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THE WAR OFFICE

THE WHITEHALL SERIES
Edited by SIR JAMES MARCHANT, K.B.E., LL.D.

THE HOME OFFICE

THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH

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THE DOMINIONS AND COLONIAL
OFFICES

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New Revised Edition

THE TREASURY

THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE
AND FISHERIES

THE BOARD OF TRADE

SCOTLAND YARD AND THE
METROPOLITAN POLICE
Revised and Enlarged Edition

THE FOREIGN OFFICE

THE WAR OFFICE

By
HAMPDEN GORDON

Assistant Secretary at the War Office

With an Introduction by
THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

D.C.L., LL.D.

Secretary of State for War

PUTNAM

COVENT GARDEN LONDON

First Published April 1935

Printed in Great Britain at
The Westminster Press
4113 Harrow Road
London,

INTRODUCTION

IT is recorded of the late Marshal Foch that when
taking part in the great Victory Procession through
London in July, 1919, he expressed to his friend,
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, his surprise at
finding that a procession in celebration of the
triumph of the nation's military forces should be
headed by a policeman. "But, my dear Marshal,"
Wilson replied, "there you have the British Consti-
tution in a nutshell the subordination of the
military power to the civil authority."

The problem of reconciling military efficiency
with civilian control is the key to the story of the
War Office; the existence of that problem affords
the explanation of many of the essential differences
which distinguish the War Office from the great
civilian departments, and which cannot fail to strike
any reader of the preceding volumes of this series.
The civilian departments are staffed entirely by
permanent Civil Servants who normally spend the
whole of their career of some 40 years in the same
office. A large part of the War Office, on the other
hand, is staffed by military officers who vacate their
appointments after four years. There is thus a con-
stant infusion of new blood, a continuous impact of
fresh minds on military problems, and a perpetual
interchange between the War Office and the Army

vi INTRODUCTION

outside. The result is an alertness and keenness and
freshness of outlook which make the War Office a
very live department. It used to be feared that there
was friction between the civilian and the military
element, and that the permanence of the former
gave it a preponderating influence. Whether or not
there was any foundation for that fear in the past,
nothing could be less true to-day. Nowhere will you
find better team work or closer co-operation than
exist between all the various sections in the War
Office of the present day. Everyone, soldier and
civilian alike, is imbued with one common purpose,
that of giving the British taxpayer the best possible
Army for the money provided by Parliament in the
Annual Estimates; for it cannot be too strongly
emphasised that the size and the distribution of the
British Army depend on questions of policy which
rest with the Government of the day and for which
the War Office has no responsibility.

Another point which cannot fail to strike the
reader of the following pages is the enormous range
and variety of the duties which the War Office is
called upon to perform. Apart altogether from purely
military problems, questions of health, of education,
of training for civilian employment, the construction
and repair of roads and buildings, the maintenance
of communications, and the administration of a code
of law are only some of the matters which fall
within its purview.

Mr. Gordon's book, which brilliantly maintains
the high standard set by its predecessors in the
series, appears at an opportune moment. At a time
when, as the result of a prolonged period of unilateral

INTRODUCTION vii

disarmament, the country is compelled to overhaul
its Defences, it is well that the public should be

g'ven an insight into the work of the Department of
overnment which controls our small Regular Army
and our Territorial Forces, upon whose devotion and
efficiency we depend so largely for the security of
our Empire and for the maintenance of the peace of
the world.

HAILSHAM

THK WAR OFFICE
February 14th. 1935

AUTHOR'S NOTE

THIS book is an attempt to set forth for the general
reader what the War Office exists to do, with some
account of bygone times and the almost incredible
omissions and errors which marked the slow process
of evolution from past chaos to present order. For
the benefit of those who are not well acquainted with
the subtle beauties of military language, technical
phrases have been used sparingly; and a table of
dates has been placed at the beginning for the re-
freshment of that rare reader whose memory of school
history is as comfortably vague as the author's own.

On matters of fact and of legal theory free use has
been made of the standard works on military and
constitutional history. These are mentioned in the
Notes at the end, together with some modern books
which deal in detail with particular subjects. To
compress the history and work of the War Office
within the limits of a volume of modest size is neces-
sarily a task of selection ; and the writer is conscious
that gaps may be found. Any expressions of opinion
are the author's own, and must not be assumed to be
endorsed officially.

The author is indebted to Sir Herbert Greedy,
the present Permanent Under-Secretary of State,
for kind help and encouragement, and to many
colleagues, military and civilian, for generous and
willing assistance. TT p

TABLE OF DATES

1066-1 154. The Norman Reigns.

1 1 54-1 399. The Plantagenet Reigns,

1 1 8 i . The Assize of Arms.

1215. Magna Carta.

1285. The Statute of Winchester.

1327. Parliament resists "commissions of

array. "

1399-1485. The Lancastrian and Torfyst Reigns.

1483. Definite creation of an Ordnance

Office.

1485-1603. The Tudor Reigns.

17 th Century:
1 620-1 62 1 . Appearance of a "Council of War."

1628. Petition of Right presented to

Charles I.

1645. Cromwell creates the New Model

Army.

1660. The Restoration. "Guards and Gar-

risons" allowed to Charles II.

1 66 1 . Sir W. Clarke appointed "Secretaty-

at-War."

xii TABLE OF DATES

1688- 1689, The Revolution. The Declaration of
Right. The first Mutiny Act.

1697. Peace of Ryswick ends William Ill's
campaigns against Louis XIV.

1 8 th Century:

1704. The post of "Secretary-at-War" is
made political.

1707. Union of the military establish-

ments of England and Scotland.

1713. Treaty of Utrecht ends Marl-

borough's campaigns in the War
of the Spanish Succession.

1715 & 1745. Jacobite risings.

1748. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the

War of the Austrian Succession.

1756. Seven Years' War begins.

1757. Clive and the battle of Plassey.
1759. Wolfe at Quebec.

1763. Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years'
War.

1775. War with the American Colonies
begins.

1783. Burke's Act for Economical Reform.
Secrctary-at-War made responsible
to Parliament.

1 793. War declared by the French Repub-
lic. Office of Commander-in-Chief
revived.

TABLE OF DATES xiii

1794. A Secretary of State for War ap-

pointed.

1795. The Duke of York becomes Com-

mander-in-Chief.

Century:

1800. Military establishments of Great

Britain and Ireland united.

1 80 1. The Secretary of State for War

becomes Secretary of State for
War and the Colonies.

1815. The battle of Waterloo.

1837. Accession of Queen Victoria. Lord
Howick's commission on central-
isation of offices.

1842-1852. The Duke of Wellington Com-

mander-in-Chief.

184682: 1852. Sidney Herbert Secretary-at- War.

1854-1856. The Crimean War. A Secretary of
State for War absorbs the Secre-
tary-at-War. Abolition of the
Board of Ordnance.

1856. The Duke of Cambridge appointed

General Commanding-in-Chief.

1857. The War Department becomes the

"War Office."

1 859. Revival of the Volunteer Movement.

1864-1866. Prussian military successes against
Denmark and Austria.

xiv TABLE OF DATES

1868-1874. The Card well reforms.

1870. The Franco-Prussian War.

The War Office and the Horse
Guards placed under one roof.
Re-organisation in three divisions.

1 88 i. Mr. Childers's "territorial" Act.

1882. Egyptian War and Tel-el-Kebir.

1884-1885. The Nile campaign against the
Mahdi.

1889. Hartington Commission appointed.

1899. South African War, 1899-1902.

Century:

1904. Esher Committee. Creation of the

Army Council.

1905-1912. Lord Haldane Secretary of State for
War.

1906. The War Office leaves Pall Mall.

1907. Territorial and Reserve Forces Act.
1914-1918. The Great War.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. Largely Concerning Origins

3

CHAPTER II. Parliament Gives Consent

20

CHAPTER III.

From the Revolution to

32

the Crimea (1689-1854)

CHAPTER IV.

The Tide of Reform
(1854-1904)

48

CHAPTER V.

Pre-War

74

CHAPTER VI.

Military Policy and the
General Staff

95

CHAPTER VII.

The Matter of Men

118

CHAPTER VIII.

The Matter of

Maintenance

144

CHAPTER IX.

The Matter of Arms

176

CHAPTER X.

Matters for Ministers

2IO

CHAPTER XI.

Army Finance

231

CHAPTER XII.

The Central Department

258

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIII. In the Great War 284

CHAPTER XIV. Post-War 3 1 6

APPENDICES

L List of Secretaries of State for War 335

II. Table of Precedence of the Corps, etc.,

of the Army 338

III. NOTES 339

INDEX 349

The references in the text to [C. ], [CW. ] or
[Cmd. ] are to the official numbers of Command
Papers^ i.e., reports or Memoranda presented to Parlia-
ment.

THE WAR OFFICE

Chapter I
LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS

A CERTAIN mistiness confronts the author whose
task is to trace the early development of a central
office for Army affairs. He is tempted to ignore the
periods of mist and to plunge at once into the
nineteenth century where the light is clear and
the records abound; or at least to start from the
Restoration of King Charles II, when a standing
army came into being. But he cannot escape so
easily. He is well aware that the intelligent reader,
however little he may remember clearly of "1066
and all that/' will recollect such names as Crcy
and Agincourt, will have memories of early pages
of history which bristled with battles and picturesque
details of warring barons and fighting kings, and
may expect to be told how military affairs were
conducted in those far-off days. Nor would such a
demand be unreasonable : for the administration of an
army, the day-to-day provision of food and forage,
arms, transport, clothing and so on, must at all
times be an intricate business, and the existence of
some crude form of a "war office" at an early stage
in our military history might not be altogether sur-
prising.

Certainly there is no escape from the haze,
admittedly very much thinner in texture, which per-
vades the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries:

4 THE WAR OFFICE

for here is a story of past things which is essential
to an understanding of the present a story of fears
and political jealousies, of unheeded chaos and re-
current panics interspersed with military successes :
a patchwork of failures, neglects and triumphs
through which runs, like a thread in the pattern of
the centuries, the development of a theory of govern-
ment which was destined to shape the modern War
Office and to affect every aspect of its present-day
work.

It is clear that the search must start at the begin-
ning, braving even the mists of that earlier period
when details concerning military administration
are, to quote one authority, "scarce and obscure."
But it may be useful, if only by way of contrast, to
glance first at existing conditions.

The War Office is the department of the Civil
Government which administers the military forces
of the Crown which claim the proud title "The
British Army." The head of the Army is His Majesty
the King, and the management of Army affairs forms
the special charge of a Secretary of State. The depart-
ment of the Secretary of State for War received the
general form of its present organisation thirty years
ago (1904) and thirty years of escape from reform
of the War Office must be hailed as a notable breach
of tradition. Appropriately to this regeneration the
Department received a new environment, for its
nineteenth-century home in Pall Mall and sundry
other dispersed quarters had been picturesque but
not highly convenient. Accordingly in December,
1906, it entered the duly imposing building whose
western cupolas of white stone, perched high above

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 5

the traffic of Whitehall, look down, a trifle disparag-
ingly no doubt, on the Georgian plainness of the
historic " Horse Guards. "

In this new home was centred in the Great
War the vast and widespread organisation which
equipped and maintained the citizen armies which
followed the Regular " Expeditionary Force" across
the Channel and overseas. In this building is
centred to-day a peace-time task of a size and
complexity which "the man in the street' ' may be
slow to believe. One may write of the shaping of
military policy, of the problems of modern organis-
ation, of the direction of research in its military
aspects but such phrases, taken alone, mean little.
The work would be described better, perhaps, as the
central direction of a great business which includes
in its varied and non-stop programme the recruiting
and training, the equipment and housing, the main-
tenance and movement, and the organisation as a
fighting force of a highly trained professional army
of which parts are scattered across the world in
widely distributed garrisons, from the West Indies
to the Mediterranean, from Aden to Malaya and
Hong Kong. Nor does this scattered Regular Army
of about 150,000 men stand alone in its daily needs.
There are also the reserves and the auxiliary forces.
The Army Reserve must be regulated in size ; the
Supplementary Reserve must be recruited and
trained; and the Territorial Army of 14 Divisions
must be organised, trained and equipped with
weapons, and requires its share of administrative
work through the medium of County Associations.
The effective strength of the three latter forces (the

6 THE WAR OFFICE

Reserves and the Territorial Army) amounted in
January, 1934^0 274,000 men. The total "establish-
ment" of all the forces, exclusive of British troops in
India, is, in round figures, 465,000.

The range of the task is obvious : its complexity is,
perhaps, not so easily realised. Modern science with
its new weapons and means of transport, its wireless
signalling and its Air co-operation, has rendered
organisation intricate and training a highly specialised
art. Twelve schools of instruction for the fighting
arms, three educational colleges for officers, twelve
establishments for research and experiment, a college
of science, a medical college and a host of other
institutions such as hospitals, workshops, laundries
and bakeries, are under the central control of the
War Office. Further, its work is affected throughout
by a multiplicity of civil contacts. The Department
is the largest employer in the country: it is probably
the largest owner of land. Its great factories are well
known. So catholic are its interests that it maintains
three large schools for boys, it has churches, police
and prisons of its own, and it possesses a fleet
though it is but a little one. Finally, its task is neces-
sarily increased by an elaborate system of control by
Parliament. There is scarcely a single activity of the
War Office which is not complicated by civil aspects,
legal, financial and parliamentary.

The detailed work of administration is decen-
tralised to a large extent: that is to say, it is carried
out locally. For this purpose, and that of training,
the Army is divided up between a number of separate
"commands. " There are six large Commands at
home (Aldershot, Southern, Eastern, Western

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 7

Northern and Scottish) and two smaller Commands,
the Northern Ireland and the London districts. The
garrisons abroad number thirteen, and vary in size
from the Egypt "command," where approximately
10,000 troops are in charge of a General Officer
Commanding, to Mauritius where a tiny garrison is
commanded by a Lieut.-Colonel. The number of
Regulars quoted above (roughly 1 50,000) does not,
of course, include India; for the troops composing
the British Army in India (some 60,000 of all ranks)
pass into the charge of the Government of India
from the time of embarkation for Indian stations to
the time of their return to the "British establish-
ment/' Much work, however, falls on the War Office
in connection with their recruitment and training,
their transport by sea, the business of posting, and
the adjustment with the Government of India of the
charges due for the services so rendered. Close touch
must be kept on questions of pay; and the War
Office is also largely involved in matters of promotion
and of discipline. (The Indian Army is quite distinct
from the British Army in India. It is a force raised
by the Government of India, and its native person-
nel is governed by Indian military law.)

The Department which forms the controlling
centre of this large and growing sphere of work is
governed by an Army Council, which now* consists
of eight members. At the head is the Secretary of
State for War who is "responsible to His Majesty
and Parliament for all the business of the Army
Council/' There are two other ministerial officers,
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and the
* Note i, page 339.

8 THE WAR OFFICE

Financial Secretary of the War Office. The Military
Members are four in number; and the Permanent
Under-Secretary of State for War, in addition to
being the eighth member, is also Secretary of the
Army Council. The Secretary of State and the two
other political members change normally with a
change of Government : the four Military Members
change periodically as the tenures of their appoint-
ments come to an end the normal period is four
years: the Permanent Under-Secretary of State is,
as his title suggests, a permanent civil servant.

The Secretary of State has a general control, and
all departments report to him through the medium
of a member of Council. Exceptionally, there is one
branch which reports to the Secretary of State direct.
This is the branch of the Military Secretary to the
Secretary of State, whose duties are concerned with
the promotion of officers, their selection for Staff
and other special work, and with the grant to officers
of rewards and honours.

Perhaps some idea of the area of work may be
gathered from the main headings of business
allotted, under the Secretary of State, to the seven
other Members of Council.

The First Military Member, whose title is Chief
of the Imperial General Staff, is concerned with
military policy. He is responsible for advice on the
military aspect of the defence of the Empire; and
consequently for the collection of military informa-
tion, for the organisation and training of the forces
for war, and for policy regarding the provision of
officers.

The Second Military Member, the Adjutant-

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 9

General to the Forces, is principally concerned with
"personnel/* He is responsible for recruiting and
discipline; for the peace-organisation of the forces
and for administrative arrangements for their
mobilisation. The supervision of the Medical
Services is another important part of his functions.

The Third Military Member, the Quarter-Master-
General to the Forces, is responsible for the policy
of the housing of the Army; for the movement of
troops and stores ; and for food, animals and transport
generally. His duties include the construction and
maintenance of barracks, hospitals and all other
buildings.

The Fourth Military Member, the Master-
General of the Ordnance, is principally concerned
with stores. He is responsible for the scientific
development of war material of all kinds: a duty
which covers research, design, experiment and
manufacture. He is responsible for the provision,
the storage and the repair of all stores and clothing,
and for the administration of the personnel, the
depots, the factories and the scientific establishments
which have to be maintained for these purposes.

Of the two political members, who assist the
Secretary of State to represent the Department in
Parliament, the first, the Parliamentary Under-
secretary of State, who is Vice-President of the
Army Council, is charged, as his special sphere of
business, with advice on all questions (other than
training) affecting the Territorial Army and its
administration by the County Associations, and all
questions affecting Lands. The second, the Financial
Secretary of the War Office, apart from being

io THE WAR OFFICE

concerned with Army Finance in its general and
ministerial aspects, has as his special sphere of
control the policy aspects of Army Contracts.

Finally, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State,
who is also the Secretary of the Army Council, forms
the co-ordinating link between the Secretary of State
and the office in general. He has in his charge both
the secretariat and the finance branches; and his
duties embrace the general control of the procedure
and conduct of the business of the office, and include
parliamentary and legal matters, the production of
War Office publications, and control of all civilian
staffs; while, in his capacity as "Accounting Officer
of Army Votes, Funds and Accounts," he is respon-
sible for the control of expenditure and for advice
to the Secretary of State and to the administrative
offices on all questions of Army finance.

From this rapid sketch two points may be noted
which, to modern ears, are the obvious product of
common sense rather than, as is actually the case,
the result of long and bitter struggles. In the War
Office as it exists to-day all the military functions of
Army administration are concentrated in a single
office: and not the military functions only. We find
here an office for Army affairs which includes in its
scope all the civil functions involved in maintaining
national forces and in controlling military expenditure
on behalf of Parliament and the public purse. In
groping in the mists of the past we must look for
the germ of a central office charged with the conduct
of Army affairs, and for the development of the
principle which is summed up in the well-worn
phrase "responsibility to Parliament."

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 11

As we start hopefully with those "Middle Ages"
between the Conquest and the Tudor Kings in
which arms and battles loom so large, the quest does
not look very promising. Some mental adjustment is
needed at once to picture the military conditions of
the times. Scotland was an alien enemy to be feared:
England possessed no standing army. Armies were
collected for the service of the King as each particular
occasion demanded. They were raised by a combin-
ation of methods. The great landlords brought their
own retainers; the sheriffs of counties were called
upon by royal writ to produce a fixed quota of men
and horses. But such service was restricted by recog-
nised conditions either as to its duration or its place
of employment, whereas a King might require a
more mobile force which would fight against Scot-
land as long as he wished, or even serve overseas
against France. Accordingly we find that from early
days onwards many citizens who were called to arms
lost, as it were, their amateur status by accepting hire
to continue serving; while numbers, at a later date,
definitely adopted the profession of arms and banded
together as soldiers of fortune. Thus for anything
more than a brief campaign the armies were com-
posed mainly of "mercenaries," and of these large
numbers were hired from abroad; but such foreign
imports were not popular and came to be reserved
for expeditions overseas.

The forces, having been duly arrayed, were con-
trolled, under chief command of the King, by
certain officers of the Royal Household the
"Marshall" and the "High Constable," whose
titles dated from Norman times. The perquisites

12 THE WAR OFFICE

of these officers were clearly defined, but exact
information is sadly lacking as to what they did
and how they did it, apart from assembling and
leading the troops. Chivalry, crusades, the panoply
of war, the bowmen of England, the grey-goose
feather romance and colour fill the picture and
leave little room for prosaic details. The student who
seeks an administrative system, who enquires pre-
cisely how campaigns were managed, how the
soldiers were organised and trained (if at all), or
what central arrangements were made for their
maintenance, will arrive at the position of the student
of philosophy who by patient perusal of all the
authorities progresses to the knowledge of how
little he can know.

We learn, indeed, how the forces were raised
and how their initial equipment was managed. All
freemen had arms of a kind immediately on
"mobilisation"; for these they were bound by law
to possess. The Assize of Arms of 1 1 8 1 laid down
that even the poorest class should have a chaplet
of iron, a lance and a wambais, the last being
a quilted garment. The Statute of Winchester of
1285 set forth six classes according to means: men,
for example, whose annual rental was from 40 to
100 shillings were to own a bow, arrows and knife,
and those who were blessed with very few chattels
were at least to possess a sword or dagger. These
arms were reviewed twice in the year. The limited
few had coats of mail, while the rank and file wore
their peasant's dress. The central figure was the
mail-clad knight, but the mass of the troops were
unarmoured peasantry whose chief weapons were

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 13

the bow, the spear and the bill. As to transport,
carts were obtained by the Crown by the simple
process of seizing such things under powers known
as the right of "purveyance."

We can picture the way in which the forces
were raised ; but even an army of small size cannot
be maihtained in the field without a measure of
organisation. Clothing must be renewed, arms re-
placed, vehicles repaired, food and forage collected,
the injured disposed of, pay issued (or embezzled)
and booty roughly checked and divided. As to these
things we know that from early times the elementary
needs of large parts of the forces were left to the
zeal and financial enterprise of leaders who might
be described as " contractors/' The latter were
usually men of position who entered into "inden-
tures" with the King to provide detachments at so
much a head ; and probably the care which the forces
received was little more than casual attention to a few
not unreasonable demands of warriors such as arms,
food and a modicum of loot. At the end of a cam-
paign the armies were dispersed, except the King's
own personal guard.

Indeed, one point emerges clearly that up to
the end of the Tudor reigns and the early decades
of the seventeenth century there did not exist any
forces of the Crown, other than a small royal body-
guard, which called for continuous central adminis-
tration. Throughout the war-filled centuries which
precede the Commonwealth and the Restoration,
armies are mustered and led to battle as the par-
ticular occasion demands, and are dispersed again
when the fighting is over. The military functions

H THE WAR OFFICE

of the high controlling officers are only in evidence
when a war is being waged. It is no matter for
surprise, therefore, that administration in the larger
sense of central direction or co-ordination of method
remains in the region of mist and conjecture. Much as
we may regret the omission, no embryo "war office"
makes its appearance to bequeath more detailed in-
formation in a neat array of "registered files. " No
necessity existed to mother the invention.

But the search for origins does not fail entirely.
The King's wardrobe included an armoury, and his
wardrobe of arms was situated at the Tower of
London at least as early as 1323, consisting of a
stock of bows, cross-bows, battering-rams and
weapons generally. Apart from arms for the hired
troops, a central store for siege weapons was a thing
that a King would be wise to possess; and we
definitely discern in the fifteenth century, arising out
of this royal establishment, the genesis of one of the
great departments of modern military administra-
tion. Dating from the years 1414-18 an appointment
is recorded of a "clerk of the Ordnance," who was
probably a development of the earlier official with
the attractive title of "attiliator balistarum" the
gentleman who provided the catapults. Later, in
1483, a Master was appointed for life, together with
a Clerk and a Yeoman : so that here we have a board
of the "Ordonnance," with quarters in the Tower of
London. This board was charged on behalf of the
King with the provision and issue of the kinds of
equipment which would now be termed Artillery and
Engineer stores; and the growing importance to the
royal armies of an adequate supply of gunpowder

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 15

weapons explains, as we may safely assume, the
growth in the status of the provision office. From this
time onwards this Board of Ordnance succeeded in
preserving an unbroken existence for four eventful
centuries, maintaining throughout a sturdy inde-
pendence of the rest of a host of military offices until
it was merged itself, in 1855, in a newly created
central administration.

Next, as the seventeenth century begins, we en-
counter traces of other bodies whose names are
suggestive of modern developments. The first of
these is the "Council for War" which appears in the
State Papers of 1620-1: a standing committee
appointed by King James I "whereof the Earls of
Oxford, Leicester and Essex are," we read, "the
most eminent persons." It was probably a committee
of the King's Privy Council. The second is the office
of "Secretary-at-War" to which a gentleman called
Edward Walker was appointed by King Charles I
in the year 1642. Here again information is not
explicit: we can only say that the Secretary-at-War
may originally have been secretary to the "council
for war." During the long struggle between Charles
and Parliament each side possessed its council of
war, and each council possessed its secretary. The
duties, one gathers, were hardly comfortable, con-
sisting in a very un-modern combination of sitting
as clerk to an Army committee and posting urgently
round the country as private secretary to the com-
mander in the field. But later the post of Secretary-
at-War assumes a very much greater interest.

For the six years prior to the Restoration one
William Clarke had acted as secretary to General

16 THE WAR OFFICE

Monk (or Monck), the all-powerful commander of
the Commonwealth army. At the Restoration of
1660 the latter, now the Duke of Albemarle, was
appointed Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief
of all that was left of the Parliamentary and Royalist
forces; and in January of the following year his
secretary, then Sir William Clarke, received a com-
mission as "Secretary-at-War to all the forces raised
or to be raised in England and Wales." At first this
post was practically personal. The secretary accom-
panied the Commander-in-Chief, and when the Duke
an amphibian warrior commanded the navy
against the Dutch Fleet, Clarke lost his life in a naval
action in the year of the Great Fire of London. In
1 670 the Duke himself died, and no Commander-in-
Chief was appointed to succeed him, so that Clarke's
successor as Secretary-at-War had some opportunity
for increasing his duties, of which he clearly took full
advantage. Admittedly his office was not a large one,
for the office disbursements of Matthew Locke, "His
Majesty's Secretary at Warre," from "ye 25th of
March 1673 to ye loth of December following"
amounted to ^14 195. and that in spite of a burst
of activity such as to require seven "best penknives"
and thirteen hundred "large Dutch quills," not to
speak of four "duble bottles of inke" and six "rullers"
at fourpence each. But the importance attached to
the office by the King is shown by a Warrant* of
1676 in which the following words occur:

"And, considering that We continue to issue from
Ourselves some kinds of warrants and military orders
which did belong to the office of Our late General,

* Note 2, page 340.

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 17

, . . We, being desirous to distinguish such war-
rants and orders from other affairs of Our Crown
passing Our Signet and Sign Manual, have thought
fit ... that all such warrants and orders as formerly
issued from George, duke of Albemarle, the late
General, deceased, in regard to that office, and which
We continue to issue from Ourself, shall pass Our
Sign Manual only and shall be countersigned by the
Secretary to Our Forces as by Our Command. "

The "Secretary to Our Forces" mentioned here is,
of course, the Secretary-at-War. His duties appear
to have included particularly the arrangement of
"reliefs" between the various garrisons, the "re-
moval of quarters" and the provision of convoys.

Briefly, then, the Secretary-at-War, from being
private secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, became
an official clerk to the King, who prepared and
countersigned the royal orders as to certain admini-
strative needs of the forces. His office was not an
emergency creation: it was intended to be a "stand-
ing" secretariat: and here we find the first step in
the laboured growth of a War Office. But the first step
does not go very far; for the "standing army" of the
Restoration, though a de facto standing army, was not
a constitutional force. Its existence as a standing army
had no consent from Parliament. The forces which
had been raised by Parliament for the purposes of
the Civil War were disbanded at once in 1660; ! ut
under the Acts which disbanded them Charles II
was enabled to keep certain troops, and from these
he created an army of his own which, in spite of all
the remonstrance of Parliament, he managed not
merely to maintain but to increase. Built up from

i8 THE WAR OFFICE

"the Lord General's Life-Guard of Horse" and
Monk's old regiment raised at Coldstream, which
afterwards became the Coldstream Guards, it was
certainly only a small affair; for a powerful force in
the hands of a despot, whether a King or a Common-
wealth, was a thing that all parties had come to
dread. A force comprising "Guards and Garrisons"
was all that the King was intended to possess, and
no more than this was legalised until the Revolution
some thirty years later.

But when as a result of that great crisis the Army
became a constitutional force, the Secretary-at-War
survived the upheaval. There was no great change
in his status or functions: he remained, as before,
responsible only to his master the King, but the King
was the only Commander-in-Chief and the work
was increased in scope and importance. He accom-
panied the King on campaigns overseas and was busy
transmitting the royal orders regarding the trans-
portation of troops, the contracts for food, clothing
and horses, and the distribution of subsidies to Allies.*
At home he was responsible for the movement of
troops and their quartering on the victualling
houses; he drafted the "articles of War"; he pre-
pared the forms of commissions for officers; he
obtained rulings on points of precedence; he
countersigned the warrants for pay, and he drew up
the list of the forces required for signature by
Ministers. The great change lay in the fact that his
duties were concerned with forces of the Crown the
existence of which had the sanction of Parliament,
and with the use of funds which Parliament was

* Note 3, page 340.

LARGELY CONCERNING ORIGINS 19

voting for the specific purpose of maintaining those
forces. In the Secretary-at-War of King Charles II
a sturdy plant had made its appearance in the field
of Army administration : with the coming of parlia-
mentary control the ground was prepared for its
further growth. The office was soon to be changed
very greatly. We advance in triumph from mists to
chaos.

Chapter II
PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT

THE subject of the Royal Prerogative is one which
the layman approaches with caution: it is also a
subject which cannot be avoided in tracing the
growth of control by Parliament in the matter of
the military forces of the Crown. For the Prerogative
in this connection means certain powers in relation
to the Army which belong to the traditional rights
of the Sovereign.

The people of England display fitfully a certain
resentment of despotism. It blossoms to-day in
sporadic indictments of the "New Despotism' ' a
real or supposed invasion of liberty by the "bureau-
cracy of Whitehall." The burden of the modern
charge is the overriding of the people's rights as
expressed in the law or the constitution. In earlier
days the point in dispute was to get those rights
expressed and secured by a formal recognition of
the limits set to the traditional Prerogative rights of
the Crown, From the earliest times the particular
occasion for the outburst of resentment was often
connected with military claims.

The retrospect will be very brief.

Before the Norman Conquest any freeman between
the ages of 1 5 and 60 who was capable of bearing
arms could be summoned by the King to the "host"
or general levy of his county. The county force was

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 21

liable to serve only within the kingdom and, except
in case of invasion, only within its own county. The
feudal levy was at first quite distinct. The military
service of the knights and retainers of the feudal
lords was limited by custom to forty days: it was
this fact that led to the forces so raised being induced
by high pay to continue to serve as mercenaries. In
the case of both levies the practice arose of the Crown
accepting a money payment in commutation of
personal service; and hence, of course, arose two
kinds of taxes, the one levied on the county at large
and the other on the individual citizen.

The arbitrary nature of the feudal tax was chal-
lenged as early as Magna Carta; and when, about a
century later, "Commissions of Array" (as the writs
from the Crown had come to be called) demanded
county forces for foreign service, resentment once
more took definite shape and Acts were passed by
Parliament, beginning in 1327, to set a limit to the
Crown's claims. These statutes affirmed the principle
that no man should be compelled to serve out of his
shire "but when necessity requireth and the sudden
coming of strange enemies into the realm"; nor
should it be compulsory to provide soldiers except
by grant in Parliament; and further, if men should
volunteer to serve the King on foreign campaigns,
payment should be made by the Crown for their
services. As a consequence the great French wars
which spread over the next hundred years were
mainly fought by "mercenary" troops.

Constitutional rights in the matter of service
seem, however, to have been ignored or forgotten
in the general confusion of the Wars of the Roses;

22 THE WAR OFFICE

and during the following Tudor reigns the claims
of the Crown were extended by Acts which assumed
all sorts of arbitrary powers to be part of the Royal
Prerogative. Henry VIII increased the liability to
provide horses and arms in proportion to property.
He also ordered the practice of archery and for-
bade indulgence in bowls and tennis. To venture
a quiet game of quoits was to run the risk of
penalties. The practice of "impressing" soldiers,
which had been employed since the wars of the
barons, was now an ordinary occurrence. Citizens
were dragged compulsorily to arms with so fine a
disregard for constitutional propriety that in the
great days of Queen Elizabeth "impressment" had
come to be regarded commonly as a natural, if un-
comfortable, right of the Crown. "I have misused
the King's press damnably," says Falstaff; and
Shakespeare was voicing the experience of his time,
But the days of these despotic powers were nearing
their end with the coming of the Stuarts. A new era
when military claims formed a prime occasion for
popular resentment began in the reign of King
Charles I.

One point of dispute concerned the "trained
bands."

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the writs
formerly known as "Commissions of Array" had
assumed a quasi-permanent form under the title
of "Commissions of Musters." Selected persons in
each county were formed into bands, trained at the
charge of the several parishes, and mustered annually
by Lieutenants of counties. These commissions for
mustering the trained bands (which now began to

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 23

be called the "militia") were employed by Charles
for his own ends. The King was always in need of
money, and found here a most useful means of
exacting money and arms from the counties. This
formed one of the many issues on which a challenge
was raised to the "martyr King's" overwhelming
belief in his sovereign rights. Indeed, there was a
new spirit abroad: the legality of the despotic powers
so long invoked for the governing of the country
began to be debated and called in question. Besides
the exactions of the "Commissions of Musters" other
military abuses formed grounds of attack. A second
grievance related to the "pressing" of citizens to
serve in the forces against their will. A third was the
free use of "martial law" in time of peace for the
summary punishment not only of soldiers but of
"dissolute persons joining with them." Parliament
held that the commissions which were issued to
officers by the Crown to impose this special military
law were plainly contrary to the law of the land. A
fourth ground of complaint was the billeting of
soldiers. In the Petition of Right of 1628 the Com-
mons recited that

"of late great companies of soldiers and mariners
have been dispersed into divers counties of the
Realm, and the inhabitants, against their wills,
have been compelled to receive them into their
houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against
the laws and customs of this Realm, and to the
great grievance and vexation of the people."

The Commons prayed that the King would "be
pleased to remove the said soldiers and mariners."

24 THE WAR OFFICE

They prayed also that the commissions of martial
law might be revoked and annulled, and that "here-
after no Commissions of like nature may issue forth"
. . . "lest by colour of them any of your Majesty's
subjects be destroyed or put to death contrary to
the laws and franchise of the land."

More significant still, in the light of events, was
the later demand made of the King that the com-
mand of the forces that is, of the militia should
be in the hands of Parliament. It is not surprising
that the King refused this: it was contrary to all
tradition; but it illustrates a growing fear the
awakened dread of military power when held in
irresponsible hands. That fear became deeply in-
grained in the people. The army which Parliament
itself created for the purpose of abolishing royal
despotism took matters into its own hands and
became in its turn an engine of tyranny; and two
hundred years hardly sufficed to wipe out the memory
of that bitter experience. At the Restoration, as noted
already, the army was disbanded at once. Men of
all classes might well be afraid that a standing force
would be used once more as an instrument of
despotism. The militia was considered to be safe:
indeed, steps were taken to make it so by vesting
control in the Lieutenants of counties. The Crown's
right of command was acknowledged, but the King
was not trusted with anything more, except his
"Guards and Garrisons."

Soon again, when the Court party went too far
in their efforts to keep a standing force, resentment
blazed out dangerously. The Chancellor, Clarendon,
was impeached for that he "hath designed a standing

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 25

army to be raised." In 1672-3 two further remon-
strances were made by the Commons; and a few
years later the Lord Treasurer, Danby, was accused
of high treason "for that he did/' among other things,
"design the raising of an army upon a pretence of
war against the French King, and to continue the
same as a standing army within this kingdom. " But
Charles II was tactful and wary, in contrast to his
brother James. The latter showed his intentions too
plainly. He planned to govern the country by means
of the army, tried with his troops to overawe London
and lost his throne in the foolish experiment.

We thus come once more to the Revolution, the
first Mutiny Act, and the Bill of Rights.

The first Mutiny Act was passed hurriedly in
April, 1689, to deal w ^h a mutiny which broke out
at Ipswich among troops who declared that James
was their King and that they would "live and die by
him/' It was the forerunner of the complete code of
discipline, now called the Army Act, which legalises
the punishment of military offences by military law.
Two particular points about it are interesting first,
that it was passed for a period only (actually about
seven months), and, second, that it declared in its
preamble that the raising or keeping of a standing
army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless
it be with the consent of Parliament, was against the
law.

Similarly the Bill of Rights, which received the
assent of William and Mary on i6th December,
1689, set forth the offer and acceptance of the Crown
on the basis of certain constitutional principles, of
which one was that the raising or keeping of a stand-

26 THE WAR OFFICE

ing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless
it be with the consent of Parliament, is against the
law. Meanwhile the Commons on 5th April had
resolved to agree with its Committee of Supply
that the sum of 200,000 "is necessary to be
allowed for the annual charge of guards and
garrisons by land in time of peace/' Further, for
1692 the Committee voted the number of men that
should form the "establishment" of the forces at
home.

Thus was established a new era. From this time
forward no army could exist unless Parliament had
voted supplies for its cost; and the fact was explicitly
recognised by the Crown that its discipline would
have no legal basis unless Parliament passed a special
Act for that purpose. This remains the position to-
day. The maximum numbers allowed to be kept up,
the discipline necessary for the government of that
army, and the expenses involved in keeping it must
always be sanctioned expressly by Parliament, and
are sanctioned only for twelve months at a time.
To that extent the Army is a statutory force. Its
numbers, its cost, and the discipline applied to it
are limited and controlled by the votes of Parlia-
ment; and although, apart from these limitations,
the "government, command and disposition" of the
army fall within the Royal Prerogative, the annual
renewal of Parliament's consent is necessary for its
maintenance.

Meanwhile, as regards the Prerogative, Parliament
had proceeded as follows. At the restoration of
Charles II, in an Act of 1661 (13 Car, II. cap. 6),
Parliament had used the following words:

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 27

"Forasmuch as within all His Majesty's realms
and dominions the sole supreme government,
command and disposition of the militia and of all
forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places
of strength, is, and by the law of England ever
was, the undoubted right of His Majesty . . ."

But the Parliament of the Revolution was more
cautious. It did not mention the Prerogative powers,
but it took certain definite steps in the matter. In
one direction it extended and strengthened the
powers of the Crown, since by the first Mutiny Act
it legalised "Martial Law" as the means of enforcing
the discipline of the Army. In restricting carefully
both the scope and the duration of this new law so
that it required periodic revision and re-enactment,
and in other directions already noted, it rehearsed
what the Crown could not do, and secured to itself
control of the means of keeping a standing army in
being. But all the old Prerogatives remained, except
in so far as by these methods Parliament had imposed
express limitations.

Time has not changed this age-old doctrine of
the special relations of the King to the Army. Just as
the work of Army administration is conditioned by
the theory of Parliament's control, so from the doc-
trine of Crown Prerogative flow many elements in
War Office practice. The granting or withholding of a
soldier's pay lies with the King. Its issue is governed
by a "Royal Warrant for the Pay, Appointment,
Promotion and Non-Effective Pay of the Army."
The Army Council administer the Warrant, but
any amendment must go to the King. The regulations

28 THEWAROFFICE

for the Army are the King's Regulations, and simi-
larly require the royal approval. The commissions of
officers are given by the King and bear His Majesty's
signature on them. The Crown, equipped with the
Army Act the code developed from the Mutiny
Acts is the source of the Army's discipline : courts-
martial can only be convened by the King or by
officers holding special powers directly conferred by
the King for that purpose; and the findings and
sentences of certain courts-martial are reserved for
His Majesty's personal approval. An officer can
appeal, if he thinks himself wronged, from the
Army Council to the King himself.

What time has changed are the methods by which
certain Prerogative powers are exercised. One effect
of reforms of Army government has been to transfer
the exercise of those powers from representatives of
the Crown not responsible to Parliament to ministers
who are responsible to Parliament, and so to secure
parliamentary approval for the way in which those

powers are used.

* * # -fr-
lii this connection a point has been raised which
may be of interest to some readers. Under the Bill of
Rights, as stated above, the keeping of a standing
army requires the prior consent of Parliament,
which has to be renewed each year; but if a reader
should enquire by what instrument Parliament pro-
ceeds to renew that consent, the question would not
be simple to answer. The new year with which
Parliament deals begins on April ist as regards
money and on April 3Oth as regards the Army Act,
and if it be argued that the consent required is the

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 29

consent of both the Houses of Parliament given
before the beginning of the year, the only instrument
which fulfils these conditions is the Army and Air
Force Annual Act. But does that Act legalise the
existence of the Army? It is the Act which brings
into force for the ensuing year the complete code
of military law well known as the Army Act. It is
true that it contains a preamble which repeats the
provision of the Bill of Rights concerning the keeping
of a standing Army, and alludes to the numbers
required for the Army; but a critic could argue that
a mere preamble, not being one of the sections of
the Act, cannot make those numbers law. The
subject is somewhat painfully technical and further
details are reserved for a note.* It is also purely
academic, and may well be left to the mercy of jurists,
for "consent," if not given by any one instrument,
is certainly given by the series of instruments by
which numbers and money are voted for the Army
and its discipline is legalised.

The main point is clear enough that Parlia-
ment's control of the size of the Army, of its dis-
cipline, and of its very existence is a basic principle
of the Constitution. Nor are the Resolutions and
Acts -which deal with numbers, money and disci-
pline the only weapons which Parliament possesses.
Since the days of the Revolution its powers of
control have been greatly elaborated in ways which
future chapters will show.

* * * *

Another development of the seventeenth century
provides a lighter theme.

* Note 4, page 340.

30 THE WAR OFFICE

The second half of that century saw the begin-
ning of many names that are still familiar, or even
famous, in modern London. Immediately after the
Restoration fashion reached out to Piccadilly. The
"drie ditche banks about Pickadilla" of Gerarde's
Herbal (1633) gave place to a crop of streets and
mansions. At the north end of St. James's Street
the King's Lord Chancellor built a house which
on Clarendon's death was called "Albemarle House"
for the purchaser was Monk's son. Its remains
were bought it was soon pulled down by one
Sir Thomas Bond of Peckham, and new streets
came into being, Bond Street and Albemarle
Street. Nearby a mansion, whose later name was
"Devonshire House," was built for the Lord
Berkeley of Stratton whose wife made the streets
which bear those names. Further east rose Bur-
lington House. The church of St. James in Picca-
dilly designed by Wren (except its steeple the
substitute can still be seen) was built on the grounds
of Harry Jermyn, who presented the site to Charles
II and gave his name to Jermyn Street. But among
the many familiar titles first heard in this era of new
creation, our particular theme is the name "The
Horse Guards."

The ground now known as "The Horse Guards
Parade" was part of a space then called the Tiltyard.
In Tudor times it was a real tilt-yard, where the
Court could step from the Palace of Whitehall to
applaud the exploits of nobles and gentry in various
contests of skill-at-arms. Long years before the
Restoration all such jousting had ceased to be held;
and here was a space where the King's guard could

PARLIAMENT GIVES CONSENT 31

be housed conveniently near to the Palace. Quarters
were required for the mounted troops which
Charles II had been allowed to keep, and barracks
and stables were built in the Tiltyard, henceforth to
be known as "The Horse Guards, Whitehall/' It
was here, before the end of the century, that the
Secretary-at-War had his modest office.

"The Horse Guards, Whitehall" of those days
was not, of course, the present building. After a
hundred years of use the old buildings were pulled
down and their place was taken by William Kent's
unpretentious but pleasing edifice. For long "The
Horse Guards'* was the War Office, or at least was
so regarded by all. At a later stage the name was
used to refer to the office of the Commander-in-Chief
as opposed to the civil control of the Army. The
Horse Guards building is now the headquarters of
the Eastern Command, and also of the London
District; but its greater claims to modern renown
reside in the splendour of its mounted sentries and
the ceremony known as "Trooping the Colour."

Chapter III

FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE
CRIMEA (1689 TO 1854)

A CERTAIN letter received at the present-day War
Office was addressed as follows:

"The Secretary,

or any of the Admirals,
Ware Office, Pall Mall"

It would seem that even under modern conditions
the writer was a prey to uneasy doubts as to which
particular group of His Majesty's officers would
deal with a matter concerning soldiers. In the year
1734, or again in the year 1834, such doubts would
have been amply justified, for the multiplication of
Army authorities was certainly the most striking
feature of the machinery for administering the
business of the forces during the century and a half
which followed the Revolution.

Thus, in the year 1815, at the close of the
Napoleonic wars, there were no less than thirteen
distinct offices concerned with some aspect of Army
administration, not to mention a special department
of the Treasury or the functions of the Home
Office touching the Militia. Even in March, 1854,
at the outbreak of the Crimean War, there still
remained six important authorities each of which

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 33

claimed independent powers. Two sturdy growths
in this generous crop were the Board of Ordnance
and the Secretary-at-War, whose first appearance
has been mentioned already. Of the rest some sprang
up only to die; while two were destined, as the story
will show, to absorb between them the whole of the
field. *

The span of a hundred and sixty-five years which
separates the Revolution from the Crimean War was
a period of great names. The figures of Maryborough,
Walpole and Pitt, Clive and Wolfe and Wellington,
are seen in a pageant of stirring events. William Ill's
successful campaigns, Maryborough's famous vic-
tories, the suppression of the Jacobite risings at
home, the building up of the Indian Empire, the
wresting of Canada from French domination, Wel-
lington's achievements in the Peninsular War, the
final defeat of Napoleon's power these are but some
of the scenes that we witness. Military successes fill
the story of Britain's rise to a great supremacy. We
might expect, therefore, to find large advances in the
administration of Army affairs. We might hope to
find vastly improved conditions, not only planned for
the sake of efficiency but designed also by a grateful
nation for the betterment of the soldier's lot. But the
efficiency which produced the long tale of successes
was efficiency of command and courage : it was not
the result of alert preparation. The long list of de-
partments with Army interests was not the product
of interest in the Army. The plain truth is that
between the wars the needs of the Army were openly
and deliberately neglected.

A prime cause of this state of affairs lay plainly

34 THEWAROFFICE

in the old fear. The country, not without reason
perhaps, remained in dread of a standing Army. If
trouble seemed imminent Parliament would vote
an increase of numbers: when the trouble was over
Parliament was prompt to reduce them again. No
sooner had peace been signed with France at the
close of William I IPs campaigns than a flood of
pamphlets demanded reductions. We note that the
author of Robinson Crusoe joined in the fray with the
opposite view in an "Argument showing that a
Standing Army, with consent of Parliament, is not
Inconsistent with a Free Government." But the
Army was reduced in spite of Defoe, and had to be
increased again three years later on the outbreak of
the War of the Spanish Succession. At the Treaty of
Utrecht which ended that war, the numbers were
promptly reduced to a minimum. Dean Swift wrote
that a standing Army was one of the "Public
Absurdities. " During Walpole's "reign of peace"
the old cry was raised constantly. The Treaty of 1 748
which closed the War of the Austrian Succession,
the Peace of 1 763 which terminated the Seven Years'
War, and the Treaty of 1783 which ended the
struggle with the American colonies, were followed
in turn by hasty reductions. An outcry against the
building of barracks was a frequent symptom of the
general temper. The fortifying of ports was opposed
on the ground of danger to liberty. In 1814, when
Napoleon abdicated, our armies were reduced with
premature speed, and when peace came after Waterloo
the same old arguments were heard. When the for-
mation of a club for officers was mooted in the year
1816, the Prime Minister regarded the measure as

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 35

"most ill-advised": he feared the effects of such an
establishment on u the general feelings of English-
men respecting military interference."

Throughout this era Parliament, garbed in a
well-worn Liberty dress, appears as the villain of the
Army piece. Dislike of the Army was openly fostered.
One reason, of course, was that Whig policy was
definitely commercial and therefore pacific. Another
was the fact that in the eighteenth century the patron-
age of the Army was used freely as a pawn in the
political game. Promotions were given for political
support, and many instances can be quoted where
officers were actually deprived of commissions on
account of their political "colour."

It is clear that the existence of the Army in peace
and its power for interference in civil affairs were
regarded askance by Parliament. On each and every
recurrence of peace Army affairs were thrust into
the background, and the old cry was raised once
more, reinforced by a real and growing need for
the pursuit of economy in public expenditure.
There is a modern ring about some of the argu-
ments: Great Britain does not require an Army;
Great Britain's interest is trade; no need to be
entangled in military commitments. The armies
took the field ill equipped and ill trained. When
France, in the throes of her great revolution,
declared war on England in 1793, the British Army
was, to say the least, short of ammunition, lacking
in medicines and medical appliances, and most
inadequately furnished with transport. A shocking
waste of blood and treasure was involved in the
improvisation of forces to meet each crisis as it arose,

36 THE WAR OFFICE

but the waste did not carry sufficient weight with
those who feared a large permanent force to result
in really effective reforms. Critics may point to a
lack of vision: we are here concerned only with the
fact of neglect and the striking dispersal of powers
and duties which produced a quite unworkable
system, or lack of system, of administration.

We have mentioned the crop of separate authorities
all of which dealt with military affairs. At the begin-
ning of the period, in 1703, the list included, besides
the Secretary-at-War, at least the following depart-
ments: The Board of Ordnance provided stores; the
Commissariat provided provisions and fuel; two
Paymasters-General disbursed pay; an Apothecary
provided drugs; and a little later there was a Board
of General Officers whose approval was required
for clothing contracts. There was also a Commissary-
General of Musters; and two Controllers of Army
Accounts to watch expenditure on behalf of the
Treasury. Finally, and above all these, a responsibility
for Army affairs lay upon one of the Secretaries of
State. In the course of the era under review this list
grew longer and then was reduced. Afterwards, as
a result of the extensive reforms which followed on
the Crimean crisis, two great departments only
survived. Our chief concern is with the survivors;
but the story of the earlier stages is pertinent to the
main subject, for the organisation of the modern
War Office can only be seen in true perspective in
the light of the conditions that hindered its coming.
It is a story, to use an official meiosis, not wholly
devoid of confusing features, and the first confusion
to be cleared up is that between the Secretary-at-War

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 37

and the Secretary of State who was responsible for
the conduct of war as one of his ministerial functions.
The high office of "Secretary of State 7 * makes its
first appearance in English history in the reign of
King Henry VIII. It developed from the post of
"Secretarius" or confidential clerk to the Plantagenet
Kings.* This secretary, the Keeper of the King's
Great Seal, became a high office at an early date:
next, a private seal was invented and the Keeper of
the Privy Seal grew into an important officer of
State: and finally, a third seal, or "signet," came to
be employed for the King's private use, and the
post of Secretarius, as keeper of the signet, became
in its turn a definite office. In the fifteenth century
the holder of this post was known officially as "the
King's Secretary"; but it was left to Henry VIIFs
ministers to raise the appointment to the great
importance which attaches to the title of "Secretary
of State." In James Fs reign the practice began of
dividing the office between two Secretaries; and in
1640 foreign business was formally separated into
two spheres, each Secretary of State taking charge of
relations with a distinct group of the powers of
Europe, and domestic affairs falling to one of them.
William III found it very annoying that the division
of spheres of his Secretaries of State was made on
such a basis so inconvenient: thus a war against
France might concern one minister while respon-
sibility for the forces in England might rest (as part
of domestic affairs) on the shoulders of the other
Secretary of State, William insisted on his Secretary-
at-War accompanying him when he went on cam-

* Note 5, page 341.

38 THE WAR OFFICE

paigns, and treated him as a Secretary of State, to
the chagrin of his ministers proper.

Thus at the dawn of the eighteenth century there
did not exist a Secretary of State with military affairs
as his sole province, and this led to a change of
status and an increase of power for the Secretary-at-
War.

Under Queen Anne and the first Georges the
King's ministers were busily engaged in gathering
into their own hands as many as possible of the
powers of government, and here, in the Secretary-at-
War, was an office through which were exercised
the Royal Prerogatives of the command, government
and disposition of the Army. Accordingly in 1 704
the office is made a political post a stepping-stone
for rising politicians. The Secretary-at-War, from
being clerk to the King as Commander-in-Chief,
becomes an instrument of political power. The post
possessed peculiar facilities for the exercise of
political patronage, and the tiny office of the Secre-
tary-at-War (which in 1720 possessed 9 clerks) was
allowed to control, as adviser to the Crown, all
matters bearing on Army finance, the relations of the
Army to the civil community, and indeed its govern-
ment generally. "Our armies here/' said the Duke of
Argyll in 1718, "know no other power but that of
the Secretary-at-War, who directs all their motions
and fills up all vacancies without opposition and
without appeal/' There was even a "Secretary-at-
War's leave" which was granted to officers without
reference to any military authority whatever.

This powerful civilian official spoke for military
affairs in the Commons, but was not responsible to

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 39

Parliament. He was bound, said Pulteney who held
the office in 1717, to carry out the orders of the
Crown, but was not bound to account to Parliament.
The holder of the post in 1779 informed the House
that he could not be expected, not being a minister,
u to have a competent knowledge of the destination
of the army, and how the war was to be carried on/'
His position was convenient to the King. The Secre-
taries of State were responsible to Parliament, and
the Crown, as Sir William Anson* points out, was
not anxious to see the military Prerogatives brought
under the supervision of Parliament, Besides, the
Secretaries of State in whose provinces "war" fell
were full of their wider responsibilities, and as far
as Army administration was concerned were con-
tent to remain very much in the background, while
the Secretary-at-War did the necessary work and
handled the patronage on behalf of the Crown.
Meanwhile in the eyes of Parliament also the position
possibly had certain advantages; for the House of
Commons may well have felt that a Secretary-at-War
who was accountable to Parliament would lend colour
to the horrid idea of a standing Army as a permanent
evil. So the Secretary-at-War waxed strong in the
land.

But as military expenditure grew apace, Parlia-
ment's desire to control it increased; and by Burke's
Act for Economical Reform (1782-3) changes were
made which vitally affected the position and the
functions of the Secretary-at-War. The payment of
the troops and the expenditure on recruiting, which
had hitherto remained in the hands of the regiments,

* Note 6, page 341.

40 THE WAR OFFICE

was placed in the charge of the Secretary-at-War,
and that official was made responsible to Parliament,
and specifically responsible for the spending of
Supply. He was there to control the expenditure of
the Army in the interests of the public purse, not
merely to announce what numbers were required.
He was there to see that the money which Parliament
had voted was used only for the purposes which
Parliament intended, not merely to see that the agents
of the Crown did not encroach too far on the civil law.
He became a minister for Army affairs, and he stood
and acted still more than before as a de facto Secretary
of State.

Then, with the coming of the French revolution
and the declaration of war between England and
France, another important change was made. In the
year 1793 the office of Commander-in-Chief was
revived.

Since the death of Albemarle in 1670 no Com-
mander-in-Chief had been appointed except for the
duration of temporary emergencies. The King had
retained the command himself. The establishment
of the permanent post meant that the King gave up
personal command, and in matters relating to the
internal discipline and regulation of the Army the
royal pleasure would now be communicated by the
holder of the office of Commander-in-Chief, and
not, as before, by the Secretary-at-War. (The actual
title of the appointment varied "Field-Marshal on
the Staff," for instance but the position was that
of Commander-in-Chief.) A further change in the
following year, the appointment of a Secretary of
State for War, is important as a historical fact rather

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 41

than for any results in practice. From the constitu-
tional aspect it marks a stage; because now for the
first time, as Anson points out, the general policy
of the government of the Army was placed in the
hands of a definite person who not only was respon-
sible to Parliament but also held office of the highest
rank. He was charged with the control of military
policy, the strength of the forces to be maintained,
and the general conduct of operations; while the
Secretary-at-War remained independent, and shared
with the office of Commander-in-Chief the duty of
providing the forces required.

Unfortunately, however, in the making of this
change, the relative powers of the three appoint-
ments were nowhere defined with any precision,
and the powers of the Secretary of State for War
were left as a vague and partial control, with the
result that the ground was now left open for a long
and paralysing struggle between the Commander-
in-Chief and the Secretary-at-War,

The Commander-in-Chief was quick to claim that
the entire control of military administration rested
with himself as the King's representative. The
Secretary-at-War, as Parliament's man, responsible
for Army finance and the civil aspect of Army
government, claimed the duty of issuing orders and
regulations which the Commander-in-Chief was
bound to obey. The Duke of York, famous in song
for marching men up to the top of the hill and
forthwith marching them down again, was Com-
mander-in-Chief during this period (1795-1809) and
entrenched himself in a strong position. He created
a headquarters staff, and insisted on the observance

42 THE WAR OFFICE

by all officers of proper channels of communication.
Gone were the days when a place-hunting officer
could bring pressure to bear on the Secretary-at-War
through influential friends in the House. All pro-
motions and all questions of discipline were now in
the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. He claimed
control of finance as well, but naturally without
success. This royal officer is ranked by Fortescue as
a fine type of Commander-in-Chief.

In 1 8 i r the quarrel waxed strong, though at this
date the Duke himself had resigned as a result of a
notorious and unhappy scandal in the matter of Mary
Ann Clarke, a lady who surpassed her previous
efforts in the matter of bribery and corruption by
obtaining for her own footman a commission as a
lieutenant-colonel. The relative position of the two
offices gave rise to a stiff and prolonged discussion,
and Palmerston, then the Secretary-at-War, penned
an exhaustive memorandum on the subject which the
curious may read in Clode.* It was settled tempor-
arily in May 1812, by a warrant signed by the
Prince Regent, of which a copy was given to each
of the disputants. The financial control of "the War
Office' * was upheld, but the Secretary-at-War re-
ceived instructions that he must not issue any new
order until it had been shown to the Commander-in-
Chief: if the latter objected, the matter was to be
settled by one or all of three officials the First Lord
of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or
"the Secretary of State for the Colonies/' The last-
named, be it noted, is the same person as the Secre-
tary of State for War, whose concern with the details

* Note 7, page 341.

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 43

of Army management had receded still further into
the background when, in 1801, he was given the
charge of the Colonies as well. So, for the time, the
matter rested.

Meanwhile the tide of war dragged on. British
troops fought in the West Indies, in India, Egypt,
the Cap v e and America as well as on the continent of
Europe; Wellington won renown in the Peninsula;
Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo ; and at the end
of these heroic efforts the offices concerned with
Army affairs had attained the grand total of fifteen.
These offices were independent, and approached
each other by formal letter. "The gentlemen of the
War Department/' in the biting phrase of a modern
historian, "led an administrative life of exquisite
confusion/'

The system was hopelessly inefficient; but the
fact that nothing was done to remedy it when the
French peril was finally averted is hardly a matter
to cause surprise. The country was exhausted and
sick of war; the state of trade was deplorable; the
condition of agriculture was grave; statesmen were
absorbed in more urgent affairs than thinking of
hypothetical wars that were surely a very long
distance ahead. But the disconnection of Army offices
did eventually come very much to the fore. In 1833
a Commission was appointed to consider the possi-
bility of consolidation, and four years later its pro-
posals were endorsed by a second Commission under
LordHowick which included fivemembers of Cabinet
rank.

These Commissioners were fully alive to the un-
fortunate results of "absence of connection/' With

44 THE WAR OFFICE

a system of authorities "mutually independent and
only connected together by their common subordin-
ation to the supreme authority of the Government"
the Commissioners said that they were much de-
ceived if the practical results were not to be traced
in "conflicts of opinion, diversities of system, and
delays exceedingly injurious to the public service";
while they ventured to think that there had been
"some unnecessary expense of establishment, and a
good deal of multiplication of correspondence, and
of needless formalities in the transaction of business."
They deplored the dualism inherent in the positions
of the Secretary-at-War and the Commander-in-
Chief, and recommended that the former should be
a Cabinet Minister responsible to Parliament for the
efficiency of the Army. He, they proposed, should
be the Minister "by whom the advice of the Cabinet
as to the amount of the military establishments should
be laid before the King, and the person to com-
municate on all points with the Commander-in-Chief
on behalf of the Administration." They further ex-
plained that the Secretary of State was necessarily
far too busy with the Colonies to give due attention
to the efficiency and economy of the system of
conducting military affairs, and that since it was the
established practice to exclude the Commander-in-
Chief officially from the Cabinet, the proper person
to whom "should be committed the important duty
of watching over the whole military administration
of the country" appeared to them to be the. Secre-
tary-at-War.

This bold report then went on to propose that
the Secretary-at-War in his new status should be

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 45

given control over the provision of stores at present
carried out by the Board of Ordnance, and likewise
over the furnishing of supplies at present managed
by the Commissariat.

Despite the status of the Commissioners, however,
these recommendations were not carried out. Sir
Henry^ Hardinge, who later became Commander-
in-Chief, and the Duke of Wellington who also gave
evidence, were both anxious to protect the Army
from what they considered to be a dangerous move.
The Secretary-at-War was supreme in finance, but
they feared the encroachment on the Royal Pre-
rogative if the powers of the Commander-in-Chief
were diminished in respect of command and disci-
pline. It was unsound, in their view, that patronage
and discipline, recently delivered from political
influence, should pass to the control of a Cabinet
Minister with the power of the House of Commons
behind him. The proposals for the consolidation of
offices were opposed by the Duke on similar grounds.
The Secretary-at-War would become too powerful:
the Commander-in-Chief would be a mere instru-
ment helpless in the hands of this "new Leviathan."
In fine, these measures, the Duke concluded, would
"transfer the effective command of the Army from
the King to the House of Commons," and he added
in a letter addressed to Lord Melbourne: "It has
hitherto been understood that, the Army once voted,
Parliament ought not to interfere with its arrange-
ments."

So the dualism remained unsolved, and the dis-
connection of departments continued. There seemed
to be no prospect of progress until a new crisis should

46 THE WAR OFFICE

compel a change. On the question of control the
young Queen Victoria was imbued with the fear of
civil interference: in the general question of the
efficiency of the Army the Prince Consort was much
interested: Wellington, now Commander-in-Chief,
expressed grave concern about the defence of the
country: while Parliament was busy with other
affairs, and the Radical Party poured scorn on the
Duke. As a matter of fact the whole military system
was in a truly parlous condition. Ever since the
Napoleonic wars the Army had been cut down to
the lowest point compatible with keeping the gar-
risons abroad some thirty thousand men in India
and between thirty and forty thousand in the
colonies; the Militia had been disembodied instantly,
and no reserves existed at all.

However, in 1852 the disturbed state of foreign
affairs led to at least one step being taken. A Bill was
passed to re-establish the Militia, and a large part of
the control of that force which previously had been
the charge of the Home Secretary was transferred to
the Secretary-at-War.

In September of that year Wellington died, and
Lord Hardinge, the new Commander-in-Chief,
found a keen and able Secretary-at-War in the
person of Mr. Sidney Herbert. Moreover the
Queen was pressing her ministers to consider the
position of the national defences, and there was
just time before the storm broke for certain reforms
to be taken in hand. The field guns in the possession
of the British Army had been found to number
less than seventy, and those were of the kind used
at Waterloo. Hardinge had taken this matter up.

FROM THE REVOLUTION (1689-1854) 47

and now, with Herbert's energetic assistance, a
camp was established at Chobham Common where
training was given to Artillery drivers. At the same
time the old smooth-bore musket popularly known
as "Brown Bess" was in process of being super-
seded not a premature step if the tales be true,
for its accuracy was such that a critic undertook
to sit in a chair (so the story goes) and be fired at
for the whole day at a distance of a hundred yards,
provided that the musket was aimed at him care-
fully. The French had adopted the Minie rifle, and
experiments at Enfield were now pushed on for
re-arming the infantry with a rifled musket. We
are told that the death of Wellington had removed
an obstacle in the way of reforms, but the fact
should be added that the great Duke, when a very
old man, had approved the idea of the new rifle
a fact which is notable in the light of his view that
it was absurd to suppose that armies could fight at so
great a distance as 500 yards.

Unfortunately the departmental machine had not
received a like attention. The general lines of Army
administration were the same as existed at the time
of Waterloo when on March 28th, 1854, the
country was faced with the Crimean War.

Chapter IV
THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854x0 1904)

THE appointment of committees is an art in itself,
and at times requires a delicate touch. On a famous
occasion in the present century a letter was drafted
to "My dear " inviting that very distin-
guished peer to take the chair of a War Office com-
mittee which was about to be set up by the Secretary
of State. The letter, a personal invitation, stressed his
lordship's peculiar fitness to assist the Department
in this way; but a private (and non-official) secretary
despatched the invitation to an eminent divine who
bore the same name as the eminent peer. The
eminent divine accepted with pleasure, and it seemed
for the moment that the situation could only be
decently met by the setting up of two committees to
investigate the same subject. However, the delicate
touch prevailed, and the chair was left clear for the
eminent peer.

The student of post-Crimean days encounters a
tide of committees so strong that it carries right up
to the high-water mark of the Esher Committee of
1904. It is difficult to mention an important aspect
of Army administration which was not thus formally
and hopefully reviewed in those fifty years of per-
sistent sitting. The list of committees and Royal
Commissions reaches the formidable total of 567.
Addressing the Lords in 1867 the Earl of Longford

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 49

drew attention to the fact that 17 Royal Com-
missions and 1 8 Select Committees, besides 19
committees of officers within the War Office and
35 committees of military officers, had considered
points of military policy in the twelve years that had
just passed. We shall here touch only on the main
changes which were actually made in the half
century.

The Crimean campaign shed a glaring light on
the many defects of the existing system. Their effects
were seen at the seat of war in the condition of the
troops, the lack of trained staff, the shortage of
reserves, and distressing deficiencies in transport
arrangements, supplies and medicines. Similarly at
home, with so many authorities who were almost
independent, each claiming a province of ill-defined
limits, the conduct of any important affair was in-
evitably attended with delay and confusion. The
war showed up the fatal results of long disputes on
trifling points, of competition in the same market,
and the absence of any one central authority having
power to impose a final decision. Such a machine
was doomed to failure. Sidney Herbert, whose sup-
port of Miss Florence Nightingale should alone
entitle his name to respect, summed up the results
in a few words. "We had," he said, "to create an
army and to use it at the same time."

The position deserves to be recapitulated. The
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was
responsible for the size of the force to be maintained,
and for controlling operations in time of war. At
this time his function as Minister for War had been
so far forgotten in the public mind that he was

So THE WAR OFFICE

spoken of always as the Secretary for the Colonies.
The Commander-in-Chief was responsible for the
discipline of the Cavalry and the Infantry, and, as
representative of the Sovereign, he held the com-
mand of the Army at home. He had no control over
the supply of their arms or of any stores or forti-
fications, nor could he order the movement of troops
without the previous sanction of the Secretary-at-
War. Over troops abroad he possessed no control.
The Secretary-at-War was responsible to Parliament
for everything relating to the finance of the Army
and the contact of the Army with the civil population.
With respect to the Cavalry, the Infantry and the
Staff he fixed the rates of pay and allowances, and
dealt with all questions of half-pay and pensions. He
in turn, like the Commander-in-Chief, had no con-
trol over the Artillery and the Engineers, nor any
concern with the provision of material. The Board
of Ordnance provided all arms and stores except the
clothing of the Cavalry and the Infantry, and was
responsible also for barracks and fortifications. Its
head, the Master-General of the Ordnance, had
charge of the discipline and the pay and allowances
of the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers.
Provisions were the business of an off-shoot of the
Treasury known as the Commissariat Department.
For general military questions relating to Great
Britain the Home Secretary was still responsible.
The inspection of clothing for the Cavalry and the
Infantry was the function of a Board of General
Officers. Finally, the provision of medical stores
remained in the hands of a Medical Department
responsible financially to the Secretary-at-War and

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 51

in matters of discipline to the Commander-in-
Chief.

Then came the shock of the Crimean War, and
the changes made were swift and sweeping. In June,
1854, three months after the outbreak of hostilities,
a Secretary of State for War was appointed, thus
breaking up, the unwieldy arrangement dating from
1 80 1 under which the business of War and the
Colonies had fallen to the same Secretary of State.
In December the Commissariat office was transferred
from the Treasury to the War Department. In
February, 1855, Lord Panmure was appointed
Seer etary-at- War as well as Secretary of State for
War, thus amalgamating the two offices. In March
the general control of the Militia was removed at
last from the care of the Home Office. Next followed
the abolition of the Board of Ordnance, that ancient
body whose independence had lasted some four
hundred years. Its military functions of administra-
tion were now transferred to the Commander-in-
Chief and its civil duties to the Secretary of State.
The Board of General Officers for the inspection of
clothing, and the Army and Ordnance Medical
Department, soon found themselves absorbed in turn ;
and lastly, in 1856, to facilitate the audit of military
expenditure, it was decided that the main part of that
duty should be carried out in the War Department
under auditors responsible to the Secretary of State.

In consequence of these amalgamations the clerical
staffs of the various branches were merged in a
single list for promotion in the new consolidated
War Department; and this, in 1857, assumes the
title of "the War Office" a name which indeed had

52 THE WAR OFFICE

been used before, but in reference principally to
the Secretary-at-War. Finally, in 1858, the year
which saw the end of the Indian Mutiny, the new
department was housed in Pall Mall. It discharged
all the civil administrative functions, and consisted
of thirteen branches as follows: Central, Fortifica-
tions, Stores and Clothing, Contracts, Commissariat,
Solicitor's, Ordnance Services, Artillery, Accounts,
Audit, Chaplain-General's, Medical, and Purveyors.
The military functions of command and discipline
remained in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief,
and included now the command and discipline of the
Artillery and the Engineers, hitherto the concern of
the Board of Ordnance. Thus only one Army depart-
ment was left which possessed a control distinct from
the sphere of the civil department in Pall Mall. The
Horse Guards possessed the military control; but
the Secretary of State was responsible to Parliament
for the way in which that control was exercised. The
historic office of Secretary-at-War was formally
abolished by Act of Parliament in May, 1863.

At first sight it is not obvious why the new
arrangements should have failed to succeed. The
"absence of connection" seemed to have vanished.
The excuse for the "old-fashioned departmentalism"
the phrase is Lord Panmure's appeared to be
gone. Similarly, from the constitutional aspect, there
was now a Cabinet Minister with the War Depart-
ment as his sole concern, and the point seemed to be
fully recognised that in all matters relating to the
Army the Secretary of State was the supreme
authority. But theory is one thing and practice
another, and the War Office of 1857 stood on the

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 53

brink of a weary struggle between military and
ministerial control which lasted for nearly forty years.
To effect changes as sweeping as these in the
anxious days of the Crimean War and the Indian
Mutiny was in itself a remarkable achievement; but
the very speed with which they were made was a
cause of some of the difficulties which followed.
There were defects of organisation. The Depart-
ment had been thrown together with too little regard
to the principles on which the organisation should
work. The Secretary of State was overwhelmed with
work, swamped with papers from the several depart-
ments requiring decisions on minor points. There
were no great administrative officers to stand be-
tween the Minister and the sub-departments and
relieve him of all but important questions. It was
impossible without neglecting policy to see that the
branches worked with efficiency. Florence Nightin-
gale, writing to Sidney Herbert, described the de-
partment in 1 859 as

"a very slow office, an enormously expensive office,
a not very efficient office, and one in which the
minister's intentions can be entirely negatived by
all his sub-departments, and those of each of the
sub-departments by every other. "

Apart from this, a great source of trouble lay in the
position of the Commander-in-Chief. A supple-
mentary patent of office had been issued in 1855 to
the new Secretary of State for War in which a special
reservation was made. "Subject to the responsibility
of the Secretary of State," the command, discipline
and military appointments were reserved to the

54 THE WAR OFFICE

General Commanding-in-Chief. This reservation did
nothing at all to clarify the position of the two
officers, while it certainly did not improve relations.
Its constitutional effect, we may note in passing,
was considered later by a Select Committee, who
concluded that the patent was unnecessary and in-
operative; and in fact, in 1861, the Queen signed a
memorandum, drawn up by Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, in which the position was better defined. In
this document the Commander-in-Chief was assigned
his powers "subject to our general control over the
government of the Army, and the responsibility of
the Secretary of State for the exercise of Our Royal
Prerogative"; but Sir George Cornewall Lewis, then
Secretary of State, made no use at all of this royal
declaration, which v T ^as only discovered among his
private papers when he died in 1868.

Meanwhile, in practice, there was dual control,
and the Horse Guards party was strong and numerous.
No doubt the view was held widely that all that is
implied in the word "patronage," all honours and
rewards of a military kind, should be in the hands of
the Commander-in-Chief rather than in the hands of
a member of Parliament; and the embarrassment of
the position was much accentuated by another cir-
cumstance a circumstance so difficult that states-
men shirked the real solution.

At the close of the Crimean War Lord Hardinge
had been succeeded as Commander-in-Chief by the
Queen's first cousin, the Duke of Cambridge. The
Duke, who had commanded a division in the
Crimea, took a strong personal interest in the
Army and had written memoranda on Army

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 55

administration. His ideas were extremely conserva-
tive. A man "to whom a new idea was perdition"
is a critic's phrase which is unkind but in some
respects is not exaggerated. Remembering his
intense loyalty to the Crown and his devotion to the
Army as an institution, we may perhaps appreciate
the depth of dismay and the honest distrust en-
gendered in the Duke by political schemes of Army
reform. More particularly he detested any step which
seemed to infringe his own position as representative
of the Sovereign's powers. By intention he was the
Army's best friend: he worked hard hand in hand
with Sidney Herbert, when the latter was Secretary
of State for War (1859-61), with a view to improving
the soldier's lot : but he treated the War Office with
polite disdain as an inconvenient civil rival, and
whenever it suited his own convenience, he submitted
questions direct to the Queen. On the subject of
parliamentary control his views hardened as the
years went by.

On this last point, to make matters more difficult,
the Duke possessed, in full measure, the sympathy
of his royal cousin. The Queen, deeply sensible of
her duty to her Empire, proud of her Army and
anxious for its welfare, was jealous of any political
tendency to curtail or endanger the Prerogative
powers. Finally, the situation was by no means
improved by the fact that the Commander-in-Chief 's
office was housed at the Horse Guards and not in
Pall Mall. Apart from its practical inconvenience,
this separation did much to foster an unfortunate
feeling of antagonism between the "military " and
the "civil" departments.

56 THE WAR OFFICE

Meanwhile, as the tide of committees shows, the
new centralised office was doing its best, and Parlia-
ment was extremely watchful. Parliament had ex-
changed new panics for old. It no longer dreaded a
standing Army: it feared lest the country should be
caught unprepared and was scared of the cost of
making it safe. Lord Palmerston had used most
striking words. He had said* in 1857:

" . . . our army must be more than a domestic
police. We have colonies to strengthen, possessions
to maintain ; and you must bear in mind that peace,
however long it may continue, is not merely
dependent on ourselves, but on the conduct of
other Powers, and you must look forward to hav-
ing a force sufficient at least to protect you in the
outset from insult or attack. Depend upon it, for a
country great and rich to leave itself without the
means of defence is not a method to preserve
peace in the long run."

However, no Government would face the expense of
any far-reaching reforms of the system ; and while in
the labyrinths of Pall Mall and the Horse Guards
well-meaning but uninspired staffs slowly penned
their formal drafts and watched the shadows cast by
their lamps, other eyes were watching a new shadow,
growing, spreading, formidable the shadow of
Prussian military might.

But while the collapse of French military power

before the new Germany's swift-moving armies was

startling the whole of Europe, a great figure had

made his appearance in the chequered history of

* Note 8, page 341.

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 57

Army administration. England had found a great
Secretary for War in the clear-sighted and resolute
person of the Rt. Hon. Edward Cardwell. Appointed
by Gladstone as Secretary of State in December
18685 this remarkable statesman achieved reforms in
the space of five years the importance of which can
hardly be overstated. He had made a study of the
military problem before he accepted the seals of
office, and had stipulated that Lord Northbrook
should be appointed his Under-Secretary of State.
The latter's committee on War Office methods
dwelt on the existing division of control, and made
a series of important recommendations aimed at the
closer co-ordination of the military and the civil
administration of the Army. One of these was that
the Commander-in-Chief should be housed in the
same building as the Secretary of State. The Duke of
Cambridge showed strong opposition: it would
place him, he said, "in a position of subordination* '
and would be "most injurious to the interests of the
Crown"; and the Queen considered, in writing to
Cardwell, that "such a step could not fail to damage
the position of the Commander-in-Chief." However,
Cardwell put a stop at once to all correspondence by
formal epistle between Pall Mall and the Horse
Guards office, and the number of letters received by
the department was reduced in one year by 30,000.
Cardwell had said when he took office :

"I contend for the principle of plenary respon-
sibility to Parliament on the part of the Parliament-
ary head of the Department; and, consequently,
for the absence of all reservations expressed or
implied from the authority of that officer/'

S8 THE WAR OFFICE

Accordingly, in 1870, adopting the lead of the
Northbrook Committee, he secured the passage of
the War Office Act (33-4 Viet. c. 17), and by an
Order in Council of June 4th the position of the
Secretary of State for War as administering "the
Royal Authority and Prerogative in respect of the
Army" was made quite explicit.

The formal declaration that the Commander-in-
Chief was a subordinate of the Minister for War
was, of course, a blow to the Duke of Cambridge.
The Duke was given rooms at the War Office, and
soothed, we may hope, his injured feelings by
addressing his letters from "The Horse Guards ,
Pall Mall."

The effects of the Act were briefly as follows:
Under the control of the Secretary of State the work
of Army administration was divided between three
great officers: (i) the Officer Commanding-in-Chief,
(2) the Surveyor-General of Ordnance, and (3) the
Financial Secretary. The position of the Commander-
in-Chief was that of principal military adviser. He
had charge of the raising, training and discipline of
the combatant personnel of all regular and auxiliary
forces; and his sphere was enlarged by placing under
him, in addition to the auxiliary forces, the depart-
ment for Military Education, and the recently created
Topographical branch which later became the Intelli-
gence Department. The Surveyor-General was given
the control of all the civil administrative duties, such
as transport, supply, clothing and munitions, with
entire responsibility for the purchase, construction
and charge of material. He was head of a so-called
Control Department* The third chief, the Financial

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 59

Secretary, was responsible for the financial side: for
the estimates presented to Parliament; the appro-
priation, accounting and audit of funds, and the
control of the Army Pay Department. The Central
Department, or Secretariat, was under two Under-
secretaries of State, one Parliamentary and one
Permanent.

The idea which inspired these changes was unity.
Purely military work was concentrated under the
Commander-in-Chief, but the Commander-in-Chief
was brought into Pall Mall and so, it was hoped,
"more into council/ ' Under the former duality of
arrangement the officers of the military department
were responsible only to the Commander-in-Chief,
and the Secretary of State was cut off from their
advice. By attempting to make the offices one Card-
well hoped to establish a chain of responsibility: the
Secretary of State could obtain information, and
responsibility could be brought home. We may note
that at this time the staff of the War Office consisted
of 82 superior officers and 673 clerks, and its annual
cost was a quarter of a million.

Cardwell's other schemes were no less striking.
In the light of the recent example of Prussia the
first need was to create means for expanding the
Army for the purposes of war. With so large a force
kept in India and 47,000 men tied in the Colonies,
the number of Regulars at home was small (87,500),
and no real reserve existed at all. The Militia and
the Volunteers were not liable for foreign service,
and were under the control of the Lieutenants of
Counties. The Regulars were normally enlisted for
life, and the only ex-Regular soldiers available were

60 THE WAR OFFICE

22,000 aged pensioners who would not go far as a
reserve force. In fact, in the stress of the Crimean
crisis it had been necessary to engage three foreign
legions, one German, one Swiss and one Italian.

Moreover, a dilemma confronted Cardwell, for
the great goal at which he aimed was an effective
system of national defence, but at the same time a re-
duction of cost was expected by the Cabinet and the
House of Commons. Accordingly, his first step was
to reduce the garrisons scattered abroad, the principle
being now accepted that colonies, other than coaling-
stations, should be responsible for their own defence.
He aimed at achieving a more balanced force of
100,000 Regulars at home and 91,000 in India and
the Colonies, and his scheme for attaining this end
was so skilful that the Estimates for 1869 showed a
decrease of over a million pounds. His second step
was the Army Enlistment Act, passed in 1870, by
which men were enlisted for twelve years only, part
of this term to be spent with the colours and the
remainder in the Army Reserve, which would be
built up into a large force in course of time by these
means. The Act also took power to call out the
Reserve in case of great emergency without waiting
for actual hostilities. Thus for the first time in English
history effect was given to the important principle
that what England required was a small army capable
of expansion in time of war; and the outbreak of war
between France and Germany before the Act was
finally passed seemed like a comment on Cardwell's
foresight.

His next reform, the abolition of Purchase, was
helped forward, no doubt, by the war on the

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 61

Continent, but was none the less an astonishing
achievement.

As matters stood, in the Cavalry and the Infantry
each step of promotion up to the rank of Lieut.-
Colonel depended on money and not on merit.
This system, at first sight so incomprehensible,
was as old as the standing Army itself. The gentle-
man who raised a new regiment for the King re-
couped himself for part of the expense by making
those whom he appointed as officers pay for the
privilege by buying their commissions. When a
captain retired, or bought his promotion, he naturally
sold his captain's commission to the officer who suc-
ceeded him. Thus juniors who could afford the
money passed cheerfully over their seniors. Taking
average figures in CardwelPs time, a Lieutenant-
Colonel in the Infantry who had purchased his
promotion at each step had paid in all ^7,000; in
the Household Cavalry ^13,000. The regiments
virtually belonged to the officers; and no Govern-
ment dared to cope with the evil, partly because of
the enormous cost of recouping the officers for what
they had spent, and partly because of the fierce
opposition evoked by any suggestion of change.
Most of the influential families in the country were
identified with the officers 5 interests, and the officers
themselves were anything but sanguine on the
dubious subject of Government generosity, for the
cost which the State would have to bear was estimated
at eight million pounds.

But Cardwell cared for none of these things.
For the purposes of the Secretary of State the
existing system was clearly hopeless: he was

62 THE WAR OFFICE

hampered in reducing the cadres of units; he could
not open a career to efficient officers; and he could
not intermix purchase-officers with the non-pur-
chase officers of the auxiliary forces. His Bill,
called the Army Regulation Bill, was introduced in
February 1871, and was passed by the Commons
after lengthy resistance. The Duke of Cambridge
did not like it : it would not be for the good of the
Army if it lowered the social class of officers. In the
Lords it was out-voted at first, but the Queen was
persuaded by Mr. Gladstone to come to the rescue
of her ministers by cancelling certain ancient
Warrants, an exercise of the Crown's powers which
made the whole system of Purchase illegal and
evoked incidentally a chorus of disapproval, except
on the part of the general public. After this to pro-
long the struggle was pointless ; and the Lords, who
would have passed a vote of censure at once, had it
not been for the Goodwood Races, were content with
a protest when the meeting was over. The Army
Regulation Act became law, and in addition to the
abolition of Purchase it introduced two other
changes the transfer to the Crown from the Lords
Lieutenant of the control of the Militia, the
Yeomanry and the Volunteers, and the power of the
War Department to control the railway system in
case of a threatened invasion of the country.

The next reform gave birth to the scheme known
ever since as the Cardwell system.

It was, and is, a fundamental conception of
this system that the drafts of men required in
peace for the maintenance of the garrisons abroad
should be trained and supplied by service units

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 63

such as regiments of Cavalry, batteries and
battalions rather than by mere depots. But in
Cardwell's time a regiment of Infantry did not
normally possess a second battalion which could
train and provide drafts from home. The units
posted to oversea garrisons remained there for many
years and were fed by large and expensive depots.
Further, there was no balance in the numbers. In
1868 there had been 47 battalions of the Line at
home and as many as 94 abroad. Again, the Militia
had no connection with the Regulars, and the
Volunteers were equally unattached. All this Card-
well set out to remedy. Under his Localisation Scheme
the British Isles were divided into sixty-six districts,
and two Regular battalions were allotted to each,
the 6oth Rifles and the Rifle Brigade (each of which
comprised four battalions) being left, like the Guards,
to be treated separately. In each district was a
"depot centre'* with an experienced Regular officer
in command, who would supervise the work of re-
cruiting not only of the Line regiments but also of
the Militia battalions which belonged to the same
territorial district; and would administer and inspect
the Volunteers and the reservists. Of the Regular
battalions for each district one was to be at home
and the other abroad; and to obtain the necessary
double battalions single battalions were "linked" in
pairs, so that one linked battalion could feed the
other.

The plan for thus "linking" the old regiments
gave rise, of course, to much opposition as a blow
dealt to regimental sentiment, but the scheme as a
whole was essentially sound ; for, besides facilitating

64 THE WAR OFFICE

the relief of garrisons without disturbance of the
forces at home, its basic idea had a large importance.
In every territorial district there was now formed an
* 'administrative brigade" of Regular, Militia and
Volunteer infantry, and the Artillery was dealt with
on similar lines ; so that here was the means of main-
taining at home a strategic reserve and a home
defence force as well as the means of replenishing
and relieving the garrisons of India and the Colonies.
Cardwell aimed at a force of two Army Corps, each
consisting of 30,000 men, and behind them an army
for home defence of Militia, Yeomanry and Volun-
teers which would number, he hoped, 300,000 men.
He was laying down the solid foundations on which
Lord Haldane eventually built.

The work of this "born administrator" was com-
pleted in 1873. He would riot give way to Mr.
Gladstone's demands for further reductions in the
Regular forces, and in the following February, when
the Government was defeated, he surrendered his
seals and was raised to the peerage. In his five years
of office Lord Cardwell had achieved a most remark-
able series of Army reforms. The War Department
had been re-organised and concentrated in one
building. Purchase of commissions had been abol-
ished, and the way was open to promotion by
merit. An Army Reserve was in process of formation.
All the forces had been brought together in a logical
scheme which permitted expansion. Money had been
provided for buildings and lands. The Intelligence
Department had been created. Big guns had been
made for fortifications, and the number of field guns
had been increased to a total of 336. The soldier had

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 65

been given free rations. This was, in truth, no mean
record. Morley remarks in his Life of Gladstone . , .
"In Mr. Cardwell he was fortunate enough to have
a public servant of the first order"; to which Lord
Cardwell would certainly have added that he him-
self had been fortunate enough to find very able
men in the War Office. One of these, of course, was
his friend Lord Northbrook; a second was Mr.
Ralph Knox, who in later years, as Sir Ralph Knox,
became Permanent Under-Secretary of State; and a
third was Colonel Sir Garnet Wolseley, soon to
become a national figure.

After these heroic efforts the War Office enjoyed
a few years of peace. Indeed, the only memorable
change was a great re-organisation of the civil staff
(1878-80) which created a higher and a lower
division, "administrative" and "clerical." Then, in
1880, Mr. Hugh Childers became Secretary of State
for War a statesman who will be remembered
chiefly for his introduction of the territorial system,
"a measure," we are told, "which gave rise to more
friction and ill-feeling in the Army than perhaps
any other introduced during the last century."

Up to this time regiments had numbers, but
under the new and unpopular scheme the two
Regular and two Militia battalions belonging to
the Cardwell brigade-districts were combined to
form one regiment, the linked battalions losing
their numbers and adopting instead a territorial
name. For example, the old 3Oth Foot became the
ist Battalion, The East Lancashire Regiment, and
the 59th Foot became the 2nd Battalion. The
Stanley Committee of 1876 had recommended this

66 THE WAR OFFICE

further step, and the Duke had written at once to
the Queen that the idea was "most dis tasteful' * to
him; while the Queen was "most anxious to sup-
port His Royal Highness." The Duke did not
like the linked system at all, much less this new
extension of it. "The result is," he wrote in 1880,
"that the whole of the Infantry at home is one vast
depot fit for nothing but to supply drafts for the
Battalions abroad"; and Lord Airey's committee of
the same year had doubtless been influenced by His
Royal Highness in reporting in favour of unlinking
the units. But the strong Mr. Childers had his way,
and his "full development" of the Card well system
was carried through amid angry protests. In a bitter
struggle within the War Office he had received much
support from Sir Garnet Wolseley, who, after his
success in the Zulu War, was now the most popular
soldier in England. The Duke hated his "damned
new-fangled methods," but the Press hailed him as
"our only general," much to the annoyance of the
royal circle. The modern expression "O.K." had its
counterpart then in "All Sir Garnet," and the
"modern major-general" of The Pirates of Penzance
was made up on the stage as the hero of the
day.

The Duke in a rebellious mood tried to insist
that "the command-in-chief cannot be merged in
the Secretary of State under present conditions," but
the protests made by His Royal Highness were met
by Mr. Childers with a firm statement of the control-
ling power of the Secretary of State.

The success of the new short-service system was
seen in 1882, when the Arabi revolt took place in

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 67

Egypt and the reserves were called up for the first
time. Twelve thousand reservists responded at once:
the critics of Cardwell were temporarily silenced, and
Wolseley added to his laurels at Tel-el-Kebir. But
the Mahdi rising in the Sudan and the expedition
sent to relieve General Gordon (with which Major
Kitchener served on the staff) were followed by a
great change in the War Office. Wolseley had been
extremely wrathful at the dubious quality of the
munitions supplied when he led the troops on the
Nile campaign : cartridges had been found defective,
and bayonets and swords had been known to bend
a disconcerting attribute. The view was urged that
the military departments could not be responsible
for the efficiency of the troops unless full control
over transport and stores were granted to those who
knew best what was wanted; and this view was
accepted by Mr. Stanhope, the Secretary of State in
Lord Salisbury's Government, and was given effect
by two Orders in Council of 1887 and 1888.

CardwelTs triple division disappeared. The Sur-
veyor-General of the Ordnance was abolished, and
responsibility for military efficiency was concentrated
on the Commander-in-Chief who was now to feed,
pay and equip the Army as well as to assume re-
sponsibility for fortifications, stores and guns. The
War Office thus became two divisions : the Military,
responsible to the Secretary of State for advising as
to what the Army required, and the Civil, for seeing
that demands were met with due regard for proper
economy. At the same time the manufacturing depart-
ments the munition factories at Woolwich and
Enfield were placed upon a "commercial" footing,

68 THE WAR OFFICE

being paid by the Government Departments con-
cerned for all stores produced to their orders. They
were under the control of the Financial Secretary as
the head of the civil division of the office, but design
was the business of the Commander-in-Chief. The
Central branch remained unchanged.

The arrangement so made was not destined to
last. It put too much on the Commander-in-Chief,
and interpolated a single great officer between the
heads of departments and the Secretary of State. The
cost of the Services was growing enormously, but
despite that disturbing fact the country was said to
be totally unprepared. Wolseley told the Lords (May
1888) that the state of the Forces was unsatisfactory :
they were not "organised or equipped as they should
be to guarantee even the safety of the Capital." The
Queen was alarmed, but hardly appreciated the
difficulties which arose from the view held by the
Duke of Cambridge on the right moment for making
changes "The right time is when you cannot help
it." One result was the appointment of a new Royal
Commission under the Marquess of Hartington.

The famous Hartington reports marked a turning-
point in War Office history. The evidence given was
discreetly suppressed. The first report (May 1889)
suggested the creation of a co-ordinating Council,
with the Prime Minister to take the chair and the
naval and military chiefs to advise. The second
report (March 1890, C. 5979) was received with
dismay in many quarters. It rehearsed the responsi-
bility of the Secretary of State for the discipline as
well as of the administration of the Army : it expressed
the view that too great a burden rested on the

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 69

shoulders of the Commander-in-Chief : it suggested
with delicacy that no future Commander-in-Chief
could manage as well as the Duke had managed, but
that when a suitable opportunity should arise the
post of Commander-in-Chief should be abolished.
It suggested the appointment of a Chief of Staff who
should study and advise on military policy. The
heads of the several departments in the War Office
would be responsible directly to the Secretary of
State, and would advise him collectively as a War
Office Council.

Lord Hartington used these words in the Com-
mons: "We have felt that under our constitution
it is impossible to place any direct control over
the army, over army organisation, in the hands
of any man except one who shall be directly re-
sponsible to the House of Commons." To place
between the parliamentary chief and the heads of the
various sub-departments a single supreme military
head to whom all other officers were subordinate
was, he explained, a mistaken plan. It would diminish
the efficiency of the War Office Council by tending
to stifle that freedom of discussion on which the
civilian Minister must rely.

Even Lord Wolseley was shocked at this. He
favoured the creation of a Chief of Staff, and also a
Council for National Defence ; but the Commander-
in-Chief must not be abolished. To the Queen the
report was "really abominable, " and the Duke of
Cambridge wrote of "catastrophe" that threatened
both the Crown and the Army. For the time being
nothing was done. Then, after the lapse of five years,
the Duke of Cambridge, now 76, closed his long

70 THE WAR OFFICE

career of devotion to the Army by resigning his post
at the wish of the Queen ; Lord Wolseley was ap-
pointed Commander-in-Chief, and the War Office
was reformed once more by a very half-hearted
adaptation of some of the ideas of the Hartington
report, the change being effected by an Order in
Council of 2 ist November, 1895.

The Stanhope plan was thus reversed, and the
concentration of responsibility in the hands of the
Commander-in-Chief was abolished. There were
now to be five great military officers: the Com-
mander-in-Chief as chief adviser, with general
command of all the forces; the Adjutant-General
for recruiting, discipline, training and military
education; the Quarter-M aster-General for food,
forage, quartering, fuel, transport and pay; the
Inspector-General of Fortifications for barracks,
store-buildings, fortifications and lands; and, lastly,
the Inspector-General of Ordnance for the design
and the holding of military stores. The Com-
mander-in-Chief was to supervise the other four
branches in a general way, and so to focus military
opinion; but the theory was that all the five were
directly responsible to the Secretary of State. The
department of the Financial Secretary and the Central
office were not affected.

But the situation a compromise was still not
satisfactory. To retain an officer as "Commander-in-
Chief" who in his relations to the Secretary of State
was on the same level as the other heads was to give
him a general responsibility without giving him real
control. Lord Wolseley felt that the Commander-in-
Chief had become merely "the fifth wheel of the

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 71

coach/' He had no effective control himself, while
the other heads were not fully responsible: the
Secretary of State was the real Chief. Wolseley felt,
as his biographers show, that civilian statesmen
thought only of peace and quite forgot the needs of
war. War came in 1899.

For the purposes of the Boer War the number of
men paid and equipped, including the forces pre-
pared in this country, amounted to over half a
million. That war, or at least the first part of it, has
been described as a terrible muddle, a series of almost
uninterrupted disappointments, of military failures,
financial blunders, and false methods of estimating
difficulties. A great strain was put on the War Office;
but the Elgin Commission on the South African War
which reported in 1902 [Cd. 1789] did not allot a
large measure of blame to the organisation of the
department. It pointed out that the papers of the
Intelligence branch had never been passed to the
Secretary of State by the office of the Commander-
in-Chief: there was still a lack of consultation: but
the serious shortage in stocks of stores was partly the
result of Government economy. In the military
system taken as a whole the report disclosed alarming
defects.

But before the war had dragged on to its close
some interesting changes occurred at the War Office.

In November, 1 9OO,LordLansdowne,the Secretary
of State, was succeeded by Mr. St. John Brodrick,
and Wolseley was succeeded as Commancler-in-Chief
in the same month by Lord Roberts. A third event
(1901) was the report of the Clinton-Dawkins Com-
mittee, which emphasised the important principle of

72 THE WAR OFFICE

"decentralising" the work of the War Office by
placing a fuller responsibility in the hands of local
district commanders. Mr. Brodrick aimed at six
"Army Corps districts," with local auditors to assist
the commanders. As further results of the same
Committee the Medical branch was elevated in
status to rank with the other chief military depart-
ments, and the power of the Commander-in-Chief
was increased once more. The reader may well begin
to wonder how the War Office survived these in-
cessant reforms. The department of the Adjutant-
General, as well as that of the Military Secretary and
an enlarged department for Military Intelligence
which embraced "mobilisation" duties, now passed
to the "control" of the Commander-in-Chief, while
he retained "supervision" of the other departments
and sat as head of an Army Board (which dated from
1895) intended to focus the military view. The
Secretary of State had the "War Office Council,"
which Wolseley had called a debating society, to
tender advice on important questions. There were
thus two consultative committees. It was fortunate
for such a system that the old antagonisms were
lulled. Already its end was drawing near.

Lord Elgin's commission on the war in South
Africa alarmed the country thoroughly, and Mr.
Balfour as Prime Minister addressed his keen and
powerful intellect to the great problem of national
defence. Mr. Balfour was impressed by the Admiralty
system, while the War Office system had failed con-
spicuously to prevent grave errors and waste of
expenditure. A searching review was urgently needed,
and thus was appointed the Esher Committee, that

THE TIDE OF REFORM (1854-1904) 73

famous body of three members which created the
form of the modern War Office. Its President and
one of its members had been closely connected with
the Hartington Commission, and one of its leading
recommendations closed for ever a long duel :

"We therefore consider that it is imperative to
abolish the office of Commander-in-Chief."

To the student of constitutional history that duel
possesses a special interest. It illustrates how, in the
phrasing of Anson, the Royal Prerogative in respect
of the Army accommodated itself by slow degrees to
the theory of ministerial responsibility. The Minister
of the Crown is responsible to Parliament for the
exercise of the King's Prerogative: he is also, in the
phrase of the same writer, bound to take care that the
Crown Prerogative is not exercised by Parliament.
Meanwhile the German navy grew.

Chapter V
PRE-WAR

WHILE the constitution of the old War Office was
being remodelled by the Esher reports, its home in
Pall Mall was fast approaching the end of its days.

As a matter of some historical interest the writer
has been at pains to establish, with the kind assistance
of the Office of Works, the origin of the old building.
It was a conglomeration of ancient houses numbered
80 to 91 Pall Mall, which were thrown together
mainly by the simple process of making doors in
the walls between them, with no alteration of the
level of floors.

Prior to this economic expedient No. 80 was
the house of Sir John Kirkland whose business
as an Army Agent developed later into "Holt
& Co." The next numbers eastwards, 81 and 82,
formed part of the mansion "Schomberg House,"
originally built about the year 1690 for the Duke of
Schomberg who was killed at the battle of the
Boyne. Here had lived three fashionable artists,
Astley, Conway the miniature-painter, and Thomas
Gainsborough himself; not to mention the notorious
Dr. Graham who called his apartments "the Temple
of Hymen in Pall Mall" and employed a "goddess,"
Emma Harte, who was afterwards famous as Lady
Hamilton. Nos. 83 and 84, where Christie the great
auctioneer had lived, next door to his friend Gains-

PRE-WAR 75

borough, were taken over by the Government in
1851 for enlargement of the office of the Board of
Ordnance. The old Ordnance Office was the central
structure, Nos. 85-87, originally built in 1760 for
the Duke of York, brother of George III. Later it
was known as "Cumberland House, and was taken
over in 1806 when the Master-General of the Ord-
nance moved from the Tower. Nos. 88 to 90 were
houses and shops. The eastern wing, Buckingham
House, which was bought by the Government in
1855, was originally designed by Sir John Soane
and erected about 1780. As the home of the first
Marquess of Buckingham, and afterwards of the
Duchess of Gordon, this mansion saw some exciting
scenes as the headquarters of the Tory party in the
days of the struggles between Pitt and Fox.

Thus the amalgamation of 1858 which created
a home for the consolidated War Office consisted
in making a larger building out of the old office
of the Board of Ordnance by adding Schomberg
House, Buckingham House, and three or four
small houses and shops. There used to be a tale
that the house of Nell Gwynn was embodied some-
where in the rambling building, but the authorities
appear to agree that her dwelling (she had previously
lived opposite) was next door at the western end.

The modern civil servant is apt to smile at the
stories that are told of the old War Office: stones
of short hours and leisurely methods, of procedure
dictated by long tradition, of the amending of drafts
for the sake or amending, of an outlook narrowed
by branch-insularity. Before the year 1870 the civil
staff was recruited by patronage and not by com-

76 THE WAR OFFICE

petitive examinations, and probably some of the old
generation were gentlemen more picturesque than
efficient among whom traditional methods and
jealousies lingered on to the time of the Boer War.
Electric light and a luncheon club were twentieth-
century innovations. The conditions under which
the clerks worked were not highly conducive either
to comfort or to speed. No telephones, no typewriters,
the pleasant odours of colza-oil lamps, a tiresome
jumble of rambling passages, sudden stairs and
confusing turns such is the picture presented to us
even as late as the eighteen-nineties. To settle a
matter verbally in place of penning a lengthy
* 'minute" involved a journey to another branch
which implied an adventurous expedition. Visitors,
we are told, enquired anxiously what means existed
for finding their way out, provided they ever found
their objective. Making due allowance for banausic
fables, we are left with the impression of a slow
machine patched up in parts, worn out in others,
creaking along to the best of its power on lines that
have never been properly laid.

Yet in the span of those fifty years reviewed
briefly in the previous chapter much had been done
in the old War Office which the impartial critic will
not belittle. Kipling's "absent-minded beggar" of
the year 1 900 was a person very different from the
soldier of the Crimea.

At the beginning of the period (1854) the soldier
belonged to what was practically a separate caste:
he was enlisted for life, uneducated, badly paid, and
shockingly provided as to housing and amenities,
The officers were a very gallant body, but with few

PRE-WAR 77

exceptions they made no pretence of regarding the
handling and management of troops as requiring
scientific study. Officers of the Staff retained their
appointments without regard to efficiency. Admini-
stration was so scattered as to be almost incapable of
united action. The Army as a whole was still dreaded
as a menace to liberty and constitutional government,
and was kept out of sight in distant garrisons.

But by the time of the South African War vast
strides had been made in the direction of efficiency.
The soldier was now better paid, better fed, better
housed and better educated; and his future in civil
life was considered. For officers, since the abolition of
Purchase, the military calling was no longer merely
"a phase in the sporting equipment of a gentleman."
The Staff College was turning out men who took their
profession as a serious study. An Intelligence Depart-
ment had been formed. The ancillary services of the
Army had been developed as corps of recognised
importance. Decentralisation of responsibility from
the War Office to the local commands had begun to
be put into operation. The Army Reserve had been
created. The Militia and the Volunteers had been
organised to some extent, and at least possessed
roles in a military scheme. Mobilisation plans existed
and had worked smoothly in the test of war. Perhaps
the old War Office in Pall Mall was not really as
inefficient as the history of its quarrels suggests, or
as outsiders were fond of alleging. Certainly in the
late 'eighties it contained some extremely able men.
The young civil servants of that period included the
future Sir Reginald Brade, who was Secretary of the
War Office in the Great War, and the future Sir

78 THE WAR OFFICE

Charles, then Mr., Harris, a notable figure in Army
Finance who was one of Lord Haldane's right-hand
men. Nor was there ever any trace of "red tape" in
the popular personality of Sir Bertram Cubitt. The
leading civil servants at the time when the Esher
Committee's reports made their fierce attack on
"civilian control" were Sir Frank Marzials, the
Accountant-General, and Sir Guy Fleetwood-Wilson,
who was afterwards Financial Member of the
Governor-General's Council in India.

The three reports of the Esher Committee "The
War Office Reconstitution Committee" were pub-
lished in 1904 [Cd. 1932, 1968 and 2002]. The
Committee consisted of Viscount Esher, Admiral Sir
John Fisher and Sir George Sydenham Clarke, and
possessed in Lieut.-Colonel G. F. Ellison a secretary
of great ability, equipped both with a fluent pen and
a fervid insistence on thinking clearly. These gentle-
men were directed by their Terms of Reference to
take the Admiralty system as the basis of reform,
and they did so in no uncertain terms. They "re-
iterated in curt and dogmatic form" the proposals
made by the Hartington Commission ; they enumer-
ated "great principles" ; they delivered a bitter attack
on the Finance Department, which was unsupported
by any evidence; and their caustic remarks on the
"past" of the War Office were combined with con-
fident recommendations. The main principles em-
bodied in the reports were desiderata already familiar
to the younger school of thought in the War Office,
but, if the ideas were not new in themselves, their

PRE-WAR 79

forcible expression by a powerful body was of first
importance to the cause of reform. The recom-
mendations re-cast the War Office. They may be
stated summarily as follows :

(1) The position of the Secretary of State for War
should be placed on the same footing as that of the
First Lord of the Admiralty, and all submissions to
the Crown in regard to military matters should be
made by him, and by him alone.

(2) The War Office should be managed by a
Council of seven consisting of the Secretary of State
as president, two other Civil Parliamentary Members,
and four Military Members of Council.

(3) All the members of the Army Council should
act in a dual capacity: as colleagues of the Secretary
of State in Council, and as responsible for the efficient
working of their respective departments.

(4)The appointment of Commander-in-Chief should
be abolished and his executive functions removed from
the War Office. The administrative military work of
the office should be carried out by four military de-
partments, each serving under a Military Member.

(5) The two Civil Members of Council would be
(i) the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, with
specific duties assigned to him apart from that of
representing the Army in one of the Houses of
Parliament, and (ii) the Finance Member, or Finan-
cial Secretary. The Permanent Under-Secretary of
State should be Secretary to the Army Council and
Secretary of the War Office, with a general control
of office business.

(6) A General Staff, or "thinking department/'
should be created as one of the military departments

8o THE WAR OFFICE

under a "Chief of the General Staff" (First Military
Member of the Army Council). The other three
military departments should be those of the Adjutant-
General to the Forces, the Quarter-Master-General to
the Forces, and the Master-General of the Ordnance,

(7) Military work of an executive kind (the com-
mand and training of troops) should be carried out
locally, vested in Generals outside the War Office
Great Britain and Ireland being divided for this
purpose into large "commands" and a London
District, each placed under a high officer. Adminis-
trative work in these areas should be under the
charge of separate high officers subordinate to the
chief command.

(8) The preparation and efficiency of the troops
should be watched by an Inspector-General of the
Forces who would act as the "eyes and ears" of the
Council.

(9) The system of financial control should be
reformed; and the two existing bodies dealing with
finance (the Army Pay Department and the
Accountant-General's) should be merged into one
Finance Department under the Finance Member of
Council. Financial advice should be decentralised,
small sections of the Finance Department being
attached to the Military Members of Council, and
likewise locally in the commands.

(10) The Military Members should hold their
appointments for four years only; and a change, of
personnel both military and civilian should be carried
out forthwith at the War Office "in order to bring
new minds to bear upon new measures,"

and "the corner-stone of the needed edifice":

PRE-WAR 81

The existing bodies for advising the Cabinet on the
co-ordination of naval and military policy should be
turned into a Committee with a permanent Secre-
tariat to advise on all questions of Imperial Defence.

"We venture to claim/' the Committee observed,
"that we have clearly laid down the great principles
of reform which lie at the root of the reconstitution
of the War Office." . . . "For the first time in the
long annals of War Office reform its intricate prob-
lems have, we believe, been approached from the
point of view of war rather than from those of peace."
. . . "We are convinced that efficiency and economy
are unattainable until the War Office has been com-
pletely reconstituted in accordance with the princi-
ples we have laid down."

Thus spake the Committee and the thing was done.
The reception accorded to its claims was striking,
for the Cabinet took immediate action. By Letters
Patent of 6th February, 1 904,* all the powers under
the Royal Prerogative hitherto exercised by the Secre-
tary of State or the Commander-in-Chief were vested
in the Army Council; and the adoption en bloc of the
other proposals established the form of the modern
War Office. An Order in Council of August loth
affirmed the supremacy of the Secretary of State as
responsible to His Majesty and to Parliament for all
the business of the Army Council.

This, then, was the end of the struggle for
supremacy between the civil and military authorities
in the State. "The political head," in the words of
Anson, "is and must be supreme"; for this result
flows naturally, as indeed had long been admitted in

* Note 9, page 342.

G

82 THE WAR OFFICE

theory, from the responsibility to Parliament which
rests upon the Secretary of State. One result of the
Esher reforms was to leave no professional head of
the Army who could dispute with the Secretary of
State for War the holding of the supreme control in
all phases of military administration. Another effect
of great importance was to bring together the
advisory officers, military and financial, in one
council, and to ensure in this way that military policy
should be worked out by a body of men who are
under a common responsibility for advice tendered
to the Minister. This arrangement secured that the
Secretary of State should be furnished with the best
professional opinion.

So now the War Office, happily undiscouraged by
years of criticism and anxious to deserve a new
reputation, settled down quietly to make the scheme
work. The essential machinery had been provided;
the way had been paved for another reform, for the
solution of the main problem which the Boer War
had thrust to the front the re-organisation of the
Army itself. Mr. Brodrick had made a brave attempt :
Mr. Arnold-Forster, who succeeded him, now pos-
sessed a properly organised War Office.

Outside, however, storms were raging. It was not
only in the War Department that new brooms were
to be introduced. In October, 1905, Mr. Balfour's
Government was swept away, and a Liberal Govern-
ment took its place armed with the watchwords
"peace and retrenchment. " But the War Office was
fortunate. It secured in Mr. Haldane a Secretary of
State whose intellectual grasp and boldness of vision
were matched only by his powers of persuasion ; and

PRE-WAR 83

those powers were soon in evidence. Readers of the
speeches delivered by Mr. Haldane in the House of
Commons in the spring of 1906 will learn with some
surprise, perhaps, of the transformation which had
taken place in the short space of two years. He had
found in the War Office "highly skilled experts/'
The new school of officers was "a revelation/* He
had found them to be men of "highly scientific
training and reflective minds." Moreover, the object
which he had set himself to attain a more efficient
Army at a smaller cost seemed likely to be assisted
by another change, scarcely less striking, from the
sad conditions of older days. "The people/' he said,
"are not in antipathy to the Army. They love the
Army. They care about these things/' The nation
lately had possessed an Army that was extravagant,
costly and badly organised; but with income-tax at a
shilling in the it was time that the situation should
be closely surveyed. All that was required was time to
think clearly: and this Mr. Haldane proceeded to do.
His thoughts, put forward with persuasive diffi-
dence, were of great moment to the British Army,
and possibly to the course of history. The South
African War, he pointed out, had left behind it some
great lessons which the Esher Reports had thrust
home. One was the value of a "General Staff," and
the separation of the function of command, with the
thinking out of plans of operations, from the com-
plicated duties of detailed administration. Another
was the value of the Volunteers when given a certain
amount of training. Previous schemes had confused
two ideas a force to defend our Empire abroad and
a force to defend the shores of Britain. Our business

84 THE WAR OFFICE

was to maintain an expeditionary force just so large
as to form a reserve by means of which strong and
swift reinforcements could be sent to the aid of our
garrisons overseas. For home defence in a great crisis
we could rely on the spirit of the Volunteers, organ-
ised by "military local government under the control
of the people themselves." The true organisation for
this country was an organisation in two lines, not in
three lines as hitherto not Regulars, Militia and
Volunteers, but a first line of professional soldiers,
relatively small in numbers but high in quality, and
behind it in a crisis the nation itself.

In these ideas lay the germs of the two creations
for which Lord Haldane will be chiefly remembered
the Regular Expeditionary Force and the modern
Territorial Army. The path was beset with difficulties
which a weaker Minister would have found fatal,
for the Haldane plans involved two things which
offended a large body of sentiment a reduction in
the numbers of Regular units and the disappearance
of the old Militia. The Secretary of State was
attacked bitterly. Indeed, he was told that he was
ruining the Army, although he had stated again and
again that both these measures had been put forward
with the full concurrence of his military advisers.
The clear-thinking philosopher-statesman was ac-
cused of having hypnotised his soldier counsellors.

A policy which once was regarded widely as a
smirch on the name of a great War Minister deserves
at least brief notice here. Lord Haldane's thesis can
be expressed quite simply: a striking force which can
be mobilised quickly is better than a force which
cannot be mobilised at all, even if the latter be a little

PRE-WAR 85

larger. Similarly an army for home defence which is
complete in all arms and services is of greater value
than a volunteer force consisting of Yeomanry, In-
fantry, some Garrison Artillery and little else. At that
time, Mr. Haldane maintained, we were not in a
position to mobilise quickly. We needed an Expe-
ditionary Force completely equipped and ready for
war. We needed a home Territorial Force so organised
as to make it complete in itself. To meet the cost of
attaining these ends everything must go that was
not really needed. Six Infantry divisions and four
Cavalry brigades, with Artillery and Engineers in
proportion, and the proper complement of all
services, were to form the Regular striking force.
We possessed field guns sufficient in number for 93
batteries of Regular Artillery, but men sufficient
for 42 only, while 63 batteries were required for the
scheme. Haldane proposed to have 99 batteries, of
which 63, on a four-gun basis, would be placed in a
"mobilisable" state, and 36 more would be placed in
reserve and converted into training brigades. Simi-
larly, in the light of the scheme, 8 battalions of
Infantry of the Line were surplus to requirements at
home and abroad. Thus 8 battalions in the colonies
could disappear, and at least one battalion of Foot
Guards as well. This, shortly, was the "case" for
"the Haldane cuts."

But, keenly as the reductions in the Regulars were
resented, the scheme to establish a "Special Reserve"
met with a far more passionate resistance, for it
sounded the death-knell of the Militia.

Historically descended from the General Levy,
the Militia was the old constitutional force the

86 THE WAR OFFICE

county force for home defence. At the close of the
sixteenth century its reputation stood very high,
for the command of the "trained bands/' as men-
tioned earlier, formed a principal subject of hot
dispute between Charles I and the Long Parliament.
In the Civil War the effective "bands" fought on
the parliamentary side, and Parliament at the
Restoration, while acknowledging the supreme
command of the King, was careful to see that the
real control of the county forces was vested in the
local Lieutenants of Counties. But the new Militia
fell into decay: it was called out for service in
1690 on the occasion of the French "invasion"
when the village of Teignmouth was attacked and
burnt, and later to deal with the Jacobite risings
of '15 and '45 led by the Old and the Young
Pretenders; and was found to be thoroughly in-
efficient. Consequently it was completely re-organised,
when Parliament was again in fear of invasion, by
an Act of 1 757, and the mode of raising the men was
changed. The liability to furnish recruits, which had
rested previously on owners of property, was placed
now on the counties instead, each of which had to
find a fixed quota of men chosen from parish lists
by lot ; while the cost of training was transferred to
the Exchequer.

This was the work of the elder Pitt, who retained
the old conception of the Militia as a county force
for home defence; but that conception was much
undermined by the policy of Pitt the younger. The
desperate need of men for the armies abroad in
the great French war which closed the century,
the rise of the new Volunteers at home, and,

PRE-WAR 87

finally (1808-15), the raising of a Local Militia,
changed the position of the general Militia to a force
with a semi-Regular role. Then after the final defeat
of Napoleon it ceased to have any real existence until
a fresh panic in 1848 led to its revival under new laws,
and it became a force raised by voluntary enlistment,
with the power of the ballot kept in reserve. In point
of fact, after 1810 the ballot was never used again
except in the years 1830-1, although the power to
use it remained on the statute-book. Lord Cardwell
described the Militia succinctly as a force " whose
theory is conscription, but whose practice is volun-
tary engagement."

Though never legally liable at any date to be
summoned to serve outside the kingdom, Militia
units had volunteered frequently for service abroad
in times of crisis. Thus large numbers of officers and
men fought in the Peninsular War, and later in the
time of the Crimea and the Mutiny the Militia was used
to replace the Regulars in various colonial garrisons.
Again in the crisis of the Boer War the Militia was
invited to volunteer, and more than 45,000 officers
and men did good service in South Africa. Indeed,
from the days of the younger Pitt onwards the con-
ception of the Militia as a home-defence force had
receded steadily into the background, and the prece-
dent of using the force to supply drafts of men to the
Regular Army, although unrecognised in law, had
become in fact the established practice. Moreover,
since 1882 the facilities offered to officers and men
to pass on into the Regulars had made the Militia a
sort of side-entrance for those who aspired to an
Army career.

88 THE WAR OFFICE

It was thus a semi-Regular force possessed of
great and ancient traditions and a long record of
honourable service ; but at the time of the Haldane
reforms it was dwindling. Its establishment in 1 906
was roughly 138,000 men, but its strength was only
98,000. It had no organisation beyond the regiment,
no complement of arms other than Infantry, and a
minimum of modern equipment. Contributing some
20,000 recruits to the Regular Army every year, it
was a force, as Lord Lansdowne described it,
"plundered at one end by the Line and encroached
on at the other by the Volunteers/'

The Volunteers were of far more recent origin.
Their roots did not lie in the constitution : they were
born of patriotic fervour and were amateurs in the
truest sense. The first Volunteer Act was passed in
1794 when the French Revolution was threatening
trouble. A second was passed in 1 802 when Napoleon
was massing his troops at Boulogne for that projected
invasion of England which happily remained a
project only. So real was the fear and so prompt the
response that the Volunteer force of those anxious
days numbered nearly 400,000 men; but with the
passing of the great emergency the whole movement
fell into a deep sleep which lasted over forty years.

Once more it was France who stirred it to life. The
revival took place in 1859 when the French Army
was clamouring loudly to be led against "perfidious
Albion/' following an attempt on the life of their
Emperor which was planned, so the rumour went,
in London. Inspired partly by the Poet Laureate
who penned an appropriate ode on the subject
("Form, Riflemen, Forml"), the riflemen formed:

PRE-WAR 89

Volunteer corps sprang up all over the country,
drilled themselves, secured ranges, and paid, at first,
their own expenses. The Government did not demur:
the movement was quite a convenient one. Later,
financial assistance was given in the shape of "capi-
tation grants" for performing a certain number of
drills, nd allowances for attending annual camps;
but the Volunteers, unlike the Militia and the
Yeomanry, were given no period of continuous
training apart from these annual exercises. The force
had now become a permanent institution, and the
spirit of its members was notably keen some
20,000 Volunteers saw active service in the Boer
War but, having grown up in haphazard fashion,
it had never been thoroughly organised. It did not
possess higher formations; much less could it boast
complete divisions with the requisite brigade and
divisional staffs and a due proportion of arms and
services. It consisted mostly of Infantry: there were
some Artillery and Engineers, and also a few medical
units. The establishment at the time of the Haldane
reforms was 340,000 men, and the strength was
240,000.

This was the state of the auxiliary forces a state
of very small military value with which Mr. Hal-
dane was confronted. Basing his plans on the needs
of war and a clear-cut two-line organisation, he saw
in the Militia the appropriate instrument to supple-
ment the Regular Army, provided that it was made
liable for service abroad; and he saw in the Volunteers
the natural material for his second-line for home
defence, provided that it was organised completely
and made self-contained in all departments on the

90 THE WAR OFFICE

same plan as the Regular divisions. An attempt was
made to induce the Militia to accept either one of
two roles: to become definitely an adjunct of the
Regular Army with the function of supplying drafts,
or to become the backbone of the second line by
incorporation with the Volunteers. Both ideas were
anathema to the Militia colonels. Similarly the
scheme to create out of the Yeomanry and the
Volunteers a complete force for home defence,
organised on the lines of the Regular Army, was
regarded by officers of the old school as misconceived
and quite impracticable. It was opposed by England's
most popular soldier; for Lord Roberts was wedded
to a scheme of his own, a scheme for compulsory
military service. The Prime Minister, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, was an advocate of drastic
economy in armaments ; his colleagues for the most
part were not interested in military affairs; and the
House of Lords was a stronghold of critical doubt.
However, in spite of all opposition the Territorial
and Reserve Forces Act was passed in 1907. The
Militia ceased to be raised as such, and was replaced
by the Special Reserve, which was legally part of the
Army Reserve and was liable for foreign service;
and the Yeomanry and the Volunteers became a
Territorial Force, to be organised in 14 divisions of
Infantry together with 14 mounted brigades and all
ancillary arms and services. The enlarged duties
assigned to-day to the modern Territorial Army will
be noted in a later chapter. The Special Reserve
created by Lord Haldane (re-christened the Militia
in 1 92 1 ) is no longer maintained, although the power
to raise it remains on the statute-book. In the modern

PRE-WAR 91

scheme of mobilisation the supply of drafts in war
for the Regular Army a primary function of the
Special Reserve is provided for from other sources.
The following is an appreciation* written in 1908
by the foremost military critic of the day. Colonel &
Court Repington, whose powerful articles as corre-
spondent of The Times had greatly assisted the
Haldane schemes.

"The Liberal Party," this critic wrote, ' Re-
turned to power in a frame of mind which argued
ill for the defence of the Empire. Many members
of this party entertained generous but none the
less dangerous illusions on the subject of the
reduction of armaments, and desired amidst a
world in arms to reduce our insurance against the
risks of war. The task of the new Secretary of
State was, in these circumstances, one of the
utmost delicacy. . . . Mr. Haldane has en-
deavoured, with the aid of his official advisers,
who have served him well, to substitute order for
disorder in the Regular Army and the Second
Line, to endow the former with a supplementary
reserve available for war, and to lay down for the
latter a broad foundation upon which his succes-
sors may be able hereafter to complete the edifice
of public security, . . . Despite the storms of
opposition which beat so fiercely upon all Secre-
taries for War, Mr. Haldane has held resolutely
upon his way, has acquired the confidence of the
Army, and has done his utmost in very difficult
times to lay the foundations of a settled policy."

* Note 10, page 343.

92 THE WAR OFFICE

The development of these bold projects continued
steadily up to 1914, and were under Mr. Haldane's
personal direction until he left the War Office in
1912 to become Lord Chancellor. On all sides, now,
the horizon was darkening. Relations between France
and Germany had been strained by disputes in regard
to Morocco. The establishment of an entente cordiale
between England and France, together with the
Franco-Russian alliance, had aroused suspicions in
Germany. England was absorbed in political con-
troversy and bitter disputes on domestic problems.
There was more than a hint of trouble in Ireland.
The trend of events lent colour to the view that the
military potentialities of Great Britain were held in
contempt by Germany's leaders a contempt based
not only on the size of the Army but on a conception
of the whole attitude of this country as too weakly
defensive and pacific to be formidable.

In the fateful year 1 914 the Army Estimates were
,28,845,000; and the numbers to be voted for the
Regular Army outside India were 186,400. The
Army Reserve numbered 147,000; the Special
Reserve, which replaced the Militia, had reached a
strength of 63,000; and the newly-created Terri-
torial Force numbered 252,000 men. These figures
did not promise much power for effective intervention
in a war on the Continent ; but one great lesson had
been well learnt. In the autumn of 1 906 Mr. Haldane
had been the guest of the Kaiser at Berlin ; and there
he had examined the German War Office, and had
seen for himself the condition of readiness in which
the German Army was kept a condition in which
it could pass rapidly from a peace-footing to a war-

PRE-WAR 93

footing. This lesson he had applied completely to
the British Expeditionary Force. The clothes required
for every reservist who would join the Colours on
mobilisation, the railway warrant to enable him to
join, the field-service equipment for every unit
stored in readiness at a convenient centre, the large
extra number of horses required, detailed time-tables
of special trains worked out in concert with the
railway companies, special fittings for the necessary
ships . . . every need that could be anticipated had
been met in a scheme prepared in advance for the
great emergency of war. In short, every detail had
been worked out which enabled the War Office, in
the event, to transport to France within 1 5 days a
force considerably larger than the mixed army which
Wellington commanded at Waterloo.*

Meanwhile the Esher-reformed War Office had
settled down in its new shape. It comprised, as we
have seen, the Secretary of State, four departments
of Military Members of Council, two departments
under Parliamentary Members, and the department
of the Secretary. The staff of the military depart-
ments of the office numbered approximately 630,
of whom 270 were serving officers and soldiers, 280
were ex-service personnel, and 80 were technical
civilians. The staff on the civil side numbered 500,
excluding press-keepers, messengers and so on. For
eight years now this staff had been housed in its
great modern Renaissance home. Twenty-five mil-
lions of bricks, ordinary; one and a half millions of
bricks, glazed; seventeen miles of plaster cornices,
and fifty acres of plastering had been used by His

* Note ii, page 344.

94 THEWAROFFICE

Majesty's Office of Works to erect the magnificent
building in Whitehall which, in the spring of 1914,
when Mr. Asquith took over the seals of office, was
considered to be of ample size. A few months later
it was ludicrously too small.

The description of the duties performed by the
War Office which is set out in chapters vi to xn
is that of the work as it exists to-day. One or two
post-war adjustments of duties will be noted in the
final chapter, but the general lines of the present
organisation are those that existed on the eve of the
war. The sequence of events from 1914 onwards is
resumed in chapter xm.

Chapter VI

MILITARY POLICY AND THE GENERAL
STAFF

THE "General Staff" is a technical term. It does not
mean the Staff of the Army in general. At the War
Office, for example, part of the theory of the organ-
isation is that it provides the Minister for War with
the military advice of the Staff in general, including
all four of the military departments of which only
one is the "General Staff." The department of the
General Staff in the War Office is the special military
division which is devoted exclusively to three sub-
jects closely allied and interwoven the study of
the theory and practice of operations, the collection
of military information, and the preparation and
training of the Army for war.

Staffs in the more general sense must have existed
always in one form or another. Alexander leading the
hosts of Macedon, or Caesar commanding the Roman
legions, had round him a band of officers who formed
a sort of personal staff for transmitting the orders of
the Commander-in-Chief. Frederick the Great had
a Staff system reputed to be extremely efficient.
Napoleon had a specially created Staff, under the
direction of Berthier, who translated the orders of
his great master into detailed instructions to the
commanders of armies. This Staff included a topo-
graphical section, an anticipation of an important

96 THE WAR OFFICE

feature in a General Staff in its narrower meaning.
Like so many other modern creations, " General
Staffs" in the technical sense were developed as a
result of military disasters, first by Prussia and then
by France.

The bitter humiliation of Jena taught the Prussians
a great lesson the paramount value of organisation.
The old type of Staff had executive functions: the
functions now needed were those of study. A body
was required whose permanent business would be
to think out the requirements of war, organise the
forces to meet those requirements, devise a unified
system of training, and provide fully-informed advice
on any military situation that was likely to confront
the rulers of Prussia. The results were the Prussian
General Staff, the brilliant successes of 1 866, and the
German triumph of 1870. The Germans won by
organisation ; and the French in turn took the lesson
to heart and created the French General Staff of
to-day.

Similarly in the case of England the stimulus of
alarm was needed before any practical action took
shape to create a British General Staff. The first step
was taken in the Crimean War when a great want of
maps was felt, and a Topographical section was
established at the War Office (January 1855). The
next advance was made by Cardwell following the
Franco-German War. In 1873 t ^ e Topographical
branch was enlarged to form an "Intelligence De-
partment* * with the duty of collecting all possible
information which the Government or the Com-
mander-in-Chief might require concerning the armies
of foreign Powers and the progress made in military

MILITARY POLICY 97

science. In 1886 a Mobilisation section was added,
with the duty of drawing up schemes in peace-time
for placing the Army on a war footing. These
offices, which were then under the Adjutant-General,
certainly marked a considerable advance; but there
was still nothing in the shape of a staff entrusted with
the duty of linking these functions, of co-ordinating
the work of the Intelligence section with the organ-
isation and training of the troops; or, to put the thing
in simpler language, there was no body charged with
the special business of fitting the Army in time of
peace for its particular role in any probable war.

Lord Hartington, in 1890, saw clearly that some
further step was required. "I beg them," he urged,
addressing the Commons, "to consider the pro-
priety and the necessity and the urgency of the
formation of a Department the duty of which shall
be to work out, study and give judgment upon some
of the most difficult questions of military policy which
can be presented to any country." ... "I believe
that there is sound reason for the principle, which
has been adopted by every other nation, of placing
the consideration of these matters under a Depart-
ment which shall be absolutely [free from every
administrative and executive duty."

But the country needed the South African War,
with its tale of muddle and wasteful effort, to
provide the spur to the further action which re-
sulted at last in the Esher Reports and the instant
acceptance of the Committee's views by Mr.
Balfour's Government. The triumviri, with their
customary clearness, combined a brief survey of
the errors of the past with their very emphatic

H

98 THE WAR OFFICE

recommendation for the constitution of a "General
Staff." "A General Staff," they explained, "as the
term is understood in all well-organised armies, con-
sists of a department which devotes its attention to
military problems in the widest sense, and a body of
officers occupied in peace in the training of all ranks
of the Army and prepared to direct operations in the
field." To create such a Staff would require time,
and "the necessary steps should be taken forthwith."
The British General Staff was born.

Mr. Arnold-Forster started the work, but the
completion of the task fell to Lord Haldane. Trio
new Prime Minister (Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-
man) had previously been opposed to it; which ex-
plains perhaps why the Minister for War was at
pains to impress the House of Commons with the
sterling worth of the new creation. He described the
General Staff as a "thinking department," and re-
peated rather more picturesquely what the Esher
Reports had already said on the sore subject of the
South African War. "Unlike the other great nations,
we had never established any thinking department
for the British Army. If there had been such a
thinking department it would have made out plans
for the operations in South Africa, with the result
that the distinguished generals who went there would
have thought out every inch of their progress before
they undertook it, instead of having to devise ways
and means as they went along." He christened the
department "the brain" of the Army; not a very
happy phrase to select in the ears of the rest of the
military world. Colonel Repington was in happier
vein when he coined the phrase "Peace Strategy,"

MILITARY POLICY 99

Peace Strategy is a big subject. It is big not only
in its range and complexity, but in its priority of
importance also, for a nation which cannot defend
itself must lose control, in the long run, of the order-
ing of its own affairs. Peace Strategy is concerned
with the security of the Empire, and calls for inces-
sant and tireless research. It requires from all
responsible authorities a complete knowledge of the
resources of the Empire, and intimate acquaintance
with the military resources, the country, the traditions
and the organisation of any potential enemy. Once
armed with these data it can decide the standard of
power to be maintained, and the best means of ensur-
ing defence.

In the case of the British Empire, therefore,
Peace Strategy makes two demands: it demands
the co-ordinated advice of the naval, military and
air Services; and it demands also the co-ordination
of the defence problems of the Home Government
with those of India and the great Dominions.
These two points formed the first subject dealt
with in the Esher Reports. "No measure of War
Office reform will avail unless it is associated with
provision for obtaining and co-ordinating for the
use of the Cabinet all the information and the
expert advice required for the shaping of national
policy in war, and for determining the necessary
preparations in peace. Such information and advice
must necessarily embrace not only the sphere of the
War Office but also the spheres of the Admiralty and
of other offices of State, " The result was the formation
in 1 904 of the existing Committee of Imperial Defence.
This consists, in theory, of the Prime Minister and

ioo THE WAR OFFICE

of such other persons as he may summon to advise
him; but in practice those other Cabinet Ministers
who are closely affected by Defence questions, and
the Chiefs of Staff of the three Fighting Services,
form a permanent panel of the "C.I.D."

Thus the General Staff at the War Office is one
part of a large machine specially created to deal with
the problems of Peace Strategy, and its functions are
best appreciated in relation to the whole machine.
The direction of Defence policy is the business of
the Government : the business of the several depart-
ments is to assist the task of the Government by
providing the best expert advice. The mediumthrough
which that advice is tendered is the Committee of
Imperial Defence, of which the Prime Minister him-
self is the "invariable President" and on which the
professional views of the Services naval, military
and air are given by the three Chiefs of Staff. There
is also a special Sub-Committee of Chiefs of Staffs on
which it is the business of the three Staffs to co-ordi-
nate the joint advice of the three Services working in
unison. The expert "military" view, in the narrow
sense, is that of the General Staff of the War Office.

The second aspect of co-ordination the need of
linking together the work of this Staff with the work
of Staffs in the rest of the Empire was dealt with
under the Haldane regime as early as the year 1909.

The need hardly required stating. If the forces
were ever to fight together their value as an Army
would be enhanced immeasurably if the forces of the
Dominions and of the Home Government had been
organised and trained on a standard system. Simi-
larly, as a simple illustration, an obvious advantage

MILITARY POLICY 101

would be gained in the field if the Dominions used
the same natures of guns, the same patterns of
equipment and ammunition. The Imperial Confer-
ence of 1907 had expressed agreement in the general
principle, and this step was followed in 1 909 by the
shaping of a framework for a General Staff for the
whole Empire [Cd. 4948]. Each Dominion would
develop its own General Staff who would keep in
touch with the General Staff in London, whose
members would be trained on uniform lines, and
whose policy would be directed by similar principles,
India worked on the same lines; and the Chief of
the General Staff at the War Office thus became (in
1909) the "C.I.G.S." the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff.

Perhaps the importance of this development re-
quires no special emphasis, for the facts of the
position are plain. The task which confronts the
"C.I.D." and the General Staffs of the three Ser-
vices is far more complicated and greater in range
than the task which confronts any other Power.
England has no single and constant objective,
such as to defend a defined frontier against possible
aggression by jealous neighbours. In the Far East,
India, Egypt, Africa . . . the Empire has many
vulnerable points; and British forces must be pre-
pared to act at any time and in any one of a number
of widely divided theatres, each demanding a different
technique of defence. In fine, the task of any other
Power may be said truthfully to be relatively simple
compared with the British problem of Imperial
Defence.

The department of the General Staff at the War

102 THE WAR OFFICE

Office is the youngest, and at the same time the first
and the senior, of the four Military Members'
departments; and its Chief, by virtue of his position,
is the senior soldier in the War Office. For the
function of advising on military policy we should
expect to find it organised for two inter-related
spheres of work plans for the operations of our own
forces, and information regarding possible * 'enemy"
forces; and accordingly the first directorate is that of
the "D.M.O. and I." Director of Military Opera-
tions and Intelligence. There are two Operations
("M.O.") branches and five Intelligence ("M.I.")
branches; and one of the latter is a Geographical
branch equipped with a staff for the construction of
maps, while another deals with "Security" work
Defence Security Intelligence is the title and the
War Department Constabulary. The duties of the
two groups are described officially as (i) "Advice
as to the conduct of operations of war and orders in
regard to military operations," and (2) "The col-
lection and collation of military intelligence." The
published details are discreetly vague.

There are two other directorates, those of the
Director of Staff Duties and the Director of Military
Training, which, with the "D.M.O. and I.," com-
plete the department of the General Staff; and per-
haps an attempt to sketch their duties should begin
by laying stress on the point that the work of all
three directorates is very closely inter-connected.
The business of "Organisation for war," which is
one of the functions of Staff Duties, and the principles

MILITARY POLICY 103

of Military Training, are subordinate aspects of
policy, and are parts of the problem of Peace
Strategy which fit into the whole picture as different
pieces of the same puzzle. For co-ordination of Staff
work generally the "D.S.D." is responsible.

The first, then, of the main functions which fall
to the Director of Staff Duties is the organisation of
the forces for war.

Only a few generations ago armies consisted of
Cavalry and Infantry, a few guns and a host of
camp-followers: to-day they are intricate organ-
isations, completely provided in every direction.
The complication of a modern army must strike
the layman as almost fantastic. Besides Infantry a
Division will contain Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers,
Signals, Ammunition companies, Baggage companies,
Supply companies, Field Ambulances, Hygiene sec-
tions, Ordnance workshops, Veterinary sections,
Provost companies and Postal units: to which must
be added the Headquarters Staff, and again the
Headquarters of each Brigade. If we consider an
army of several Divisions, we may add Tank and
Anti-Aircraft Defence units, to say nothing of Line
of Communications troops with their Railway com-
panies, their Ambulance trains, their Hospitals,
their Remount depots, their Store depots and Base
workshops, their Pay offices, and their Printing
sections; and still we can add the Intelligence Corps
and squadrons attached by the Royal Air Force
without making the list complete.

Further, for each different kind of campaign a
different kind of force is required; and a change
in the number of men and animals, or in the type

104 THE WAR OFFICE

of weapon or the kind of transport that is suitable
to the particular case, will involve a mass of detailed
changes in the supply and ammunition companies
and every other supporting service. The proper
proportion of the several arms, the ratio of guns
to men, the best system of getting the stores to the
troops, the nature and amount of transport re-
quired, the rounds of ammunition or the quantity
of food to be carried by the various units such
questions as these in a modern Army will not be
left to be judged on the field by a commander who,
in a sound organisation, should be free for the
work of directing operations. Every detail, in-
cluding the Staff required and the precise functions
of every member, must be worked out beforehand
at the War Office; and the general principles must
be fully understood: the Army must be trained in
the system. Moreover each fighting-man is precious;
mobility must not be hampered; financial con-
siderations arise; and a hundred other points
must be weighed in the composition of "war
establishments/' The scheme, too, must be flexible,
for the British Army has many roles, and the basic
elements of the whole system must be readily adapt-
able to varied conditions. Such, very briefly, are the
types of problem which underlie "Organisation for
war" as a primary aspect of Staff Duties.

Closely allied with Organisation is the business of
providing communication between the staffs and
formations of a force in the field; and a separate
branch of "Staff Duties' 1 is charged with this highly
modernised work.

An invention such as radio-telephony may in

MILITARY POLICY 105

one sense simplify inter-communication, but each
new step in the progress of science creates new
problems both technical and tactical. The application
to military uses of every means of "signalling,"
and the organisation for employment in the field
of the technical troops (the Royal Corps of Signals),
falls, in the sphere of policy, to this special branch
of "Staff Duties" where the layman is lost in a
strange country of oscillators, ohms and aerials.
In its wider aspects "Signals policy" includes all
means of communication that affect the Army
throughout the Empire, including submarine cables,
land-lines and "wireless," the last of which touches
many interests and raises some very far-reaching
problems. In fact, the work demands a close touch
not only with the training of the troops and with the
progress of research and design, but also with the
requirements of other departments the Admiralty,
the General Post Office and others. Co-ordination of
"wireless" work is secured, as between the three
Fighting Services, by means of a Wireless Telegraphy
Board; and co-ordination in its wider aspect is
effected, of course, through the "C.I.D." which
possesses a special sub-committee for the purpose,
familiarly known as the "I.C.C." (Imperial Com-
munications Committee), on which nine depart-
ments are represented.

Turning for the moment from "Staff Duties,"
the next chief function of the General Staff is the
training of the troops for war, and that is the concern
of the third directorate, whose chief is the Director
of Military Training (in War Office language "the
D.M.T,").

io6 THE WAR OFFICE

Military training has two distinct aspects: the
training of the individual soldier and collective
training of the men in units. Generally speaking,
individual training is carried out in the winter
months. Every Infantry soldier fresh from the
depot must be trained, for example, in the use of his
weapons, in semaphore-signalling, anti-gas measures,
map-reading, drill and the use of ground. All leaders
of sections, platoons and companies must be trained
to command and lead their men. Again, all officers
and N.C.O.s must be trained in the various admini-
strative duties which they will have to undertake
both in peace and war, such as pay duties, court-
martial procedure, the keeping of accounts, or the
rules for billeting. Collective training the training
of units is planned on a progressive system which
proceeds through the year in clear-cut stages from
early spring to late autumn: from platoon, company
and battalion training to the higher formations
brigades and divisions.

The primary business of the local Commands is
to train their troops to be fighting assets, and to
gain experience in "higher command," the hand-
ling of troops in masses, and the co-operation of
the several arms, with a view to producing efficient
leaders and a staff well trained in all departments.
Accordingly, the detailed work of training is "de-
centralised" from the War Office to the local com-
manders; but, paradoxical as the statement sounds,
the whole of the task is controlled by the War Office
the special function of the "D.M.T." It is true
that soldiers, much less leaders, cannot be produced
by the reading of text-books ; but it is equally true

MILITARY POLICY 107

that the unity of action which is essential to success
in war can be secured only by uniformity of doctrine.
In dealing with an army which may be called upon
to fight under every condition of climate or ground,
and in operations which may vary in scope from
"Imperial policing" to a national war, the central

L 1 O '

direction of the system of training assumes a cardinal
importance, and this is the business of the "D.M.T."
Just as in the sphere of organisation the principles
are laid down by the General Staff in the classic
volumes of Field Service Regulations, so from first to
last the system and the detailed methods of training
are laid down in the Training Regulations and the
training manuals for the several arms prepared by
this directorate. That is the initial step, and it is
supplemented in various ways. The annual pro-
grammes of local training are based on "schemes'*
approved by the War Office, and the training is
watched throughout the year by officers of the
"M.T." branch and is also "reported on" by the
Commands. In this way the experience gained from
direct observation and local reports can be used in
the preparation of annual instructions to govern the
training of each new season, and these instructions
or "Training Memoranda," which are issued each
spring by the "C.I.G.S.," fulfil a number of functions
at once : they pick up the points where improvement
is needed; they announce decisions on questions of
doubt which the local reports have brought to light;
they prescribe the main programme of higher train-
ing to be carried out by each Command; and they
lay down the special problems to be solved and the
trials to be made with experimental equipment in

io8 THE WAR OFFICE

the course of the coming training-year. The Instruc-
tions might prescribe, for example, that "the defence
of villages" should be specially studied; that the
Cavalry should experiment with a special machine
gun, or the Infantry with a new type of tractor.
The practice throughout is done by the Commands :
the policy comes from the General Staff.

Finally, there are the ' Exercises' ' which are carried
out under direct supervision, and vary from a "battle-
field tour" directed in person by the "C.I.G.S." to
the final stage of collective training familiar to the
public as "Army Manoeuvres." The schemes for
War Office exercises for the training of the higher
commanders and staffs form the culminating point
of the work of "M.T."; but unfortunately the mass-
ing of troops is expensive, and manoeuvres on a large
scale tend to be few and far between.

Inspectors of Cavalry, Royal Artillery, Royal
Engineers, Royal Tank Corps and Royal Army Ser-
vice Corps report direct to "D.M.T." on the training
of their respective arms. There is also an Inspector
of Fixed Defences. There is no Inspector-General
of the Forces. That post, recommended by the Esher
Committee, lapsed in 1914 on the outbreak of war.
From 1904 to 1907 it was held by the Duke of
Connaught, and from 1907 to 1912 by Sir John
French. In 1912 the title was changed to Inspector-
General of the Home Forces in consequence of the
appointment (in 1910) of an Inspector-General of
the Overseas Forces, the former being General Sir
Charles Douglas (1912-1914) and the latter General
Sir Ian Hamilton (1910-1914) who was also General
Officer Commanding-in-Chief in the Mediterranean.

MILITARY POLICY 109

The two offices were merged once more on August
ist, 1914, when Sir John French resumed the ap-
pointment, only to relinquish it four days later on
assuming the command of the Expeditionary Force.

Another function of training is the provision of
instructors, which, so far as it falls to "D.M.T.," is
attained through the medium of Schools of Instruc-
tion. These schools hold courses for various purposes
apart from that of producing instructors, but the
central idea in all cases is the provision of up-to-date
specialist training for selected officers and men.
There are nine "schools for the Fighting Arms"
which are named and situated as follows : The School
of Equitation, at Weedon ; the School of Artillery,
at Larkhill ; the Coast Artillery School, at Shoebury-
ness ; the School of Military Engineering, at Chatham ;
the School of Electric Lighting, at Portsmouth ; the
Anti-Aircraft Defence School, at Biggin Hill; the
School of Signals, at Catterick; the Royal Tank
Corps Central Schools, at Lulworth and at Bovington
Camp; and the Small Arms School with its three
wings for Machine Gun, Small Arms and Anti-Gas
training, at Netheravon, Hythe and Porton. The
School of Physical Training, Aldershot, is also
directed by the "D.M.T."

The oldest of these very varied foundations is
the School of Military Engineering, which was
created after the experiences of the Peninsular War
by a Royal Warrant of 1812. The predecessor of
the Small Arms School was the School of Musketry
it Hythe, founded in 1853 for the instruction of
the troops in the use of a rifle the Enfield model
introduced in that year. The first school for instruc-

no THE WAR OFFICE

tion in gunnery was established at Shoeburyness in

1859.

There is yet another large sphere of control which
is shared between the two directorates of Staff Duties
and Military Training. The generic heading is
"Education/* but the term is at once too wide and
too narrow. Being responsible for the policy of the
provision of officers, the General Staff "fathers" the
Officers' Training Corps, and controls the instruction
at Woolwich and Sandhurst and the examination of
candidates for commissions in the Army from the
universities and other sources. To assist the provision
of Commanding Officers it controls the training at
the Senior Officers' School, at which some 120
officers of field rank receive instruction every year.
To provide officers for Staff appointments it directs
and controls the work of the Staff College. The pro-
fessional tests of officers for promotion, and the
organisation of libraries, are further aspects of the
"education" of officers; and finally there are the
schools for boys, and a very effective organisation for
the education of the soldier and his children.

The history of the older establishments reveals
quaint touches here and there.

The first to be created was the Royal Military
Academy in the year 1741. The need was set forth
to King George II of furnishing instruction "for
raw and inexperienced people belonging to the
military branch of the Ordnance in the several
parts of mathematics necessary to qualify them for
the service of the Artillery and the business of the

MILITARY POLICY in

Engineers/' The Master-General of the Ordnance
was authorised by royal warrant to set up a school
at Woolwich Warren, fitting up a "convenient
Room" and appointing "an able and skilful master."
"A Great and Solemn Exercise of Artillery" was
here to be performed once a year; and after 1746
instruction in the work of the Laboratory was in-
cluded. Students were to have "free leave to improve
themselves in the art of fire working . . . and what-
soever firework such Engineer, Officer, Bombardier,
Cadet, Gunner, or Matross has made or fitted up,
the Firemaster or his mate shall put the maker's name
thereon before they are delivered into store, to the end
that when they shall be tried, the Composer may have
notice to see the merits or defects of his perform-
ance,"

The title "Royal Military Academy" was given
in 1764, after which date it was reserved for cadets.
The instruction was gratuitous; but after 1774
the cadets had to pass a qualifying test, since
some had been found not greatly advanced, being
unacquainted with the rule of three. Subsequently,
about 1783, the school was removed to Woolwich
Common, and the sum of ; 18,000 was paid for Sir
Gregory Page's house. Prior to the Crimean War
the cadets, between 14 and 16 years old, were
nominated by the Master-General of the Ordnance,
and their studies lasted from three to five years; but
the whole institution was completely re-organised as
the result of a Commission in 1857 when the age of
cadets for admission was raised, the period of resi-
dence was shortened, and entrance was made com-
petitive.

H2 THE WAR OFFICE

Meanwhile the creation of a Royal Military
College had been sanctioned by Parliament in 1801,
the King giving a track of heath land, part of the
Crown estate at Sandhurst, and telling the Commons
that an establishment had been formed "under His
Majesty's directions for promoting the study of
Military Science, 11 It was primarily intended for
candidates for the Line, and cadets, between the
ages of 1 3 and 1 5, were admitted on the nomination
of the Commander-in-Chief, and normally, when old
enough, purchased commissions. Changes similar to
those at Woolwich were made in 1858, and finally,
after the abolition of Purchase, the rule was intro-
duced in 1875 that commissions in the Cavalry and
the Infantry should be granted solely by competition,
as in the Artillery and the Engineers.

At Sandhurst, however, there was a Senior Depart-
ment, not for cadets but for serving officers, from
which the Staff College ultimately grew. From 1 803
onwards a small number of officers, at first 30 and
then 15, were given instruction in mathematics,
surveying, fortification, French and German. Moved
by failures in the Crimea a Select Committee of 1 855
recommended that officers who had so qualified
should have a claim to Staff appointments; but the
Staff College did not take actual shape until after
1 870 when a Royal Commission under Lord Dufferin
made exhaustive and famous reports on the whole
subject of Military Education. A separate College
was to be built, the students were to be increased to
40, and the rule was laid down that Staff appoint-
ments should be limited to officers who had passed
through the Staff College, This is the general rule

MILITARY POLICY 113

to-day; and as regards appointments to the General
Staff the right to the initials "p.s.c." is, of course,
indispensable. The number of officers at the modern
Staff College averages 120, and includes students
from India and the Dominions, and also from the
Navy and the Royal Air Force.

The .average number of cadets at Woolwich is
now 185, and at Sandhurst about 510. The educa-
tion given at all three establishments follows lines
laid down by the General Staff.

As regards the education of "other ranks, " this
function of training has made great progress. There
are 15,000 soldiers in the Army to-day who have
earned a ist-class certificate of education, approxi-
mately the equivalent of a Schools Certificate. Such a
fact would have seemed as incredible as "wireless" to
the famous Frederick, Duke of York, in whose far-off
days there were serjeant-majors who could neither read
nor write. It was this Duke who in 1 80 1 founded the
"Royal Military Asylum" at Chelsea for giving free
maintenance and education to soldiers' children, parti-
cularly orphans and those whose fathers had died in the
Service. The school was moved in 1 909 from Chelsea
to Guston, near Dover, where "The Duke of York's
Royal Military School" now holds about 400 boys.

The story of the education of the soldier may also
be said to date from the Duke, for the establishment
of "regimental schools" for educating the boys of
the regiment and the children of the married soldiers
was due to his efforts as Commander-in-Chief.
These schools were maintained by the Colonels
of the regiments with Serjeants in charge as school-
masters, and since no special qualifications were

ii4 THE WAR OFFICE

demanded of the teachers the instruction given was
somewhat uncertain. Voluntary classes were held
in the evenings which the grown-up soldier could
attend if he wished, a monthly charge being made
for the privilege. The next step, the formation of
garrison libraries, is attributed to the zeal of Lord
Hill, who had been one of Wellington's generals
and was known to the Army as "Daddy Hill"; but
the first real progress in the education of the soldier
must be credited to "the born reformer."

Sidney Herbert, on becoming Secretary-at-War
(1846), found the regimental schools so sadly in-
efficient that he set to work to provide trained
masters, and set up at Chelsea a "Normal School" to
provide an example of a model school and to train
students to be Army schoolmasters. The manage-
ment of Army schools was placed in the charge of
the Chaplain-General, and an order in the name of
the Duke of Wellington of loth April, 1849, com-
pelled all recruits to attend school for two hours
daily, and to pay fees, until proficient. A little later
(1857) progress justified a general rule that no
soldier could be promoted corporal who was not at
least tolerably proficient in reading, writing and
arithmetic. The fees disappeared in 1864. Then the
Dufferin Commission of 1870 thoroughly revised
the whole system, and Army schools passed into the
charge of a Director-General of Military Education
responsible to the Secretary of State. In those days
there were four certificates, and attendance at school
was compulsory until a soldier secured the lowest of
these : this amount of compulsory education remained
in force until 1887.

MILITARY POLICY 115

The modern scheme started in 1920 with the
formation of the Army Educational Corps and a
school at Shorncliffe for training instructors. The
recruit is now educated by trained teachers to earn a
certificate (3rd class) before he leaves the depot to
join a unit. After that point education is voluntary,
but a soldier does not earn "proficiency pay" until
he has secured his "2nd class/* and this rule is a
potent spur to attainment since 3d. a day depends
on the effort! The numbers who gain "ist-class"
certificates, which are necessary for promotion to
Warrant rank, are an indication of the high standard
that is required in the modern Army for the higher
non-commissioned ranks. As to children's schools,
the modern policy is to hand over the education of
children to local authorities wherever possible, and
only to maintain schools in this country where civil
facilities are not available. A point which is frequently
raised in Parliament is whether in all this Army work
touch is maintained with the Board of Education.
"The answer is in the affirmative."

A special Scottish establishment, a counterpart to
the Duke of York's School, is the Queen Victoria
School at Dunblane, which was built and equipped
by public subscription as a memorial to Queen
Victoria in the year 1905.

This sketch of the duties of a large department
does not pretend to be exhaustive. It can only
indicate the main spheres of work, and the grouping
of these under the three Directors is shown, for the
convenience of the reader, in the form of a diagram

n6 THE WAR OFFICE

attached. The General Staff at the War Office com-
prises some 90 serving officers; while the military
and civilian clerks, and the staff for translation, maps,
and printing number about 1 60.

The number of officers has been criticised often ;
but in this respect the General Staff is in a particu-
larly vulnerable position, for "policy" is a vague
word, and "the thinking department" is a vulner-
able title. Actually, any new military proposal, even
as small as an alteration of uniform, may involve
some aspect of General Staff work, and the General
Staff has the leading voice in the settlement of
priority of importance as between the host of new
proposals which compete with each other every
year for the limited funds at the disposal of the
Council. But the paramount task, which is clearly
a vast one, is that of ensuring throughout the
Empire that similarity in organisation, in training,
and in education which alone can result in efficient
Defence. If the tendency of modern conditions is
to leave little room for genius in the field, then
efficiency of organisation must become the determin-
ing factor in war: and that is the task of the Imperial
General Staff which is focussed in the first of the
Military Departments.

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Chapter VII
THE MATTER OF MEN

THE second military division of the War Office is
the department of the Adjutant-General to the
Forces.

The title " Adjutant-General" is of considerable
antiquity. In Cromwell's New Model Army there
were three such officers, two of the Horse and one
of the Foot. The post was added to the standing
Army in the year 1673, an d after being dropped in
1675 was continued again from 1680 onwards. In
that astonishing eighteenth century when the Army
fought with such vast success in building up the
British Empire and the King commanded the Army
in peace, there were two chief military officers who
handled orders received from the Sovereign through
the office of the Secretary-at-War; and of these one
was the Adjutant-General. In 1779 his sma ll office
occupied two rooms in Crown Street, Westminster,
and his peace functions, so far as they are known,
were confined to the issue of Orders and Regula-
tions.

It is not until 1793 that he comes into greater
prominence. Throughout that century, as we have
seen, the policy of Parliament was to scatter the
forces in small commands and to entrust their com-
mand as a whole in peace-time to no one person other
than the Sovereign. Perhaps Parliament remembered

THE MATTER OF MEN 119

that essay of Bacon in which "trainings of men and
arming them in several places and under several
commanders' ' are recommended as measures of
safety in dealing with things such as "men of warre."
In any case, one unfortunate result was that the
selection and promotion of officers was frequently a
matter of political influence. In discussing the Esti-
mates of 1792 Mr. Fox called the attention of the
House of Commons to the dismissal of officers for
reasons of politics, and on the outbreak'of the war
with France, when occasion was taken to remedy
matters by reviving the post of Commander-in-Chief,
the Adjutant-General came to the front as one of
the officers of the Chief's staff.

Under the system inaugurated by the Duke of
York the office became more important, regulations
being issued to all the forces laying down a uniform
system of discipline, and the returns of strength,
which hitherto had been few and inaccurate, being
largely increased and carefully prepared "that the
information required by Parliament might be
supplied through the Adjutant-General's depart-
ment with accuracy."* When recruiting was added
to the duties of the office, its expenses for the half
year which ended in June, 1808, reached a total
of M37 is. id.

From that time onwards the "Adjutant-General of
the Forces" was a principal officer of "the Military
Department" which carried out the duties of the
Commander-in-Chief. In the Stanhope reforms of
1887-8 he was recognised as the principal assistant
to the Chief, with a general control over the military

* Note 12, page 344.

120 THE WAR OFFICE

branches; and finally in 1895, un der Lord Lans-
downe's re-organisation, the "A.-G.'s" department
attained a separate entity as one of the principal
divisions of the War Office. In those days it was
charged with the discipline, the education and the
training of the troops, with recruiting and dis-
charges, and with patterns of clothing; but under the
reforms of the Esher Committee it assumed the
duties which it now discharges, except that the control
of the Auxiliary Forces, then placed under the
Adjutant-General, has since been removed to a
different charge.

The Esher Reports were most explicit. "The
proper functions, 7 ' they said, "of an Adjutant-
General comprise the raising and maintenance of
the military forces, discipline, drafts, reliefs, estab-
lishments, and all that relates to the care of the
soldier in peace and war." By "maintenance" the
Committee meant maintenance in men, and these
"proper functions" are closely followed in the organ-
isation as it exists to-day. The business of the
Adjutant-General is principally concerned with
"men," or in Army phrase with "personnel," and
the department consists of three sub-divisions the
directorate of Recruiting and Organisation, the
directorate of Personal Services, and the department
of Army Medical Services, whose head is a Director-
General.

# * # #

The first task of the Adjutant-General is in-
adequately described as "Organisation," which in
turn is closely bound up with Recruiting and is dealt
with by the same Director.

THE MATTER OF MEN 121

Just as the General Staff take the lead in the
organisation of the Army for war, so the organ-
isation of the forces in peace is predominantly the
business of the Adjutant-General. The phrase
"Peace Organisation" has a simple sound, but
the task involved is in fact the pursuit of an end-
less problem in economy which, from the point of
view of the layman, seems to call for that craft and
tireless patience which distinguish the solver of
jig-saw puzzles. The central problem of "Organisa-
tion" is to settle the "Peace Establishments" of the
Army : in other words to settle the number of men,
in every arm and service and in every rank, who
must be kept with the colours each year in peace.

The Army in peace has two functions : one, some-
times described as "policing the Empire," being that
of providing the garrisons abroad, which must be kept
always at the strength requisite for immediate action
in local defence; while the other is to hold in readi-
ness at home, and to be able to place in the field
quickly, a Field Force of a given size. Now,
the normal soldier serves with the colours for a part
only of his term of enlistment: he serves with the
colours for (say) seven years and then in the Reserve
for (say) five years. Thus the task of the War Office is
complicated by the fact that 25,000 men, on an
average, are lost to the colours every year by the
flow to the Reserve and by normal wastage. At the
same time the system is economical, for to pay and
maintain as serving Regulars the full number of men
required for discharging both of the functions of
the Army would be an extremely expensive method,
as well as being unnecessary; and in times of "finan-

122 THE WAR OFFICE

cial stringency," when the Estimates are condemned
to forcible slimming, all needless costs must be
avoided.

The economy of the Reserve is obvious. The
task of improving our military efficiency by keep-
ing pace with modern developments, of which
mechanisation provides one example, demands money
at every stage; and this means that the ordinary
maintenance costs (pay, food, clothing and so on)
must be kept at the lowest possible figure. The
reservist is relatively inexpensive: he costs some ji6
a year, while an Infantry private serving with the
colours costs over jioo a year. Clearly one means
of saving money is to supplement the numbers
serving with the colours with the maximum possible
number of reservists. Again, any reasonable scheme
for a Field Force must allow of an interval be-
tween "zero hour" and the despatch of at least a
part of the force; and a second plan, if this interval
permits, is to train men after mobilisation who are
not required as "Regulars" in peace. This is prac-
ticable in certain categories: for example, it is prac-
ticable in the case of the men whose technical
training in civil life would enable them to be used as
soldiers at once or after a very short preparation.
The Royal Army Service Corps, to quote an instance,
employs soldier-tradesmen of twenty-five trades. The
use of a special type of reservist was a feature of the
Haldane proposals, which contemplated using Militia
artillerymen as drivers for ammunition columns that
formed part of his Striking Force ; and the Supple-
mentary Reserve of to-day includes a category of
officers and men who do no training at all in peace,

THE MATTER OF MEN 123

their allotted duties on mobilisation being their
technical duties in civil life. Here, then, is a second
means of economy.

In fine, to ensure the maximum saving, a minute
scrutiny of every type of unit, of every trade and of
every rank, would settle the minimum number of
men who must be kept with the colours in time of
peace (i.e. serving soldiers on full pay) to enable each
unit to mobilise in war not forgetting, of course, its
peace-time functions. The unit must be large enough
to train efficiently, and also to provide its annual quota
of trained drafts for the garrisons abroad; but, with
these limitations, its " peace establishment" can be
fixed at the minimum number of soldiers which, duly
increased by its quotas of reservists and possibly of
post-mobilisation recruits, will place the unit on a
war footing.

That is the background, so to speak, against which
the detailed task is set to organise every type of
unit, every staff and depot and school and institution
to be fit for its functions at minimum cost. If con-
ditions were static the work would be limited, but
the Heraclitean doctrine of flux is painfully true of
modern conditions. Nothing is stabilised: everything
changes. In practice the heading "Organisation"
should be amended to read "Re-organisation." A
scheme to mechanise first-line transport is applied,
for example, to the Cavalry regiment and involves,
incidentally, Ordnance workshops: a change in the
role of the Tank Battalion entirely alters its com-
position : the introduction of a new weapon means
the re-organisation of Infantry units. Other obvious
examples of new needs are provided by modern

124 THE WAR OFFICE

signalling methods in the sphere of "wireless" and air
co-operation. The tendency of this type of change is
to increase requirements in trained experts, and a
ceaseless search for balancing economies is, in fact,
compulsory. Since other military branches are con-
cerned, and also the Finance branches, all alterations
in Peace Establishments are considered by a special
standing committee.

This side of the business of "Organisation" is
linked closely with the parallel task of finding the
necessary number of men. As regards reservists, the
size of the Reserve for any Arm can be regulated in
several ways. For example, the terms of service can
be changed : for terms which prescribe, say, 4 years
with the Colours and 8 in the Reserve will, if altered
to terms of 3 years and 9, produce in due course a
larger reserve. Again, Section D of the Army Re-
serve, which consists of a number of men who have
served for 1 2 years but are allowed to continue, can
be closed or opened for any Arm. The supplementing
of the Reserve proper in certain classes of troops,
mainly technical trades, is managed by means of the
Supplementary Reserve, which is based on the
system of short annual training (or in some cases no
training at all) and the payment of annual gratuities
or bounties in return for the liability of the officers
and men to be called out on service on mobilisation.
Railway troops, motor-drivers, clerks for Pay Corps
offices and mechanical engineers are typical classes;
and since the numbers to be maintained in all cases
depend upon mobilisation requirements, all reserves
must be constantly watched.

Turning to the Recruiting side, the work of

THE MATTER OF MEN 125

recruiting the Regular Army involves the enlistment
every year of about twenty-five thousand men.

The history of recruiting has points of interest. In
theory compulsory enlistment ceased for ever in the
year 1640, but in practice methods amounting to
impressment were employed frequently after that
date. In the century which followed the Revolution
recruiting was carried out by the colonels of regi-
ments, a sum for each man being received from the
Crown to cover pay and the cost of clothes and re-
cruitment, which was credited to a " Stock Purse
Fund" and the balance divided at the end of the year
between the senior officers of the regiment. Incident-
ally, the function of the officials with the strange name
of "Commissaries of Musters" was to watch that the
Crown was not cheated in this matter; that the men
for whom the allowance was paid existed in the flesh
and not merely on paper: a precaution which was
highly necessary, since servants were frequently
dressed up for the occasion to act the part of the
missing numbers.

To raise recruits was no easy matter, for the
pay was low, the housing was execrable, and the
discipline was extremely severe, so that every
sort of expedient was employed to entice the yokel
into Army service. One of the most important
functions of the Secretary-at-War in the eighteenth
century was to protect the civilian who claimed to have
been "pressed." Again, in the event of emergency,
which was frequent, when the Army, always kept
at a minimum, suddenly had to be increased largely,
conscription limited to certain classes was used as a
definite policy. Throughout the eighteenth century

126 THE WAR OFFICE

criminals and paupers were impressed for the wars :
in fact, the recruiting policy of those days, whether
an emergency was threatening or not, was to fill the
ranks with the cheapest labour at the lowest possible
cost to the State.

The normal enlistment was held to be for life
or for so long as the Crown required the man's
service, and a soldier could only obtain his dis-
charge as a result of a bargain with his Commanding
Officer. Short-term or * duration of war" enlist-
ment was employed exceptionally, in the event of a
crisis, when extra men were required quickly. Par-
liament liked short-term enlistment. The policy
was to get rid of the soldiers as soon as the par-
ticular war was over; and after 1783, when Burke's
Act abolished the Stock Purse Fund and recruiting,
except in the case of the Guards, was undertaken by
the Government, spasmodic attempts were made in
the House to introduce the principle of short service
as the general rule for the Army in peace. "Life"
enlistment, however, remained the normal practice
until half way through the nineteenth century. In
1847 an Act was passed introducing a limit of 10
or 12 years with a contingent claim to re-engagement
to complete a period of 2 1 years. The modern system
of short-term service, spent partly with the Colours
and partly in the Reserve, was started in 1870 by
Card well's Army Enlistment Act. The periods, but
not the principle, have since been changed frequently.
Normal service to-day in the Infantry of the Line is
for 7 years with the Colours and 5 in the Reserve:
the terms vary for the several Arms.

In the House of Commons in April, 1934, the

THE MATTER OF MEN 127

opinion was voiced that the life of the soldier in the
Army to-day is painted in far too glamorous colours:
that in actual fact it is dull and drab. If this is true,
the percentage of recruits who leave civil employ-
ment in order to enlist becomes a truly astounding
figure. A corporal in the Army to-day is paid a mini-
mum qf 3 is. 6d. a week, receives free facilities for
education, plentiful games, good food and clothes,
decent housing, free medical attendance and a cer-
tain measure of free insurance. A further fact that
is not, perhaps, known generally is that thirty
vacancies at Woolwich and Sandhurst are reserved
every year for "ranker" cadets who receive free
training as potential officers. It is no part of the
policy of the War Office to make promises which it
cannot fulfil.

In older days the intake of recruits was increased
by lowering the standards required ; but the modern
policy is to keep these high and rely on the Army's
"drawing power" supplemented by a new system
which has increased the number of recruiting
centres and has placed a Chief Recruiting Officer
at the disposal of each Area Commander. The
Commands are organised in recruiting "zones," and
the work is as far as possible local; but the control
and adjustment of the whole machine, which now
includes an Inspector of Recruiting, is a function
of "D.R.O." at the War Office. The problem of to-
day is one of quality. A high standard of quality in
recruits is not only necessary to the modern Army,
but is definitely economical. Less money is wasted
in training recruits who prove later on to be useless
to the Army.

ia8 THE WAR OFFICE

This joint directorate has eight branches. One
is the Recruiting branch; and another has the
special duty of watching the "mobilisation" problem
from the point of view of preparedness, particularly
in its man-power aspect. The functions common to
most of the rest, apart from the question of Peace
Establishments, relate to postings and transfers,
the distribution of units, the finding of drafts for
units abroad, and the annual programme of changes
of station. The general principle of the "Trooping"
programme, which will be mentioned again in
another connection, is to combine fairness to units
with economy to the State. It aims at so distribut-
ing service overseas that no unit shall remain too
long where the climate or training facilities are
poor.

The number of branches is due to the fact that
they deal with nine separate arms or corps. One
acts as "co-ordinator," and possesses a section with
the endless task of compiling the necessary statistics
of strength of each and every part of the Army,
including the duty of intelligent guessing at probable
strengths at future dates.

An interesting institution with which the
"D.R.O." is concerned from the point of view of
"finding the men" is the Army Technical School
for boys. Situated at Beachley, near Chepstow, this
school holds some seven hundred boys, who are
trained to be blacksmiths, carpenters, fitters, elec-
tricians, masons and other "tradesmen"; thus
assisting to meet a constant need.

* * * *

The second division of "A.G." business is con-

THEMATTEROFMEN 129

trolled by the Director of Personal Services, whose
first function is Discipline.

By the law of England a man who joins the Army,
whether he joins as an officer or a soldier, remains
subject in general to the ordinary law; but he be-
comes subject also to another code, entirely distinct,
known as "military law/' which governs all the
members of the Army and regulates their conduct as
such at all times and places in peace and in war.*

The object of this special code is twofold : to pro-
vide for discipline, for which purpose acts such as
disobedience must be made punishable offences; and
to provide for such administrative matters as terms
of service, enlistment, discharge and billeting. Such
military law is not "martial law" in the proper sense
of that loosely-used phrase. "Martial law" in its
proper sense means the suspension of ordinary law
and the government of a country by military tri-
bunals a method which is employed in some foreign
countries, when a grave riot or war is threatened, by
a simple declaration on the part of the Government
that the country is in "a state of siege." As far as the
British Army is concerned, one can use the phrase
properly, if somewhat loosely, of the law imposed in
an enemy country by the commander of forces in
occupation; but "martial law" in its strict sense, in
which it suspends the ordinary law, could only be
established in this country by a special Act of
Parliament. Exceptional measures, such as placing
a district under military control, can be taken by the
Crown under common-law right, if the circumstances
warrant such action; but the ordinary law is not

* Note 13, page 344.

K

130 THE WAR OFFICE

thereby suspended. When military control in cases
of that kind is called "martial law/' the term is being
used in a general sense. The strict meaning is men-
tioned here in order to avoid confusion, for in earlier
days 4< martial law" was used to cover a multitude of
sins.

Rules for enforcing discipline in the field were
necessary from early times, since the armies were
frequently fighting abroad where the civil law did
not apply. Such rules, which later were called
"Articles of War/* were issued under the authority
of the King, and ceased to operate when peace was
concluded. They were issued, for instance, byRichard
II; by Henry V for his wars with France; and by
Charles I to please himself. This last was an attempt
to use "martial law" at the will of the Crown /";/ time
of peace^ and as such was strongly resented by the
Commons and declared to be illegal in the Petition
of Right. But when after the Restoration the King
was allowed to have "Guards and Garrisons" the
necessity for a standing code of military discipline
was obvious, and Charles II had to issue Articles of
War which in time of peace were really illegal. The
earlier codes had been very severe, but in these post-
Restoration Articles the death penalty was expressly
reserved; and only the consequent laxity of discipline
forced the hand of the Commons at last to legalise a
peace-time code.

Even then, in 1689, the Mutiny Act was purely
temporary and required renewal every year to
legalise military law in peace: in fact, with the
exception of certain short intervals Mutiny Acts
were passed annually from 1690 to 1879. At the

THE MATTER OF MEN 131

latter date the Mutiny Act contained no clauses,
and the Articles of War, which still existed but had
long since been made statutory, numbered 192.
Naturally very few officers could understand such
intricate codes, and a single Act was passed in that
year to comprise the whole body of military law. It
was re-named the Army Act in 1 8 8 1 .

An interesting feature of the debates in the
Commons in 1879 was the defeat of a proposal to
abolish flogging by a margin of 106 votes. Flogging
was abolished three years later. As regards the
death penalty, the present restriction is a develop-
ment of the post-war years. Since legislation of 1930
the death penalty is confined in peace to mutiny and
sedition, and on active service to mutiny and sedi-
tion and certain treacherous offences.

The Army Act, then, as amended from time to
time by the annual Act which gives it sanction, is
the present code of discipline which, supplemented
by the King's Regulations, is administered by the
Adjutant-General. The great bulk of questions of
discipline are naturally matters for settlement locally,
but major cases, and all which present unusual
features, are sent up to the War Office.

Military offences requiring trial are, of course,
tried by courts-martial, whose far-off and romantic
origin was the Court of Chivalry of the Middle Ages.
Even with the present high standard of conduct
district courts-martial at home and in the colonies
number, roughly, a thousand a year, and a great
deal of "Personal Services" work consists in examin-
ing the major cases, from the point of view of
remission of sentence and of Army discipline

132 THE WAR OFFICE

generally. From the point of legality all courts-
martial are reviewed automatically by an independent
civil official, the Judge Advocate General to the
Forces, who is appointed by special Letters Patent
as official adviser to the Secretary of State on the
administration of military law. General courts-
martial are few, of course; but since they concern
very grave offences they normally require to be
confirmed by the King, from whom all the powers
of courts-martial derive, and accordingly they come
to the Army Council. Similarly, since every officer
of the Army is entitled under the Army Act to enter
an appeal for redress of grievance not only to the
Council but also to the Sovereign, appeals which
involve any question of discipline are considered first
by the Adjutant-General before they are examined by
the Army Council and report is made, in the latter
case, through the Secretary of State to His Majesty.
The question has been known to be asked whether
these appeals really reach the King. His Majesty not
only sees the appeal but approves the decision with
his own hand.

Among more ordinary "discipline" cases may be
mentioned desertions, fraudulent enlistments, and
courts of inquiry into losses by fire; and a fairly
extensive sphere of work concerns military prisons
and detention barracks. The sentence of imprison-
ment can be passed only by courts-martial, and
soldiers sentenced for military offences are sent to
the special military prisons which exist at Aldershot,
Stirling and Cairo. A Commanding Officer is not
allowed to sentence a man to more than "detention,"
which is carried out in Detention Barracks. This

THE MATTER OF MEN 133

latter punishment was introduced to avoid the stigma
attached to imprisonment when soldiers are con-
victed of military offences which do not warrant
discharge from the Army.

A special side of "Personal Services'* is to repre-
sent the interests of the soldier, particularly on ques-
tions of pay and the like; and the military "case" on
these subjects is focussed in this directorate.

The interests of the soldier are manifold, and this
duty consequently has a wide range. At one end of
the scale is the pursuit of the tradition associated with
the Duke of Cambridge, and later with Lord Roberts
when Commander-in-Chief, of removing what may
be called "pin-pricks" those regulations or cus-
tomary rules which are found by the experience of
commanding officers to be avoidable sources of irri-
tation to the Army. At the other end of the scale is
the important work of providing civil employment
for the soldier when he leaves the Colours. Here the
War Office acts in two ways: in one, by providing
Training Centres where soldiers in the last few
months of their service are made competent workers
in civil trades; in another, by assisting the voluntary
work of placing ex-soldiers in actual employment.
This question is not an easy one. Some 3,000 men
leave the Colours each year who have served in the
Army in a specialised trade such as "wireless,"
motor-driving or music ; but a problem is created by
the thousands of others who would be thrown on the
market as unskilled labour unless some special steps
were taken to enhance their prospects of civil em-
ployment. Work of this kind on a small scale was
done regimentally in pre-war days, but large schemes

134 THEWAROFFICE

came into being in the long period of * 'demobilis-
ation " when the war-time soldiers were being dis-
charged, and finally in 1923 the task was taken in
hand by the War Office and "vocational training"
was made official .j

There are now three Vocational Training Centres,
at Chisledon in Wiltshire, Hounslow and Aldershot,
which can take about fourteen hundred students,
the normal course being for six months. The
building trades, the engineering trades, poultry
and pig-keeping, dairy tanning the soldier can
choose from a varied selection and is thus given
the opportunity of equipping himself with a civil
trade. In the twelve months ending on September
3<Dth, 1934, 2,536 men were trained, of whom
2,198 proceeded direct into skilled occupations.
This War Office scheme is in one sense unique; for
probably there exists no other employer who allows
his men to be struck off the work for which they are
paid for a period of six months and to devote that
time to improving their prospects.

Nor does the work end there. Ever since the
days of Cardwell the early discharge of the short-
service soldier has created this civil-employment
problem, and the work of the voluntary organisa-
tions was in full swing before the war. The society
now called the National Association for Employment
of Regular Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen, and the
Soldiers* and Sailors' Help Society, were familiar
pre-war institutions; but the modern development
is wider in scope. Every unit in these days has
its own Regimental Association which finds work
for its own members and supports the National

THE MATTER OF MEN 135

Association; the British Legion gives further help
through its 3,500 branches; a preference is given to
ex-Service men in filling many posts in Government
service; and finally, since 1932, soldiers are regis-
tered with the Employment Exchanges and the
organisation of the Ministry of Labour is joined as
a helpful and powerful ally with the work of the
regiments and the voluntary schemes. To negotiate
all these arrangements, to keep the Army informed
of the opportunities offered, and to supervise both
sides of the work, Vocational Training and "job"-
finding are tasks which fall to the "D.P.S."

"Personal Services" are miscellaneous, for they
include the nomination of Garrison Adjutants, ques-
tions of leave and of medical boards, the precedence
of units, regimental honours, the award of medals
and ceremonial. One curious entry in the list of
duties consists of the simple phrase "The Word,"
which refers to the selection every three months, and
the secret announcement to those concerned, of a
pass-word of great import. In theory no person
without this pass-word could gain access to the King's
palace or "the Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower
of London," and accordingly "The Word" has been
duly changed and solemnly announced to the House-
hold Troops and the Constable of the Tower for the
past two hundred and fifty years ever since, in
fact, King Charles II deemed it wise to take some
little precautions in the matter of nightly visitors.
This small concession to the picturesque is distin-
guished in a prosaic era by possessing no strikingly
practical value.

Questions of regimental Distinctions have, of

136 THE WAR OFFICE

course, a real importance. Honorary Distinctions
take various forms.* Perhaps the best known
are Battle Honours consisting in the name of
an action or a campaign- the earliest is "Tangier
1662-80" and Badges, of which the first to be
granted was "The Lion of Nassau" of William III. All
claims to Distinctions are weighed with great care
and awards are submitted for the King's approval;
for a platitude which is particularly true of His
Majesty's Imperial Forces is that sentiment plays a
very valuable part in the fostering of esprit de corps.
Alliances between Dominion and Home units
form another item in this type of work; and the busi-
ness involved in the award of Medals is large enough
even at this date, after the lapse of fifteen years since
the Great War medals began to be issued, to occupy
a special section. Enquiries for medals are still
voluminous : every mention in the Press of the War
medals brings a train of applications of all kinds.
Many who served only at home write to apply for a
Home Service medal ; others claim for wars of half
a century ago; others write to say that their ancestors
fought in the Peninsula or in the Crimea, or in
Bechuanaland in '84 a campaign for which no
medal was issued. The checking of claims is the chief
work ; and this extends to the current issues of Long
Service medals and Efficiency medals, to claims to the
award of campaign pensions, which depend on the
possession of a war medal, and to the annual crop of
appeals, genuine and otherwise, for forfeited medals
to be restored or for lost medals to be replaced.
Moreover, new awards of medals have been made

* For further details see Note 14, page 344.

THE MATTER OF MEN 137

since 1918 for minor campaigns or expeditions
numbering no less than eighteen. There was a time
shortly after the War when the Medal branch, then
very large, was dealing with 30,000 medals a day,
and the following figures may be of interest as
showing the size of the work carried out : for at that
time complaints were loud regarding the swollen
staffs at the War Office.

There were issued, beginning in the year 1919,
and excluding the issues made in bulk to the
Dominions :

1914 Stars .. .. .. 366,200

Clasps to the 1914 Star . . 150,000

1914-15 Stars .. .. .. 2,083,000

British War Medals . . . . 5,700,000

Victory Medals . . . . 5,145,000

Territorial Force War Medals . . 340,000

For Gallant and Meritorious Service

Military Crosses . . . . 41,000
Distinguished Conduct Medals 33,000
Military Medals . . . . 129,000
Meritorious Service Medals . . 29,000
Emblems for Mentions in De-
spatches . . . . . . 126,000

The ribbon attached to these Stars and Medals
would stretch for over 2,000 miles; and the card-
index for the Great War contains more than
8,000,000 names.

Finally, as an apanage of Ceremonial, the "D.P.S."
deals with military bands, and the administrationfof
Kneller Hall, the Royal Military School of Music.

138 THE WAR OFFICE

The question of the engagement of military bands
for concert work in their spare time was once a sore
parliamentary subject, and is governed by very pre-
cise rules framed to prevent unfair competition ; but
the dominant factor in the situation is neither military
nor political but that powerful person "the man in
the street, " who insists on demanding military
music.

The atmosphere of ancient tradition which per-
vades the sphere of Ceremonial is signally and very
properly absent from the last of the "A.-G.'s" three
directorates, the department of Army Medical Ser-
vices.

No contrast with old-time Army methods is
stronger than that presented to-day by the modern
medical organisation. In the "enlightened" eigh-
teenth century, both during and after Marlborough's
campaigns, arrangements for attending the sick and
wounded in the field were still in so elementary a
stage that Sir John Pringle, the Physician-General at
the time of Fontenoy, was one of the first to organise
hospital work outside the individual regiment. Even
as late as the Peninsular War the service was almost
purely regimental. Every regiment had its surgeon
and surgeon's mate, and these looked after their
own sick and wounded whether in regimental or
general hospitals.

The real trouble of these earlier days was that
the Medical Department was merely a staff,
separated as usual from other Army departments
and administering no medical corps. The medical

THE MATTER OF MEN 139

officers of each regiment had no trained subordinate
staff nor any special medical transport: the men who
attended the wounded in hospital were fighting
soldiers withdrawn from the line, and the officers had
to improvise transport by borrowing carts as best
they could. Sir James M'Grigor, Director-General
from 1815 to 1851, was a famous figure who urged
reform, but very little was done to improve matters;
and when the Crimean crisis came, where the general
hospitals were far from the front on the farther side
of the Black Sea, the regimental system broke down
completely. As soon as the expedition was contem-
plated a Hospital Conveyance Corps was organised
for bringing the wounded from the field to the
hospitals and providing nursing and war attendants ;
but it consisted mainly of aged pensioners, an un-
trained and drunken crowd whom the Medical staff
had no power to control, and conditions were ren-
dered still more hopeless by the fatal separation of the
several departments, each terrified of responsibility,
who were charged with supplying essential needs.
Food, medicines and medical stores might all be
ordered but never delivered; or, if delivered, were
unsuitable; or, if suitable, were inadequate in
quantity. From this tragic chaos the Army was
delivered by the brain and the heart and the will of
a woman.

The efficient modern medical system with its
trained and well-equipped nursing service owes its
first beginning to a chance meeting in the winter of
1847. Sidney Herbert, lately Secretary-at-War, was
spending a holiday in Rome when he met and recog-
nised genius in the young Miss Florence Nightingale.

i 4 o THE WAR OFFICE

Seven years later, once more in office and shocked
by The Times reports from the front, he wrote and
asked for her expert help, and tore his way through
a mass of red tape, of official objection and military
prejudice, to despatch Miss Nightingale and forty
nurses to the terrible scenes of the wards at Scutari.
We are not concerned here with the gentle picture
of "The Lady with the Lamp" whom the soldier
worshipped, but with the clear brain of the "passion-
ate statistician" who, asked by the Secretary of State
for advice, replied in a book of 800 pages* which
proved beyond possibility of rebuttal that 10,053
British soldiers died from disease in seven months,
after quite unnecessary suffering, through a mixture
of apathy and muddle. "I stand at the altar of the
murdered men, and while I live I fight their cause,"
wrote Florence Nightingale in her private notes ; and
helped by the Queen, by Sidney Herbert as Secretary
of State, and by all progressive officers of the Army,
Miss Nightingale fulfilled her promise. Her "Notes"
were not merely critical: they contained complete
constructive proposals for improving the health and
the care of the soldier. Indeed, she devoted her life
to this purpose.

The Royal Commission of 1858 on "The Sanitary
Conditions of the Army," which Miss Nightingale
inspired and Sidney Herbert controlled, started a
steady march of progress. The more immediate re-
sults were the improvement of barracks, the better
planning of hospital buildings, the introduction of
women nurses, the allotment of transport to the
Medical Service, the raising of the pay and status of

*Note 15, page 345-

THE MATTER OF MEN 141

the officers, and the foundation of an Army Medical
School. The next great change was made by Card-
well in the year 1873. Regimental hospitals were now
abolished and with them the regimental system, and
gradually from this time onwards the corps of
medical subordinate ranks, which was started in
1855 wit* 1 ^ title "The Army Hospital Corps,"
was assimilated with the Medical Department.

The red-letter day in this story was June 23rd,
1898, when a royal warrant issued by Queen Victoria
created the Royal Army Medical Corps with the
ranks and titles of the fighting Arms. From the
tragedy of the Crimean hospitals arose a corps which
in four years dealt with two millions of wounded
men on the western front in the Great War, and
carried six millions of wounded and sick in ambulance
trains from the front to the base. The present estab-
lishment of the R.A.M.C. is 526 officers and some
3,300 other ranks; and the health of the Army is so
much considered that 120 Dental officers are em-
ployed to look after the soldiers' teeth. Full and in-
teresting statistics are contained every year in the
published Report on the Health of the Army y which is
on sale. There are 45 military hospitals proper, of
which 1 7 are at stations abroad, and the largest are
at Netley, Woolwich, Aldershot, Cairo, Millbank,
Tidworth and Malta. There are also hospitals for
military families, 1 2 at home and 5 overseas.

The work of the Medical Department at the War
Office is divided between five branches, and covers
the administration of the whole Corps, of its reserves,
of the Royal Army Medical College, of hospitals and
medical treatment, of the supply of stores, and of

142 THE WAR OFFICE

hygiene. The Director-General is assisted also by an
Advisory Board and a Consultative Committee com-
posed of civilian and military experts, the one body
to advise on policy and the other on professional
questions. One branch administers the nursing
service.

Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing
Service owes a great debt to royal ladies. From a
small beginning in 1856 Queen Victoria's support
of Florence Nightingale led, first, to the employment
of nursing sisters in the Royal Victoria Hospital at
Netley and the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich ; next,
to the appointment of a staff of nurses to all military
General Hospitals; and finally, in 1881, to the
formation of an Army Nursing Service. Queen
Alexandra continued the work, and was zealous in
giving personal service as President of the Nursing
Board introduced by Mr. St. John Brodrick; and
our present Queen, in the same capacity, is a valued
patron and staunch friend. The function performed
by the branch at the War Office, headed by the
Matron-in-Chief, is the recruitment and control of

the whole Service.

* * * #

Thus, to sum up, the Adjutant-General divides
his task between three directorates for recruiting
and peace organisation, for "personal services" and
for the Medical Service. The staff on April 1st,
1934, comprised 48 officers serving or retired, a
Matron-in-Chief and a Principal Matron, 2 civilian
inspectors of medical supplies and 142 clerks. The
distribution of the main duties is shown in the
diagram appended.

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3

Chapter VIII
THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE

THE third military division of the War Office is the
department of the Quarter-Master-General to the
Forces.

The history of the title "Quarter-Master-General"
runs parallel to that of the Adjutant-General. In the
New Model Army of Cromwell there were two, one
of the Horse under the commander of the Cavalry,
and one of the Foot under the commander of the
Infantry. A Quarter-Master-General of the Forces as
a whole is first traced after the Restoration in the
year 1686, and was concerned solely with "march
and quartering/' Throughout the eighteenth century
his office remained a very small one, for as late as
1 803 it consisted only of 7 officers, 3 clerks and 2
messengers. At the latter date it had become part,
with the Adjutant-General, of the staff of the Com-
mander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, and such
work of a "General Staff" type as was done in the
time of Wellington appears to have fallen to this
officer in addition to movement and quartering
duties.

Omitting here the incessant changes and re-allo-
cations of War Office duties which followed the
Crimean reform, the Esher Reports of 1 904 assigned
the following to the "Q.M.G.": Transport and
Remounts, Movement and Quartering, Supplies and

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 145

Clothing, and the Charge of Equipment and Ord-
nance stores. " Ordnance' ' stores meant the military
stores such as arms, ammunition, vehicles and equip-
ment handled by the Army Ordnance Department,
which were thus made over to the "Q.M.G." in
addition to barrack and general stores for which he
was already responsible. This, a perfectly logical
arrangement, was the system which obtained in the
Great War, but an important change has since been
made under stress of modern developments. As a
result of the expansion of mechanisation, the Royal
Army Ordnance Corps, and with it the charge of all
military stores, was transferred in 1927 to the care
of the Master-General of the Ordnance, where it
certainly belongs by historical claim.

Accordingly the Quarter-Master-General to the
Forces now deals with the feeding, the housing and
the conveyance of the troops, and the provision and
care of animals, but no longer has charge of military
stores; and his department comprises the five
directorates of Movements and Quartering, Sup-
plies and Transport, Remounts, Veterinary Services
and Works "Works" being a term meaning
building services. The niceties of military nomen-
clature are much in evidence in this department.
Thus the Director of Supplies and Transport has
nothing to do with "transportation"; and the
Director of Movements and Quartering who deals
with "transportation services" (railway, sea and
inland water) has nothing to do with transport
vehicles. "Supplies," again, has a technical content,
meaning food, forage, fuel and light, water, petrol
and certain lubricants. "Remounts" is a term of art

146 THE WAR OFFICE

for horses; and in classification, if seldom in manners,
a mule is a horse.

The quartering of the military forces is, historic-
ally, a sore subject.

In the days when an army was created for the
occasion the need arose only in time of war, and
a gentleman known as the High Harbinger de-
manded quarters in the name of the King; but
Charles I liked to keep his soldiers together with or
without the excuse of war, and went so far in
abusing the right to * 'quarter" that the Commons
were forced to petition the King "to remove this
intolerable burden, " and the Petition of Right of
1628 declared billeting to be illegal. This fact does
not appear, however, to have occasioned much worry
to Charles II. His circumstances were difficult, for
his "guards and garrisons" could not have been
quartered, even had he wished it, in the scattered
fortresses which then existed, and Parliament had
provided no barracks. The Crown, entitled to * 'dis-
pose" the Army wherever it chose, was obliged to
have recourse to billeting whether it was illegal or
not, and a royal warrant of 1 672 gave express instruc-
tions to quarter troops in "victualling houses, taverns
and ale-houses," and, if these were not enough, then
"in other houses"; and the soldier, being frequently
left without pay, was compelled to live free at the
charge of his host. The subject had no redress what-
ever, and the practice was declared illegal once more
by an Act of 1 679. This again did not deter James II
from violating, the law throughout his reign, and

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 147

when William III landed in England, billeting, we
are told by Clode, was "probably the greatest social
evil endured by the people" at that time; so that
William, having accepted the throne on conditions
of "parliamentary" behaviour which included the
avoidance of this abuse, issued a proclamation at once
(January 1689) which forbade billeting in private
houses "without the free and voluntary consent of
the owner."

But the troops had to be quartered somewhere,
and Parliament found itself forced to take action.
Confronted not only by a rebellion in Ireland
but also by a war with France "whereby there is
occasion for the marching of many regiments . . .
towards the sea coast and otherwise," Parliament,
having authorised the existence of an Army, was
compelled to give sanction to billeting on the march.
To be sure, this Act (the 2nd Mutiny Act) was
cautious and purely temporary. It empowered the
constables and other magistrates to quarter officers
and soldiers on the march in "inns, livery stables,
ale-houses, victualling houses, and all houses selling
brandy, strong waters, cyder or metheglin by retaile,
to be dranke in their houses and noe other, and in
noe private houses whatsoever." However, the power
thus cautiously admitted was re-enacted in subse-
quent Mutiny Acts, and was used for soldiers who
were not on the march ; and the fact that the keepers
of ale-houses were underpaid, if paid at all, for the
food which they found themselves forced to provide,
created, as the years went on, first a grievance and
then a crisis.

"We see," said a speaker in the House of

148 THE WAR OFFICE

Commons, "what an encroaching thing an army is,
Free lodging for soldiers is now become a continual
and settled thing upon public-houses." That was
in 1741, and the Secretary-at-War had lately been
much disturbed on the point, dreading in fact a
mutiny, for the publicans had taken to closing their
doors. Later, indeed, on the south coast it became
a practice with the innkeepers to take down their
signboards and throw up their licences upon the
approach of troops who were ordered to be
quartered. Thus at last, in 1792, Parliament was
compelled, much against its will, to take steps to
erect barracks.

The building of barracks, as noted earlier, was
opposed throughout the eighteenth century on the
ground of danger to liberty. More barracks might
mean more soldiers, and the standing Army was a
terrible thing. The accommodation existing in 1697
would hold 5,000 Infantry, and an estimate for that
year provided tents for 10,000 men. The misery of
the troops was real and great. When the Army was
increased in a crisis the extra men were put under
canvas, and when complaints were loud and bitter
we read of the hiring of barns being permitted
"whereby the soldiers may be kept from perishing."
In 1718 a burst of generosity provided the sum of
^9,300 to build four barracks in North Britain with
one bed for every two men; but "the robberies and
depredations of the Highlanders" supplied the real
motive for this lavish display. Even when ministers
were sorely embarrassed by the anti-billeting ale-
house keepers, they did not dare to propose to build
barracks. The total barrack accommodation existing

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 149

in 1 792 in Great Britain and the Channel Islands was
designed to house 20,847 men.

As regards Movements, in the earlier days the
Kings had relied on the right of "purveyance" to
impress carriages as occasion required ; but Parliament
at the Revolution was compelled to make provision
by statute, as in the case of billeting. Every civil
magistrate, on receiving an order from the Crown,
was bound to provide conveyances at the rates laid
down by the Mutiny Act. At the same time a safe-
guard was carefully introduced for the protection of
the people against military demands, for the counter-
signing of these movement orders was one of the
duties of the Secretary-at-War, and a remark made
by the Duke of Wellington in this latter connection
is well known: "The Commander-in-Chief cannot at
this moment' ' (the moment was 1837) "move a cor-
poral's guard from London to Windsor without
going to the civil department for authority he
must get a route/* The power of impressing vehicles
in emergency is still retained, like the power of
billeting, in the annually renewed Army Act.

The Director of Movements and Quartering to-
day has three branches, for Quartering, Movements
and Transportation. The "D.M.Q." and the Quar-
tering branch, in addition to their other duties, act
as Staff to the "Q.M.G." for co-ordinating the view
of the department as a whole. (A similar system exists,
of course, in the other three Military Members'
departments one branch acting as a central link.)
Thus one of the duties of this directorate is to focus
for the "Q.M.G.," in concert with all the branches
concerned, the question of securing the utmost

150 THEWAROFFICE

economy in the use of mechanical transport vehicles.
With the recent growth of mechanisation the Army
possesses a very large number of motor vehicles of
various types a possession from which opportunities
arise for casual employment with great waste or for
strict control with great savings. To ensure the most
economical use of these new and vast resources in
transport is a "Q" duty throughout the Army which
is specially controlled by the "D.M.Q."

In the matter of Quartering the modern problem
is much concerned with those overseas garrisons
where, for political or other reasons, it is difficult to
obtain a clear and fixed picture of future require-
ments in accommodation. Where the size and the
distribution of the troops can be regarded as reason-
ably fixed, the War Office can decide forthwith
whether permanent or "temporary" building is
needed, whether quarters for married families are
essential, and generally as to the scale of provision
required; but inevitable uncertainty as regards the
future, with consequent recourse to temporary ex-
pedients, is a fruitful source of Quartering work, of
which one instance in recent years is provided by the
case of Singapore, and another by that of Palestine.
The present estimate of the "works services," which
the Army is compelled to undertake as a consequence
of the new naval base, is shown (1934) as nearly
j2,ooo,ooo; and this sum is still "provisional" while
detailed requirements are further considered in the
constant effort to reduce costs or to meet changes in
the general plan. If the reader could see those "de-
tailed requirements" a large part of the business of
Quartering would require no further elucidation.

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 151

At home conditions are more stable and the task
is largely one of selection. Unfortunately for some
years past the Department has been compelled by
lack of funds to "cut" expenditure very low, avoiding
the need for new construction, and the problem is to
choose the most important from the lengthy lists of
urgent requirements that are put forward by the
Commands each year. Probably the age of the Army's
barracks is not widely appreciated. Specimens of the
Early Georgian, mainly on the south coast, find
places in a fine collection which includes Napoleonic
relics, select pieces of the Crimean era, and an im-
pressive range of hutted camps, many labelled
"South African War" and others "European War."
Meanwhile in the matter of health and amenities the
modern standard is extremely high, and the"Q.M.G."
is besieged with demands for the replacement of
huts that are worn out, for more "married quarters"
for officers and men, for the improvement of existing
structures in sanitary services, dining-rooms, re-
creation grounds and institutes; while Mechan-
isation, like a "big bad wolf," makes great bites at
the available funds to satisfy its voracious appetite
for workshops, garages and so on. The merits of
these competing schemes must be carefully weighed
and their details explored in conjunction with the
Director of Works and the Finance and other
branches concerned.

A further duty of the Quartering branch is to act
as official advocate, so to speak, in all questions
affecting the "N.A.A.F.I." the Navy, Army and
Air Force Institutes. This corporation provides the
"shops" where the messing funds of the regiment

iS2 THE WAR OFFICE

are spent and the soldier buys his daily needs a
great co-operative trading concern, conducted en-
tirely for the benefit of the Services, the proceeds of
which are given back to the soldier to provide extra
messing and "club" amenities. The Services are
partners in its control, and when questions arise
which concern the Corporation and at the same time
affect public funds, the watching of the soldier's
interests falls in the province of the "Q.M.G." Much
the same type of work also falls to this branch in the
matter of lodging and furniture allowances, where
the claims of the soldier form one side of the picture
and fairness to public funds forms the other. Only
difficult cases are referred to the War Office.

The second function of the "D.M.Q.," the move-
ment of troops, animals and stores by sea, land or
inland water, is divided between two branches
assisted by a special office at Woolwich (known as
the A.D.M.T., Woolwich) which, among other
Movement duties, administers the War Department
fleet.

On the land-movement side of the work fall the
detailed arrangements with the Railway Companies
for the conveyance of units on change of station.
Troops at home change their stations every few
years, for the training of a unit is apt to grow
stale if it is constantly using the same ground; and
the annual programme of Indian and "Colonial"
reliefs adds a further mass of railway movement
between the ports and the home stations not only of
units but of drafts and individuals. Negotiations with
the Railway Companies for concessions in the
matter of charges has created constant work for the

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 153

War Office, complicated in recent years by the
competition of road transport, since military traffic
is a valuable item. The right of the Army to special
railway rates dates from an Act of 1883. A further
sphere of Movements work, in concert with the
Finance branch, is the settlement of travelling claims.
Difficult v cases are bound to arise since the regulations
which govern the subject have to cover a wide and
varied field, and claims may range from some matter
of berths for an officer's family bound for the East
to the mileage allowance for a private bicycle. Be the
Regulations never so lengthy, "border-line" cases
always abound which require decision at headquarters.

As regards movements by sea, we here encounter
the mystery known as "the Trooping Season," which
lasts roughly from September to April. An Infantry
battalion, in the course of its twenty-one years abroad,
moves round the world on a circular tour; while the
Cavalry, the Horse and the Light Artillery move
between Home, Egypt and India, and the personnel
of other arms and services do tours overseas as indi-
viduals. Add to these the flow of "drafts" which are
sent out to fill up the units abroad in replacement of
the men who are due for the Reserve, add detach-
ments to be carried for the Navy and the Air Force,
and the total of all these cross-movements will con-
vey some idea of the annual flux between Home
waters and the Mediterranean, Egypt, Palestine,
Port Sudan, India, Ceylon and the Far East.

Here, too, we meet some technical terms, though
the Army is never obtrusively nautical and even
conducts the hiring of ships through the medium of
another department, the Mercantile Marine branch

154 THE WAR OFFICE

of a valuable ally, the Board of Trade. One is "moved"
by sea officially in one of three distinct ways: either
as an individual, by the commonplace but superior
means of a berth booked on an ordinary liner; or as
one of a Government party on a liner, which is then
officially a "freight ship"; or in a vessel specially
chartered and fitted, which is frankly and definitely
a "troopship." Normally there are five troopships
making their tours throughout the season, a typical
tour being Home Gibraltar Hong Kong India
Palestine Home ; and the overflow from all sources
which cannot be fitted into the troopships will re-
quire the use of some fifty freight ships for parties
varying from tens to hundreds. The working out of
the detailed programme to suit the demands of all
concerned the General Staff, the Adjutant-General,
the local Commands, and other Government de-
partments is a large duty of "D.M.Q." The War
Office, it has been said, withholds information quite
unnecessarily regarding the dates fixed for moves;
but the inconvenience and hardship so caused would
be much greater, in the light of experience, if official
forecasts were made earlier; for in practice it is not
uncommon for one small emergency, unforeseen
and not within the control of the Office, to upset the
whole Trooping picture. Nor are critics lacking
within the War Office when sailings have to be held
up. The intricate task of readjusting the programme
is not noticeably gladdened by the timely reminder
that a troopship costs 500 a day! . . . The Em-
barkation Staff at Southampton works directly under
"D.M.Q."

Quite distinct from this passenger work is the

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 155

role of the War Department Fleet, which originally
belonged to the Board of Ordnance and dates back
at least to the time of Napoleon. Apart from dinghies
and other small boats, it consists to-day of 66 craft
ranging from sea-going steamers based on Woolwich
to tong-kangs plying off Singapore. Its major func-
tions may be said to be three: the first, to convey
heavy guns and mountings which could not be
carried in commercial vessels; the second, to tow
artillery targets, which again requires special mach-
inery ; and the third a purely economic function
to carry explosives and military stores both in Home
waters and at ports abroad such as Hong Kong,
Singapore, Bermuda and Jamaica. The economy of
maintaining the fleet in Home waters has often been
questioned in the past century; but the railage of
stores from the central depots, such as Didcot and
Bramley, to the various Commands would be
demonstrably more expensive; and, unless there are
special reasons of urgency, the stores are conveyed
via Woolwich coastwise.

Finally, the 44 D.M.Q." is charged with vital
functions relating to war. One is the complete prepar-
ation of plans for the movement of the Field Force,
not only in arranging the railway moves as a part of
the "mobilisation scheme, but also in collecting for
the General Staff all information regarding facilities
in possible theatres of war overseas. If Utopia were
a possible * 'theatre/ 1 full details concerning the
"movement " problem in that somewhat inaccessible
country would doubtless be found to be ready and
waiting. A second function is technical training
the training of the troops required in war for the

156 THE WAR OFFICE

construction and operation of railways, and for dock
and water-transport duties. For this work, apart
from the Regular R.E., there are special "trans-
portation units," a part of the Supplementary Re-
serve, recruited from the employees of the Railway
Companies; and the War Office maintains a special
centre, the Railway Training Centre at Longmoor,
where the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway
with its eight miles of rails, its yards and its work-
shops provides facilities for all types of practice from
signalling methods to heavy bridging; and also for
practical combined exercises in which other arms
can rehearse entrainment and co-operation with rail-
way troops in the special problems of transportation.
This centre, like the little known "Fleet," is under
the control of the "D.M.Q."

The second directorate of the "Q.M.G." is that
of the Director of Supplies and Transport.

The transport and supply columns of a force in
the field have rightly been called "the life-blood of
an army," and the failure to recognise this fact until
comparatively recent times strikes the layman as
being a considerable mystery. The history of the
subject in the British Army does not flatter the
common sense of the nation ; but as set out by Sir
John Fortescue in his volume entitled "R.d.S.C."
it provides some interesting reading.*

From obscure beginnings, through a shadowy
adolescence, the story moves with the pleasing

* Note 16, page 345-

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 157

transitions of a Hollywood picture to the tardy
triumph of a happy climax. The first scene is set
amid storm and plunder. The soldier of the Middle
Ages received no public ration at all and lived on
the country in which he fought; and this still was
the state of affairs generally with the armies which
fought in the Civil War between Charles I and
Parliament until Cromwell created his New Model
Army. Then, under Cromwell's ordered regime,
the ration consisted of bread and cheese in the
charge of a Commissary-General of Victualling,
and, the troops being more or less regularly paid,
private contractors, known as sutlers, followed the
Army and opened a market where the soldiers could
buy food and drink a fashion which had long been
common abroad.

The next scene starts in 1661 with the first
appearance of the Regular Army, that collection of
regiments of Horse and Foot which formed the
"Guards and Garrisons. " No food was provided
now by the State, for the soldier in fact belonged
to his Colonel and all arrangements were regi-
mental. The nominal pay of a private of Foot was
8d. a day, out of which he was clothed and fed
by the Colonel, lodging, food and beer being
provided under contracts made with the ale-house
keepers on whom the men were billeted. Later, in
1689, with the passing of the 2nd Mutiny Act, the
daily tariff for feeding the soldier was laid down by
Parliament, and no great change was made in this
system throughout the following century. In prac-
tice, therefore, the Commissariat Department, that
small body of Treasury clerks which was charged

158 THE WAR OFFICE

with the business of supply and transport as being
matters financial rather than military, was concerned
only with troops overseas.

In Marlborough's campaigns in Flanders, for
example, bread was supplied by the Commissariat
by means of a single gigantic contract with one
Sir Solomon Medina, who engaged to supply
bread and waggons; and the soldier depended for
everything but bread on a small army of licensed
sutlers one grand sutler for every regiment and
one petty sutler for a troop or company. Marl-
borough was stern in repressing plunder, and
ordered that the soldier should be messed regularly
and should be given "flesh meat" twice a week, for
which, like the bread, he paid with his wages; but
the sutlers, of course, were shameless thieves, as we
know from the life of Mrs, Kit Ross, a famous
character in the Duke's army, who fought as a man
and was wounded twice before she discovered her
true avocation and took up the business of "sutler-
ing" herself with conspicuous success and a com-
mand of language which even in those days met with
respect. As to transport, it seems that the contractor's
bread-waggons were used for every kind of purpose,
and that the regimental baggage often colossal, at
least in the case of senior officers was carried by
hired pack-animals. This primitive state of supply
and transport continued throughout that century;
and while arrangements could be, and were, made
for passable subsistence in the Low Countries, the
conditions endured by the garrisons abroad where
victualling houses were unknown, and by the troops
who fought in Canada and America where sutlers

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 159

were rare or non-existent, did little credit to the
Home authorities.

The scene shifts to the Peninsular War, where
contracts were none and roads were hopeless, and
the clerks of the Commissariat, unversed in other
than paper-work, had to learn their business by
painful experience and persuade an extremely re-
luctant Treasury that their duty was not one of
signing cheques but of moving and feeding 40,000
men from thirty-seven scattered depots. Bread, meat
and spirits had to be provided; mules, oxen and
drivers collected for transport; and in spite of in-
credible difficulties the organisation at the end of
some years was quite remarkably successful. Thus
Wellington showed how much could be done in the
way of creating an Army Service Corps.

But his work was allowed to fall to pieces in the
great reaction which came with peace. The Com-
missariat remained a Civil department responsible
for food, forage and fuel, while the provision of
transport and other requirements of vital import-
ance to troops in the field were left to the chance
of extemporised methods; and this is the position
forty years later when the Army appears at the
Crimea. Here on the luckless Commissariat fell,
in the words of Fortescue, "the entire burden
of providing money, of making all contracts for
supplies and stores, and of furnishing provisions,
forage, fuel and light, besides transport, whether by
land or sea." An improvised Land Transport Corps
was first inefficient and then too late, and in any case
was entirely separate from the departments which
dealt with stores and supplies ; but the many failures

160 THE WAR OFFICE

of the Crimean War proved to be well-disguised
blessings, one result being that the Commissariat
was transferred to the charge of the War Office, and
the union of the functions of transport and supply,
though still postponed, was at least made possible.

The first Director of Supplies and Transport was
appointed at the War Office in 1870 when, in the
Cardwell re-organisation, the whole business of
stores and supplies was centred in the " Supply"
department under the Surveyor-General of the Ord-
nance. A very small "Army Service Corps" with the
two functions of supply and transport had been created
in the previous year, but bewildering changes had
still to be suffered both in its title and its organ-
isation before, by the work of Sir Redvers Buller, it
was rebuilt under its first name in December, 1888,
as a properly recognised military corps instead of
a semi-civilian department. In South Africa at the
close of the Boer War the number of men in receipt
of rations was 327,000, and of horses and mules
265,000; and the corps which fed this large force
numbered 3,000 of all ranks. Its merit and value
were firmly established. In the same year, 1902, the
Mechanical Transport Section was started, and a
small unit (No. 77 Company) was formed at Chatham
in 1903, operating with traction engines. Such was
the beginning of a branch of the corps which was
patiently nursed through the "pre-war" era and was
destined fifteen years later to number 1 50,000 men.

Nor is the change any less striking if we turn for
a moment to the soldier at home.

The old billeting methods had come to an end
when the building of barracks was started in

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 161

earnest at the close of the eighteenth century. The
ration, which consisted of i Ib. of bread and f Ib.
of meat daily, the latter being beef and always
boiled because no other means of cooking existed,
was at first supplemented by licensed pedlars, and
later by canteens allowed in the barracks out of
which contractors made pretty profits, and the
State too, from the soldier's pocket. But here the
Crimea did another great service: it brought the
public for the first time into sympathetic touch with
the Army. In place of a brutal and dissolute outcast
the soldier was seen as a gallant figure, devotedly
loyal and amazingly patient; and very great efforts
were made by officers both in and out of Parliament,
and not least by Sidney Herbert, to improve the
amenities of barrack life.

Progress, slow at first but steady, was made in
the sphere of the soldier's food. When Aldershot
camp was first opened butcheries and bakeries
were set up, and groceries were furnished at whole-
sale prices. Instruction began to be given in cook-
ing. Next, the canteens were made regimental.
Cardwell, in 1873, abolished the stoppage for
bread and meat, and the ration became a free
issue. A messing allowance of 3d. a day was added
in 1898, and great improvements in messing
arrangements followed a Committee of 1910 which
led to the appointment at the War Office of a
messing expert whose duty it is to advise and assist
Commanding Officers the Inspector of Army
Catering. Finally, an immense benefit to the soldier
dates from the efforts of a few officers in the year
1894, when the Canteen and Mess Co-operative

162 THE WAR OFFICE

Society laid the foundations of that great concern,
trading within and for the Services, which is now
an essential adjunct to the Army in the shape of the
"N.A.A.F.I."

The present-day work of the "D.S.T." is organised
in three branches, one dealing with Supplies, one
with Transport vehicles, and the third with the
Royal Army Service Corps.

The Supplies branch is small in itself, but is
very large in its spending power. The cost of
* 'supplies," covering food, forage, fuel, light,
water, petrol and lubricants, amounts in the Esti-
mates for 1934 to ^2,200,000; and this does not
include the cash allowances which are given when
supplies are not drawn in kind. Further, being so
large a consumer, the War Office buys for the
Royal Air Force, and to a small extent for the Navy
as well. The main duties may be said to be two: to
provide and control the feeding of the Army, and
to ensure the readiness of the Supply organisation for
any emergency, large or small, in any possible area of
operations.

In the matter of improving the feeding of the
soldier great strides have been made since the late
war. The standard ration for the troops at home
now consists of three parts : meat, bread (or biscuit),
sugar, tea and salt, which are issued in kind by the
R.A.S.C.; bacon, cheese, jam or syrup, and marg-
arine, for which, with the exception of a proportion
of bacon, the cash equivalent may be drawn instead;
and a cash allowance of about 3d. a head for buying
such "extras" as vegetables. For troops abroad there
is less elasticity; each garrison has its own complete

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 163

scale, framed to suit its climatic and other con-
ditions, and the whole of the ration is drawn in kind
except, in some cases, a small proportion. At home,
speaking broadly, the food and the money are handed
over in bulk to the units and are handled through
their Messing Committees; and the general policy
is for every unit to be served by a Regimental Insti-
tute, where the foodstuffs required to vary the diet
are provided by the N.A.A.F.I.

The foodstuffs provided by the R.A.S.C. are
purchased either in bulk by the War Office, through
the Contracts department described later, or through
local contracts placed by Commands whichever of
these two methods is both practicable and the more
economical. Taking the purchases made at Head-
quarters, those of frozen meat amount each year to
about 34 million lb.; those of flour, about 25 million
lb.; and of sugar, about 5 million lb. Some two-
thirds of the bread for the troops is baked in the
Army's own bakeries.

One question which "D.S.T." has to consider,
working of course with the Contracts directorate,
is the cheapest method of distribution. It may be
economical, for example, for forage for China to
be bought in Canada, tor meat to be delivered
direct from Australia to China and all the large
stations abroad, and for tea for those stations to
be sent from Ceylon. The supplies not delivered
direct to Commands are handled by another large
establishment administered by "D.S.T.," the Supply
Reserve Depot at Deptford, which not only stores
the War Reserves but acts as a distributing centre
for the food sent to stations abroad. The turning over

164 T II EWAR OFFICE

of the perishable reserves is, of course, a complicating
factor, and accounts, for example, for the fact that
the soldier must perforce consume a proportion of
biscuit. The compulsory eating of bacon, on the
other hand, is due to the share of the Medical
Department in determining how the troops shall be
fed with a proper respect for calories.

The Supplies branch, to sum up, is responsible
that the Army receives its food; responsible for its
adequacy, in the settlement of the ration scales; and
responsible for its quality, in drawing up the
detailed specifications on which the purchases are
made. There are also, of course, forage and fuel
which raise similar questions for "D.S.T." as,
for instance, the quality of oats or of coal, and
the types of petrol and oils required; and naturally
the cash allowances, which are given when supplies
are not drawn in kind, form a constant source of
work for the War Office in the framing of clear
regulations and the settlement of "hard cases."
A recent example of the research work which is also
one of the tasks of this branch is an attempt to im-
prove the "emergency ration" which the soldier
must carry on active service. The old "iron ration"
was somewhat weighty, and here modern science can
come to the rescue.

A final "popular" topic remains. The variety
of the meals served to the soldier is mainly a matter
of regimental management; but the "D.S.T." takes
a share in this work. Training is given at the School
of Cookery, situated at Aldershot, in "the most
economical use of the ration," and expert advice is
available to units through the Inspector of Army

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 165

Catering; while a proof of the acceptance of the
modern maxim that "a well-fed soldier is a contented
soldier" is the issue of The Manual of Military
Cooking. This last publication secured for the War
Office an unwonted meed of Press approval. Perhaps
the reviewers could remember days when Army
meals were not quite so inviting as the following
specimen diet suggests: Tuesday, Breakfast tea,
bread, stewed steak and onions, and brown gravy;
Dinner meat pies, mashed potatoes, haricot beans,
and rice pudding or macaroni and prunes; Tea
tea, bread, margarine and salmon fish-cakes; Supper
vegetable soup, bread and biscuit. Diet-sheets,
complete for a week, are issued by the War Office
every three months "for the guidance only" of
Messing Officers. The opinion appears to be general
that the soldier of to-day is well fed.

The second function of "D.S.T." is the organ-
isation of the Transport, animal and mechanical^
which carries out Royal Army Service Corps
duties, and the provision of the necessary motor
vehicles alike for peace and for war functions.

A somewhat difficult modern problem arises out
of the pursuit by the War Office of a proper policy
of economy. The peace-time duties of the R.A.S.C.
are discharged by a small number of Regular
soldiers and some sixteen hundred lorries and cars,
and the expansion required for a field force is
left to be supplied, as far as men are concerned, by
reservists and post-mobilisation recruits. But in war,
apart from the vehicles required for the ordinary
duties of load-carrying in the supply, baggage and
ammunition companies, certain special vehicles

166 THE WAR OFFICE

would also be needed such as workshop lorries and
ambulances, and these must be capable of use off
the road: in fine, for efficient cross-country per-
formance these special vehicles must be six-wheelers.
To keep idle in reserve all the special vehicles which
are not required for peace duties would be wasteful,
even if the cost could be met; and the policy is,
therefore, to use six-wheel lorries for the normal
peace-time station duties together with the means
of converting them quickly into the special vehicles
required in emergency. Thus the vehicles required
in war for the normal work of load-carrying would
have to be provided after mobilisation, and the means
of obtaining them must be planned. The plan adopted
is the Impressment Scheme whereby lorries suitable
for load-carrying duties could be taken "off the
streets" in time of emergency under powers given
by the Army Act. Thus a main duty of the Transport
branch is to combine a condition of readiness for
emergency with a due economy of ways and means.
The difficulty of supplying spare-parts in the field
when a number of different makes is involved, is
met by standardising types.

Among other duties of the Transport branch is
the maintenance of the peace-time fleet of about
2,000 vehicles (including, incidentally, thirteen fire-
engines), the hiring of commercial transport when
Army vehicles are absent at training, and liaison
with the civil authorities as to licensing and suchlike
matters. The business of maintenance is centred at
Feltham in a Vehicle Reserve Depot, a Mechanical
Transport Stores Depot, and a large shop for
Heavy Repairs; while the important function of

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 167

inspection, both of all vehicles and parts purchased
and of vehicles ear-marked for possible use, is
carried out by special staffs reporting to the "D.S.T."
Finally, a third branch administers the personnel,
both military and civilian, employed on the duties
of Supply and Transport and on R.A.S.C. services
generally. A large amount of civilian labour is em-
ployed at the depots, barracks and offices: in fact,
there are over 2,500 civilians employed on manual
or clerical duties. The Assistant Director of this
branch occupies a two-sided position, being also an
Assistant Adjutant-General for administering the
military corps on behalf of the "A.G." Department.

The next business of the "Q.M.G.," the provision
and care of the Army's horses, is divided between two
small directorates, the one administering the Remount
Service and the other the Army Veterinary Services.

The former, the Remount Department, dates
from 1887, before which time the purchase of
horses was conducted by the separate corps with
much expensive clashing of interests, or, in times
of sudden emergency, by hastily assembled ad hoc
committees. The main duties to-day are two
the purchase and maintenance of suitable animals
for peace requirements at home and abroad, includ-
ing the control of the Remount depots; and arrange-
ments for providing animals in war, when large
extra numbers would be required. "Animals" in
time of war may extend to messenger-dogs and
pigeons, but in time of peace "animals" are horses
with a due admixture of Army mules.

168 THE WAR OFFICE

In these days the Army possesses some 16,000
horses and mules, as compared with 28,800 in the
year 1914; and the War Office is sometimes charged
with obtuseness in employing even as many as these
"when all the world is mechanised/' Critics appear
at times to be assuming that modern war is of a
standard pattern, and to forget, among other
material points, the varied conditions of the opera-
ations which the British Army must be prepared
to meet; while the measures which other nations
are taking to preserve horses of the Army type
would repay the critic's study. The department
would certainly be open to criticism if its eyes were
shut to the position in this country where the types
of horse which the Army needs are ceasing, as
motor transport spreads, to be a profitable invest-
ment to private breeders.

In this matter the work of the War Office consists
in a very modest scheme the administration of
subsidy grants to a total of ^5,000 a year for en-
couraging the breeding of the requisite types. For
the rest, continuous work is being done through the
forty-three District Remount Officers in classifying
the available supply of horses and in compiling lists
for use in emergency. Another duty is the actual
purchasing; for the Remount branch is an exception
to the rule that the War Office buys through its
Contracts department. The branch does its own
buying of horses, and the policy is to buy direct from
breeders and to purchase only in Great Britain, as far
as the nursing of markets permit. The Remount
depots in this country are at Arborfield Cross, near
Reading, and at Melton Mowbray.

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 169

The Army Veterinary Department dates from
1878. The Corps was created in 1903, and became
a royal corps in 1918. The Director-General at the
War Office deals with all questions of veterinary
service, and controls the training school and the
School of Farriery, both of which are at Aldershot.
Modern improvements in horse welfare form an
important side of the work. The best means of con-
veying horses by sea, and the transport of sick
animals in the field, may be quoted as typical Army
problems.

The last of the "Q.M.G.'s" charges is the large
directorate of Works, a sphere of the Corps of Royal
Engineers.

In a famous royal warrant of 1683 which set
forth the duties of the Board of Ordnance, the Chief
Engineer is a lesser official, "a person skilled in all
the parts of mathematicks" and competent to con-
struct fortifications, with four assistants under his
orders. Not until the reign of George I did the
Engineers become a military branch, as one of the
two "scientific corps" (the other being the Artillery)
created under Marlborough when the Duke was
Master-General of the Ordnance. The Engineers
then were officers only, the artisans being wholly
civilian and hired as circumstances required; but at
last, in 1772, a company of soldier-artificers was
raised who proved their worth at the siege of
Gibraltar, and in 1787 amid great opposition, for
Parliament feared such a dangerous innovation, six
similar companies were raised at home as the Corps

170 THE WAR OFFICE

of Military Artificers. The officers were now styled
"Royal Engineers/' but the corps remained a
distinct body, although both belonged to the Board
of Ordnance; and this continued to be the position
till the Board itself ceased to exist in the sweeping
reforms of the Crimean crisis. The united corps of
"Royal Engineers" came into being in the following
year (1856).

Meanwhile the really vital change, the creation of
the means of efficient training, had taken place in
1812 largely through the efforts of a single officer,
afterwards General Sir George Pasley. The sieges of
the Peninsular War were, Napier tells us, "a suc-
cession of butcheries" owing partly to the absence
of close connection between the R.E. officers and the
Corps of Artificers, and mainly to the lack of training
of both. Pasley wrote of the officers in 1 809 : "As for
practical instruction they had none; for they were
sent on service without even having seen a fascine
or a gabion, without the smallest knowledge of the
military passage of rivers, of military mining, or of
any other operation of a siege, excepting what they
might pick up from French writers." Similarly the
Corps of Artificers were mechanics who possessed
no knowledge of field duties.

Fortunately, in 1811, after two unsuccessful
sieges of Badajos, Wellington wrote to the Home
authorities and demanded that six of the com-
panies of Artificers should be renamed "Royal
Sappers and Miners," and should be given perma-
nent officers and "some instruction in their art,"
and the following year saw the royal warrant which
authorised the R.E. Establishment at Chatham,

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 171

now known as the "School of Military Engineering."
Major Pasley was the first Director, a post which he
held for 29 years, and thenceforth both the R.E.
officers and the Sappers and Miners were properly
trained. Pasley was the inventor of Portland cement.
His courses in "Practical Architecture" laid the
foundation of the building work which is the im-
mediate concern of the Directorate of Works.

The building of barracks, as already mentioned,
was started in earnest in 1792. The R.E. at first had
no hand in it. Contrary to all tradition the Board of
Ordnance was ignored and the work was entrusted
to a new officer who received the title Barrackmaster-
General, responsible to the Commander-in-Chief.
This gentleman spent 9,000,000, and was found
by a Parliamentary Commission to have grievously
wasted the public money; after which unfortunate
episode his department was made entirely civilian.
Nor were the Engineers responsible for those "field
works and other measures of Defence," such as
beacons, guard-houses and entrenched camps erected
in the southern counties under stress of fear of "the
French ogre*" An instance of these is the Royal
Military Canal from "Shorne-Cliffe in Kent to Cliffe
End in Sussex," which cost 221,306 35. 2|d.

Next, in 1822, the control of all works services
was re-transferred to the Board of Ordnance, and so
it remained till the Board was absorbed. The property
in all lands and buildings was then (1855-56) vested
in the Secretary of State for War, and the Inspector-
General of Fortifications, who had previously served
the Master-General of the Ordnance, retained the
control of construction services through all the several

172 THE WAR OFFICE

re-organisations that separated the Crimean changes
from the Esher Reports of 1 904. At the latter stage
an experiment was made. The construction of any
new barracks or hospital costing over ^2,000 was
removed from the control of the R.E. and entrusted
to a new branch, a special Barrack Construction
Department, assigned to the Parliamentary Under-
secretary of State and composed of civilian architects
and surveyors. But this Esher reform was not lasting,
and in 1917 the branch disappeared and the work
reverted to the R.E., under the Director of Forti-
fications and Works, whose title is now Director of
Works.

Engineer services in the field include the con-
struction of all installations such as store-sheds,
offices and workshop buildings, electric power and
pumping stations, bakeries, laundries, roads and
bridges ; and the employment of Royal Engineers in
peace-time to supervise all building services forms
an important part of their training. The building is
normally done by contract, and is very closely con-
trolled by the War Office. For ordinary repairs and
maintenance work the Commands are allowed a free
hand within a total allotment of money, except where
a service is particularly large; but every new capital
works service of over 100 in the case of hospitals
and 500 in other cases must be duly approved by
the "D.W." before the proposal may be put forward
for inclusion in the year's programme. With a strictly
limited total of money to be spent within the financial
year this plan is absolutely essential. It is necessary
to secure that the services included have been fully
explored as regards their merits and thoroughly

THE MATTER OF MAINTENANCE 173

settled as to cost and design, since delay in starting
a particular service on account of some point
which was not quite "ready," and the consequent
lapse at the end of the year of the money provided
in the Estimates, would have the result that some
other service had been crowded out to no good
purpose.

The point brings out an important feature in the
work of this directorate. The "D.W." does not
initiate services: his function is that of a technical
expert who carries out such building work as the
Army Council as a whole approves. Indeed there
is here a good illustration of the inter-working of
the several departments, which perhaps has been
too little stressed in sketching the separate functions
of each. The priority of urgency of all proposals is
settled between the Members of Council : the prime
advocate of hospital services being, for example, the
Adjutant-General, of a new barracks the Quarter-
Master-General, or of defence works the General
Staff. Though the money provided is a large total
over 2,800,000 in the Estimates for 1934
the competition is very severe; for in lean years
building services offer a tempting field for "cuts, 1 *
and the total for new construction and maintenance
fell by nearly 1,000,000 between 1927 and 1933.
As far as "maintenance" is concerned, which alone
costs over a million a year, this includes the upkeep
of all estates, telegraphs, telephones and fixed
machinery as well as of barracks, hospitals, ranges
and all other buildings and fortifications. The War
Office owns over seventy pumping stations, and
supplies its own electric current at thirty installations

174 THEWAROFFICE

at home and abroad at an average cost (1933) of
2.O9d. a unit.

As regards the last point it is the policy of the
department to make full use of the Grid system
wherever this plan would be economical and would
not present any military difficulty.

The directorate is organised in five branches. One
deals with building services at home; a second with
similar services abroad and all ranges and fortifi-
cations; and a third with electrical and mechanical
engineering, with the provision of stores in peace
and war, and the organisation of the special staff (the
"Staff for Works and Engineer Services") consisting
of military inspectors and surveyors, and military
and civilian clerks of works, foremen, mechanists
and so on. The fourth deals with the design of
barracks, and the fifth with quantity surveying. There
is also a special technical branch which reports direct
to the "Q.M.G." and is concerned with the testing
of work done and the independent checking of bills.

The organisation of the department as a whole is
summed up in a diagram. The staff of the "Q.M.G/'
at the War Office consisted on ist April, 1934, of
60 officers, serving or retired, 87 military and civilian
clerks, and 66 civilians in technical posts. This in-
cludes the Inspector of R.A.S.C. Services who re-
ports to the Director of Military Training on the
training of troops for war and to "Q.M.G." on other
matters. The special position of the branch of
"Finance" which is attached to this military depart-
ment will be mentioned in a later chapter.

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Chapter IX
THE MATTER OF ARMS

THE fourth military division of the War Office is the
department of the Master-General of the Ordnance,
which deals with weapons and fighting material and,
in general, with the stores of the Army. It thus traces
its lineage to the Board of Ordnance, that venerable
and prolific body established in the fifteenth century
whose three other distinguished descendants are the
Royal Regiment of Artillery, the Corps of Royal
Engineers, and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
True to this historic tradition one of the Master-
General's directors deals with guns and small arms,
a second with engineer stores and mechanised
vehicles, a third is the Director of Ordnance Services,
and the fourth is Director of the Ordnance Factories
where warlike stores are manufactured.

The revival of this ancient title was a happy in-
spiration of the Esher triumvirate. Before a Secretary-
at-War existed at all the Master of the Ordnance was
a great appointment; and while the small civil office
was growing in power the Master-General stood
independent, was a principal military adviser to the
Crown, and was normally a Cabinet Minister. Even
at the end of the eighteenth century when the office
of Commander-in-Chief was created, the Master-
General and his "scientific corps" formed a separate
side of the military picture proudly distinct from "the

THE MATTER OF ARMS 177

Army" at large. The officers and men of these Ord-
nance Corps were not included in the numbers which
were mentioned annually in the preamble of the
Mutiny Act. In the Napoleonic wars, again, that
aloof body the Board of Ordnance possessed a
separate medical department: the Board provided its
own engineers while a separate corps of military
artificers, called the Royal Staff Corps, was formed
by the Army : the Board organised its own transport
while the Army created a Royal Waggon Train. In
the Crimean War half a century later the Artillery
and the Engineers were better served than the rest
of the forces, since the Master-General looked after
his own. The eminent holders of this high post, before
it disappeared in 1855, included Marlborough, Wel-
lington and Raglan.

Although the birth of the Ordnance office is not
traced before the fifteenth century, engineers and
"artillery*' craftsmen had appeared on the scene at
a much earlier date. The term "ordnance" was far
more ancient, and included all weapons and engines
of war. Large catapults and battering-rams in
addition to armour, bows and pikes were stocked at
the Tower from early times, and at the siege of Calais
in 1347, when a rude form of cannon was certainly
used, there were engineers and armourers, gunners
and artillerymen ("ingeniatores, armatores, gunna-
tores et artillarii"). In these early days and for long
afterwards the functions of gunners and engineers
were combined in the "trains of artillery " which were
specially raised for each campaign. Thus a train sent
on service in 1544 under Sir Thomas Seymour,
Master of the Ordnance, included 2 master-gunners,

N

178 THEWAROFFICE

209 gunners, 157 artificers, a chief conductor, 4 men
to look after "the King's great mares," 6 conductors
of the ordnance, 20 carters and a captain command-
ing 100 pioneers.

The first cannon were constructed of lengths
of wrought iron strengthened with hoops and
fired with peril, and no mention of casting occurs
in this country before the year 1521 when "great
brass cannon and culverins" began to be made by
one John Owen. Quaint names appear in Elizabeth's
time, such as bombards, robinets, falcons and min-
ions, the name varying with the size of the piece and
the largest being the basiliske; and a century later
there were "culverin drakes" 8 feet in length, and
"saker-drakes." In the course of the seventeenth
century the use of guns became universal, but, while
they varied immensely in calibre, they were very few
in proportion to the forces. When James II attempted
to terrorise London, the guns for his fourteen regi-
ments at Hounslow were a small number of brass
3-pounders under Gentlemen of the Ordnance and
a few attendants, 2 demi-culverins and 6 mortars;
and the artillery train which was raised for Marl-
borough in his first campaign of 1702 consisted of
34 pieces in all, including 14 sakers and 4 howitzers.
The howitzer was a cross between two other types :
the cannon proper, cast in iron or brass and firing a
solid projectile direct, and the mortar, very short and
squat, with a fixed elevation of 45 degrees. These
three types remained in use throughout the eigh-
teenth century.

The Royal Regiment of Artillery was born in the
year 1716, starting as two companies of gunners,

THE MATTER OF ARMS 179

and remained under the control of the Board of
Ordnance, commanded by the Master-General, until
the Board was abolished in 1855. From the first the
Regiment grew steadily. In the Seven Years' War
(1756-63) the R.A. served in the East and West
Indies, North America, the Mediterranean, Ger-
many and at Belleisle, and reached a total of 30 com-
panies. Throughout this time the movement of the
guns was managed by hiring horses and drivers:
indeed it was not until 1822 that a transport corps
of Artillery Drivers, which had been created for the
French war, was absorbed into the Royal Regiment.
The long struggle against Napoleon saw a great
increase in the Artillery, the strength reaching
25,000 men; but reaction followed Waterloo and
the Regiment was allowed to dwindle. In 1845 ^ e
number voted for all ranks was only 7,039.

Improvement began two years later, following a
letter which Wellington wrote pointing out the
defenceless condition of the country. There had
been no artillery range at all until Shoeburyness was
acquired in that year. The era was one of repeated
panics. In 1852 the strength of the Regiment had
risen to 11,972. Then, with Lord Hardinge as
Commander-in-Chief an able and distinguished
soldier and Sidney Herbert as Secretary-at-War,
a great re-armament was started, and 300 new guns
were ordered to supplement the few old pieces which
remained as relics of Waterloo. These were mainly
9-pounders our movable armament at the Crimea.

In the sweeping changes at home, when the Board
of Ordnance disappeared, the R.A. and the^R.E.
took their place at last alongside of the Cavalry and

180 THE WAR OFFICE

the Infantry as integral parts of the Army, while the
"civil" duty of providing munitions was vested in
the Secretary of State for War, with the Director-
General, Royal Artillery, as technical adviser on
armaments and the Inspector-General of Forti-
fications as adviser on engineering stores. To com-
plete the War Office side of the story, in the Stan-
hope plan of 1887 responsibility for design and
demand shared the general concentration in the
hands of the Commander-in-Chief as head of the
new Military Department; but when that depart-
ment was split again in the changes of 1895 "war-
like stores, patterns and inventions" were allotted
to one of the five great officers then known as
Inspector-General of Ordnance. An Order in Council
of 1899 substituted the title "Director-General" and
added the charge of the Ordnance Factories; and
finally with the Esher Reports came the very appro-
priate revival of the ancient name of "Master-
General."

Of the Master-General's four directors the first,
the Director of Artillery, deals with all natures of
artillery and ammunition from coast-defence equip-
ments to mortars, with small arms and machine guns,
and with the problems of modern research in those
fields; while the second, the Director of Mechan-
isation, has similar functions in regard to engineer
and signal stores as well as in regard to mechanised
vehicles. In the following outline, as a matter of
convenience, the two sets of duties are treated
together.

THE MATTER OF ARMS 181

The development of our modern weapons is a
subject both lengthy and highly technical, but a few
points are of general interest. The smooth-bore gun
used at the Crimea, a solid casting of iron or bronze
with its round projectile loaded at the muzzle, was
a weapon simple to understand, if troublesome to
operate. The modern 1 8-pounder gun comprises over
1 20 parts, while its operation is exceedingly simple.
The scientific construction of guns may be said to
date from 1859, when Lord Armstrong invented a
rifled cannon which not only was loaded at the
breech but, instead of being a solid casting, was
built up of coils of wrought-iron shrunk on to a tube
of steel. Neither steel, however, nor breech-loading
found favour for long with the experts of the day,
but the new system of "building up" enabled enor-
mous weapons to be made weighing 81 tons and
100 tons, which were still muzzle-loaders and made
of wrought-iron. The notable point is that breech-
loading was tried and rejected for the time being. It
was not until 1883-85 that an all-steel breech-loading
gun, a i2-pounder of 7 cwt., made a first appearance
in Army use as the arm of the Horse and the Field
Artillery, and was received, we are told,* with paeans
of praise. The first breech-loading field-howitzer
appeared in 1895.

Meanwhile a smokeless propellant had arrived,
the new "cordite" replacing gunpowder; and the
quick-firing gun came on the scene. Rearmament
was delayed by the Boer War, but the Secretary
of State in 1904 announced a scheme costing
3,000,000 for providing new quick-firing guns

* Note 17, page 346.

1 82 THEWAROFFICE

for both the Horse and the Field Artillery. In
1914 our movable armament consisted of these two
quick-firing guns (the 13-pounder and the 18-
pounder), the 4.5 and 6-inch howitzers, and the
6o-pounder for heavy batteries. The extreme range
of our field artillery at that date was approximately
five miles.

As regards small arms, the story begins with the
hand-gun or arquebus, a weapon extremely clumsy
to handle, the user supporting one end while a stick
in the ground supported the muzzle. Used first, it
appears, in the Wars of the Roses, it probably caused
more oaths than damage. However, in the days of
Henry VIII the hand-gun was superseding the
bow; but although it then possessed a stock, it had
not ceased to be most unwieldy, its muzzle still
requiring a prop. Indeed at this time the musketeer
encumbered as he was with a pouch for bullets,
fine powder for priming, coarse powder for the
charge, and a piece of slow-match lit at both ends
could fire perhaps 1 2 shots in an hour and required
an escort of pikemen to guard him. The rate of fire
improved slowly, and by the time of James I (1603-
25) the arms of the Foot were the musket and pike
in approximately equal proportions, while the Horse
were armed with a weighty pistol. Next, the extremely
dangerous method of igniting the powder by means
of a match gave way to the spark produced by friction,
and the match-lock slowly went out of use ; the flint-
lock began to replace the pike, and the hand-grenade
made its appearance, carried, as Evelyn tells in his
Diary, by "a new sort of soldier called grenadiers."
The regiments armed with the flint-lock musket were

THE MATTER OF ARMS 183

given the name "Fusiliers," derived from a Spanish
word for flint. But now the bayonet came into use;
and by the dawn of the eighteenth century pikes and
grenades were ceasing to be carried, and the musket
and bayonet held the field.

In the next hundred years there was little change:
the "Brown Bess" used at Waterloo was practically
the same as the flint-lock musket that was used
by Marlborough's troops at Blenheim: its effective
range was 50 yards. Meanwhile, however, on the
Continent elementary rifles had come into use. The
new invention, a rifled musket, was carried by
some of Napoleon's corps; and in fact in this
country in the year 1800 a Rifle Corps, specially
formed, had been given this new "arm of pre-
cision"; but the old smooth-bore was the general
weapon. Next came the invention of the percussion
cap, and the early years of the reign of Victoria
witnessed the conversion of "Brown Bess" from
flint-lock to percussion firing. It remained a most
unreliable weapon. Then just before the Crimean
War, as a result of years of experiment, a new rifle
was introduced with a range of about 900 yards
which, in the words of The Times correspondent,
"smote the enemy like a destroying angel"; and the
smooth-bore musket was doomed at last.

This rifle, which came to be known as the Enfield,
was still, however, a muzzle-loader. It was the suc-
cess of the Prussians, when they fought Denmark
using their so-called "needle-gun," that settled the
fate of muzzle-loading and led to conversion to
breech-loading in 1866-68. The next big step the
repeating rifle was due to American invention.

184 THE WAR OFFICE

England adopted the Lee-Metford, with a magazine
carrying 8 rounds; cordite followed in 1891 and the
Lee-Enfield in 1895, an( ^ the tatter was the type, in
general principles, of our standard rifle in the Great
War.

The machine gun was also an American invention.
The Navy first adopted the Catling, and a few
of these guns were used by the Army in the Zulu
War of 1879; but they were outclassed by the
Maxim gun invented in 1883. The Maxim was first
introduced to the Army in the year 1891, and to the
German army in 1899. The Vickers model as used
in the Great War was a modernised version of the
Maxim pattern.

Turning to the task of the present day as shared
by the Directors of Artillery and of Mechanisation,
the great and primary responsibility which rests
upon the Master-General of the Ordnance is to see
that the Army is adequately provided in the whole
range of military equipments which are generally
known as "warlike stores."

And how vast is the change from the "good old
days' '1 The complexity of the weapons of to-day
hardly requires to be emphasised. Delicate sighting
and range-finding instruments and a further mass
of intricate devices are the normal accompaniments
of modern artillery. Anti-aircraft defence, to quote
an instance, includes the use of elaborate apparatus
apart from the modern searchlight plant. Incident-
ally, defence from the ground, as opposed to defence
in the air itself, is the task of the Army, not of the
Air Force, and the development of the modern
instruments, such as sound-locators and predictors,

THE MATTER OF ARMS 185

falls in the province of the "M.G.O." (A sound-
locator is an invention which detects and locates
the approach of aircraft; and a predictor is an
ingenious instrument which provides automatic
adjustments of angles enabling the gun to be
ranged on the target not a simple feat for a
gunner to face when the target is moving high
up in the air at, say, three times the pace of an ex-
press train.) Thus guns of all natures, rifles, machine
guns, ammunition, tanks, tracked and wheeled
transport, chemical defence appliances, optical in-
struments, bridging equipment, wireless stores in
fact the whole range of technical apparatus which
goes to equip a modern army form a field of work
for these two directors which grows in intricacy
every year; and the first part of their responsibility
may be summed up in the three words Research,
Design and Experiment.

The British Army, small in size, must at least be
highly scientific, and a clear duty which falls to
the War Office is to keep abreast or ahead of modern
developments in every department of war material.
The place of research and experiment in the kind
of problems which confront the department might
be illustrated by the case of tanks. Just as the
weapons of early days were countered by the
wearing of armour, and armour in its turn be-
came quite useless and ultimately was discarded
in face of the bullet, so the modern machine
gun produced the tank, the tank produces an anti-
tank weapon, and an anti-tank gun will produce
. . . what? Sixteen years have passed since the War
and a role which was successful then cannot now be

i86 THEWAROFFICE

accepted blindly. Improvements in speed, armour,
fire-power, radius of action and wireless control
would seem to make it a simple task to produce the
ideal fighting machine; but meanwhile the experts
of all the world turn their attention to automatic
weapons capable of piercing the tank's defences,
The obvious counter is thicker armour: but thicker
armour means greater weight and greater weight
means less speed. Keep up the speed with more
powerful engines and you have a machine which is
vastly expensive, which takes perhaps nine months
to make and which, owing to its increased compli-
cation, has probably lost the important quality of
being easy to repair and maintain in the field. A
new question is then presented is it better to rely
on a few powerful tanks, or a much larger number of
lighter vehicles which have greater speed and radius
of action but are less formidably armed and less well
protected?

Problems of similar complication arise over the
whole field of weapons, and the policy to be pur-
sued in each case is primarily a matter for the General
Staff; but when the latter has said what "per-
formance" it requires in a tank, in a gun, in bridging
or " wireless, " the devising of the scientific ways
and means and the translation of these into actual
stores is a technical task reserved for experts: and
this is a duty of the "M.G.O." Modern science
moves very quickly: it affects the whole range of
munition stores ; and the search for improved efficiency
can never be allowed to rest. Research, design and
experiment are, therefore, all-important functions.

The Director of Artillery has four branches, the

THE MATTER OF ARMS 187

first of which deals with heavy armaments for coast
defence and kindred purposes, with anti-aircraft
guns and instruments, and with the means of defence
against chemical warfare; the second is concerned
with Field Army equipments ; and a third with small
arms and machine guns. The Director of Mechan-
isation has three: one for engineer and signal stores;
one for tracked and semi-tracked vehicles such as
tanks or dragons, and armoured cars (these are
known as "A" vehicles), and one for mechanical
wheeled vehicles (these are known as "B" vehicles),
except the provision of the transport vehicles used
by the Royal Army Service Corps. In passing, the
"dragon" -pulls the gun, as distinct from the fighting
vehicles proper, which are the tank and the armoured
car. The Director of Artillery's fourth branch is the
linking section of the whole department, and also
deals with inventions and patents and administers
an important array of establishments concerned with
research, design and experiment. These latter func-
tions are managed as follows :

First there are six advisory Committees. The
Ordnance Committee is a joint body of experts which
looks to all the three Fighting Services to set the
problems with which it deals. It advises on matters
of construction and design of guns, ammunition and
explosives generally, and the progress of science in
these fields. The Small Arms Committee and the
Chemical Defence Committee again advise the
Services jointly. The remaining three serve the
Army only. The Royal Artillery Committee advises
on artillery equipment the gun-carriage, buffers,
sights, etc. The R.E. Board deals with engineering as

i88 THE WAR OFFICE

applied to the work of the Royal Engineers and the
needs of the Royal Corps of Signals. The newly
named Mechanisation Board is concerned, of course,
with mechanical vehicles. These Committees are
assisted, in most cases, by eminent civilian scientists
who serve on them in an honorary capacity. They
constitute an invaluable link with the world of
thought outside the Services and the progress of
modern invention generally. They advise on experi-
ments: they are told what the Services desire to
achieve and they control the work of the establish-
ments which actually carry out the experiments.

The purely scientific research problems and the
work of designing the actual stores are handled by
other technical bodies. Thus the Research Depart-
ment, situated at Woolwich, has branches for re-
search in metallurgy, explosives, radiology and
ballistics, which work under civilian heads of high
scientific qualifications; and the Chemical Defence
Research Department has an establishment at
Porton near Salisbury, a smaller station at Sutton
Oak (Lanes.), and Research centres at the univer-
sities, where the problems involved in protection
from gas are the special business of expert staffs.
These two, again, are joint establishments, working
for all the three Services; and so also is the Design
Department which translates the work of the
Advisory Committees and the findings of the Research
departments into actual drawings and specifications.
The latter task involves original design, development
as a result of trials, and final drawings to govern
production, and covers, of course, the whole field of
munitions guns, gun-carriages and mountings,

THE MATTER OF ARMS 189

small arms, tanks, all classes of vehicles, and am-
munition and allied stores. In the matter of "A" and
"B" vehicles a great deal of design-work is done by
the Trade, by such firms, for example, as Vickers-
Armstrongs and Morris.

As regards the work of experiment, there are
eight "experimental establishments/' The Research
Department has a special section called the "Proof
and Experimental Establishment" which carries out
the "proof" of guns and carriages, propellants,
cartridge cases, etc., and in the course of the tests
made at the proof-butts assists in the work of ballistic
research. The trials of guns which involve firings at
long range are conducted by another establishment,
"the Experimental Establishment" at Shoeburyness,
where the wide expanses of sand and water provide
unique facilities for testing explosives and armour-
plate and the performance of guns and ammunition.
A third, the Experimental Station at Porton, deals
with stores for chemical defence. In these establish-
ments all three Services are represented on the
officer-staff.

The remaining five are purely Army concerns,
though available to the other Services. The Small
Arms and Machine Gun Experimental Establish-
ment is at Hythe. For experiments with mechanised
vehicles the establishment is at Farnborough; for
air-defence stores, such as searchlights, there is a
special station at Biggin Hill (Kent); for signal
stores at Woolwich; and for bridging equipment
at Christchurch (Hants). The last three are con-
trolled by the R.E. Board and combine the work
of experiment and design: indeed, throughout the

1 90 THE WAR OFFICE

whole range of stores, whether engineering or other
types, the distinction between research and experi-
ment, and again between experiment and design,
cannot in practice be perfectly clear-cut. These
functions merge into each other. The other general
point to be noted is the joint use made of the same
establishments whenever that course is economical.
As a rule the Army is the predominant partner, but
in a few cases such as Optical Research, where naval
interests are the largest, the War Office makes a cash
contribution in aid of an Admiralty institution.

The tale of establishments is not yet complete.
When research, design, experiment and trials have
resulted finally in manufacture there still remains
a vital function the inspection of the completed
store by an independent inspecting authority. There
are four Inspection departments in all: the Chief
Inspector of Armaments (Woolwich); the Chief
Inspector of Small Arms (Enfield); the Chief In-
spector of R.E. Stores (Woolwich); and the War
Department Chemist (Woolwich); and the total
number of civilian workers employed under the
Inspecting staffs is about 2,350.

Inspection is of several kinds: of new stores
before acceptance, of damaged stores which require
repair, and the periodical inspection of stores in
the Service, including reserves. Over half a million
gauges are used by the Chief Inspector of Arma-
ments, and these are made in most cases to a very
delicate measure of accuracy three to five io,oooths
of an inch. The plain fact is that with warlike stores,
especially in the case of guns and ammunition, the
risk of mistakes cannot be taken; but the large size

THE MATTER OF ARMS 191

of the Inspection departments is not wholly due to
that cause. The technical facilities possessed by these
departments are specially adapted for other services:
for example, the repair of gun ammunition can often
be carried out most economically at the time when
the stocks are under inspection ; and this is one duty
of "C.I./i." Other duties include technical advice,
the preparation of the drawings and specifications
which are issued for the use of contractors, and the
drafting of the handbooks and regulations which
govern the use of stores in service. The list of com-
ponents of the medium tank is a large book of
drawings and details containing about 2,500 items.
Lastly, the Military College of Science, an edu-
cational establishment, is also administered by the
"M.G.O." This was originally the Artillery College,
which changed its name to the "Ordnance College"
and then back to the "Artillery College," and was
finally re-christened in 1927. A sound foundation of
scientific knowledge is becoming increasingly im-
portant in the Army, and the College is open to all
arms for courses in physics, chemistry, mathematics,
and all subjects essential to training in science as
applied to artillery, mechanised traction and the use
of modern equipments generally. The teaching is
concerned with theory and principles: the actual
use of the various equipments is studied in courses
at the schools of instruction (the Coast Artillery
School, for example) which are under the direction
of the General Staff. The average number of students
at the College was estimated for 1934 at 75 officers
and 305 "other ranks"; and another side of the
work there is the technical training of apprentice

192 THE WAR OFFICE

artificers for the Royal Artillery about 150 boys
in 1934.

One of the "D. of A.'s" branches deals, as men-
tioned above, with inventions, and not all of these
have the same simplicity, the same attractive boldness
of conception that characterised a certain idea which
was offered to the department in pre-war days. This
was nothing less than a brilliant plan to make
London safe from attack from the air, and a promi-
nent newspaper commented scathingly on the crass
obtuseness of War Office soldiers who had merely
acknowledged the inventor's letters in place of dis-
playing a suitable interest. But the Press had not
seen the inventor's papers. The idea, which was
naturally very secret, was to manufacture a gigantic
umbrella composed of mesh of the best steel and to
open it neatly above the metropolis. Somehow or
other it never matured.

One duty, then, of the "M.G.O." is that of keep-
ing abreast of the march of science in the matter of
the Army's weapons; but a second heavy responsi-
bility is concerned with the problem of reserve of
stores.

Ammunition provides an illustration. In the event
of war there must always be a gap between the
moment when the troops first take the field, carry-
ing with them a first supply, and the time when
supplies can be manufactured and can reach the
troops in sufficient amount to balance the actual rate
of consumption. Supplies sufficient to bridge that
gap, in addition to the first supply, should obviously
be held in peace. In the case of a store which could
be bought "over the counter" the problem would

THE MATTER OF ARMS 193

hardly exist at all : but the case of warlike stores is
different, for a gun may take many months to make ;
ammunition, which also takes time to make, is
likely to be consumed in vast quantities ; and similar
considerations affect the whole list from guns and
tanks to rifle ammunition. (How important it is to
use motor machines of which the spare parts are
interchangeable and are readily obtainable from
commercial sources can be understood in this con-
nection.) Where stores take many weeks to produce
reserves adequate to bridge the gap must be bought
and stored at great cost, and thus it is a problem of
extreme importance to hold the minimum stocks of
reserves consistent with what may be called "safety."
The responsibility involved is very great. On broad
questions of policy, such as the maximum scale of
emergency for which the Army must be prepared,
the responsibility rests with the Government and
Governments have fallen before now as a result of
disclosures as to "missing" reserves but within the
scope of the policy prescribed by the Government
the Army Council are responsible collectively that
reserves shall be held of a certain size; and the
"M.G.O." is the expert concerned who advises as
to ways and means and is responsible for the actual
provision and holding. One point that is not always
well understood is that ammunition is not a store
which, once manufactured, can simply be stocked;
it possesses parts that are perishable: and a second
point to be noted is this that when a store is a new
development, as a tank or a wireless equipment
might be, and at the same time is extremely costly,
the War Office has to make up its mind how far,

I 9 4 THE WAR OFFICE

with its very restricted means, it will invest in stocks
which in two years' time may prove to have been
superseded.

Thus the problem of reserves is far from simple ;
and, quite apart from questions of fixity of design
or the cost involved in the provision of the stocks,
all changes in manufacturing capacity, whether
in the Trade or in the Government factories, alter
the data for calculating what quantities can be
made available ; while all changes in the requirements
of the troops alter the data on the other side. Special
machinery is employed in the War Office to deal
with this very vital question, and a small section
under the "D. of A." provides a permanent "secre-
tariat" which collates the data on each class of store
for periodical review.

The third Director is the "D.O.S." who controls
the business of Ordnance Services, which is carried
out in the local Commands by the Royal Army
Ordnance Corps and a staff of some 7,000 civilians.

The word "ordnance" is used confusingly. Nor-
mally "ordnance" suggests guns, but "ordnance
stores," in military language, are all stores of any
kind which are handled by the Royal Army Ordnance
Corps, and these range from a toothbrush or a nail
to tanks or guns of the heaviest natures, and indeed
include most kinds of military stores.

To appreciate the scope of Ordnance services the
reader should bear in mind a distinction between
"maintenance" work and "provision" work. Storage,
issue and local repair mav be said to constitute

THE MATTER OF ARMS 195

"maintenance"; and this is a duty of the "D.O.S."
in respect of the whole range of stores. Thus one
side of Ordnance work is the storekeeping of all
equipment, and its care and repair in peace and
war. But another side concerns "provision/* the
ordering of the stores required. Other Directors,
as already noted, are responsible for providing guns,
ammunition, vehicles and building stores, but
"D.O.S." has certain "provision" duties which he
carries out on their behalf; while in the case of
the stores which are called "general," and also of
all clothing stores, the "D.O.S." not only is the
storekeeper but is responsible for their provision
from first to last. "General stores" include camp
equipment, harness and saddlery, accoutrements,
tools, barrack and hospital equipment and all stores
that are not technical. (In War Office language the
distinction is simpler since the stores are bought
under separate Votes, as shown in the Army
Estimates. Thus warlike stores are "Vote 9 stores,"
building stores are "Vote 10," general stores are
"Vote 8," and clothing stores are "Vote 7.")

In both duties, "maintenance" and "provision,"
the D.O.S. has a large task. The function of "main-
tenance" is carried out locally in Ordnance depots
and Ordnance workshops and the number of items
held in the depots is an indication of the range of
the work: the number of different parts of tanks
and dragons adds up to some 30,000 alone, and the
number of items in the whole list runs into several
hundreds of thousands. There are six Central Ord-
nance Depots, of which the largest are at Woolwich
and Didcot, administered by the "D.O.S." through

196 THE WAR OFFICE

a Deputy Director at Woolwich Arsenal. There are
also 33 depots in the Commands which issue stores
direct to the troops, and 30 local Ordnance work-
shops which carry out larger (but not "factory")
repairs which the units cannot do for themselves. In
these days, it need hardly be said, workshops are
becoming more and more vital and Ordnance
Mechanical Engineers an increasingly important
body of officers. As regards "provision," the largest
task for the Ordnance is the adjustment of the stocks
required of each of many thousands of stores to keep
pace with current demands and to keep reserves at
their right level. Here again the agent of "D.O.S."
is the Deputy Director at Woolwich, who in this
sense of "provision" work is practically a universal
provider. Thus in the current provision of artillery
stores he acts on behalf of the "D. of A.," and of
(say) tank-parts for the "D. of M.," while in the case
of general stores and clothing he is acting directly
for "D.O.S." The task of the War Office in these
spheres lies in general control and policy.

Among these duties of "D.O.S." is the preparation
of the equipment tables which prescribe the exact
stores to be held by every unit throughout the Army,
and the assembly, storage and turnover of the stores
which will be required in case of emergency. In war,
as in peace, the R.A.O.C. holds and is responsible
for the bulk handling of practically all the stores of
the Army. (The point up to which the R.A.O.C. is
responsible for delivering stores in the field is,
generally speaking, the rail-head. From that point
R.A.S.C. transport carries the stores up to the
units.)

THE MATTER OF ARMS 197

To deal with the control of this work the "D.O.S."
has four branches, apart from the Ordnance office
at Woolwich. One administers the military personnel
in conjunction with the Adjutant-General (as in the
case of the R.A.S.C.); is responsible for their tech-
nical training through the medium of a School of
Instruction; and deals with the Ordnance civilian
staff. A second is concerned with "general stores";
a third with mechanical engineering and the repair
of technical equipments ; and the fourth with organ-
isation for war, reserves, and the business of dress
and clothing.

The past history of store-holding is a tortuous and
intricate tale, but one or two points can be stated
briefly.

The story begins with the Board of Ordnance
which in early times held all stores. A sixteenth-
century list, for example, mentions not only "shot,
corn-powder, . . . match and all other munitions, as
fireworks, bows, arrows, strings, pikes, bills, halberds"
and so on, but also "all kinds of necessaries, that is
to say ladders, ladles and sponges for artillery,
mattocks, spades, shovels, pick-axes, crows of iron,
. . . lights, lanterns, candles and links." Later
the Board concerned itself mainly with its own
"scientific" offspring who developed into the gun-
ners and sappers ; and indeed in the course of the
Napoleonic Wars several new departments were
brought into being (for example, the Barrackmaster-
General and the Military Storekeeper-General) to
perform services for the rest of the Army which the
Board carried out for its own corps; but these dis-
appeared after Waterloo and the duties returned to

198 THE WAR OFFICE

the Ordnance office. The stores held in 1831 were
valued at 7,000,000.

When Wellington was Master-General (1818-27)
we know from his Ordnance Regulations that the
Board was intended to be responsible in the field
for the holding and issue of all stores ; but we also
know that in the Crimean War this intention was
not carried out in practice. At the Crimea there was
no one central Stores authority until, by a great
but belated reform in the autumn of 1855, the
stores held by the Quarter-Master-General, the
Artillery train, the Engineers, the Purveyor and
the Transport train were all taken over and "cen-
tralised" in the hands of a single Ordnance Store-
keeper. This was the year when the Board of
Ordnance at home was absorbed into the new War
Office. It was the birth of a new era. The Board
had been a civil concern which held its stores very
tightly, possibly because it was considered to be
dangerous for the standing Army to possess such
stores ; but now it was only a matter of time for the
new "Military Stores Department," responsible to
the Secretary of State, to become a military organis-
ation. First, in 1861, the officers of the department
were given commissions; next, in 1865, a corps of
"other ranks" was formed; and after many changes
of titles, amalgamations and re-organisations both
outside and within the War Office, and the addition
of a corps of armourers and, later, of Inspectors of
Ordnance Machinery, the custodians of Army
stores emerged as the Army Ordnance Department
controlling an array of civilian storekeepers and also
an Army Ordnance Corps consisting of military

THE MATTER OF ARMS 199

"other ranks." These were placed by the Esher
Reforms under the administration of the "Q.M.G.,"
and this was the position in 1914. The amalgamation
into a single corps, with the title "Royal," took
place in November, 1918.

The control of the patterns and the supply of
clothing is a part-duty, as mentioned above, of one
ofthe"D.O.S." branches.

The fact that it is only a part-duty is significant
of changed conditions. Time was when extremely
elaborate uniforms and meticulous niceties of
decoration were considered to be vastly important:
to-day the wearing of full dress is confined to the
Household Cavalry, the Brigade of Guards and
regimental bands, and the normal "service dress"
of the Army is designed to be strictly workmanlike.

Distinctive dress for the fighting man was adopted
in very early days with the hope of terrifying the
enemy, protecting the body or distinguishing the
troops ; but by the dawn of the eighteenth century
such practical motives had been discarded. It is
true that the resplendent garb and the minute
precision in details of dress, the ruffles, lace,
cockades and so on, imposed on the Army from
this time onwards, were based to some extent at
least on the supposed moral effect on the wearer.
The Prussian-derived love of display which pro-
duced the most elaborate garments originally
possessed a psychological object; the soldier who
wore such a fine uniform would hesitate to be less
than brave : but the dress of the post- Waterloo era,
unthinkably tight and uncomfortable and utterly
unsuited for fighting work, carried tradition to crazy

200 THE WAR OFFICE

lengths. The modern attention to health and
comfort dates, like so many other improvements,
from the sufferings borne by the troops at the
Crimea. The traditional British red coat was finally
abolished, except for ceremonial purposes, in the
year 1902.

One or two further historical points may possibly
be of interest. The wearing of red was confined to
the Army, apart from the Royal Family and servants,
in the year 1698; and in 1742 all regiments wore
red with the exception of the Horse Guards and the
Artillery. Until about the latter date there had been
no difference in general style between military and
civilian dress. The three-cornered hat of the eigh-
teenth century was modelled on the prevailing
fashion in which we may picture Johnson or Garrick :
it gave place to the shako in 1800. Knee-breeches,
stockings and shoes disappeared in favour of
trousers and boots as late as 1823. The red coat was
last worn in the field at the battle of Ginnis in 1885.
It was worn deliberately on that occasion with the
hope of impressing the Dervishes; for the khaki
originally adopted in India had been worn in hot
climates for some years past.

As regards the system, the soldier was clothed by
his colonel from the first beginning of the standing
Army to the time of the Crimean War. The cost
was deducted from the soldier's pay and the colonel
derived as much profit as he could. Marlborough,
that great administrator, established a Board of
General Officers who were to supervise the provision
of clothing by every colonel to sealed patterns ; but
in later days the Board grew lax, its inspection of

THE MATTER OF ARMS 201

samples became a farce, and both colonels and
contractors made handsome profits while the soldier
suffered and paid highly. Then, in the Crimean
changes, the Board and the colonels' financial
interests were abolished at the same time: the pro-
vision of clothing and equipment was taken over by
the Secretary of State, and a Director of Clothing
became responsible for everything hitherto found by
the regiment. The Clothing Department at Pimlico
was opened in 1859, and was enlarged to include a
factory, where the State could make its own uniforms,
in 1863.

Meanwhile the clothing, except the greatcoat, was
still the soldier's own property, since the cost was
a charge against his pay. This principle was aban-
doned in 1 88 1, and the provision of clothing as
State property gave rise to a mass of most intricate
regulations which were modified and re-modified
until the modern system was introduced. The great-
coat is still " public clothing," but the remainder of
the soldier's kit is divided into "personal clothing"
such as boots, caps, jackets and trousers, and
"necessaries" such as razors and brushes, socks,
underclothing and so on. The soldier starts with a
free kit, and thereafter receives a money allowance
sufficient to pay for replacement and washing. The
system works well and encourages thrift. The annual
cost of clothing of an Infantry soldier after the year
of his first outfit is calculated in the Estimates for
1934 at 6 155. 4d. The clothing is now wholly
made by the Trade under orders placed by the
Contracts department. This recent change will be
mentioned later.

202 THE WAR OFFICE

The responsibility for Army clothing was trans-
ferred to the military side of the War Office in 1 899.
It was assigned to theQuarter-Master-General in the
Esher Reforms of 1 904, and was only transferred to
the "M.G.O." as part of the duty of Ordnance
Services in the change of 1927. The task of "pro-
vision" is not wholly simple. The proportion required
of each size of garment has to be kept under constant
review, for the brilliant suggestion which was once
offered to abolish much unnecessary complication
by accepting recruits of one size only has never
appealed to the Adjutant-General whose task it is to
find the men. Further, there are two stages both of
storage and of inspection, since the materials for
made-up clothing are first purchased in bulk by the
War Office and are then issued as required to con-
tractors who "make up" the garments to sealed
patterns. The patterns include such small details as
the threads, buttons and hooks to be used.

Another recurrent task for the War Office is the re-
calculation of the clothing allowance. This must vary,
of course, with the cost of the articles in such a way
as to be fair to both sides to the soldier who has to
replace his clothing and to the taxpayer who provides
the money. More interesting, perhaps, is the constant
attempt to improve the kit in quality or comfort,
and to lighten the weight to be carried in the field.
The Infantry soldier at the Crimea carried, in full
marching order, a total weight of nearly 64 lb.: the
parallel figure for the soldier of to-day, including his
steel helmet and respirator but not including his
greatcoat, would be just under 53lb. This may be
reduced still further as a result of experiments now

THE MATTER OF ARMS 203

proceeding. The so-called "new uniform," of which
mention has been made in Parliament and the Press,
is a new type of service dress for use on field training
or active service. It has nothing to do with the normal
dress in which the soldier is seen in peace-time.

The actual production of munition stores is shared
between contracts placed with the Trade and orders
given to the Ordnance Factories, and the latter are
administered by the "M.G.O." through hisjburth
Director, the "D.O.F."

The Royal Ordnance Factories consist of the
following:

At Woolwich. The Royal Ammunition Factory,
the Royal Filling Factory, and the Royal Gun and
Carriage Factory, with an Engineering and Building
Works Department which serves the whole of the
Arsenal and Dockyard area.

At Enfield Lock. The Royal Small Arms Fac-
tory.

At Waltham Abbey. The Royal Gunpowder
Factory.

There is also a reserve establishment at Hereford,
and "pivotal plant centres" at Blackpole (Worcester-
shire), Birtley (Durham) and Irvine (Ayrshire). The
three latter contain plant which would be brought
into use on emergency.

The factories execute the orders of the Service
Departments, as well as of India, the Dominions and
the Colonies, for guns, mountings, rifles, ammu-
nition, tanks, vehicles, bombs and other warlike
stores. They are also largely used for repair work

204 THEWAROFFICE

which is beyond the capacity of local repair shops.The
average numbers employed for the five years 1929
to 1933 were 7,188 at Woolwich, 940 at Enfield,
and 292 at Waltham Abbey.

The Woolwich factories are, of course, the oldest.
In Tudor times the Warren at Woolwich was a
desolate expanse of scrub and marsh on which stood
a manor called Tower Place. Batteries were built
there in 1667 as a protection against the Dutch
fleet, and in 1 68 1 butts for the proving of guns were
erected, and sheds for carriages are mentioned. A
laboratory for the making of fireworks was built in
1696. The casting of cannon, both brass and iron,
was in private hands until Maryborough's days when
a terrible accident in Mr. Bagley's foundry, where
the guns which the Duke had captured from the
French were being re-cast to make new ordnance,
resulted in the building of the Royal Foundry on
Woolwich Warren in 1716.

This factory at first cast bronze guns only, all
iron cannon being made by contract. Then Wool-
wich began to grow quickly. Tower Place was
rebuilt by Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect who
designed Blenheim; and was first the headquarters
of the new Artillery, and later (1741) the Royal
Military Academy. The Laboratory must have
been a small affair, for a Controller, Firemaster
and other staff were appointed in 1746 in order that
by this means "the art of making fireworks for real
use, as well as for triumph, may be again recovered/'
By the year 1 8 10 the area of the Warren had been in-
creased by about 100 acres, and the Foundry and the
Laboratory were surrounded by a mass of buildings

THE MATTER OF ARMS 205

barracks, store-sheds, proof-butts and ranges.
Its new name, "The Royal Arsenal," was given in
1805 on the occasion of a visit from King George
III. It was not until the Crimean era, upon the
introduction of the Armstrong gun, that the Gun
Factory was rebuilt for the manufacture of wrought-
iron cannon.

Waltham Abbey is next in age. The Board of
Ordnance did not make gunpowder till the year
1759, when a mill was established at Faversham.
The powder works at Waltham were established in
1787.

Enfield, the small arms factory, only became
an important centre when the Enfield rifle was
introduced on the eve of the Crimean War. Muskets
were supplied entirely by the Trade up to 1804-1 1
when, under the stress of the great French war,
the Government started some small factories which
were concentrated at Enfield Lock; but the coming
of peace delayed their expansion, and the Enfield
staff in 1823 had dwindled to 42 men in all. How-
ever, in 1854 the factory started on a new career.
Muskets had been made by a number of firms, and
the parts of one might not fit another ; but with the
advent of the rifle the principle was adopted that the
parts must be interchangeable, and Enfield was
wholly reorganised to secure precision of manu-
facture. The first machine-made rifles and bayonets
were produced in 1858.

Responsibility for the Ordnance Factories re-
mained on the civil side of the War Office from the
time when the Board of Ordnance was abolished (to
the year 1899. When the factories were placed on a

206 THE WAR OFFICE

commercial footing in 1887-88, a Director-General
was appointed at Woolwich who was under the
Financial Secretary: by an Order in Council of 1899
he was renamed Chief Superintendent and passed to
military control. In the late war the control of the
factories was taken over by the Ministry of Muni-
tions in June 1916, and finally returned to the
"M.G.O." on May ist, 1921.

The maintenance of these Government factories
is a form of insurance against the risks of war. The
principle is to lessen such risks by preserving the
minimum of plant and of skill which would enable
production to be expanded adequately if the State
were faced with an emergency. The alternative would
be to leave the possibilities of expansion entirely in
the hands of private enterprise. There are also the
important aspects to be considered that the factories
set a standard of quality and provide a check on Trade
prices. As matters stand, manufacture of armament
stores for the three Services is shared between the
Ordnance Factories and Trade firms; and the allo-
cation of available work is not without its own prob-
lems, since, when current orders are cut to a minimum
under pressure of financial stringency, the Depart-
ments stand between two claims: the Factories
demanding sufficient orders to employ at least their
minimum staff, and the Trade expecting a fair share
in return for the help which they give to the Govern-
ment.

The Factories are run generally on a commercial
basis, charging their customers full cost, and are
managed by civilian heads a Superintendent for
each of them, a Chief Mechanical Engineer, and a

THE MATTER OF ARMS 207

Chief Superintendent at the Royal Arsenal, all of
whom are responsible to the "D.O.F." Design and
invention, as explained previously, are the business
of "M.G.O's." military branches.

The responsibilities of the "D.O.F." can be ex-
pressed under three headings : the administration and
control of the factories; the actual production in
those factories of war material of all kinds; and the
regulation of the labour employed. It is his business
to see that the Ordnance Factories are in the highest
attainable state of efficiency in organisation, methods
and equipment for their peace functions and their
war functions.

There are very few industrial undertakings
which cover so varied a range of production. The
forging, casting and machining of ferrous materials
in the manufacture of every type of product from
big guns to the smallest components; the making
and use of non-ferrous alloys for fuses, cartridge-
cases, etc.; engineering, carpentry, saddlery, textile
work, the making of explosives and the filling of
shells, are included in the ambit of O.F. production.
Further, work which extends from the sewing of
shalloon to the turning of large naval guns in-
volves almost every grade of labour, and the watching
of the conditions of labour under the critical eye of
the Trades Unions is one part, and a heavy part, of
the task which falls to "D.O.F." At the same time
"D.O.F." must secure that the stroke of the work
is not less fast than in any comparable outside
industry. The administration, lay-out and equipment
must be kept in line with the best modern practice,
The rapid improvement of recent years in machine-

208 THEWAROFFICE

tools, to quote one instance, must be followed up by
the Factories; and another essential modern develop-
ment is the accurate costing of every process. A very
grave responsibility rests on the Master-General of
the Ordnance to ensure that a certain productive
capacity shall be forthcoming in case of need; and
the primary task of the "D.O.F." is to secure that
the Government Factories shall be up to date and
fitted for their allotted role.

He also assists in the cognate problem concerned
with production from Trade sources. In the latter
connection there is a sub-branch which studies and
prepares manufacturing plans for increasing output
in case of emergency.

The organisation of the Department as a whole is
summed up in a diagram. As there shown, a special
Finance branch is attached to the Master-General of
the Ordnance, as in the case of the "Q.M.G."; and,
excluding this branch, the staff at the War Office
consisted on April ist, 1934, of 57 officers, serving
or retired, a civilian Director and Assistant Director,
100 military and civilian clerks, and 5 Technical
Staff civilians. The officers include the Inspector of
Army Ordnance Services, who is directly responsible
to the "M.G.O."

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Chapter X
MATTERS FOR MINISTERS

THE duties of the four large military departments
which serve the Military Members of Council have
been set out briefly in the last four chapters without
more than one or two passing allusions either to the
functions of Ministers or to the financial and secre-
tarial business of the large permanent civil division
controlled by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State.
This order of mention has been chosen for con-
venience; and the reader will understand, of course,
that the paramount responsibility rests upon the
shoulders of the Secretary of State, who is assisted
in his ministerial capacity by the Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State and the Financial Secre-
tary of the War Office. The position of the two junior
Ministers and their special departmental duties are
outlined in the following pages. The position of the
Secretary of State himself hardly requires to be
elaborated. His constitutional position has been
already described. He is responsible to the Crown
and to Parliament for all the business of the War
Office. He is President of the Army Council and can
accept or reject the advice which it offers. In all
questions which require decision the Secretary of
State's is the final word. He is also the channel of
communication between the War Office and the
Head of the Army the King.

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 211

In connection with the discharge of one side of
this last function there exists a special military officer,
independent of the other departments and respon-
sible directly to the Secretary of State. This is the
Military Secretary, whose department is thus unique
and separate. It seems to be clear that this special
office dates from 1795. In that year the Duke of
York, 6n his appointment as Commander-in-Chief,
brought with him Colonel Robert Brownrigg to be
his "Public Secretary"; and the latter's successor in
1803 is variously described as "Public Secretary"
and "Military Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief."
Thereafter the office remained in being, and was
doubtless one of great influence, until the Com-
mander -in-Chief himself disappeared. In the changes
of 1904 the allegiance of the Military Secretary was
transferred to the Secretary of State.

All appointments and promotions of officers, and
the grants of all honours and rewards to the Army,
are made by the King. They are made on the recom-
mendation of the Secretary of State ; and the main
functions of the Military Secretary are executive
duties in this connection.

Promotions and appointments form the bulk of
the work. The executive duties consist in the sub-
mission of the names selected and the subsequent
gazetting of the King's pleasure; but the actual
selection of the names to be submitted is guarded
by a careful procedure which aims at securing the
utmost fairness. The "M.S." does not determine
selection: he sees that the case for every candidate
is presented fairly to the selectors. Appointments
to commands and promotions from the rank of

212 THE WAR OFFICE

Major upwards are recommended by a Selection
Board, which consists of the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff (as President), the Adjutant-General,
and the General Officers Commanding-in-Chief of
the Aldershot, Eastern and Southern Commands,
with the "M.S." as Secretary and his Deputy as
Assistant Secretary. There is another special selection
board to deal with selections for Staff Appointments,
and there are "departmental" selection boards con-
cerned with Medical and Veterinary officers, Army
Chaplains and Pay Corps officers. The recommenda-
tions of the various boards are finally approved by
the Secretary of State. In the case of honours and
rewards the procedure is different: selection boards
play no part. Such advice as the Secretary of State
may require is available in the Members of Council,
with the Military Secretary as the central link.

The secretarial and executive duties are organised
in four branches. The scope of the first is "non-
regimental." It deals with promotions "outside" the
regiment, such as promotions to General Officer or
Colonel; with Army appointments at home and
abroad; with brevet promotions (which are not regi-
mental); with the appointment of officers to local
forces such as the King's African Rifles and the
Sudan Defence Force, or to special posts in Domin-
ions and Colonies. It deals also with appeals against
non-selection. Officers on the active list are permitted
by the King's Regulations for the Army to interview
the Military Secretary on such personal questions as
appointments and promotions, and the principle of
accessibility is accepted in full by the "M.S."

The second branch is "regimental." It deals mainly

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 213

with first appointments to commissions; the actual
preparation and issue of commissions about 2,500
a year of all classes; and with promotions, retire-
ments, transfers, etc., of officers on the regimental
list. A separate section of "M.S. 2" deals with the
Territorial Army.

The work connected with honours and rewards,
which occupies the third branch, falls mainly into
two groups: honours lists and individual awards.
Honours lists are either anniversary lists, on the
King's birthday and at the New Year, or lists
of rewards for particular campaigns. Possibly the
reader may not be aware that active service conditions
have occurred since 1918 in Russia, Turkey,
Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, the Sudan, Iraq, Kurdis-
tan, the North- West Frontier of India, Burma and
China. The other group, individual rewards, in-
clude promotions to be Field-Marshal and appoint-
ments as A.D.C. to the King, as Colonels of regi-
ments or Colonels Commandant, as Constable of
the Tower of London and as Governor of Chelsea
Hospital. For retired officers and other ranks there
are various rewards in the form of annuities, and
also in the form of Court appointments. For example,
the Military Knights of Windsor, who date from
1348, are chosen, in the words of Queen Elizabeth's
patent of August, 1559, from "Gentlemen brought
to necessity, such as have spent their times in the
service of the wars, garrisons, or other service of
the Prince." The King's Body Guard of Yeomen
of the Guard and the Honourable Corps of
Gentlemen-at-Arms are Court appointments of
Tudor origin. The latter claim the title of "The

ai4 THE WAR OFFICE

Nearest Guard," for it is laid down in the charter
of the Corps that "the Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms,
whenever we shall command their attendance, shall
do the duty of Guards nearest to our Royal Person. "
The Military Secretary's fourth branch is the
custodian of the confidential reports which are
rendered on officers during their service.

In the early nineteenth century the Secretary of
State for War and the Colonies appointed an Under-
secretary of State to assist him in his parliamentary
duties, and the post was continued by Lord Panmure
when "War" and "the Colonies" were separated in
the change of 1855. Thereafter each Secretary of
State for War had the help of a Parliamentary Under-
secretary of State. The functions of this officer, said
the Esher Committee, "have hitherto consisted in
representing the Army in one House of Parliament.
No specific duties have been assigned to him." The
"definite work and responsibility" which the Com-
mittee accordingly assigned to this Minister con-
sisted of the Barrack Construction directorate, the
Chaplains' department and the pension Votes; but
this arrangement did not last. To-day the Par-
liamentary Under-Secretary of State, apart from his
duties in Parliament and as Vice-President of the
Army Council, has two specific charges: the Terri-
torial Army directorate and the branch of the Comp-
troller of Lands.

The former is controlled by a Director-General,
a military officer of high rank. When the administra-
tion of the "auxiliary forces" was first transferred in

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 215

1852 from the Home Office to the War Office, the
forces concerned were the Militia and the Yeomanry.
The work was dealt with by four clerks ; but it grew
rapidly in the Crimean War, and the great revival
of the Volunteer Corps which followed the scare of
1859 resulted in the formation of a second small
branch. Both branches and an Inspector-General
then reported direct to the Secretary of State. Later
the two were amalgamated, and in 1872 the united
branch was brought into the military department,
and the "Inspector-General of Auxiliary Forces'* was
attached to the Commander-in-Chief. Subsequent
changes were of minor importance up to the time of
the Esher Committee, who recommended the re-
placement of the Inspector-General by a "Director
of Auxiliary Forces" serving under the Adjutant-
General who would "study the special requirements
of the forces and "bring them to the notice of the
Army Council." The transfer of the directorate to its
present position dates from the Haldane re-organisa-
tion when the Territorial Force was created. The
change to the title "Territorial Army" was made in
1921.

The Director-General has three branches. His
responsibility, in general terms, is advice relating to
the Territorial Army and the part of the Supple-
mentary Reserve which is administered as part of
the "T.A." The administration of the County
Associations and the organisation of the "T.A."
Nursing Service are special aspects of this duty.

The Territorial Army is a statutory force raised
under Acts of Parliament (the Territorial and Reserve
Forces Act, 1907, and the Territorial Army and

216 THEWAROFFICE

Militia Act, 1921). In principle the composition of
the force is assimilated to that of the Regular Army;
but its command and training form a distinct province
separated from its administration. For the latter it
possesses a special machinery. The duty of com-
mand and the responsibility for training rest with the
military authorities of the Commands; and in the
matter of organisation for war and the fighting
efficiency of the "T.A." the Director-General at the
War Office is responsible to the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff. In training uniformity of principle is
essential; but in administration, on the other hand,
elasticity has a special importance in the encourage-
ment of local effort, for the force is essentially a
County force. Accordingly the work of local admin-
istration falls to the County Associations created by
the Act of 1907.

The Associations are County bodies who possess
a special knowledge of local requirements, and
their functions are to raise and maintain their
units, to provide headquarters, drill halls and
ranges in short, all the duties of local management
except when the units are training in camp or
embodied or engaged on active service. For these
purposes each Association receives annual grants
out of Army Funds, some of them intended for
general expenses, clothing, travelling to drills and
so on, and some of them earmarked for buildings and
lands; and the expenditure of these public monies
is subject, of course, to control by the War Office.

Thus the control exercised by the War Office has
two sides, military and civil; and the duties of two
of the "T.A." branches may be said to correspond

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 217

with this division one dealing with advice on all
such matters as organisation, recruiting and discip-
line, equipment, inspection and permanent staff;
while the other is concerned with the civil business
such as questions of property, the provision of
ranges, the constitution of the Associations and the
regulations which govern the force. So much of this
work is bound up with finance that a special branch
of the Finance division is devoted solely to "T.A."
business. The Director-General has also a section
for technical advice on building proposals, and a
third branch, under the Matron-in-Chief, which
deals with the T.A. Nursing Service.

Before the late war Mr. Harold Baker wrote, in
his book on Lord Haldane's creation, ". . . a
single national army has come into existence, the
two lines of which are homogeneous in organisation
and differ only in function. The dividing question,
it may be said, is no longer whether a standing army
is a menace to liberty, but whether the voluntary
principle affords an adequate security for internal
defence. The answer to that question is supplied by
the Territorial Force. " But matters have not stood
still at that point. Since the war the role of this
"second line" has been vastly increased in scope and
importance. The responsibility for manning the coast
defences at home, and a large share in air defence,
have been entrusted to the "T.A."; a wide measure
of mechanisation is being applied to it step by step;
and finally, while under the original Act the force
was intended for home defence only, the general
scheme which is now in operation is that every man
who joins the force shall have formally agreed to

218 THE WAR OFFICE

accept liability to serve outside the United Kingdom
and shall join the force with the full knowledge that,
in the event of grave emergency, legislation may
be introduced which would render him liable for
"general service."

This liability would mean, in effect, that the men
could legally be used, as individuals, wherever
military exigencies might demand, instead of only
in their own units; but it does not mean that Terri-
torial units would be used for the purpose of supply-
ing drafts to fill gaps in the Regular Army. The
Central Council of Associations, whose advice is
sought on important questions, accepted this new
condition of entry from November ist, 1933.

Thus the usefulness of the Territorial Army as
the "second line" to the Regular Army has been
very materially increased, and contact between the
two "lines" is fostered by the War Office and is
growing closer every year. The force consists now
of fourteen Divisions, the greater part of a Cavalry
Division, Air Defence formations, Coast Defence
units and various non-divisional troops.

The Lands Branch, a civilian branch headed by
a Comptroller of Lands, dates from 1908, and
deals with the administration of lands belonging to,
or in charge of, the Department, and duties connected
with the purchase and sale, letting and hiring of
lands and buildings. Up to that time the control at
the War Office rested with the Royal Engineers in
the branch which dealt with Works services.

Originally all the properties held were vested in

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 219

the Board of Ordnance, but were transferred to the
Secretary of State by an Act of 1855. Their local
custody then, as now, rested with the military
authorities of the district, and immediately with the
Royal Engineers. Even in 1882 the land held as
sites of camps and barracks, fortifications, factories,
storehouses and training grounds amounted to
54,000 acres; and the modern system was fore-
shadowed then, for a Committee under Sir A. D.
Hayter reported to Mr. Childers, the Secretary of
State, that "it is no disparagement to the high repu-
tation of the corps of Royal Engineers to admit that
its officers are necessarily deficient in the technical
training and the professional experience which are
desirable in agents for the management of landed
property. " However, twenty-six years elapsed before
a civilian Comptroller was appointed at the War
Office, together with a Land Valuer, and three years
more before the Lucas Committee, reporting in
1911, recommended that local official land agents
should normally be appointed in each Command,
and should work under the Chief Engineers as tech-
nical advisers on property questions, supervising the
collection of rents, the obtaining of tenants and
settlements generally.

The main weakness in the old system was one
which the R.E. could hardly avoid: the responsible
officers were constantly changing, and supervision
was bound to suffer. The new system had an added
value in providing permanent qualified advice on
agricultural and estate questions. At the time of
these changes the lands held amounted to 150,000
acres; to-day, in spite of constant review and the

220 THE WAR OFFICE

loss of the lands in Southern Ireland, the total
estate held at home by the War Office is no less than
246,000 acres, in addition to the holding of clearance
rights over another 8,000 acres. The increase is due
to the larger scale on which modern training is
carried out, the effect of the use of mechanical
vehicles on the area required for movement, and the
longer range of modern guns. The largest freehold
areas are situated, of course, at the military centres,
such as Salisbury Plain (68,000 acres), Aldershot
and Bordon (26,000 acres), Catterick (14,000 acres),
Colchester, Plymouth, Portsmouth and so on. Land
rendered surplus by changes in policy results in
average sale receipts of approximately 50,000 a
year. Properties which are temporarily surplus but
cannot be definitely alienated are let to tenants at
fair rents; and the annual revenue from this source
and from the department's woodlands and sewage-
farms is about 100,000 a year.

The landlord is the Secretary of State: the local
representative of the Secretary of State is, under
the Command Headquarters, the Chief Engineer:
the Land Agents in the several Commands are the
technical advisers to the Royal Engineers. Abroad
the general conditions are different. The bulk of
the 16,500 acres at the various stations overseas is
so-called "colonial military land" provided by the
local Government for perpetual use for defence
purposes.

Few property questions are very simple, and, as
legislation grows in complexity, the War Office
duties in this field form no exception to the general
rule. Claims for damage to roads and bridges, ques-

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 221

tions of rates, taxes and tithes, the preparation of
bye-laws for ranges, and the transfer of property to
highway authorities are types of cases which come
to the War Office. Parliamentary Bills must be
examined, not merely in the obvious cases such as
rent-restriction or town-planning measures, but all
municipal or other local schemes which may affect
the department's landlord-interests. Again, the
authority of the War Office is required for the use
of its property for club purposes, institute sites,
church rooms, shops, municipal works, the laying
of gas or water-pipes, and for all other "encroach-
ments" that possess unusual features. Valuations of
property, assessment of compensation due, and
negotiations for purchases, sales, lettings and hirings
of land and buildings comprise the more technical
side of the work. When negotiations have been com-
pleted full particulars of each case are supplied by
the branch to the Treasury Solicitor, and the latter
prepares the legal documents.

The Lands Branch consists of the Comptroller of
Lands, a Chief Land Agent and Valuer, and a staff
of 17 other civilians. It administers a large and
scattered estate a task which is steeped in legal
intricacies, which calls for a knowledge of the history
of the properties and experience in dealing with
outside bodies. In fine, like the Territorial Army, it
deserves its place as a special interest of the Par-
liamentary Under-Secretary of State.
# * # *

The Financial Secretary of the War Office is the
Finance Member of the Army Council, or in office
parlance the "P.M."

222 THE WAR OFFICE

The title "Finance Member of Council" was
recommended by the Esher Committee, who de-
sired to emphasise the point that his responsibilities
in the matter of economy were to be co-equal
with those of his colleagues, and not special and
separate. The title, however, needs explanation
inasmuch as the branches known as "Finance
branches" are not responsible to the Finance
Member but to the Permanent Under-Secretary of
State. The Financial Secretary is concerned with
finance in a larger sense in which it may be distin-
guished from the duties of departmental finance. As
a member of the Estimates Committee which reviews
and selects all the "new services" that compete for a
place in the annual programme, and as Chairman
of the Finance Committee which watches expendi-
ture throughout the year, he is in close touch with
the Army Votes. He is specially concerned with
Labour policy. Representing the department in the
House of Commons and being the sole representa-
tive there when the Secretary of State and the Par-
liamentary Under-Secretary both sit in the Upper
House he is associated with every development
which possesses a parliamentary interest, a public or
political aspect. But apart from these broad respon-
sibilities as a Minister and as a Member of Council,
he has a special departmental function as responsible
for the policy of Army Contracts.

In the matter of the administration of contracts
the Esher conclusions were not very happy. A Direc-
tor of Contracts was first established shortly after
the Crimean War, but following the Reports of 1 904
the office was abolished, and the Contract branch was

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 223

split up into sections attached to the departments of
the military members, the "Q.M.G." and the
"M.G.O.," who were responsible for demanding the
stores. The experiment was unsuccessful. It obviously
permitted of overlapping, of different departments of
the War Office competing in the same market. A
separate and self-contained Contract department,
not concerned with deciding what stores shall be
bought, but only with the business of purchasing,
and possessed of a centralised knowledge of markets,
not only preserves the age-old principles which many
a committee of the past has affirmed, but makes for
considerable economy of staff, and ensures a still
more important point uniformity of contract
policy.

Parliament, for example, has laid down the
principle that Government contracts should be placed
with firms, and only those firms, who pay fair wages :
further, that as a general rule only those firms should
be given contracts whose names are on the King's
Roll who employ, that is to say, a definite percentage
of disabled ex-Service men. Similarly Government
policy demands that a certain preference in buying
should be accorded to Home and Empire products.
Uniformity in applying these principles is facilitated,
quite obviously, by the existence of a single direc-
torate; and the placing of the revived Director of
Contracts under the supervision of the Financial
Secretary (October 1908) was appropriate, since the
central purchasing department is thus directly in
charge of a Minister and a Member of the House
of Commons. The administration of Government
contracts is a special interest of Parliament, including

224 THEWAROFFICE

of course the cardinal point that it shall be wholly
above suspicion.

Under the Financial Secretary, then, and in con-
cert with the military departments who are respon-
sible for saying what stores are required, the purchase
and sale of stores, supplies, machinery and clothing,
and the contracts for building and other services,
are in charge of a Director of Army Contracts and a
staff of 78 civil servants. Government buying has
special features. Many needs of the Army its
clothing, for example, or its guns and its tanks
have no counterpart in civil trading; and even in the
case of ordinary articles in the leather, hardware or
cutlery lines, requirements must be stated with
extreme precision in order to secure uniformity and
the requisite standard of quality. Again, the Army
buys on a very large scale, spending perhaps six
millions a year, in everything from the most complex
machines to toothbrushes and razor-blades. As a
consequence, in most cases, the goods have to be
specially made, or the arrangements for supply to be
specially prepared. The contracts for frozen meat,
for example, cover deliveries spread over six months,
and the producers in, say, Australia must be allowed
some months for making arrangements before the
deliveries are due to begin. Thus clear details and
exact stipulations must be set out in the tender forms
which are sent out to likely suppliers, and these
invitations to manufacturers and traders, which vary
of course with each class of store and are often special
to the particular contract, amount to some 50,000
a year.

Then comes the very vital point of deciding to

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 225

whom the contract shall be given, bearing in mind
three essential conditions: that the buying shall be
done as economically as possible; that the allocation
shall be above suspicion ; and that equal opportunities
shall be afforded to all traders who are suitably
equipped to supply what is wanted. The system of
to-day, pne fears, would hardly have suited the sharp
Mr. Pepys as he sauntered through "St. James
parke" in the summer of 1664. The prospective
victuallers of the garrison of Tangier had promised
him a mere i 50 a year if he succeeded in obtaining
the contract for them at 35. i|d. per man per week,
and a far preferable 300 a year if he managed the
figure of 35. 2d. Mr. Pepys obtained the higher
figure, "which," he notes, "do overjoy me." To-day
such joy is not only demode, but is carefully placed
quite out of reach. Any firm may apply to tender,
and if its capacity and credentials are found to be
satisfactory, may count upon being placed on the
list. Tenders are invited on each contract from the
firms noted for the particular commodity, and, in
order to ensure fairness, must all be submitted by the
same date. They are then opened at the same time
by a specially constituted "tender board." The
tender selected is the most advantageous, which
means in the vast majority of cases that the lowest
offer received is accepted.

Once the order is placed, the Contracts direc-
torate has no concern in inspecting the stores, nor
any concern with paying for them. It is simply
concerned with the purchasing, which of course
includes the delivery of the goods as specified in
the terms of the contract, and involves much

226 THE WAR OFFICE

work if delays occur, if the wording admits any
doubt as to meaning, or if the department desires
to amend its requirements. There are, of course,
certain goods and services which are better pro T
vided by local contracts such cases as flour at
small stations, and sometimes laundry or scavenging
services and here the function of "D.A.C." is
only to review the contracts made by the military
authorities of the Command concerned. The object
of this post mortem review is, of course, to secure
uniformity of principle in purchasing work through-
out the Army.

The work of selling is also important, for sales at
headquarters in the course of the year may be worth
1 00,000 to the public. Many of the stores condemned
as unserviceable fetch better prices locally; but
centralised selling, like centralised buying, is gener-
ally speaking advantageous, and "D.A.C." is a
seeker of markets for an annual collection of stuff
of all kinds. Old greatcoats, obsolete patterns of
dress, guns captured in forgotten battles, worn-out
tentage, disused tractors, the produce of the metal
scrap-heaps . . . they neither look nor sound very
valuable, but success or failure in disposing of them
is of real concern to the taxpayer, as is proved by
the figures of total receipts.

Another side of "Contracts" work is concerned
with sources of Trade supply for meeting the
possible requirements of the Army in the event of
grave emergency.

The future may hold no such great crisis as the
country faced in 1914, but, if the lessons of the
past are not to be ignored, the Department must

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 227

at least examine in peace-time how the production
of food, ammunition, armaments the thousand
needs of the Army in war can be expanded and
quickened in time of emergency. To advise the
Army Council on the capacity of the Trade is a
function of the "D.A.C.," and since one of the
lessons of a modern war conducted on a vast scale
was the intermingling of Army requirements with
those not only of the other two Services but of
most of the civil departments as well, no theory of
peace-time precautions could stand which did not
envisage these all-round contacts. Accordingly the
Army Contracts directorate is concerned with a
series of Standing Committees which examine this
problem of trade capacity in relation to all the
chief classes of stores ; and these Committees include
representatives not only of the other Fighting Ser-
vices but of India, the Dominions and the Board of
Trade. This is one side of a large organisation con-
trolled by the Committee of Imperial Defence, in
which the War Office takes its due share as one of
the principal parties concerned.

Equally the "D.A.C." is concerned with watching
the interests of "Trade capacity" when the peace-
time orders for stores are allotted. In the Army
Estimates for 1934 the sum of 2,470,000 is pro-
vided for the purchase of "warlike stores," and the
Navy and the Air Force also have large orders to
place for munitions. Naturally the Government
Factories, as the first reserve for expansion in
emergency, have a prior claim to this type of work :
for a certain level of peace-time production is re-
quired by a given capacity to expand. But the Trade

228 THE WAR OFFICE

too, if it is to obtain the necessary experience for
assisting production in time of emergency, must be
given a share in the work available; and the allocation
of the annual orders is an important piece of joint
business on which the three Services work together.
At these discussions, at which the chair is taken by
the Master-General of the Ordnance, the respon-
sibility of the "D.A.C." is to watch, on the Army
side of the question, that due weight is given to the
claims of the Trade.

The "man in the street" might fairly ask why
each of the three Fighting Services requires a separate
Contracts division. Why not a single combined
department?

One relevant consideration is that the require-
ments of the three Services are not by any means
the same: even in the matter of food or clothing,
and more so in fighting stores, most of their needs
are not "common." But the idea which underlies
the question economy in combined buying
is obviously reasonable, and is neither forgotten
nor ignored. There are goods of common specifi-
cation which can be purchased with greater economy
if the requirements of different departments are
"bulked"; and in these cases that plan is followed.
The department which is the largest user buys as
the agent of the other departments. Thus the War
Office is the buyer of meat for the Air Force at home
Stations and for the Navy at Malta and Gibraltar,
and it places contracts for medicines and drugs
which serve not only the Navy and the Air Force
but also the needs of the Ministry of Pensions and
of th* General Post Office. Medical glassware is

MATTERS FOR MINISTERS 339

obtained by the War Office from contracts placed
by the Admiralty; and, again, the War Office buys
most of its furniture through the agency of the
Office of Works.

In this matter the "D.A.C." is a member of a
Standing Co-ordinating Committee, which con-
sists of the three Directors of Contracts together
with representatives of the Treasury, the Post
Office and the Office of Works, and the question
of increasing agency-purchase by the standard-
isation of stores, for example is not allowed to
remain dormant. There are advantages in combined
buying; but there are also advantages, no less plain,
in a system under which a buying department is
responsible to its own "board of directors. " The
system described is a compromise a pragmatic
compromise: it works.

The directorate of Army Contracts is organised
in nine branches, of which six may be called pur-
chasing sections (actually one of them includes sales)
each dealing with a group of trades. Thus one is
concerned with guns and small arms, ammunition,
explosives, optical instruments, machinery and
plant, railway materials, engineering and electrical
stores; another with provisions, fuel and so on; and
another with surgical instruments, hardware, wood-
ware, glassware, drugs, etc. A seventh deals with the
lists of contractors, the large business of handling
the tenders, and the actual issue of the contract
documents. The eighth has a special technical
section the inspection of a contractor's works being
a type of its duties and, apart from this, is the
branch which is charged with the general work. The

230 THE WAR OFFICE

general work includes, for example, the questions
of wages and conditions of labour with which the
department is confronted constantly in its dealings
with many thousands of contractors, and also the
task of collecting information for the several com
mittees whose tasks have been mentioned. The ninth
branch is again a technical section. It deals with
"costings" investigations such as are required for
the type of contract which is based on the actual cost
of production as ascertained from the books of the
firm.

As a list of the duties of a large directorate this
short statement is necessarily incomplete, but pos-
sibly it may suffice to indicate how wide a field of
principle and policy is opened up by "Army Con-
tracts" as the special sphere of the "P.M."

Chapter XI
ARMY FINANCE

HARD things have been said about Army Finance,
and the fact is not at all surprising. Its functions are
frequently irritating. It engenders impatience far
from divine. But here is a case where to know all is
to forgive much: for most of the duties of Army
Finance proceed from a system of check and veto
which lies at the root of constitutional government
as understood in this ancient State.

The spending of the money provided for the Army
is primarily the business of the military departments;
for a leading principle of the modern War Office is
the government of the Army by the chiefs of the
Army, acting under the Secretary of State. Army
Finance in one sense is, therefore, a function of the
Council as a whole; but we are speaking now of a
narrower sense the functions of the civil branches
serving under Directors of Finance as a part of the
large civil department controlled by the Permanent
Under-Secretary of State.

In this sense its most striking characteristic is
that it does not spend any money. It is not finance
in any ordinary usage of the word. It has certain
duties under the heading of "accounting," and it
has two major "financial" functions one of advice
on proposals for spending, with a view to ensuring
value for money, and one of imposing conformity

232 THE WAR OFFICE

with the definite rules and regulations which govern
the spending of public money. Of these the former
is the more important, at least from the taxpayer's
point of view, and the latter is easily the more
troublesome. On the question of conformity or
"regularity Army Finance is very powerful: its
voice has the weight of ultimate sanctions ; it is the
voice of Parliament, inescapable; it is a system of
control which is planted in history and has grown
up with the Constitution.

The purpose of parliamentary control is consti-
tutional, and its story begins in the Middle Ages.

Originally it was aimed at the Crown. The basis
of parliamentary government is control through the
power of veto of Parliament on the raising and the
spending of money. At first it concerned the raising
only. When the King was faced with an expensive
war, and the strain was too great for his personal
revenues and for any forced loan which he could
contrive, he was compelled to come to Parliament
to authorise the necessary tax. Then Parliament
began to make conditions. It wished to secure that
the money which it gave to the King for a war was
honestly spent on prosecuting that war. The
Parliament of 1341, for example, attached as a
condition to the grant of supplies that Commissioners
should be appointed to examine the accounts. King
Henry IV took the strong line that " Kings do not
render accounts, " and under the Yorkist and Tudor
monarchs Parliament's claim to an audit was dropped.
But the free spirit of the era of Hampden was ready
to fight for the principle of control. When victory
had been won on the basic point that there should

ARMY FINANCE 233

be "no taxation without consent/ 1 the Commons re-
opened the further question of how expenditure
should be controlled.

At the Restoration of 1660 the proceedings of
the Merry Monarch did not justify a feeling of
complete confidence that money provided for
naval purposes would be applied to the keeping
of ships only; and, when a tax was levied for war
against the Dutch, a clause was introduced into
the Act that the money should be spent solely on
the war. This is called an "appropriation" clause,
meaning that funds supplied by Parliament shall be
used for the purpose for which they are voted and
not for any other purpose. With the accession of
William of Orange and the express recognition in
the Act of Settlement that the keeping of an Army
in time of peace should depend on the annual consent
of Parliament, the system of "appropriating" the
money supplied laid the foundations of Army Finance
from the point of view of control by Parliament,

The curious point at this stage is the failure to set
up any machinery to secure that the money was spent
as intended. The Commons appear to have relied on
the Exchequer, the department which received and
issued the money. Originally the Exchequer was
wholly the King's ; just as the Lord High Treasurer
was originally an officer of the King's household.
These two offices became entirely distinct; to-day the
Exchequer is a Government Department directly
responsible to Parliament, and in particular to the
House of Commons, while the Treasury has become
a Government Department controlled by a Minister
of the Crown.

234 THE WAR OFFICE

The first step in the evolution was concerned
only with the Exchequer. In olden days the busi-
ness of the Exchequer was merely to see that
the moneys issued from the great chests which it
kept for the King were issued with proper authority
from the Crown. It was now required to ensure that
all such issues were made in accordance with the
grants of Parliament. No money was allowed to issue
from the Exchequer except for the purpose of a
particular service as authorised by a vote of Parlia-
ment. But throughout the eighteenth century Par-
liament did not go further than this in attempting
to watch how the money was spent. The larger part
of the money issued from the Exchequer was paid
over to high officials such as the Paymaster-
General* of the Forces or the Treasurer of the
Board of Ordnance, and no machinery existed for
satisfying Parliament that money voted for Army
services was not diverted for civil payments. Even
such a system as detailed ' 'appropriation " by dividing
the money voted for the Army into a number of
separate compartments (there are 1 5 of such "Votes"
to-day, each divided into many sub-heads) was not
demanded at this date. Parliament was controlling
the existence of the Army and the total of money to
be voted each year; it did not attempt to achieve an
effective control over the administration of the funds.
The efficiency of the Army was left to the Crown :
Parliament, with the means of controlling its exist-
ence, was content with keeping it weak and cheap.
The Exchequer Act of 1834, which reformed the
Exchequer and appointed a Comptroller who was

* Note 1 8, page 346.

ARMY FINANCE 235

definitely an officer of Parliament, still did not
secure the further point that the funds issued from
the Exchequer to the Treasury (as representing the
Crown) should be actually devoted to the proper
service.

One incidental effect of this Act was that Parlia-
ment lost its old home. The old wooden tallies used
by the Exchequer were no longer required and were
much in the way, but their timely destruction set
fire to a flue and both Houses of Parliament were
burnt to the ground in October, 1834.

Meanwhile the theory had been developed of
* 'ministerial responsibility' '; that is to say, that
Ministers of the Crown are responsible to Parlia-
ment for all the executive acts of government. Con-
trol, originally aimed at the King, was thenceforth
aimed at Ministers. Up to this time, as explained
above, a Government which was prepared to ignore
the intentions of Parliament's "appropriation" was
not prevented from doing so by the existence of the
Exchequer department. But a system aimed at more
effective control, a system of audit, was now on its
way. Examination of the accounts of the persons
who received and paid out public moneys had
existed, indeed, in the eighteenth century; but this
was audit on behalf of Ministers, not on behalf of
Parliament. In 1832 an audit was instituted, which
may be called "Appropriation Audit," of the funds
provided on Navy Votes ; and the auditors this was
the new point had to ascertain that the payments
made were properly chargeable to the particular
Vote in accordance with parliamentary intention,
and that the total of the Vote was not exceeded. The

THE WAR OFFICE

results of the audit were reported to Parliament. If
the First Lord of the Admiralty was rash enough to
"misappropriate" money (not, of course, in the moral
sense), the sin would eventually find him out.

In 1 846 the system was applied to Army votes and
to Ordnance votes. Then, when this plan had had
time to sink in, and not without prolonged discus-
sion, a famous Act was passed by Mr. Gladstone
the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1 866 ;
and what Mr. Gladstone said in 1866 has remained
true doctrine to this day. This Act set up a single
head, permanent and independent, who is both
Comptroller-General of the Receipt and Issue of His
Majesty's Exchequer and Auditor-General of the
Public Accounts, or more shortly the "Comptroller
and Auditor-General"; and from that time onwards
every authority entrusted with the disposal of public
moneys had to render an account to this officer.
Acting on behalf of Parliament he applies the
"Appropriation Audit," watching the point that every
disbursement made from a Vote must fall within the
purpose of that Vote.

But the Act went very much further than that.
The historic purpose of Parliament had been to
control the Lord High Treasurer as the officer
who handled the King's public moneys: it now
called in the Treasury to help it, entrusting the
Treasury with great powers. The Treasury now had
to see that every department rendered its accounts
in due form; and under this scheme and for this
purpose an Accounting Officer is appointed to-day
in each of the great Government departments, who is
personally responsible to Parliament. The Accounting

ARMY FINANCE 237

Officer is not only responsible that the Account of
his particular department is properly rendered at
the due time, but responsible, too, that no part of
the expenditure is incurred without due superior
authority, either of the Treasury or of Parliament,
where such authority is required by the rules.

In the War Office the Accounting Officer is the
Permanent Under-Secretary of State. Every pay-
ment from War Office Votes is made on his personal
responsibility. He is appointed to secure financial
regularity. He is charged to refuse to allow any pay-
ment which he considers to be irregular, and only
the Secretary of State himself, by personal order
given in writing, has power to overrule that protest
and so to assume the responsibility upon which the
House of Commons insists. Further, when the
Army Account for the year has been rendered to the
Comptroller and Auditor-General, it is subjected to
detailed and critical scrutiny by the Standing Com-
mittee of the House of Commons known as the
Public Accounts Committee, and the Accounting
Officer is examined upon it, as by a judicial tribunal.

Thus, to sum up, the control which is now
exercised by Parliament lies, first, in its power to
refuse supplies; next, in its power of audit of
expenditure through the powers of the Comptroller
and Auditor-General; and thirdly, in the fact that
it has constituted the Treasury as a central director
and arbiter in all matters of public accounts, with
power to appoint Accounting Officers who are
personally responsible.

In this way, then, Army Finance, on the point of
the propriety of the expenditure incurred, is primarily

238 THE WAR OFFICE

the voice of Parliament. But the Treasury, wielding
its delegated powers, is another voice to which it
must hearken. By an Act of 1 92 1, replacing a section
of the original Act, the "C. and A.G." is bound to
ascertain whether the expenditure contained in an
Appropriation Account is supported by the authority
of the Treasury, where Treasury rules require that
authority.

Now those Treasury rules are very extensive.
First of all they prescribe the form of the Estimates
and the corresponding form of the Account, and
the 15 Votes for Army services, each of which is
in theory a water-tight compartment, are divided
into a number of subheads. For example, Vote i
is for the Pay of the Army, and is carved up into
eleven subheads. In unexpected emergency it might
be necessary to exceed the total of a Vote; but
even if the amount of the estimated excess is less
than the saving on another Vote, the War Office has
no powers in the matter. Only Parliament can sanc-
tion an excess on a Vote ; but the Treasury under its
delegated powers can sanction the excess provision-
ally, and take steps to obtain parliamentary approval.
Such is the theory of "appropriation," which is in-
tensified by the Treasury orders which divide each
Vote into so many subheads. The War Office must
not deliberately overspend on any one of these many
subheads, whatever savings there may be on others,
without the prior permission of the Treasury.

Again, the sanction of the Treasury is required for
any alteration in rates of pay, or of the numbers of an
establishment, or for any "new service" or "increase
of cost" which has not been provided, with due

ARMY FINANCE 239

authority, in the grants made by Parliament. In the
sphere of control Army Finance must not only watch
the rules laid down for "appropriation" by Votes and
subheads, but must secure the observance of Treasury
regulations on detailed items of expenditure. It must
convert the rulings of Parliament and the Treasury
into appropriate regulations for the Army, and secure
obedience to these regulations. To take a very simple
illustration, Parliament has voted the money for
stationery as a charge against one of the Civil Votes,
and the War Office must ensure that no stationery for
the Army is bought as a charge on Army funds.
Again, a gift of Army stores the provision, for
instance, of blankets and food by the military au-
thorities in the West Indies in aid of the victims of
an earthquake disaster requires the prior sanction
of the War Office acting on behalf of Parliament,
and requires the superior sanction of the Treasury
if the gift exceeds a certain value. A gift is technically
a "misappropriation" of money which Parliament
has voted for public purposes, and the Council must,
therefore, make clear to the Army that such gifts
require their prior approval.

Indeed, the property of the taxpayer is guarded
with such extreme caution that the Council possess
no powers at all to give Army stores to individuals.
On February 3rd, 1915, when the War Office
was overwhelmed with work, the Council were
compelled by the rules in force to apply formally
for Treasury sanction before they could allow the
mother of a bugler, who had died from his wounds,
to keep the bugle which her son had used. The
bugle was public property. Its value was assessed

240 THE WAR OFFICE

at four shillings and ninepence. This is no reflection
on Treasury wisdom, but an illustration of Parlia-
ment's vigilance. In Treasury control there is no
desire to hamper the business of any department;
the spirit of it is wisely elastic : but the War Office
is probably far less free than is realised by the public
at large.

That is one duty of Army Finance the pursuit of
conformity with rules. The other of its major duties
a difficult but most important duty is that of
controlling expenditure by means of financial advice.

It does not, of course, stand alone in its function
of criticising financial policy: the Treasury, too, has
a large voice. The Treasury is not merely responsible
for ensuring obedience to Parliament's intentions:
it is also the special instrument of the Government
for carrying out its financial policy. Its head is the
Chancellor of the Exchequer (who has no connection
with the Exchequer Department), the Finance
Minister of the Government. The Army Estimates,
for example, are part of the Government's programme
for the year, and the total sum is settled by the
Cabinet; but each separate Vote requires the sanction
of the Treasury acting on behalf or the Government.
Similarly, when the Votes have been approved by
Parliament, the Treasury has a large voice in the
criticising of detailed proposals. Any permanent in-
crease of personnel will involve liabilities for years to
come. Immediate expenditure on buildings or arma-
ments, possibly small in the first year, may involve
very large future commitments. A change in a rate
of pay or allowance may raise parallel claims in the
Naw or Air Force. The oostoonement of a particular

ARMY FINANCE 241

service may prove to have been an actual saving.
The Treasury, standing in a central position and
surveying the whole broad field of finance, can co-
ordinate the demands of departments in the light
oT ministerial policy, can criticise proposed expendi-
ture from the point of view of its repercussions, and
can apply, in the process of * 'cutting down," a con-
sistent standard of financial sacrifice.

In these directions Treasury control is a highly
effective instrument: it can even prevent a waste of
money; but it could not pretend to be an efficient
substitute for a live system of financial control acting
within a department itself and aiming at that more
difficult target economy in administration. For this
purpose there exists for Army services those special
officers and staffs who not only watch "regularity" of
expenditure on behalf of Parliament and the Treasury,
but occupy an independent position as financial
advisers and financial critics of all proposals for
military expenditure. This is Army Finance "at
home."

As long ago as 1869 the Northbrook Committee,
advising Card well, had drawn attention to the old
tradition that the administrative branches which
spent the money were to be distrusted, watched and
checked; whilst the function of finance was to
criticise and check. Efficiency and economy were
thus at war. Again, the Clinton Dawkins Committee
which in 1901, after thirty-seven sittings, produced
a very able report on the whole conduct of War
Office business, especially "the existing financial

242 THEWAROFFICE

checks, " reported that, while the financial staff was
quite essential to the Secretary of State, the closest
co-operation was necessary between the military and
the civilian departments. It was re-echoing the North-
brook view that the perfect theory of organisation
lay in the union of finance and administration.
Financial considerations, on that view, should attend
all the time on administrative policy; they should be
made available from its inception as well as control
it during its progress. This theory would attribute to
Finance a higher function than mere criticism the
function of governing, as far as necessary, the whole
policy of administration and of forming a part of the
primary responsibility of the Secretary of State and
the Government.

But in the eyes of the Esher Committee, report-
ing with consummate speed and fluency in the
Spring of 1904, this Northbrook conception of
Army Finance had been very far from realised.
The system and methods of financial control were
arraigned as the root of all evil. "They do not con-
duce to economy in peace; they directly promote
waste in war; they tend, at all times, to combine the
maximum of friction with the minimum of efficiency."
"The entire system of War Office finance, which
. . . has its origin in a distant past" was condemned
as misconceived and futile, and "a change of per-
sonnel" was recommended, since nothing else which
the Committee could suggest would "so fully con-
vince the rank and file of the Finance Branch that
the old system must be abandoned, and completely
new habits formed." The gist of this very bitter
indictment was the alleged abuse of the powers of

ARMY FINANCE 243

control placed in the hands of a civilian department
described as a "huge and costly machine which is
supposed to control expenditure by the aid of in-
volved regulations."

iMnce this abuse was denied completely by Lord
Roberts, Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir T. Kelly-Kenny,
Sir Mansfield Clarke and other distinguished
military officers who had served in the War Office
recently, the accusation was not convincing. An
unkind critic might even suppose that the Com-
mittee's normal clearness of thought had been
temporarily obfuscated, and that individual officials,
and not the system, were the real objects of so
fierce an attack. That, however, is past history.
Whatever the facts of the past may have been, the
conception of financial control so roundly con-
demned by the Esher triumvirate is certainly not the
conception to-day. It is true that all control in the
Army must work a great deal by regulations a
method which has its limitations. This is not only
so in matters of "finance" such as the rates of pay
and allowances but also as regards the expenditure
of stores, which has to be controlled by the military
departments by means of minute equipment regu-
lations, by scales of clothing and ammunition, or by
schedules of hospital stores and furniture. Inevitably
the Army at large is inundated with regulations ; but
the modern ideal of the Finance Department is to
make them elastic so far as it can.

The Committee were clearly right in their con-
tention that economy in the true sense of obtaining
the fullest value for money can only be ensured in
oneway , . . by the military authorities themselves.

244 THE WAR OFFICE

They were right when, following the Dawkins Com-
mittee, they pressed the point that financial advisers
sections, in fact, of the Finance Department
should be attached to each of the military chiefs, the
"Q.M.G." and the "M.G.O.," who were mainly
responsible for the spending of money. This was
already in course of being done, and the system
remains in being to-day. The idea that economy in
the true sense could only be achieved by military
administrators who were fully appraised of the
financial bearings of every proposal that might come
before them was the theory stressed by Sir Charles
Harris, when he advocated the "cost accounts" to
which reference will be made in the final chapter,
He emphasised the fact in trenchant phrases that "a
vital striving after economy " belongs to a higher
level of administration than "the mechanical im-
pounding of casual balances" by tying up cash in
small compartments.

The Esher picture of Army Finance as regarding
all military officers as spendthrifts, if it ever was true,
is not true now. Common sense alone forbids such a
view. The sum which the nation will spare for its
Army is, arid must be, a limited sum; and the
authorities who are most deeply interested in getting
the highest value for money are the heads of the
military departments themselves. The Army Esti-
mates for 1934 show a gross total of ^45,373,000
the total, that is, without deducting receipts; but if
the public imagines that any such sum is available
for new projects, for schemes of military ambition,
the public is grievously mistaken. Nine millions, for
example, are earmarked for pensions ; eleven millions

ARMY FINANCE 245

are required for pay. The cost of simply "running"
the Army as it stood organised at the beginning of
the year, in pay, food, housing, etc., will take up
mpst of the whole sum. These are "maintenance"
costs which cannot be avoided, short of reducing the
size of the Army. In actual fact the sum for "new
services" available to the Council at the beginning
of the year (1934-35) for changes in numbers, new
stores, new building schemes, new land and so on,
was under 3,000,000 in all.

When Members of Parliament press the Wai-
Office to give the soldiers home-killed beef in
preference to Dominion meat at a cost of, say, half a
million a year, it is small wonder that the War Office
objects provided that the soldier has good food.

There is no room for extravagance. Mechan-
isation, for example, is a "popular" programme:
the Press and the public are sympathetic; but each
machine is very expensive and the Army cannot
afford to be rash: it must make quite sure of the
types that are suitable: it must feel its way very
carefully before it spends a considerable sum for
which other urgent demands are competing. The
individual "new services" which finally find their
way into Estimates are the chosen remnant of a
great host. To know the financial implications of
every proposal that comes forward is vital to the
military chiefs. In the intentions of the Finance
Department the Northbrook conception has been
realised. Army Finance in its highest function is
co-operation within the Army between an experi-
enced civil department and the military branches
who spend the money.

246 THE WAR OFFICE

Of course, the position of the Finance branches
may not always be enviable. The vigilance of the
"C. and A.G." will query any * irregularity ," and
will report any wasteful expenditure to Parliament.
Again, "Finance," in much of its work, stands in
a somewhat uncomfortable position between the
Olympian omniscience of the Treasury and the
idealism of military ambitions. The soldiers are
right to be ambitious for the Army: the Treasury
is rightly Olympian. The position calls for tact and
understanding, and the personality of the Account-
ing Officer is responsible in no small measure for the
maintenance of cordial relations. An important point
to be noted here is that the Accounting Officer is
to-day, and has been since 1920, a member of the
Army Council, and so definitely shares with his
military colleagues responsibility for the efficiency
of the Army.

How wide is the field for constructive assistance
may be judged from the duties of the military branches
as set out in previous chapters; and intermingled
with this duty is the other aspect of financial advice
which derives from the theory of financial control on
behalf of the Government and of Parliament. The
preparation of the Army Estimates illustrates the
combined functions.

The complete printed book of the Estimates, a
book of over 300 pages which goes into very
considerable detail, must be given to Parliament
early in March. The Estimates consist of Vote A
(Numbers), and 1 5 separate money Votes Vote i ,
Pay, etc., of the Army; Vote 2, Territorial Army
and Reserve Forces; Vote 3, Medical Services; and

ARMY FINANCE 247

so on (the complete list is appended in a note*); and
each Vote is split into subheads 123 in all. A
central finance branch (F.i) is charged with the
general collation of the figures. Draft estimates
for the several Votes are called for from each
Member of Council as early as the preceding
November. They consist of the estimated costs of
maintenance in pay, food, stores and so on; the
amount of the receipts that may be expected
(contributions, for instance, from India and the
Colonies); and a preliminary list of "new services/*
Every figure has passed through financial examina-
tion whether it depends on a rate of pay, or the
estimated price of food or clothing for the year
which begins four months ahead, or on prob-
able fluctuations of numbers, or the amount of
cash required in the year for each of a hundred
building schemes. The estimates, of course, are
strictly cash . . . cash to be expended in the twelve
months.

That is the first stage in the process. When the
Government has settled the total to be allowed, there
remains a margin between that total and the sum
of the unavoidable costs of maintaining the Army
at a given strength and of paying commitments for
pensions, etc. This margin constitutes the total
allowance for the whole programme of "new ser-
vices," from the addition of a soldier-clerk in Jamaica
to the building of barracks at Aberdeen or of land
defences of Singapore. The Council sits as an
Estimates Committee combing the list item by item,
assigning priority of urgency and importance; and

* Note 19, page 346.

248 THE WAR OFFICE

here a complete financial picture of every item in the
lengthy lists is vital to its interests, "Finance" must
prepare a full exposition, and memoranda on special
items (the programme, for instance, of mechgjj r
isation); and, when the reduced programme is
settled, it must put the figures into the approved
form for presentation to Parliament, and secure that
Treasury sanction is obtained for individual items,
where the rules require it, and finally for each Vote
as a whole.

Looking to the work required of " Finance " by
parliamentary procedure alone, three duties are
proceeding concurrently in the autumn and winter
of every year the preparation of the Estimates for
the year which begins in the following April, the
watching of current expenditure, and the prepar-
ation of the Army Account for the year which
ended in the previous March. Forecasts of current
expenditure are very necessary to the Treasury, who
are not only acting for the Chancellor but must
watch the requirements of the House of Commons
as regards any over-spending of Votes. In regard to
the Account for the previous year, this must reach
the Treasury by the end of December, with explan-
ations, wherever required, of the difference between
estimate and actual expenditure under the several
subheads of each Vote. It is then examined on behalf
of the House by the special Public Accounts Com-
mittee who possess the report of the "C. and A.G.,"
and can challenge the Accounting Officer on any
point which they wish to raise.

Thus the two broad functions assigned to "Fi-
nance/ 1 advice to assist administration, and control

ARMY FINANCE 249

to secure "regularity" of spending, proceed together
throughout the year.

Using the word "department" strictly, there is no
"Finance Department" of the War Office, but the
phrase^can be used conveniently to cover two parts
of a large whole: (i) the finance branches at the War
Office, and (2) the Local Audit Staff in Commands,
who are really detached from the War Office
branches. The military Royal Army Pay Corps,
which pays the great bulk of the bills of the Army,
and of which only a small headquarters section is
actually part of the War Office staff, forms a third
part of the full picture.

The organisation is, briefly, as follows:

Under the Permanent Under-Secretary of State
the finance branches at the War Office are grouped
under three Directors of Finance, and controlled by
a Deputy Under-Secretary of State. They number
eleven and the general area of the work of each of
them can be indicated in a few words.

The first (F.i), already mentioned, deals with
Estimates and general finance. General finance in-
cludes, for example, adjustments with other Govern-
ments and departments, such as the large adjust-
ments with India; financial statements for the League
of Nations; banking and foreign exchange questions.
This is also the branch which, working closely with
the Adjutant-General, acts as his financial adviser on
the intricate question of "peace establishments" and
the control or numbers generally both of the Army
and of the Reserves. The second (F.2) deals with

250 THE WAR OFFICE

rates of pay and the interpretation of the Pay Warrant
as it affects the pay of officers and men. Army nurses
and schoolmistresses ; with marriage allowance ; with
the establishments of military staffs; and, among a
host of miscellaneous questions, with the accounts
of the two "Army Agents/' Either Cox's and King's
branch of Lloyds Bank, or Holt's branch of Glyn,
Mills and Co., is appointed by the War Office to
act as agents to every regiment. They take the place
of Paymasters for the issue of pay to officers, and
"Cox's" and "Holt's" have been household words to
generations of Army officers.*

The third branch (F.3) deals with half-pay and
pensions (the "Non-Effective Votes" of the Esti-
mates) and questions of compensation generally;
the fourth (.4) with the Territorial Army; the
fifth (F.5) with the Royal Ordnance Factories, whose
finance and accounts are a special study and stand
outside the Army Estimates. There is now no F.6.
The next (F.y) is concerned with the principles of
accountancy, and the administration of the audit
branches in the several Commands, which remain
to be mentioned. F.8 deals with cash and with
cash accounts. It draws the cash from the Paymaster-
General, carries out Headquarter payments, makes
the claims on other departments and Governments,
and keeps the main ledger of cash expenditure,
obtaining reports from all Paymasters and com-
piling the monthly returns of expenditure. These
latter are used in framing the forecasts by means
of which the Finance Committee watches the
progress of Army Votes. It is also the function of

* Note 20, page 346.

ARMY FINANCE 251

this branch to prepare the Account required for
Parliament. F.g is the office of the Chief Paymaster
of the Royal Army Pay Corps. It administers the
*iorps and controls the pay offices in the Commands.
F.io is the Cost Accounting branch.

The remaining two are the special branches at-
tached v for duty as financial advisers to the "Q.M.G."
and the "M.G.O." They are there to ensure that
these Military Members may be given the full
financial picture of all proposed expenditure, and are
responsible to the Permanent Under-Secretary of
State that the money allotted is properly allocated,
and that all points are duly considered with a view
to securing economy. Their position is one of dual
allegiance, which on paper appears to be somewhat
awkward: in practice it works perfectly well.

Here, perhaps, three points should be mentioned
on which confusion sometimes arises.

The first concerns the sphere of the War Office as
distinct from that of the Ministry of Pensions. The
retired pay awarded to officers and nurses is given
in respect of rank or service, or for disability attrib-
utable to service. Similarly pensions are awarded to
soldiers either in respect of long service or of dis-
abilities (such as wounds) which are "attributable."
The War Office provides for retired pay or pensions
awarded for rank and length of service; but, as
regards disabilities, it is concerned only with those
incurred after the close of the Great War or in peace-
time service prior to the war. For death or disabilities
attributable to service in the Great War (or attrib-
utable to service in former wars where retired pay
or pension was first granted before ist October,

252 THE WAR OFFICE

1921) the awards are administered by the Ministry
of Pensions. To draw the line briefly and very
roughly, the Ministry of Pensions deals with the
war: Army funds provide for other pensions.

The second point concerns the Royal Hospital,
Chelsea, and the part which it plays in the award of
pensions.

The institution of Chelsea Hospital for the
relief of "aged, maimed and infirm Land Soldiers "
dates from 1681. A Board of Commissioners was
first appointed by Letters Patent of 1691. Originally
the work of the Commissioners was concerned only
with the Hospital, which was no doubt intended to
hold all pensioners, who in 1689 numbered 579.
As numbers increased new duties were added,
The system of paying "out-pensions," which to-day
number over 100,000, became unavoidable, and the
Commissioners were charged with this duty as well.
All pensions are granted by grace of the Crown, and
the conditions which govern the award of pensions
are laid down in royal warrants and regulations. The
Board receives a man's record of service, with all
relevant particulars, and proceeds to decide the
award of a pension according to the terms of the
regulations.

Thus the War Office itself does not take part in
the actual award of a soldier's pension. The Army
Council are only concerned when the Board recom-
mends some special treatment, or when questions
of fact must be decided. For example, it may be
a question for decision whether a soldier was
serving on duty when he received certain injuries,
or whether the illness from which he died was

ARMY FINANCE 253

attributable, or not, to his military service. On the
facts of the case the War Office decides : the Board
of Commissioners, a body appointed by Letters
Patent, administers the warrants and regulations.

The third point of some special interest is the
system of finance of the Ordnance Factories.

The Factories have their own Estimates. They
operate manufacturing accounts by which they are
able to charge their customers, whether the War
Office, the Admiralty, India or a Dominion, with the
ascertained cost of each piece of work. The cost
prices are based on a system which, subject to certain
modifications (such as including no charge for profit,
or for rent of land or for interest on capital), is framed
on modern commercial practice. Normally, therefore,
no Vote is required, since the charges recover the
working expenses and enable the Factories to finance
for themselves all their ordinary needs in capital ser-
vices; but, in order to obtain the necessary sanction,
a full Estimate is presented to Parliament annually
for staflf, wages, stores and so on. After allowing for
customers' payments, it works down to a token sum.
Parliament votes jioo.

Reverting now to the "Finance Department," the
second part, outside the War Office, consists in the
staff of Local Auditors, whose offices serve the
military Commands all Commands at home and
the larger abroad.

These were instituted in 1902 as a result of the
Clinton-Dawkins Committee, who recommended
a forward policy of "decentralisifig" responsibility

254 THE WAR OFFICE

from the War Office to the local commanders. Like
the two special branches in the War Office itself (the
branches for financial advice to the "Q.M.G." and
the "M.G.O."), the Local Auditors have a dual
position, being available for advice to military chicib
and being responsible to the Permanent Under-
secretary of State, whose officers they, in fact, are.
Their advice does not bind the administrative
officers, who are themselves responsible for securing
economy. They are also more than financial advisers,
since they audit all the accounts of the Command,
both for cash and stores, so that no such accounts
have to come to the War Office, but merely an
abstract of cash expenditure; and they carry out test
stock-taking of stores.

A separate and special audit office, with the title
"Store Auditor, Woolwich, " is divided between
Woolwich and Didcot, and is mainly concerned with
the store accounts of the central depots of ordnance
stores, and with similar audit and stock-taking
duties for the central medical and veterinary stores,
the Research Department, the Inspection depart-
ments, and other store-using establishments directed
by the War Office. The audit of local "Command"
depots falls, of course, to the Local Auditors. The
audit of the accounts of the Factories is done by a
section of "F-5" stationed at Woolwich.

Finally, the Royal Army Pay Corps not itself a
part of the War Office deals with the receipt and
disbursement of moneys for Army services in a
Command, and the compilation of the relevant
accounts. The Command Paymaster has as his
military chief the Officer in charge of Administra-

ARMY FINANCE 255

tion, and on all questions of pay and allowances, and
the way in which money is brought to account, he
is the adviser to that officer, who can turn to the
Local Auditor when doubts arise on financial prin-
ciple. On questions of ' 'regularity " the Paymaster is
responsible to the Accounting Officer at the War
Office 5 for this, in the eyes of the House of Commons,
is vital to parliamentary control.

The work of the regimental pay offices is concerned
with individuals. It deals with the accounts of indi-
vidual soldiers, reservists and pensioners, and of
officers and men of the Supplementary Reserve and
also the Territorial Army. These offices are co-
ordinated closely with the Record Offices, which
keep the records of the same regiments and corps.
There is one Record Office for each arm, apart from
the case of the Infantry. For the latter there are 1 2
Record Offices, each dealing with a group of regi-
ments. In the case of all corps a part of this work
is carried out under the care of the Paymasters: in
the case of the Infantry, the whole of it.

Pay services have an interesting history. When
the standing Army first came into being, the dis-
tribution of pay and the keeping of accounts was a
regimental matter entirely: the Colonel employed a
"Colonel's Clerk," a civilian of his own choosing.
At the end of the eighteenth century (25th Decem-
ber, 1798) Paymasters, with special commissions as
such, were appointed officially for each regiment,
and District Paymasters were also instituted. The
next change came seventy years later when the so-
called "Control Department," a short-lived feature
of the Cardwell regime, had a sub-department of

256 THE WAR OFFICE

paymasters for pay duties outside the regiments;
but these and the regimental Paymasters were
together absorbed in 1877 in a general Army Pay
Department. Entrance into this new department
was restricted to combatant officers, who served s
"Staff Paymasters" and "Paymasters" with the
honorary ranks of Major and Captain. Paymasters
continued to be attached to regiments up to the year
1890, when a "Station" system was introduced. The
corps of military "other ranks" was formed in 1893.

In that year the administration of both the
department and the corps was removed from the
sphere of the Financial Secretary to that of the
Quarter-Master-General, and so remained until 1 905.
Then followed a transitory phase, recommended by
the Esher Committee, in which pay, accounting and
audit duties were combined in a single civilian
department entitled the "Army Accounts Depart-
ment." This lasted only till 1909, when the military
Army Pay Department was reconstituted with its
present duties.

The department and corps were honoured by the
King in recognition of their war services, and in the
same year (1920) became a united corps of the Army
with the title "The Royal Army Pay Corps." Its
responsibility to the Accounting Officer in no way
impairs its military status.

This sketch of the functions of Army Finance is
intended to explain one half of the business which
falls to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State.
This half is officially described as follows:

ARMY FINANCE 257

"Duties connected with his Office as Account-
ing Officer of Army votes, funds and accounts.
Control of expenditure, and financial advice
generally. Consideration and compilation of the
Parliamentary Estimates. Review of proposals for
new expenditure, or for redistribution of the sums
allotted to the different subheads of the Votes.
Financial adjustments and relations with other
Departments and Governments. Accounts and
audit. Non-Effective Votes. Administration of the
Royal Army Pay Corps."

The other half of the responsibilities with which
this Member of Council is charged will be set out in
the next chapter.

Under the Deputy Under-Secretary of State and
the three Directors of Finance, the finance branches
at the War Office consisted on April ist, 1934, of
a staff of 257. The majority are civil servants 21
of the Administrative class, 19 of the Executive
class, and some 200 of the Clerical class. The per-
sonnel of the R.A.P.C., employed in the branches
F9 and F.io, numbered 6 officers and 6 military
clerks.

For details of the cost of the Army, its numbers
and its rates of pay, a large amount of interesting
information is contained in the book of Army
Estimates, which is published early in each year.

Chapter XII
THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT

IN a vast organisation such as the modern War
Office much must depend upon the pivotal centre
which is charged with the task of co-ordination and
the smooth working of the machine as a whole. It
is this fact that gives a vital character to the position
of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, quite
apart from his functions as Accounting Officer. As
the channel of communication between the Secretary
of State and the rest of the department, as the
Secretary of the Army Council and as the head of
the permanent staff of the Office, he is charged with
duties of supreme importance for the efficiency of
the discharge of business.

The present Permanent Under-Secretary of State
once described his position, with too great modesty,
as largely that of a Remembrancer. He referred in
this phrase to the Secretariat as a repository of
experience, a permanent link between past and
present, the element of continuity amid an ever-
changing military staff. To keep in touch with the
Army itself, with its point of view and its difficulties,
and to know its troubles by personal contact, is
held to be a very valuable principle in the system
of short-term military staffs who come from the
Army to serve at Headquarters for a period of four
years. To the permanent civilian element falls,

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 259

therefore, the complementary task of providing
long and continuous experience of the problems of
Army administration as seen from the standpoint
of Ministers, of other Departments of State, of the
public, and indeed of past generations of soldiers
for "new" ideas are seldom novel. This continuity
of experience is certainly an asset of great value
in assisting the discharge of the "central' ' duties
which fall to the permanent head of the office;
but "Remembrancer" is too narrow a term, for
"the general control of War Office procedure and
the conduct of official business" a primary function
of the "P. U.S." is merely the official expression of
a duty which, in plainer language, is responsibility
for the efficient working of the whole department.

Under the heading of "general control," the pur-
suit of expedition without loss of efficiency, and the
avoidance of that written circumlocution which was
once the taunt of all Government offices, are the con-
stant aims of the modern regime. Naturally, consulta-
tion on paper is very largely indispensable; for a glance
at the framework of the machine, with its several dis-
tinct military departments, each sub-divided into
many sections, its branches for contracts and lands
business, its finance division and its secretariat, is
sufficient reminder of the many interests that a single
subject may concern. A purchase of land for training,
for example, will affect more than one of the military
branches, may involve estate and legal questions,
and may even possess political aspects, apart from its
financial side: the Air Ministry or other depart-
ments may possibly be concerned in it : and to over-
look even a minor interest will probably result in

260 THEWAROFFICE

loss of time and, in any case, in some wasted effort.
Consultation on paper is quite essential for co-
ordinating so large a department. The point stressed
is rather that verbal discussion is a feature of modern
War Office methods as opposed to that writing of
lengthy "minutes" which distinguished procedure
in older days.

It is not a question of telephones or of other
modern facilities, though the lack of these is too
little remembered in criticising "the old days." The
real task of the "P. U.S.," as responsible for the
conduct of business, is concerned with questions of
greater moment than mere convenience of working
methods, or even of mere co-ordination, though the
latter is an important feature. It is more truly one of
co-operation. The public probably conceives of a
department as a single unified entity; but actually,
like any other large business, it is a mass of interests
and points of view which are often divergent and
sometimes clashing, and which only result in con-
certed decisions by a process of mutual understanding.
Thirty years ago this division of interests provided
a background for plausible tales of miVitary-versus-
civilian differences; but to-day such tales are no
longer heard. The task of "general control" at its
best is to secure that spirit of mutual confidence
between the several parts of a large whole which
results in a concerted policy undelayed by protracted
disputes; and the whole trend of the "control" of
to-day is certainly towards that end.

Given the existence of that widened outlook, that
appreciation of "the other view," which is here
claimed for the military staff of to-day no less than it

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 261

is for the civil servant, the mere discarding of formal
procedures can do much to expedite business. Thus,
even at the highest level, formal meetings of the
Army Council, with all the machinery of printed
precis, are so infrequent as to be rare. As a Board
the Council is seldom seen; but Council decisions
are giv y en daily. There are frequent meetings of two
or more Councillors, with or without Ministers, to
expedite important decisions. There are regular
meetings of the Military Members to talk over
matters of military policy or of military administra-
tion; and these are assisted by the "P. U.S." on
financial or other civil aspects. Again, in times of
emergency, informal meetings of the Army Council
are held as often as once a day, or even more than
once a day: some such occasions were the General
Strike, the Turko-Greek troubles at Chanak, or the
despatch of the Shanghai Defence Force. For the
rest, decisions are taken on paper; but, subject to
proper records being kept, informal discussion "off
the paper" is encouraged wherever it is likely to help
in the speeding up of office procedure. In this kind
of way "control of procedure" can vitally affect
administration.

In the actual machinery of co-ordination the
responsibility of the "P. U.S." for the signature of
all important letters and orders of the Army Council
is, of course, a material point. The object of this duty
is to ensure that the decision conveyed in the letter
is complete and authoritative. When a letter goes out
from the War Office "by command of the Army
Council," no matter from which branch it may
emanate, it is, as it purports to be, a decision of all

262 THE WAR OFFICE

the authorities concerned. It is, therefore, the business
of the "P.U.S.," or that of the Assistant Under-
secretary of State who may sign the letter on his
behalf, to see that all Members of Council concerned
are parties to the communication, either personally
in larger questions or through their branches in
those of less importance. In addition important in-
coming letters are sorted out from the daily post-
bags to be shown at once to the "P.U.S."; and simi-
larly lists are compiled currently of all important
Treasury decisions and are circulated to Members of
Council and Directors.

Other ways and means of co-ordination will be
mentioned in sketching the duties of the branches.
* * # #

Apart from the control of business generally, the
other "central" duties of the "P.U.S." are officially
summarised as follows:

"Duties connected with his office as Secretary
of the Army Council. The domestic economy of
the War Office. Parliamentary and legal business.
Committees. The Army Lists. Editing and issue
of Army regulations, Army Orders, Army Council
Instructions and other publications. Printing and
Stationery Services. Communications with the
Press. The administration of the Royal Army
Chaplains' Department. Conditions of employ-
ment of all civilian staffs."

Of these the widest is "domestic economy," since
it covers the whole sphere of office arrangements,
including the important part of the mechanism
which is known as the Registry, or "R." This is

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 263

a central organisation which acts on behalf of all
branches. With a vast volume of correspondence for
distribution among scores of branches it is important
to provide a comprehensive system of identifying each
particular file, and of keeping track of its whereabouts
during the course of its circulation. A central Registry
was first adopted when the various departments of
Army administration were amalgamated in 1856 to
form a united War Department, and, basically, the
existing Registry system is a modernised and im-
proved version of the excellent plan of those old
days.

The system may be called "subjective." When
the new correspondence has been opened and sorted,
the papers are classified according to subject, each
generic subject possessing a number "345" for
example, signifying Inspections; while a heading,
such as * 'Cavalry/' indicates the particular branch of
the subject, and a sub-number, say "242," identifies
this particular file. Thus the 242nd file which deals
with the inspection of Cavalry bears, so to speak, an
identity disc in the number marked on its official
"jacket" "34! Cavalry / 242": and a "transit section"
of the Registry, operating with loose-leaf ledgers,
records its movements wherever it goes. Thus fresh
correspondence on an "old" subject can be placed
at once in its proper file, and the whole dossier on
any subject is available at short notice to any branch
which requires to see it. There is, of course, a mass
of correspondence which does not require fresh
registration, since files on the subjects are "open"
already. Thus the number of files which were newly
"registered" in the twelve months of 1933 was

364 THE WAR OFFICE

233,426 ; but the volume of ' 'unregistered " post was
roughly two and a half times as large.

Naturally, in the case of a new file, one of the
several duties of "R" is to mark it at once to tfre
branch of the Office which is primarily concerned in
taking action. At the headquarters offices of the mili-
tary Commands the card-index system has been
adopted ; but the volume of correspondence received
by the War Office is so vast and intricate that the
book-record system, with its smaller risk of "losing"
files by displacement of cards, is still preferred. The
"registered" post for 1919 numbered 4,360,000
letters, and the present system stood up to the strain.
Files not in use are stored on racks, and the "press-
keepers," as the staff is called (because the files were
originally stored in "presses"), have charge to-day of
4,000,000 papers. The "weeding" of files with a view
to their destruction is, therefore, another duty of "R,"
and one which requires much knowledge and experi-
ence, for all the papers of Government Departments
become the property of the Master of the Rolls and
can be destroyed only under strict rules. At the end
of the war the registered files had risen from 3 to
over 10 millions: and of these over 6| millions have
now been weeded as obsolete; but much work still
remains to be done.

Thus, to sum up, the Registry at the War Office
is organised in three divisions for Registration,
Transit and Press, and constitutes an extremely
important element in the general scheme of co-
ordination for which the "P. U.S." is responsible.

A few explanatory details follow as regards each
of the main headings of work; and these, for the

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 265

convenience of the reader, are arranged under the
names of the branches which deal with them, in order
to show the organisation.

.Further work for the correlation of business falls
to the branch numbered "C.i." The circulation
within the department of important decisions and
memoranda, and the preparation of domestic instruc-
tions for the information and guidance of the Office,
are part of the duties of this small section. The latter
include Office Memoranda, a Chronology of annual
events, and an imposing book of Office Instructions
which the newcomer reads (it is hoped) with great
profit. Other duties include the preparation of
precis for the meetings of the Army Council, and
of special papers for the Secretary of State ; the for-
mation of committees and the handling of their
reports ; and such general and miscellaneous matters
as applications for official assistance in the making
of films with a military interest, or the disposal of
local military trophies.

Some of the most difficult work concerns charitable
and other grants of money. Small sums are pro-
vided in Army Estimates for grants to churches
and hospitals and other charitable institutions; but
the Council also has at its disposal a limited amount
of non-public funds, and the distribution of these
in the best interests of officers, soldiers and military
families requires judicious handling. In this work
C.I is the focussing point; the actual allocation of
money being largely, of course, a military interest.
The profits made by the Royal Tournament (which
dates from the year 1880) go to swell the annual
charity grants.

266 THE WAR OFFICE

Parliamentary and legal business is the first charge

C */" ~

or C.2,

To the public its most familiar productions are,
doubtless, the answers given by Ministers to fhe
questions put by Members of Parliament. The
precise tone of the answer given will depend on the
Minister charged with replying, but the facts of the
case are supplied by the department, all too often
at very short notice and a certain expense of public
money on telegrams and telephone calls. Why a
military band played tunes at a fte in some remote
and unheard-of village, or why the father of a
certain soldier has applied in vain for his son's dis-
charge these are not points which the War Office
can answer without incurring considerable labour;
but it is a point of honour with a Government De-
partment though one or two cynical souls among
the public may harbour unworthy doubts on the
matter that the facts supplied shall be strictly
accurate. " Questions " can give a great deal of
trouble in collecting the facts in a large Department.

The main parliamentary work of the branch is
concerned with proposals for legislation. The
Department has certain bills of its own, such as
the Army and Air Force Annual Bill; but all
public and private bills and provisional orders
presented to the House require to be watched very
carefully for the due protection of War Office
interests. (A bill relating to Diseases of Fish has
been found to affect the War Department!) This
branch is concerned also with the Crown, in the
sense of preparing the formal submissions by
which His Majesty's pleasure is taken. Thus the

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 267

holding of manoeuvres, to quote an example, requires
by statute an Order in Council. If a change is made
in the Army Council, the King's authority is sought
by^ warrants for the issue of the necessary Letters
Patent. The appeals made by officers under the
Army Act, the petitions to the King which any sub-
ject may lodge, and the proceedings of certain types
of courts-martial, similarly require a formal pro-
cedure. Arrangements for attendance at levees and
investitures, and the keeping of the register of the
"D.S.O.," are other types of a host of duties which
fall to this part of the Secretariat.

Appropriately the legal work is coupled with the
parliamentary, since the two are frequently inter-
mingled. Here the War Office is well armed, since
it possesses direct access to an important group of
legal advisers. On the drafting of parliamentary bills
the Parliamentary Counsel at the Treasury con-
tributes more than expert knowledge. On cases in-
volving criminal law the Director of Public Prose-
cutions advises. The day-to-day business is more
largely concerned with the civil law; and here the
department of the Treasury Solicitor gives constant
and unfailing assistance on an almost unlimited range
of subjects. For Scotland the War Office employs its
own solicitor, and can also consult the Lord Advo-
cate. Finally, on military law the department's official
legal adviser is the Judge Advocate General to the
Forces, In the case of all these legal officers the
official files are "minuted to them in the same way
as to War Office branches.

Indeed the last-named officer, the "J.A.G.," is
in a measure a part of the War Office, though he

268 THE WAR OFFICE

stands in an independent position as direct adviser
to the Secretary of State. The office is one of great
antiquity, to which time has brought striking and
interesting changes. It dates at least from the
seventeenth century, when the "J.A.G." was for
practical purposes a public prosecutor to the Army,
acting on behalf of the Sovereign, and one of his
duties was to * 'pursue offenders to punishment
before a Court-martial." Later he was normally a
member of the Government, and was secretary and
legal adviser to the Board of General Officers, a
capacity in which his sphere of influence was con-
siderably wider than military law. In the nineteenth
century the "J.A.G." became legal adviser to the
Commander-in-Chief, and still had a seat in the
House of Commons as the mouthpiece of the
Government, if the actions or the office of the
C.-in-C. were subjected to parliamentary attack. From
1892 onwards he ceased to be a Minister, but his
position to-day remains special in character. He holds
his appointment under Letters Patent, being adviser
to the Secretary of State for War (and now also to the
Secretary of State for Air) and custodian of the
proceedings of all courts-martial. His important
functions in relation to courts-martial have been
mentioned in a previous chapter (page 1 32), but he is
legal adviser on other matters, also, as the Secretary
of State may at any time require.

As an illustration of the many subjects possessing
a legal or quasi-legal bearing with which the War
Office is confronted, one which has excited some
public attention is the policy governing the disclosure
or non-disclosure of confidential information. To

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 269

plead privilege, for example, for medical reports,
which are necessarily confidential documents, may
become a very delicate matter of weighing two dis-
tir^ct public interests : and the burden rests on the
Secretary of State. This is a case where Government
Departments are unreasonably considered to be un-
reasonable. A second example which affects the public
is the duty laid upon the Army Council by Act of
Parliament (the Geneva Convention Act of 1911) of
protecting the use of the Red Cross emblem. The use
of the Red Cross is confined by international agree-
ment to the medical services of the Forces of the
Crown and to duly authorised Voluntary Aid Societies,
and the number of civil hospitals and traders who
occasionally attempt to make use of the emblem re-
veals a widespread ignorance of the fact that its use
is contrary to the law of the land. The three authorised
Voluntary Aid Societies are the British Red Cross, the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and the St. Andrew's
Ambulance Association, who undertake definite
obligations for supplementing the medical services
of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force in war.

A separate section of this large branch deals with
the control of expenditure which is charged to the
Votes of the Stationery Office. The service rendered
by His Majesty's Stationery Office to all Government
Departments alike is known technically as a "free
service," and its cost is not paid by Army funds; but
the obligation to pursue economy is rigorously
observed by the War Office. The average expenditure
for Army purposes on stationery and office requisites,
printing of all descriptions required, published books
and periodicals, and office machinery ranging from

270 THEWAROFFICE

typewriters to the most elaborate accounting machines,
is about 150,000 a year. There is a printing press
in the War Office itself for secret and confidential
work. In addition to mobilisation reserves, large
stocks of printed matter are required by the Army
for current work, such as training manuals and Army
forms (of which there are some 3,000 varieties), and
these are stored at a depot at Wandsworth, where
they are packed and distributed. The weight of the
stock for all purposes is about 1,500 tons.

The most important work of this section is a
constant campaign of economy, which is possible
in two directions: in cutting down the number of
publications for example, the number of Army
forms and in pruning the distribution lists. As
an instance, "Notes on Map Reading" has a
distribution of 48,000 copies on the basis that
issue is strictly confined to those who must actually
use the book; and a similar method of restricting
issues is applied to some 2,000 publications. This
is a case where centralisation is definitely economical.
The distribution of Army Orders requires about
8,000 copies. For economy in printing costs a
considerable amount of duplicating work is done
by electrically-driven machines. For typing and
shorthand-typing work a department familiarly
known as "T" is ruled by a Controller of Typists,
with a staff of some 120 ladies.

Yet another section, a very small one, deals with
all information given to the Press on subjects which
affect or interest the public. Official communiques
are issued almost daily, but the work consists mainly
of replying to enquiries. The policy is to encourage

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 271

enquiries ; and a development of recent years is the
holding of conferences on special occasions when
matters of current military interests are explained
to the Press by senior officers. Great trust is placed
in 'the loyalty of the newspapers in the matter of
non-publication of news which might, especially in
an emergency, be damaging to the public interest;
and several years before the Great War a liaison
Committee came into being (the Admiralty, War
Office and Press Committee) which set up a volun-
tary system of control. That system worked well both
in peace and in war; and the Committee, expanded
to include the Air Ministry, remains in existence
to-day. Here the Press renders valuable assistance
through the medium of representatives of the news-
paper owners of the United Kingdom. The im-
portant principle of ' Tress' ' policy is that all
newspapers shall be treated alike.

The editing of War Office publications is the
charge of the third branch (C-3). The "big five" in
this connection, giving them their short titles, are
the King's Regulations, the Pay Warrant, the Allow-
ance Regulations, the T.A. Regulations and the
Regulations for the Supplementary Reserve; but the
editorial scrutiny extends to the whole mass of War
Office literature textbooks, handbooks, manuals,
and pamphlets.

Part of the work is the review and publication
of Army Orders and Army Council Instructions,
the former being public and placed on sale, and
the latter more temporary and domestic in character.
Army Orders date from 1888 and are the means
of promulgating Royal Warrants, Orders made by

274 THE WAR OFFICE

of about fifteen hundred a week. Ex-officers and
soldiers seeking employment wish to obtain a record
of service or to replace a lost discharge certificate ;
old soldiers or their children ask for evidence of age
which will satisfy the Old Age Pensions authorities;
the Civil Service Commissioners, private employers,
Regimental Associations and Aid Societies, the
police, recruiting officers, or Employment Exchanges
require details of Army service, either for assisting
men to employment or, sometimes, for checking
their misdemeanours.

In addition, there are miscellaneous records
which claim 400 enquiries a week touching on
every conceivable subject of military activity. These
include full particulars of all campaigns from
1879 onwards; the casualty lists of the Great War;
the records of the headquarters staffs in all theatres
of operations, of the Armies in the field and the
Armies of Occupation, of the women's corps and
the civilian subordinates; and the schedules of
honours and awards granted for service in the field.
Items of particular interest are the records of enemy
prisoners of war inherited from a temporary war-time
department (The Prisoners of War Information
Bureau), and the files of the special Government
Committee on the treatment by the enemy of British
prisoners. Finally there are maps, nearly 20,000 in
number, some of which date from the seventeenth
century and possess very great historical interest.
These records are housed at Wai worth.
# # # #

The central work hitherto mentioned is con-
:rolled, under the "P.U.S.," by the Assistant Under-

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 275

Secretary of State; but the main duties of .4 and the
whole of the duties of C-5 are joined to the charge of
the Deputy Under-Secretary. These latter branches
de^l with the civil staffs and the wages, salaries and
conditions of service of all industrial employees.

The main civil staff of the War Office belongs
to what are called "Treasury" classes that is to
say, it is graded and classified on a basis common
to the whole Civil Service; but .4, in addition to
these classes, is concerned with the clerical staffs and
typists employed by the Department's "out-stations" ;
while the work of C.5 has a very large scope, embrac-
ing the bulk of civilian employees, roughly speaking,
other than clerical. At its various factories, store
depots, barracks, hospitals and other institutions at
home stations the Department employs (including
women and lads) some 29,500 civilians; and 4,500
at stations abroad such as Malta, Gibraltar, Egypt
and China. The majority, of course, are industrial
employees, such as mechanics, labourers and store-
hands, or "domestic" staffs at schools, etc.: the
minority are supervisory staffs or technical staffs for
drawing offices, clerks of works or surveyors' clerks.
The pay-roll of these employees at home is about
4,500,000 a year; and the rates of pay are very
numerous; but, apart from the fixing and reviewing
of wages, the work in connection with conditions of
service, disciplinary questions, the policy of dis-
charges, and consideration of complaints and appeals,
which at times involve the attention of Ministers, is
necessarily a heavy task. The Regulations for Civilian
Employees occupy, quite unavoidably, a book of
some 200 pages.

276 THE WAR OFFICE

In fixing wage-rates for its workpeople the War
Office follows the lead of the House of Commons
by adopting the principles of the "fair wages'*
required to be paid by Government contractors
under the Fair Wages Resolution. The main under-
taking thus involved is to "pay rates of wages and
observe hours of labour not less favourable than
those commonly recognised by employers and
trade societies (or, in the absence of such recog-
nised wages and hours, those which in practice pre-
vail amongst good employers) in the trade in the
district where the work is carried out." This task
is as complicated as it sounds. The national policy
as regards employing ex-service men is also fully
observed by the department.

Finally, the Whitley system of councils for
negotiations between employers and employed
the "official side" and the "employees' side"
forms a considerable addition to the work. The
"War Department Industrial Council," of which
the Financial Secretary is chairman, covers the
workpeople generally; and the "War Office Ad-
ministrative Whitley Council," whose chairman is
the "P.U.S.," deals with the clerical and other
grades. The Industrial Council and its local com-
mittees may deal with all matters touching employ-
ment except wages and other questions which come
under the heading of "trade matters." The latter
are reserved to Trade Councils represented on the
official side by the Government Departments which
principally employ the particular class (engineering,
building trade, shipbuilding or miscellaneous labour),
and on the employees' side by the Trades Unions.

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 277

These are not the only such bodies concerned: for
example, the Shop Stewards' Committee at Woolwich
has been prominent since pre-Whitley days. This
machinery adds to the work of the War Office, but
has accomplished much in avoidance of friction and
the settlement of difficult problems.

From the list of duties quoted above there remains
the administration of the Chaplaincy Services. For
denominations other than the Roman Catholic the
general control, under the "P. U.S.," is vested in the
Chaplain-General to the Forces, assisted by a Deputy
Chaplain-General. The Roman Catholic Chaplaincy
Services are separately administered.

Chaplains have accompanied armies in the field
since the earliest exploits of British arms, but the first
appointment of a "Chaplain to the Army" is found in
Cromwell's "New Model," most of the regiments of
which had chaplains. At the Restoration chaplains
were appointed by the King, fully commissioned, to
every regiment, and the Articles of War of 1662
prescribed that "the chaplains to the Troops of
Guards and others in Regiments shall every day read
the Common Prayers of the Church of England to
the soldiers respectively under their charge, and to
preach to them as often as with convenience shall be
thought fit." This regimental system broke down,
since most regiments at home were scattered in
billets, and the appointment of chaplain, obtained by
purchase, became little more than a sinecure. A royal
warrant of 1796, which appointed the first Chaplain-
General, attempted a reorganisation without any

278 THE WAR OFFICE

pronounced success; and a second attempt in 1809
which appointed a number of Staff Chaplains the
first step towards the present department was so
far lacking in lasting effect that the number of ch.ap-
lains who held these commissions in 1843 was ^ ve -
Real reform had to wait for Sidney Herbert working
with a famous figure the Rev. Prebendary Gleig.

The latter was first the Principal Chaplain and
then Chaplain-General for 3 1 years (i 844-75), which
saw the Chaplaincy Service of the Army built up
anew, properly equipped, and extended to embrace
the several denominations. The close connection of
the Chaplain-General with the reform of military
education has been mentioned in a former chapter.
The establishment of Chaplains in 1914 was 117:
at the end of the war the numbers had risen to close
upon 3,500. The establishment now is 138, and a
principal task for the War Office is to secure that
the fullest advantage is obtained from the limited
number of Regular chaplains by posting them to
those garrisons where their services will have the
widest scope. At stations where the numbers of a
particular denomination do not justify the employ-
ment of a regular Chaplain, civilian officiating chap-
lains are appointed. An Advisory Committee, on
which all the Churches are represented, assists the
Department in dealing with questions of the moral
and spiritual welfare of the troops.

There are also one or two central sections which
occupy a special position. One is the province of
Actuaries, who produce indispensable calculations
which the plain man accepts with awe ; another deals
with the Income Duty assessed on all the * 'taxable

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 279

emoluments" which are paid out of Army funds; and
a third is the War Office Library.

The Library is well known, since it contains the
langest collection of military books in Great Britain.
Its origin may be credited to the famous Duke of
York, who wrote to Mr. Pitt in 1 804 recommending
the "formation of a deposit for military knowledge,"
one section of which was to be a military library.
There are, indeed, many books at the War Office
which still bear the label "Military Depot, Q.M.G.'s
Dept" The Library remained a small affair down
to the time of Lord Panmure (1855-58), but his
interest resulted in a "Librarian's Branch," and a
few years later the Franco-German War gave a
great impetus to the collection of literature for
the newly enlarged Topographical branch which
was destined to grow, in due course, to be an
important part of the General Staff. In 1860 the
number of volumes was probably not more than
5,000: to-day there are 135,000, in addition to
4,000 pamphlets which were issued during the
Great War.

There are two sections, a General Staff Library and
a Parliamentary and Reference Library. The former
consists of works in all languages which deal with the
history, military resources, geography and statistics
of foreign countries, and the art and science of war
generally. All important foreign publications are thus
available to the General Staff. The other section is in
constant use for reference to parliamentary debates,
sessional papers, the historical records of regiments
and corps, and scientific and legal works. The earliest
printed book in the Library is dated 1573. This is a

280 THE WAR OFFICE

scarce work by Peter Whitehorne entitled Certayne
wayes for the ordering of souldiours in battelray, and
setting oj ' battayles, after divers fashions ^with their maner
of marching: and also figures of certayne newplattes^for
fortification of townes, etc. Modern literature, whether
military or parliamentary, can certainly make no
claim to scarcity: the Librarians spend busy days.

Finally, from the civil staff are provided the
Private Secretaries to Ministers, to the "P. U.S."
and to the Deputy Under-Secretary; and the three
"Resident Clerks," who dwell in quarters on the
fourth floor and are on duty when the Office is
otherwise closed. As to the duties of the Resident
Clerks, the writer long ago formed the opinion that
there was no limit to their possibilities. The par-
ticular occasion for this conclusion was a very hot
Saturday afternoon in June, in the far-off days before
the war, when a messenger (a commissionaire)
arrived in triumph with an enormous bead, about the
size of a blackbird's egg, consisting apparently of
glass. This messenger had been engaged in clearing
the debris from the War Office stands at the Horse
Guards building after the ceremony of Trooping the
Colour, and the huge bead was among his finds. As
a find it was not in the premier class a silk garment
was judged to be first : its appearance was dingy and
unprepossessing: but the Resident Clerk, acting in
the best official traditions, locked it up in a safe with
the secret ciphers, never dreaming that the tele-
phones at Scotland Yard were ringing busily on
account of its loss. It was something of a shock on
the Monday morning when discreet detectives in-
vaded the War Office.

THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT 281

This incident had a happy ending, for the
messenger was allowed to restore his find to its
owner in person, and the Indian prince, whose
tvrban had contrived to discard its diamonds,
rewarded him with a handsome gift.

Historically the post of Secretary of the War
Office, and head of the permanent civil staff, can be
traced back to an early official with the title of
"Deputy Secretary-at-War." The Commissioners of
Military Enquiry, reporting in the year 1808,
described the Deputy Secretary-at-War as the Senior
Permanent Official who conducted the correspond-
ence and, under the authority of the Secretary-at-
War, directed the business of the department, with
the exception of the Accounts branch. It was he, we
are told, who conveyed to the Office the pleasure of
the Secretary-at-War.

The earliest recorded holder of the post was a
gentleman named Theophilus Blyke, appointed in
1717, who may himself have had predecessors,
though their names in earlier days are lost. At the
end of the eighteenth century his importance was
certainly considered to be great, since his salary
rose from 320 in the year 1782 to 2,000 in
1798, and 2,500 in 1806 a figure which, allow-
ing for changes in value, appears enviable to modern
eyes. Some fifty years later (1851) Mr. Fox-Maule,
later Lord Panmure, described the Deputy Secretary-
at-War as equal in point of rank and position to an
Under-Secretary of State. Then in the post-Crimean
change, when the Secretary-at-War was himself

282 THE WAR OFFICE

absorbed, the post of Deputy was abolished, and tne
last holder. Sir Benjamin Hawes, became Perma-
nent Under-Secretary of State.

Sir R. W. Thompson, Sir A. L. Haliburton, ir
Ralph Knox and Sir Edward Ward are well-known
names in the subsequent line. In the Esher changes
of 1904 the title was changed to "Secretary of the
War Office." In 1920 there were two Joint Secre-
taries (Sir Herbert Greedy and Sir Charles Harris)
who were also made Members of the Army Council ;
and finally, in 1924, the post regained its older title,
and the present "Permanent Under-Secretary of
State," already the Secretary and a member of the
Council, was also appointed Accounting Officer.

Apart from the Under-Secretaries of State, the
civil staff of the central branches serving at the War
Office on April ist, 1934, consisted of the following
numbers: Administrative class, 16; Clerical class
and other clerks, 171. The typing staff for the
whole department numbered 126, and Presskeepers,
Messengers, Cleaners, etc., numbered 362. The
plan of the distribution of work in the whole depart-
ment finance and central of the Permanent
Under-Secretary of State is shown in the diagram
appended.

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Chapter XIII
IN THE GREAT WAR

THE year 1914 did not open propitiously for the
War Office. The Army was in a ferment. Ulstermen
had vowed that they would never accept the Home
Rule Bill which seemed likely to become law, and an
Ulster Defence Force had been organised. Born of
passionate speeches and newspaper articles, the wild
rumour ran through the Army that the Liberal
Government, a Protestant body, proposed to employ
the forces of the Crown to attack and crush Protestant
Ulster.

Colonel Seely, now Lord Mottistone, was then
the Secretary of State for War, Sir John French
was "C.I.G.S.," and Sir Spencer Ewart was Adju-
tant-General. As early as December 1913 they had
summoned to the War Office all the General Officers
Commanding-in-Chief, and had informed them, in
view of disquieting rumours to the effect that officers
would resign their commissions if ordered to attack
Ulster, that no intention had ever existed of giving
any such orders to the troops : what had to be faced
was the possibility of action to protect life and
property, if the civil power could not hold its own.

However, in March plots were on foot among the
wilder spirits in Ireland to seize munitions which
belonged to the Army at Armagh, Omagh and else-
where. The Government desired to protect these

IN THE GREAT WAR 285

arms, and hoped that troops could be moved for this
purpose without precipitating a crisis ; but the orders
set the Curragh ablaze. The officers received a wrong
impression: they thought that the intention behind
these orders was to initiate active military operations.
The rumoured surprise attack on Ulster, of which
they had read and heard so much, appeared now to
be confirmed; and General Gough and fifty-seven
officers of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade at the Curragh
announced that they preferred to accept dismissal if
ordered to proceed north. As a matter of fact they
were to be sent south, and this misapprehension was
soon removed; but, when General Gough was sum-
moned to the War Office, the Secretary of State gave
him a document initialled by himself, Sir John
French and General Ewart, which by some means
or other was published in the Press and appeared,
with certain amendments in manuscript, to constitute
a sort of private bargain between the Government and
the "rebellious'* officers.

Then the storm broke in Press and Parliament.
Furious demands were made that the document
should be withdrawn; but Sir John French refused
to withdraw. The resignations of the Field-Marshal
and Sir Spencer Ewart were announced in the House
on March 3Oth; and the Secretary of State resigned
also. Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, took over
the Seals of the War Office himself, explaining that
the events were such, in his view, as to constitute
"a great public emergency/'

These events were not lost on the Wilhelmstrasse.

Later, in July, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(Mr. Lloyd George) informed the House of Commons

286 THE WAR OFFICE

that there were hopeful signs throughout the world
of a reaction against expenditure on armaments.
On the night of August 4th-5th Great Britain
entered the World War.

The war is a long way away now. Distinguished
people can write with detachment, far removed from
the heart-stopping strain, to point out the incredible
folly of others. The work of certain Government
Departments is obscured by a smoke-cloud of per-
sonalities. The shock of a nightmare found to be
real, the rush, the political obstacles, . . . these and
many other things cease to be seen in due perspective,
and especially the very limited role assigned to the
Army in pre-war plans. To rise to the measure of a
world war was doubtless a less exacting task in the
sphere of national finance, or the management of the
great Fleet to which the country had pinned its
faith, than it was in the case of our very small Army.
For a war overseas the nation had provided a force
of six Divisions no more, apart from the troops at
colonial stations and the garrison of India. Few states-
men had visions of anything larger. Few people,
perhaps, had vision at all; but among the few was
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum who on August 6th,
two days after the outbreak of war, was hurriedly
appointed to be Secretary of State.

His name was one to conjure with. It conjured
into being great new armies with which no machinery
existed to deal, which the factories shared by the
Fighting Services were never designed or intended
to arm, which no Government had ever contem-

IN THE GREAT WAR 287

pflated. The thing was done with painful labour,
with grave delays and misunderstandings, in an
atmosphere of public excitement not far short of
hysteria. The bare facts are that in the four years the
War Office became responsible for the conduct of
operations at Gallipoli, Salonika, Mesopotamia (the
latter part of the campaign only), Palestine, Italy,
Africa and Russia, apart altogether from the western
front; and for maintaining British forces which
grew in numbers, not including Dominion troops,
to 3,500,000 men. In France it became responsible
also for the food, stores and maintenance generally of
Dominion and Colonial forces, and latterly of part of
the American troops. At home it was concerned with
at least three armies ... the army of men who were
under training, the army of the sick and wounded,
and the host of dependants of the fighting men.

In such matters as supply and transport, the accom-
modation of troops in this country, the training of
recruits who numbered millions, or the payment of
these colossal numbers in half a dozen theatres of war,
the extra burden shouldered by the War Office is
easy, perhaps, to understand. Less obvious are the
new developments which had no precedent in peace
... for example, the business of censorship, and later
of propaganda work, which fell to the General Staff
to organise; the anxious problem of finding the men
which distracted the Adjutant-General's department
when the voluntary effort had spent itself and the
cautious steps taken by the Cabinet in the direction
of compulsory military service threatened to fail to
provide the numbers; or, again, the financial adjust-
ments entailed by the desire of the Dominion

288 THEWAROFFICE

Governments to pay for the issues made in the field
for the maintenance of their own contingents. These
are only a few instances: the burden fell on all
departments.

At the outbreak of war the Military Members
were: C.I.G.S. General Sir Charles Douglas; Ad-
jutant-General Lieut.-General Sir Henry Sclater;
Q.M.G. Major-General Sir John Cowans; M.G.O.
Major-General Stanley von Donop. Sir Charles
Douglas died in October, and was succeeded by
Lieut.-General Sir J. Wolfe Murray. The leading
permanent civilians were Sir Reginald Brade, Secre-
tary of the War Office, and Sir Charles Harris,
Assistant Financial Secretary. The present Perma-
nent Under-Secretary of State (Sir Herbert Creedy)
was private secretary to Lord Kitchener.

The Expeditionary Force, as everyone knows,
was landed in France without a hitch. Four Divisions
and the Cavalry Division (embarked August gth to
2oth) fought in the retreat from Mons. A fifth
Division (August 2ist to 23rd) arrived in time to
fight at Le Cateau. The sixth followed on September
8th and gth. These numbers amounted in round
figures to 160,000 men. On September loth came
a break in the tension when the Germans were
forced back from the Marne to the Aisne. In October
the gallant attempt to save Antwerp was followed by
the first battle of Ypres and terrible lists of casualties.
Then came a lull on the western front from the end
of November to the following March, and during
the course of this "dreary deadlock" the French
Government returned to Paris (December i ith,
1914).

1NTHEGREATWAR 289

Meanwhile the following steps had been taken.
The 14 Divisions of the Territorial Force were
embodied at once on the outbreak of war, and in
September 14 more were authorised. Two Regular
Divisions (the yth and 8th) were formed from units
in overseas garrisons, to be followed shortly by 3
more (the 27th, 28th and 29th); and 2 Cavalry
Divisions were formed in France. In addition, under
the Kitchener scheme, 5 New Armies (30 Divisions)
had begun to be formed before the end of the year.
Parliament had voted the following numbers ad-
ditional to the original estimate for the year: on
August 7th, 500,000; on September I4th, 500,000;
and on November 2oth, 1,000,000 men. The total
enlistments in the first five months were 1,186,357.
Moreover, India had despatched a number of
forces : 2 Divisions and 2 Cavalry Divisions of the
Indian Army to France, and smaller forces to East
Africa, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The first Canadian
and Newfoundland contingents left for England on
October 3rd. The first Australian and New Zealand
contingents arrived at Suez on December ist.

On November 3rd an event took place which was
destined to throw a vast new burden on a War Office
which was already swamped, but not submerged, in
the rising waves of a sea of troubles : the Fleet bom-
barded the Dardanelles.

Every day of these months brought a host of
problems . . . legislation required, terms of enlist-
ment, instructors for training, billeting rates, the
provision of officers. Home Defence measures, the
needs of the Royal Flying Corps, the pay of the
missing and prisoners of war, separation allowance

290 THEWAROFFICE

and pension questions, the use of the Territorial
Force apart from the pressing and paramount need
of supplying and supporting the army in the field,
and the hundred and one domestic questions of staff,
space and organisation which arose daily within the
department.

A mistake which was hardly avoidable was made
at the very beginning of things. A large part of
the department of the General Staff (3 1 out of 64
officers), and the holders of other military appoint-
ments, left their posts at once for service in France,
and were replaced by officers new to the work. It
was possibly due to the lack of experience resulting
from this initial exodus that the military censorship
of cables and articles was alleged by the Press to be
very uneven, and caused much trouble and irritation.
Arrangements concerning secrecy had been planned
with the Press in pre-war days through the medium
of the standing committee (vide page 27 c), and on
August 1 3th a Press Bureau was formed for con-
trolling naval and military "news"; but the Press,
with whom this was a voluntary arrangement
observed on the whole with great loyalty were soon
reduced to a state of fury, and the difficult task of
mediation was one of the many delicate duties which
overwhelmed the Secretariat in holding the balance,
precariously, between military demands on the one
hand and the clamour of statesmen, the Press and
the public. The value of the experience embodied in
a permanent civil staff accustomed to dealing with
new Ministers and to civil contacts of all kinds was
tested highly in these days. To ensure the smooth
working of the machine was more than merely a

IN THE GREAT WAR 291

hfuge task. In the generous words of a shrewd judge,*
"Brade was one of the pivots of the war."

A mere recital of official events would fail to con-
vey a true impression of the life lived at that time in
the War Office; and, indeed, any picture, however
full, would be drawn at the best from one angle only,
and even so would be blurred and confused. The
atmosphere of those crowded months is difficult to
recapture now. Some personal impressions alone can
be given . . . the thronged hall, the hurrying
escorts of countless enquirers, the breathless dis-
charge of unwonted duties, the sudden arrival of
news at last flashed from the front in secret
cipher, the despatch to Sir John French of the bag
by means of which urgent and secret letters were
carried by hand to Headquarters in France, the pain-
fulness of the casualty lists and the constant enquiries
from relatives and friends, the comings and goings
of Cabinet Ministers and emissaries from all parties,
the brooding eyes of Lord Kitchener, the anxieties
of Sir George Arthur, the kindly brusqueness of Sir
George Riddell, the inevitable cigar of "F. E."
Smith (the first Director of the Press Bureau), the
procession of princes, over-age peers, politicians,
journalists, cinematographers, who laid siege to Sir
Reginald Brade; . . . the astonishing rumours
known to be false. . . .

In any faithful record of happenings some of the
rumours would find a place. The most amazing, per-
haps, was the famous myth of the trainloads of
Russians who were carried from Scotland to the
south coast behind drawn blinds. People were met

* Note 21, page 347.

292 THE WAR OFFICE

who had spoken to them ! Such reports, and the flood
of advice from admirers (often enclosing a photo-
graph), which poured upon the Secretary of State,
formed a welcome touch of light relief. A single
week-end produced the following tales:

Twenty thousand Germans had landed at
Margate.

The Guards had been rushed to the coast in
buses.

The British Fleet had been split in two.

Germans had landed at Lowestoft and New-
castle.

The Forth Bridge had been blown up.

Germans had landed on the Isle of Wight and
had sun/ it.

Actually, the nearest approach to "invasion" was
the coastal raid of December i6th, when Scar-
borough, Hartlepool and Whitby were bombarded:
126 civilians were killed and 567 were injured.

Some quite incredible incidents occurred through
the public zeal to assist the department, which was
not confined to the post or to daytime. At i a.m.
on September 4th the writer received a Member
of Parliament who brought a small corpse in a deal
box. A swift car had borne it through the night
from Oxfordshire ... a carrier pigeon . . . shot
on the roof . . . with a left wing that looked very
suspicious and ought to be shown at once to the
War Office. The dead bird was spread out on a table
and its feathers were searched with commendable
patience. But the "false quill" was not there: the
poor bird had been innocent. Or, again, on December

IN THE GREAT WAR 293

a lady telephoned at 10 p.m., from Leinster
Square and a sense of duty, to report that a dog ... a
large dog which belonged to a neighbour of Austrian
birth . . . was turned into the Square at certain
hours where it barked, quite obviously, in code. A
letter followed in confirmation. "One cannot but
feel that such a bark," it ran, "might be used as a
sign for any alien." These are but two among hun-
dreds of cases.

Nor could a faithful record ignore the reports
whispered within the Department; for, coming from
sources associated closely with the leading military
and political circles, they were usually not far wide
of the truth. Lord Kitchener, it was said, was slow
to believe in the use of the Territorial Force, and
had never heard of the Special Reserve. . . . The
Cabinet was fearful of Labour troubles and would
not think of compulsory service. . . . Headquarters
in France (in the course of September) thought that
the war would be over by Christmas, and telt that
Lord Kitchener was starving them by keeping back
men and munitions in England for "New Armies"
which would never be wanted. . . . The French
were opposed to war correspondents, and the Press
was not being treated wisely.

But even the rumours were hurried whispers.
Nobody had time to spare.

To these first nine months belong two criticisms
of the War Office to which so large a publicity has
been given that to ignore them entirely might be taken
by the reader as endorsing their complete fairness.

294 THE WAR OFFICE

The first has a special reference to the tragic
failure of the Dardanelles. It is directed against the
General Staff; for the popular impression is said to
be that, if adequate "staff" advice had been givgn,
the campaign would never have been undertaken.
But the considered opinion the written view of
the General Staff was opposed to a military attack on
Gallipoli as being too hazardous an operation. Nor
could the point be made by critics that the Cabinet
was not apprised of this departmental military view.

The second criticism concerns munitions the
new production of guns and munitions aimed at by
the military chiefs in the course of the first ten months
of the war.

Here a striking picture has been drawn by at
least one responsible critic which suggests a remark-
able lack of foresight, denseness, and^even apathy
on the part of "the military mind" at the War
Office responsible for the supply of munitions or,
in other words, the artillery experts and the Secre-
tary of State himself. Actually the problem of
supplying munitions weighed heavily on Lord
Kitchener, who was not notably lacking in vision,
and the orders placed in the first few months were
based on a total strength in the field of 1,100,000
men, and involved the employment in this country
of over 2,500 firms. Further, there were heart-
breaking causes of delay which were quite outside
the control of the soldiers, but which do not appear
as a part of the picture. Germany started with vast
reserves, but she did not succeed any better than
Britain in accelerating her new output in the first
nine months or so of war. The objective of the

IN THE GREAT WAR 295

attack, however, like the criticisms made by Mr.
Lloyd George of the mentality of the "Whitehall
Generals'" or the alleged follies of commanders in
the field, is not a matter of War Office system but of
the qualifications possessed or lacked by particular
distinguished officers, and further comment here
would be out of place.

As a matter of comparative interest, the gun
ammunition of all natures expended in the South
African War, which lasted for 2| years, amounted
to 273,000 rounds. The expenditure in France in
the first six months amounted to i ,000,000 rounds,
and in the next three months to another 1,000,000.
For the i8-pr. gun alone the amount ordered up
to April, 19155 was approximately 30,000,000
rounds.

On a minor point Mr. Lloyd George is certainly
more picturesque than accurate. To describe the
War Office of 1915 as "that tranquil sanctuary of
the God of War" is truly a poetic licence.

Meanwhile "the sanctuary of the God of War"
was so far possessed of tranquillity that quiet-
mannered Sir Reginald Brade snatched sleep on an
improvised bed in his office, and a weary-eyed staff
blinked through the night at the stream of figures
in secret cipher which carried messages over the
seas. A fifth storey, "Zeppelin Terrace," rose on
the top of the crowded building. In the new branch
for casualty work, the bureau for dealing with offers
of service, and the Enquiry Office for the general
public, the staff was hard pressed to keep pace with

296 THE WAR OFFICE

the work. The military and the finance branches were
all equally overwhelmed.

The Army Estimates for 1915 provided for
3,000,000 men, and the total enlistments for t.he
calendar year were 1,280,362. In March came the
battle of Neuve Chapelle. In April began a long
struggle at Ypres when gas was first used by the
enemy; and in the same month (25th-26th) the
Allied Expeditionary Force landed at Gallipoli. The
leading Division of the New Armies left for France
on May gth.

It was a time of disillusionment and discontent
in high quarters. The reports whispered within the
War Office said that "Lord K.," the soul of loyalty,
was upset by signs of divided allegiance on the
part of General Headquarters in France. Losses in
France and at the Dardanelles . . . bitter attacks
on Lord Kitchener . . . the sudden resignation of
Admiral Lord Fisher . . . fierce criticism of Mr.
Churchill . . . political circles were in a turmoil.
The dynamic gestures of Sir Max Aitken, now
better known as Lord Beaverbrook, were frequently
seen at the War Office. At the end of May a Coalition
Government replaced Mr. Asquith's Liberal Cabinet.

It was at this stage that the War Office "threw
off" the first of three new departments. The Ministry
of Munitions was constituted (June 5th, 1915), and
a number of branches were transferred from the
War Office about 150 officials. Further, a special
Munitions of War Act (5 and 6 Geo. V, cap. 58)
did much to ease the task of provision. In September
came the battle of Loos. On October 5th Allied
troops first landed at Salonika, and a new campaign

IN THE GREAT WAR 297

ddded complications which lasted till late in 1918.
In November Lord Kitchener visited the Near East
in order to see the situation for himself and to advise
finally on future action. The Prime Minister took
charge of the War Office. December was marked by
two great changes: the evacuation of Gallipoli, a
military achievement of the first order, started upon
the igth; and on the same day Sir John French was
succeeded by General Sir Douglas Haig. Lord
French was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the
forces in the United Kingdom.

These twelve months (1915) saw the first appear-
ance of 8-inch and 1 2-inch B.L. howitzers; of five
types of trench mortar; of steel helmets, the first
respirators, chemical shell and smoke bombs, Lewis
machine guns, Verey pistols and anti-aircraft
artillery. The Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing)
was organised in wings and brigades; and the
Directorate of Military Aeronautics was expanded
to cope with its growing task. The regiment of
Welsh Guards was created. A Machine Gun Corps
was authorised. The work in connection with
Prisoners of War demanded a new directorate. A
series of new royal warrants made large extensions
in pension provision. The issue of "Separation
Allowance" to the families and dependants of
soldiers became a colossal and complex business.
The number of families and dependants dealt with
in the month of August, 1915, was 1,646,300, and
the money issued in that one month was 4,990,000.
At the same date the strength of the War Office
had jumped to 6,522. In the autumn a new recruiting
scheme was introduced in the name of Lord Derby,

298 THE WAR OFFICE

under which men were attested, classified, and
transferred at once to the Army Reserve to wait until
they were "called up." In December General Sir
William Robertson took up the post of "C.I.G.S.,"
and a "Deputy C.I.G.S." was created as a new
member of the Army Council.

The air raids on England had started in January:
there were 24 during the year, in which 190 civilians
were killed.

The strain of the year had been much increased
by an atmosphere of intrigue and jealousy outside the
War Office itself. The rumours current within the
department said that Lord Kitchener was unhappy:
that his heart was with the fighting men, but not
with those of Downing Street. Great distress had
been caused, too, by a very bitter attack on Lord
Haldane which appeared in the papers controlled
by Lord Northcliffe. Lord Haldane, ever a friend
to the Army, had dared to defend Lord Kitchener.
The Press as a whole had been somewhat appeased
by a wise but belated concession in May under
which representative war correspondents were at-
tached to Headquarters on the western front. In the
late autumn there was much talk of the possibility
of compulsory service, on which the soldiers had set
their heart as the only means of carrying on. Alleged
political difficulties created impatience in military
circles, and produced in Ministers (so it was said)
an equal impatience of all advisers who could not
promise quick results. This was the era of "Push
and Go." The public, loyal to Lord Kitchener, con-
tinued to offer a flow of advice; and some of the
budget of eager suggestions introduced a most

IN THE GREAT WAR 299

welcome touch of humour. The following is a
specimen :

"Guildford, 2 8th June, 1915
My Lord,

I feel sure if thousands of lions were sent into
the German trenches it would make the enemy
fly. Send them at night. Be such a surprise that
they would not want to fire at them. If they
were caught and drugged whilst bringing,
nothing is impossible. Every day I have that
thought, and especially after the good work that
Bulls did for Italy.

Yours very truly,

D. H "

In the meantime a striking venture, conducted
by the Indian Government, and aimed at producing
important results, was threatening to involve the
War Office in fresh commitments and complica-
tions. Against the advice of the General Staff the
Indian force in Mesopotamia had been authorised
to advance on Baghdad without waiting for reinforce-
ments, and early in December a force of about
12,000 men was cut off and besieged in Kut.

The tragic year 1916 opened with signs of re-
newed hope. Under the new "C.I.G.S." the General
Staff was re-formed and strengthened. The evacuation
of Gallipoli was completed with almost incredible
success. The Army Estimates for the new year pro-
vided for 4,000,000 men. It was rumoured that Mr.
Lloyd George would support the demand for com-

300 THE WAR OFFICE

pulsory service, which was strongly opposed by soirffe
Ministers. The Germans were swept from the
Cameroons. The British Front in France was relatively
quiet while the enemy prepared the attack on Verdun
which opened on February 2 ist. In March a Military
Service Act applied compulsory military service to
unmarried men and widowers, subject to various
grounds of exemption. Lieut.-General Sir Nevii
Macready took up the post of Adjutant-General.

In April the clouds began to gather. There were
seven Zeppelin raids in the month. On Easter
Monday the harassed Department was faced with an
Irish rebellion in Dublin, which was only suppressed
by prompt measures involving 500 casualties. On
the 29th Kut surrendered. Air Defence was becom-
ing a big question. Already the head of the aircraft
branch, the Director-General of Military Aero-
nautics, had been made a member of the Army
Council; and the formation of an advisory board
("the Air Board") was announced in May. The
actual number of air raids in the twelve months was
38, in which 1 72 civilians were killed. Secret arrange-
ments were now in train for Lord Kitchener to visit
Russia.

On June 5th came a staggering shock. The War
Office was very still that day. A chilling sense of
emptiness seemed to envelop the great building, as
though the romance had gone out of its task and
left it strangely cold and friendless ; for the message
had come from the Admiralty that Lord Kitchener
would never return. For the third time within a few
years Mr. Asquith acted temporarily as Secretary of
State.

IN THE GREAT WAR 301

On July 1st on the western front the battles of
the Somme started, and lasted until the third week
of November. In that first month the British casual-
ties, including those of Dominion troops, were
187,372 men. In August the War Office took over
another new sphere of administration that of the
force in Mesopotamia.

The staff of the War Office had risen now to
12,672, and the problem of accommodation alone
was a heavy task for the Secretariat, One develop-
ment was a new directorate to deal with the registra-
tion of graves. The pressure on the Finance branches
was somewhat relieved late in the year by the creation
of a second off-shoot, when a staff of about 1,500 was
transferred to the new Ministry of Pensions. The
year saw the introduction of tanks the Mark II,
III and IV types; also the 1 5-inch howitzer, the
Stokes mortar, and the Hotchkiss machine gun.
Tanks were used in action for the first time on
September I5th on the Somme. Another creation
of 1916 was the Royal Defence Corps, organised
for home duties in protection and observer
companies.

In the meantime, on July 7th, Mr. Lloyd George
became Secretary of State, but left the department
after five months on accepting the office of Prime
Minister; and as a result of this fresh political crisis
the War Office received Lord Derby as its new
Minister for War (December nth, 1916). Major-
General W. T. Furse now became Master-General
of the Ordnance.

With the setting up of a War Cabinet consisting
of five members only a year of tragedy and change

302 THE WAR OFFICE

closed with the promise of great reforms in tlfe
higher direction of war policy.

The events of the year 1917 brought a further
vast increase of work in spite of further transfer of
duties.

The Royal Flying Corps had started the war
with less than 100 serviceable machines, and in
February 400 War Office officials were transferred
to a new Air Board office charged with the duty of
supplying aircraft. Nevertheless the staff in August
numbered 16,624. A second transfer took place in
October, when 454 officials concerned with the
work of raising recruits were absorbed in another
new Ministry (the Ministry of National Service).
Two members were added to the Army Council.
The transportation system in France had been re-
organised by Sir Eric Geddes in the autumn of 1 9 1 6,
at the instance of Mr. Lloyd George, and in March,
1 9 1 7, a Director-General of Movement and Railways,
relieving the "Q.M.G." of these duties, was made a
civilian member of Council. In May a further mem-
ber was added in a Surveyor-General of Supply, with
new directorates for Raw Materials, Costings, Wool
Textile Production, and Priority of supply-demands.
Adjustments with Italy and America were added to
the task of Finance. The expansion of the Tank
Corps, of Labour formations, of Women's corps,
and the great work of the "E.F. Canteens" called
for new branches at Headquarters. The number of
Voluntary Aid Detachments reached 3,804. The
strength of a new Volunteer Force reached 290,000.

IN THE GREAT WAR 303

Heavy tanks, tank guns, 6-inch guns and gun-
carriers were among the latest introductions.

The Estimates for this year (1917) provided for
5,000,000 men. A second Military Service Act
had extended compulsion to married men between
1 8 and 41, and had made certain other helpful
provisions in retaining the service of time-expired
soldiers and facilitating transfers within the Army
from corps to corps as need dictated, but the
Council, responsible for the provision of drafts to
an army drained by enormous losses, regarded these
measures as insufficient. The talk at this time
was all of "man-power," and rumour said that the
new Prime Minister, with a widened view of the
nation's needs, had somewhat abated his sympathy
with the urgent demands of his military advisers.
The actual enlistments during the year were
820,645.

On March nth Baghdad was captured, and in
the same month, on the western front, the Germans
retired to the Hindenburg line. Revolution broke
out in Russia and the Czar was forced to abdicate.
In April began the allied offensive: the battle of
Arras, Vimy Ridge, the Messines offensive and the
battles of Ypres meant terrible losses throughout
the summer. Passchendaele and the Flanders offen-
sive came to an end on November roth. The
operations at Cambrai followed, famous for the tank
attack, and closed in the second week of December.
From September 2oth to the end of the year the
British losses on the western front, including those
of Dominion contingents, amounted to over a
quarter of a million.

3o 4 THE WAR OFFICE

In other theatres the defence of Egypt hid
turned to offensive action in Palestine, which now
occupied seven Divisions, commanded since June
by General Allenby. Early in November five other
Divisions had hurried from France to the assistance
of Italy, who had suffered disaster at Caparetto. The
man-power problem was growing steadily, while
report whispered that the War Cabinet was dis-
satisfied with the military policy and craved for some
dramatic stroke at the expense of risk in the western
theatre. The first contingent of American troops had
arrived in France on June 25th, but no large
numbers were yet available, and shipping troubles
foreshadowed delay.

Meanwhile the proposal for greater concert of
the war effort of the Entente Powers had been given
new life by the collapse of Russia and the dissatis-
faction of Ministers; and the conference of Rapallo,
held in November, agreed to establish a Supreme
War Council. These were difficult days for the Army
Council for, while they agreed with the plan in
principle, they could not approve of the original
proposal to constitute a Technical Military Adviser
independent of the War Department.

There were 33 air raids during the year, in which
471 civilians were killed; and 6 bombardments of
coastal towns, in which 17 were killed or injured.

The opening of the last year of the war was a
time of great unease at the War Office. It was
rumoured widely in military circles that the views
held by the Army Council on the general policy of

IN THE GREAT WAR 305

operations were opposed to those of the Prime
Minister. It seemed obvious to the General Staff
that, with many Divisions released from Russia, the
Germans would make a supreme effort to inflict a
defeat on the western front before any large American
forces would reach France and be ready to fight.
The existing Military Service Acts could not pro-
vide the men demanded. In February General Sir
William Robertson was replaced in the post of
"C.I.G.S." by General Sir Henry Wilson. On
March 3rd, at Brest-Litovsk, Russia signed peace
with the Central Powers.

These anxieties, and the Council's policy of con-
centration on the western front, were fully justified
by the event. On March 2ist the great German
offensive started, and the British losses up to the
end of April included, roughly, 70,000 prisoners
and 750 guns. The casualties reported up to the
end of May were 343,812 men. Troops were hurried
from Palestine, and also from Mesopotamia. A fresh
Military Service Act was passed on the basis of great
emergency. Similarly the demand for unity of com-
mand was brought to fruition by force of circum-
stances, and General Foch, on April I4th, was
appointed supreme Commander-in-Chief.

From the middle of July onwards the Allies began
to strike heavy blows, and August 8th may be said
to be the date when Germany saw that the tide had
turned. In the great attacks by the Allied forces be-
tween that date and the Armistice the casualties in
the British Forces, including the Dominion troops,
were over 360,000. At Salonika the Allies attacked
in September, and Bulgaria collapsed at once. In

306 THE WAR OFFICE

Palestine in the same month General Allenby
launched a final offensive, which broke and routed
the Turkish forces. The armistice with Turkey was
signed at Mudros on October 3Oth ; Austria-Hungary
signed on November 3rd: the Armistice on the
western front followed on November nth. On
December I2th, 1918, the British crossed the Rhine
at Cologne.

Two domestic events of these months must be
mentioned. On April ist the Flying services had
passed to the charge of the Air Council, with a
further transfer of War Office staff, 700 in all, to
the new Ministry; and on April 2oth Lord Derby
retired and was succeeded as Secretary of State by
Lord Milner.

These were the events, in bald outline, in which
the War Office played a central part for four very
exacting years.

In computing the task discharged by the Depart-
ment mere figures can mean very little, but some
idea of size may be given. The original staff of
about 2,000 had grown at the time of the Armistice
to approximately 22,000. It occupied, in whole
or part, fifty-nine buildings outside Whitehall,
of which the temporary erections in Embankment
Gardens and on the site of the lake in St. James's
Park were the ones best known to the general public.
Before the war the number of papers dealt with by
the Central Registry was, in round figures, 10,000
a week : in November 1918 the figure had amounted
to 253,000 a week, not including the letters dealt

IN THE GREAT WAR 307

with direct by several of the large branches which
were housed outside the main building. The staff
which dealt with Separation Allowances increased
from 2 to 405 ; the staff for transport of troops and
stores, from 19 to 690; the Contracts staff from 55
to 2,8 18; the ladies of the Type section from 55 to
957. New classes of work absorbed large numbers,
such as Graves Registration, 393; Casualties, 1,267;
and the Censorship work of the General Staff, 5,678.
These figures are mere illustrations of size, and to
single out particular cases is not to imply that any
one branch bore a larger share than any other of
the burden of the war-effort. An adequate picture of
that effort could not be drawn in a few pages, and
the following selected particulars touch only some
parts of the organisation.

The total numbers of the forces at the time of the
Armistice, including Indian, Dominion and Colonial
troops and large native Labour formations, were
nearly 5! millions ; and of these the numbers in this
country were 1,600,000. In the British Isles the
men enlisted from the beginning of the war to that
date numbered 4,907,902.

From the first the question of accommodation was
one of the major problems to be met, since the bar-
racks, cleared of married families, held 262,000 men
only. At the start large numbers were placed under
canvas and others in schools and institutions ; but the
bulk had to be billeted, as many as 800,000 men
being quartered in this way at one stage. The claims
in connection with billeting and hiring became in
themselves a large service; as also did the issue of
"family allowance" to men living in their own homes.

3o8 THE WAR OFFICE

Then came the building of hutted camps to hold
850,000 men, a task made less easy by shortage of
labour and congestion of traffic on roads and rail-
ways; and the problem was increased during 1916
by the influx of large Dominion contingents, and
later by the expansion of the Flying Corps, the
formation of the women's corps, the accommodation
of prisoners of war, and the transit of American
troops up to 40,000 at one time. To this was added
the hospital problem and the housing of the nursing
staff. The total numbers of sick and wounded sent
to this country from the forces abroad up to Novem-
ber 1 5th, 1918, were 2,384,412; and the number of
equipped beds at that date was 364,000. The nurses
of the military Nursing Services then numbered, at
home, some 13,000.

The storage of every class of munitions, equip-
ments, clothing, supplies and vehicles was another
large side of the quartering business; and the
questions arising out of allowances for lodging,
fuel and light and so on, were inevitably a heavy
burden. The problems of storing and handling
ammunition cannot be conveyed by quoting figures,
but its size may be gauged by typical facts. From
April to June, 1918, the ammunition issued to the
troops in France weighed 650,000 tons (value,
40,500,000): and on one single day, September
2nd, the British forces on the western front fired
943,857 shells. The strength of the Army Ordnance
Corps, which dealt with storage, issue and repair of
practically all kinds of war material, rose, in round
figures, from 2,500 on August ist, 1914, to 40,500
of all ranks on November ist, 1918. Didcot was one

IN THE GREAT WAR 309

df the depots constructed. The Bramley depot for
storing explosives was ij miles in length.

The receipt and handling of clothing and boots
necessitated building in Battersea Park and the hiring
of Olympia, the White City, and other premises in a
dozen towns. In the first rush at the outbreak of war
blue serge uniform had to be purchased, no other
large supplies being available, to the extent of
500,000 suits; and 400,000 civilian greatcoats were
also used in the early stages. In due course, however,
69 Divisions were completely equipped for service
in the field, in addition to the furnishing of special
requirements in fur and leather winter garments and
the clothing of coloured Labour troops. In the rapid
expansion of the first year vast purchasing arrange-
ments had to be made in Canada and the United
States for much equipment in addition to clothing,
particularly tools and harness and saddlery; and the
variety of stores for such different theatres as France,
Salonika, Mesopotamia and East Africa can easily
be realised. As a single and simple example of size,
the peace-time provision of spades and shovels was
2,500 a year; the provision in the war was over
10,000,000. The number of vehicles, from guns to
barrows, shipped to France from this country for
the use of the forces up to April, 1919, was 447,640.

On the repair side of the work an outstanding
development was the organisation of mobile work-
shops for the repair of artillery equipment in the field.

The forces being fed in August 1914 numbered
1 64,000 : on November 1 1 th, 1918, they were
5,363,352. As regards meat, at an early date con-
tracts were made by the Board of Trade for regular

310 THE WAR OFFICE

shipments from the Argentine; the whole of thfe
output of Australia and New Zealand was made
available for Army use in addition to all frozen meat
from the Plate ; and supplies were obtained from tjie
United States, Brazil, Patagonia, Canada and South
Africa. For economy in feeding the troops at home
sausage factories, controlled by the War Office, were
erected in London, Liverpool and Aldershot. Bread
was supplied by Army bakeries, even at Gallipoli. In
the case of cheese the whole of the supply from
New Zealand, from Australia and from Canada was
taken. To cope with the bulk shipment of oats
floating pneumatic suction plants were erected early
in 1917 at each of the base ports in France. The
whole of the hay crop of this country in the years
1916, '17 and ' 1 8 was taken over by the War Office,
the balance in excess of the Army's requirements
(just over one million tons a year) being released
through the controlling machinery of a central
council and county committees.

In petrol the monthly requirements at first were
250,000 gallons: these rose, at the time of the
Armistice, to io| million gallons. For Egypt and
Salonika it was shipped from the east and "canned"
at Suez : in France tank-storage at Calais and Rouen,
enabling large tank vessels to be used, was supple-
mented in 1917 by the partial employment of bulk
distribution, thus overcoming a shortage of tins. One
hundred and eighty-six rail-tank waggons and 200
road-tank lorries were despatched from this country
for that purpose. The growth in the use of mechan-
ical transport was one of the striking developments of
the war. The motor vehicles at first available, largely

IN THE GREAT WAR 311

as a result of subsidy arrangements, numbered 842 :
the total at the date of the Armistice was 121,692.
The racecourse at Kempton Park was taken over as
a Deception depot, and a "mobilisation and embark-
ation area," where the units were formed and
despatched to the ports, was established on Salisbury
Plain at Bulford. The organisation for spare parts,
with its headquarters at the Holborn Restaurant,
was the largest store of its kind in the world. The
tendency to substitute motors for horses was grow-
ing marked towards the end of the war, and only
the signing of the Armistice put a stop to experi-
ments conducted in France in the transportation
by motor vehicle of field-gun and machine-gun
battalions.

As regards remounts, on mobilisation the Army
possessed some 25,000, and this number was raised
in 12 days to a total of 165,000 by a scheme of im-
pressment evolved in peace-time. Large arrange-
ments for purchase were made abroad, and the
animals landed in this country up to December 2nd,
1918, included 600,000 horses and mules from
Canada and the United States, 6,000 from South
America, and 3,000 mules from Spain. The supply
for India and Mesopotamia was arranged for by the
Indian Government. Nearly half a million were
bought at home. The extensive depots so required
added to the "quartering" problem. The horses and
mules in all theatres on November 3Oth, 1918,
numbered 735,000; there were also camels, bullocks
and donkeys to a total of over 56,000. Four Army
Schools of Farriery were established, one in France
and three at home, under the Army Veterinary Corps,

3 i2 THE WAR OFFICE

The growth of the Army Service Corps was, in rounfl
figures, from 6,400 to 325,000 of all ranks.

The staff which dealt with the separation allow-
ances paid to wives, children and other dependants
was responsible for the disbursement, up to March
1920, of 414,000,000, The staff which dealt with
"soldiers' effects" the estates of deceased officers
and men rose from 10 officials in August 1914 to
777 at the date of the Armistice. At the latter date
it was distributing balances at the rate of about
2,000,000 in the year, this sum belonging to
different estates to the number of over 200,000. At
this period the Contracts department was buying
food and manufactured articles to the value of
6,000,000 a week. The Army Pay Corps, in
France alone, was dealing with 36 national curren-
cies, all subject to varying rates of exchange; for the
very large Labour formations included, apart from
prisoners of war, Indian, South African, Egyptian,
Chinese, Fijian, Italian and Russian contingents.

The large size of the Casualty branch requires,
unhappily, little explanation. In registering, publish-
ing and investigating the reports it dealt with
casualties in all theatres, including those of Dominion
troops ; and in the case of British Army "other ranks"
it provided a central office for enquiries. Written
enquiries were close upon a million; and the card
index held nearly 4,000,000 cards. The clearing
up of discrepancies, the circulation of lists of the
missing, and correspondence with enemy countries
through diplomatic or Red Cross channels on the
subject of individual prisoners of war, were three
particular duties involved. The notification of officer

IN THE GREAT WAR 313

casualties was done by the Military Secretary's
branches. The total casualties for the British Empire
up to the date of the Armistice amounted, in
approximate figures, to 1,000,000 who were killed
or had died, or were missing or prisoners, and
2,000,000 wounded.

Another new branch created for the war, the
Prisoners of War Directorate, was small in numbers
(23 officers), but its large task was the custody and
control of all enemy prisoners wherever captured or
interned, and care for the interests of the British
prisoners interned in various enemy countries. The
organisation of camps in this country, which at one
time numbered over 500, and their discipline and
administration, constituted work both novel and
difficult; and the general policy in regard to prisoners,
their pay, their employment and other conditions,
was not eased by excited public opinion which drew
resentful comparisons between the treatment of
British prisoners in Germany and the treatment of
enemy prisoners here. The alleged indulgence to
enemy prisoners as a result of "influence in high
quarters" had no foundation at all in fact. The
greatest number of prisoners interned by the British
at any one time in the United Kingdom, France,
Egypt, India and other countries was just over
500,000.

As another instance of new activities, the work
carried out by the General Staff under the general
heading of "Censorship" was a development of
special interest.

It grew gradually out of a small section of the
Military Operations directorate, as part of the

314 THE WAR OFFICE

work of "Special Intelligence," with three branches
for postal censorship, cable censorship, and the
military policy of Press censorship. The control of
accredited war correspondents, the censorship />f
cinematograph films and of all official photo-
graphers and artists, and the issue of "Operations"
communiques and general liaison work with the
Press Bureau formed one side of the Press work.
The side which is not so generally known was the
work in connection with Press propaganda and the
study of the Foreign Press. The "Daily Review of
the Foreign Press" grew to be a production of great
value with a monthly circulation of 24,000; while a
staff of well-known writers and artists was employed
on the propaganda work. Summaries of operations,
articles and battle-stories were circulated all over the
world. For example, Sir Douglas Haig's despatch of
December 3Oth, 1916, was translated into nine
languages, and between that date and the end of the
war some 7,000 articles were distributed to home,
Dominion and American papers and in half a dozen
neutral countries. Special literature was also pro-
duced to be distributed over the enemy lines, at
first by aeroplane and later by balloons, and its great
effect on the enemy is testified by German writers.
Thirty-two thousand balloons were used, and the
leaflets, letters and cartoons so distributed numbered
in all over 25 millions.

The work of postal and cable censorship was,
naturally, a much larger business.

* * # *

The most that this chapter can hope to convey is
an impression of a few of the many aspects of the

IN THE GREAT WAR 315

task which was centred in the War Department,
supported throughout by the loyal co-operation of
other departments and public bodies, the Territorial
County Associations, and the great work of the
British Red Cross and other voluntary societies.

At the time the opinion held of the Department
was probably not very flattering. Military activities
were so widespread that almost everything that hap-
pened anywhere was the work, in the public eye, of
the War Office. If the local hospital was notoriously
wasteful, if a brother or cousin was indifferently
nursed, if a small contractor gave signs of wealth, if
a blatant "brass hat" paraded his car, or a known
shirker had a "cushy job," these things were ascribed
to a staff in Whitehall who were probably innocently
unaware that such places or people existed at all.
The only question of judgment which arises here
concerns organisation and system . . . whether the
Department as an organisation stood up to the strain
imposed upon it. To adapt itself to so vast an expan-
sion in the course of working at full speed was
certainly a severe test. Its supporters can at least
reply to critics that its system has not been chal-
lenged since, nor has any drastic reform been
mooted. The proper relation of the military advisers
to the higher direction of war policy is, of course, a
distinct question.

At the close of hostilities a tired staff turned at
once to a new problem the gigantic task of
Demobilisation.

Chapter XIV
POST-WAR

THE pre-war reform of the organisation received a
very remarkable tribute in the way in which the
Department, once freed from its war burdens, re-
verted to its original shape. Of the functions trans-
ferred to new Ministries recruiting duties were the
first to return, followed by those of the Ministry of
Munitions. The new branches created during the
war were gradually absorbed, if not wholly abolished.
The extra members of the Army Council dis-
appeared one by one; and in March 1924 that body
resumed its pre-war shape, except that its Secretary
was now also a Member of Council.

At first, in 1919, some branches actually grew
in size. The volume of Registry correspondence
reached its peak in that year ; the staff for distributing
soldiers* "effects" rose, owing to the issue of the
war gratuity, to 1,852 ; and the staff of the Demobili-
sation directorate numbered 1,228. The numbers of
men demobilised up to December 3ist, 1919, were
166,996 officers and 3,678,204 other ranks. The
salvage of surplus stores and animals, which had
been started early in 1918, was another extremely
large task which saved enormous sums to the public.
As a single instance, the animals sold up to Septem-
ber ist, 1919, fetched just under 17,000,000.
Again, the work of issuing medals had not then

POST-WAR 317

reached its maximum. However, by the end of that
year the staff had fallen from over 22,000 to 9,559.

For the War Office Peace did not prove to be
peaceful.

The British forces in North Russia, despatched
in the summer of 1918 to Archangel and Mur-
mansk, were withdrawn in the autumn of 1919,
and also most of the troops in the Caucasus; but
there still remained two armies abroad, the Army of
Occupation on the Rhine and the Army of the Middle
East and Egypt. From May to November, 1919,
there were hostilities in Afghanistan ; while at home
serious civil disturbances were intermittent through-
out the year, terminating in a general Railway strike.
In 1920 a rebellion in Mesopotamia necessitated the
despatch of a division, and the troubles in Ireland
became so serious that martial law was proclaimed in
four counties. From March to June, 1921, a state
of emergency was declared at home in consequence
of a great Coal strike, and a special Defence Force
was formed for the occasion; while a great deal of
work was thrown on the War Office by the outbreak
of Turko-Greek operations. In 1923 came the Treaty
of Lausanne and the withdrawal from Turkey of the
Army of Occupation. In 1924 operations in Wazir-
istan, which had been intermittent for five years,
were brought at last to a successful conclusion; but
mutinous outbreaks in the Sudan, and the assassin-
ation of the Governor-General, required the despatch
of forces from Egypt.

In 1925 plans were maturing for the evacuation
of the Cologne zone. Early in 1926 the attention
of the War Office was required at home by another

3i8 THE WAR OFFICE

Coal Stoppage, the declaration of a state of emer-
gency, and a General Strike in the month of May.
Troops, who were employed in large numbers,
could not be returned to their permanent stations
until the Coal dispute ended late in November.
In 1927 the situation in China demanded the
despatch of considerable reinforcements, and the
arrival in China of the Shanghai Defence Force gave
rise to large problems of quartering and the like at
Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tientsin and elsewhere.
Reductions proceeded during 1928, but at the end
of that year there were still 6 battalions additional
to the normal garrison of China. There were also
operations in Iraq.

Plans for total withdrawal from Occupied Ger-
many, and particularly for the settlement of the
claims arising, which threatened to be a most
troublesome business, formed the central feature
of 1929. Actually the evacuation was completed
on December i2th of that year. In the autumn
serious riots in Palestine called for troops to be sent
from Egypt and Malta. In China there were still 5
British battalions, the assistance of troops being
required constantly for dealing with pirates and
bandit forces. Again in 1931 anti-Japanese riots
created much trouble at Hong Kong; and troops
were required by riots in Cyprus. Trooping arrange-
ments for 1932 were upset once more by trouble in
China, where hostilities between Japan and China
were resumed at Shanghai at the beginning of the
year. A battalion was also required in Iraq to deal
with a rising of Assyrian Levies,

These incidents are quoted to remind the reader

POST-WAR 319

th?t the post-war reductions and reconstruction were
not carried out in complete peace. Officially the
Great War ended on August 3ist, 1921.

Meanwhile the Department was faced with the
task of complying with strong and continuous pres-
sure for economy in Army expenditure. The process
of retrenchment started at once. The expenditure
charged to Army funds fell from 4 12,000,000 in
1919 to 86,000,000 in 1921. Then came in turn
the Geddes Committee on National Expenditure,
whose interim report affecting Army votes was
submitted in December 1921 [Cmd. 1581]; Lord
Weir's Committee of 1923 on the staff of the three
Defence Departments; Lord Colwyn's Committee
of 1 925 on the expenditure of the three Departments ;
and the May Committee of 1931 [Cmd. 3920] on
the means of effecting all possible reductions in the
national expenditure on Supply Services. To these
were added departmental committees, the normal
pressure exercised through the Treasury, the exam-
ination conducted annually by the Public Accounts
Committee of the House, and three special enquiries
made by the Select Committee on Estimates. Re-
statements and re-calculations on every aspect of
Army expenditure followed in seemingly endless
succession. In 1925 Army expenditure had fallen
to 44,783,000: the Estimate for 1934 was
39,600,000.

Both in the Army and at the War Office these
years saw a number of striking developments, some
of which must be noted briefly.

At the War Office two important changes have
been mentioned already in earlier chapters. The

320 THE WAR OFFICE

first was the change of 1 924 by which the Permanent
Under-Secretary of State was appointed to be the
Accounting Officer, in accordance with a general
Government decision that the permanent civilian
head of a Department should normally hold that
responsible position. The second was the re-
allocation of duties between the "Q.M.G." and
the "M.G.O." which was made in October, 1927,
resulting from the growth of mechanisation. Briefly,
engineer services and barrack construction were
transferred to the charge of the "Q.M.G.," while the
directorate of Ordnance Services was put in the
charge of the "M.G.O." ; and thus the duties of
research, design, inspection, provision, storage and
repair of all mechanically propelled vehicles (except
the storage, issue and repair of the vehicles used by
the Royal Army Service Corps) were concentrated
in one division of the Office. To unify the work of
design, to simplify the repair problem, and to
economise in men and workshops were the chief
objects of this transfer.

A still more recent break with the past (1932-33)
was the abolition of the Clothing Factory, which
had operated at Pimlico since the year 1859. The
surrender of all the premises there, and the whole-
sale transfer to Trade contracts of the making up of
Army clothing, are expected to result in considerable
savings.

For the Army itself the most notable changes have
resulted from the modern development of new types
of war material, the familiar cases being mechanised
vehicles, of which there are more than 200 types,
signal stores, including "wireless," and anti-aircraft

POST-WAR 321

stores generally. The creation of the Royal Corps of
Signals, separated from the Royal Engineers, and the
appearance of Anti-Aircraft units, are both post-war
developments. Other new introductions of these
years were the Army Educational Corps and the
great expansion of Army education, the building of
Catterick Camp in Yorkshire to compensate for the
loss of the Curragh, and a large land-purchase scheme
at Imber, accompanied by a comprehensive review of
all the properties held by the War Office, from which
extensive sales resulted. An introduction of a special
kind, which belongs to the earlier post-war years,
was the institution of "Cost Accounts."

The institution of cost accounts is associated with
the name of Sir Charles Harris. It began with a very
remarkable experiment, for which a special corps
was created and in which the Department can claim
with some justice to have played a bold pioneering
role. The familiar form of Estimate and Account
deals only with cash required for the year, arranged
in compartments according to "subject," such as
pay, food, clothing, warlike stores, road transport,
or the staffs of establishments. A different and more
informative form might show the cost of the Army
by objects the cost, for example, of cavalry regi-
ments, of hospitals, of military railways, or of each
of the various types of depot ; and might cover not
merely the cash outgoings but the true cost in each
case, including such elements as the cost in buildings,
in fuel and light and stationery, or in stores with-
drawn from stock and consumed. Such a scheme
would produce comparative costs between one unit and
another which, placed in the hands of administrative

322 THE WAR OFFICE

officers, should prove to be valuable weapons of
control and both aids and incentives to the pursuit
of economy. It might also be expected, when fully
developed, to be helpful to the House of Commons.

The Select Committee on National Expenditure
had endorsed such a scheme in its seventh report
(H.C. 98 of 1918), recommending that the accounts
of all Departments should comprise their total ex-
penditure, including the rental value of buildings,
pensions paid and pension liability, and the services
rendered by other Departments such as the Post
Office and the Office of Works ; and that the estimates
and accounts should be so grouped as to show "the
objects rather^than the subjects of expenditure, and
with carefully chosen units of cost." In this bold
departure from time-honoured methods the War
Office proceeded to lead the way, after practical tests
carried out in Commands, and the Estimate and
Account for 1919 were presented in a new form,
under six main heads of Estimate and Expenditure
in place of the usual cash Votes.

Being super-imposed on the existing system of
cash accounts and store accounts, the scheme was,
of course, expensive in cash and involved very
great additional work. The cost of the Corps of
Military Accountants involved a considerable ad-
dition to Estimates at a time when the cry was all
for reduction. In fine, the time was not very pro-
pitious for the working out of the full implications
inherent in so ambitious a project, and the Council
decided in 1925 to discontinue the main scheme and
to limit continuous cost accounting to selected
"operative" establishments. The Army Estimates

POST-WAR 323

f<5r 1926 were accordingly presented in cash Votes,
and from that year onwards the cost accounts, which
are published annually in the Army Account, will
b found to comprise such establishments only as
Electricity Supply Stations (working down to the
cost of a B.T. unit), Hospitals (the cost of each
occupied bed), Bakeries, Laundries, M.T. Com-
panies, Vessels, Railways, Pumping Stations, Steam
Heating Plants, Cold Stores, and certain types of
workshops. The Corps of Accountants, as such,
disappeared; but accountant officers of the Royal
Army Pay Corps are available to the administrative
heads of the Army for the investigation of working
costs for which cost accounting is not continuous.

A special feature of the post-war years, of which
the general public knows too little, has been the
continuous effort made to improve and strengthen
the co-ordination between the three Defence Depart-
ments.

There are two sides to this important question,
the economical and the strategical. On the former
the Contracts Co-ordinating Committee (which in-
cludes the Treasury, the Post Office and the Office
of Works) continuously reviews all practicable
methods of saving money by centralised buying, by
evolving common specifications, and by adopting the
principle that the largest user shall buy as the agent
of the other Departments. Again, the Royal Ordnance
Factories work, of course, for all three Services;
and research and other technical establishments are
"common," too, in this sense. Nor is there any over-
lapping either in the case of hospitals or prisons. At
no station is there more than one hospital, unless

324 THE WAR OFFICE

numbers demand more space, and reciprocal arrangfe-
ments are made by the Services for admission of each
other's cases. Or again, in the case of the Chaplains'
departments, economy is pursued by the pooling rof
staffs.

Remembering the widely divergent requirements
of the Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force, with
their different problems and their different weapons,
it is doubtful whether, on the business side, there is
more to be gained by co-ordination than is achieved
by the steps already taken. These steps include
standing Joint Committees (set up, in most cases,
as a result of the Mond-Weir Committee on amal-
gamation of Common Services) to watch the progress
of co-ordination in medical, educational, chaplaincy,
and building services ; and in the purchase of food-
stuffs, clothing and textiles, mechanical transport,
general stores, medical and veterinary stores, and
electric power and water supply. Further, this ques-
tion is watched constantly by the Select Committee
on Estimates.

The strategical aspect is quite different : since here
the whole Empire enters the picture. The central
machinery has been mentioned already. Originating
as a permanent body from the recommendations of
the Esher Committee, the Committee of Imperial
Defence, extended and developed by sub-committees,
constitutes an effective and flexible instrument for
co-operation between all Departments and the several
Governments of the Empire as a whole in the joint
problems of Imperial Defence.

In the narrower sphere of "military" strategy

POST-WAR 325

dye co-ordination of the three Services demands
a combined General Staff, was anticipated in the
year 1923 by the creation of a standing Sub-
Committee consisting of the Chiefs of Staff. Of
this the Prime Minister is chairman, as he is of
the C.I.D. as a whole. In addition to the duties of
the Chiefs of Staffs as advisers to their own Board
or Council on sea, land or air policy, they have here
an individual and collective responsibility for advis-
ing on defence policy as a whole. The three officers
constitute, as it were, a Super-Chief of a War Staff.
They meet periodically, and also on any special
occasion ; and the effectiveness of this organisation is
not merely a matter of theory : it has stood the test of
actual practice. The crisis in China of 1927 provides
one example, and there have been others; but in no
case has this Sub-Committee failed to produce a
concerted plan or to present their joint conclusions
to the Cabinet within twenty-four hours of being
called together. Each Chief of Staff holds a special
warrant which requires him to submit to the Prime
Minister any matter relating to Imperial Defence
on which further enquiry or investigation may appear
to him to be necessary.

r T Again, a significant step forward was taken in
January, 1927, with the opening of the Imperial
Defence College, to be supervised by the Sub-
Committee. This exists for the study by selected
officers of the broadest aspects of Imperial strategy,
the courses lasting for one year and being shared by
students from the Indian Army, the Dominion forces
and the Civil Services. The needs of the three fighting
Services are here considered as a single whole.

326 THE WAR OFFICE

The problem of attaining effective co-ordinatian
between three Departments with differing traditions
and differing outlooks and modes of thought can
be made to sound extremely formidable: and ^ it
probably was so at one stage. The solution of such a
problem as this is perhaps not a matter of new
machinery so much as of time and of education.
Interesting statements on this subject will be found
in the Debates of the House of Commons for March
2ist, 1934.

* * * *

For the rest, the story of the post-war years is a
tale of growing complexity. It is not just a matter of
tanks and dragons, radio-telephony, air co-operation,
faster transport, improved weapons, the inspection
of metals by X-rays, or chemical defence require-
ments. It is true that these things add to the work
on more than the scientific side in new methods of
training the troops, a wider scope for staff work, the
organisation of new formations, and in complication
of rates of pay as tradesman-ranks become more
predominant: but all this forms only one part of the
picture. Administration becomes more complex as
life in general is more "administered," and this in
turn tends to centralisation. Much new legislation
reacts on the War Office, even Town Planning Acts
and Income Tax law. The machinery of the Whitley
Councils is a big addition to post-war business. The
League of Nations has brought its burdens. Advance
in civil standards of housing and increased atten-
tion to sanitation call for improvements in barrack
amenities. The Army requires better education.

POST-WAR 327

Vocational training has come to stay. And super-
imposed on all other demands is the need pressed
home by the lesson of the war for a new standard
of preparation for the possible requirements of
national emergency. The reality of all this increased
complexity can be seen in the volume of in-coming
correspondence and the volume of War Office con-
tract work as compared with the figures for pre-war
days. To the patient reader of preceding chapters
the fact can hardly require to be stressed.

Of domestic details there is little to tell.

The War Office building is not commonplace.
The principal front facing Whitehall gives little
impression of its great size, being but half the length
of its longest side which stretches back to Whitehall
Court. The irregularity of its actual shape, which
architects call a "trapezium," is masked in the
design by the use of cupolas, each supported by a
square sub-tower which takes up the line of the
street which it faces. The groups of sculpture at the
angles of the building are the work of Mr. Alfred
Drury, and represent Peace and War, Truth and
Justice, Fame and Victory. Great pains were taken
by the architects that the lines of the structure
should accord with those of its neighbour to the
south, the Banqueting House of the Palace of
Whitehall, that masterpiece of Inigo Jones which
on January 3<Dth, 1649, was the scene of the behead-
ing of King Charles I, and which now houses the
historic treasures of the Royal United Service
Institution.

328 THEWAROFFICE

The War Office is built of Portland stone. Tfye
foundations were laid in 1899, the entire site
being excavated and the building erected in a
tank of concrete thirty feet below the level of the
road. The work was completed in November 1966.
The principal feature is the main hall. From a vast
mantel on the left-hand side the Duke of Wellington
looks down : on the right-hand side. Lord Herbert of
Lea. At the head of the first flight of the staircase
stands a pedestal-bust of Lord Kitchener. The steps
are of Piastracchia marble, the balusters of alabaster.
The principal rooms are on the second floor which is
reached direct by the main staircase, the Secretary
of State's overlooking Whitehall.

In this modern "sanctuary of the God of War"
there is very little of the antique. About a dozen
eighteenth-century mantelpieces were carefully re-
moved from the Pall Mall building and refixed in
some of the chief rooms. There is also some very
fine old silver, inherited from the Board of Ordnance,
some of it dating from William III. Two pairs of
candlesticks and a snuffer-tray bear the marks of
1696. An anonymous gift of recent years is a
taper-box of 1794 originally presented by George
III to William Windham, Secretary-at-War. One
relic of particular interest hangs in the Army
Council room. This is the regimental colour of the
Bombay European Regiment, which was raised in
1662 and sent to India for the defence of Bombay,
the latter possession having come to the King by
the treaty for his marriage with Catherine of
Portugal. Handed over to the Honourable East
India Company (1668) and later transferred to the

POST-WAR 329

Qjieen's Army (1861), the unit finally, in 1881,
became the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

At the entrance to the quadrangle court stand
four very fine torch-head lamps, marked with the
arms of the Board of Ordnance, which originally
adorned the old Pall Mall building. In the court
itself are four guns: two German pieces from the
Great War, and two which were part of a battery of
four raised for the purpose of the South African War
and manned by the City Imperial Volunteers. Oppo-
site the entrance in Whitehall stands a mounted
statue of the Duke of Cambridge. The old War
Office in Pall Mall possessed a sentry of its own,
provided by the King's Guard. The new is content
with the statuesque figures of the troopers of the
Household Cavalry who protect the Horse Guards
over the way.

The subject of the recruitment of the staff can
be dealt with in a few words. Appointments to the
military staff of the War Office are normally made
by selection of officers who have graduated at
the Staff College. The main permanent civilian
staff is recruited through the examinations which
are common to the whole of the home Civil Service.
An excellent result of the late war is that fifty per
cent of this permanent staff has had experience
of military service. The ex-soldier clerks in the
military departments are not included in this figure.
The War Office List, an official publication which is
on sale, gives exhaustive arid detailed information of
the staff and duties of all branches.

The War Office possesses a Luncheon Club, a
Sports Club of many flourishing sections, an

330 THE WAR OFFICE

amateur Dramatic Society, and a Magazine of recent
growth which gives scope for the military and civil
pen to blossom in "Unofficial Minutes."

Viewed from the bridge in St. James's Park on a
misty morning of Spring the distant domes of the
War Office roof are touched by the magic of sun
and haze with the grace of the turrets of tall white
castles, soaring up most royally from the streets of
some city of high adventure. On closer approach the
illusion is shattered. No atmosphere of romantic days
lingers about this modern Department. The War
Office leaves romance and tradition to the safe keep-
ing of the British Army. It broke with the past when
it left Pall Mall.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the War
Office was the butt of Press and Stage as the home
of all ineptitude. Possibly, to many a regimental
officer it is still at the best the fans et origo of an
incredible mass of unnecessary rules. It remains,
maybe, to the public at large no more than a vaguely
conceived embodiment of military highhandedness,
which in times of stress reaps vicarious importance
from the stoic achievements of the British soldier and
in times of peace has no obvious reason for con-
tinuing its existence at all. However untrue such
conceptions may be, the War Office can be philo-
sophic, so long as the public appreciates the need for
preserving its Army unimpaired and equal to any
duty assigned to it. If an efficient Navy and an
efficient Air Force are necessities of the Empire,
so also is an efficient Army. If the protection of this

POST-WAR 331

cqpntry is obviously essential, so also is the protection
of India or Egypt. The constant task of "policing
the Empire" is a vital requirement of peace and
security; but this primary role, quite distinct from
that of the armies of continental Powers, is carried
out so quietly that it stands in some danger of being
forgotten.

The policy governing the amount of money
which the nation affords for Army services is not
determined by the War Office; though it has an
important function of advice to those who decide
these major questions. Policy, in the words of Lord
Haldane, "does not rest with the War Office, which
is only an instrument in the hands of the Government
of the nation for carrying out policy." The Army of
1934 is a smaller but more scientific force, and
definitely of a more expensive quality, than it was
in the year 1914; while the money available for
Army purposes is definitely a smaller sum. The latter
statement may sound unconvincing, for the Army
Estimates for 1914 (excluding the provision for the
Flying Corps) was just under 28,000,000; while
the Army Estimates for 1934 were 39,600,000;
but allowing for the change in purchasing value the
current provision for the Army is smaller. Accord-
ingly the ideal of the modern War Office is to be
businesslike and much alive; for its task, apart from
anything else, is to extract from the means provided
by the nation the last sixpennyworth of value for the
Army which it is proud to administer. Possibly it
can also fulfil a function even more important than
this in providing lessons from its own history for
those who determine the policy of Defence.

APPENDICES

I

LIST OF SECRETARIES OF STATE

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR

1794 Rt. Hon. Henry Dundas (afterwards Baron

Duneira and Viscount Melville).

SECRETARIES OF STATE FOR WAR AND THE
COLONIES

1 80 1 Robert, Lord Hobart (afterwards fourth Earl of

Buckinghamshire) .

1804 John, Earl (afterwards first Marquess) Camden.

1805 Robert, Viscount Castlereagh (afterwards first

Marquess of Londonderry).

1806 Rt. Hon. William Windham.

1807 Robert, Viscount Castlereagh (afterwards first

Marquess of Londonderry).
1809 Robert, Earl of Liverpool.

1812 Henry, Earl Bathurst.

1827 April Frederick, Viscount Goderich (afterwards first

Earl of Ripon).

1827 Aug. Rt. Hon. William Huskisson.

1828 Lieutenant- General the Rt. Hon. Sir George

Murray.

1830 Frederick, Viscount Goderich (afterwards first

Earl of Ripon).

1833 Rt. Hon. Edward Geoffrey Stanley (afterwards

successively Lord Stanley, Lord Stanley of
Bickerstaffe, and Earl of Derby).

1834 June Rt. Hon. Thomas Spring- Rice (afterwards first

Lord Monteagle).

1834 Dec. Rt. Hon. George, Earl of Aberdeen.

1835 Rt. Hon. Charles Grant (afterwards first Lord

Glenelg).
1839 Feb. Constantine, Marquess of Normanby.

336 THEWAROFFICE

1839 Aug. Rt. Hon. Lord John Russell (afterwards first
Earl Russell and Viscount Amberley).

1841 Rt. Hon. Lord Stanley (afterwards Lord Stanley

of Bickerstaffe and Earl of Derby).

1845 Rt - Hon - w - E - Gladstone.

1846 Henry, Earl Grey.

1852 March Rt. Hon. Sir John Somerset Pakington, Bt.
1852 Dec. Henry, Duke of Newcastle.

SECRETARIES OF STATE FOR WAR

1854 Henry, Duke of Newcastle.

1855 Fox, Lord Panmure (afterwards eleventh Earl of

Dalhousie).

1858 Major-General the Rt. Hon. Jonathan Peel.

1859 Rt. Hon. Sidney Herbert (afterwards Lord

Herbert of Lea).

1861 Rt. Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bt.

1863 George, Earl de Grey and Ripon (afterwards

first Marquess of Ripon).
1866 Feb. Rt. Hon. Spencer, Marquess of Hartington

(afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire).

1866 July Lieutenant-General the Rt. Hon. Jonathan Peel.

1867 Rt. Hon. Sir John Somerset Pakington, Bt. (after-

wards first Lord Hampton).

1868 Rt. Hon. Edward Cardwell (afterwards Viscount

Cardwell of Ellerbeck).

1874 Rt. Hon. Gathorne Hardy (afterwards Viscount

and Earl of Cranbrook).

1878 Colonel the Rt. Hon. Frederick Arthur Stanley

(afterwards Lord Stanley of Preston and Earl
of Derby).

1880 Rt. Hon. Hugh Culling Eardley Childers.

1882 Rt. Hon. Spencer, Marquess of Hartington (after-

wards eighth Duke of Devonshire).

1885 Rt. Hon. William Henry Smith.

1886 Feb. Rt. Hon. Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

1886 Aug. Rt. Hon. William Henry Smith.

1887 Rt. Hon. Edward Stanhope.

1892 Rt. Hon. Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

APPENDIX I 337

i8c}5 Most Hon. Henry, Marquess of Lansdowne.

1900 Rt. Hon. St. John Brodrick (afterwards Earl of

Midleton).

1903 Rt. Hon. H. O. Arnold-Forster.

190^5 Rt. Hon. R. B. Haldane (afterwards Viscount

Haldane of Cloan).

1912 Colonel the Rt. Hon. J. E. B. Seely (afterwards

Lord Mottistone).

1914 March Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith (afterwards Earl of Ox-
ford and Asquith).

1914 Aug. Field Marshal the Rt. Hon. Horatio Herbert,
Earl Kitchener of Khartoum.

1916 July Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George.

1916 Dec. Rt. Hon. Edward George Villiers, Earl of Derby.

1918 Rt. Hon. Alfred, Viscount Milner.

1919 Rt. Hon. Winston L. Spencer Churchill.

1921 Rt. Hon. Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt.

1922 Rt. Hon. Edward George Villiers, Earl of Derby.
1924 Jan. Rt. Hon. Stephen Walsh.

1924 Nov. Rt. Hon. Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt.

1929 Rt. Hon. Thomas Shaw.

1931 Aug. Hon. Colonel the Rt. Hon. Robert Offley Ash-
burton, Marquess of Crewe.

1931 Nov. Hon. Captain the Rt. Hon. Douglas McGarel,
Viscount Hailsham.

338 THE WAR OFFICE

II

TABLE OF PRECEDENCE OF THE CORPS,
ETC., OF THE ARMY

1 The Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards.

2 Royal Horse Artillery.

3 Regiments of Cavalry of the Line.

4 Royal Regiment of Artillery (other than Royal Horse

Artillery and Hong Kong- Singapore Royal Artillery).

5 Corps of Royal Engineers.

6 Royal Corps of Signals.

7 Regiments of Foot Guards.

8 Regiments of Infantry of the Line.

9 Royal Tank Corps.

10 Hong Kong- Singapore Royal Artillery.

1 1 Royal Malta Artillery.

12 Royal Army Chaplains' Department.

13 Royal Army Service Corps.

14 Royal Army Medical Corps.

15 Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

1 6 Royal Army Pay Corps.

17 Royal Army Veterinary Corps.

1 8 Army Educational Corps.

19 The Army Dental Corps.

20 Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.

21 Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) Sup-

plementary Reserve.

22 Supplementary Reserve (other than 21).

23 Militia*.

24 Honourable Artillery Company (Territorial Army).

25 Territorial Army (other than 24).

26 Territorial Army Nursing Service.

27 Militia units in Bermuda, Channel Islands and Malta.

28 Officers Training Corps.

* By the Territorial Army and Militia Act, 1921, the title "the
Militia" was substituted for "the Special Reserve." With the exception
of certain officers who were commissioned before August 5th, 1914,
and are still retained, this force is not at present maintained in Great
Britain or Northern Ireland.

APPENDIX III 339

III
NOTES

i (page 7). The most recent Order in Council is
dated iyth December, 1931. The actual text is as follows:

At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the iyth day of
December, 1931.

Present :
THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY IN COUNCIL.

WHEREAS His Majesty has been pleased to approve a change
in the Constitution of the Army Council.

Now, THEREFORE, His Majesty, by and with the advice of
His Privy Council, is pleased to order, and it is hereby ordered,
as follows:

i. The Secretary of State is to be responsible to His
Majesty and Parliament for all the business of the Army
Council. All business other than business which the Secretary
of State specially reserves to himself is to be transacted in the
following principal sub-divisions :

(a) The Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State shall be
responsible to the Secretary of State for the administra-
tion of business affecting the Territorial Army Associa-
tions and War Department Lands, and for so much of
the other business of the Army Council as may be
assigned to him, from time to time, by the Secretary
of State.

(b) The First Military Member of the Army Council (the
Chief of the Imperial General Staff), the Second
Military Member of the Army Council (the Adjutant-
General to the Forces), the Third Military Member of
the Army Council (the Quarter-Master-General to the
Forces), and the Fourth Military Member of the Army
Council (the Master-General of the Ordnance) shall be
responsible to the Secretary of State for the administra-
tion of so much of the business relating to the organisa-
tion, disposition, personnel, armament, and maintenance

340 THE WAR OFFICE

of the Army, as may be assigned to them, or eac/i of
them, from time to time, by the Secretary of State.

(c) The Finance Member of the Army Council (Financial
Secretary of the War Office) shall be responsible to the
Secretary of State for the finance of the Army and for
so much of the other business of the Army Council as
may be assigned to him, from time to time, by the
Secretary of State.

(d) The Permanent Under-Secretary of State shall be a
Member, and Secretary, of the Army Council and
responsible to the Secretary of State for the preparation
of all official communications of the Council and for the
interior economy of the War Office: he shall also be
responsible, on his appointment as Accounting Officer
of Army Votes, Funds and Accounts, for the control
of Expenditure and for advising the Secretary of State
and the Administrative Officers at the War Office and
in Commands on all questions of Army expenditure.

He shall further be charged with such other duties as
may be assigned to him, from time to time, by the
Secretary of State.

2. This Order in Council shall be substituted for the Order
in Council dated ist day of October, 1931.

M. P. A. HANKEY

Note 2, (page 16). Addressed by King Charles II to the
Duke of Monmouth on yth September, 1676. Contained in
the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic) for that year.

Note 3 (page 18). The Secretary-at-War at this time was
William Blathwayt. His complicated position in relation to
William III, who insisted on taking him abroad on campaigns,
is dealt with in great detail in a biography entitled William
Blathwayt, by G. A. Jacobsen, published by the Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1932.

Note 4 (page 29).

(i) The preamble to the Army and Air Force Annual Act
refers to the numbers required for the Army in the
following words: "Whereas it is adjudged necessary
by His Majesty and this present Parliament that a body

APPENDIX III 341

of land forces should be continued . . . and that the
whole number of such forces should consist of (the
number mentioned in the 'Vote A' Resolution see 2
below)."

(*) An estimate of the numbers required for the Regular
Army is presented each year to the Committee of
Supply of the House of Commons and is voted by that
Committee before the end of March. In what is known
as the "Vote A" Resolution the House resolves "that a
number of land forces, not exceeding (a figure) be
maintained 1 * during the coming financial year. But this
is a Resolution of the House of Commons alone.

(3) The money required for the Army is voted annually by
the Committee of Supply, partly in March and partly
in July. The part of the Supply that is voted in March is
included in the ist Consolidated Fund Act which is duly
passed before March 3ist. The remaining Supply is not
voted until July, and the total Supply is included in
the Appropriation Act which is passed by both Houses
after that date. The total grant thus made for the Army is
shown out separately in the Schedule to this Act, which
also includes the numbers contained in the "Vote A"
Resolution of March. But this is not passed before the
beginning of the financial year.

Note 5 (page 37). The history of the office of Secretary
of State will be found in greater detail in the Home Office
volume of this series.

Note 6 (page 39). Author of The Law and Custom of the
Constitution.

Note 7 (page 42). The Military Forces of the Crown by
Charles M. Clode, and The History of the British Army by
Hon. Sir John Fortescue, are two standard works on Army
history. The former, dealing with the constitutional history
of the forces, was published in 1869, and should be supple-
mented by the books of modern authorities on this subject.

Note 8 (page 56). This passage is quoted from Martin's
Life of the Prince Consort, Vol. IV, p. 20. The other authorities
used in this chapter, apart from War Office documents, are

342 THEWAROFFICE

The Letters of Queen Victoria, The Life of Lord Wolselfy, by
Sir Frederick Maurice and Sir George Arthur, and Lord Card-
well at the War Office by Sir Robert Biddulph. Parliament and
the Army, 1642-1904, by Lt.-Col. J. S. Omond (1933), is an
excellent exposition of the political attitude ; and many dejails
concerning the personalities of the period will be found in
The War Office Past and Present by Capt. Owen Wheeler

Note 9 (page 81). The text of His Majesty's Letters Patent
constituting the first Army Council is as follows :

EDWARD THE SEVENTH, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of
the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender
of the Faith, Emperor of India

To Our right trusty and well-beloved Councillor Hugh
Oakeley Arnold-Forster, Our trusty and well-beloved Sir
Neville Gerald Lyttelton, commonly called the Honourable
Sir Neville Gerald Lyttelton, Knight Commander of Our
Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Lieutenant-General
in Our Army, Charles Whittingham Horsley Douglas, Esquire,
Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, Esquire, Companion of
Our Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sir James Wolfe
Murray, Knight Commander of Our Most Honourable Order
of the Bath, Major-Generals in Our Army, Our right trusty
and right well-beloved Cousin Richard Walter John, Earl of
Donoughmore, Our trusty and well-beloved William Bromley
Davenport, Esquire, Companion of Our Distinguished
Service Order, Greeting:

Know ye that We, trusting in your wisdom and fidelity of
Our special grace, do by these presents constitute and appoint
you to be Our Army Council for the administration of matters
pertaining to Our military forces and the defence of Our
Dominions, with such power and authority for the purpose
as has hitherto been exercised under Our prerogative by Our
Secretary of State for War, Our Commander-in-Chief or
other Our principal officers who have under Our Secretary
of State for War been charged with the administration of the
Departments of the Army.

APPENDIX III 343

4nd We do command all Our officers of Our military forces
and all others in any department of Our Military Service,
that they may be attendant on you and observe and execute
all such orders as you may give in the exercise of your power
and, authority.

And know ye that We do grant unto you full power and
authority from time to time to appoint such officers for con-
ducting the business of the civil departments of Our Military
Service entrusted to you as shall seem necessary to you, and
to revoke the appointment of any such officers as you shall
see fit, and appoint others in their place, and We enjoin all such
officers and all others whom it may concern to be obedient
unto you in all things as becometh.

And We grant unto you full power in relation to any power
and authority for the time being vested in you under these
Our Letters Patent to make such contracts and do all such
other things as you may find necessary in your discretion for
the better carrying on of Our Military Service, and generally
to execute and to do every power and thing which formerly
appertained to Our Secretary of State for War or to Our
Commander-in-Chief or other principal officers as aforesaid.

And know ye that your powers may be exercised and your
duties performed by any three of your number, that Our
right trusty and well-beloved Councillor Hugh Oakeley
Arnold-Forster shall be your President, and that any docu-
ment may be signed on your behalf by any two of you or by
any one of you and such person as you may appoint to be
your Secretary.

In witness whereof We have caused these Our Letters to be
made Patent.

Witness Ourself at Westminster, the sixth day of February,

in the fourth year of Our Reign.
By Warrant under the King's Sign Manual.

Mum MACKENZIE

Note 10 (page 91). The Foundations of Reform by the
Military Correspondent of The Times, 1908, contains a critique
of the Haldane reforms by a first-class writer.

34* THE WAR OFFICE

Note ii (page 93). The number of officers and rnen
landed in France between 9th and 23rd August, 1914, was
111,804. As regards Waterloo the authorities differ as to the
size of the Army commanded by Wellington ; but several agree
in giving it as 67,700 men with 156 to 174 guns. Forte^cue
puts the figure as low as 63,000, and some foreign writers
have put it as high as 93,601. The numbers of the British
troops in that Army were between 24,000 and 26,000.

Note 12 (page 119). The reference is to the nth Report
of the Commissioners of Military Enquiry, presented to the
House of Commons on February 26th, 1810. This was an
exhaustive enquiry into the existing machinery for administer-
ing the forces. Nineteen reports were issued between March
1806 and March 1812.

Note 13 (page 129). The subject is dealt with clearly in
the Manual of Military Law issued by command of the Army
Council and published by H.M. Stationery Office.

Note 14 (page 136). For the following division of Honor-
ary Distinctions the writer is indebted to Major T. J. Edwards.

(1) Battle Honours. These are either the name of an action,
e.g. "Salamanca" or "Mons," or the name of a campaign,
e.g. "Peninsula," "South Africa, 1899-1902." The only
battle honour for a place in Great Britain is "Fishguard." A
small French force landed at Fishguard on February 23rd,
1797, and was captured by the Pembrokeshire Militia. The
honour was borne by the Castle Martin Yeomanry, which was
converted after the Great War into the iO2nd (Pembroke and
Cardigan) Brigade, Royal Artillery.

(2) Badges, of which there is a great variety, e.g., "The
Lion of Nassau," "The Sphinx, superscribed 'Egypt'," "An
Elephant superscribed 'Assaye'," "The Royal Tiger super-
scribed 'India'," "The Dragon superscribed 'China'," "The
Castle and Key superscribed 'Gibraltar'," "The White
(Roussillon) Plume," etc.

(3) Commemorative Mottoes borne upon Colours. "Primus
in Indis" (the old 39th Foot, now the Dorsetshire Regi-
ment) and "Celer et Audax" (The King's Royal Rifle Corps,
for service under Wolfe in North America).

APPENDIX III 345

,[4) Regimental Titles, e.g., the ist Guards were granted
the title "ist or Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards'* in
commemoration of their having defeated the Grenadiers of the
French Imperial Guards at Waterloo.

{5) Clothing Badge; a unique distinction. A Sphinx badge
at the back of the head-dress was granted to the old 28th Foot
(The Gloucestershire Regt.) to commemorate the fact that
they fought back to back at the battle of Alexandria, March
2ist, 1801.

(6) Silver Wreath borne on the Colour Pike, granted by
Queen Victoria to the 24th Foot (The South Wales Borderers),
to commemorate the rescue of the Queen's Colour at Isand-
hlwana and the defence of Rorke's Drift in the Zulu War of
1879.

(7) Commemorative Regiments. The Irish Guards were
formed to commemorate the bravery shown by the Irish
regiments in the South African War, 1899-1902.

(8) Dress Distinctions, e.g., The Royal Scots Greys (and
Dragoons) wear a bearskin cap to commemorate their bravery
at Ramillies.

(9) The Truncheon awarded to the Sirmoor battalion of
the Bengal Native Army for service at the relief of Delhi,
1857. The battalion is now the 2nd King Edward's Own
Gurkha Rifles. The Battle Axe awarded to a company of the
Royal Artillery at Martinique in 1809. This company is now
the 25th Medium Battery, R.A.

Note 15 (page 140). Notes on Matters affecting the Health ,
Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army,
founded chiefly on the experience of the late War by Florence
Nightingale; written between February and August, 1857,
and published privately in 1858. The sentence from the private
notes is quoted from The Life of Florence Nightingale by Sir
Edward Cook (1914).

Note 16 (page 156). R.A.S.C. History of Transport and
Supply in the British Army. The first volume by Fortescue
ends in 1902. The second by Col. R. H. Beadon carries the
story to 1920.

346 THEWAROFFICE

Note 17 (page 181). The reader who is interested in tfie
development of weapons and of military dress will find much
interesting information in the History of the Army Ordnance
Services by Major- General A. Forbes (1929). For the history
of the R.A. see Duncan's Royal Regiment of Artillery (187^2),
and the History of the Royal Artillery, Vol.1, by Major-Gen.
Sir Charles Caldwell and Major-General Sir John Headlam.

Note 18 (page 234). The office of the Paymaster- General
must be distinguished from the military Royal Army Pay
Corps. The functions of the Paymaster- General, who, like
the old Paymaster-General of the Forces, is a political officer,
are set out in the Treasury volume of this series.

Note 19 (page 247). The complete list of the Votes of the
Army Estimates are: Vote A, Numbers; Vote i, Pay, etc., of
the Army; Vote 2, Territorial Army and Reserve Forces;
Vote 3, Medical Services; Vote 4, Educational Establishments;
Vote 5, Quartering and Movements; Vote 6, Supplies, Road
Transport and Remounts; Vote 7, Clothing; Vote 8, General
Stores; Vote 9, Warlike Stores; Vote 10, Works, Buildings and
Lands; Vote n, Miscellaneous Effective Services; Vote 12,
War Office; Vote 13, Half-Pay, Retired Pay and other Non-
Effective Charges for Officers; Vote 14, Pensions, &c., for
Warrant Officers, N.C.O.s, Men and others; Vote 15, Civil
Superannuation, Compensation and Gratuities.

Note 20 (page 250). Army Agents. By the time of King
James II the Colonel's Clerk, who acted on behalf of the
Colonel of each regiment in connection with pay, clothing,
etc. (see p. 255), had come to be termed the Regimental Agent.
He was employed by the Colonel, and a deduction of 2d, in
the on the whole pay of the regiment was made for his
remuneration. The post was often sold to the highest bidder,
and the prevalence of corruption among the agents called for
parliamentary enquiry as early as 1695. The cost of agency
was made a charge on public funds by Burke J s Act of 1783.
The captains of companies paid the men and various other
regimental charges, but the agents alone accounted to the
Secretary-at-War for the aggregate disbursements on account
of the regiments. This was changed in 1798 by the establish-
ment of regimental paymasters, and from that date onward

APPENDIX III 347

the agency system was considered by several Commissions
and Committees. In 1827 there were 13 agents in all. In 1850,
when the charge to the public for agency services was 28,508,
a Select Committee on Army and Ordnance Expenditure
found that in the Cavalry and Infantry the agent (i), in his
public capacity, received and distributed for the Colonel the
funds allowed for the subsistence and other services of the
regiment; carried out remittances made by soldiers, distri-
buted "effects," regulated the supply of clothing, arranged
for the payment of tradesmen, and conducted the business of
sale and purchase of commissions, etc.; while (2), in his
private capacity, he acted without charge as banker for the
individual officer, attended to his purchase of promotion,
bought and forwarded any article which he might require
when on service and so on. The public allowance for these
combined duties amounted at this date to 234 155. Qd. for a
regiment of Infantry of 750 rank and file. In 1878 the agency
system, now much narrowed in its public duties, was extended
to the Staff and the Departments (e.g. Medical, Commissariat,
Ordnance, etc.); and in 1881 it was decided that in future
the agent through whom the regimental officers drew their
pay should be appointed by the Secretary of State. In 1890
the three firms of Cox & Co., Holt, Laurie & Co. and McGrigor
& Co. made an agreement to undertake the duties of agency
free of charge to the public for twenty years from 1892: and
this was renewed in 1909 for twenty years ending 3 ist Decem-
ber, 1931. The change to the present position was made in
1922. Para. 141 of the King's Regulations, 1928, lays down
that the Army Council exercise no control over, and accept no
responsibility for, the banking business conducted by firms
appointed to act as Army Agents.

Note 21 (page 291). Lord Riddell in his War Diary,
1914-1918. During those years Lord, then Sir George, Riddell
was in close touch with the War Office as Vice-Chairman of
the Newspaper Proprietors Association and a member of the
Admiralty, War Office and Press Committee.

INDEX

Academy, Royal Military no,

127, 204

Account, Army Appropria-
tion 238, 248, 251
Accounting Officer 236, 246,

255, 320

Accounts Branches 250
Accounts, Cost 244, 251, 321
Actuarial Branch 278
Adjutant- General to the
Forces 8, 70, 72, 80, 97,
uSetseq., 167, 197,212,215
Admiralty 72 (vide Service

Depts.)

Agents, Army 74, 250, 346
Air Ministry 306 (vide Ser-
vice Depts.)
Air raids (vide Raids)
Airey Committee (1880) 66
Albemarle, Duke of 16, 18, 30
Alexandra, Queen 142
Allenby, F.-M. Lord 304, 306
America 34, 158, 179; in the
Great War 287, 302, 304,
308 et seq.
Ammunition 180, 192, 203,

295
Anti-Aircraft Defence 109,

x84, 189, 297, 300, 320
Anti-Gas Defence 109, 188
Appeals of Officers 132, 267
Armstrong Gun 181
Army Act 25, 131, 149, 166,

340

Army Council: duties of 7-10,

79, 261; Order in Council

339; Letters Patent 342
Army Council Instructions

271

Army List 272
Army Orders 270
Army Service Corps 122, 159,

312; Inspector of 174
Army, Size of: pre-War 92;

to-day 5, 331
Arnold -Forster, Rt. Hon.

H. O. 82, 98

Arthur, Sir George 291, 342
Articles of War 18, 130
Artillery, Directorate 180,

209
Artillery, Royal 85, 176, 178,

204, 346
Artillery Committee, Royal

i8 7

Artillery School 109
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H.

(Lord Oxford and Asquith)

285, 296, 300
Assistant Under-Secretary of

State 262, 274, 283
Assize of Arms 12
Audit (Military) 51, 249, 254
Audit (Parliamentary) 235

Baker, Mr. Harold 217
Bakeries, Army 161, 163, 310,
323

INDEX

Balfour, Lord 72, 82
Bands 137, 199
Barrackmaster-General 171 ,

197
Barracks 34, 140, 146-151,

171, 326

Battle Honours 136, 344
Beaverbrook, Lord 296
Bill of Rights 25, 28
Billeting 23, 146, 160, 307
Birkenhead, Lord 291
Blathwayt, William 340
Blyke, Theophilus 281
Board of General Officers 36,

50, 200, 268
Board of Trade 154, 227,

39

Books, Supply of 269
Boys, Army Technical School

128
Boys, Educational Schools

JI 3> Ir 5
Brade, Sir Reginald 77, 288,

291, 295
Breech-loading: Guns 1 8 1 ;

Small Arms 183
British Legion 135
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

(Lord Midleton) 71, 82,

142

Brownrigg, Col. R. 211
Buckingham House 75
Building Services (vide Works)
Buildings, The War Office:

in Pall Mall 74, 328; in

Whitehall 4, 93, 327; in the

Great War 306
Builer, General Sir Redvers

1 60
Burke's Act 39, 126, 346

Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duke
of 54-58, 62, 66-70, /J3,

329
Campbell - Bannerman, Rt.

Hon. Sir H. 90, 98
Canteens 161, 302
Cardwell, Lord 57-65, 87, 96,

160, 161,342
Cardwell System 62
Casualties, Great War 274,

308, 312

Catering, Inspector of 161
Censorship: Cable and Postal

314; Press 290, 314
Ceremonial 135
Chaplain - General to the

Forces 114, 277
Chaplains 277, 324
Charitable Grants 265
Charles I, King 15, 22-24,

86, 130, 146, 327
Charles II, King 16, 25, 30,

i3 i35 H 6 > 2 33
Chelsea Hospital 213, 252

Chemical Defence Research
187

Chief of the Imperial General
3taff8, 102 etseq.,212, 216

Chiefs of Staffs Sub-Com-
mittee 100, 325

Childers, Rt. Hon. H. C. E.
65, 219

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Win-
ston S. 296

Civil Employment of Ex-
soldiers 133

Civil Staff of War Office 275,
329 (vide also Staff)

Civilian Employees 167, 190,

i94> 275

INDEX

(JIarke, Sir G. Sydenham
(^Lord Sydenham) 78

Clarke, General Sir Mans-
field 243

Clarke, William 15

Clftiton Dawkins Committee
(1901)71,241,253

Clode, Charles M. 42, 147,

34 1
Clothing 36, 50, 199

Clothing Factory 201, 320
Clubs (War Office) 329
Coast Artillery School 109
Coldstream Guards 18
College, Royal Military no,

112, 127
Colwin Committee (1925)

319

Commander-in- Chief 16-18,

4 5-73>79> TI 9
Commissariat 36, 50, 157
Commissaries of Musters 36,

"5
Commissions: Grant of, 28,

213; Purchase System 60
Commissions of Array 22
Committee of Imperial De-
fence 81, 99 , 227, 273,

324
Compulsory Service 90, 287,

293 et seq.

Connaught, Field-Marshal
H.R.H. the Duke of 108

Contracts, Army 163, 168,
201, 312

Cookery, School of 164

Co-ordination: in War Office
173, 258; with other De-
partments 68, 81, 99, 105,
190, 228, 323

Correspondence, Volume of

264, 306

Cost Accounts 244, 251, 321
County Associations 9, 215,

315

Courts-martial 28, 131
Cowans, Gen. Sir John 288
Creedy, Sir Herbert 282, 288
Crimean War: effects of 96,
161, 215; guns 179; hos-
pitals 139; stores 159, 198;
clothing 202
Cromwell's Army 118, 144,

157, 277
Cubitt, Sir Bertram 78

Dardanelles Campaign 289,
294, 296

Death Penalty 131

Decentralisation to Com-
mands 6, 72, 80, 172, 253

Defence Force (1921) 317

Defoe, Daniel 34

Demobilisation 134, 316

Dental Service 141

Deputy Under-Secretary of
State 249, 275, 283

Derby, Lord 297, 301, 306

Design Department 188

Detention Barracks 132

Discipline 129

Distinctions, Honorary 135,

344 .
Dominions, The 100, 113,

136, 203, 212, 227, 253,

325 ; in the Great War 287,

289, 308 et seq.
Douglas, General Sir Charles

108, 288
Dress (vide Uniform)

352

INDEX

Dufferin Commission (1870)

112, 114
Duke of York's School 113

Education, Army 58, no,

321

"Effects" 312, 316
Electric Lighting, School of

109
Electricity Supply Stations

173, 323
Elgin Commission (1902)

7 1
Ellison, Lieut. -Gen. Sir G. F.

78

Employment for ex- Soldiers

133
Enfield Small Arms Factory

47 > 6 7> 203

Engineer Board, Royal 187

Engineer Stores 176

Engineering, School of Mili-
tary 109, 171

Engineers, Royal 169, 176,
218

Equitation, School of 109

Esher Committee (1904) 48,
72, 78, 97, 120, 176, 202,

214, 222, 242, 256, 282,
3H

Establishments, Peace 121
Establishments, War 104
Estimates, Army 238, 246,

257, 33i
Ewart, Lieut.-Gen. Sir J.

Spencer 284

Exchequer and Audit De-
partment 236

Exchequer, The 233

Expeditionary Force, The

pre-War 84, 93, 122, 286,
288

Experimental Establishments
189

Factories (vide Ordnance)
Farriery, School of 169
Fighting Arms, Schools for

109

Finance, Army 80, 231
Financial Advice 80, 174, 208,

240, 251, 254
Financial Secretary 8, 9, 58,

68,79,221,256,276
Fisher, Admiral Lord 78, 296
Fleet, War Department 152,

'55.
Flogging, Abolition of 131

Foch, Marshal 305 [245

Food, The Soldiers' 65, 157,

Foot Guards 18, 85, 199

Forms, Army 270

Fortescue, Hon. Sir John 42,
156, 341, 344

Fortifications, Inspector- Gen-
eral of 70, 171, 1 80

Fox, Rt. Hon. Charles James

75> IJ 9
Franco-German War 56, 96,

279
French, F.-M. Lord (Earl of

Ypres) 108, 284, 297
Furse, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Wm.

301

Gas in War, First use of 296
Geddes, Sir Eric 302, 319
General Staff 69, 79, 83, 95,
144, 186; in the Great War
290, 294, 299, 305, 313

INDEX

3S3

George III, King 205, 328
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E.

57, 62, 64, 236
Gleig, Prebendary 278
Gough, General Sir Hubert

" Guards and Garrisons" 18,

24, 130, 146, 157
Guns 46, 64, 178 et seq., 203 ;

at the War Office 329
Gwynn, Nell 75

Haig, F.-M. Lord 297, 314
Haldane, Lord 78, 82-92, 98,

298

Haliburton, Lord 282
Hamilton, General Sir Ian

1 08

Hardinge, Lord 45, 179
Harris, Sir Charles 77, 244,

282, 288, 321

Hartington, Lord 68, 78, 97
Hawes, Sir Benjamin 282
Hayter Committee (1882) 219
Henry VIII, King 22, 37, 182
Herbert, Sidney (Lord Her-

bert of Lea) 46, 49, 55, 1 14,

139, 161, 179, 278, 328
Hill, General Lord 114
Honours and Rewards 135,

211
Horse Guards, The 5, 30, 31,

55
Horses (vide Remounts)

Hospitals 138, 323
Household Troops 13, 18,

135, 199, 200, 329
Howick Commission (1837)

43
Howitzers 178, 181, 297, 301

Imperial Communications

Committee 105
Imperial Defence College 325
Imperial Defence, Commit-
tee of 81,99, 227, 273, 324
Impressment 22, 125
India 7, 99, 101, 113, 153,
203,213,227,247,253,325,
328, 331 ; in the Great War
289, 311

Industrial Councils 276
Inigo Jones 327
Inspection Departments 190
Inspector - General of the

Forces 80, 108
Inspectors (Training) 108
Institutes, Regimental 163
Insurance (Acts) 127
Intelligence, Military 58, 64,

72, 77, 96, 102, 117
Inventions 187, 192
Ireland 284, 300, 317

James II, King 25, 146, 178
Judge Advocate General 132,
267

Kelly-Kenny, General Sir T.

H3
Kitchener, F.-M. Lord 67,

286 et seq., 328
King, The, Submissions to

27, 132, 136, 266
Kneller Hall 137
Knox, Sir Ralph 65, 282

Labour Corps 312
Labour, Ministry of 135
Lands, War Department 171,
218

354

Lansdowne, Lord 71, 88, 120
Laundries 323
Law, Martial 23, 129
Law, Military 25, 129
League of Nations 117, 249,

326

Legal Advisers 267

Lewis, Rt. Hon. Sir George

Cornewall 54
Levy, The Feudal 21
Levy, The General 20, 85
Libraries, Garrison 114
Library, The War Office 279
Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. D.

285, 295, 299-302
Local Auditors 72, 249, 253
Locke, Matthew 16
Lucas Committee (1911) 219

Machine Guns 109, 180, 184
Machine Gun Corps 297
Macready, General Sir Nevil

300

Manoeuvres 108, 267
Maps 96, 1 02, 274
Marlborough, Duke of 33,

138,158,169,177,200,204
Martial Law 23
Marzials, Sir Frank 78
Master-General of the Ord-
nance 9, 50, 80, 169, 176

et seq. y 320
Maxim Gun 184
May Committee (1931) 3*9
M'Grigor, Sir James 137
Mechanical Transport 150,

160, 165, 320; in the Great

War 310
Mechanisation: Board, &c.

1 88; Directorate 180, 209

INDEX

Medals 136
Medical College,

Army 141
Medical Services 50, 72, 120,

138

Melbourne, Lord 45
Mesopotamian Campaign,

299, 301
Military Secretary 8, 72, 211,

Militia 23, 24,46, 51, 59, 62,

77,85-90,215
Milner, Lord 306
Ministry of Munitions 206,

296
Ministry of National Service

302
Ministry of Pensions 228, 25 1 ,

301

Mobilisation Branch 72, 97
Mond-Weir Committee ( 1 923 )

3 2 4

Monk (vide Albemarle)
Monmouth, Duke of 340
Mortars 178, 297
Movements and Quartering

Directorate 145, 149, 175
Munitions (Great War) 294,

308
Murray, Lieut. -Gen. Sir J.

Wolfe 288
Music, Royal Military School

137

Musketry 47, 109

Musters, Commissary- Gen-
eral of 36

Mutiny Acts 25, 130, 147

Napier, General Sir W. 170
National Association 134

INDEX

355

rsajy, /irmy and Air Force

Institutes 152, 162
"Nearest Guard, " The 214
Nightingale, Miss Florence

W 53, 139. 345
Non-Effective Votes 250
Northbrook, Lord 57, 6 <;, 241
Northcliflfe, Lord 298
Numbers of Army 5
Nursing Services 1 42 , 2 1 5 , 308

Office Instructions 265
Office of Works 74, 229, 323
Officers: Appeals by 132;
Education no, 267; Pro-
motion 211

Officers' Training Corps no

Operations and Intelligence,

Director of Military 102,

117

Ordnance, Board of 14, 33,

36, 5> 75> *55> l6 9> i? 1 *
176,197,205,219,234,328

Ordnance Committee 1 87
Ordnance Depots 195
Ordnance Factories 67, 176,

180, 203, 253

Ordnance Services: Director-
ate 194; in former days
197 ; in the Great War 308 ;
Inspector 208
Ordnance Workshops 196
Organisation: Peace 120;
War 103

Pall Mall, The War Office in

52, 74

Palmerston, Lord 42, 56
Panmure, Lord 52, 279, 281
Parliamentary Bills 221, 266

Parliamentary Control 26, 29,

69, 223, 231, 324
Parliamentary Counsel 267
Parliamentary Questions 266
Parliamentary Under- Secre-
tary of State 7, 9, 79, 172,

2IO, 214

Pasley, General Sir George

170
Pay Corps, Royal Army 249,

254, 312, 323
Paymaster- General 234
Peninsular War 33, 43, 87,

138, 159, 170
Pensions 250
Pensions, Ministry of 228,

251, 301

Pepys, Samuel 225

Permanent Under-Secretary
of State 8, 10, 79, 210, 222,
231 et seq. y 320

Personal Services Director-
ate 120, 129, 143

Petition of Right 23

Petrol 162, 310

Physical Training School 109

Pitt, Rt. Hon. William 86,
279

Post Office, General 105, 228,

323

Precedence of Corps 338
Prerogative, The Royal 20,

26-28, 73
Press Bureau 290
Press, The 271, 290, 298
Pringle, Sir John 138
Printing 269

Prisons, Military 132, 323
Prisoners of War 274, 297,

313

35*

INDEX

Promotion of Officers 61, 119,

211

Provisions (vide Supplies)
Public Accounts Committee

237, 248, 319

Publications, War Office 271
Purchase System 60
Purveyance 13, 149

Quartering: History 146; in
the Great War 307 (vide
Movements)

Quarter- Master- General to
the Forces 9, 70, 80, 144
etseq., 251,256,320

Queen Alexandra's Imperial
Military Nursing Service
142

Queen, Her Majesty The 142

Queen Victoria School 115

Raglan, F.-M. Lord 177
Raids, Air and Coastal 292,

298, 3> 34
Rail, Movement by 62, 152,

*5 6
Railway Training Centre,

Longmoor 156
Ration, The 162
Record Offices 255
Records, War 273
Recruiting 120, 125, 143
Red Coat, The 200
Red Cross, Use of 269
Registry, The War Office 262
Regulations, Army 243, 271,

275
Remounts 145, 167, 175; in

the Great War 311
Repington, Col. 91, 98

Research Establishments ^88
Reserve, Army 5, 59, 77, 124,

126, 153

Reserve, Special 85, 90
Reserve, Supplementary f 5 ,

122, 124, 156, 215
Reserves of Stores 192
Resident Clerks 280
Restoration, Army at The 17,

146, 157, 255, 277
Rhine, Army of the 317
Riddell, Lord 291, 347
Rifles 47, 109, 183, 205
Roberts, F.-M. Lord 71, 90,

i33> 243
Robertson, F.-M. Sir William

298, 3?5

Royal Military Canal 171
Royal United Service Insti-
tution 327

Salonika Campaign 296, 305
Sandhurst, Royal Military

College no, 112, 127
Schools, Educational 114
Schools for Fighting Arms

109
Science, Military College of

191

Sclater, Gen. Sir Henry 288
Schomberg House 74
Sea Transport 153
Secretariat, The (Central

Branch) 59, 68, 70, 258
Secretary-at-War 15, 33, 36,

38, 50, 118, 125, 148, 346
Secretary of State for War,

Office of 7, 40, 49 et seq. 9

79, 210
Seely, Col. The Rt. Hon.

INDEX

357

L E. B. (Lord Mottistone)

Selection Board 212

Senior Officers' School no

Serration Allowance 297,

312

Service Departments, Co-
ordination between 68, 81,

100, 105, 190, 228, 271,

323
Shoeburyness, Ranges at no,

179, 189

Signal Stores 180, 320
Signals, Experimental Estab-

lishment 189; School 109
Signals, Royal Corps of 105,

321

Small Arms 47, 180, 182, 203
Small Arms Committee 187;

Experimental Establish-

ment 189; School 109
Soldiers' and Sailors' Help

Society 134
South African War (1899-

1902)71,87,97, 160
Special Reserve 85, 90
Staff College 77, no, 112
Staff Duties Directorate 102,

117

Staff, General (vide General)
Staff, War Office 59, 65, 75,

329; present numbers 116,

142, 174, 208, 221, 224,

257, 282; in the Great War

93> 2 97 3 OI > 3 2 >3 6 > 3*6
Stanhope, Rt. Hon. E. 67,

119, 1 80

Stanley Committee (1876) 65
Stationery 239, 269
Statute of Winchester 12

Steel Helmets 297

Stores, General 195

Stores, Ordnance 145, 194

Stores, Sales of 226

Supplementary Reserve 5,
122, 124, 156, 215

Supplies: Directorate 145,
156, 175; in former days
156; in the Great War 309

Surplus War Stores, Salvage
of 316

Supply Reserve Depot 163

Surveyor-General of Ord-
nance 58, 67, 1 60

Sutlers 157

Swift, Dean 34

Tank Corps Central Schools

109

Tanks, Design, etc. 185, 191
Tanks, First use of 301
Technical Establishments 187
Technical School for Boys

128
Territorial Army : creation 84 ;

modern r61e 217; Director-
ate 214

Thompson, Sir Ralph 282
Topographical Branch 58, 96,

279

Tournament, Royal 265
Tower of London 14, 177,

213

Trained Bands 22, 86
Training, Directorate of

Military 102, 105, 117
Transport: Directorate 145,

156, 175; in former days

i 5 8

Transportation Services 152

358 INDEX

Treasury Solicitor 221, 267
Treasury, The 32, 36, 229,

233 et seq., 262, 319, 323
Trooping Season 153
Trooping the Colour 31
Typewriting 76, 270

Uniform : Development of
199; the New 203

Vehicles, Fighting 187
Vessels, War Department 155,

323
Veterinary Services 145, 167,

'75, 3"
Vickers Machine Gun 184

Victoria, Queen 46, 55, 62,

66, 68-70, 140
Vocational Training 133
Voluntary Aid Societies 269,

302
Volunteers 62, 77, 84, 88, 215,

302
von Donop, Major-Gen. Sir

Stanley 288
Votes, Army 238, 346

Wages, Principle of Fair 276
Walker, Edward 15
Waltham Abbey 203
War Material, Production of

203

War Office List 329
44 War Office," The name 51
Ward, Col, Sir Edward 282

Waterloo, Forces at 93, 34-4
Weapons: Development of

178, 181 '

Weir Committee (1923) 319
Welsh Guards 297 ,

Wellington, Duke of 33, 43,

45> 47> 93 JI 4> H9 *59>
170, 177, 198, 328
Whitehall, The Palace of 30,

3 2 7

Whitley Councils 276, 326
William III, King 25, 33, 37,

H7> 233

Wilson, F.-M. Sir Henry 305
Wilson, Sir Guy Fleetwood 78
Windsor, Military Knights of

213

"Wireless" 105, 133
Wolseley, F.-M. Lord 65, 66-

72, 342

Women's Corps 302
Wood, F.-M. Sir Evelyn 243
Woolwich Arsenal 67, 203
Woolwich, Royal Military

Academy no, 127, 204
Word, The 1 35
Works, Directorate of 145,

169, 175
Workshops, Ordnance 196

Yeomanry 62, 85, 89, 215
Yeomen of the Guard 213
York, H.R.H. Frederick Duke
of 41, 113, 211, 279