword  shake  his  sides  with  laughter  could 
he  rise  from  the  dead  and  handle  the  degenerate 
thing. 

Bacon  speaks  of  Infantry  as  the  nerves  of  an  Army ; 
some  one  else,  Napier  I  think,  calls  them  the  Queen 
of  Battles  ;  the  steel-clad  legionary  and  the  heavily- 
armed  hoplite  were  the  foundations  of  adamant 
upon  which  arose  the  fabrics  of  Roman  Law  and  Greek 
art.  As  to  the  British  Empire,  it  has  been  held 
to  be  based  upon  its  sailors,  a  steadfast  lot  amidst 
the  unstable  sea.  Yet  it  is  a  sure  thing  that  without 
the  Man  of  the  Line,  the  Contemptible,  the  white 
ensign  would  not  float  to-day  over  the  flotilla  which 
dominates  the  Rhine. 

Setting  aside  the  landing  at  Gallipoli  as  being 
a  feat  too  singular  to  serve  as  an  instance,  the  first 
battle  for  Calais  at  Ypres  gives  the  cleanest-cut 
sample  of  the"  form  "  of  our  professional  linesmen. 
The  enemy  was  more  numerous,  more  enthusiastic, 
just  as  brave,  with  a  crushing  superiority  of  machine- 
guns  and,  in  the  earlier  phases,  of  artillery.     Who 
won  this  battle,  a  victory  as  glorious  to  our  arms 
as  that  of  the  Spartans  over  the  Persians  ?     Who 
won  it  ?     We  may  say,  "  Lord  French,"  or,  perhaps 
we   say,   "  The   Worcesters  by  their  flank   attack 
round  about   Cheluvelt."     Is  that  true  ?     Was  it 
hi  any  remotest  sense  a  manoeuvre  battle  ?     What 
were  the  Worcesters  at  that  time  ?     Two  or  three 
hundred  exhausted,   disordered   Men   of  the  Line. 
How  was  it  the  troops,  generally,  as  far  as  the  eye 
could   reach    reacted    and    advanced    plying    their 
rifles  like  machine-guns  ?      Well,   if  you   want  to 
know  the  truth,  the  Men  of  the  Line  on  that  day 


268      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

as  at  Inkerman  and  on  many  another  stricken  field 
were  each  one  a  leader  to  himself.  This  greatest 
victory  of  British  Infantry  rank  and  file  was  won 
the  other  day,  and,  certainly,  up  to  that  day,  the 
basis  of  the  British  Empire  was  the  heavy-armed 
foot-slogger,  a  terror  in  war,  in  peace  an  apostle 
of  good-humour  and  fair-play.  Infantry  have 
ruled  the  military  roost  since  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  but  although  they  reaffirmed 
their  claim  so  lately  as  the  battle  for  Calais  we  must 
remember  that  this  world  moves  in  cycles^;  that 
cycles  do  not  last  for  ever,  and  that,  from  A.D.  378 
to  Bannockburn — a  long  stretch  of  time — cavalry 
were  the  arbiters  of  battle  and  infantry  were  looked 
upon  as  a  worthless  arm  which  fell  victim  almost 
without  a  struggle  to  the  onset  of  any  body  of 
horse.  Usually — almost  invariably — it  takes  the 
sharp  hammer  stroke  of  a  disaster  to  shatter  an 
opinion  which  has  been  six  or  seven  hundred  years 
crystallising :  nothing  less  than  a  charge  of  Gothic 
Horse  was  able  to  topple  over  the  eight  hundred 
years'  renown  of  the  Roman  Legionary.  But  can 
we  not,  for  once,  take  time  by  the  forelock :  will 
nothing  less  material  than  ten  battalions  of  aero- 
planes shake  the  sugared  complacency  of  Whitehall  ? 
To  show  how  solidly  entrenched  is  the  infantry  soldier 
— in  paper — I  need  only  quote  one  sentence  from  the 
first  leader  of  The  Times  of  30th  August,  1920: 
"  When  science  and  invention  have  done  their 
utmost,  the  infantry  arm  will  still  be  the  queen 
of  the  battle-field,  for  the  fundamental  laws  of  war 
are  unchanging."  This  sentiment  appeals  to  my 
infantry  heart :  I  wish  it  would  also  appeal  to  my 
linesman's  head ;  I  should  like  to  believe  it,  but  I 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS    269 

can't.  I  have  studied  my  profession  :  I  know  too 
well  that  the  pre-eminence  of  one  arm  is  not  a 
"  fundamental  law  of  war." 

Infantry  is  threatened  by  science,  and  the  only 
way  ouFTlegiments  of  the  LmeTcan  renew  their 
youth  is  by  embodying  mechanical  auxiliaries  into 
their  own  cadres,  instead  of  waiting  to  let  them  form 
themselves  into  separate  and  outside  bodies  which, 
once  organised,  will  assuredly  end  by  degrading  the 
infantry  into  being  merely  their  servants  and  escorts. 
The  vital  move  now  upon  the  board  is  to  cut  down 
the  proportion  of  men  armed  with  rifle,  bomb  and 
bayonet,  the  proletariat — no  longer  the  queen  of 
battles — and  to  stiffen  the  balance  with  a  proportion 
of  the  new  aristocrats  of  labour  and  of  war,  scientifi- 
cally trained  mechanics,  equipped  with  the  latest 
outfits  of  military  invention. 

Infantry  move,  fire,  charge,  hold. 

Cavalry  move  and  charge,  but  they  cannot  hold, 
and  their  fire  is  negligible  when  compared  with 
the  target  they  themselves  present  to  the  enemy's 
fire.  Their  movement  is  rapid  compared  with 
Infantry,  slow  compared  with  aeroplanes  or  motor- 
cycles. Though  mobile  themselves,  yet  by  the 
bulk  of  the  forage  they  consume,  they  hamper  the 
mobility  of  an  Army. 

Aeroplanes  move  and  fire,  but  they  cannot  charge 
or  hold. 

Tanks  move,  fire,  charge,  hold  and  give  protec- 
tion from  bomb,  shrapnel  and  small-arm  fire  as  well 
as  from  bayonet  or  sabre  charges. 

Artillery  can  (some  of  it)  move  and  (all  of  it) 
fire.  They  can  neither  hold  nor  charge.  In  action, 
their  shields  give  protection  from  rifle  fire  and 


270      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

shrapnel ;  on  the  line  of  march  they  are  helpless 
before  Infantry,  Cavalry  or  Tanks. 

British  taxpayer — there  you  are !  You  pays 
your  money  and  you  takes  your  choice :  around 
what  atom  will  you  build  your  new  Army  ?  Is 
it  to  be  the  heavy-armed  man  of  the  line  in  the 
steel  helmet,  gas  mask :  hung  like  a  Christmas 
tree  with  bombs,  cartridges,  water  bottle,  rations, 
kit ;  or,  is  it  to  be  a  cavalry  soldier  who  transfers 
all  these  impedimenta  to  his  horse,  which  makes 
up  for  it  ten  times  over  by  the  mountains  of 
forage  it  consumes :  or,  is  it  to  be  an  aeroplane ; 
or  a  heavy  gun  ;  field  gun  ;  machine  gun  ;  or  else, 
is  it  to  be  that  mixture  of  battering  ram,  battery, 
fortress  and  chariot — a  tank  ?  An  Army  must  be 
built  up  on  some  one  or  something — who,  what, 
which  is  it  to  be  ? 

Getting  on  for  forty  years  ago,  encouraged  by  the 
great  Lord  Roberts,  I  first  plunged  out  into  print 
with  a  booklet  entitled, "  The  Fighting  of  the  Future." 
In  those  sanguine  days  I  had  no  doubt  whatever 
as  to  the  hub  of  the  imperial  coach  wheel — Majuba 
Hill  had  rubbed  in  that  truth  with  a  Boer  bullet : 
I  believed  as  a  man  believes  who  has  seen  with  his 
own  eyes  and  felt  through  his  own  wounded  body 
that  the  soldier  trained  in  musketry,  practised  in 
musketry — fed  with  ball  cartridge  as  was  no  other 
soldier  in  the  world — would  be  the  matrix  stuff 
out  of  which  an  invincible  Army  could  be  created. 
At  the  time  musketry  was  regarded  as  the  fad  of 
a  handful  of  notorious  asses.  The  vague  Magnificence 
known  to  the  Subaltern  as  "  Horse  Guards  "  was 
believed  to  regard  it  as  a  tiresome  affair  upsetting 
to  the  Trinity  of  Colonel,  Adjutant  and  Sergeant- 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  271 

Major ;  interfering  with  the  chief  end  of  man, 
barrack  square  drill.  The  Adjutant  was  a  terrible 
swell ;  the  musketry  instructor  was  an  infernal 
nuisance  and  was  always  spoiling  the  smartness  of 
the  battalion.  That  was  the  state  of  things  in  the 
memory  of  this  living  writer,  and  it  is  pleasant  now 
to  look  back  over  those  struggles  and  to  think  that, 
working  under  the  aegis  of  Lord  Bobs,  I  had  some 
hand  in  realising  the  theoretical  soldiers  of  my  own 
booklet  and  in  turning  an  Army  of  bull's-eye  missers 
into  real,  live,  rifle  shots ;  into  the  straightest 
shooting,  celerity  and  precision  marksmen  at  a 
moving  target  or  head  and  shoulders  the  world  has 
seen  since  the  bowmen  of  Agincourt  and  Crecy 
transformed  the  Knights  of  those  days  into  porcu- 
pines. Even  now,  in  spite  of  the  bombing  machine, 
in  spite  of  the  big  gun,  field  gun  and  machine  gun, 
no  one  can  dispute  the  proven  fact  that,  from  the 
start  of  the  Great  War  to  the  finish,  the  infantry 
soldier  was  still  the  arbiter  of  the  fight.  We  have 
heard  the  Artilleryman  say  with  justifiable  pride, 
"  Guns  now  win  battles :  infantry  only  occupy 
ground,"  but  with  all  respect  this  won't  wash. 
The  occupation  of  the  ground  is  the  victory.  The 
guns  may  have  swept  the  enemy  underground ; 
the  machine  guns  may  have  kept  him  there ;  the 
aeroplanes  may  have  made  his  life  a  misery ;  the 
tanks  may  have  broken  through  his  line  ;  but  when 
it  came  to  making  good  the  infantry  stormed  and 
stuck  it.  Therefore,  it  is  natural  that  most  Generals 
should  say,  as  they  do  say,  with  quiet  conviction 
that  the  infantryman  is  the  pivot  round  which, 
upon  which,  the  new  model  Army  must  be  assembled. 
Train  him,  say  they,  upon  the  old  lines.  Let  him 


272      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

be  a  first-class  marksman.  Arm  him  with  an 
automatic  rifle  which  will  fire  I  fear  to  say  how 
many  rounds  in  a  minute,  and  there  you  have  an 
ideal  atom  of  the  form  of  action  known  as  force. 
Organise  those  atoms  into  platoons  ;  companies ; 
battalions ;  brigades ;  divisions.  When  you  get 
to  that  last  stage,  hook  on  to  your  division  a  pro- 
portion of  big  guns,  field  guns,  machine  guns,  trans- 
port, medical  services,  trench  mortars.  Let  Corps 
and  Army  Headquarters  be  ready  to  lend  it  Cavalry, 
aeroplanes,  tanks,  and  then  you  will  be  ready  for 
the  next  war. 

What  are  the  alternatives  ?  Do  the  Cavalry 
still  dream  of  carrying  the  mimic  battles  of  Salisbury 
Plain,  1905,  1906,  1907,  1908,  into  the  field  ;  mimic 
battles  when  a  handful  of  lancers,  hussars  or  dragoons 
affected  to  regard  mere  artillery  and  infantry  as 
game  made  for  brave  horsemen  and  complacent 
umpires  to  hunt  ?  For  one  who  had  seen  the  impo- 
tence of  cavalry  in  Manchuria,  the  cavalry  training 
on  Salisbury  Plain  during  those  years  seemed  to 
be  a  prolonged  and  most  pathetic  attempt  made 
by  middle-aged  men  to  make  believe  we  were  still 
in  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  subject  is  painful  to  me ;  one  to  be  cut  as 
short  as  may  be.  Next  to  my  book,  Compulsory 
Service,  the  act  by  which  I  have  injured  most 
myself  was  the  comparison  I  dared  to  draw,  in  a 
report  written  during  the  battle  of  Liao  Yang,  be- 
tween shock  cavalry  and  elephants.  Shock  cavalry, 
Liao  Yang  forced  me  to  announce,  were  as  dead  to 
the  world  of  war  as  elephants  (vide  footnote  on  page 
202).  In  Manchuria  took  place  the  death  of  Cavalry. 
Sick  since  the  South  African  Campaign  they  gave 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  273 

up  the  ghost  at  Liao  Yang.  During  that  desperate 
encounter  the  brave  and  thrusting  Japanese  riders 
were  as  clean  out  of  the  picture  as  elephant  mahouts. 
They  were  so  clean  out  of  it  that  Kuroki,  who  hated 
not  to  "  use  up  "  whatever  he  had,  set  them  to 
cook  rice  for  his  hard-pressed  infantry.  Quite  a 
sensible  order,  but,  I  heard  the  death-knell  in  it 
arid  —  what  was  I  to  do  ? 

I  knew  the  War  Office  would  receive  the  obituary 
notice  with  rage.  But  I  was  paid  to  send  it  in. 
So  I  pulled  myself  together  d  la  Samson,  prepared 
to  perish  if  only  I  could  bring  to  the  ground  that 
temple  patronised  by  wealth  and  fashion  wherein 
the  Spirit  of  Cavalry  sat  enshrined.  The  effort 
was  made  ;  nothing  stirred  ;  only  one  little  tile 
fell  off  the  roof.  "  He  has  a  tile  loose  "  was 
General  Sir  William  Nicholson's  comment. 

Now  (at  a  cost  of  how  many  million  wasted 
pounds  of  money,  tons  of  forage,  not  to  speak  of 
pleasantly  mis-spent  careers)  the  truth  is  known.1 
Thinking  Dragoons  knew  they  were  a  wash-out  in 
Europe.  To  seize  a  fleeting  opportunity  Cavalry 
had  to  be  concentrated  in  the  front  area,  and  there 
was  no  room  for  it  in  the  front  area  where  it  blocked 
the  roads,  villages  and  pumps.  But  when  the 
Cavalry  were  posted  in  rear  with  the  Corps  they 
were  never  on  the  spot  where  the  sanguine  kept  on 
imagining  they  might  have  been  able  to  do  some- 
thing. So  there  they  stuck,  inert,  eating  up  all 
the  oats  and  hay  in  France  and  England  ;  for, 
although  they  were  dead,  they  could  eat  as  much 


weight  of  foodstuffs  consumed  by  the  8,000  horses  of 
a  Cavalry  Division  is  86  tons  per  diem  or  nearly  thirty  lorry 
loads. 

T 


274        THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

oats  as  would  have  given  porridge  ever  more  to  all 
the  poor  of  London. 

Towards  the  finale,  once  more  the  hopes  of  the 
Cavalry  began  to  soar.  Here  was  the  classic  open- 
ing. A  routed,  worn-out  enemy  before  them— 
before  a  Cavalry  who  had  not  suffered  during  the 
war ;  who  embodied  the  only  allied  force  which 
still  retained  the  bulk  of  its  regular  officers  and 
had  its  pre-war,  highly  trained,  splendid  N.C.O. 
What  a  chance  that  seemed !  But  alas,  those 
accursed  Germans  still  would  be  up-to-date ;  still 
refused  to  be  "  sports."  The  same  old  song  came 
back  from  the  supposed-to-be-pursuing  Cavalry : 
"  Held  up  by  machine  guns  we  are  unable  to  locate  ; 
please  send  infantry."  In  Palestine  we  were  told 
that  the  Cavalry  had  at  last  come  into  their  own ; 
but,  in  the  first  place,  Asia  is  an  undeveloped 
theatre  where  old  fashions  have  long  runs ;  in  the 
second  place,  under  a  fine  Commander,  who  had 
long  been  black-listed  as  a  heretic  because  he  had 
faith  in  the  rifle,  our  splendid  Cavalry  and  Yeomanry 
at  last  got  a  chance  to  forget  their  cavalry  spirit, 
and  take  on  the  spirit  of  the  common  or  garden 
infantryman  who  gets  across  country  on  horse- 
back. 

To  anyone  who  looks  through  my  spectacles, 
it  is  clear  that  Cavalry  will  form  no  basis  for  our 
Imperial  Striking  Force  of  the  future.  For  a 
time,  mounted  men  will  be  necessary  in  Asia.  Lord 
Kitchener  himself  would  hesitate  before  he  started 
pegging  out  Afghanistan  into  barbed  wire  allotments. 
There  is  still  space  left  upon  that  Continent  for 
Cavalry  to  use  their  mobility  to  find  a  flank  and 
cut  communications.  Cavalry  can  move  three  times 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  275 

faster  :  also,  at  the  end  of  a  march  the  men,  whether 
for  digesting  their  rations  or  fighting  the  enemy, 
have  more  life  in  them  than  the  exhausted  Infantry. 
In  an  undeveloped  area  these  pulls  may  still  coun- 
terbalance the  damning  facts  that  Cavalry  present 
seven  to  eight  times  as  big  a  target  to  the  rifle  or 
machine  guns  as  Infantry ;  eat  and  drink  seven  to 
eight  times  more;  and  cost  twice  as  much  to 
keep.1 

Take  next  the  aeroplane,  for  weight  and  size  a 
miracle  of  reliability  and  toughness.  But  its  wings 
are  still  in  the  stage  of  those  of  a  dragon-fly  which 
has  just  broken  forth  from  its  pupa  and  there, 
poised,  on  the  tall  bullrush,  lets  sun  and  wind 
play  round  the  delicate  pinions  until  they  are 
attuned  to  the  new  elements  into  which,  after  a 
long  apprenticeship  in  mud  and  water  (just  like 
us),  the  perfected  creature  is  at  last  about  to  enter. 
Although  we  may  believe  implicitly  in  the  wonderful 
future  of  the  aeroplane,  our  faith  is  hardly  good 
"  cover "  for  an  imperial  gamble.  We  hardly 
know  enough  yet  about  the  air  to  stake  our  existence 
upon  an  element  more  fickle  even  than  the  sea, 
although  already  we  do  conjecture  enough  to  feel 
cool  and  comfortable  when  we  hear  of  Armadas  of 
billion  dollar  dreadnoughts. 

On  the  15th  April,  1915,  when  I  was  inspecting 
the  five  Service  aeroplanes,  all  that  we  had  in 

1  Taking  the  peace  figures  of  1914,  a  Regiment  of  line  Cavalry 
at  home  cost  approximately  £70,500.  Its  strength  was  694 
all  ranks  and  568  horses.  The  cost  thus  was  just  over  £100  a 
head,  all  ranks.  A  Battalion  of  Lane  Infantry  at  homo  cost 
£53,300  and  its  strength  was  802  all  ranks,  giving  a  cost  of  just 
over  £65  a  head.  Since  the  war  horses,  oats  and  hay  have  risen, 
relatively. 


276      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

hand  wherewith  to  tackle  the  Turkish  Empire, 
Commander  Samson  remarked — not  in  an  office 
but  out  of  doors  with  the  enemy  in  front  of  him— 
that  if  he  had  some  two-seater  planes  for  spotting 
and  reconnaissance  as  well  as  a  bombing  force 
on  the  lines  and  in  the  proportion  then  allotted  to 
the  Western  Front,  he  could  take  the  Peninsula 
single-handed  from  the  air. 

Now  if  this  famous  flying  man  was  right  we 
have  found  our  cornerstone  and  our  imperial  Army 
should  be  built  up  round  an  aeroplane.  But  was 
he  as  right  as  that  ?  In  this  case  we  were  assuming 

(1)  that  our  aeroplanes  were  at  Tenedos :    (2)  that 
they  could  deny  to  the  enemy  convoys  the  one  or 
two  long,  exposed  roads  by  which  he  kept  touch 
with  the  rest  of  the  Ottoman  Empire :    (3)   that 
they  could   sink   any  Turkish   ships   endeavouring 
to  communicate  with  the  Dardanelles  :    (4)  that  the 
Turkish  Army  would  be  starved  out  of  the  Narrows 
so  that  our  Fleet  and  Army  could  pass  comfortably 
on  to  Constantinople. 

Now  as  to  (1)  unless  the  Fleet  had  brought  the 
aeroplanes  to  Tenedos,  they  must  have  flown  from 
Cannes — a  feat  above  their  strength  in  those  days  ; 
and  even  supposing  they  had  managed  to  get  there 
without  help,  they  might  have  been  scuppered  the 
first  night  after  their  arrival  by  infantry  ferried 
across  from  the  mainland  of  Asia  Minor.  As  to 

(2)  and  (3),  even  as  early   as  1915  a   strong  force 
of  aeroplanes  and  seaplanes  based  upon  Tenedos 
or  Imbros  could,  unaided,  have  played  havoc  with 
the    Turkish    communications    by    land    and    sea. 
As  to  (4),  within  a  month  the  bulk  of  the  enemy 
forces  would  have  cleared  off  the  Peninsula  and 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  277 

the  Turks  on  the  Asiatic  side  of  the  Straits  would 
have  found  themselves  in  another  kind  of  straits. 
But  the  Narrows  and  their  minefield  batteries 
would  still  have  been  held  in  some  force,  and  those 
garrisons  could  neither  have  been  starved  out  nor 
driven  out  by  aeroplane  alone.  In  short,  the 
aeroplanes  would  have  paved  a  way  for  the  action 
of  the  other  two  arms  :  alone,  they  could  not  have 
got  to  the  spot ;  or,  if  they  got  to  the  spot  they 
could  not  have  stayed  on  the  spot ;  or,  if  they 
got  to  the  spot  and  stayed  on  the  spot  they  could 
not  have  forced  a  passage.  To  my  thinking,  then, 
the  aeroplane  cannot  yet  look  after  itself,  and  f. 
nothing  that  cannot  look  after  itself  can  be  chosen  y 
as  the  basic  unit  of  an  Army. 

The  big  gun,  the  howitzer,  the  field  gun,  and  the 
machine  gun — we  know  them  well.  For  myself,  I 
have  backed  big  guns  for  twenty-five  years  and 
was  the  only  witness  who  staked  his  reputation  on 
them  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  South 
African  War.1  At  the  moment,  they  and  the 
Engineers  who  teach  us  how  to  escape  from  them, 
seem  to  have  the  cannon  ball  at  their  feet.  But 
you  cannot  make  a  pivot  or  a  starting  point  of  a 
gun  if  only  because  the  article  does  not  lend  itself 

1  Extract  from  body  of  the  Report  on  the  War  in  South 
Africa :  "  170.  ...  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  expressed  the  view  that 
the  field  artillery  in  the  War  was  unnecessarily  mobile  ;  that 
great  mobility  should  be  confined  to  the  horse  artillery.  Ho 
called  attention  to  the  great  amount  of  space  taken  up  by  the 
number  of  guns  which  accompany  an  Army,  and  expressed  his 
opinion  that  two  heavy  guns  could  silence  six  field  guns.  He 
considered  that  the  only  artillery  used  in  the  field  should  be 
(a)  horse  artillery  to  accompany  mounted  branches,  and  (6) 
position  artillery  to  accompany  infantry,  at  a  pace  no  greater 
than  that  of  infantry." 


278      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

to  being  served  out  by  the  piece — or  piecemeal. 
Ordnance,  great  and  small,  works  in  groups.  A 
single  gun  feels  as  lonely  and  uncomfortable  on  the 
battlefield  as  a  vacuum  in  a  gale  of  wind. 

To  students  of  German  preparations  it  seemed 
as  though,  during  the  six  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  Great  War,  artillery  was  treading  very 
close  upon  the  heels  of  the  infantry.  Although 
guns  alone  could  hardly  march,  fight  and  win 
battles  ;  and  although  infantry  might  march,  fight 
and  win  battles  without  guns,  still,  the  artillery 
were  gaining  so  fast  that  if  the  whole  of  the  German 
Ordnance  had,  in  1912,  been  deployed  in  a  long 
line  with  the  whole  of  the  infantry  behind  them, 
it  was  by  no  means  too  fanciful  to  regard  the  foot 
soldiers  as  forming  a  mere  escort  to  those  real, 
ice-cutting  instruments.  The  war  rubbed  in  this 
new  aspect  of  the  arms.  When  the  first  rush  was 
over,  it  became  a  case  of  sit  tight.  Movement 
being  suspended,  the  ponderous  big  guns  were  put 
upon  an  admirable  platform.  Guns  grew  upon 
the  battlefield  like  mushrooms ;  the  great  guns 
attacked,  the  great  guns  counter-attacked ;  the 
guns  lost,  the  guns  won  ;  the  infantry  quitted  or 
the  infantry  walked  in.  So  it  went  on  until,  at 
Cambrai,  right  into  this  Bombardiers'  Paradise, 
there  broke  a  herd  of  unheard-of  monsters  browsing 
upon  shrapnel,  scampering  through  the  laborious 
entanglements  as  if  they  were  webs  of  gossamer, 
straddling  the  trenches,  rooting  out  the  machine- 
gun  nests,  putting  life  and  movement  back  into 
the  battle  and  proving  themselves  too  nimble  to 
be  flattened  by  our  idols  the  siege  guns. 

In  point  of  time  the  tank  was  the  last  to  take 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  279 

the  field,  but,  in  war,  the  last  is  very  apt  to  be  first, 
thfltapk  ;  nonsifW  it  well  ;  for  I 
say  unto  you  tnat  Solomon  in  all  his  wisdom  hit 
upon  no  happier  device.  For  years  the  idea  was 
in  the  air  and  seemed  likely  to  remain  there  until, 
suddenly,  from  Winston  Churchill's  brain  out  crawled 
these  lean  kine  of  Pharaoh  ! 

They  crawled  on  to  the  battle-field  out  of  Winston 
Churchill's  brain  did  these  nightmares ;  they  have 
gobbled  up  the  fat  horses  of  the  Cavalry ;  they 
may  yet  gobble  up  the  infantry  with  the  big  gun 
as  a  bonne-bouche  at  the  end  :  they  are  here  :  they 
have  come  to  stay :  they  will  either  ruin  us  or  we 
will  rope  them  in  and  make  them  serve  as  the 
corner-stone  of  our  building.  Fifty  years  B.C.  the 
British  were  famous  for  their  chariots,  replicas,  we 
are  told  of  those  driven  by  the  heroes  of  Homer. 
In  the  future  let  us  be  famous  for  our  tanks,  and 
if  we  needs  must  seek  the  bubble  reputation  at 
the  cannon's  mouth,  let  us  do  so  seated  in  a  whippet. 

Once  upon  a  time,  when  I  was  out  after  tiger 
in  Assam,  our  camp  was  raided  by  a  rogue  elephant 
in  the  night.  We  scattered  into  the  jungle ;  we 
caught  up  our  rifles  and  ran  for  it.  The  rifles 
were  no  good  :  it  was  too  dark  to  make  out  which 
were  our  own  elephants  and  where  was  the  wild 
fellow.  So  he  courted  our  lady  elephants  to  his 
heart's  desire  ;  flattened  out  our  tents  ;  made  hay 
with  the  toothbrushes  and  towels  and  generally 
enjoyed  himself  at  our  expense  until  dawn  when, 
not  being  encased  in  armour  of  proof,  we  were 
able  to  get  evens  with  him.  Now  I  think  an  experi- 
ence like  that  helps  me  to  enter  into  the  feelings 
of  a  Brigadier,  say,  who  has  withdrawn  his  exhausted 


280      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

men  from  the  trenches  into  reserve  billets  in  a 
village  behind  the  line.  At  midnight  he  hears 
that  half  a  dozen  tanks  have  broken  through  the 
front  and  are  bearing  down  upon  his  Brigade  ! 

Already  tanks  can  gallop  one  better  than  Cavalry. 
Before  we  know  where  they  are,  they  will  climb 
and  slip  through  rivers.  A  morass  bothers  them  ; 
a  forest  holds  them  up  ;  a  village  is  an  obstacle ; 
tropical  heat  tires  them  ;  but  so  do  these  things 
inflict  themselves  on  Cavalry.  A  tank  with  three 
men  and  a  boy  in  it  chases  a  Cavalry  Brigade  and 
begins  to  eat  it  up,  at  the  tail.  The  horse  guns 
come  into  action  and  manage — the  country  being 
favourable  to  artillery — to  fend  off  the  monster  so 
long  as  the  day  lasts.  The  light  begins  to  fail ; 
night  comes  on  apace — so  does  the  tank. 

The  more  these  vague  outlines  are  considered 
the  more  they  will  fill  up  with  flying  figures  on 
earth,  sea  and  sky,  whose  motive  is  swiftness ; 
i.e.  the  power  to  cope  with  the  fighting  man's  old 
enemies  space  and  time.  Take  the  diagram  of 
the  battle  of  Jutland ;  battle  cruisers  racing  parallel 
north-westwards  and  the  ships  of  the  line  coming 
up;  take  that  diagram  off  the  sea  and  plank  it 
down  upon  whatever  continent  you  like  best: 
replace  Jellicoe's  ships  by  heavy  armoured  tanks 
and  Beatty's  by  light  armoured  racers  :  let  whippets 
stand  for  the  destroyers :  plaster  the  sky  with 
airships  and  aeroplanes  :  paint  them  there  as  thick 
as  stars  ;  do  this  and  you  will  gain  a  truer  impression 
of  the  crash  tactics  and  high  velocity  strategies  of 
the  future  than  from  poring  over  false  battle  pictures 
by  Verestchagin  or  Meissonier. 

The   tank   is   a   warship   on   wheels.     The   tank 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  281 

marks  as  great  a  revolution  in  land  warfare  as  an 
armoured  steamship  would  have  marked  had  it 
appeared  amongst  the  toilsome  triremes  at  Actium. 
One  ironplated  penny  steamer  off  the  Thames ; 
only  one  ;  and  Mark  Antony  and  Cleopatra  might 
have  given  Rome  a  sensual  basis  to  her  Empire 
instead  of  those  foundations  of  decency  bequeathed 
to  her  by  Augustus.  Think  of  it  yet  again,  for 
this  latest  terror  will  carry  thought  as  well  as  men, 
ammunition  and  petrol.  Instead  of  one  small 
ironclad  steamer  barging  into  a  battle  between 
triremes,  take  one  tank  barging  into  a  unit  of  the 
"  Queen  of  Battles,"  a  Battalion  of  heavy-armed 
infantry.  The  infantry  are  naked  to  the  bullet ; 
are  as  naked  as  were  the  Incas  when  first  they 
encountered  the  Spaniards  encased  from  head  to 
foot  in  finest  Toledo  steel.  The  men  in  the  tank 
are  armoured  more  heavily  and  completely  than 
were  those  Spaniards  and  yet  they  are  not,  as  were 
the  conquistador es,  weighed  down  by  the  weight  of 
their  coats  of  mail.  On  the  contrary,  though 
wearing  an  impenetrable  cuirass  they  move  more 
lightly  and  swiftly  than  Cavalry.  They  are  not 
tired  or  hungry  or  thirsty ;  they  carry  heaps  of 
ammunition.  Read  over  the  story  of  Cortes  and 
the  Incas.  Read  of  the  steel-clad  Knights  and  the 
French  peasants  in  the  Jacquerie. 

We  must "  tame  the  tank  and  the  aeroplane ; 
they've  got  to  be  as  familiar  to  us  as  taxis.  Boys 
must  run  away  to  air  as  Lord  Reading,  Masefield 
and  other  famous  men  have  run  away  to  sea. 
There's  money  in  the  air  ;  there's  Empire  in  the 
air ;  news  and  vision  in  the  air ;  we  don't  quite 
know  what  till  we  try  :  and  the  first  step  is  to 


282      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

bring  aeroplanes  and  tanks  into  the  regimental 
framework. 

Every  Battalion  of  our  heavy-armed  infantry 
owns  a  King's  Colour  and  a  Regimental  Colour. 
Consecrated  emblems,  regarded  as  sacred ;  the 
man  in  the  street  takes  off  his  hat  to  them ;  the 
soldier  salutes  them.  Emblems  of  unrecorded 
heroisms,  in  war  they  would  still  form  rallying 
points  round  which  Scottish  or  English  would  die 
as  the  Saxons  died  round  the  Standard  of  Harold, 
only,  fire  has  reversed  the  old  order ;  warriors  who 
rally  to  a  point  are  food  for  machine-guns ;  we 
don't  want  to  rally  men's  bodies  nowadays ;  we 
want  to  disperse  the  Battalion  as  a  body  and  to 
unite  it  only  in  its  spirit. 

So  the  Colours  are  left  at  home.  Never  since  I 
first  joined  has  anyone  ventured  to  display  a  large 
crimson  piece  of  silk,  gold  embroidered,  in  war. 
At  the  Dardanelles,  twelve  miles  from  the  firing-line, 
I  was  begged  not  to  break  a  little  Union  Jack  no 
bigger  than  a  handkerchief,  lest  it  should  bring 
down  bombs. 

Since  Rorke's  Drift,  our  Colours  have  gone  into 
the  Cathedrals  when  our  country  called  upon  us 
to  fight.  Poison  gas  would  have  been  impossible 
to  people  fighting  under  consecrated  Colours.  If 
only  we  could  get  back  our  Colours  we  might  put 
back  chivalry  into  war. 

Seek  for  the  atom  round  which  the  armies  of 
Napoleon,  Marlborough  and  Julius  Caesar  crystal- 
lised, you  will  find  it  in  the  Eagles,  the  Colours 
and  the  Standards.  Infantry  has  lost  infinitely  in 
having  had  to  part  with  these  insignia  just  at  a 
moment  when  its  own  pre-eminence  is  being  chal- 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  283 

lenged  by  machines.  Unless  our  artillery  and 
infantry  can  graft  on  to  their  body  a  gland  which 
will  rejuvenate  them,  they  have  seen  the  best  of 
their  days.  So  now  I  say :  do  not  begin  by  raising 
Battalions  of  tanks  as  separate  corps  ;  do  not  take 
any  step  which  may  tend  to  turn  our  infantry 
into  tank  guards,  tank  supports  or  tank  escorts  ; 
but  rather,  make  a  start  by  gazetting  to  every 
Battalion  of  the  Guards  or  Line,  two  brand-new 
ironclad  Ensigns  to  carry  the  King's  Colours  and 
the  Regimental  Colour  into  action — two  tanks. 
So  violent  a  juxtaposition  of  the  old  and  new  may 
startle.  The  idea  of  chaining  twenty  mile-an-hour 
monsters  to  three  mile-an-hour  masters  may  seem 
absurd.  Try  it,  and  the  Battalion  Commanders 
will  rise  to  the  occasion  and  will  get  plenty  of  work, 
plenty  of  good  value,  out  of  their  tanks.  A  tank 
could  help  a  Battalion  in  a  hundred  ways,  not  only 
in  battle,  but  in  quarters  and  in  the  line  of  march. 
When  we  sprinkle  Lewis  guns  and  maxims  through 
the  Battalion  and  "  reinforce  "  infantry  with  auto- 
matic rifles  which  will  loose  off  thousands  of  rounds 
in  a  few  minutes  ;  have  the  speakers  ever  weighed 
those  cartridges  ?  How  are  our  hungry  fire-arms 
to  be  fed  ?  There  is  only  one  answer.  They  must 
be  fed  by  armoured  caterpillar  transport ;  i.e.  by 
tanks. 

We  are  to  have  five  Companies  instead  of  four. 
The  new  unit  will  be  made  up  of  the  administrative 
people ;  cooks,  servants,  batmen,  orderly-room 
clerks,  orderlies,  etc.  This  head-quarters  Company 
might  possess  as  part  of  its  outfit  a  section  of  light 
guns  made  to  serve  against  aircraft  or  tanks  and 
these,  with  two  Maxims  and  eight  Lewis  guns, 


284      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

would  give  it  a  higher  resistant  fire  power  than 
that  possessed  by  a  whole  pre-war  Battalion.  The 
two  tanks  would  be  with  it ;  watchdogs  ready  at  a 
moment's  notice  to  dart  out,  to  rally  the  broken 
ranks  or  to  head  them  in  the  pursuit.  Whenever 
the  Commander  wished  to  mass  the  whole  of  his 
tanks  the  mobility  of  the  monsters  would  simplify 
the  move.  In  peace  time  the  regimental  tanks 
would,  naturally,  do  some  weeks'  training  every 
summer  with  the  tanks  of  the  Division. 

A  Battalion  equipped  with  two  to  four  fighting 
tanks  and  lightly  armoured  caterpillar  transport, 
with  light  artillery  and  trench  mortars,  would  cost 
more  money  than  an  existing  Battalion,  although  it 
would  be  much  weaker  in  man  power,  for  a  propor- 
tion of  the  new  men  would  belong  to  a  more  highly 
paid  category  of  labour  than  our  present  rank  and 
file  ;  also,  be  it  said  in  passing,  a  more  troublesome 
category  to  manage.  But  engineers  and  skilled 
mechanics  can  be  managed  by  the  right  sort  of 
officer  and  they  make  rare  good  fighters :  as  to 
cost,  the  Battalion  would  not,  after  all,  cost  hah* 
as  much  as  one  of  our  existing  infantry  Brigades  of 
four  Battalions  and  yet,  in  independence  of  move- 
ment, hi  fire,  shock  and  holding  power  the  new 
model  units  should  prove  more  than  a  match  for 
one  of  those  infantry  Brigades.  Assume  the  two 
types  to  be  equal ;  think  what  a  saving  in  sea  and 
land  transport,  in  rations  and  in  casualties,  by 
endowing  some  600  souls  (for  that  is  the  strength  I 
would  aim  at)  with  the  war  value  now  possessed 
by  4,000. 

It  is  true  that  no  less  an  authority  than  our 
Field-Marshal,  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff, 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  285 

spoke  the  other  day  as  if  the  notion  of  saving  man 
power  by  machinery  was  based  upon  fallacy.  "  We 
might  reduce  the  number  of  men,"  he  is  reported 
to  have  said,  ;'  but  the  enemy  might  not.  We 
might  produce  a  thousand  tanks  in  the  field  and 
say  that  they  were  equivalent  to  a  thousand  divi- 
sions and,  therefore,  that  was  quite  enough.  But 
the  enemy  might  produce  2,000  tanks  in  the  field, 
provided  he  had  the  man  power  to  do  it."  The 
weak  part  of  this  powerful  argument  appears  to 
me  to  lie  in  its  tail.  The  proviso  contained  in  the 
last  nine  words  is  surely  incomplete  ?  The  sentence 
should  have  ended  "  provided  he  had  the  man 
power,  man  intelligence,  money  power,  manufactur- 
ing power  and  petrol  power  to  do  it  "  ;  and  there 
is  a  pretty  big  order  !  We  could  run  2,000  tanks 
in  four  months'  time;  Russia  with  all  her  man 
power  wouldn't  get  them  finished  until  the  pattern 
was  obsolete,  and  then  she  couldn't  man  them.  An 
enemy  would  need  more  than  "  man  power "  to 
see  England's  hand  in  tanks.  Put  the  problem 
into  terms  of  nations.  If  man  power  is  to  spell 
victory,  we  are  done.  The  entire  white  population 
of  our  widely  separated  Empire  is  sixty-eight 
millions,  which  is  less  than  the  concentrated  popula- 
tion of  continental  Germany  !  If  man  power  alone 
is  to  be  counted,  then,  as  in  pre-war  days,  the  British 
Empire  on  a  voluntary  basis  could  hardly  cope 
single-handed  with  Turkey.  But,  put  war  on  to 
a  scientific  basis,  calling  for  an  immense  output  of 
skilled  mechanics  and  engines,  and  there  is  only 
one  country  in  the  world  which  would,  at  present, 
meet  us  on  equal  terms  ;  namely,  the  U.S.A.  So 
far  we  have  made  no  move  towards  this  solution. 


286      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

Whether  or  no  the  clever  yet  unimaginative  remarks 
of  the  Field-Marshal  reflect  a  settled  policy,  assuredly 
we  are  acting  as  if  it  did  so.  At  this  very  time, 
with  all  our  vast  industrial  resources,  with  science 
and  her  inventions  at  our  beck  and  call,  we  had 
on  the  6th  of  June,  1921,  60,000  heavy-armed 
infantry  holding  down  the  light-armed  Arabs  of 
Mesopotamia.  We  cannot  hold  our  Empire  any 
longer  on  these  man-power  lines.  What  is  the 
alternative  ?  We  have  got  to  make  a  new  model 
professional  army  capable  of  eating  up  "  The  Nation 
in  Arms  "  —and  we  can  do  it.  There  is  only  one 
real  title  to  Empire  in  peace  or  war  ;  superiority ; 
but,  not  necessarily  superiority  in  man  power.  If 
the  leading  race  goes  to  sleep  and  the  subject  race 
comes  on,  there  can  be  only  one  end  to  the  race- 
man  power  must  win.  The  Arabs,  Afridis,  Waziris, 
Fuzzy  Wuzzies  are  busy,  copying  our  infantry : 
many  deserters  trained  by  us  are  in  their  tribes  ; 
they  are  coming  on  apace :  they  have  good  rifles 
and  cartridges  and  know  how  to  use  them ;  we 
must  invent :  we  must  go  one  better ;  or  we  are 
caught :  we  must  lift  war  on  to  a  more  mechanical, 
industrial,  scientific  plane.  Let  none  of  us  be  so 
mad  as  to  imagine  we  can  oppose  a  law  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians  to  natural  laws,  or  insist  that  our 
Army  of  the  past  is  going  to  prove  a  passport  to 
an  eternity  of  Empire.  There  is  nothing  eternal 
about  the  British  Army ;  nothing  fixed — thank 
God,  for  that  proves  it  is  alive,  although  there  are 
some  soldiers  who  seem  to  think  it  is  as  blasphemous 
to  alter  one  of  its  buttons  as  to  question  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity.  When  I  first  joined  "  A  "  Company 
of  the  Gordons  it  was  still  spoken  of  affectionately, 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  287 

though  not  officially,  as  the  Grenadier  Company. 
So,  if  it  is  a  sine,  qua  non  in  our  Army  to  find  a 
precedent  in  the  past,  be  it  understood  that  when 
my  father  joined  the  Gordon  Highlanders  he 
served  in  Number  8  of  the  "  Light  Company "  ; 
that  Number  1  was  the  "  Grenadier  Company." 
There  is  nothing,  therefore,  now  so  very  revolutionary 
in  proposing  certain  changes  whereby  trench  mortars 
would  be  handled  by  the  old  grenadiers  and  motor- 
cycles be  used  to  help  the  old  Light  Company  to 
recover  its  alertness. 

These  are  my  ideas.  The  Brigade  would  contain 
four  of  these  ideal  Battalions ;  the  Division  two 
Brigades.  The  aim  should  be  to  keep  the  Division 
down  to  the  size  of  the  Roman  Legion  in  its  prime ; 
i.e.  6,200  fighting  men.  In  any  case  the  existing 
Division  must  be  cut  down.  On  the  road  one  of 
our  present  Divisions  with  its  transport  extends 
for  sixteen  miles  !  With  the  new  model  Divisions 
suggested : 

(1)  It  would  be  possible  to  carry  out  reliefs  by 
Divisions    whereby    those    vital   formations    would 
remain  constant,  intact,  together  with  their  artillery, 
tanks  and  aeroplanes. 

(2)  We  should  then  have  a  number  of  Armies  in 
miniature ;    Armies  handy  enough  to  slip  neatly, 
quickly,  all  complete,  into  airships  or  sea  ships. 

(3)  By  these  means,  i.e.  by  dividing   our  Army 
into  a  larger  number  of  smaller  Divisions  and  by 
making   each   Division   an   epitome   of   the   grand 
Army,  we  shall  best  combat  our  racial  esprit  de 
clique  to  which  the  new  machines  are  lending  them- 
selves. 

For  the  last  of  the  three  reasons,  as  well  as  on 


288      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

other  grounds,  aeroplanes  should  form  part  of  the 
Divisional  Artillery.  Aeroplanes  are  themselves 
artillery  of  a  sort,  and,  when  they  are  not  actually 
working  on  reconnaissance  or  as  long-range  artillery, 
their  most  essential  duty  is  to  spot  for  the  Divisional 
Artillery,  a  duty  which  will  be  carried  out  twice 
as  well  when  the  observer  and  flyer  know  their 
gunners  and  the  gunners  know  them  and  their 
manners  and  air  customs. 

As  to  the  immediate  and  practical  bearing  of  my 
proposal,  I  doubt  if  there  is  a  single  soldier  who 
will  question  the  numerous  advantages  of  keeping 
our  Divisions  intact,  but  it  may  be  objected  that 
when  we  have  got  rid  of  our  temporary  "  repara- 
tions "  garrisons  there  will  be  only  one  place  abroad 
where  there  could  be  a  garrison  of  the  size  even 
of  my  reduced  divisions ;  i.e.  the  Mediterranean. 
When  we  get  east  of  Suez,  it  may  be  argued,  we  use 
mixed  Brigades  of  British  and  Indian  troops,  and 
once  we  do  that  the  identity  of  our  British  Divisions 
must  be  lost.  I  believe  there  are  several  ways  of 
meeting  this  objection  and  I  will  proceed  to  state 
one  of  them : 

Suppose  the  6th  Division  has  its  headquarters  on 
Salisbury  Plain  and  that  its  eight  Battalions  are  all 
1st  Battalions.  The  2/6th  Division  comprising  the 
second  Battalions  is  posted,  say,  to  Rawal  Pindi. 
On  arrival,  two  Battalions  in  each  of  its  Brigades, 
four  Battalions  in  all,  would  be  replaced  by  native 
Battalions.  The  Division  would  remain  essentially 
"  the  2/6th  "  under  its  same  Commander,  brigadiers 
and  staff.  Behind  it  would  be  formed,  at  once, 
"  the  3/6th  "  and  "  the  4/6th  "  Divisions  on  exactly 
the  same  model  except  that  the  Brigades  would 


APPLICATION  OF  ORGANISATION  TO  TROOPS  289 

consist  of  one  British  and  three  Indian  Battalions 
instead  of,  as  in  "  the  l/6th  "  or  as  in  "  the  2/6th," 
of  two  British  and  two  Indian.  The  guns,  aeroplanes 
and  tanks  would  be  British.  Whether,  on  the 
Roman  plan,  "  the  2/6 th "  should  remain  per- 
manently at  Rawal  Pindi  or  only  for  its  tour  of 
ten  to  fifteen  years  of  foreign  service,  changing 
places  then  with  "  the  l/6th,"  is  a  matter  of  senti- 
ment. So  long  as,  on  the  Cardwell  analogy,  the 
Battalions  abroad  were  the  second  Battalions  of 
the  units  serving  at  home  the  officers  and  men 
would  work  eastwards  and  westwards  freely,  doing 
part  of  their  service  at  home  and  part  hi  India, 
just  as  at  present — but  always  as  part  of  the  same 
division,  the  6th. 

Regimental  "  side  "  (the  bad  side  of  pride)  will 
spread  like  a  prairie  fire  to  our  aeroplanes — unless 
we  watch  it.  Association  is  the  antidote  to  exclusive- 
ness.  Paint  the  pants  blue ;  invent  fanciful  new 
titles ;  segregate  into  a  separate  corps,  and  you 
lead  your  Air  Marshals  and  their  men  direct  to  the 
never,  never  land  of  "  Look  out  for  my  wings ;  I 
don't  know  you,  Mr.  Mud-crusher,  and  I  mean  to 
take  jolly  good  care  neither  you  nor  your  flat-footed 
Generals  shall  ever  know  me  !  "  Wings  instead  of 
spurs,  only  more  so.  In  1898  the  artillery  Comman- 
der loaned  out  his  guns  to  infantry  Commanders  as 
if  they  were  incomprehensible  mysteries,  and  the 
infantry  Commander  received  them  in  the  same 
spirit.  On  that  same  Salisbury  Plain,  eight  and 
nine  years  later,  I  made  infantry  officers  exchange 
places  for  six  weeks  at  a  stretch  with  gunners. 
Apart  from  all  other  advantages,  administrative, 
strategic  and  tactical,  the  best  way  to  prevent 


290      THE  SOUL  AND   BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

our  new  model  Army  from  becoming  a  loose  handful 
of  separate  stuck-up  sticks  instead  of  a  firmly 
clamped,  wire-bound  military  fascine,  is  to  organise 
the  infantry  of  each  Division  to  include  land 
machines,  and  to  organise  the  Divisional  Artillery 
to  include  ah*  machines.  A  Division  so  organised 
will  be  complete  in  itself,  ready  to  go  anywhere 
and  tackle  any  enemy  exactly  like  a  Roman  Legion, 
and  the  mighty  atom  on  which  it  will  be  built  up 
must  be  the  tank. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

APPLICATION  OP  DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING, 
PATRIOTISM 

Simplicity  of  line  ;  harmony  with  surroundings  ; 
adaptability  to  habits  of  inmates  are  the  charac- 
teristics of  good  architecture  and  also  of  a  sound 
organisation.  We  have  applied  these  standards  to 
our  new  model  and  the  results  have  been  duly  set 
forth.  India,  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Domin- 
ions stand  or  fall  with  us.  They  are  not  watertight 
compartments  each  of  which  is  meant  to  close  up 
and  look  out  for  itself  the  moment  a  collision  occurs. 
Therefore,  so  soon  as  we  get  our  own  house  in  order 
they  will  fall  instinctively  into  line.  But  you  can't 
fall  into  line  with  a  zigzag  ! 

There  remain  discipline,  training,  patriotism,  and 
there  is  nothing  much  wrong  with  the  methods  of 
their  application  by  our  officers,  once  they  get  to 
work. 

The  Army  does  not  get  hold  of  the  lads  it  enlists 
until  they  are  eighteen.  During  the  years  between 
the  South  African  War  and  the  Great  War  it  was 
not  easy  to  get  the  men  to  understand  the  great 
moral  and  cultural  ideas  underlying  the  conception 
of  the  British  Empire.  The  Rank  and  File  had 
been  so  saturated  with  trade  notions  and  the  ethics 
of  commercialism  that  they  could  not  conceive  of 

291 


292      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

it  as  anything  but  a  "  business."  Unless  it  could 
be  shown  there  was  "  money  in  it "  they  thought 
the  Empire  must  be  a  sort  of  Toff  amongst  nations, 
and  although  they  were  always  keen  enough  to 
fight  for  fighting's  sake,  they  did  not  wax  enthusiastic 
over  turning  John  Bull  into  a  Toff.  The  fault 
here  was  that  of  the  Education  Department :  the 
British  Empire,  its  aims  and  enemies  had  never 
been  explained. 

Most  recruits  had  fallen  between  two  stools, 
their  parents  and  the  schools.  The  parents  thought 
the  schools  were  going  to  teach  discipline  and 
patriotism  and  the  schoolmasters  said  those  subjects 
were  not  in  their  curriculum.  But  it  is  in  childhood, 
when  the  infant  is  still  within  its  home,  that  the 
ball  cartridge  is  in  the  breech  of  the  rifle.  The 
mother  aims  carefully  or  carelessly  as  she  is  an 
unselfish  or  a  selfish  woman  and  only  pulls  the 
trigger  when  she  sends  the  child  to  school.  Storms 
may  drive  the  bullet  from  its  course,  obstacles  may 
break  it  in  mid-career,  but  nothing  in  after  life 
can  prevent  that  original  impulsion  from  being  the 
prime  factor  of  its  flight. 

Of  all  Japanese,  the  one  who  has  most  vividly 
struck  European  imaginations  is  the  late  General 
Count  Nogi,  the  Commander  of  the  besieging  Army 
at  Port  Arthur.  Of  all  the  many  men  of  that  race 
I  myself  have  had  the  privilege  of  knowing,  he 
was  the  most  wonderful ;  with  a  simplicity  equalling 
that  of  Kuroki,  and  an  inward  fire  of  patriotic 
energy  approaching  that  which  burnt  in  the  heart 
of  Kodama.  Very  respectfully,  then,  let  us  listen 
to  this  flower  of  Japanese  chivalry :  "  Bushido," 
he  says,  "  is  what  our  parents  have  taught  us  with 


DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM       293 

great  earnestness,  day  and  night,  from  our  fourth 
or  fifth  year,  when  we  first  began  to  have  some 
knowledge  of  the  things  around  us." 

So  we  get  the  capture  of  Port  Arthur,  and  the 
supreme  victory  of  Mukden  as  a  monument  not  to 
women's  votes  but  to  their  domestic  virtues.  The 
tradition  wins  in  the  long  run.  As  a  mere  stripling 
young  Yamagata  swam  out  with  his  sword  to 
attack  a  foreign  ironclad.  The  Americans  were 
much  amused.  Marshal  Yamagata's  spirit  has  over- 
run a  continent  to-day  and  the  Americans  are  no 
longer  amused.  The  mothers  can  keep  the  right 
spirit  alive.  Under  their  tender  hands  the  plastic, 
formless  spirit  of  the  child  "  that  cometh  from 
afar  "  can  be  moulded  into  reverence  for  tradition 
and  enthusiasm  for  what  is  noble  and  brave.  Then, 
no  matter  what  our  type  of  Army  be,  Regular, 
Militia,  Conscript,  Volunteer,  it  would  assuredly 
be  the  best  of  its  kind  the  wide  world  over. 

In  the  opening  years  of  the  century,  every  single 
recruit  enrolled  under  the  Banner  of  the  Rising 
Sun  had  been  born  and  bred  in  that  antique  virtuous 
atmosphere.  Each  one  of  them  had  absorbed  the 
great  enthusiasm  twenty  years  previously  with 
his  mother's  milk,  and  the  schools  had  zealously 
continued  the  education,  marching  their  classes 
through  deepest  snow  to  teach  them  that  the  idea 
of  storming  Moscow  was  mere  child's  play  for 
patriots ;  keeping  ever  before  them  the  memory 
of  their  national  heroes  and  the  thought  that  the 
chief  end  of  man  was  to  die  nobly ;  to  be,  in  his 
own  idiom,  "  determined  to  die "  whenever  his 
Emperor  might  make  the  signal ! 

The  British  recruit,  officer  or  man,  is  not  of  the 


294      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

temper  to  absorb  ideas  which  died  in  Europe  with 
Don  Quixote.  He  would  consider  them  heathenish, 
and  indeed  they  do  not  fit  in  readily  with  our  codes. 
But  we  soldiers  might  fairly  demand  from  govern- 
ment, from  the  Church  and  from  board  schools, 
that  our  recruits  should  come  to  us  with  an  inkling 
at  least  of  the  gist  of  a  citizen's  duties.  A  short 
time  before  the  war,  some  leaflets  fluttered  across 
the  educational  horizon — leaflets  wherein  the  meaning 
of  the  words  "  policemen,"  "  municipality,"  "  Lord 
Mayor  "  were  expounded ;  containing  also  a  few 
straight  tips  as  to  how  an  artful  dodger  might 
make  a  bit  by  working  the  State  oracle.  This  is 
not  the  stamp  of  training  in  citizenship  here  advo- 
cated. Milton  tells  us  that  a '  *  complete  and  generous 
education  "  should  fit  a  man  "  to  perform  justly, 
skilfully  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both 
private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war."  But  the 
young  men  we  used  to  enlist  at  our  depots — the 
youths  for  whose  elementary  education  we  used  to 
pay  fifteen  millions  a  year,  then  twenty  and  then, 
for  1913-14,  nearly  twenty-six  milhons  a  year, 
owed  strangely  little  of  their  equipment  for  State 
service  in  peace  or  war  to  their  State  education. 
The  book  learning  they  possessed  had  been  given 
them  to  get  the  better  of  their  comrades ;  not  to 
help  their  comrades.  Their  theory  of  duty  to  the 
State  in  peace  was  limited  to  doing  nothing  actively 
noxious  to  the  common  weal ;  to  keeping  on  the 
right  side  of  tne  law.  As  to  their  duty  in  war,  I 
have  made  it  my  business  to  ask  young  soldiers 
this  question,  and  not  one  of  them  has  been  able 
to  remember  any  advice  during  the  course  of  his 
board  school  education  as  to  how  a  true  Briton 


DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM       295 

could  best  help  his  country  in  war-time.  The 
scholastic  idea  seems  to  have  been  that  we  were 
so  admirable  that  we  had  no  enemies.  For  that 
reason,  perhaps,  the  lads  were  brought  up  to  be 
their  own.  For  certainly  the  egoist  has  no  enemy 
like  himself  and  Milton  recognised  that  fact  long 
ago  when  he  laid  his  stress  upon  a  "  generous " 
education.  The  State  schools  prepare  our  boys 
for  peace  and  prosperous  times  :  this  is  unfair  :  the 
people  ought  to  be  prepared  for  war  and  hard  times. 
As  it  is,  recruits  have  to  learn  the  meaning  of  words 
like  "  fair  play,"  "  renown,"  "  honour,"  loyalty," 
"  glory,"  after  they  have  joined  the  Colours. 

Here  is  where  the  British  Officer  comes  in  and,  to 
the  surprise  even  of  those  who  know  him  best  and 
admire  him  most,  turns  himself  into  a  pedagogue 
and  throws  himself  heart  and  soul  into  saving  the 
heart  and  soul  of  his  little  brother,  the  soldier. 
How  does  he  do  it  ?  How  can  he  do  it  ?  He  is 
shy ;  inarticulate ;  loathes  ink-splashing ;  turns 
pale  at  the  idea  of  a  lecture.  But,  he  has  been  at 
a  public  school ! 

Compare  for  a  moment  the  ideals  set  before  the 
public  schoolboy  and  the  State  school  scholar ; 
see  the  paragon  of  the  public  school ;  a  gallant 
figure.  One  who  helps — who  rules — who  leads— 
who  orders  ;  Captain  of  the  Eleven  ;  the  mainstay 
of  the  football  team  ;  already  a  man  in  temper  and 
resource,  he  wields  more  power  more  beneficially 
than  many  a  Premier.  The  finished  public  school- 
boy has  been  well  trained  in  the  art  of  Life,  though, 
naturally  enough,  when  this  monastically-bred 
creature  comes  in  contact  with  women  he  is  out  of 
his  depth  in  an  instant. 


296      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN   ARMY 

The  paragon  of  the  board  school  is  not  the  Captain 
of  a  team,  but  the  individual  prize  winner.  Behold 
the  pasty-faced  creature  step  forth — a  knock-kneed 
marvel  who  has  made  the  mistresses'  career.  He  is 
no  more  use  for  battling  with  the  wide  world  than 
one  of  the  many  sick  headaches  his  erudition  has 
cost  him.  There  he  stands,  his  memory  stuffed  as 
full  of  half-digested  information  as  a  Strasburg 
goose  with  truffles.  His  only  chance  in  life  is  to 
get  a  post  whence  he  will  be  able  again  to  disgorge 
the  unassimilated  contents  of  his  brain  into  other 
young  minds  as  an  owl  vomits  its  midnight  banquets 
into  the  gaping  throats  of  the  owlets;  or  else— 
that  grand  Eldorado — a  seat  on  a  Government 
office  stool.  Once,  in  an  evil  hour,  a  great  merchant 
was  bitten  with  the  whim  of  taking  the  top  boys 
of  board  schools,  on  their  intellectual  merits,  as 
the  future  managers  of  his  immense  concerns 
abroad.  Had  he  lived  only  a  year  or  two  longer 
he  would  have  witnessed  the  ruin  of  his  business. 
Any  average  public  schoolboy  was  their  master 
when  it  came  to  managing  native  labour  or  negotiat- 
ing with  others  in  the  give  and  take  see-saw  of  the 
battle  of  life. 

Our  State  spends  more  and  more  money  on 
education  and,  speaking  purely  as  a  soldier,  I 
gratefully  admit  that  a  recruit's  brains  have  been 
so  far  improved  that  he  will  pass  muster  as  a  trained 
soldier  in  one-third  of  the  time  he  took  in  1870. 
Pass  muster  ?  Yes,  as  to  his  knowledge ;  but 
have  his  heart,  character,  physique  also  shown 
value  for  the  money  ?  How  about  discipline, 
training  and  patriotism  ?  Remember,  we  have 
behind  us  the  report  of  a  Royal  Commission  on 


DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM       297 

education  to  say  that  the  trifle  of  £20,000,000  a 
year  we  were  then  spending  was  "  having  no  effect 
on  poverty  "  ;  was  not  "  developing  self-reliance 
or  forethought  in  the  characters  of  the  children." 
Indeed,  we  needed  no  Royal  Commission  to  tell  us 
so  ;  have  we  not  eyes  and  ears  ?  Have  we  not 
memories  ?  We  have  never  got  our  money's  worth  : 
nor  will  that  same  system,  intensified  and  pro- 
longed, give  us  value  for  our  £97,206,348  !  How 
should  it  ?  How  on  earth  should  anything  in  a  board 
school  curriculum  develop  self-reliance  ?  If  the  senior 
class  were  told  to  run  the  school  now  and  then  .  .  .  ? 
The  baby  of  a  labourer,  being  a  British  labourer's 
baby,  has  very  likely  better  hereditary  claims  on 
Society  than  the  baby  of  a  profiteering  war  Peer. 
The  ups  and  downs  have  been  so  tremendous  in 
these  islands  that  we  have  ploughmen's  children 
with  Royal  Descents  running  back  to  the  Emperors 
of  the  East  or  the  Emperors  of  the  West  whose 
Member  of  Parliament  would  get  a  fright  if  he  saw 
his  own  family  tree.  But  here,  in  these  same 
islands,  the  children  of  Labour  are  handicapped— 
not  because  they  don't  get  money  enough  voted 
for  their  education,  but  because  the  money  goes  on 
book  learning.  They  are  taught,  very  feebly,  to 
obey ;  they  are  not  taught  to  command  and,  if 
they  are  not  taught  to  command,  how  ever  are 
they  going  to  govern  ?  Public  schoolboys  may 
learn  devilish  little,  but  at  least  they  do  get  a  chance 
of  learning  how  to  rule  their  boy  comrades :  board 
schoolboys  may  learn  no  end  of  stale  news  about 
figures,  words  and  places,  but  they  hardly  ever 
get  a  real  chance  of  learning  how  to  handle  the 
other  boys. 


298      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

"  Education  for  all "  might,  but  does  not,  mean 
"  Equal  opportunities  for  all."  By  including  bodily 
training  and  character  discipline  in  the  term  "  educa- 
tion "  and  by  enlisting  the  big  boys  to  help  them, 
the  masters  of  public  schools  have  made  it  easier 
for  a  camel  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
than  for  a  poor  man  to  enter  the  Cabinet.  What 
we  call  in  our  common  talk  "  the  governing  classes  " 
are  "  public  school  classes  "  :  they  with  but  few 
exceptions  have  run  the  British  Empire.  Where 
the  exception  has  come  in,  although  that  outsider 
might  be  no  end  more  brilliant  than  the  rest,  he 
has  rarely  carried  through  without  letting  us  down. 
Heredity  has  nothing  to  say  to  this ;  not  in  these 
islands  where  the  breeding  of  the  lower  classes 
is  not  low.  Here  the  pot  has  always  been  on 
the  boil  and  particles  of  the  brew  have  always 
been  darting  up  into  the  scum  and  falling  back 
into  the  sediment.  There  is  no  earthly  reason 
why  the  son  of  a  British  charwoman  by  a 
British  sea  cook  shouldn't  rule  all  England  except 
that  he  has  never  been  disciplined  or  trained — 
except  that  he  has  never  been  taught  to  rule 
others — let  alone  himself — at  his  expensive  State 
school. 

The  boy  scouts  have  managed,  by  efforts  compared 
with  which  the  defence  of  Mafeking  was  a  picnic, 
to  break  through  the  cocoon  of  routine  set  up  by 
soulless  Boards  and  Administrators.  But,  large 
as  their  figures  loom,  they  are  only  a  tiny  percentage 
of  the  whole  boy  population.  Moral  character  and 
patriotism  ;  team  work  ;  initiative  ;  self-reliance  ; 
inter-reliance ;  self-control,  control  of  comrades 
are  taught  to  hardly  more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the 


DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM       299 

800,000  boys  aged  12  and  under  14  existing  in  the 
United  Kingdom  and  Ireland. 

Ask  a  board  schoolboy  of  about  11  years  old 
why  he  has  to  attend,  he  will  answer,  "  Because  I 
will  be  clever  when  /  am  a  man  "  ;  or  else,  "  Because 
of  the  copper  "  ;  or  else,  more  often,  "  Because  / 
will  be  able  to  make  more  money."  Ask  any  11- 
year-old  boy  at  a  preparatory  school  why  he  is 
going  on  to  a  public  school  and  he  may  say, 
:<  Because  father  was  there,  of  course  !  "  or  "  Because 
it's  the  only  school "  ;  or,  "  Because  every  decent 
fellow  goes  there,"  the  idea  from  the  very  start 
being  that  the  public  school  is  a  very  splendid 
place  and  that  he — the  small  boy — is  going  there 
not  to  beat  other  fellows  in  exams.,  but  to  acquire 
merit  through  being  associated  with  them  in  so 
ancient  and  famous  a  guild.  Working  on  from 
that  foundation,  discipline,  training  and  patriotism 
come  quite  naturally. 

My  plan  is  that  State  schools,  primary  and  second- 
ary, should  take  a  leaf  out  of  the  book  of  the  great 
public  schools.  Boys  are  not  "  learning "  to  be 
quiet  and  good  when  they  are  forced  "  by  order  " 
of  grown-ups  to  gaze  silently  at  the  blackboard  and 
behave  like  little  gentlemen.  They  are  learning 
to  hate  blackboards  and  little  gentlemen.  The 
attempt  to  run  boys  rigidly  on  grown-up  lines  is 
universal ;  French,  Germans,  Greeks,  Italians, 
Chinese  try  it,  and  fail — all  parents  try  it  and  fail. 
So  no  wonder  our  world  is  a  failure.  The  British 
public  school  is  an  exception  because  it  is  not  run 
by  grown-ups  but  by  the  big  boys  ;  the  B.P.  Scouts 
are  an  exception,  for  there  the  schoolmaster  periodic- 
ally changes  himself  into  a  scoutmaster ;  becomes 


300      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

a  bigger  boy  and  joins  with  the  other  big  boys  in 
leading  the  school  into  another  world ;  into  realms 
coloured  with  a  touch  of  romance  ;  flavoured  with 
a  suspicion  of  risk  ;  enlivened  with  the  idea  of  live 
enemies  and  a  feeling  of  Red  Indians.  Until  our 
State  schoolmasters  take  these  idiosyncrasies  into 
account,  they  must  resign  themselves  to  complete 
loss  of  control  over  the  most  alive  side  of  boy  nature, 
and  boys  will  continue  to  leave  State  schools  per- 
fect caricatures  of  what  the  State  school  meant 
them  to  be. 

Baden  Powell  has  shown  us  how  the  discipline, 
training  and  spirit  of  the  public  school  can  be 
grafted  on  to  the  State  school  system.  Let  the 
school  resolve  into  a  company  of  scouts  who  always 
go  out  for  a  fortnight's  camp  in  the  summer,  for 
that  will  be  the  best  part  of  their  year's  education. 
If  the  masters  can  rise  to  the  new  situation  they 
will  find  that  the  boys  accept  the  scoutmaster  as 
they  never  accepted  the  schoolmaster,  for  if  that 
scoutmaster  bids  them  march  through  flood  or  fire, 
through  fire  or  floo4  they  will  march. 

The  State  has  neglected  this  wonderful  lever,  the 
Boy  Scout  movement,  because  it  has  become  con- 
fused in  the  official  mind  with  the  Cadet  movement, 
which  no  one  has  dared  discuss  as  a  State  measure 
since  Haldane  suddenly  dropped  it  like  a  hot  potato 
upon  the  floor  of  an  astonished  House.  But  the 
official  mind  is  mistaken.  There  is  no  military  bias 
whatsoever  in  General  Baden  Powell's  system  and 
soldiers  are  glad  that  it  is  so. 

Cadet  Corps  do  have  a  military  bias  and  are 
chiefly  valuable  as  a  process  for  giving  cohesion  in 
a  fresh  form  to  public  schoolboys  who  have  already 


DISCIPLINE,  TRAINING,  PATRIOTISM       301 

trained  themselves  in  sports,  observation  and  char- 
acter ;  they  are  not  much  use,  except  as  aids  to 
smartness  and  cleanliness,  to  boys  brought  up  in 
State  schools  who  have  no  chance  of  any  character 
training  beyond  what  they  have  picked  up  in  the 
streets.  Per  contra  scout  training  would  not  be 
much  use  to  public  schoolboys,  but  is  a  heaven-sent 
method  of  putting  snap  into  those  primary  and 
secondary  mortuaries. 

So  much  for  the  "  application "  of  discipline, 
training  and  patriotism  to  the  raw  material  of  an 
Army.  Should  it  be  decreed  by  fate  that  my 
words  awaken  some  echoes  in  the  hearts  of  "  Labour  " 
and  "  Democracy,"  they  will  insist  on  their  children 
being  given  the  same  chance  as  the  upper  classes 
who  have  had  the  luck  to  form  their  characters 
upon  an  open-air  regimen  of  fair-play,  self-discipline, 
initiative,  and  responsibility. 

The  Dominions,  as  well  as  the  Commonwealth, 
are  miles  ahead  of  us.  In  Australia,  New  Zealand 
and  Natal  the  reform  has  gone  far  enough  to  be 
pronounced  to  be  the  greatest  reform.  But  it  is 
not  too  late  to  take  a  step  which  will  put  off  the 
day  when  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  makes  copy 
out  of  our  ruins.  Overseas  they  are  working  on 
cadet  lines  where  behaviour  is  imposed  from  outside : 
we  can  go  one  better  by  frankly  adopting  the  scout 
method  whereby  the  behaviour  is  only  the  outward 
sign  of  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace.  Without  one 
iota  of  militarism  in  their  education,  they  will  yet, 
each  of  them,  become  twenty-five  per  cent,  more 
valuable  to  an  Army. 

Our  new  model  Army  will  need  new  model  men. 
Let  us  organise,  discipline  and  train  them,  whether 


302      THE  SOUL  AND  BODY  OF  AN  ARMY 

it  be  to  form  an  Army  of  industry  or  an  Army  in 
the  field.  Let  us  send  our  State  schools  yearly 
into  camp.  There,  by  the  sea  or  on  the  grassy 
downs  or  purple  heather,  starved  soul  and  stunted 
physique  would  be  able  to  shake  off  for  a  short 
time  the  drag  of  the  stuffy  class-room  in  the  mean 
street.  There,  they  might  gain  respite  from  the 
suffocating  atmosphere  of  the  utilitarian-intelligent 
— that  specific  for  narrowing  down  human  nature 
into  one  hard,  small  point.  There,  working  as  a 
team,  victory  would  be  organised  and  a  spirit  too 
which  would  make  better  uses  of  victory  than  their 
parents  were  able  to  achieve. 

Turn  them  into  little  soldiers  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it ! 
The  boys  are  soldiers  in  their  hearts  already — and 
where  is  the  harm  ?  Soldiers  are  not  pugnacious. 
Paul  bade  Timothy  be  a  good  soldier.  Christ 
commended  the  centurion.  Milton  urged  teachers 
to  fit  their  pupils  for  all  the  offices  of  war.  The 
very  thought  of  danger  and  self-sacrifice  are  inspira- 
tions. 

When  a  lover  swims  to  his  love  across  the  stormy 
Hellespont :  when  an  Admiral  sinks  with  his  ship 
after  ordering  all  hands  to  the  boats :  when  a 
man  prays  God  that  his  life  may  be  accepted  in 
exchange  for  that  of  his  wife  or  his  child,  the  gallery 
of  fellow  mortals  take  courage,  and  even  as  they 
view  the  victory  of  the  incorruptible  over  the 
corruptible  feel  immortality  stir  within  their  souls. 

The  spirit  of  the  true  Army  should  be  cast  in  a 
like  mould — winged  with  a  like  inspiration.  There 
are  religious  beliefs  too  sacred  to  be  freely  discussed 
between  brothers,  so  in  the  heart  of  an  Army  that 
is  to  be  invincible  lies  buried  like  the  mainspring 


DISCIPLINE,   TRAINING,   PATRIOTISM        303 

of  a  watch  the  password,  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro 
patria  mori. 

Dare  we  then  refuse  to  draw  the  close  curtains 
from  the  darkened  boyhood  of  our  State  scholars ; 
shall  we  continue  to  deny  them  even  one  or  two 
glimpses  into  the  vast  realms  of  united,  brotherly 
struggle,  stirring  adventure,  and  progress,  in  com- 
pany, towards  some  dimly  discerned  but  surely 
glorious  goal  ? 

The  measure  of  beauty  the  boys  absorb  in  their 
youth  becomes  the  multiple  of  their  patriotism. 
Let  the  State  look  after  the  recruits,  the  Army 
will  look  after  itself.  What  an  Army  we  should 
then  possess  !  Not  a  dead  thing,  but  a  thing  of 
life,  animated  by  a  thought  of  glory.  Let  the  State 
give  her  slum  children  a  sight  of  the  rolling  seas, 
of  the  stars  of  night.  Force  her,  you  voters,  to 
teach  her  poorest  children  love  of  their  own  woods 
and  rivers  and  hills.  Force  her  to  show  them  at  the 
same  time  their  national  patrimony  and  how  to 
defend  it.  Do  this — and  do  it  in  the  name  of  God- 
quickly  ! 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by  Butler  &  Tanner,  Promt  and  London 


Telegrams  :  "Scholarly,  London."  41  and  43  Maddox  Street, 

Telephone  :   1883  Mayfair.  Bond  Street,  London,  W. ,. 

September,  1921. 


Messrs.  Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s 
AUTUMN 

ANNOUNCEMENTS,   1 92 1. 


THE    SOUL    AND    BODY    OF    AN 
ARMY. 

By  GENERAL  SIR  IAN  HAMILTON,  G.C.B. 

AUTHOR  OF  "A  STAFF-OFFICER'S  SCRAP-BOOK,"  "THE  MILLENNIUM?" 
"  GALLIPOLI  DIARY,"  ETC. 

One  Volume.     Demy  8vo.     i8s.  net. 

General  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  was  impelled  to  write  this  book  by 
the  conviction  that  war  in  the  future  will  be  in  all  respects  a 
radically  different  thing  from  all  the  wars  of  the  past,  the  Great 
War  itself  included.  Never,  he  insists,  were  all  the  elements  of 
the  art  of  war  so  much  in  the  melting-pot  as  at  the  present  time ; 
never,  therefore,  was  intelligent  anticipation  of  all  possible  future 
developments  in  warfare  so  essential  if  we  as  a  nation  are  to 
survive. 

The  present  volume  is  an  endeavour  to  bring  this  point  of  view 
home  to  the  ordinary  citizen,  and  to  help  him  to  take  a  living 
interest  in  the  many  problems  which  urgently  call  for  a  wise 
solution.  The  subject  is  marshalled  under  six  headings,  namely, 
Organization,  Discipline,  and  Training,  which  comprehend  all 
matters  that  are  subject  to  direct  modification  or  control,  and  are 
therefore  treated  of  very  fully;  and  Numbers,  Genius,  and  Patriot- 
ism, which  are  disposed  of  more  briefly,  as  they  lie  largely  or 
wholly  outside  the  sphere  of  military  statesmanship.  The  three 


2          Edward  Arnold  6-  Co.'s  Autmnn  Announcements. 

principal  topics  are  dealt  with  in  all  their  aspects,  and  with  a 
profuse  wealth  of  illustration,  drawn  both  from  history  and  from 
the  author's  own  varied  and  extensive  experience  of  military 
administration,  and  of  modern  armies  in  war  and  in  peace  time. 
From  this  discussion  there  emerges  a  body  of  principles,  which 
in  the  concluding  chapters  he  applies  to  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lems indicated  in  the  preceding  pages. 

One  of  the  most  striking  conclusions  arrived  at  is  that  the  rifle 
has  had  a  levelling  effect  in  war,  and  has  reduced  the  value  of 
efficiency  (training)  as  against  that  of  numbers.  In  the  late  war 
this  tendency  was  further  accentuated  by  the  conditions  of  trench- 
warfare  ;  but  this  will  not  hold  good  in  the  future,  when  the  tac- 
tical possibilities  of  tanks,  aeroplanes,  etc.,  have  been  more  com- 
pletely developed,  and  success  will  fall,  not  to  the  big  battalions, 
but  to  the  army  whose  organization  and  training  are  best  suited 
to  the  new  conditions. 


ADRIENNE    TONER. 

By   ANNE    DOUGLAS   SEDGWICK    (MRS.   BASIL   DE 
SELINCOURT), 

ACTHOK  OF  "  FRANKLIN  KANE,"  "  TANTE,"  "  THE  ENCOUNTER,"  BTC. 

One  Volume     Crown  8vo.    75.  6d.  net. 

Adrienne  Toner  is  a  young  American,  orphaned  and  unattached. 
Not  a  typical  young  American  girl,  very  far  from  it,  though  only 
America  could  have  produced  her.  Incidentally,  she  possesses 
wealth,  but  her  paramount  possession  is  a  creed,  a  philosophy  of 
life  which  possesses  her,  and  which  she  lives  up  to  heroically, 
according  to  her  lights.  Thus  equipped,  she  finds  her  way  into 
a  pleasant  English  family,  with  a  nice  set  of  not  very  unusual 
friends.  An  alien,  exotic  element,  fascinating  some,  disconcerting 
or  exasperating  others,  she  works  strange  havoc  in  the  little 
English  circle.  It  is  not  her  creed  that  does  it  so  much  as  her 
temperament  and  character.  For  she  is  desperately  alive  and 
real,  far  too  much  so  to  be  explained  or  bounded  by  her  own 
simple  formulas.  Things  happen,  amongst  them  the  Great  War, 
but  her  personality  is  the  book.  Mrs.  de  Selincourt  has  made  no 
more  ambitious  effort  than  this,  and  never,  not  even  in  "  Tante," 
has  she  achieved  so  complete  a  creation. 


Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements.         3 

MEMORIES    AND    NOTES  OF 
PERSONS    AND    PLACES 

By  SIR  SIDNEY  COLVIN,  M.A.,  D.Litt., 

FORMERLY  SLADE  PROFESSOR  OF  FINE  ART  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE 
AND  KEEPER  OF  THE  PRINTS  AND  DRAWINGS  AT  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM. 

With  Portrait.    Demy  8vo.     i8s.  net. 

Few  British  readers  will  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  debt  which 
art  and  art  criticism  owe  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  whose  forty  years' 
experience  at  Cambridge  and  at  the  British  Museum  have  com- 
bined with  the  rare  freshness  and  breadth  of  vision  of  a  cultured 
and  unprejudiced  mind  to  ensure  for  his  opinions  that  respect 
which  is  their  undoubted  due.  At  the  same  time  he  has  always 
nursed  the  hope  of  one  day  becoming  free  to  work  no  longer  upon 
the  productions,  however  treasurable  and  fascinating,  of  man's 
hands,  but  upon  objects  which  have  always  interested  him  more 
deeply  still,  namely,  poetry  and  the  scenes  of  nature  and  the 
characters  of  men  and  women. 

Part  of  this  hope  found  fulfilment  in  his  "  Life  of  Keats,"  pub- 
lished a  few  years  ago ;  and  the  present  volume  is  the  result  of  a 
purpose  he  has  long  entertained  of  giving  us,  to  use  his  own  words, 
"  a  record  of  the  most  lively  impressions  I  could  definitely  recall 
as  having  been  made  upon  me  since  boyhood,  not  only  by  persons, 
but  by  scenes  and  places,  and  not  only  by  these,  but  by  events 
and  movements,  especially  those  in  literature  and  art." 

It  was  originally  intended  that  the  work  should  occupy  several 
volumes,  but  the  effects  of  the  war,  and  the  claims  of  advancing 
years  have  unfortunately  prevented  the  author  from  carrying  out 
his  plan  on  so  ambitious  a  scale.  It  is,  however,  some  consolation 
to  reflect  that  this  one  volume  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  con- 
taining the  concentrated  essence  of  the  whole  scheme.  Its 
exceptional  interest  may  be  gauged  from  mention  of  the  headings 
of  some  of  the  chapters.  These  include  among  others:  Mr. 
Gladstone;  Ruskin;  Burne-Jones;  Rossetti;  Robert  Browning ; 
East  Suffolk  as  the  home  of  Edward  Fitzgerald ;  George  Meredith 
and  Box  Hill;  The  British  Museum  and  Sir  Charles  Newton; 
Victor  Hugo;  and  Gambetta.  Among  places  having  chapters 
to  themselves  are  Athens,  and  the  Land's  End  of  France.  But 
the  widest  appeal  will  probably  be  made  by  the  long  section  of 
the  book  dealing  with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  whose  intimate 
friendship  with  the  author  may  well  make  the  picture  here  drawn 
of  him  come  nearer  to  the  life  than  that  which  anyone  else  has 
given  us. 


4        Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 

THE    DIARY    OF    A    HUNTSMAN. 

By  THOMAS  SMITH, 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  LIFE  OF  A  Fox." 

With  an  Introduction  by  LORD  WILLOUGHBY  DE  BROKE. 

With  8  coloured  Plates  from  magnificent  Pictures  by  Herring,  A  Iken, 
Wolstenholme,  and  Pollard,  and  tlie  original  black  and  white  Illustrations. 

Crown  4*0.     Price  a  is.  net. 

This  book  was  first  published  in  the  second  year  of  the  reign 
of  Queen  Victoria,  and  has  become  a  Sporting  Classic  wherever 
Fox-hunting  is  carried  on.  It  describes  the  experiences  of  a  Master 
of  Foxhounds,  mainly  derived  from  hunting  his  own  hounds  in  the 
Craven  country,  probably  as  difficult  a  country  to  kill  a  fox  in  as 
any  in  England.  But  Mr.  Smith  so  closely  studied  the  science, 
and  so  skilfully  applied  the  art  of  Fox-hunting  that  he  contrived 
to  bring  a  fox  to  hand  on  most  days  when  he  took  his  hounds  out. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  many  huntsmen  achieve 
this  feat  to-day.  If  any  of  them  fall  short  of  it  they  cannot  do 
better  than  read  Mr.  Smith's  book,  and  try  to  find  out  how  be 
did  it. 

If  one  were  forced  to  select  only  one  textbook  to  place  in  the 
hands  of  a  young  huntsman,  no  mistake  would  be  made  in  choosing 
Mr.  Smith's  work.  There  are  more  actual  stage  directions  in  it 
than  in  any  other  work  of  the  kind — not  omitting  the  immortal 
"  Beckford "  —  and  every  phase  and  aspect  of  the  chase  is 
judiciously  dealt  with. 

In  this  edition  no  expense  has  been  spared  in  the  attempt  to 
provide  illustrations  worthy  of  the  text,  and  the  publisher  is  much 
indebted  to  Mr.  Basil  Dighton  for  allowing  him  to  reproduce  some 
rare  coloured  prints  and  valuable  paintings. 

UNIFORM   WITH   THE   ABOVE. 

THE    LIFE    OF    A    FOX. 

By  THOMAS  SMITH. 
With  an  Introduction  by  LORD  WILLOUGHBY  DE  BROKE. 

With  magnificent  coloured  Illustrations.    Crown  ^to.    Price  2 is.  net. 


Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 


THE    RAINBOW    BRIDGE. 

By  REGINALD  FARRER, 

AUTHOR  OF  "  MY  ROCK  GARDEN,"  "ALPINES  AND  BOG  PLANTS,"  ETC 

With  1 6  pages  of  Illustrations  and  a  Map.     One  Volume.     Demy  Svo. 

2  is.  net. 

la  "The  Eaves  of  the  World"  Mr.  Farrer  described  his  adven- 
turous journey  in  the  mountainous  region  on  the  south-west 
border  of  Kansu  during  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1914,  and 
closed  his  narrative  with  his  arrival  at  Lanchow.  In  the  present 
work  he  resumes  the  story  with  a  detailed  account  of  his  winter 
sojourn  in  that  city,  which  presents  to  us  a  series  of  vivid  pictures 
of  social  life  in  one  of  the  provincial  capitals  of  China.  Early  in 
1915  he  started  on  his  travels  again,  this  time  in  a  N.-N.-W.  direc- 
tion. His  first  objective  was  the  remote  frontier  town  of  Si-ning 
fu,  where  the  lateness  of  the  season  enforced  a  somewhat  prolonged 
stay,  but  as  soon  as  the  weather  permitted,  he  left  civilization 
behind  him,  and  installed  himself  in  a  rude  but  adequate  dwelling 
situated  in  a  lofty  valley  of  the  Da  Tung  Alps. 

At  this  point  in  the  narrative  botany  again  takes  its  proper 
place  as  the  predominant  feature,  but  not  exclusively  so,  for  the 
botanical  work  was  diversified  by  more  than  one  visit  to  the 
Buddhist  monasteries  of  Tien  Tang  and  Chebson,  the  latter  a 
small  town  in  itself.  Mr.  Farrer  paints  with  enthusiasm  the 
charms  of  both  these  places,  and  in  both  his  remarkable  gift  for 
portrayal — at  once  humorous  and  sympathetic — of  Chinese  life 
and  character  finds  ample  scope.  His  companion,  Mr.  William 
Purdom,  extended  his  travels  as  far  as  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
great  Koko  Nor  Lake,  fifty  or  sixty  miles  beyond  Si-ning  fu ;  but 
the  most  valuable  botanical  work  was  accomplished  in  the  lime- 
stone valleys  of  the  Da  Tung  Alps,  where  several  species  wva  were 
obtained. 

Summer  ends  early  in  these  lofty  regions,  and  in  September  the 
party  returned  to  Lanchow.  The  closing  chapters  of  the  book 
are  occupied  with  the  long  journey  southward — partly  by  road 
and  partly  by  river — from  Lanchow  through  the  heart  of  China 
to  the  Yang-tse  River,  where  the  author  takes  leave  of  his  readers. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  add  that  Mr.  Farrer,  fascinated  by  his 
experiences  among  Chinese  people  and  Chinese  flora,  started  last 
year  on  another  adventurous  journey  into  Southern  China,  but 
unhappily  succumbed  to  illness  in  Upper  Burmah  in  December, 
1920. 


6         Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 

THE    MECHANISM    OF    LIFE 

IN   RELATION  TO  MODERN  PHYSICAL  THEORY. 
By  JAMES  JOHNSTONE,  D.Sc., 

PROFESSOR  or  OCEANOGRAPHY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  LIVERPOOL. 

Demy  8vo.     With  numerous  Illustrations.     153.  net. 

In  his  Preface  the  author  tells  us  that  by  "  the  Mechanism  of 
Life "  he  means  "  the  results  of  a  scientific  analysis  of  the 
activities  of  living  animals,"  the  results,  in  other  words,  of 
modern  physiological  research,  and  a  large  part  of  this  book  is 
occupied  with  an  account  of  these  results.  But  the  book  is  a 
great  deal  more  than  a  physiological  treatise ;  the  promise  im- 
plied in  the  reference  to  Modern  Physical  Theory  is  fully  carried 
out,  and  the  object  aimed  at  is  "  to  give  the  reader  an  attitude  in 
his  attempt  to  understand"  the  phenomena  of  Life  in  the  most 
extended  sense,  matters  which  carry  us  far  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  physiology,  and  about  which  "no  one  can  think  without 
becoming  metaphysical,  even  if  he  does  not  know  it."  This 
object  is  kept  in  view  throughout,  and  imparts  a  certain  liveliness 
to  the  driest  scientific  details.  It  also  determines  the  method 
and  order  of  exposition. 

We  begin  with  the  Nature  of  Animal  Life,  and  are  introduced 
to  the  conceptions  of  Structure  and  Function  and  to  the  animal 
as  a  machine  in  the  narrower  sense.  This  brings  up  the  question, 
"  Whence  does  the  machine  get  its  driving  power  ?  "  and  so  leads 
to  a  discussion  of  the  principles  of  energy  and  of  the  operation  of 
Plant  and  Animal  Metabolism  in  the  transformations  of  the 
"  working  substance  of  life."  Having  thus  got  our  machine  and 
the  needful  energy  to  keep  it  going  we  proceed  to  the  co-ordination 
of  its  various  activities  by  the  brain  and  the  special  nervous 
mechanisms,  and  are  thus  prepared  for  an  Analysis  of  Behaviour, 
and  an  examination  of  the  working  of  the  nervous  system  as  a 
whole. 

Here  the  author,  having  completed  his  physiological  survey, 
passes  in  review  the  various  Conceptions  of  Life  which  have 
prevailed  since  Descartes,  and  the  effects  on  these  of  the  progress 
of  the  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry.  The  point  has  now 
been  reached  where  the  metaphysical  implications  referred  to  in 
the  Preface  force  themselves  on  the  attention.  Some  of  these  are 
dealt  with  in  two  concluding  chapters  on  "  The  Meaning  of  Per- 
ception," and  "  The  Nature  of  Life." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  titles  of  the  first  and  last  chapters 
are  almost  identical,  while  nothing  could  exceed  the  diversity  of 


Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements.  7 

their  contents.  Those  of  the  latter  include  some  of  the  most  bold 
and  startling  speculations  of  modern  physics,  but  they  seem  to  arise 
quite  simply  and  naturally  from  what  has  gone  before,  so  firm 
and  comprehensive  is  the  author's  grasp  of  his  subject.  Finally, 
some  of  the  purely  philosophical  discussions  are  carried  a  little 
farther  in  a  Metaphysical  Appendix. 


HINDUISM    AND    BUDDHISM. 

AN   HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

By  SIR  CHARLES  ELIOT,  K.C.M.G.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D., 
H.B.M.  Ambassador  at  Tokio. 

Three  Volumes.    Demy  Svo.     £5  55.  net. 

An  exhaustive  work  on  a  subject  of  vast  magnitude  and  trans- 
cendent interest.  The  author  traces  the  growth  of  Brahminism 
in  India  from  the  earliest  times,  describes  in  full  detail  the  extra- 
ordinary career  of  the  Buddha,  and  follows  out  the  later  history 
of  both  Brahminism  and  Buddhism  in  India  and  the  other 
countries  of  Eastern  Asia,  down  to  the  present  day.  In  the  East 
religion,  moral  philosophy,  and  metaphysics  are  all  inextricably 
intertwined.  Consequently  there  emerges  a  complete  spiritual 
history  (in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word)  of  India,  or  in  modern 
phraseology,  a  complete  record  of  Indian  mentality;  while  the 
later  career  of  Buddhism  in  China  and  elsewhere,  and  its  inter- 
action with  other  modes  of  religious  and  philosophical  thought  is 
a  subject  of  scarcely  inferior  interest. 

In  the  preparation  of  his  great  work,  which  has  extended  over 
many  years,  the  author  has  not  confined  himself  to  books  and 
libraries,  but  has  travelled  extensively  in  India  and  other  regions 
of  Eastern  Asia.  He  has  visited  many  places  which  lie  beyond 
the  ken  of  ordinary  travellers,  and  has  conversed  on  the  spot  with 
many  representative  theologians  and  philosophers  belonging  to 
divers  races  and  nationalities.  For,  besides  other  eminent  quali- 
fications, Sir  Charles  Eliot  brings  to  his  task  a  knowledge  of 
Oriental  languages,  living  and  dead,  which  is  probably  unique. 
Thus  his  book  is  not  a  mere  academical  treatise,  but  stands  in 
vital  relation  to  the  present  spiritual  and  moral  life  of  Asia. 


8         Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 

WAR  AND  NATIONAL   FINANCE. 

By  the  HON.  R.  H.  BRAND,  C.M.G., 

FELLOW  or  ALL  SOULS  COLLEGE,  OXFOBO. 

One  volume.    Demy  8vo.     153.  net. 

This  important  work  consists  of  a  series  of  articles  contributed 
by  the  author  to  The  Round  Table  at  intervals  during  the  years 
1912-1920.  They  all  deal  in  one  way  or  another  with  the  effects 
of  war  on  the  financial  and  economic  structure  of  this  country 
and  of  the  British  Empire.  The  reader  will  judge  how  far  they 
predicted  and  correctly  portrayed  the  actual  course  of  events 
before,  during,  and  after  the  war.  The  volume  does  not  afford  a 
continuous  commentary  on  the  financial  history  of  the  war, 
because,  owing  to  the  author's  absence  for  a  year  in  the  United 
States  with  the  British  Mission  to  Washington  and  the  Imperial 
Munitions  Board  of  Canada,  he  was  unable  to  write  anything 
between  the  end  of  1916  and  the  Armistice.  The  last  two  years 
of  the  war,  however,  so  far  as  internal  finance  went,  represented 
the  continued  application,  on  a  constantly  growing  scale,  of  the 
principles  and  methods  elaborated  in  the  first  two  years ;  so  far 
as  concerned  external  finance — by  far  the  greatest  and  most 
serious  problem — our  task  was  by  March,  1917,  comparatively 
simple  owing  to  the  entry  of  the  United  States  on  our  side. 

The  articles  written  since  the  Armistice  were  intended  to  help 
towards  a  practical  discussion  of  actual  problems  which  are  still 
facing  us,  and  require  immediate  treatment. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  author  acted  for  three  months 
at  the  Peace  Conference  as  Financial  Adviser  to  Lord  Robert 
Cecil,  Chairman  of  the  Supreme  Economic  Council,  and  that  he 
was  Vice- President  of  the  International  Financial  Conference  at 
Brussels  in  1920. 


BANKERS    AND    BORROWERS. 

By  JOHN   BRUNTON, 

ASSISTANT  GENERAL  MANAGER,  BARCLAY'S  BANK,  LTD.,  BIRMINGHAM. 

With  an  Introduction  by  ERNEST  SYKES,  Secretary  of  the 
Institute  of  Bankers. 

One  Volume.     Demy  Svo.     75.  6d.  net. 

The  object  of  this  book  is  to  supply  a  want  from  which  the 
author  (no  doubt  in  common  with  many  other  managers  and 
officials  of  banks)  has  often  suffered  in  the  course  of  a  long 


Edward  Arnold  6-  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements.        9 

experience  of  banking — namely,  the  lack  of  readily  accessible 
information  regarding  the  exact  borrowing  powers  of  statutory 
and  other  bodies  of  various  kinds.  This  information,  which  is 
largely  contained  in  Acts  of  Parliament  and  legal  records,  can 
normally  be  obtained  only  by  a  considerable  amount  of  research 
for  each  particular  case  which  arises.  The  author  has  therefore 
provided  here  a  convenient  and  inexpensive  book  of  reference, 
which  will  result  in  the  saving  of  much  valuable  time  to  busy  men. 
All  forms  of  statutory  bodies,  including  Registered  Companies, 
Incorporated  and  Public  Utility  Companies,  Local  Authorities, 
Building,  Friendly,  Co-operative,  and  other  Societies,  are  fully 
dealt  with  ;  and  in  order  to  make  the  work  as  complete  as  possible 
reference  is  also  made  to  ordinary  and  limited  Partnerships  and  to 
individuals  in  certain  special  capacities,  for  example,  Executors, 
Trustees,  Liquidators,  Receivers  and  Managers,  Minors,  Agents, 
Stockbrokers,  Moneylenders,  Churchwardens,  and  many  others. 
There  is  a  full  consideration  of  the  Liquidation  of  Companies, 
whether  voluntary  or  otherwise,  which  is  cognate  to  the  subject 
as  showing  a  lender  how  to  recover  his  money ;  this  is  followed 
by  two  useful  tables  showing  the  Subsidiary  Acts  administered 
by  Local  Authorities,  and  a  comparison  of  the  Capital  Accounts  of 
Municipal  Corporations  and  Public  Companies;  and  at  the  end  of 
the  book  are  printed  the  relevant  extracts  from  Acts  of  Parliament, 
and  a  full  index. 


FORENSIC  CHEMISTRY. 

By  A.  LUCAS,  O.B.E.,  F.I.C. 
One  Volume.      Demy  Svo.      155.  net. 

Forensic  Chemistry  may  be  defined  as  chemistry  applied  to  the 
solution  of  problems  which  arise  in  connection  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  law.  The  author  is  the  Director  of  the  Govern- 
ment Analytical  Laboratory  at  Cairo,  and  the  book  is  largely  the 
outcome  of  many  years  of  practical  experience  in  work  of  this 
nature.  It  is  the  first  English  book  dealing  with  the  means  of 
obtaining  the  facts  on  which  chemical  evidence  is  based. 
Ordinary  methods  of  analysis  which  can  be  found  in  ordinary 
textbooks  and  which  are  known  to  every  analyst  are  omitted, 
but  all  special  methods  which  are  of  value  to  the  expert  are  given 
in  full.  The  book  will  make  an  undoubted  appeal  to  all  those 
who  are  interested  in  the  way  in  which  Chemistry  may  be  applied 
to  the  unravelling  of  legal  problems. 


io      Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 

THE  SALMON  RIVERS  AND  LOCHS 
OF  SCOTLAND. 

By  W.   L.    CALDERWOOD,   F.R.S.E., 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SALMON,"  ETC. 

New  and  Revised  Edition.     With  Maps  and  Illustrations.    Demy  8vo. 

255.  net. 

The  first  edition  of  this  important  and  comprehensive  work  has 
been  out  of  print  for  a  couple  of  years,  and,  as  the  demand  for  it 
appears  to  be  fully  sustained,  the  author  has  been  engaged  in  the 
interval  in  preparing  a  thoroughly  revised  edition.  Since  Mr. 
Calderwood's  book  was  first  published  a  considerable  amount  of 
fresh  material  has  become  available.  The  fishing  records  have 
been  brought  up  to  date  wherever  it  has  been  possible,  and 
modifications  in  the  general  conditions  on  various  rivers  are 
described.  In  some  cases,  of  which  the  mouth  of  the  Gala  is  an 
instance,  these  are  due  to  improved  systems  of  purification,  and 
in  others  to  the  activities  of  bodies  whose  interests  lie  in  other 
directions  than  salmon-fishing. 

Mr.  Calderwood,  who  is  Inspector  of  Salmon  Fisheries  for 
Scotland,  treats  the  different  rivers  according  to  circumstances  ; 
in  the  case  of  large  rivers  such  as  the  Tay,  Dee,  and  Tweed,  the 
different  fisheries  are  described.  Records  of  the  catches  of  salmon 
over  a  period  of  years  are  given  in  many  cases.  Valuable  infor- 
mation is  afforded  as  to  the  extent  of  estuaries,  the  amount  of 
netting,  obstructions  that  hinder  the  passage  of  fish,  and  the 
sources  of  pollution.  The  names  of  the  proprietors  and  lessees  of 
the  principal  fisheries  are  indicated,  and  also  the  hotels  that  provide 
salmon-fishing.  The  Lochs  at  the  head  waters  of  the  rivers  are 
included,  so  far  as  they  are  accessible  to  salmon.  The  maps, 
which  are  a  feature  of  the  work,  have,  of  course,  been  retained  in 
the  new  edition. 

Although  the  book  forms  a  genuine  work  of  reference  on  the 
subject,  it  is  eminently  readable  by  all  who  take  an  interest  in  the 
salmon  in  the  way  of  sport,  natural  history,  or  vocation.  Many  a 
good  yarn  is  scattered  through  its  pages,  and  much  information  on 
the  life  and  habits  of  the  fish. 

PRESS  OPINIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 

"Simply  indispensable  to  the  salmon  fisher." — The  late  Mr.  ANDREW  LANG 
in  the  Morning  Post. 

"  From  the  pure  angling  point  of  view  there  are  no  end  of  things  mentioned 
of  interest,  including  many  accounts  of  sport.  But  the  chief  value  of 
Mr.  Calderwood's  book,  to  my  mind,  is  its  faithful  presentation  of  the  salmon 
rivers  of  Scotland  as  they  have  been,  as  they  are,  and  as  they  might  become. 


Edward  Arnold  6-  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements.       n 

No  man  has  had  such  opportunities  of  studying  the  question — not  as  it  affects 
one  river,  but  all— and  then  it  is  so  clear  from  all  he  writes  that  it  is  not  only 
the  work  of  a  state  official,  but  of  one  who  is  interested  in  the  subject  heart 
and  soul,  in  every  branch  of  it" — Fishing  Gazette. 

"A  book  that  is  almost  to  be  termed  monumental.  We  have  to  marvel  at 
the  extent  and  completeness  of  the  writer's  information.  It  is  a  book  \yhich 
all  Scottish  anglers,  or  those  of  other  nationalities  who  have  angled  on  the 
Scottish  rivers,  will  read  with  great  pleasure  and  interest."— Country  Life.  ' 

"This  work  is,  we  imagine,  likely  to  become  the  standard  book  on  the 
subject. ' ' —  Westminster  Gazette. 

"The  volume  is  crammed  from  title  to  colophon  with  practical  informa- 
tion. "—Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


THE  PROMENADE  TICKET: 
A  LAY  RECORD  OF  CONCERTS. 

By  A.  H.  SIDGWICK, 

AUTHOR  OF  "WALKING  ESSAYS,"  "JONES'  WEDDING  AKD  OTHER  POEMS." 

New  Edition.     Crown  8vo.      6s.  net. 

In  response  to  numerous  requests  the  publishers  have  decided 
to  issue  a  new  edition  of  this  delightful  book,  which,  first  pub- 
lished early  in  the  war,  achieved  instant  popularity.  It  is  an 
imaginary  record  of  the  experiences  of  a  group  of  ordinary  people, 
not  being  experts  or  critics,  at  the  Promenade  Concerts.  It  is  in 
the  form  of  a  diary,  each  day's  record  being  written  by  one  of  the 
five  characters.  These  five  treat  each  other's  views — and  much 
of  the  staple  concert  music  —  with  complete  frankness  and 
occasional  irreverence,  and  write  without  any  formality  either  of 
style  or  content.  The  book  can  be  appreciated  without  any 
technical  knowledge  of  music,  and  is  emphatically  adfdressed  to 
the  amateur  rather  than  the  professional.  It  deals  particularly 
with  the  familiar  and  standard  works,  and  contains  full-length 
sketches  of  some  of  the  most  familiar.  It  can  be  safely  recom- 
mended to  any  amateur  who  likes  comparing  his  experiences  with 
others',  and  to  any  professional  who  likes  to  feel  his  superiority 
over  amateurs. 

SOME  PRESS  OPINIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  EDITION,. 

"  A  witty  and  delightful  book,  full  of  general  criticism  of  music,  music- 
lovers,  and  would-be  music-lovers." — Spectator. 

"  What  the  Upton  Letters— owing,  perhaps,  to  a  certain  grandiosity— just 
failed  to  do  for  literature  and  the  amenities,  this  book,  in  a  more  unbuttoned 
way,  easily  compasses  for  music." — The  Times. 

"  It  is  a  criticism  which  will  be  read  with  relish  by  every  music-lover,  and 
•ot  least  by  the  professional  musician.  '  The  Promenade  Ticket '  is  emphati- 
cally a  book  to  be  enjoyed."— Musical  News. 


12       Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements. 

CHEMICAL  DISINFECTION  AND 
STERILIZATION. 

By  S.  RIDEAL,  D.Sc.,  F.I.C.,  and  E.  K.   RIDEAL,  M.A., 

D.Sc.,  F.I.C. 
One  Volume.    Demy  8vo.     a  is.  net. 

Owing  to  the  cessation  of  German  imports  during  the  Great 
War  many  new  Disinfectants  were  placed  on  the  market  which, 
while  being  similar  to  the  German  articles  previously  used, 
appeared  under  different  proprietary  names.  During  this  same 
period,  in  consequence  of  military  requirements,  much  research 
on  the  use  of  new  substances  as  disinfectants  was  carried  out, 
and  consequently  many  new  disinfectants  came  into  use.  The 
present  time  is,  therefore,  singularly  appropriate  for  the  publica- 
tion of  a  book  on  this  subject,  and  the  authors  have  collected  a 
mass  of  material  which  is  scattered  through  numerous  scientific 
journals,  and  have  given  a  connected  and  comprehensive  account 
of  this  important  branch  of  scientific  knowledge. 

The  subject-matter  may  be  divided  roughly  into  three  parts : 
firstly  there  are  chapters  dealing  with  disinfection  and  steriliza- 
tion for  specific  purposes,  such  as  disinfection  of  public  vehicles, 
preservation  of  food  and  sterilization  of  water;  secondly,  the 
disinfectants  are  described  according  to  their  chemical  structure 
and  the  class  of  compounds  to  which  they  belong  ;  and,  finally,  the 
methods  of  testing  disinfectants  are  given.  As  the  authors  are 
well-known  authorities  on  disinfection,  the  Rideal- Walker  Test 
being  one  of  the  standard  tests  adopted  in  this  branch  of  scientific 
work,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  book  will  become  the 
standard  work  on  the  subject  and  will  have  a  large  circulation 
amongst  those  who  are  concerned  in  the  maintenance  of  public 
health. 

MEDICAL  EXAMINATION  FOR 
LIFE  INSURANCE. 

By  THOMAS  D.  LISTER,  C.B.E.,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.,  M.R.C.P. 

One  Volume.     Demy  8vo.     los.  6d.  net. 

Dr.  Lister's  book  will  prove  useful  to  the  many  medical  men 
who  undertake  examinations  on  behalf  of  Life  Insurance 
Companies,  a  part  of  the  work  of  the  general  practitioner  which 
involves  some  variations  from  ordinary  method  corresponding 
with  the  special  object  with  which  such  examinations  are  made. 


Edward  Arnold  &  Co.'s  Autumn  Announcements.        13 

Much  of  the  book  is  naturally  devoted  to  a  detailed  discussion 
of  the  Examination  Form,  dealing  first  with  the  particulars 
required  of  the  personal  and  family  history  of  the  proposer,  and 
then  with  the  methods  of  conducting  the  various  stages  of  the 
actual  examination.  This  part  of  the  book  particularly  abounds 
in  valuable  suggestions  drawn  from  personal  experience  as  to 
ways  of  treating  nervous  and  special  cases,  drawing  inferences, 
and  obtaining  true  impressions. 

But  a  scarcely  less  valuable  feature,  and  one  which  will  make 
the  book  useful  also  to  those  who  are  thinking  of  taking  out  a 
Life  Insurance  Policy,  is  the  lucid  explanation  of  the  functions  of 
the  Medical  Staff  of  an  Insurance  Company,  and  of  the  relation 
between  the  medical  report  and  the  many  other  factors  which 
affect  the  decision  of  the  Company  to  accept  or  reject  a  proposer. 
There  are  chapters  on  extra  risks;  some  special  kinds  of  life 
insurance  (e.g.,  for  loans  and  annuities) ;  occupations,  habits  and 
residence  abroad  as  affecting  the  "  life  "  ;  and  also  on  foreign  lives, 
in  connection  with  which  it  is  interesting  to  hear  that  members 
of  every  race  in  the  world  are  insured  by  British  offices. 

The  author  is  President  of  the  Assurance  Medical  Society,  and 
Medical  Officer  of  the  Royal  Exchange,  Friends'  Provident,  and 
North  British  and  Mercantile  Offices.  It  will  readily  be  seen, 
therefore,  that  he  is  in  a  position  to  speak  with  authority  on  this 
subject. 

RECENTLY   PUBLISHED. 

GEOLOGY  OF  THE  BRITISH 
EMPIRE. 

By  F.  R.  C.  REED,  M.A.,  Sc.D.,    F.G.S. 
With  numerous  Maps.     One  Volume.     Demy  8vo.     405.  net. 

SOME  PRESS  OPINIONS. 

"The  compilation  of  such  a  work  needs  enormous  industry  and  knowledge 
of  Geology  much  wider  than  the  actual  subject-matter.  Dr.  Reed  is  known 
to  have  both  these  requirements.  We  have  checked  his  accounts  of  some 
districts  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  and  find  them  both  clear  and  up  to 
date.  The  index  contains  over  2,000  names  of  places  and  geological 
formations." — The  Times. 

"Dr.  Reed  performs  his  work  with  great  thoroughness,  and  the  book, 
which  is  admirably  produced  by  the  well-known  firm  of  Edward  Arnold,  will 
doubtless  take  its  place  as  the  standard  work  on  the  subject.  Dr.  Reed  has 
amplified  the  notes  of  a  series  of  lectures  he  has  delivered  for  many  years  at 
Cambridge  into  a  useful,  well-written,  and  well-arranged  volume,  written  in 
a  lucid  style  of  unquestionable  scientific  quality  and  fully  worthy  of  the 
importance  and  magnitude  of  the  subject.  From  cover  to  cover  the  book  is 
furnished  with  excellent  maps,  and  to  each  section  is  added  a  full  biblio- 
graphy which  the  student  will  find  invaluable."— Mining  Journal. 


14  Recently  Published. 

A   HUNDRED   YEARS   IN    THE 
HIGHLANDS. 

By  OSGOOD   MACKENZIE. 
With  Illustrations.     Demy  8vo.     Third  Impression.     i6s.  net. 

The  title  of  this  interesting  work  is  justified,  in  that  the  Author's 
own  recollections  cover  a  period  of  nearly  eighty  years,  while  the 
diaries  of  his  uncle,  Dr.  John  Mackenzie,  have  provided  him  with 
a  wealth  of  materials  reaching  much  further  back.  It  is  indeed 
fortunate  that  these  vivid  diaries  have  been  preserved,  for  their 
possession  enables  the  Author  to  supplement  and  amplify  his 
own  reminiscences  with  many  valuable  quotations,  describing 
Highland  life  in  bygone  times. 

The  book  appeals  to  all  lovers  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  all  parts  of  the  world  where  men  of 
Scottish  blood  or  descent  have  settled.  Very  characteristic  of 
the  Author  is  his  intense  devotion  to  his  northern  home.  He 
loves  the  hills  and  the  sea,  the  heather  and  the  loch.  He  loves 
the  people,  their  language  and  traditions ;  he  has  a  soft  place  in 
his  heart  for  their  superstitions.  All  forms  of  Highland  sport 
have  been  familiar  to  him  from  childhood,  and  he  is  a  shrewd 
observer  of  animal  and  bird  life  as  all  true  sportsmen  should  be. 
His  successful  transformation  of  a  Ross-shire  wilderness  into 
beautiful  gardens,  full  of  rare  trees  and  plants  never  previously 
grown  in  those  parts,  is  famous  throughout  Scotland.  Last,  but 
not  least,  is  his  keen  and  kindly  sense  of  humour,  which  gives 
rise  to  many  a  well-told  anecdote  and  permeates  the  whole  book. 

"  One  of  the  charms  of  Mr.  Mackenzie's  book  is  that  it  all  rings  true — even 
the  fishing  stories.  The  chapters  on  agriculture,  Church  and  State,  smuggling 
and  sheep-stealing,  local  superstitions,  the  pipers  of  Gairloch,  and  on  peat  and 
vanishing  birds  are  full  of  good  matter.  To  all  those  who  reverence  ancient 
customs  and  lore  of  the  West  Coast  Highlands  this  book  will  be  a  real  delight. ' ' 
— The  Times. 

"It  is  safe  to  say  that  generations  yet  unborn  will  find  Mr.  Osgood 
Mackenzie's  book  a  mine  of  interest  and  delight.  Mr.  Mackenzie,  aided  in 
some  measure  by  his  uncle's  note-book,  has  provided  a  book  so  entertaining 
that  something  quotable  can  be  found  on  every  page  of  it.  We  have  only 
indicated  its  entertaining  qualities  roughly.  Every  sportsman  will  find  it 
better  than  any  description  of  it." — Country  Life. 

"  We  congratulate  all  who  love  the  Highlands  upon  the  preservation  of  so 
many  memories  and  their  presentation  in  so  delightful  a  form." — Glasgow 
Herald. 

"  \  very  delightful  book.  There  is  not  a  dull  moment  in  it  from  beginning 
to  end." — Scotsman. 

"Those  who  love  Nature,  sport,  old  times,  good  companions  and  fine 
scenery  should  read  Osgood  Mackenzie's  '  A  Hundred  Years  in  the  Highlands. 
Besides  other  good  things,  it  is  full  of  delightful  stories  of  wild  life." — Daily 
Chronicle. 

"  One  does  not  require  to  have  the  gift  of  prophecy  when  stating  that  the 
present  work  is  destined  to  become  standard." — Scottish  Field. 


Recently  Published.  15 

CALICO  PAINTING  AND  PRINT- 
ING IN  THE  EAST  INDIES  IN  THE 
XVIlTH  AND  XVIIlTH  CENTURIES. 

By  G.  P.  BAKER. 

Double  Demy  Folio  (22^  in.  x  17^  in.)      With  37  Coloured  Plates 

(in  a  separate  Portfolio]  and  numerous  Black  and  White  Illustrations 

and  a  Mab.     £30  net. 

The  purpose  of  this  magnificent  work  is  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  Students  of  Design  and  those  engaged  in  the  application  of  the 
Arts  to  Industry,  the  best  facsimiles  of  early  Oriental  painted  and 
printed  cotton  fabrics  that  modern  methods  of  reproduction  can 
achieve. 

Few  such  examples  survive,  and  from  the  perishable  "nature  of 
the  fabrics,  they  must  gradually  be  lost  to  the  world.  The  ex- 
amples are  chosen  from  various  collections,  and  as  specimens  of 
decorative  art  are  incomparable  in  design  and  may  be  classed  with 
the  finest  of  Oriental  carpets.  As  masterpieces  of  manufacture 
they  bewilder  the  expert  Calico-printer,  and  teach  the  handi- 
craftsman the  immense  value  of  patience  in  reproduction. 

The  author,  Mr.  G.  P.  Baker,  is  well-known  for  his  life-long 
interest  in  the  subject,  and  no  expense  has  been  spared  in  making 
the  coloured  plates  as  perfect  as  possible.  The  work  of  producing 
them  has  been  entrusted  to  Messrs.  Griggs  and  the  London 
Stereoscopic  Company. 

"Mr.  G.  P.  Baker  has  given  to  the  world  in  a  very  beautiful  form  the 
result  of  a  lifetime's  study  of  this  branch  of  the  arts.  What  a  difference  it 
would  make  to  the  work  produced  in  this  country  if  every  manufacturer 
possessed  the  culture  and  enthusiasm  for  his  craft  which  characterizes  the 
author !  A  vast  amount  of  erudition  has  gone  to  the  making  of  this  book  ; 
the  history  of  the  subject  is  set  down  at  length ;  there  is  subtle  appreciation 
of  various  influences  on  design — Chinese.  Persian,  Indian,  and  European  ; 
expert  knowledge  of  weaving  and  chemistry  is  brought  to  bear  on  the  subject, 
and  finally,  the  way  in  which  these  beautifuf  painted  and  printed  textiles 
affected  furnishing,  decoration,  and  dress  in  Europe  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  is  described  in  detail. 

"  All  who  love  beautiful  things  will  feel  grateful  to  Mr.  Baker  for  making 
it  possible  for  them  to  examine  the  most  characteristic  examples  of  a  most 
captivating  art,  very  little  known  and  long  since  passed  away.  Few  examples 
of  it  survive,  and  these  from  the  perishable  nature  of  the  fabrics  will  be  lost 
gradually  to  the  world. 

"This  book  will  be  preserved  in  all  the  important  libraries  of  the  world, 
and  those  who  most  fully  understand  the  subject  will  best  recognize  what  a 
great  service  to  the  arts  Mr.  G.  P.  Baker  has  rendered  by  publishing  the 
results  of  his  research." — The  Cabintt  Maker, 


16        Edward  Arnold  &  Cos  Autumn  Announcements. 
SOME    RECENT    PUBLICATIONS. 

A    SURVEY    OF 
ENGLISH    LITERATURE    (1780-1880). 

By  OLIVER   ELTON, 

HON.    D.I.ITT.    DURHAM    AND   MANCHESTER, 
PROFESSOR   OF   ENGLISH   LITERATURE   IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  LIVERPOOL. 

From  1780-1830.     Two  Vols.     325.  net. 
From  1830-1880.    Two  Vols.    333.  net. 

"We  shall  not  disguise  our  opinion  that  in  its  union  of  freshness  and  maturity,  of  versatile 
sensibility  and  incisive  clearness,  applied  to  an  immense  mass  of  exact  and  first-hand  knowledge, 
it  bids  fair  to  take  its  place  as  the  most  authentic  judgment  of  our  generation  upon  the  Victorian 
age."— PROFESSOR  HKRFORD  in  the  Manchester  Guardian. 

JOHN     MARTINEAU 

THE   PUPIL  OF   KINGSLEY. 

By  his  Daughter,  VIOLET  MARTINEAU. 

With  Portrait.    Demy  Svo.     ias.  6d.  net. 

"  We  do  not  remember  ever  reading  a  book  of  this  kind  which  possessed  such  ineffable  charm 
•r  so  arresting  an  interest  in  every  one  of  its  pages." — Nottingham  Guardian. 

A    MANUAL    OF    COOKERY. 

By  the  late  FLORENCE  A.  GEORGE, 

AUTHOR  OF   "  KING   EDWARD'S  COOKHKY  BOOK,"   "  VEGETARIAN  COOKERY,"   ETC. 

Crown  Svo.    8s.  6d.  net. 

"Of  inestimable  value  for  its  wide  range  of  useful  information,  and  indispensable  to  the 
economic  housewife." — Western  Mail. 

PSYCHOLOGY   AND    PSYCHOTHERAPY. 

By  WILLIAM  BROWN,  M.A..M.D.,  D.Sc.. 

READER   IN   PSYCHOLOGY   IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF   LONDON  (KING'S  COLLEGE), 
CLINICAL  ASSISTANT   IN   NEUROLOGY,    KING'S  COLLEGE  HOSPITAL. 

With  a  foreword  by  WILLIAM  ALDREN    TURNER,  C.B.,  M.D. 
Crown  Svo.     8s.  6d.  net. 

"  The  volume  is  one  of  the  best  simple  expositions  of  psycho-analvsis  which  have  yet  appeared, 
and  it  is  all  the  better  in  avoiding  a  dogmatism  which  at  this  time  of  day  must  be  hasty." 
— Athenaiim. 

\^  MEN    OF    MIGHT 

STUDIES  OF  GREAT   CHARACTERS 
By  A.  C.  BENSON,  C.V.O.,  LL.D., 

MASTER    OF    MAGDALEN    COLLEGE,     CAMBRIDGE  ;    AUTHOR    OF    "  THE   UPTON   LETTERS," 

"  FROM   A  COLLEGE  WINDOW,"  ETC., 

AND 

H.  F.  W.  TATHAM. 
New  Illustrated  Edition.     Crown  Svo.     6s.  net. 

"  Models  of  what  such  compositions  should  be  ;  full  of  incident  and  anecdote,  with  the  right 
note  of  enthusiasm,  where  it  justly  comes  in,  with  little  if  anything  of  direct  sermonizing,  though 
the  moral  for  an  intelligent  lad  is  never  far  to  seek.  It  is  a  long  time  since  we  have  seen  a  better 
book  for  youngsters." — Guardian. 


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