During their two or three years with the colours the men receive an allowance or pay of twopence halfpenny a day. Their service is not a contract but a public duty, and while performing it they are clothed, lodged, and fed by the State. When passed into the reserve they resume their normal civil occupation, except that for a year or two they are called up for a few weeks' training and manoeuvres during the autumn.

In this way all German citizens, so far as they are physically fit, with a few exceptions, such as the only son and support of a widow, receive a thorough training as soldiers, and Germany relies in case of war entirely and only upon her citizens thus turned into soldiers.

The training is carried out by officers and non-commissioned officers, who together are the military schoolmasters of the nation, and, like other proficient schoolmasters, are paid for their services by which they live. Broadly speaking, there are in Germany no professional soldiers except the officers and non-commissioned officers, from whom a high standard of capacity as instructors and trainers during peace and as leaders in war is demanded and obtained.

The high degree of military proficiency which the German army has acquired is due to the excellence of the training given by the officers and to the thoroughness with which, during a course of two or three years, that training can be imparted. The great numbers which can be put into the field are due to the practice of passing the whole male population, so far as it is physically qualified, through this training, so that the army in war represents the whole of the best manhood of the country between the ages of twenty and forty.

The total of three millions which has been given above is that which was mentioned by Prince Bismarck in a speech to the Reichstag in 1887. The increase of population since that date has considerably augmented the figures for the present time, and the corresponding total to-day slightly exceeds four millions.

* * * * *

The results of the British system are shown in the following table, which gives, from the Army Estimates, the numbers of the various constituents of the British army on the 1st of January 1909. There were at that date in the United Kingdom:—-

Regular forces ........................ 123,250 Army reserve .......................... 134,110 Special reserves ...................... 67,780 Militia ............................... 9,158 Territorial force ..................... 209,977 Officers' training corps .............. 416

Total in the United Kingdom ...... 544,691

In Egypt and the Colonies:—

Regular forces ........................ 45,002

The British troops in India are paid for by the Indian Government and do not appear in the British Army Estimates. Of the force maintained in the United Kingdom, it will be observed that it falls, roughly, into three categories.

In the first place come the first-rate troops which may be presumed to have had a thorough training for war. This class embraces only the regulars and the army reserve, which together slightly exceed a quarter of a million. In the second class come the 68,000 of the special reserve, which, in so far as they have enjoyed the six months' training laid down in the recent reorganisation, could on a sanguine estimate be classified as second-class troops, though in view of the fact that their officers are not professional and are for the most part very slightly trained, that classification would be exceedingly sanguine. Next comes the territorial force with a maximum annual training of a fortnight in camp, preceded by ten to twenty lessons and officered by men whose professional training, though it far exceeds that of the rank and file, falls yet very much short of that given to the professional officers of a first-rate continental army. The territorial force, by its constitution, is not available to fight England's battles except in the United Kingdom, where they can never be fought except in the event of a defeat of the navy.

This heterogeneous tripartite army is exceedingly expensive, its cost during the current year being, according to the Estimates, very little less than 29 millions, the cost of the personnel being 23-1/2 millions, that of materiel being 4 millions, and that of administration 1/2 millions.

The British regular army cannot multiply soldiers as does the German army. It receives about 37,000 recruits a year. But it sends away to India and the Colonies about 23,000 each year and seldom receives them back before their eight years' colour service are over, when they pass into the first-class reserve. There pass into the reserve about 24,000 men a year, and as the normal term of reserve service is four years, its normal strength is about 96,000 men.

As the regular army contains only professional soldiers, who look, at any rate for a period of eight years, to soldiering as a living, and are prepared for six or seven years abroad, there is a limit to the supply of recruits, who are usually under nineteen years of age, and to whom the pay of a shilling a day is an attraction. Older men with prospects of regular work expect wages much higher than that, and therefore do not enlist except when in difficulties.



XVII.

A NATIONAL ARMY

I propose to show that a well-trained homogeneous army of great numerical strength can be obtained on the principle of universal service at no greater cost than the present mixed force. The essentials of a scheme, based upon training the best manhood of the nation, are: first, that to be trained is a matter of duty not of pay; secondly, that every trained man is bound, as a matter of duty, to serve with the army in a national war; thirdly, that the training must be long enough to be thorough, but no longer; fourthly, that the instructors shall be the best possible, which implies that they must be paid professional officers and non-commissioned officers.

I take the age at which the training should begin at the end of the twentieth year, in order that, in case of war, the men in the ranks may be the equals in strength and endurance of the men in the ranks of any opposing army. The number of men who reach the age of twenty every year in the United Kingdom exceeds 400,000. Continental experience shows that less than half of these would be rejected as not strong enough. The annual class would therefore be about 200,000.

The principle of duty applies of course to the navy as well as to the army, and any man going to the navy will be exempt from army training. But it is doubtful whether the navy can be effectively manned on a system of very short service such as is inevitable for a national army. The present personnel of the navy is maintained by so small a yearly contingent of recruits that it will be covered by the excess of the annual class over the figure here assumed of 200,000. The actual number of men reaching the age of twenty is more than 400,000, and the probable number out of 400,000 who will be physically fit for service is at least 213,000.

I assume that for the infantry and field artillery a year's training would, with good instruction, be sufficient, and that even better and more lasting results would be produced if the last two months of the year were replaced by a fortnight of field manoeuvres in each of the four summers following the first year. For the cavalry and horse artillery I believe that the training should be prolonged for a second year.

The liability to rejoin the colours, in case of a national war, should continue to the end of the 27th year, and be followed by a period of liability in the second line, Landwehr or Territorial Army.

The first thing to be observed is the numerical strength of the army thus raised and trained.

If we assume that any body of men loses each year, from death, disablement, and emigration, five per cent. of its number, the annual classes would be as follows:—

1st year, age 20-21 200,000 (At the end of the 2nd " " 21-22 170,000 first year 20,000 3rd " " 23-24 161,300 are to go abroad 4th " " 24-25 153,425 as explained below) 5th " " 25-26 145,754 6th " " 26-27 138,467 ———— Total on mobilisation 968,946 ========

This gives an army of close upon a million men in first line in addition to the British forces in India, Egypt, and the colonial stations.

If from the age of 27 to that of 31 the men were in the Landwehr, that force would be composed of four annual classes as follows:—

7th year, age 27-28 131,544 8th " " 28-29 124,967 9th " " 29-30 118,719 10th " " 30-31 112,784 ———— Total of Landwehr 488,014 ========

There is no need to consider the further strength that would be available if the liability were prolonged to the age of 39, as it is in Germany.

The liability thus enforced upon all men of sound physique is to fight in a national war, a conflict involving for England a struggle for existence. But that does not and ought not to involve serving in the garrison of Egypt or of India during peace, nor being called upon to take part in one of the small wars waged for the purpose of policing the Empire or its borders. These functions must be performed by professional, i.e. paid soldiers.

The British army has 76,000 men in India and 45,000 in Egypt, South Africa, and certain colonial stations. These forces are maintained by drafts from the regular army at home, the drafts amounting in 1908 to 12,000 for India and 11,000 for the Colonies.

Out of every annual class of 200,000 young men there will be a number who, after a year's training, will find soldiering to their taste, and will wish to continue it. These should be given the option of engaging for a term of eight years in the British forces in India, Egypt, or the Colonies. There they would receive pay and have prospects of promotion to be non-commissioned officers, sergeants, warrant officers or commissioned officers, and of renewing their engagement if they wished either for service abroad or as instructors in the army at home. These men would leave for India, Egypt, or a colony at the end of their first year. I assume that 20,000 would be required, because eight annual classes of that strength, diminishing at the rate of five per cent. per annum, give a total of 122,545, and the eight annual classes would therefore suffice to maintain the 121,000 now in India, Egypt, and the Colonies. Provision is thus made for the maintenance of the forces in India, Egypt, and the Colonies.

There must also be provision for the small wars to which the Empire is liable. This would be made by engaging every year 20,000 who had finished their first year's training to serve for pay, say 1s. a day, for a period say of six months, of the second year, and afterwards to join for five years the present first-class reserve at 6d. a day, with liability for small wars and expeditions. At the end of the five years these men would merge in the general unpaid reserve of the army. They might during their second year's training be formed into a special corps devoting most of the time to field manoeuvres, in which supplementary or reserve officers could receive special instruction.

It would be necessary also to keep with the colours for some months after the first year's training a number of garrison artillery and engineers to provide for the security of fortresses during the period between the time of sending home one annual class and the preliminary lessons of the next. These men would be paid. I allow 10,000 men for this purpose, and these, with the 20,000 prolonging their training for the paid reserve, and with the mounted troops undergoing the second year's training, would give during the winter months a garrison strength at home of 50,000 men.

The mobilised army of a million men would require a great number of extra officers, who should be men of the type of volunteer officers selected for good education and specially trained, after their first year's service, in order to qualify them as officers. Similar provision must be made for supplementary non-commissioned officers.



XVIII.

THE COST

It will probably be admitted that an army raised and trained on the plan here set forth would be far superior in war to the heterogeneous body which figures in the Army Estimates at a total strength of 540,000 regulars, militia, and volunteers. Its cost would in no case be more than that of the existing forces, and would probably be considerably less. This is the point which requires to be proved.

The 17th Appendix to the Army Estimates is a statement of the cost of the British army, arranged under the four headings of:—

1. Cost of personnel of regular army and army reserve L18,279,234

2. Cost of special reserves and territorial forces 5,149,843

3. Cost of armaments, works, stores, &c. 3,949,463

4. Cost of staff and administration 1,414,360 ___ Making a total of L28,792,900 ===========

In the above table nearly a million is set down for the cost of certain labour establishments and of certain instructional establishments, which may for the present purpose be neglected. Leaving them out, the present cost of the personnel of the Regular Army, apart from staff, is, L15,942,802. For this cost are maintained officers, non-commissioned officers and men, numbering altogether 170,000.

The lowest pay given is that of 1s. a day to infantry privates, the privates of the other arms receiving somewhat higher and the non-commissioned officers very much higher rates of pay.

If compulsory service were introduced into Great Britain, pay would become unnecessary for the private soldier; but he ought to be and would be given a daily allowance of pocket-money, which probably ought not to exceed fourpence. The mounted troops would be paid at the rate of 1s. a day during their second year's service.

Assuming then that the private soldier received fourpence a day instead of 1s. a day, and that the officers and non-commissioned officers were paid as at present, the cost of the army would be reduced by an amount corresponding to 8d. a day for 148,980 privates. That amount is L1,812,590, the deduction of which would reduce the total cost to L14,137,212. At the same rate an army of 200,000 privates and

20,000 non-commissioned officers and men would cost . . . . . . . . L18,295,215

Second year of 20,000 mounted troops at L60 a year each . . . 1,200,000

Add to this cost of first-class Reserve of 96,000 at L10 7s. 6d. each . . . . . . . 997,600

Cost of 30,000 men for six months' extra training at the rate of L60 a year each . . . . . 900,000

Cost of extra training for supplementary officers and non-commissioned officers . . . . . . 500,000 —————- L21,892,815 Add to this the cost of the troops maintained in the Colonies and Egypt so far as charged to British Estimates . . . . L3,401,704 —————- Total personnel . . . L25,294,519

Materiel (allowing for additional outlay due to larger numbers) . . 4,500,000

Staff and administration . . . 1,500,000 —————— Total Cost of Army at Home and in the Colonies . . L31,294,519

This is slightly in excess of the present cost of the personnel of the Army, but, whereas the present charge only provides for the heterogeneous force already described of 589,000 men, the charges here explained provide for a short-service homogeneous army of one million and a half, as well as for the 45,000 troops permanently maintained in Egypt and the Colonies.

The estimate just given is, however, extravagant. The British system has innumerable different rates of pay and extra allowances of all kinds, and is so full of anomalies that it is bound to be costly. Unfortunately, the Army Estimates are so put together that it is difficult to draw from them any exact inferences as to the actual annual cost of a private soldier beyond his pay.

The average annual cost, effective and non-effective, of an officer in the cavalry, artillery, engineers, and infantry is L473, this sum covering all the arrangements for pensions and retiring allowances.

I propose in the following calculations to assume the average cost of an officer to be L500 a year, a sum which would make it possible for the average combatant officer to be somewhat better paid than he is at present.

The normal pay of a sergeant in the infantry of the line is 2s. 4d. a day, or L42, 11s. 8d. a year. The Army Estimates do not give the cost of a private soldier, but the statement is made that the average annual cost per head of 150,000 warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and men is L63, 6s. 7d. The warrant officers and non-commissioned officers appear to be much more expensive than the private, and as the minimum pay of a private is L18, 5s., the balance, L45, 1s. 7d., is probably much more than the cost of housing, clothing, feeding, and equipping the private, whose food, the most expensive item, certainly does not cost a shilling a day or L18 a year.

I assume that the cost of maintaining a private soldier is covered by L36 a year, while his allowance of 4d. a day amounts to L6, 1s. 4d. In order to cover the extra allowances which may be made to corporals, buglers, and trumpeters, I assume the average cost of the rank and file to be L45 a year. I also assume that the average cost of a sergeant does not exceed L100 a year, which allows from L40 to L50 for his pay and the balance for his housing, clothing, equipment, and food. I add provisions for pensions for sergeants after twenty-five years' service.

These figures lead to the following estimate:—

7000 officers at L500 L3,500,000

14,000 sergeants at L100 1,400,000

Pension after twenty-five years for sergeants, L52 a year 396,864

(An annual class of 14,000, decreasing annually by 2-1/2 per cent., would consist, after twenty-five years, of 7632) —————— Carry forward L5,296,864

Brought forward . . . L5,296,864

200,000 privates at L45 a year . . 9,000,000

2nd year of 20,000 mounted troops (cavalry and horse artillery at L60 a year each) 1,200,000

Six months' extra training for 30,000 men with pay (total rate per man L60 a year) (20,000 for paid reserve and 10,000 fortress troops) . . . . 900,000

First-class reserve . . . . 997,600

Training supplementary officers and sergeants 500,000 —————— L17,894,464

Colonial troops . . . . . 3,500,000

Total personnel . . . . L21,394,464 ——————

Materiel, allowing for additional cost due to larger numbers . . . . 4,500,000

Staff and administration . . . 1,500,000 ——————

Total cost of army at home and in the Colonies . . . . . L27,394,464 ============

The figures here given will, it is hoped, speak for themselves. They are, if anything, too high rather than too low. The number of officers is calculated on the basis of the present war establishments, which give 5625 officers for 160,500 of the other ranks. It does not include those in Egypt and the Colonies. The cost of the officers is taken at a higher average rate than that of British officers of the combatant arms under the present system, and, both for sergeants and for privates, ample allowance appears to me to be made even on the basis of their present cost.

When it is considered that Germany maintains with the colours a force of 600,000 men at a cost of L29,000,000, that France maintains 550,000 for L27,000,000, and that Italy maintains 221,000 for L7,500,000, it cannot be admitted that Great Britain would be unable to maintain 220,000 officers and men at an annual cost of L17,500,000, and the probability is that with effective administration this cost could be considerably reduced.

It may at first sight seem that the logical course would have been to assume two years' service in the infantry and three years' service in the mounted arms, in accord with the German practice, but there are several reasons that appear to me to make such a proposal unnecessary. In the first place, Great Britain's principal weapon must always be her navy, while Germany's principal weapon will always be her army, which guarantees the integrity of her three frontiers and also guards her against invasion from oversea. Germany's navy comes only in the second place in any scheme for a German war, while in any scheme for a British war the navy must come in the first place and the army in the second.

The German practice for many years was to retain the bulk of the men for three years with the colours. It was believed by the older generation of soldiers that any reduction of this period would compromise that cohesion of the troops which is the characteristic mark of a disciplined army. But the views of the younger men prevailed and the period has been reduced by a third. The reduction of time has, however, placed a heavier responsibility upon the body of professional instructors.

The actual practice of the British army proves that a recruit can be fully trained and be made fit in every way to take his place in his company by a six months' training, but in my opinion that is not sufficient preparation for war. The recruit when thoroughly taught requires a certain amount of experience in field operations or manoeuvres. This he would obtain during the summer immediately following upon the recruit training; for the three months of summer, or of summer and autumn, ought to be devoted almost entirely to field exercises and manoeuvres. If the soldier is then called out for manoeuvres for a fortnight in each of four subsequent years, or for a month in each of two subsequent years, I believe that the lessons he has learned of operations in the field will thereby be refreshed, renewed, and digested, so as to give him sufficient experience and sufficient confidence in himself, in his officers, and in the system to qualify him for war at any moment during the next five or six years. The additional three months' manoeuvre training, beyond the mere recruit training, appears to me indispensable for an army that is to be able to take the field with effect. But that this period should suffice, and that the whole training should be given in nine or ten months of one year, followed by annual periods of manoeuvre, involves the employment of the best methods by a body of officers steeped in the spirit of modern tactics and inspired by a general staff of the first order.

The question what is the shortest period that will suffice to produce cohesion belongs to educational psychology. How long does it take to form habits? How many repetitions of a lesson will bring a man into the condition in which he responds automatically to certain calls upon him, as does a swimmer dropped into the water, a reporter in forming his shorthand words, or a cyclist guiding and balancing his machine? In each case two processes are necessary. There is first the series of progressive lessons in which the movements are learned and mastered until the pupil can begin practice. Then follows a period of practice more or less prolonged, without which the lessons learned do not become part of the man's nature; he retains the uncertainty of a beginner. The recruit course of the British army is of four months. A first practice period of six months followed by fresh practice periods of a month each in two subsequent years or by four practice periods of a fortnight each in four successive years are in the proposals here sketched assumed to be sufficient. If they were proved inadequate I believe the right plan of supplementing them would be rather by adding to the number and duration of the manoeuvre practices of the subsequent years than by prolonging the first period of continuous training.

The following table shows the cost of two years' service calculated on the same bases as have been assumed above. Two years' service would mean an army with the colours not of 200,000 but of 390,000 men. This would require double the number of officers and sergeants, and the annual estimates for personnel would be L34,000,000, and the total Army Estimates L41,000,000. There would also be a very great extra expenditure upon barracks.

Estimate of Annual Cost for Two Years' Service.

13,650 officers at L500 a year L6,825,000

27,300 sergeants at L100 2,730,000

Pension for sergeants' annual class of 27,300, decreasing by 2-1/2 per cent., gives after twenty-five years L12,403; at L52 a year pension is 644,956

390,000 privates at L45 a year 17,550,000

Third year mounted troops, 20,000 at L60 1,200,000

First-class reserve 997,000

Training supplementary officers and sergeants 500,000 ————— Carry forward L30,446,956

Brought forward L30,446,956

Colonial troops 3,500,000 ————— Total personnel L33,946,956

Materiel, allowing for extra numbers 5,000,000

Staff and administration, allowing for extra numbers 2,000,000 —————- L40,946,956 ===========



XIX.

ONE ARMY NOT TWO

The training provided in the scheme which I have outlined could be facilitated at comparatively small cost by the adoption of certain preparatory instruction to be given partly in the schools, and partly to young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty.

It has never appeared to me desirable to add to the school curriculum any military subjects whatever, and I am convinced that no greater mistake could be made, seeing that schoolmasters are universally agreed that the curriculum is already overloaded and requires to be lightened, and that the best preparation that the school can give for making a boy likely to be a good soldier when grown up, is to develop his intelligence and physique as far as the conditions of school life admit. But if all school children were drilled in the evolutions of infantry in close order, the evolutions being always precisely the same as those practised in the army, the army would receive its men already drilled, and would not need to spend much time in recapitulating these practices, which make no appreciable demand upon the time of school children.

Again, there seems to be no doubt that boys between the ages of seventeen and twenty can very well be taught to handle a rifle, and the time required for such instruction and practice is so small that it would in no way affect or interfere with the ordinary occupations of the boys, whatever their class in life.

Every school of every grade ought, as a part of its ordinary geography lessons, to teach the pupils to understand, to read, and to use the ordnance maps of Great Britain, and that this should be the case has already been recognised by the Board of Education. A soldier who can read such a map has thereby acquired a knowledge and a habit which are of the greatest value to him, both in manoeuvres and in the field.

The best physical preparation which the schools can give their pupils for the military life, as well as for any other life, is a well-directed course of gymnastics and the habits of activity, order, initiative, and discipline derived from the practice of the national games.

A national army is a school in which the young men of a nation are educated by a body of specially trained teachers, the officers. The education given for war consists in a special training of the will and of the intelligence. In order that it should be effective, the teachers or trainers must not merely be masters of the theory and practice of war and of its operations, but also proficient in the art of education. This conception of the officers' function fixes their true place in the State. Their duties require for their proper performance the best heads as well as the best-schooled wills that can be found, and impose upon them a laborious life. There can be no good teacher who is not also a student, and a national army requires from its officers a high standard not only of character, but of intelligence and knowledge. It should offer a career to the best talent. A national army must therefore attract the picked men of the universities to become officers. The attraction, to such men consists, chiefly, in their faith in the value of the work to be done, and, to a less degree, in the prospect of an assured living. Adequate, though not necessarily high, pay must be given, and there must be a probability of advancement in the career proportionate to the devotion and talents given to the work. But their work must be relied upon by the nation, otherwise they cannot throw their energies into it with full conviction.

This is the reason why, if there is to be a national army, it must be the only regular army and the nation must rely upon nothing else. To keep a voluntary paid standing army side by side with a national army raised upon the principle of universal duty is neither morally nor economically sound. Either the nation will rely upon its school or it will not. If the school is good enough to serve the nation's turn, a second school on a different basis is needless; if a second school were required, that would mean that the first could not be trusted.

There can be no doubt that in a national school of war the professional officers must be the instructors, otherwise the nation will not rely upon the young men trained. The 200,000 passed through the school every year will be the nation's best. Therefore, so soon as the system has been at work long enough to produce a force as large as the present total, that is, after the third year, there will be no need to keep up the establishment of 138,000 paid privates, the special reserve, or the now existing territorial force. There will be one homogeneous army, of which a small annual contingent will, after each year's training, be enlisted for paid service in India, Egypt, and the oversea stations, and a second small contingent, with extra training, will pass into the paid reserve for service in small oversea expeditions.

The professional officers and sergeants will, of course, be interchangeable between the national army at home and its professional branches in India, Egypt, and the oversea stations, and the cadres of the battalions, batteries, and squadrons stationed outside the United Kingdom can from time to time be relieved by the cadres of the battalions' from the training army at home. This relief of battalions is made practicable by the national system. One of the first consequences of the new mode of recruiting will be that all recruits will be taken on the same given date, probably the 1st of January in each year, and, as this will apply as well to the men who re-engage to serve abroad as to all others, so soon as the system is in full working order, the men of any battalion abroad will belong to annual classes, and the engagement of each class will terminate on the same day.



XX.

THE TRANSITION

I have now explained the nature and working of a national army, and shown the kind of strength it will give and the probable maximum cost which it will involve when adopted.

The chief difficulty attendant upon its adoption lies in the period of transition from the old order to the new. If Great Britain is to keep her place and do her duty in the world the change must be made; but the question arises, how is the gulf between one and the other to be bridged? War comes like a thief in the night, and it must not catch this country unready.

The complete readiness which the new system, when in full swing, will produce, cannot be obtained immediately. All that can be done in the transition period is to see that the number and quality of men available for mobilisation shall be at least as high as it is under the existing system. It may be worth while to explain how this result can be secured.

Let us assume that the Act authorising the new system is passed during a year, which may be called '00, and that it is to come into force on the 1st January of the year '01. The Act would probably exempt from its operations the men at the date of its passing already serving in any of the existing forces, including the territorial army, and the discussion on the Bill would, no doubt, have the effect of filling the territorial army up to the limit of its establishment, 315,000 men.

On the 31st December '00 the available troops would therefore be:—

Regulars in the United Kingdom (present figure) 138,000

Special reserve 67,000

Army reserve (probably diminished from present strength) 120,000

Territorial force 315,000 ———— Total 640,000 ========

From the 1st January '01 recruiting on present conditions for all these forces would cease.

The regular army of 138,000 would lose drafts to India and the Colonies 23,000 and would have lost during '00 by waste at 5 per cent 6,900 ———- 29,000 This would leave: ———- regular army under old conditions 108,100

and leave room for recruits under new conditions 91,900 =======

The total available for mobilisation during the year '01 would therefore be:—

Regulars 200,000

Paid reserves (the present first-class reserve. I assume an arbitrary figure below the actual one) 120,000

Special reserve (I assume a large waste and a loss from men whose time has expired) 50,000

Territorial force 315,000 Less 5 per cent 15,700 ———- 299,250 ———- 669,250

On the 1st January '02 the regular army would be:—

Old engagement 108,000 Less waste 5,400 Indian and Colonial reliefs 23,000 ———- 79,600

Recruits under new system 120,400

Mounted troops serving second year 20,000 ———— Total of regulars 220,000

New reserve 91,900 Less 5 per cent. 4,580 ———- 87,320 87,000

Paid reserve 120,000

Special reserve, reduced by lapse of engagements 40,000 ———— Total liable for national war 467,000

Add—Territorial force, reduced by 5 per cent waste (14,962), and lapse of (78,750) engagements 205,538 ———— 672,538 ========

In the year '03 there would be:—

Old regulars, 79,600; less 5 per cent. waste, 3,950; less drafts for abroad, 23,000— leaves 52,050, say 50,000

Regulars, recruits under new conditions 150,000

Mounted troops serving second year 20,000

New reserve 197,331

Paid reserve 120,000

Special reserve 30,000 ————- Total liable for national war 567,334

Territorial force 116,512 ————- 683,846 =========

In the year '04 there would be:—

Old regulars 50,000 Less 5 per cent. 2,500 ———- 47,500

Less drafts 23,000 ———- 24,500

New regulars 175,500

Mounted troops, second year 20,000 ————- 220,000

New reserve 329,000

Paid reserve 120,000

Special reserve may now be dropped ————- Total liable for national war 669,000

Territorial force 116,512 Less 5 per cent. 5,825 ———— 110,687 Less 78,750 ———— 31,937 ———— 700,937 ========

At the end of '04 the territorial force would come to an end and in '05 there would be:—

(Old regulars, 24,000, after waste just enough for drafts.)

New regulars 200,000

Mounted troops, second year 20,000

New reserve 478,000 Less to paid reserve 20,000 ———— 458,000

Paid reserve 120,000 ———— Total, all liable for national war 798,000 ========

In these tables I have taken the drafts for India and the Colonies from the old regulars. But they can just as well be taken from the new regulars. If need be the old regulars could, before the fourth year, be passed into the paid reserve, and the full contingent of 200,000 one year's men taken.

The men of the special reserve and territorial force would on the termination of their engagements pass into the second line reserve or Landwehr until the age of thirty-one or thirty-two.

It will be seen that during the years of transition additional expense must be incurred, as, until the change has been completed, some portion of the existing forces must be maintained side by side with the new national army. It is partly in order to facilitate the operations of the transition period that I have assumed a large addition to the number of officers. There will also be additional expense caused by the increase of barrack accommodation needed when the establishment is raised from 138,000 privates to 200,000, but this additional accommodation will not be so great as it might at first sight appear, because it is reasonable to suppose that those young men who wish it, and whose parents wish it, will be allowed to live at home instead of in barracks, provided they regularly attend all drills, parades, and classes.

It has been necessary, in discussing the British military system, to consider the arrangements for providing the garrisons of India, Egypt, and certain oversea stations during peace, and to make provision for small wars or imperial police; but I may point out that the system by which provision is made out of the resources of the United Kingdom alone for these two military requirements of the Empire, is, in the present conditions of the Empire, an anomaly. The new nations which have grown up in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are anxious, above all things, to give reality to the bond between them and the mother country. Their desire is to render imperial service, and the proper way of giving them the opportunity to do so is to call upon them to take their part in maintaining the garrisons in India and Egypt and in the work of imperial police. How they should do it, it is for them to decide and arrange, but for Englishmen at home to doubt for a moment either their will or their capacity to take their proper share of the burden is to show an unworthy doubt of the sincerity of the daughter nations and of their attachment to the mother country and the Empire.

If Great Britain should be compelled to enter upon a struggle for existence with one of the great European powers, the part which Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa could play in that struggle is limited and specific. For the conflict would, in the first instance, take the form of a naval war. To this the King's dominions beyond the seas can do little more than assist during peace by their contributions, either of ships, men, or money, in strengthening the British navy. But during the actual course of such a war, while it is doubtful whether either Canada, Australia, or New Zealand could render much material help in a European struggle, they could undoubtedly greatly contribute to the security of India and Egypt by the despatch of contingents of their own troops to reinforce the British garrisons maintained in those countries. This appears to me to be the direction to which their attention should turn, not only because it is the most effective way in which they can promote the stability of the Empire, but also because it is the way along which they will most speedily reach a full appreciation of the nature of the Empire and its purpose in the world.



XXI.

THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH ARMIES ARE RAISED

I have now sketched the outlines of a national military system applicable to the case of Great Britain. It remains to show why such a system is necessary.

There are three main points in respect of each of which a choice has to be made. They are the motive which induces men to become soldiers, the time devoted to military education, and the nature of the liability to serve in war. The distinction which strikes the popular imagination is that between voluntary and compulsory service. But it covers another distinction hardly less important—that between paid and unpaid soldiers. The volunteers between 1860 and 1878, or 1880, when pay began to be introduced for attendance in camps, gave their time and their attention with no external inducement whatever. They had no pay of any kind, and there was no constraint to induce them to join, or, having, joined, to continue in their corps. The regular soldier, on the other hand, makes a contract with the State. He agrees in return for his pay, clothes, board and lodging to give his whole time for a specific number of years to the soldier's life.

The principle of a contract for pay is necessary in the case of a professional force maintained abroad for purposes of imperial police; but it is not possible on that principle to raise or maintain a national army.

The principle of voluntary unpaid service appears to have a deeper moral foundation than that of service by a contract of hiring. But if the time required is greater than is consistent with the men's giving a full day's work to their industrial occupations the unpaid nature of the service cannot be maintained, and the men must be paid for their time. The merit of the man's free gift of himself is thereby obscured.

Wherein does that merit consist? If there is no merit in a man's making himself a soldier without other reward than that which consists in the education he receives, then the voluntary system has no special value. But if there is a merit, it must consist in the man's conferring a benefit upon, or rendering a service to, his country. In other words, the excellence of the unpaid voluntary system consists in its being an acceptance by those who serve under it of a duty towards the State. The performance of that duty raises their citizenship to a higher plane. If that is the case it must be desirable, in the interest both of the State and of its citizens, that every citizen capable of the duty should perform it. But that is the principle upon which the national system is based. The national system is therefore an extension of the spirit of the volunteer or unpaid voluntary system.

The terms compulsory service and universal service are neither of them strictly accurate. There is no means of making every adult male, without exception, a soldier, because not every boy that grows up has the necessary physical qualification. Nor does the word compulsion give a true picture. It suggests that, as a rule, men would not accept the duty if they could evade it, which is not the case. The number of men who have been volunteers since 1860 shows that the duty is widely accepted. Indeed, in a country of which the government is democratic, a duty cannot be imposed by law upon all citizens except with the concurrence of the majority. But a duty recognised by the majority and prescribed by law will commend itself as necessary and right to all but a very few. If a popular vote were to be taken on the question whether or not it is every citizen's duty to be trained as a soldier and to fight in case of a national war, it is hardly conceivable that the principle would fail to be affirmed by an overwhelming majority.

The points as to which opinions are divided are the time and method of training and the nature of the liability to serve in war.

There are, roughly speaking, three schemes of training to be considered—first, the old volunteer plan of weekly evening drills, with an annual camp training; secondly, the militia plan of three months' recruit training followed by a month's camp training in several subsequent years; and, lastly, the continental plan of a continuous training for one or more years followed by one or more periods of annual manoeuvres. The choice between these three methods is the crucial point of the whole discussion. It must be determined by the standard of excellence rendered necessary by the needs of the State. The evidence given to the Norfolk Commission convinced that body that neither the first nor the second plan will produce troops fit to meet on equal terms those of a good modern army. Professional officers are practically unanimous in preferring the third method.

The liability of the trained citizen to serve in war during his year in the ranks and his years as a first-class reservist must be determined by the military needs of the country. I have given the reasons why I believe the need to be for an army that can strike a blow in a continental war.

I myself became a volunteer because I was convinced that it was a citizen's duty to train himself to bear arms in his country's cause. I have been for many years an ardent advocate of the volunteer system, because I believed, as I still believe, that a national army must be an army of citizen soldiers, and from the beginning I have looked for the efficiency of such an army mainly to the tactical skill and the educating power of its officers. But experience and observation have convinced me that a national army, such as I have so long hoped for, cannot be produced merely by the individual zeal of its members, nor even by their devoted co-operation with one another. The spirit which animates them must animate the whole nation, if the right result is to be produced. For it is evident that the effort of the volunteers, continued for half a century, to make themselves an army, has met with insuperable obstacles in the social and industrial conditions of the country. The Norfolk Commission's Report made it quite clear that the conditions of civil employment render it impossible for the training of volunteers to be extended beyond the present narrow limits of time, and it is evident that those limits do not permit of a training sufficient for the purpose, which is victory in war against the best troops that another nation can produce.

Yet the officers and men of the volunteer force have not carried on their fifty years' work in vain. They have, little by little, educated the whole nation to think of war as a reality of life, they have diminished the prejudice which used to attach to the name of soldier, and they have enabled their countrymen to realise that to fight for his country's cause is a part of every citizen's duty, for which he must be prepared by training.

The adoption of this principle will have further results. So soon as every able-bodied citizen is by law a soldier, the administration of both army and navy will be watched, criticised, and supported with an intelligence which will no longer tolerate dilettantism in authority. The citizen's interest in the State will begin to take a new aspect. He will discover the nature of the bond which unites him to his fellow-citizens, and from this perception will spring that regeneration of the national life from which alone is to be expected the uplifting of England.



XXII.

THE CHAIN OF DUTY

The reader who has accompanied me to this point will perhaps be willing to give me a few minutes more in which we may trace the different threads of the argument and see if we can twine them into a rope which will be of some use to us.

We began by agreeing that the people of this country have not made entirely satisfactory arrangements for a competitive struggle, at any rate in its extreme form of war with another country, although such conflict is possible at any time; and we observed that British political arrangements have been made rather with a view to the controversy between parties at home than to united action in contest with a foreign state.

We then glanced at the probable consequences to the British people of any serious war, and at the much more dreadful results of failure to obtain victory. We discussed the theories which lead some of our countrymen to be unwilling to consider the nature and conditions of war, and which make many of them imagine that war can be avoided either by trusting to international arbitration or by international agreements for disarmament. We agreed that it was not safe to rely upon these theories.

Examining the conditions of war as they were revealed in the great struggle which finished a hundred years ago, we saw that the only chance of carrying on war with any prospect of success in modern times lies in the nationalisation of the State, so that the Government can utilise in conflict all the resources of its land and its people. In the last war Great Britain's national weapon was her navy, which she has for centuries used as a means of maintaining the balance of power in Europe. The service she thus rendered to Europe had its reward in the monopoly of sea power which lasted through the nineteenth century. The great event of that century was the attainment by Germany of the unity that makes a nation and her consequent remarkable growth in wealth and power, resulting in a maritime ambition inconsistent with the position which England held at sea during the nineteenth century and was disposed to think eternal.

Great Britain, in the security due to her victories at sea, was able to develop her colonies into nations, and her East India Company into an Empire. But that same security caused her to forget her nationalism, with the result that now her security itself is imperilled. During this period, when the conception of the nation was in abeyance, some of the conditions of sea power have been modified, with the result that the British monopoly is at an end, while the possibility of a similar monopoly has probably disappeared, so that the British navy, even if successful, could not now be used, as it was a hundred years ago, as a means of entirely destroying the trade of an adversary. Accordingly, if in a future war Britain is to find a continental ally, she must be able to offer him the assistance, not merely of naval victory, but also of a strong army. Moreover, during the epoch in which Great Britain has turned her back upon Europe the balance of power has been upset, and there is no power and no combination able to stand up against Germany as the head of the Triple Alliance. This is a position of great danger for England, because it is an open question whether in the absence of a strong British army any group of Powers, even in alliance with England, could afford to take up a quarrel against the combination of the central States. It thus appears that Great Britain, by neglecting the conditions of her existence as a nation, has lost the strength in virtue of which, at previous crises in European history, she was the successful champion of that independence of States which, in the present stage of human development, is the substance of freedom.

Our consideration of the question of might showed that if Great Britain is to be strong enough to meet her responsibilities her people must nationalise themselves, while our reflections on the question of right showed that only from such nationalisation is a sound policy to be expected. In short, only in so far as her people have the unity of spirit and of will that mark a nation can Great Britain be either strong or just. The idea of the nation implies a work to be done by the British State, which has to be on the watch against challenge from a continental rival to Great Britain's right to the headship of her empire, and which at the same time has to give to that empire the direction without which it cannot remain united. Great Britain cannot do the work thus imposed upon her by her position and her history unless she has the co-operation of all her people. Thus the conception of the nation reveals itself in the twofold shape of duties laid upon England and of duties consequently laid upon every Englishman. It means that England must either decline and fall or do a certain work in the world which is impossible for her unless she constrains all her people to devote themselves to her service. It thus appears that England and her people can expect no future worth having except on the principle of duty made the mainspring both of public and of private life.

We attempted to apply the principles involved in the word nation to the obvious and urgent needs of the British State at the present time.

Victory at sea being indispensable for Great Britain in case of conflict, we inquired into the conditions of victory, and found in the parallel instances of Nelson and Napoleon that both by sea and land the result of the nationalisation of war is to produce a leader who is the personification of a theory or system of operations. The history of the rise of the German nation shows how the effort to make a nation produced the necessary statesman, Bismarck. Nationalisation creates the right leadership—that of the man who is master of his work.

Reviewing the needs of the naval administration, we saw that what is wanted at the present time is rather proper organisation at the Admiralty than an increase in mere material strength; while turning to the army, we discovered that the only system on which can be produced the army that Great Britain requires is that which makes every able-bodied citizen a soldier.

To make the citizen a soldier is to give him that sense of duty to the country and that consciousness of doing it, which, if spread through the whole population, will convert it into what is required—a nation. Therefore to reform the army according to some such plan as has been here proposed is the first step in that national revival which is the one thing needful for England, and if that step be taken the rest will follow of itself. Nationalisation will bring leadership, which in the political sphere becomes statesmanship, and the right kind of education, to give which is the highest ultimate function of national existence.

I have tried in these pages to develop an idea which has haunted me for many years. I think if the reader would extend to it even for a short time the hospitality of his mind he might be willing to make it his constant companion. For it seems to me to show the way towards the solution of other problems than those which have here been directly discussed. I cannot but believe that if we could all accustom ourselves to make some sacrifices for the sake of England, if only by giving a few minutes every day to thinking about her and by trying to convince ourselves that those who are not of our party are yet perhaps animated by the same love of their country as we ourselves, we might realise that the question of duty is answered more easily by performance than by speculation. I suspect that the relations between the political parties, between capital and labour, between master and servant, between rich and poor, between class and class would become simpler and better if Englishmen were to come to see how natural it is that they should spend their lives for England.

THE END