\
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 I *•» • «-.•
 
 X * 
 
 IT. 
 
 FrTGi
 
 National Defence* 
 
 THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: 
 
 HIS UK HITS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
 
 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 i.\ 
 
 MAJ01M i EN E 1 I AL/MAUEICE, ( '. 1 '.. 
 
 ILontion 
 M.U'MILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 XKW YORK: THE MM Mil. I. AN COMPANY 
 
 189 7 
 
 All i
 
 A 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 F Intikhh i-rniN ....... 1 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ^General Statement of the Case .... 10 
 
 CD 
 
 u 
 
 Ul 
 
 ^ CHAPTER II 
 
 Wn \ r w i ii w i: i" Defend . . . . .30 
 
 CHAPTER 111 
 
 § 
 
 BJAqainsi \\h\i bave we to Defend? . . .51 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Hnw do we Defend the Empire? Oub Present System 
 
 ami Method of Recri n men r, etc. . . .86 
 
 &*;'865
 
 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Conditions under which our Strength can be best 
 
 Applied . . . . . . . 133 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Force we Need ...... 160 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Force we Have . . . . . .202
 
 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is nearly fourteen years since Mr. Craik first proposed 
 to me that I should write this little book. The change 
 which has come over the mind of Britain during th.it 
 time in relation to the questions of which it treats is a 
 very remarkable one. In 1883 " National Defence " was 
 assumed by the great majority of our people to mean 
 the defence of these islands by Army, Volunteers, and 
 Militia. The war of 1870 had left so deep an impress 
 on the minds of patriotic British men that the one 
 anxious thought that prevailed was, " How can we save 
 Britain from the fate of France?" It had been by the 
 superiority of the German army and organisation that 
 France had been crushed. The direct inference was 
 that we must improve our land forces in such a way as 
 to make the troops that could he raised for home defence 
 strong enough to resist invasion. We had only just 
 emerged from the dominance of a school of which the 
 motto was, " Confederate the Colonies, and let them go." 
 Apart from a few merely reckless talkers like Sir Wilfrid 
 Lawson, who had paid no attention whatever to the 
 
 D
 
 2 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 changes which had taken place in the armed condition 
 of the Continent, and glibly chattered about our being 
 able to invade France, the mass of thoughtful men 
 felt cowed by the stupendous magnitude of the armies 
 arrayed by the Continental powers, and thinking only 
 of the safety of their homes, had quite abandoned 
 the idea that Britain, which had in the great war stood 
 alone against the master of Europe, could still be reckoned 
 as a great power. To me the whole range of these con- 
 ceptions seemed false. When Mr. Craik first spoke to 
 me I answered at once, " ' National Defence,' that is a 
 subject which you ought to assign to a sailor ! " A little 
 reflection, however, showed me that if I as a soldier could 
 show on military grounds that the whole question must 
 be discussed from the point of view of Britain as a 
 great naval power, and that the type of army we want 
 must be determined by the consideration that we are an 
 island state spreading her dominion over all seas and 
 into vast lands beyond them, it might be more effective 
 than if the same thesis were put forward by a sailor, who 
 might easily be supposed to be influenced by the notion 
 that "there is nothing like leather." No sailor had in 
 fact taken up the question, in such a fashion at all events 
 as to reach the general public. The few statesmen Ave 
 had who concerned themselves with such matters 
 were devoting themselves to considering how we could 
 imitate Switzerland, so as to become a sweet little 
 passive state — "the world forgetting, by the world 
 forgot." Whilst, therefore, this book was intended by 
 its designers only to be a bit of easy writing, telling 
 a simple story about facts most familiar to me, it was 
 in truth, as it presented itself to me, a proposal that
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 I should change the whole mind of Britain, and I 
 saw that it would be impossible to attempt that task 
 in the few pages of a little manual. 1 therefore delayed, 
 and, watching my opportunity, I a few years later 
 endeavoured to show, 1 from the actual relations to one 
 another of the armed forces of the Continent, which it 
 had been my duty as a soldier to study, how enormous 
 was the influence which a great naval power was able 
 to exert on the millions of armed men who seemed so 
 appalling. That the truth of my argument was more 
 likely, if it were a good one, to be appreciated on the 
 Continent, and among Englishmen there resident, than 
 it would be at home was obvious. The little volume 
 The Balance of Military Power In Europe had at least the 
 honour done it that it was one of onty, I think, six 
 volumes other than novels, two among the six being 
 Mr. (dadstone's, which the great Tauchnitz firm have 
 thought fit to reproduce in their editions. I had, how- 
 ever, limited myself to the statement in regard to the 
 Navy, that we could do such and such things which 
 would make us felt as a power to be courted if our Navy 
 Mas as strong as it ought to be. I asked the sailors to 
 say whether it was so or not. I had used these expres- 
 sions, " I am pleading before all things for the Navy " 
 (p. xxix). To those who proposed to give a vast numerical 
 expansion to our land forces, I answered, "The faithful 
 son must say to his country what the little frog of ./Esop's 
 fable said to his mother, attempting to blow herself out to 
 the size of the ox, 'You will burst before you succeed.' 
 We can be relatively to other countries as great a naval 
 
 1 In The Balance of Military Power in Europe, Blackwood, L888. 
 
 All the articles appeared in 1887.
 
 4 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 power as we choose to be" (p. 216). Speaking of our 
 offensive strength, " It depends first on our Navy ; and 
 secondly, upon our being able to prepare for instant 
 action as large a force as we can promptly ship from our 
 ports." As no sailor had then spoken out as to the needs 
 of the Navy, " whether our Navy can " do all the business 
 that we ought to expect from it " we do not know." 
 " Till it can accomplish them with certainty we cry, 
 with General Eicci, 'All for the Navy and nothing for 
 the Army ' " (p. 205). 
 
 So peculiar and exceptional did my position appear 
 at the time that Sir Charles Dilke, whose articles in the 
 Fortnightly, advocating for us a Swiss army, had been 
 the text for my replies, originally published in Black- 
 wood's Magazine, thought that he damaged me by saying 
 of me, "Colonel Maurice, though a soldier, belongs to 
 the Naval School." But as time went on, the wind of 
 popular favour went clean round. In January 1888 
 Lord Charles Beresford resigned his seat on the Admir- 
 alty Board nominally on account of a question of salaries 
 for the new Intelligence Department, really, as he ex- 
 plained to his constituents on 26th January 1888, 
 because of the chaos which he found and the want of 
 preparation for war, for which he could then obtain no 
 adecpiate remedy. The next potent influence which 
 changed the views of men was that historic scene 
 on 14th May 1888 when, in the House of Lords, 
 before a great gathering of members of both Houses, 
 the Commons crowding the bar, the whole country in 
 expectation as to what he was going to say, Lord 
 Wolseley declared that "As long as the Navy is as weak 
 as it is at this moment, Her Majesty's army cannot hold its
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 own all over the vrorld, dispersed as it is; thai our 
 defences al home and abroad ai this present momenl 
 are in an unsatisfactory condition, and thai our military 
 forces are noi organised or equipped as they should be, 
 
 to guarantee even the safety of the capital in which 
 we are at this present moment . . . The views which I 
 have expressed here this evening are those entertained 
 by nine out of every ten soldiers and sailors whose 
 opinions are worth having." 
 
 On the same day was held the preliminary meeting 
 of sailors which ultimately led up to the great meeting 
 in the City, at which a paper hy Sir Gr. Hornby was read 
 before the Chamber of Commerce on 28th May on the 
 needs of the navy. Mr. Stead in the Pall Mall GazetU 
 had been doing yeoman service in the cause, but it is 
 a significant fact that when Lord Charles Beresford's 
 committee first applied to the Lord Mayor for the use 
 of the Guildhall it was by him refused. 
 
 In June 1888 the editor of the Fortnightly, who had 
 been entirely convinced by my Blackwood articles that 
 the principle of our national defence must be based on 
 naval force and on an army adapted to the conditions 
 of an island state, invited me to write an anonymous 
 article on the necessity of looking to our Navy for 
 Imperial defence, and on the enormous task which, 
 relatively to others, it had to undertake. He followed 
 it up in July by an editorial article on "Our True 
 Foreign Policy," which entirely adopted the lines I had 
 sketched. In September of that year (1888) it was 
 still so difficult to get the sailors to speak out as to 
 their needs that I, having been with Sir George Tryon's 
 fleet, contributed to the Fortnightly an article on "The
 
 NATIONAL DEFENCES . 
 
 Naval Manoeuvres " anonymously in order to draw ont 
 the lessons which I had learnt from Sir George Try on, 
 and from much conversation with many sailors as to the 
 necessity for a larger fleet than was required in former 
 days if we were to hold our own. Not till the November 
 of that year was the editor of the Fortnightly able to 
 procure from our most distinguished sailors, Sir Geoffrey 
 Hornby, Lord Alcester, and others, a series of signed 
 articles on " What our Navy should be." These, with 
 the vigorous work of Lord Charles Beresford in the 
 House of Commons, at last brought on the "Naval 
 Defence Act," which was well described at the time as 
 " a triumph of the experts," that is to say, not a triumph 
 of the demands of the sailors alone, but of the appeal 
 of the Army responded to by the Navy. The nation 
 had not yet been aroused. Then came those great 
 volumes of Captain Mahan on The Influence of the Sea- 
 Power in History, which took the whole question out of 
 the hands of " the experts," and by their charm, their 
 literary power, and their vigorous setting forth of the 
 truth as to the part which Britain had played in the 
 great war, awoke her to know herself, and unquestion- 
 ably brought home to the Continent also the nature of 
 Britain's power. By one of those strange revulsions 
 of feeling which Mr. Kinglake has so graphically 
 described in his earlier volumes, the nation, which had 
 forgotten that on the sea depended her life, that the 
 charter of her freedom was that Britannia must rule 
 the waves or perish, suddenly came into a full recog- 
 nition of those facts. Immediately those who had 
 sailed with her former humour trimmed their sails for 
 the new breeze. To my no small amusement more
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 than one of those wh<> had fought mc most fiercely as a 
 member of thai despised and despicable school, which 
 looked to the sea as the determining factor in Dhe 
 problem of National Defence, became known as specially 
 the naval advocates. Sonic who had taken no part in 
 the earlier discussion devoted themselves to naval 
 questions, and directly perverting language which I had 
 used, amused themselves by imaginative sketches of 
 future war, in which England was left without those 
 allies to whom I had ventured to say that we had much 
 to offer if we were ready to give help in order to get 
 help. My purpose had been simply to answer the 
 averment that no one cared for the support of that 
 state, the might of which, as the great sea power, has 
 at last been taught them by an American. Others, like 
 Mr. Thursfield, 1 who have done excellent service in 
 bringing home the need of a powerful navy, find it 
 impossible to do justice to that side of the question 
 without altogether ignoring the necessity for an army, 
 treating the right arm and left arm of England as if 
 they were not both needed for the active and passive 
 defence of the nation in hearty co-operation, but were 
 antagonistic one to the other. Therefore, like Lord 
 Charles Beresford, I find that, as the wind has shifted, 
 I must, in order to hold on to the course on which 
 fourteen years ago I started, tack to allow for the shifted 
 wind. I still believe that what we need is "a supreme 
 Navy, an adequate Army, and," using the words in the 
 large and inclusive sense in which Sir Mountstuart 
 Grant Duff first coined the happy phrase, "an incom- 
 parable diplomacy," in order to obtain the full advantage 
 1 Thi- Navy and (he Nation.
 
 8 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 from this our proper strength. But whereas fourteen 
 years ago every one except soldiers seemed to have 
 forgotten that for us everything depended on the sea 
 dominion and our relation thereto, now the danger is 
 lest it should be forgotten that to give freedom and 
 power to the Navy, and to use it when it is free, the 
 Army must be adequate to maintain on land those gifts 
 which we owe to the power on the sea. There are 
 writers who would ignore those advantages which we 
 possess in the footholds for naval or conjoint action 
 which are in our hands in the best harbours and coaling- 
 stations the world over. I have somewhat more than 
 kept to the Horatian rule in the matter of the time 
 during which this work has been under my hand. 
 Short as it is, it represents some fourteen years or more 
 of thought even since it was undertaken. Yet I must 
 admit that it assumes a somewhat different form from 
 what it would have done had it been finished in the 
 year in which it was begun. I do not know that I 
 have much need to enter into a description of its 
 contents — the chapter headings speak for themselves. 
 My object in this Introduction has been chiefly to put 
 in a plea for the patriotism of the Army. I can honestly 
 say that when I was accused of belonging to the "Naval 
 School " I simply represented what was then the domi- 
 nant — in fact, the universal — feeling of the Army, which 
 was conscious, though the country was not, that it was 
 useless to England if her Navy was not supreme. Under 
 the circumstances which I have quoted, the dates of 
 which speak for themselves, and can be easily verified, 
 I think we may be spared some of those sneers which 
 the perfervid zeal of those who are now rejoicing in a
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 condition of the public mind which we For long struggled 
 with difficult)' to bring about, find accessary in ordei 
 to emphasise their adherence to the now popular creed. 
 Ncit her the adequate Army, adequate fixed defences to 
 enable small numbers to do the work of many, nor an 
 "incomparable diplomacy," taking note of the actual 
 condition under which navy, army, and mercantile 
 marine have to be used to give full effect to the strength 
 of Britain, can be spared or ignored, because, thank 
 Heaven ! we have ;it last secured and are bound to 
 maintain our supreme Navy.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 
 
 The question of "National Defence" divides itself 
 naturally under the heads — What have Ave to defend? 
 Against what have we to defend it 1 With what means 
 shall we defend it 1 
 
 I suppose that the very title "National Defence" 
 implies that that which we have to defend is — the nation. 
 But it would be very difficult to find a corner of the 
 globe in which the interests of some part of the nation, 
 English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish, are not involved. In 
 considering the question of National Defence, it is not 
 possible to ignore this extreme dispersion of our vast 
 interests over the globe. If we compare our position 
 with that of any other people, the contrast Avhich is 
 presented by their circumstances and ours is the more 
 striking the more carefully one considers it. Let me 
 take one very important point, on which in this chapter 
 I am specially anxious to insist, as to the nature of 
 our quite exceptional conditions. 
 
 People have taken lately to talking much more than 
 formerly of the " Empire." For want of a better name 
 that closer union with our cousins beyond the seas, 

 
 fiiAi-. i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 11 
 
 which many of us ardently desire, has conic to be 
 spoken of as " Imperial Federation." I think, however, 
 thai every one feels thai the name is little .better than a 
 make-shift < >ur "Empire," however it lie formed, is 
 
 about us unlike anything that ever bore thai name 
 before as two aggregations of men can well be. I am 
 not now thinking only and merely of its vast extent, 
 of the enormous numbers of human beings that arc 
 included in it, nor even of its extraordinary dispersion 
 and of the vast varieties among the races which compose 
 it. I can perhaps best illustrate the particular point I 
 want to make by suggesting the question whether the 
 territories of the East Africa Company and of the North 
 Borneo Company are, or are not, included in the 
 " Empire." I suppose most people would in some sort of 
 way say " yes " with qualifications. Clearly, at all events, 
 India is most emphatically included in the "Empire." 
 Yet India was, less than a hundred years ago, a 
 dependency with relations to the Empire very similar to 
 those of Borneo and East Africa to-day. Sir John 
 Seeley has no doubt shown conclusively, what had long 
 previously been asserted by foreign writers, that the 
 British Empire did, like other empires, grow very 
 largely by war and conquest. But, if it was like other 
 empires in that it owed much of its growth to war, 
 certainly the proportion in which trade, commerce, and 
 emigration have contributed to its growth is out of all 
 comparison with their influence in any other historj 
 whatever. Moreover, though the soil was gained and 
 the seeds of future development were certainly planted 
 for the most part during war, or at least because we 
 were absolutely dominant on the seas, yet the growth of
 
 12 NATIONAL DEFENCES phap. 
 
 wealth and population in those parts of the world in 
 which Europeans can thrive and work, has taken place 
 during peace time. Few things are more remarkable in 
 our history than the change in our position relatively 
 to other powers during the time that has elapsed since 
 Ave lost the American colonies. Yet that change, vast 
 as it is, has been due far more to the natural increase 
 of a population with a practically boundless area into 
 which to expand, and to the development of material 
 wealth within the Empire, than even to the immense 
 territories which have accrued to us by conquest. 
 
 The very name of Empire, derived, I suppose, originally 
 from the Imperator of the Eoman armies, implies some- 
 thing other than this. Nor am I aware of an instance in 
 which the idea of " Empire " has not been connected with 
 circumstances under which the preservation of the state 
 was so difficult that the man who ruled the armies which 
 were engaged in its preservation and extension had 
 become its inevitable ruler. That is surely the idea of 
 the empires of Cresar and his successors, of Napoleon, of 
 the Tzars, of old and new Germany, and of Austria. In 
 considering the question of the national defence of this 
 realm, it is not in one way only but in many that this 
 difference between our Empire and all other empires that 
 have ever been has to be taken into account. Mommsen, 
 as the result of a vast survey of the history of the world, 
 tells us that history knows no record of the preservation 
 of dominion without military strength. But it is not in 
 military strength alone that our dominion differs from 
 all others. 
 
 The title of this whole series of books represents an 
 appeal to all those who are now responsible for the
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 13 
 
 government of this great dominion, to make themselves 
 acquainted with the conditions under which their rule 
 has to be exercised. The mere attempt, important as it 
 
 is, to bring simple facts before even the select ami limited 
 body of electors who alone arc at all likely to study this 
 series, shows how complex and how difficult is the 
 execution of the work of safeguarding the vast interests 
 which are in our keeping. It is said with truth that, 
 no matter how powerful a ministry may be, it cannot 
 initiate a great policy for which Public Opinion is not 
 prepared. Yet Public Opinion habitually awaits the 
 leadership of the very men who are afraid to speak out 
 lest they should find that Public Opinion is against them. 
 A great empire which is thus for ever, like the army led 
 by Sir Richard Strachan and Lord Chatham, kept back 
 from definite action because there is no one who both can 
 and will guide its course, stands at serious initial disad- 
 vantage as compared with "empires" of another pattern. 
 Surely it is therefore all-important that those in whose 
 hands all power ultimately lies should realise that power 
 and responsibility cannot be divorced. Can there be any 
 doubt that the electorate, which has claimed to become 
 the ultimate ruler of the Empire, will simply ruin it and 
 will make itself and all free institutions the laughing- 
 stock of history, if it does not face the responsibility 
 which it has thus assumed 1 Moreover, there are three 
 things, not two, which, by the inexorable laws of the 
 universe, are inevitably linked where a healthy and 
 safe condition of things is to exist. Those three arc — 
 power, responsibility, and knowledge. It is therefore 
 witli an earnest appeal to am one who honours me bj 
 reading this volume, to realise how stern is the duty
 
 14 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 which now lies before all intelligent men of Britain to 
 understand the conditions of National Defence and to 
 impart them to others, that I begin my task. I do not 
 ask them to trust me. I ask them, on the contrary, to 
 sift every word that I say to the utmost, and to reject 
 everything which is not true and sound, so far as by 
 careful examination they can determine what is sound 
 and what is not sound. But I implore them not to go, 
 one to his farm, another to his merchandise, another to 
 his medical practice, another to his preaching, another to 
 his pleading in the courts, thinking that it does not 
 matter to any one but himself whether he understands 
 these matters aright or does not understand them at all. 
 In private almost every day of my life I meet with this 
 experience. I am talking to some excellent parson, some 
 able lawyer, some wealthy merchant. He indicates that 
 feeling of the apartness of all that has to do with 
 soldiers which is characteristic of the average British 
 man. It is not his business to know anything about it. 
 He lets you feel that at bottom he wonders how a man 
 of average intelligence, as in his courtesy he assumes 
 that you are, can find interest in such affairs of "guns 
 and drums," as Lowell has it. Then a few minutes 
 afterwards he expresses some very definite opinion 
 indeed as to the present condition of affairs. It is an 
 opinion which will largely help, within his own sphere 
 of influence, to form that great deity whom we worship — 
 "Public Opinion." Yet he has, as you sorrowfully note, 
 formed it without the smallest study of the facts on 
 which a sound conclusion could be based. The question 
 on which he pronounces judgment has been perhaps 
 recently and largely discussed. Different views have
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE 'ASK 15 
 
 been expressed by different writers. But from this 
 conflict of opinions this much at least of light has 
 shone. Mere errors and misstatements of fact have been 
 completely exposed and refuted. Some facts have come 
 out so clearly and certainly that the man who disputes 
 them stands in the same position of moral and intellectual 
 weakness as he who should assert in the present year 
 that the world is flat or that it never moves. Yet your 
 dogmatic friend cares for none of these things, and is 
 hopelessly kicking against the pricks. I am silenced 
 because I feel that the line which divides me from the 
 man with whom I am talking is one of elementary 
 morality. He has shown me that, from the heights of 
 his lofty belief in the duty of men to buy and sell and 
 get gain, he looks down upon any pursuit which is not 
 concerned with those matters. He has shown me also 
 that he has no sense whatever of the responsibility he 
 incurs in assisting to determine the future of hundreds 
 of millions of men ; that if all the rulers of Britain 
 require as much education as he does, and are as ignorant 
 of their own want of it, her fate is certain. 
 
 Nothing is more extraordinary than the way in which 
 in Britain men will treat British Ministers and ;i British 
 Government as though they could and would act for 
 them in the sense in which Bismarck, for instance, 
 acted for Germany. To take an historical instance, now 
 some years old, to which I shall perhaps have to refer 
 again in another connection. 
 
 Every year during many years this scene repeated 
 itself in the Edinburgh Town Council. A certain Bailie 
 drew attention to the absolutely defenceless condition of 
 the harbour of Leith, of Edinburgh, and of the Clyde.
 
 16 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 Of that absolute defencelessness, as a fact, no one who 
 had in the slightest degree looked into the matter could 
 then have the shadow of a doubt. No one in the Town 
 Council of Edinburgh even attempted to discuss the 
 question on its merits. The worthy Bailies pursued a 
 different course. They all agreed to laugh at the one 
 man who raised the question. He did not usually even 
 find one Councillor to second his motion. Now it 
 may be quite right and quite wise in such times as we 
 are in for the Forth Bridge and the harbour of Leith 
 and Edinburgh to run the chance of our never being at 
 war again. It may be true economy to save the money 
 that would be required to make these places secure 
 against such an inroad as was easily directed against 
 them during recent naval manoeuvres. But what cannot 
 be right is that these worthy Bailies should vote year 
 after year on an absolutely false assumption as to the 
 reliance they can place on the Government's helping 
 them if they do not help themselves. It is quite 
 certain that they were during all those years voting on 
 a false assumption. During the first session of Parlia- 
 ment in 1888, the Government, by the mouths of the 
 Secretaries of State for War and of the First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, expressly declared that they could not under- 
 take the defence of the great commercial ports as a 
 matter of Imperial concern, that the governing bodies of 
 those ports must deal with the question themselves. 
 That had been the view held, not by one Government 
 in particular, but by all Governments in those years. 
 Yet it had not till 1888 ever been publicly announced. 
 Year after year the report of the "contemptuous 
 laughter " with which the annual motion was received
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 17 
 
 in tlic Edinburgh Town Council went the round of the 
 Edinburgh press. The avowed reason of this attitude of 
 mind of the majority of the Edinburgh Bailies was that 
 it was "the business of the Governmenl to look after 
 
 that matter. Was there QOl a hatter)' of artillery at 
 Leitli Fort, a battalion of infantry in Edinburgh Castle, 
 and a regiment of cavalry duly quartered in Edinburgh ' 
 ' Nay, were there not some guns mounted on Inchkeith? 
 Did not this show that the Government undertook the 
 defence of the place? And all the time the Government 
 had not the slightest idea of undertaking anything of the 
 kind. Having, moreover, able military advisers, which 
 the Town Council had not, and had no idea of attempt- 
 ing to have, the Government had for years been aware 
 that defence of Edinburgh or the Clyde there was none. 
 As soon, however, as the ports became fully aware of the 
 truth, the powerful deputation which waited on the then 
 Prime Minister showed how great had been the mis- 
 understanding. The decision of the Government was at 
 once changed. 
 
 Naturally, in dealing with national defence, it is not 
 for the sake of Edinburgh alone that I insist on these 
 facts of recent history. Nor is it even for the sake of 
 saying to every one of our other great commercial ports 
 and harbours, "Mutato nomine, cle te fabula narratur," as 
 one well might do, or, as Nathan put it to David, "It is 
 of thee that the story is true." The inference is far 
 wider and larger. As it has been with the great commer- 
 cial ports and harbours, so has it been with the even more 
 important question of our coaling-stations and our gnat 
 military fortresses. Not one stone would have been laid 
 for the protection of those stations on which the efficiency 
 
 c
 
 18 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 of our Navy depends in many distant parts of the world, 
 not one gun would have been mounted, if it had not 
 been for pressure brought to bear upon the Government 
 from outside. I am not speaking of the present Govern- 
 ment. I am speaking of the efforts made to draw atten- 
 tion to this vital question for twenty years past by men 
 who were snubbed almost as thoroughly as our friend the 
 Bailie has ever been, though there was and could be no 
 question of their knowledge, their ability, or the sound- 
 ness of their views. 
 
 What I want to insist on is that, as the first great 
 primal factor in dealing with this question of National 
 Defence, we must face the fact that the talk about 
 " Ministerial Responsibility " — in so far as that is to be 
 understood to mean that members of a British Cabinet 
 or the Cabinet as a whole will undertake or dream of 
 undertaking what they know to be necessary for the 
 defence of the Empire, except in so far as the public at 
 large has been roused to realise what that is — is sheer 
 unmitigated gaseous froth— mere noise portending 
 nothing. A British Cabinet cannot, by the very nature 
 of our party system, do this or anything like this. 
 
 It is easy and worth while to show in some minor 
 details how our system in this respect works. 
 
 Twenty years ago there were certain huts on Woolwich 
 Common which were used for the married non-commis- 
 sioned officers and men of the garrison. They had, from 
 bad drainage and the gradual wear and tear of time, be- 
 come unfit for human habitation. They were hotbeds of 
 disease. An epidemic, due solely to the defective con- 
 dition of the quarters, Avas literally sweeping off the 
 children. The general commanding at Woolwich at the
 
 i GENERAL ST AT KM EXT OF THE CASE 19 
 
 time was a strong man. He pointed out in report after 
 reporl the condition of things and their cause. Steadily 
 and persistently he was snubbed The permanent officials 
 at the Treasury either directly or indirectly had so cul 
 
 down the estimate for barracks and huts that the old} 
 mode of meeting the ease was to let the children die and 
 bully the general. But the general was not a man easily 
 bullied. He knew his duty and he stuck to his point. 
 In the teeth of express orders to discontinue the corre- 
 spondence, addressed to him by those who represented 
 not real military authority but political convenience, he 
 returned again and again to the charge ; and, in direct 
 disobedience of the disgraceful orders he had received, 
 one of his last letters expressed the hope that he would 
 yet see the last stone of those huts removed. Suddenly 
 the whole scene changed. By some means or other, how- 
 it was never known, certainly not by the general's action, 
 a hint was given to the Daily News. That paper sent 
 down a correspondent, who furnished a full report of 
 the facts. The follomng day several of the highesi 
 authorities at the Horse Guards were sent down to clear 
 every soul out of the huts, and find accommodation for 
 them elsewhere. 
 
 Now observe, in this instance at all events, not one 
 new fact had been brought to the knowledge of the 
 Government then in power by the newspaper report. 
 Every fact had been duly recorded in official documents 
 and in the strongest language by the man whose duty it 
 was to draw attention to them. The mere facts produced 
 no effect whatever. The only thing that produced any 
 effect was the fear of the results of the publicity of such 
 a scandal upon voting in the House of Commons. To
 
 § CONSE/?^ 
 
 ^/S,7 NATI0NAL DEFENCES uhaf. 
 
 mple^e^h^sjibry, when the newspapers commented on 
 "^Ensure was passed upon the gross dereliction 
 le general, who had not drawn attention to 
 of things. 
 what is the bearing of that story upon this great 
 Question of National Defence *? Simply this. That what 
 here happened in a matter of pure right and wrong, of 
 the ordinary care of lives for which the Secretary of 
 State for War was " responsible," happens daily under 
 our system, no matter which party may be in power, in 
 relation to the great questions of National Defence. A 
 Government may and does know that in certain respects 
 danger threatens the Empire as surely as the lives of the 
 children at Woolwich were threatened. But it cannot 
 and will not act because of our party system, until the 
 public at large, the body of the voting electorate, realises 
 what the danger is. To save the lives of the children 
 meant spending money. Spending money may at any 
 time be turned into a charge of reckless extravagance 
 by party agency. It will so be turned unless public 
 attention has so been directed to the matter that it is 
 more dangerous to run the risk of offending against its 
 instinct than to spend the money. But that is not the 
 only part of the story that is in point. The directly 
 false charge against the general was allowed to pass 
 unchallenged in the House of Commons. It was not 
 because no one within its walls knew the truth that it so 
 escaped challenge. The facts accidentally became known 
 to me ; and, in those days of my hot youth, I imagined that 
 any British gentleman who was a member of the House 
 would have looked upon it as one of the first duties of 
 such an assembly to allow the Secretary of State for
 
 I GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 21 
 
 War publicly to acknowledge that the accused man had 
 done his duty. I wrote the whole of the facts in a 
 letter to one of the most honourable men 1 knew, who 
 was at the time a member of the House. I pledged my- 
 self to substantiate them. 1 never received an answer to 
 that letter, and the Secretary of State for the time being 
 — who he was I am glad to say that I do not now 
 remember, and I do not care — allowed the scandalous lie 
 to go out to the world. The general was never employed 
 again. He is still alive, and every fact I have stated 
 can be established to the hilt by those who are yet alive. 
 I never spoke to that general in my life, and have no 
 other regard for him whatever than for one who did his 
 duty and was foully wronged. What I do care to draw- 
 attention to is the effect of such a system on all questions 
 of National Defence. By such a method, by ignoring the 
 reports of those whose duty it is to draw attention to 
 defects and weakness, by cringing before a popular cry 
 when you will not do your duty when you have not 
 that fear before your eyes, by snubbing men who tell 
 you the truth and leaving them afterwards unemployed, 
 by allowing lies to go forth against them — in plain 
 English, by ceasing when you are in office to consider 
 yourself bound by the ordinary obligations of British 
 gentlemen, you can destroy the power of any army or of 
 any navy in the world. I speak' boldly, because 1 know 
 linw those who throughout the world have created great 
 and powerful organisations will regard this question. 
 I say distinctly that tin's story, and it is a most repre 
 
 sentative one in all its aspects, represents a method the 
 exact reverse of that by which the < lerman army has been 
 built up and made strong. Only by encouraging those
 
 22 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 who arc responsible for duty being done, to see effectively 
 that that duty is done, only by making it clear that the 
 men you wish to employ are those who will do this at 
 all odds and any sacrifice, and no others, can you guard 
 this Empire. I have taken no exceptional case. I 
 could give similar stories by the dozen if it were needed. 
 But it is not necessary. In proportion as men know the 
 working of our system, in that proportion they know 
 that here is its weakness. 
 
 I do not know how far any of my readers may have 
 followed the strange stories of the rise and fall of such 
 monarchies as those of Persia, and of other Eastern 
 powers. Of this I am sure, that, just in so far as they 
 have done so, they will know that their rise and fall has 
 varied exactly with the extent to which the practical 
 exercise of power has tended to encourage men in their 
 service who have loyally done their duty, or those 
 whose business it has been to pander to the vices of the 
 ruling power. A democratic government is exposed to 
 precisely analogous dangers, though the mode in which 
 the danger occurs is somewhat different. Only by 
 bringing to the light of day our own weaknesses in these 
 respects can the evil amid us any more than amid them 
 be cured. 
 
 This then is the danger, that whilst the only men who 
 know what the real needs of the country are cannot act, 
 the public who determines everything does not know. 
 This, far more than the action of any particular states- 
 man, stamps on our policy and on our military prepara- 
 tion the terrible words which have again and again 
 proclaimed its failure, "Too late, too late." 
 
 There is a story of a certain Zulu chieftain that
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 23 
 
 always recurs to me when I read the newspaper de- 
 nunciations of the blundering of our public offices and 
 
 of particular soldiers and statesmen. Dingaan had 
 around him a certain number of seers, whose business 
 it, was, in Zulu phraseology, to "smell out" criminals. 
 For years they had served his purposes by judiciously 
 "smelling out," that is, professing to detect as the 
 authors of crime those whom Dingaan wished to get 
 rid of. But the time came when Dingaan was anxious 
 to divert from himself the unpopularity which their 
 repeated judicial murders had gradually aroused. He, 
 late at night, when no one saw what he did, smeared 
 over the most sacred building in his camp with bullocks' 
 blood. Then, calling a great assembly, he declared his 
 disbelief in the powers of the seers, and challenged 
 them to detect the author of this appalling sacrilege. 
 One trembling seer after another, many of whom prob- 
 ably suspected the truth, denounced lyingly this man 
 and that. At length one shrewd old man who saw that 
 at least he could not sutler by giving vent to what he 
 believed to be the truth, gave his verdict thus: "Who 
 could have done this but the Heavens 1 I smell out the 
 Highest." Him Dingaan spared, knowing that the old 
 man had detected the truth. For the rest, Dingaan 
 followed the example of Elijah when he took down the 
 prophets of Baal "to the brook Kishon, and slew them 
 there." 
 
 year after year the British public plays the pari of 
 Dingaan in the first part of this tragedy. Near after 
 year its prophets behave as did the Beers whom I tingaan 
 slew; but in Britain they are not slain, but compli 
 mented on their brilliant speeches and on their brilliant
 
 •_'l NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 articles. No one " smells out the Highest." Yet every 
 expedition which starts from our shores repeats the same 
 experience. The needed preparations, which Avould cost 
 a little money, are not made at the time when careful 
 preliminary preparation would save lives, time, and 
 money. Then, when it is too late, money is poured out 
 like water. The reason is simple. To spend money 
 when the British public does not see the need for it 
 would give opportunity for the employment of hostile 
 party tactics — to denunciations of extravagance. To 
 refuse to spend money when the public is aroused and 
 interested, when the newspaper correspondents and 
 letters from the seat of war will describe the delay, the 
 loss of life, and the sufferings of soldiers, would, from the 
 same point of view, be ecpially dangerous. That is the 
 cause — that, of which this is only an illustration, is the 
 one efficient cause of our weakness, of our waste, and of 
 our lack of economical management. 
 
 What I speak of is a fact notorious in all our public 
 offices. It is the grim standing joke of officials. "Wait," 
 says the very man who, under the stress of the pressure 
 of the Treasury, is refusing what he well knows to be an 
 indispensable and economical expenditure — "wait till 
 the army is in the field, and you will see then how we 
 Avill pour out thousands where we refuse pounds now ! " 
 I am not drawing on my imagination. I am quoting 
 actual words, actually and habitually used by those who 
 know. 
 
 There is no pretence that the system is economical. 
 A short time before the great reconstruction began at 
 Aldershot, and before Mr. Stanhope had obtained his 
 vote, I was asked by an intelligent business man who
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 25 
 
 happened to have just been in tlic camp, "Can you 
 
 explain to me why it is that the Government keeps on 
 building and repairing those huts at Aldershol .' Any 
 
 builder's apprentice could tell them that the}- must be 
 most extravagant, as well as uncomfortable and incon- 
 venient." "Yes," I answered, "I can tell you. The 
 expense of building permanent barracks would fall on 
 one particular year, on one particular Secretary of State 
 for War, one particular Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
 the economy would appear to the credit of his successors 
 in office." That question and those facts had again and 
 again been laid before the public. Of course they have 
 not been extracted from the magazine and other articles in 
 which they have appeared by the newspapers that have 
 reviewed those articles. They do not serve a party pur- 
 pose, and nothing that does not either do that or serve 
 for some convenient cry has a chance of that kind of 
 publicity. But no one who has cared to know has had 
 any difficulty in knowing the facts. The huts them- 
 selves were seen by thousands of men who must have 
 understood the extravagance of the system, as well as 
 the friend whose remarks I have quoted. There is only 
 one explanation, and it is an old one. The public wishes 
 to be deceived, and is deceived. No one disputes the 
 cause and motive of the waste in this instance. Yet 
 year after year it had not been remedied. As long as 
 the public, in one instance fully known to it, sanctions 
 a waste avowedly occasioned by part] exigencies, and 
 
 directly injurious to the econ y and interests of the 
 
 country, who is to be blamed, who deserves to be 
 "smelled out," but the highest .' you, the public- you, 
 Sir or Madam, who read me, in so far as you have done
 
 26 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 nothing to concern yourself in that which is occasioned 
 by your default. 
 
 When at last the question was taken up, though no 
 one would wish to deprive its author of his share of the 
 credit for doing it, there was no disguise as to the fact 
 that it was done solely because the numerous deaths 
 which had been caused by insanitary barracks had at 
 last roused public opinion. Till that had happened 
 the Government was as impotent in this case as in that 
 of the huts at Woolwich, of which I have spoken. 
 You would help to turn it out if it did its duty in 
 all the innumerable cases which are analogous to this. 
 The Budget of the year would appear to be unduly 
 swollen. You would charge the particular Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer with that default. Therefore you 
 have to pay for your extravagant penny wisdom. I 
 think that, according to the best estimates which have 
 been repeatedly laid before successive Governments, it is 
 about five or six times over that in the course of your 
 life you have paid for this your fancy to have economical 
 appearances in this particular instance presented to you. 
 As you have paid in this instance, so you have paid in 
 far more serious and dangerous ones, of which it is not 
 so easy to cite facts palpable and known to all. Only 
 rarely do these more serious facts come before you. Let 
 me take one. During one recent year of naval manoeuvres 
 ship after ship broke down. Ship after ship failed so com- 
 pletely to fulfil the functions which it was built to fulfil, 
 either in point of speed or in point of sea-going qualities 
 or in point of efficient armament, that it is notorious that 
 the official report on those manoeuvres was suppressed, 
 lest the expose should be too serious and too alarming.
 
 r GENEEAL STATEMENT OF THE I ASK 27 
 
 There is not the smallesl doubt as to the cause of 
 this. It was admirably explained at the time. The 
 direct effective cause is, as always the Budget. The 
 Treasury desires to be able to show the best "paymenl 
 
 by results," that is, payment by the best quotable things, 
 the best appearances. Therefore those things which 
 only tend to actual efficiency are skimped everywhere. 
 They want to show the largest muni mil speed and horse- 
 power in proportion to the money voted. Therefore 
 the conditions of trial on the "measured mile," by 
 which speed is tested, are all allowed to be fictitious, 
 and their fictitiousness is quietly winked at. Selected 
 coal, such as is not subsequently provided for the ships 
 when they are in presence of the enemy, is employed for 
 the measured mile. Selected stokers, such as the Navy 
 cannot get in sufficient numbers, thanks to the economical 
 provisions of the Treasury, are carefully provided for 
 the measured mile. I am not anxious to trouble you — 
 shall I say my clerical friends — with a number of technical 
 details which, as you rightly judge, are in no M'&y your 
 business. What I want to ask you is, Is it not your 
 business if the conditions of elementary morality are not 
 carried out in the concerns of an Empire on which you 
 exercise so potent an influence 1 I do not know whether 
 I ouidit to inform vou that the difference which i.^ 
 produced in the speed of a ship by its having a selected 
 bod}* of stokers, as compared with a ship that has an 
 indifferent body of them, such as you gel in your average 
 ships of war, is so great thai any ship can make sure of 
 rapidly overtaking another of nominally equal horse 
 power, if she have good stokers and the other indifferent 
 ones. At least you know the nature of coal, and you
 
 28 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 can understand the difference in driving power produced 
 by selected coal and indifferent coal. When two such 
 important factors act together, and when the principle 
 implied in their use is applied to every detail of the 
 measured mile trial, with which I need not trouble you, 
 you may judge whether the system is a fair test of the 
 power for war of the ships you get. 
 
 The whole question of the measured mile trial, however, 
 is only a test example of the cause which prevents your 
 ships from fulfilling the conditions of effective service. 
 To show a large tonnage in proportion to the money 
 voted is as important an element of fictitious Budgets. 
 It is from these causes and their like that money comes 
 to be spent on those things which show very well on 
 paper, and is not spent on those things which are only 
 tested by rough and effective trial, such as we have 
 lately had in naval manoeuvres. In plain English, here, 
 as elsewhere, you wish to be deceived, and therefore 
 you are deceived. I have appealed to my clerical 
 friends, as I might have appealed to any honest British 
 man, as to whether these things represent the conditions 
 of elementary morality on which they believe, as I do, 
 that, rather than directly on " all-shattering guns," the 
 greatness of nations depends. I may with more certainty 
 appeal to my commercial friends, as to whether they 
 present the conditions of effective business. 
 
 Since these lines were written, the Secretaries of War 
 of two consecutive administrations have agreed in declai'- 
 ing in the House of Commons that the existing relations 
 between the Treasury and the War Office are utterly 
 unsatisfactory. What that means I have here explained. 
 I have for years regarded this as the question of all
 
 i GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 
 
 questions in regard to National Defence. I do not think 
 National Defence is possible or worth discussing aparl 
 from some solution of it. Perhaps the unanimity of 
 two front benches on the subject may at length lead 
 to reform. But, again, they are impotent without you, 
 Sir or Madam Dingaan. I end as I began l>y smelling 
 out you. 1 
 
 1 This chapter has been in print for nearly eight years, and 
 though here and there phrases have been modified to bring it ii|> 
 to date ii deals only with general principles, and does nol refer to 
 any recenl events or any men or Government now or Lately in 
 office. The general principles are as true as ever.
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 
 
 In the last chapter I suggested that National Defence 
 implied not only a defence of these islands, but of the 
 nation — wherever the nation may be. It is important 
 next to consider what this implies. Where is the nation 1 
 It may at first, perhaps, seem strange that it should be 
 necessary to ask such a question. It is not, however, 
 by any means the first time in history that those who 
 have wanted to secure strength and unity have found 
 it necessary to attempt answer to a similar inquiry. 
 "Was ist das Deutschen Vaterland'?" "What is the 
 German Fatherland 1 "— " Italia Irridenta ! " " The part 
 of Italy that isn't yet Italy ! "—are historical phrases that 
 imply the same necessity. Naturally each country 
 presents circumstances peculiar to itself. The circum- 
 stance peculiar to us which determines all others is that 
 for us not land, but sea, is the connecting link of the 
 nation : is for a most important part of the nation their 
 home, and is for all of us the great factor of our wealth, 
 of our danger, of our advantages, and of our security. 
 A few years ago certain of our leading politicians avowed 
 their belief that the Colonies and India were causes to
 
 chap, n WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND I] 
 
 us of weakness and not of strength. They wished 
 avowedly to restricl the nation to these islands. Asa 
 mere question of relative safety and of relative danger, 
 it all other considerations were thrown to the winds, it 
 was no doubl easy to argue thai a small territory was 
 much more easy to defend than a large one ; that a 
 country containing many millions of white men was 
 much better able to take care of itself than a vast 
 dispersed dominion, either thinly peopled or peopled 
 with alien races. Yes! if by the very condition of their 
 existence our island people could be kept at home. If 
 only you could reverse all our history. If a sea-going 
 race could be trained to keep off the sea. .Since, however, 
 every home in these islands is affected in all its home 
 conditions by the fact that we have spread ourselves 
 over the earth by way of the sea ; since the necessary 
 food of our population comes by sea; since the work 
 which furnishes the means of buying bread for our 
 working population finds its market over the sea ; since 
 our wealth is on the sea, while, of all the wealth of the 
 world that on any day of the year is on the sea, by far 
 the greater part is ours, — it is not quite safe to drop 
 out of account these simple facts. Calculate as meanly 
 as you please for the personal comfort of individual 
 Britishers ; assume all the most sordid motives thai 
 you like as the determining factors of happiness in life ; 
 yet, unless you set yourself to deceive the people as to 
 what will secure the future comfort of their homes, you 
 cannot talk to them as if their home was not an island 
 home. You cannot, without deceiving them as to the 
 very points on which you profess to enlighten them, 
 persuade them to treat the sea as if it cut them ofi" from
 
 32 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 all mankind, when in fact throughout all their history 
 it has heen their highway and their cottage garden, if 
 you prefer that to calling it their palace garden. Yes, 
 great are cabbages, no doubt ! I am far from under- 
 valuing their importance ; but for all that I believe that 
 among vast numbers of our people the feeling of the sea 
 as their palace garden is even more potent than the 
 feeling of it as their garden of pot-herbs. Let me tell a 
 story to illustrate my meaning, and then ask a question. 
 A personal friend of my own, a French pasteur, had 
 in July 1870, before the siege of Metz began, thrown 
 himself into the town to be of such service to the sick 
 and wounded as he could. He had been trained as a 
 doctor, and was therefore able to act in a double capacity. 
 One day, after the siege had continued for many weeks, 
 when provisions were becoming very scarce and very 
 dear, he was walking down the streets of the town. He 
 saw in front of him a man of apparently abject poverty 
 stagger and fall in the streets. The bystanders assumed 
 that the man was drunk. On coming up to him, how- 
 ever, my friend discovered that he had fallen in a fit 
 produced by the attempt to stop the cravings of hunger 
 by eating filth, with which his mouth was filled. The 
 man was almost in the last stages of starvation. With 
 great difficulty he was brought round. When he re- 
 covered consciousness, my friend, thinking that he must 
 be in some terrible private trouble, asked what he could 
 do to help him. The words in reply came so low that 
 it was only with difficulty that the pasteur could catch 
 them. " Qu'on ne rende pas Metz."—" Don't let them 
 surrender Metz." The man who heard those words in 
 1870 is one of the most upright and honourable men
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 
 
 that I know, and ho lias pledged his word bo me that thai 
 incident occurred exactly as 1 have related it. Now foi 
 my question. Is that a noble story or not? I- the 
 feeling of the poor beggar of Met/, proud as any French 
 monarch of the integrity of u La Pncelle," the intact 
 fortress, the maiden city, in which he had been born, 
 ready to starve rather than that Met/ should be sur- 
 rendered, something which British statesmen would wish 
 to have among our penile or not? Certain speeches 
 which we sometimes hear arc apparently directed t<> 
 stifle any such feeling; not to appeal to and evoke 
 patriotism, as was the habit of our great statesmen of the 
 past, but to appeal to and to endeavour to evoke instead 
 that spirit of purely individual and disintegrating selfish- 
 ness which can at least be safely reckoned on to produce 
 cheers at a political meeting. 
 
 For my part I believe that during peaceful times, when 
 nothing occurs to arouse patriotic action or patriotic 
 sentiment, meu do not realise how Luge a portion of 
 their daily life and of their ordinary happiness depends 
 mi the sense of national dignity and honour. Travellers 
 who frequently pass from France to Germany and from 
 Germany to France have lately been noticing a quite 
 remarkable change in the public characteristics of tin- 
 two peoples. The Frenchman, whom we all take as the 
 representative of liveliness and vivacity, has become, at 
 all events in all places of public entertainment, markedly 
 silent and reserved. The "taciturn" German is boister- 
 ous in the public exhibition of his merriment and 
 loquacity. 
 
 Is it difficult to account for the change? How long 
 would it be before the effect was felt on the merriment
 
 34 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 of every British cottage if British men came to think 
 that their country was no longer one of the greatest upon 
 earth 1 I do not believe that those who have little else 
 to enjoy, enjoy less than others the sense of pride in 
 their country. I believe that they have as strongly, if 
 not more strongly than most others, the joy and pride 
 of belonging to a governing and a victorious race. For 
 them the belief in Britain's ruling the sea is as much a 
 matter of just personal pride as it is for any monarch 
 that ever sat upon the throne. Moreover it is among 
 the best of them, not among the worst, that this feeling 
 is strongest. Nor is it among those who, in the private 
 concerns of life, are least willing to conform to the law- 
 abiding or the self-sacrificing principle of life that this 
 feeling is strongest. The sense of national duty, as far 
 as I have observed, is strongest among those who have 
 the strongest sense of private duty. 
 
 Therefore, as I believe, those who have set themselves 
 the task of persuading our British people to disregard 
 all care for national honour and national life, and to 
 think only of the material interests of their own narrow 
 immediate surroundings, have undertaken an impossible 
 as well as a cruel work. They cannot, when the hour 
 comes when some great national question is brought 
 vividly before the people, prevent them from taking an 
 interest in it. Unfortunately what they can do is this. 
 They can take advantage of the varying moods which 
 pass over the mind of a very industrious race. They 
 can, at a time when no great question is apparently 
 stirring, and when every one is busy with his own 
 concerns, persuade men that as it has been so it will 
 always be. The danger of our position lies just in that
 
 II WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 85 
 
 fact. Each year the sea is more and more covered with 
 the wealth of our merchants and with the products of 
 the labour of our people. The progress has been so 
 steady, and has been going on for so long a time, that 
 there never has been any one particular day or year 
 during which one could say, "See how startling a change 
 has taken place in our whole situation ! " We are all 
 too busy to notice, or at all events to grasp, the importance 
 of the change which has been gradually going on, of which 
 the only record has been that of dull statistics. Yet the 
 effect is such that there is no experience whatever in the 
 past which will show Avhat our position would be in the 
 event of war with any fairly considerable naval power. 
 
 During the latter part of the war against Napoleon 
 our fleets were everywhere so dominant that, as he said 
 himself, not a cockle boat could put to sea without being 
 captured by them. But at that time our wealth upon 
 the sea was about forty millions only. Now it is aboul 
 seven hundred millions, while the value of the ships in 
 which it is carried has multiplied in even higher propor- 
 tions. Then our population was only sixteen millions 
 within these islands. Now it is about forty millions. 
 Then, therefore, the food, the means of life, of our 
 people could be raised and was raised at home. Now 
 an ever-increasing proportion of it comes from abroad. 
 Attack upon us at sea is therefore everywhere easy, 
 ami has become a far more vital matter now than it 
 was then. The first great necessity that we must of 
 course possess in order to secure that commerce as 
 it now is, that commerce on which we depend for 
 our food and our work, is a navy overwhelmingly 
 strong — strong in proportion to the wealth which
 
 36 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 it has to defend. With that and other matters it 
 will he my business to deal when we come to discuss 
 " With what we are to defend it." But Avhen we are 
 told that our Colonies are for us a source of weakness, 
 it appears to me that that statement must be made 
 by men who have never travelled across the ocean, and 
 have never been able to imagine the sight that would 
 greet their eyes if they did so. No matter into what 
 distant port you go, the ships that you find there are for 
 the most part British ships, and of those that are not 
 British ships not a few are worked by British capital. 
 No matter what sea you traverse, if it be a fair highway 
 of the nations, the ships that you pass are in enormous 
 preponderance British ships. Now is it really the case 
 that if a ship or a fleet of ships is attacked or chased 
 by an enemy they will be more likely to be captured 
 because our possessions beyond seas are " here, there, and 
 everywhere" 1 — I quote a phrase which I once heard a 
 friend of mine use with a sigh, as though it was a 
 terrible fact that one had to accept with grief. Is it 
 really the case that our fleet going southwards along the 
 west side of Africa is more exposed to attack because 
 along the route we hold St. Helena, Sierra Leone, 
 Ascension, and finally the great harbour of the Cape? 
 Seeing that the vulnerable part of our position consists 
 in that exposed commerce, is it really a misfortune for 
 us that we have men of our own blood who are diligently 
 engaged in Australia and Canada in doing all that young 
 communities can to put their defences into order 1 Is it 
 a weakness to the Empire that from sea to sea of the great 
 American Continent, across 3000 miles of land, we should 
 possess a railway giving us direct communication through 

 
 n WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 87 
 
 our own territory with our commerce in the Pacific 
 Ocean? Is it a weakness to lis in Asia to have the 
 resources of the Indian Empire to Bupport our vasl 
 
 commerce with India itself, with ( 'hin.i, and with Japan ' 
 Not these arc our weaknesses, except in so far as we leave 
 them weak in just those respects in which we could mosi 
 easily strengthen them ; so far as, possessing the grandest 
 heritage on earth, we leave it everywhere to he the prey 
 of the first spoiler who chooses to arise and take it ; so 
 far as, possessing over all the earth points of vantage and 
 security which any other nation would at all cost make 
 secure, we, the richest nation on earth, are too poor to 
 take advantage of them. Our politicians are men trained 
 in the art of winning votes in the House of Commons. 
 Training begets habit, habit fixes nature itself. Not to 
 the interests and security of the Empire, but to the means 
 which will win a vote in the House, it is the fixed nature 
 of the statesman whom you have trained to look. How, 
 by the very condition of things, can the two points of 
 view be identical? 
 
 The knowledge on which a great statesman necessarily 
 acts is just what he cannot lay before the House of 
 Commons. As long as it was a question of gaining the 
 confidence of the House by a certain character, by the 
 knowledge of the man, as it was, for instance, even in the 
 days of Lord Palmerston, there could perhaps hardly be a 
 better means of securing a statesman who really cared to 
 do his duty to the State and was competent to do it, than 
 by judging of his power in the House. But the s 
 difficulty appears to attend us here as is beginnii 
 trouble us in regard to our competitive examinations. 
 Just as success in the examination, as soon as it ce 
 
 .*J878(if>
 
 38 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 to be a test of independent excellence and becomes itself 
 the object of effort, is almost purely mischievous; so 
 the test of success in the House of Commons, when it 
 becomes itself the object after which men strive, involves 
 conditions dangerous to the State. Our wisest ex- 
 aminers are most alive to the danger in their case, and 
 are most anxious to provide all the remedies against it that 
 they can. Is it too much to expect that for the sake of 
 national safety the House of Commons will watch for 
 themselves the same danger in their case 1 ? Every in- 
 telligent British man who watches it at least contributes 
 something towards that end. 
 
 It is from the very nature of the case impossible to 
 judge whether each separate proposal made by a politician 
 is statesmanlike or not. Publication of all reasons and 
 motives to the House of Commons means publication to 
 the world. If it is known to statesmen that certain 
 designs hostile to Britain have been secretly formed, 
 the very last thing that it would be good for the country 
 to have done would be to have that knowledge made 
 public. But we can judge of the general character of a 
 statesman. In proportion as the country wishes to get 
 its work done, rather than to have its palate tickled, it 
 will get its work done. There is immense truth in that 
 saying of Carlyle's that the reason why Kobespierre 
 became the representative of France and Cromwell 
 of England during the respective revolutionary periods 
 of the two countries, was that at the time France 
 deserved to have Robespierre and that the England of 
 his days deserved to have Cromwell. No doubt during 
 calmer times such effects are produced less rapidly. But 
 in the main our statesmen are what we make them.
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 
 
 For his contribution towards the making of them every 
 one of us is responsible. It' we want statesmen whose 
 views are essentially those of Little Pedlington applied to 
 the government of a great country, we shall haw them. 
 If we want statesmen who understand the question of 
 National Defence for our great inheritance to be one of 
 the most difficult and one of the grandesl problems thai 
 were ever set before the mind of man, we shall have 
 them. On one great question of the day some of our 
 statesmen are at least in earnest. No one who comes 
 closely into contact with them, and is not himself invol\ ed 
 in the same encrusted effect of habit and training that 
 they are, believes that on the question of National 
 Defence more than one here and there is in earnest. 
 See if the first answer that is made to you by any 
 politician on such a question is not, " Oh, but the House 
 of Commons would never sanction such a course as 
 that." "Really, any one who knows the various cliques 
 and sets in the House of Commons can assure you that 
 any such proposition as that would not have a chance in 
 the House." 
 
 Now I humbly submit that the great business of a 
 deliberative assembly is to deliberate — that the great 
 value of public deliberation is this, that error shrinks and 
 shrivels in the light of day, and that in that same light 
 of day truth grows and nourishes. If it be the case, as 
 it in fact is the case, that except at moments of panic 
 the question of the defence of the Empire — if you like 
 the term — of the nation as I prefer to call it — is never 
 discussed at all, I submit that the opinion about it of 
 every separate clique in the House of Commons matters 
 very little indeed. I have a very great and a hereditary
 
 40 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 reverence for the House of Commons, as the grandest of 
 all deliberative assemblies. That reverence is, however, 
 founded on the fact that, as yet at least, the majority of 
 its members have not accepted the chains which Burke 
 declared would be fatal to the House. They have not 
 taken their places " pledged not to deliberate." 
 
 It is not possible that very many men in the House 
 should have carefully examined questions which have 
 never with adequate pressure been brought before 
 them. 
 
 If, as is in truth the case, enormous changes in our 
 whole position among the nations have gradually come 
 about, to which their attention has not been directed, 
 the mere opinions they have casually taken up about 
 them do not necessarily determine what their judgment 
 will be after they have adequately considered the facts. 
 Their present opinions are little more than registers of 
 the conclusions wisely drawn by an elder generation from 
 a different condition of things. 
 
 The great merit of our constitution lies just in this, 
 that it is of such a kind that it does not tempt us to 
 think that the sun rises and sets subject to it ; but that 
 it is, on the contrary, adapted to the fact that the "sons 
 of men are wiser with the setting of the suns," and had 
 better modify their action in accordance with their partial 
 and gradual discoveries of fact and truth, not attempting 
 to bind truth and fact and the progress of history by 
 their opinions. I shall have to press this point again 
 more fully in a later chapter, but, in discussing the 
 question of the enormous change which has within the 
 last eighty years taken place in "What we have to 
 defend," I am anxious to meet at once the one grand
 
 ii WHAT WK HAVE TO DEFEND 11 
 
 and final argumenl which I find continually thrown in 
 
 my face on all such occasions. 
 
 With those who do nol belong to the House the greal 
 thing that appears to awe them, and to prevent their 
 facing facts, is "Public Opinion" itself. Now whal ie 
 this same deity "Public Opinion"? Apparently it is 
 what everybody thinks that everybody else think-. Ii 
 no one in the kingdom has a better reason than that for 
 forming his judgment, of what value can the agg] 
 judgment be' Surely the ultimate value of Public 
 Opinion itself must depend on the judgment of those 
 men who do examine facts for themselves, and on the 
 extent to which they gradually bring round Public 
 Opinion to realise facts. As far as my observation has 
 gone, that result follows with almost surprising rapidity. 
 
 Therefore, as the one thing for which I care at this 
 moment is to carry with me you, Sir, or you, Madam, who 
 are reading what I am saying, I pray you not to shiver 
 because you think that everybody else thinks something 
 other than what I say. In the first place, that is not 
 true. In the second place, if you will get hold of the 
 facts, will realise their importance, and will spread them. 
 such semblance of truth as there is in the statement will 
 very soon disappear. 
 
 It would be very odd if the millions of the electorate 
 in the past or the present moment understood our posi- 
 tion. Those of us who have been fur years studying the 
 question are to a man obliged to confess that we have 
 only slowly come to realise it ourselves. Having realised 
 it, we have been under exceptional difficulties in bringing 
 the truth before the English public. Many of us have 
 !>ecn tongue-tied by office. Many are SO still. Pew of
 
 42 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 those who are not in some such way tongue-tied have 
 really examined the question. Though some of us have 
 been working hard to get the facts known, it is one 
 thing to write and to speak, it is another to be read and 
 heard. To use a happy phrase once employed by Mr. 
 Gladstone, it is yet another to be " marked, learned, and 
 inwardly digested." 
 
 Therefore we ask you to help us, not for our sakes but 
 for your own, for the sake of our glorious country, for 
 the sake of your wives and families, and for the poor and 
 ignorant of the land who, little as they know it, will suffer 
 appallingly if facts are not faced in time. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of our Commerce, and the 
 fact that I want to press home in regard to it is that 
 that enormous and overwhelming mass of^ wealth which 
 radiates from Britain over the sea in every direction 
 is a thing which has practically come into being during 
 ninety-two years of peace. I say ninety-two years of 
 peace, because I take my date from Trafalgar. Since 
 Trafalgar, except for the short American War, the seas 
 have been for British ships a peaceful highway. During 
 that time this enormous and overwhelming wealth has 
 grown up. I do not know that I shall so well bring this 
 truth home by mere reference to statistics as by quoting 
 a very remarkable saying of Mr. Gladstone's. Speaking 
 in 1873 of the period since 1815, he declared that if the 
 rate of the accumulation of wealth then going on could 
 have been substituted in 1815 for the rate of accumula- 
 tion as it was at that time, the mere difference between 
 the two maintained for the fifty-eight years would have 
 replaced the accumulations of all previous centuries. 
 Now between 1805 and 1815 our progress was relatively
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 
 
 rapid, in the development of commerce, and Bince L873 
 it lias been enormous. Therefore for my purpose a- a 
 question of what we have to defend, it is not too much 
 to say that the problem is an absolutely new problem. 
 
 The weal tli which we had to defend at the moment 
 when our fleets simply cleaned the seas of every hostile 
 power was as nothing to that which we now possess. 
 Strictly speaking it was as 2 : 35. The commerce of 
 Canada, actually itself ranking among the .second 
 powers in point of its maritime marine, and that of 
 India, as well as the commerce of Australia and New 
 Zealand, are creations of the period since Trafalgar. 
 All these are steadily and rapidly growing. 
 
 Therefore, whatever may be needed for the defence 
 of our possessions beyond the sea, the difficulty and 
 the danger of defending them are nothing like so great 
 as would be the difficulty of defending this appalling 
 Commerce if the politics of Little Pedlington prevail, 
 if Britain shrink into herself, and, careless of her greal 
 Indian Empire and her Colonies, dwindle into the nut 
 from which she sprang. The mighty genius, towering 
 to the skies, once coaxed by the fisherman into returning 
 to the box from which he had arisen, was, according to 
 the charming tale of Grimm, easily locked up again 
 and was lost for ever in the seas. It is a true fable of 
 the fate of Britain if she shrinks from her glorious 
 destiny and tries to make her giant limbs fit into her 
 cradle. 
 
 Therefore it is needful next to consider what thee 
 possessions are which we have to defend. 
 
 I have found in talking to some of our most intelligent 
 working-men, that they have never had brought before
 
 44 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 them the extent of the efforts which have been made by 
 our Colonies to provide for their own defence. I very 
 respectfully submit it to the conscience of every member 
 of the Legislature whether that is not a disgrace to every 
 separate one of them. What is the use of talking about 
 the Confederation of the Empire if you take no steps to 
 remove the jealousies of the different parts of it ? I am 
 certain that if the men of whom I am speaking had 
 never heard of the self-sacrificing efforts of their cousins 
 beyond the sea, the vast mass of the constituencies never 
 heard of them. I have found it necessary to explain — 
 
 A. That India pays every penny of her own defence, 
 including the cost of the army which is kept up there. 
 
 B. That Canada has created for herself a militia of 
 very great value, at present numbering nearly 35,000 
 men, and has actually undertaken the cost of building 
 the defences of the great harbour of Esquimalt, we 
 providing only the armament, whilst she supplies the 
 garrison. 
 
 C. That Australia has undertaken elaborate works of 
 coast defence, has created a militia numbering 20,000, 
 and has arranged to contribute a subsidy for a fleet in 
 her waters. 
 
 D. That at the Cape and in each of the smaller colonies, 
 each according to their power, similar efforts have been 
 made. 
 
 Man for man, there can be no question whatever that, 
 between Tom Smith at home and Jim Jones in any one 
 of our colonies and possessions beyond seas, Jim Jones 
 has made personal sacrifices to fulfil his share in the 
 defence of the nation of which Tom Smith has never 
 dreamed.
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 15 
 
 Only a few years ago I have heard at dinner-par! 
 politicians of a certain stamp deciding the question in 
 
 favour of what, was then the popular fad— the scheme to 
 "confederate the Colonies and let them go" by the con- 
 clusive argument^ "Why should Tom Smith at homi 
 for Jim Jones in Australia." Thai contention was 
 knocked out of time by the Statistical Society. It was 
 shown conclusively that so far was it from the truth 
 that Tom Smith at home had to pay for Jim Jones abroad, 
 that on the contrary Tom Smith at home got bettei 
 wages and more work, because Jim Jones his cousin in 
 Australia was living there under our flag instead of under 
 an alien one ; that for actual business purposes and with 
 value in hard cash the trade followed the 
 
 But it is a lamentable proof how little Imperial in the 
 best sense of the term our politics have been that, despite 
 the acres of speeches which every year cover the news- 
 papers and are addressed to the constituencies, our 
 people at home know nothing of the other fact that the 
 Colonies not only supply our best customers, but that 
 they have thrown themselves into the question of 
 National Defence with a zeal which with us is represented 
 by the loyal enthusiasm of many volunteers, but of which 
 the mass of our population knows nothing. 
 
 In addition, however, to the greater Colonies, we have 
 footholds all over the world in the shape of our 
 harbour fortresses — Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, Bermuda ; 
 and our defended ports, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hong 
 Kong, Singapore; ami defended coaling-stations, St. 
 Helena, Sierra Leone, Simon's Hay, .Mauritius, St. Lucia. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance 
 of these places to the safety of our commerce, and to the
 
 46 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 unity of the defence of our Imperial nation. Wherever, 
 at any of even these minor places, there is an Englishman, 
 Irishman, or Scotsman, who can either himself take up 
 his share of national defence, or, better still, be employed 
 in developing the defensive power of local races loyal to 
 our rule, that part of the work has been carried out as 
 far as our poverty-stricken Treasury could afford to 
 assist the armament. But in many of these places the 
 people absolutely cannot, without some aid from home, 
 bear the expense entailed in furnishing the whole of the 
 cost of the defence which they could make for themselves. 
 As long as that condition prevails in England, which is 
 represented by the Lord Mayor's having to send round 
 the hat to furnish the necessary equipment for our 
 London volunteers, it is not to be expected that the aid 
 of distant volunteers will be eagerly supported from 
 home if money is needed to enable them to do their work. 
 It is notorious that had the discussions which took 
 place with the Colonial representatives been published at 
 the time when they came to London some few years ago, 
 a few bitter truths would have been heard by people at 
 home. The representatives were loyal to the backbone, 
 but they had not been prepared to meet with meanness 
 in dealing with the old folk at home. In case after case 
 they undertook to do things for us which we ought to 
 have done for ourselves. They undertook to do them. 
 They saved us a little money. That is a costly economy, 
 however, which tends to sever the joints of this Imperial 
 realm — this realm, Imperial in its extent, in its population, 
 in its wealth, so sorely needing, since it cannot compete 
 with other empires in the singleness of purpose of one 
 despot, to develop and cherish another Imperial unity.
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 47 
 
 From what is done in the green tree judge what i- 
 likely to be dune in the dry. 
 
 If Australia and Canada are met with what they at 
 least look upon as meanness, what will be the fai 
 little and precious St. Helena — not tu Bay distant Singa 
 pore and Hong Kong? 
 
 I must, however, lest I be misunderstood, stop to 
 point out that the meanness to which 1 here refer is 
 just that of which I have again and again spoken, the 
 resultant of confusion at home. It is the case here, 
 as always, of Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan. 
 No one in Britain wishes to be mean to the Colonies. 
 Least of all do Ministers who meet them in conference 
 wish to he mean. The British people does not know, is 
 not made to understand ; and they who certainly do not 
 wish to meet the loyal efforts of their cousins with mean- 
 ness are made into the effective cause of all that is mean. 
 The Treasury dare not be other than mean. If it were 
 anything else, think of the rival placards at an election 
 showing relative expenditure ! 
 
 To pass on, however, to the question of the vital 
 importance of these stations "here, there," thank God, 
 " and everywhere." 
 
 During the time since Trafalgar, as all men know, 
 the factors that have revolutionised the whole question 
 of commerce and of marine defence are the Electric 
 Telegraph and Steam. Steam implies coal, and for high 
 steaming for all but a few ships coal at very few days' 
 interval. During peace time it is pleasanl enough to be 
 able to drop into Madeira or Lisbon and to pick up Buch 
 coal as our ships want. In war time we can only 
 securely rety upon our own harbours, therefore we can
 
 48 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 only rely upon our own fortified harbours. Therefore, 
 in taking account of what we have to defend, whether 
 Commerce or our Colonies or India, since communica- 
 tion with these would be cut off if coal were not available, 
 these coaling-stations are vitally important to us. A 
 great docking harbour like Malta, Bermuda, or Halifax 
 has an altogether other importance of its own, but we 
 can spare neither one nor the other. Nor, where an 
 isolated position like that of the Falkland Islands is 
 distant from anything else, and is, as a glance at the map 
 will show, the one foothold that we have for the security 
 of our trade round South America into the Pacific 
 Ocean, can we spare that. If the great course of our 
 trade be examined it will be seen that it runs in vast 
 volume to India partly by way of the Suez Canal, partly 
 round the Cape, and from India spreads out into various 
 streams towards China, Australia, New Zealand, etc. 
 The line by the Suez Canal has become the great peace 
 route. Exposed as it is to danger throughout its whole 
 course, few who have studied the question believe for 
 one moment that it can be a war route. For war our 
 highway must be round the Cape. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken of the trade and colonies of 
 Britain, and have said nothing of home defence. I 
 have deliberately kept that question to the last — first, 
 because I am most anxious not for a moment to admit 
 the notion that National Defence can be restricted to 
 these islands ; secondly, because, even for the safety of 
 the population of these islands, I look upon our sea-borne 
 commerce as far the most weak and assailable point we 
 have. Nevertheless there are few things about which 
 more popular fallacies prevail than as to the special
 
 ii WHAT WE HAVE TO DEFEND 
 
 safety of our island home, without, any efforts of OUT 
 own bo defend it. 
 
 A friend of mine, nol a soldier, bul a Btudenl oi 
 history, tells me thai he once asked in a large assembly 
 of Englishmen, containing barristers, doctors, and other 
 educated men, how many invasions of England there 
 had been. He was promptly answered, "Not one!" 
 Celts, Etonians, Saxons, Danes, Normans, the Frem-h 
 in John's time, the almost endless Beries during 
 the Wars of the Eoses, ending with that which put 
 Henry VII. on the throne, were all forgotten. That 
 William III.'s, and even the Duke of Monmouth's, were 
 successful landings and undoubted invasions in their 
 inception, and thai the Scotch rising in 174-~> only 
 missed being successful because a body of troops broughl 
 from the Netherlands effected a landing before French 
 troops, which were embarked for the purpose, had effected 
 theirs, were facts unknown or unremembered by any one 
 in the room. Yet even the vast number of the earlier 
 invasions, all successful as they were, ought to point this 
 lesson, that if for not quite two centuries we have enjoyed 
 immunity from war in Britain, that has been due to the 
 overwhelming superiority of our Meet during the great 
 wars of the period, and to ninety-two years of peace since 
 Trafalgar. During these ninety-two years of peace the 
 conditions of naval and military warfare have changed 
 almost as completely as they did between the time of 
 Henry VII. 's landing and Trafalgar. It in the next war 
 we are to retain the same immunity, it can only be by 
 facing the conditions of warfare by sea and land at the 
 present moment as thoroughly as we faced them at the 
 beginning of the century. Therefore, as I have shown 
 
 i-:
 
 50 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap, ii 
 
 that it depends on you whether we do face them or 
 not, I pray you to bear with me if in subsequent chapters 
 I point out the most important conditions of the time 
 which affect the safety of our island home. I do not 
 write for those only who can be addressed in technical 
 language. I hope to make clear my meaning to every 
 reader of the Citizen Series. 1 
 
 1 This chapter also was in print about eight years ago. Much 
 has been done since then to remedy the conditions against which 
 it was an appeal, but the need of the facts being realised by those 
 to whom this series is addressed is no less potent now than it was 
 when it was first written. Much has been done ; much remains 
 to be done ; and it depends on the extent to which the truth is 
 realised how far either what has been done is maintained or what 
 is needed is accomplished.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AGAINST WHAT ELAVE WE TO DEFEND? 
 
 It is clear thai the attacks which may he directed agi 
 the various interests of the nation described in th< 
 chapter ;ire of very various character. We have to 
 thank a great American writer, Captain Mahan, for an 
 m as to the conditions under which Britain 
 had to fight in the past. He has shown that as long as 
 she was supreme at sea, attacks upon her commerce, 
 though the}- might severely wound her, could not prevent 
 her from striking far more deadly blows at an opponenl 
 than any that could be delivered against her. The fact 
 of an opponent being reduced to a war against commerce 
 implied such a disadvantage to him that though the 
 struggle might be long and hard, the Mistress of the Sea 
 was practically certain to emerge from it victorious and 
 with large compensations for her many lo£ 
 
 His history of the great struggle of our forefathers 
 against the power of Napoleon cannot he too strongly 
 commended to the careful consideration of all those who 
 would wish to realise the position of Britain to-day. Hut 
 it is necessarj also to realise the effect of the 
 that have taken place since that great struggle occurred.
 
 52 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 In the first place, the conditions of life upon the 
 Continent have altogether changed. The creation of 
 railways, telegraphs, and other means of communica- 
 tion, as well as the development of commercial life, 
 have no doubt made Continental nations in some 
 respects far more independent of the sea, for the actual 
 means of living, than they were in the days of Napoleon. 
 But, on the other hand, the habitual consumption of 
 articles of tropical produce, coffee, sugar, tea, has be- 
 come universal, and for these and many other things 
 sea transport is still indispensable. It may almost be 
 doubted whether, taking all things into consideration, 
 more especially the developed necessities of civilisation, 
 the loss of all sea transport would not be felt more 
 severely in the present time than it was then. On the 
 other hand, the whole peace conditions of the Continent 
 have been prepared and adapted for war to an extent 
 that was hardly possible even during the long reign of 
 war from 1789 to 1815. Taking, however, into account 
 the way in which the forces on the Continent are now 
 arrayed against one another, it may be reasonably 
 doubted whether the power of Britain, if it be properly 
 used in behalf of the liberties of the world, is not still 
 as great, except in one respect to be noted immediately, 
 as Captain Mahan has shown that it was during the 
 great war. The forces, therefore, which are apt to 
 impress British men with the idea that we are already 
 reduced to the position of a state like Belgium, and can 
 only look on in helpless impotence at the struggles of 
 stupendous masses, are by no means so invulnerable to 
 the pressure of Britain as they are apt to be assumed 
 to be.
 
 m AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEI END 58 
 
 The one exception which has to be made against our 
 present condition in comparing our power then and now 
 
 is continually forgotten. ( laptain Mahan lias admirably 
 brought oul the facts. The supreme position which our 
 Navy occupied during the great war was by no means 
 due to any natural inaptitude on the part of the French 
 for naval operations. During the immediately preceding 
 struggle, we had Inst the American Colonies because we 
 had lost the command of the sea. In the beginning of 
 the Revolutionary War the French Fleet had been 
 reduced to complete inefficacy by the disorders in 
 France, After a few feeble attempts to maintain its 
 position under these circumstances in the open sea, it 
 was driven into harbours where it was impossible for it 
 to keep up its fighting efficiency. It is therefore absurd 
 to look upon this as representing in any way the 
 necessary permanent relation between the two Navies. 
 
 Among the elements, therefore, of possible future 
 danger with which we ought to reckon, is the undouhi rd 
 high efficiency of the present French Fleet. To live 
 upon a tradition of the past which shows us everywhere 
 during that particular war inferior numbers of British 
 ships driving before them, or destroying, French fleets, 
 is a dangerous misconception of history. We may hope 
 everything from the skill and valour of our own sailors ; 
 we have no right to assume that those qualities will nut 
 be found among the French. 
 
 Not a few calmly -thinking French sailors believe 
 that the change which has taken place in the nature of 
 ships since 1815 has tended very greatly to the advantage 
 of their own navy. They say, not without much reason, 
 that the direct influence on naval success of the more
 
 54 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 seafaring character of our population and of the greater 
 hardihood and physical vigour which they frankly 
 attribute to our sailors, was much more certain in those 
 days than now. They consider that a time has come 
 when mechanical skill in construction, and the influence 
 of the engineer, have become far more potent factors than 
 strictly seafaring skill. It is a question on which it is 
 impossible to pronounce without the dire experiment of 
 war. But it is right, in considering the whole of the 
 situation, that British men should realise that that view 
 has to be taken into account. 1 
 
 Furthermore, the development of British free trade 
 has so greatly increased the proportion in which our 
 population depends for food from abroad since those 
 times, that it may be doubted whether in studying 
 Captain Mahan's statement of the case we ought not 
 to allow for the increased pressure that would be put 
 upon us by anything that threatened the sources of our 
 food supply. Considering, however, the way in which 
 that one side of the question has been pressed upon us 
 of late years, it is not a little consolatory to have laid 
 before us, with Captain Mahan's impartiality and as a 
 result of his admirable research, the fact, that our 
 enemies early in the great war looked forward with 
 complete confidence to their being able to bring Britain 
 to her knees by attacks upon her commerce alone, even 
 after they had themselves lost the power to contest our 
 supremacy at sea. Captain Mahan has shown clearly 
 that it was the utter failure of this attempt during all 
 the earlier period of the war which made Napoleon face 
 
 1 Kiel and Crete have, however, hoth impressed foreign sailors 
 with the practical superiority of our own.
 
 in A.GAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 
 
 risks, t lie nature of which he fully realised, in order to 
 prepare for making an actual descent upon our shores. 
 
 The development of British commerce baa become so 
 enormous that it now presents a much more vulnerable 
 mark to an enemy than it did during the Revolutionary 
 War. We may therefore admit that we are only able 
 to judge from the lesser to the greater, and to treat the 
 experiences of that war as a lesson on a relatively small 
 scale, so far as the immunity of our present commerce 
 from the attacks of petty depredators is concerned. 
 Nevertheless I do not myself believe that any one who 
 will beat the pains to weigh all that Captain .Malum 
 has to urge upon the subject, can tail to realise that his 
 historical evidence has introduced a consideration which 
 has been too much forgotten in the controversies of late 
 years. On the whole, his history tends to show that 
 if we take adecpiate precautions for the protection ol 
 our commerce during war, the percentage of loss which 
 we are likely to incur, though it may he very incon- 
 venient and serious, will not be deadly. Relatively, 
 therefore, this demonstration enhances the importance 
 of the question of invasion ; for if attacks upon our 
 commerce will not be decisive of anything, a nation 
 which wishes to crush us will be forced to attempt 
 invasion or to accept a position of great disadvantage. 
 It is therefore necessary to discuss all the more earnestly 
 those conditions which tend to affect the possibility of 
 direct invasion of our shores. 
 
 This is very important, because there has been a 
 tendency of late years among some of our naval writers 
 to scoff at the idea of our maintaining any "second line 
 of defence "at all. Their argument has been, that if the
 
 56 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 Navy be supreme upon the seas, there can be no risk of 
 invasion whatever. If the Navy be not supreme then 
 Britain must starve. Now the whole effect of Captain 
 Mahan's work is to show that the process of "starving" 
 Britain would be, to say the least of it, a very slow and 
 difficult one. On the other hand, despite the changes 
 which have to be taken into account in the conditions of 
 both land and sea fighting, Captain Mahan has shown 
 more clearly than it had ever been shown before, that 
 the question of successful invasion was even then a 
 matter of only a very few days of local supremacy for an 
 enemy's fleet. What was necessary to it was not that the 
 supremacy of Britain on the seas should be permanently 
 destroyed, but that during a given period that supremacy 
 should not be able to assert itself at the right place. 1 
 
 It may be and it is quite true that had Napoleon 
 succeeded in landing his army upon our coast because 
 there was not sufficient naval force available to resist 
 him, he would still have been liable to find his retreat 
 cut off, and his communications with France severed by 
 the restored supremacy of the British Fleet. It is not 
 the less obvious that the importance of this fact would 
 depend upon the nature and degree of resistance which 
 his forces might meet with in Britain. If he could 
 so completely sweep away all opposition on land as 
 to dictate terms in London, he felt certain of securing 
 his own retreat. He would have been in no worse 
 a position in that matter than he found himself in, 
 in Egypt after the battle of the Nile. Despite the 
 loss of all his communications with France, he was 
 
 1 These views have been amplified with admirable force in 
 Mahan's Life of Nelson.
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND : 
 
 able to effect the capture of Cairo and the complete 
 conquc-t of Egypl itself. Ajb the conquesl of Egypt 
 produced qo vrery Berious pressure upon the Mistrese of 
 the Seas, his failure al Acre made the ultimate abandon- 
 ment of Egypt inevitable. Britain could at her Leisure 
 
 land forces in Egypt which would make the position of 
 the French army an impossible one. 
 
 It is, however, important to remember that it was 
 only in this indirect way that the command of the 
 enabled us even to turn the French out of Egypt. It 
 was the actual land - fighting at Acre and the success 
 of Sir Ralph Abercromby's expedition at Abukir that 
 enforced the withdrawal of the French army. Applying 
 the case to a possible success of Napoleon's in Britain, 
 all the circumstances are reversed — the pressure would 
 be applied directly to the mistress of the very fleet which 
 endangered his retreat. Had the fleet which threatened 
 Napoleon in Egypt been not British but Egyptian, 
 there can be little doubt that Napoleon would have been 
 able to enforce terms which, if they did not actually 
 involve the surrender of the fleet, would have certainly 
 enabled him to open up his own communications with 
 France. 
 
 There is a small school of naval writers who treat it 
 as an insult to our Navy to speak of it as our "first line 
 of defence," and scoff at the idea of there being any use 
 in maintaining our home army, more especially the 
 volunteers and militia. It has happily been repudiated 
 by our most distinguished sailors. No one could have 
 spoken out more strongly on the subject than Sir 
 Geoffrey Hornby did a few years before his death j 
 while Admiral Colomb, who has used expressions that
 
 58 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 made some of his friends fear that he had committed 
 himself to the views of the school in question, has with 
 equal emphasis repudiated them. It is only, therefore, 
 important to notice the matter in so far as any language 
 of this kind tends to weaken the confidence and zeal of 
 our volunteers, or to furnish a Government with excuses 
 for not supplying them with what is necessary to 
 efficiency. 
 
 The difference between Britain maintaining a force 
 at home adequate to resist such an army as could be 
 landed on her shores, and Britain denuded of all home 
 defence—trusting solely to her Navy for protection — is 
 admirably illustrated by the circumstance of Napoleon's 
 expedition to Egypt. If the land force at home were so 
 inadequate that the commander of a hostile army could 
 as completely subdue Britain as, despite the supremacy 
 of our fleet, Napoleon in fact subdued Egypt, the fleet 
 after its first failure to stop the invaders would avail us 
 nothing. If, on the other, hand, the invaders were met 
 by a firm and obstinate resistance, terrible as the losses 
 which would be inflicted upon Britain would be, the 
 fate of the invaders would sooner or later be certain, 
 unless the fleet had not only failed us in the hour of 
 invasion, but had permanently lost its supremacy even 
 within the narrow seas. While, therefore, no one can 
 exaggerate the importance, for the safety and the main- 
 tenance of the power and the wealth of Britain, of a 
 navy which shall at all times be supreme not only in 
 the narrow seas, but elsewhere, it would be madness to 
 ignore the necessity for an entirely independent system 
 of home defence. 
 
 Moreover, as I have often insisted elsewhere, there
 
 in AOAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND? 
 
 are avowedly circumstances in the present condition of 
 naval warfare which, without in the least tending to 
 shake confidence in our retaining our command of the 
 sea if we will make the efforts thai are necessary t" do 
 bo, do make il exceedingly doubtful whether the ablesl 
 admiral that we have could guarantee us 
 temporary disaster. All sorts of new mechanical I 
 have come into play since the great war, and no adequate 
 test of their effect has been supplied by recent war ex- 
 perience. I a few years ago publicly put the question 
 at Aldershot to two of our ablest sailors, whether they 
 either of them felt confidence or believed that any one 
 else, whose judgment could be depended upon, did, as to 
 the outcome of the next great naval engagement. Both 
 of them frankly avowed that the complications of the 
 problem were too great for any human foresight. We 
 practically know hardly at all whether the ram, the 
 torpedo, or the big gun are to be the deciding elements 
 of future warfare. Still less do we know what effect 
 high explosives are likely to produce in naval any more 
 than in land war. 
 
 It is said that our best authorities on the subject 
 believe that the difficulties of creating a permanent high 
 explosive have been overcome. That is an element in 
 our favour, the importance of which cannot be over- 
 rated. The question involved is so serious a one that, 
 though I have often mentioned it before, 1 do not think 
 thai I ought to omit a full statement for my pn 
 readers. 
 
 I Germany and France both attach so much importance 
 to the effects of high explosive shells thai they have 
 spent millions of money upon preparing both to use them
 
 60 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 and to resist them. Year by year they have continued 
 to store vast materials for the manufacture of these 
 terrible instruments of destruction. France, at all 
 events till lately, made up fresh every year sufficient 
 high explosive material for the loading of all the shells 
 that she will require for a land campaign. I believe 
 she does so still. Germany, in presence of the great 
 array of French fortifications which has been constructed 
 along her frontier, reckons upon the effect of high 
 explosive shells carried into the field for their demolition. 
 Naturally, on a subject which both Governments keep 
 as secret as they possibly can, one cannot always quote 
 the evidence on which one relies for such a statement 
 as this. I am obliged to say this because a certain 
 writer, who shall be nameless, an able man, but one of 
 the least courteous of controversialists, has poured scorn 
 on my words because I have not cited authority for all 
 that I have said. There are times when one can only 
 rely upon the presumption of one's friends that one is 
 not likely either to be a wilful liar or an extremely 
 careless sifter of evidence. I am as certain as I am of 
 my own existence that if I could quote my authorities 
 my critic would change his tune. 
 
 There is at all events one evidence of the importance 
 which the German Government attaches to the matter 
 which there has been no attempt to conceal. Under 
 the eyes of any one who has chosen to see it, under my 
 eyes amongst others, they have been piling, around the 
 forts at Metz for instance, at an expenditure which 
 must have been enormous, debris and materials, into the 
 details of which I need not enter, but so designed as to 
 afford protection against the new shells. Those who
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND? SI 
 
 arc willing to believe thai an economical Government 
 like that of Germany throws away money in this sort of 
 way, without the most careful preliminary inquiry as 
 to its necessity, arc people with whom it is quite useless 
 to argue. 
 
 It is said thai we have been carrying oul a Beries of 
 experiments with high explosives, and that .several years 
 ago we ascertained the fact that one of them, as effective 
 as the rest, would resist the eilects of time and change 
 of climate. What is certain is, thai very many years 
 ago the question in France and Germany passed out of 
 i he stage of experiment and entered into that of practical 
 preparation for war. What is equally certain is, that 
 in a matter in which the preparation for practical use 
 must take many years, we have not advanced one step 
 beyond the experimental stage. 
 
 I have never been able to understand how it has 
 been that, since many years ago Lord Charles Beresford 
 raised this question in the House of Commons, no atten- 
 tion has there been ever directed to the matter. 1 can 
 only suppose that the success with which at that time 
 Mr. Stanhope took what is called "a debating advantage" 
 of Lord Charles Beresford has alarmed other members. 
 
 Unfortunately the question of high explosives is one 
 like that of the breechloading rifle at the time of the 
 1 >anish War of 1864. Anybody who chose to investigate 
 t he matter knew in 1864 everything that afterwards 
 staggered Europe in 1866. It was supposed to be a 
 "technical question," therefore it did nut interest the 
 llmise of Commons. Trusting to the indifference "I 
 members, and their readiness to laugh at anybody who 
 talked about what members did not understand, any
 
 62 NATIONAL DEFENCES ciiai-. 
 
 Minister could have raised a laugh in 1864 against the 
 man who was such a fool as to suppose that the insigni- 
 ficant little state of Prussia had adopted an invention 
 which two years later would make her supreme in 
 Europe. Yet two years later exaggerated panic suc- 
 ceeded to indifference. Europe felt itself to he unarmed 
 in presence of Prussia. 
 
 Similarly when Lord Charles Beresford asked that a 
 proposed Commission to inquire into the nature of our 
 national defences should investigate the effect upon 
 them which had been produced by the invention of high 
 explosives, it was very easy to raise a laugh against 
 him. Mr. Stanhope triumphantly inquired whether 
 Lord Charles Beresford's reference to " high explosives " 
 did not show the utter absurdity of the whole idea of 
 referring such questions to a Commission. If the Com- 
 mission were to inquire into all sorts of little technical 
 matters like that, what prospect was there of its ever 
 coming to an end'! Of course in a House quite 
 unfamiliar with the question, Mr. Stanhope's retort 
 settled the matter. To any one who understood at all 
 what Lord Charles Beresford was speaking of, it was 
 abundantly clear that he was right and Mr. Stanhope 
 utterly wrong. 
 
 At that time the point that had been raised was this : 
 Lord Wolseley and other soldiers had declared that it 
 was impossible for them to be in any way responsible 
 for the safety of London without knowing to what 
 extent they were to depend upon the Navy for making 
 the passage of a hostile army impossible, or for reducing 
 its numbers within moderate limits. An universal 
 feeling had been excited that some steps must be taken
 
 in A.GAINST WHAT II.W E UK TO DEF1 
 
 to deal with the question of National Defence asa w] 
 Lest between the two stools of the War Office and the 
 Admiralty the country itself should fall to the ground. 
 It was under these circumstances thai Lord Charles 
 Beresford asked that in any such investigation tin- ques- 
 tion of "high explosives" should be taken into account 
 Now in the then condition of our knowledge in re- 
 gard to these shells, the situation was just this : France 
 was already engaged in those vast accumulations of 
 material for high explosives of which I have spoken. 
 As I have the strongest reasons for believing — reasons 
 which it is exceedingly unlikely that many others in 
 England know she had conducted secrel experimenl 
 which had convinced the authorities in that country 
 that guns that could be employed in the field were by 
 means of these shells capahle of destroying all forms of 
 permanent fortification uol specially prepared to i 
 them. She has four great factories for the manufacture 
 of the material. There appears to be no reason to 
 doubt that she could as easily till shells for naval 
 purposes as for land work. Now when at Aldershol 
 1 put publicly to the most distinguished of our admirals 1 
 the question, whether he thought it would be possible 
 for a fleet wdiich possessed no shells filled with high 
 explosives to meet another which had a large supply of 
 them, his answer to me was, that of course when war 
 came we must at all risk- put the high explosive shells 
 on board: that is to say, that we were at the time oi 
 Lord Charles Beresford's question, and are now, in this 
 position, that we have uot ventured past the experi- 
 mental stage in reference to these explosives at all ; 
 1 Sir Geoffrey Hornby.
 
 64 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 that none of our sailors have had any training in 
 handling them ; and that so serious is the question that 
 we should at the last moment have to make an experi- 
 ment under the dire circumstances of war, in a matter 
 on which those to whom we should be opposed had 
 already reached the stage of large practice. 
 
 Furthermore, at that time at all events, our position 
 represented this exceptional danger. France at least 
 looked upon the question of the creation of a permanent 
 high explosive as an insoluble one, and therefore 
 met the difficulty by the continual creation of new 
 material and the fresh storage of shells. We, being 
 obliged to draw in our ships for any great naval en- 
 gagement from distant parts of the world, could only 
 have on board them, unless after long delay, shells 
 which if filled with high explosives would have been 
 liable to all that danger of deterioration which France 
 took such pains to avoid. 
 
 The question therefore demanded investigation in 
 this sense, that if the evidence we had on the subject 
 were true, then we might well wake up some fine morn- 
 ing to find that it had settled for us all that matter of 
 national defence which any Commission of inquiry could 
 investigate. Our Fleet might easily find itself in 
 presence of one which, by no fault of our sailors or 
 officers, it was unable to meet. 
 
 In the nature of things it is not possible that there 
 should be any other subject which could be submitted 
 to a Commission so important as this then was. If it 
 were omitted from the inquiry, the investigation was 
 not worth making. Yet by pooh-poohing the dis- 
 tinguished sailor who raised the inquiry in the House
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 
 
 of Commons, by trusting to the complete ignorance on 
 the subject of the Bouse itself, Mr. Stanhope was ahle 
 tn treat this as a sample of the ridiculous little details 
 with which a Commission would have to deal if it 
 attempted what Lord CharL Beresford proposed. A 
 more terrible example of what taking a "debating 
 advantage" in the House of Commons means camn 
 conceived. It means solely, playing upon the ignorance 
 of members to induce them to vote with you upon 
 what may haply turn out to be the ruin of the country. 
 If it be true that our own chemists have succeeded in 
 creating an explosive which is not liable to injury 
 either by jolting about in a waggon or by lapse of time, 
 certainly one great disadvantage of the situation has 
 been removed for us. If we are able to store adequate 
 material to have the shells available for issue, and to 
 practise our soldiers and sailors with them, the diffi- 
 culty involved in the extent of our vast Empire, and 
 the consequent long voyages of our ships, need not 
 trouble us. But at the present moment we are prac- 
 tically in as bad a position as ever, so far as the 
 military use of these terrible new engines of war is 
 concerned. If we have realised their importance, we 
 are like those Athenians who knew what was right, but 
 did not like doing it. If, on the other hand, we arc 
 trusting, in the teeth of all the experiments thai have 
 been conducted on the Continent, to the results we 
 have obtained at Lydd, then it is necessary to remark 
 that those who have travelled through every country in 
 Europe, to the several experimental grounds of the 
 Great Powers, declare that the investigations which we 
 make on any subject of the kind are so insignificant as 
 
 F
 
 66 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 compared with those made by others, that they scarcely 
 deserve to be reckoned at all. The wealthiest country 
 in Europe, we skimp the money that is allowed for 
 experiment to an extent that makes it only an insignifi- 
 cant fraction of what is allowed by such countries as 
 Austria and Russia. When, therefore, an able man like 
 Sir George Clarke quotes as decisive on this subject 
 "experiments at Lydd," "though it make the unwary 
 laugh, it cannot but make the judicious grieve." Till 
 this question is more satisfactorily settled than it is, we 
 certainly must include among the dangers against which 
 we have to defend ourselves — a possible invasion of 
 Britain. 
 
 Even if this particular danger be warded off, it 
 illustrates very forcibly the present uncertainties of 
 naval warfare, and the fact that we do not know what 
 changes may arise as a consequence of the progress of 
 invention. 
 
 In regard to invasion generally, perhaps the most 
 permanent risk that we run may be most happily 
 expressed in these only too true words of George Eliot's : 
 "The sense of security more frequently springs from 
 habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often 
 subsists after such a change in the conditions as might 
 have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of 
 time during which a given event has not happened, is, 
 in the logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why 
 the event should never happen, even when the lapse of 
 time is precisely the added condition which makes the 
 event imminent." 
 
 To men who, like myself, have had to go on isolated 
 military duty in different parts of the country, these words
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 
 
 come home with a force thai ia partly comic, and partly 
 pathetic. It is tolerably obvious that if thi en a 
 
 possibility of such a temporary failure of the protection 
 of our ilert, as Beems at least to be indicated by the 
 conditions which I have explained, then it is only a 
 matter of common prudence that we Boldiers should 
 sometimes consider what the circumstances of actual 
 fighting in this country would be It does not seem to 
 be an exaggerated precaution that we should examine 
 the positions of greatest advantage for our own army, 
 and should endeavour to obtain such information as 
 would be useful in the event of war at home. As a 
 matter of fact this is, of course, systematically done. 
 The conversations that one is not unfrequently involved 
 in in the course of doing it, with local residents, arc 
 wry suggestive. George Eliot's words might be taken 
 as the text of most of these. 
 
 To not a few isolated spinsters and other nervous 
 persons, the mere fact of soldiers considering the ques- 
 tion of home defence at all causes so much alarm and 
 anxiety, that they have to put away from them the 
 unpleasant idea with some such sentence as, "Oh, of 
 course I know it's only makedjclieve ; it never would 
 really happen," and so on. And yet it may be doubted 
 if those good folks realise at all that the question, 
 whether "it" ever really will happen, depends almost 
 entirely on the success of their navy, and that again on 
 a House of Commons which laughs at high explosives, 
 just as Belinda laughs at Hell. 
 
 I say "almost entirely," for there is another element 
 in that question as to which it is well to put on record a 
 few plain facts. If a Channel tunnel should ever be
 
 68 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 constructed between us and France, it would be highly 
 possible that the Navy might have very little to say to 
 the defence of these islands. In fact, comically enough, 
 one of the few distinguished sailors whom Sir Edward 
 Watkin used to quote on his own side of the question 
 once put the matter boldly : " The Navy has defended 
 the country for a great many centuries. It is about 
 time that the Army should take its turn." Now, the 
 Army might, from a professional point of view, be glad 
 enough to undertake that operation, if, like other armies 
 which are charged with the duty of saving their homes 
 from invasion, its force was made adequate for the 
 purpose. It would be an expensive amusement for the 
 country to make it so for the sake of getting a few cheap 
 eggs from the Continent, and saving a little sea-sickness ; 
 but Sir William Hewett was no doubt right that it will 
 become necessary. For, from the moment that the 
 tunnel is made, the security of the country from invasion 
 will no longer depend upon those " inviolate seas " which 
 have hitherto guarded her, but upon a fortress designed 
 to protect the mouth of the tunnel, and to cover the 
 means for its rapid destruction. It is not easy to quote 
 the case of any first-class fortress so happily placed that, 
 where there has been any exceptional motive for its 
 surprise, it has not at some time or other been captured, 
 no matter how perfect the arrangements for its defence 
 have been. Many of the very strongest fortifications in 
 the world have been suddenly seized without any warn- 
 ing having been given to the country to which they 
 belonged. In most of these cases the fortress was 
 placed on a site exceptionally favourable for natural 
 defence. Any fortress established at Dover must have
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 
 
 its position chosen, nol becau e il is exceptionally favour 
 able for the erection of such ;t work, but bi musl 
 
 l»e close to the point of danger. 
 
 All the different methods that have been devised for 
 retaining in our hands the possibility of destroying the 
 Channel 'runnel at a moment's notice ultimately depend 
 upon the constant maintenance, year after year, of in- 
 cessant human vigilance. With the greatest prize in the 
 world perpetually offered to the men who should at any 
 moment succeed in overcoming that vigilance, the strain 
 would be indeed severe. The chances that sooner or 
 later the skill of the assailant would outwit some less 
 careful guardian are almost indefinitely strong. 
 
 To any one unaccustomed to the history of sieges and 
 the surprises that have taken place in Avar, or for that 
 matter during peace time, every ordinary fortress seems 
 to present a combination for defence so formidable 
 that it is scarcely intelligible how it could ever be 
 captured. It will, perhaps, at all events be believed, by 
 most of those who discuss the cpuestion, that a country 
 so warlike as France is not likely to have omitted any 
 possible precaution in the construction of fortresses for 
 the defence of her land frontier, on which she has ex- 
 pended within the last twenty years untold millions of 
 money. Yet "with every precaution that she has been 
 able to devise, no French soldier of eminence ventures 
 to trust to that costly series of fortifications for the ulti- 
 mate defence of France. That defence depends on an 
 army, within whose ranks every full-grown man in the 
 Republic as he arrives at maturity is enrolled. With 
 an army constantly maintained in such a condition of 
 efficiency that it would be complete in all its parts and
 
 70 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 all its armaments, and have enrolled numbers propor 
 tionate to the whole virile population of France, the vast 
 fortifications which cover the frontier are intended only 
 to serve as a means of gaining time and facilitating 
 operations. 
 
 What hope, then, is there that, in selecting for artificial 
 fortification a spot to which we are tied by considerations 
 altogether independent of those which tend to make any 
 particular site peculiarly difficult to attack, we shall be 
 able to obtain even such security from it as France has 
 from any one of those fortifications on which she has no 
 dream of relying as her great defence. To obtain even 
 such security as France now possesses we should have to 
 establish the same conditions as exist in France. We 
 should require an army based on a principle of universal 
 enlistment such as she has. Even then we should not 
 be in the same position of safety that we are now, or in 
 anything approaching to it. The soil of France has been 
 again and again successfully invaded during the many 
 years in which our seas have been really "inviolate." 
 The soil of Britain presents, as long as her surrounding 
 seas are not pierced, difficulties to invasion such as exist 
 for no other great country in the world. 
 
 The want of seriousness with which the question is 
 discussed cannot be better illustrated than by Sir Wilfrid 
 Lawson's silly, if not criminal, joke, " Why should not 
 we invade France 1 " Invade France ! We who main- 
 tain in Britain only a depot army for India ! We who 
 are the only country in Europe the citizens of which 
 make no personal sacrifices for military strength and 
 military security ! 
 
 The °;reat danger to us of a Channel tunnel is that
 
 m AGAINST WHAT SAVE WE TO DEFEND 71 
 
 if mire our end of it uviv seized, as unquestionably it 
 mighl be, whatever securities we take, by surprise, and 
 
 ome of the commonest ruses known to war, thai then 
 through the tunnel might pom- troops as fast as trains 
 could carry them, Any numbers that were necee 
 out of the whole vast army of France mighl be passed 
 in perfect security to deal with the little force which we 
 keep up for purposes altogether other than those for 
 which the French army is maintained. No army could 
 have behind it a more secure line of communication with 
 it- own country. The German army advancing upon 
 Paris was liable to be assailed along the whole line on 
 which its supplies of food and munitions of war were 
 travelling. The French army would have, at all events 
 a- far as Dover, the means of passing whatever fresh 
 troops or supplies it required, without an) - chance of 
 their being touched in any way. 
 
 The madness that is involved in the proposal to 
 introduce into our peaceful country such an element of 
 danger is such that one hardly knows how to meet it as 
 if it were seriously made. In all future discussions I 
 purpose to assume that we have not to deal with this risk. 
 I shall assume that, at all events, any army engage* 1 in 
 invading Britain has first to effect a landing on her 
 shores, with liability, though no certainty, that it may 
 have its attempt interrupted by our fleet, and, if it has 
 effected a landing, that it may have its retreat cut oil'. 
 
 As I am only engaged in this chapter in considering 
 the different possible modes of attack upon the country, 
 I pass on now to the dangers which threaten other parts 
 of the Empire. 
 
 Among these the first place is necessarily taken by
 
 72 NATIONAL DEFENCES ohai\ 
 
 India. That subject has recently been elaborately dis- 
 cussed in the volume by Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. 
 Spenser Wilkinson, of which a new edition reaches me 
 as these Avords go to press. It has the defect I ventured 
 to point out in regard to the earlier edition, that it 
 ignores the evidence supplied by Sir A. Haliburton's 
 report. No discussion in regard to our present system 
 can be of much value which does not deal with that 
 evidence. I purpose here to set forth certain general 
 principles which seem to me necessary to be taken into 
 account before their very valuable statement of the con- 
 dition of the frontier of the Indian Empire can be treated 
 as a practical estimate of our right course in war. 
 
 That it is from Russia that we are there liable to 
 attack, just as at home it is from France only that 
 we have any serious reason to anticipate any possible 
 attempt at invasion, scarcely needs to be said. To me 
 it seems now, as it has seemed for years, that what we 
 have to dread from Russia is not so much an immediate 
 invasion of India, as the fact that she is still so remote 
 from India, for purposes of effective action on our part, 
 that she is able continually to make advances which 
 tend very much to increase for her the facilities of ulti- 
 mate invasion of India, while it is exceedingly difficult 
 for us to interfere with them. 
 
 If, for instance, Russia were to choose to seize some 
 of the provinces of Afghanistan beyond the Hindoo 
 Koosh, or Avere to make up her mind to occupy Herat, 
 it is practically certain that she could do one or the 
 other under the present condition of things before we 
 could interfere with her. Suppose that she did either 
 one or the other, and remained, Avithout further
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEI END 7 
 
 aggression, in tranquil po ession of them, we hould 
 be, under presenl circumstances, placed in a po ition of 
 the very greatest difficulty. 
 
 We have given such pledges to the Ameer thai we 
 could not, without violation of the honour of our 
 Government, refuse to assist the Ameer if he called 
 upon us to aid him in recovering them. In a mili- 
 tary sense that would involve us in a campaign, not 
 only in itself arduous, hut such that we should put 
 ourselves at a great disadvantage as compared with 
 Russia. The march of our troops, all reinforcements 
 for them, their connection with India, and the supplies 
 of food and ammunition that they would require, must 
 run through most difficult country, in which a few hostile 
 trihes acting against them might place us in an awkward 
 position, if not in imminent danger. The mere fact 
 that we entered as allies of the Ameer would not at all 
 secure us against the predatory instincts of banditti 
 nominally under his rule. Any disaster, almost any 
 rumour of disaster, that happened to our troops, in the 
 distant province which we should have to enter in 
 order to fulfil our pledges, would certainly cause the 
 most fierce attacks upon our lines of communication, 
 and make the efficient maintenance of the force at the 
 front a task extraordinarily hard. 
 
 Nor can I see what security we should have, even 
 after we had expelled the Russians, that as soon as we 
 went home again they would not immediately re-enter 
 into possession. The occupation of Cabul and Candahar, 
 which is talked of as the necessary consequence of any 
 such action on the part of Russia, woidd surely not 
 satisfy the Ameer as a fulfilment of our pledge to
 
 74 NATIONAL DEFENCES chat. 
 
 defend his territory whether beyond the Hindoo Koosh 
 or otherwise. 
 
 Yet the alternative is a most difficult one. If we 
 violate our pledges to the Ameer, not only shall we 
 make him a, tool in the hands of Russia, but we shall 
 shake all confidence in our word throughout the East. 
 We shall manifestly have promised to do that which we 
 were not able to do, and have recoiled because of sheer 
 impotence. Furthermore, though perhaps our interest 
 in the territory beyond the Hindoo Koosh is small, on 
 any other ground than that of our pledge to the Ameer, 
 our interest in Herat is very large. In its present 
 condition Herat is probably of little importance to any- 
 body. Developed as it might easily be, and almost 
 certainly would be, for military purposes under Russian 
 rule, it would become, what it always used to be in 
 former ages, the gate of India. 
 
 The practical meaning of that figurative phrase is 
 easily explained. The first necessity that has to be 
 secured for Russian action anywhere, but more especially 
 on the confines of India and throughout Asia, is facility of 
 movement and of transport. It is obviously not enough 
 that there should be, somewhere or other, under the 
 command of the Czar untold millions of soldiers. In 
 order that they may effect anything on the confines of 
 India, those that are to fight must be near enough to 
 shoot, and have with them both the means of shooting 
 and the means of living. At very great sacrifice the 
 Russians have carried their railway from the Caspian 
 along the northern frontiers of Persia and of Afghanistan. 
 But the railway is necessarily one along which the 
 transport is slow, and it offers no facilities for the further
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND1 7:. 
 
 movement across Afghanistan upon tndia. It Heral 
 were in the hands of Russia and its military resources 
 fully developed, mosl of the implements of warfare 
 could be constructed within the province itself. Large 
 supplies of food also for an army could be grown there, 
 and in the settled province large stores also of such 
 things as an army would require, such as could not be 
 procured in the place, could be gradually accumulated 
 When the process was complete, the change in the 
 situation would in fact be that a Russian army would 
 have to advance either upon Afghanistan, or upon India, 
 from Herat, and woidd draw all its supplies from it. 
 All the difficulties of the long transport across the 
 Caspian by the narrow-gauge railway, and thence over 
 the roads where there is at present no railway, would 
 be overcome. The position of advantage in which 
 Russia would stand under these circumstances, must, I 
 think, be intelligible to any one even if he has very little 
 considered the nature of military operations. 
 
 To sum up, therefore, the case, as it appears to me, 
 stands thus. Supposing that Russia carries on con- 
 sistently the policy that she has been following for years, 
 she, being nearer both to Herat and the provinces north 
 of the Hindoo Koosh than we are, can occupy them 
 whenever she is not afraid of a general war with us. 
 We could only turn her out of them at very great cost, 
 with very great difficulty, and with very great risk. To 
 me, therefore, it seems, as it has always seemed, that our 
 true policy is to prevent her from making this attack 
 upon us by taking advantage of the general political 
 situation of Europe. How that can best be done, it will 
 be the object of a future chapter to show. My present
 
 76 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 purpose is to indicate the fact that the form of attack 
 which we have most to dread from Russia on our Indian 
 frontier is not an immediate invasion of our Indian 
 provinces, hut such a gradual advance into positions 
 of future advantage for her, as it will be exceedingly 
 difficult for us to stop by direct action in India. 
 
 In two other quarters, other than in Afghanistan, 
 there is menace of this danger. The recent advance of 
 Russia into the Pamirs has attracted much attention ; 
 her stealthy inroads upon Persia comparatively little. 
 Nevertheless, I am myself inclined to think that the 
 Persian question is much the more serious of the two. 
 A few years ago, when Baker Pasha and Sir Charles 
 MacGregor visited the northern frontier of Persia, it 
 was still possible to make a serious impression from that 
 side upon the line of communication of Russia between 
 Merve and the Caspian. 
 
 But Russia has been steadily guarding herself against 
 that danger, and, taking advantage of the feebleness of 
 Persia, has established herself in such a way that 
 practically the opportunity for us is closed. We now, 
 at Chitral, watch the approach from the Pamirs, and on 
 that side, considering the nature of the region, do not 
 seem to have much to fear. 
 
 Our various Colonies are most of them exposed to 
 certain risks of their own. A few years ago Russia had 
 designed an attack upon the Australian Colonies from 
 her Pacific harbour of Vladivostock. It was intended 
 that a fleet should sail upon the then open towns of 
 Australia, harass them, and exact fines from them. 
 The wisest advisers of the Colonies have of late years 
 been anxious to restrain them from expending too much
 
 in A.GAINST WHAT SAVE WE TO DEFEND] 
 
 money upon defensive works. The defence of a - 
 island like Australia must depend primarily upon the 
 efficiency of the fleet, and secondly upon the careful 
 organisation of the defensive forces on land. For a 
 time the effect of the certainty of Russia's intention was 
 to infuse such a vigour into the system of Ajistralian 
 defence that all danger of any such attempt seemed to 
 have passed away. But there is always risk lest a 
 democratic community shall go to sleep as soon as the 
 immediate alarm has passed, and wake when it is too 
 late. 1 
 
 There is a special form of attack which may lie 
 directed against those possessions of England hcyond 
 seas, which arc, to say the least, less important as 
 colonies than as outlying posts for the protection of 
 the commerce of the mother-country, and of the Empire 
 at large. This expression applies more particularly to 
 our fortified coaling-stations. These have now so far 
 advanced that it is to he hoped that hefore we are 
 involved in war they will he completed, armed, and 
 garrisoned so far as to fulfil the purpose for which they 
 were intended. That purpose will he understood when 
 I have explained the form of attack which a few years 
 ago we had to dread. It was one directed expressly 
 against the supplies of coal on which alike our fleet and 
 our commerce depend for possibility of movement. 
 
 1 I must draw attention to a volume on tin; Federal I 
 Australasia, by George Cathcart Craig ("William Clowes and 
 1897). It reaches me too late for notice here, bul it admirably 
 Bhowa that there are Australians who are determined that our great 
 Australasian colonies shall not sleep tranquilly in imaginary 
 security, or foolishly dream that separation from Britain would 
 make tliein safer or freer.
 
 78 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 The fear which was felt by those who looked into the 
 circumstances of any future naval warfare, was lest an 
 enemy's cruiser might go into one of our unarmed coal- 
 ing-stations, fill up her bunkers with coal, and, after 
 setting fire to the remaining store in the place, proceed 
 at her leisure to destroy commerce, having protected 
 herself from pursuit by the destruction of the coal. She 
 might then repeat the same operation at one coaling- 
 station after another. Admiral Colomb has devoted 
 much labour and skill to the demonstration of the fact 
 that the elaborate fortification of harbours is a wasteful 
 expenditure. He has shown that the cpiestion of supre- 
 macy at sea must necessarily be determined, not by land 
 fortifications, but by naval superiority. These views 
 have so far ruled in the construction of our coaling- 
 station defences, that no attempt has been made to 
 make them strong enough to resist the attack of a 
 formidable fleet. No one more fully than Admiral 
 Colomb himself recognises the importance of those steps 
 that we have actually taken to secure our supply of 
 coal from the attack of ubiquitous cruisers. 
 
 The subject gained additional interest by the publica- 
 tion in Eussia, some years since, of the little brochure, 
 Russia's Hope, which was based upon this very idea, 
 evidently stolen from some of our English authors, 
 probably from my friend Colonel Home, at the time 
 when, many years ago, he and others 1 were pressing 
 for the defence of the coaling-stations. Russia's Hope 
 
 1 Ultimately most vigorously of all Mr. W. H. Smith and Lord 
 Carnarvon. See the excellent collection of Lord Carnarvon's speeches 
 and letters on the subject, recently edited by Sir George Clarke, 
 The Defence of the Empire (John Murray, 1897).
 
 in AGAINST WHAT SAVE WE TO DEFEND? 7'.' 
 
 would nowadays find that form of attack Bomewhal 
 difficult. No protection that we have been able to 
 devise, either in the pasl or the present, unless and 
 until the whole of our enemy's fleets are securely locked 
 up in their own harbours, can prevent an occasionally 
 successful attack by a fleet escorting a land force againsl 
 some isolated port Ultimately, however, the fate ol 
 any of these will depend upon victory at sea. Beyond 
 their local import ami' Buch attacks would have very 
 little effect upon the general security of our commerce, 
 except in so far as by the capture of one of our coaling- 
 stations they broke some one of the great lines of these 
 which have now been regularly laid out along the 
 several courses of the great streams of our commerce 
 at regulated intervals. Thus along the line to the 
 Cape we have St. Helena and Sierra Leone, thence to 
 India, Durban, Mauritius, Colombo, and our other lines 
 are similarly laid out. 
 
 The capture of any one of these stations would, of 
 course, interrupt for the time the regular coaling of our 
 ships. That, therefore, is another of the forms of 
 attack against which we have to be prepared. 
 
 It is unfortunately the case that there arc various 
 stations very necessary for the security of our trade 
 where we are liable to attack from a different enemy, 
 namely, malaria. It is always a question whether we 
 ought not to provide against it, even at some sacrifice of 
 our preparedness against a human foe. It is on this 
 account that there have, till recently, been among our 
 troops at home certain detachments which air noted as 
 belonging to the proper garrison of certain unhealthy 
 stations like Sierra Leone; for the momenl of the
 
 80 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 outbreak of war these stations would have been left to 
 the guardianship of the fleet. As soon as possible their 
 proper garrisons were to have been sent out to them. 
 As, however, the Admiralty might find it very diffi- 
 cult to secure due protection on the outbreak of war, it 
 has recently been decided to have complete garrisons 
 everywhere. 
 
 Similarly St. Lucia is an island of which the import- 
 ance, from its excellent harbour and convenient situation, 
 makes it most desirable to have as a defended coaling- 
 station ; yet it was considered too unhealthy for a 
 permanent garrison to be maintained at its full strength. 
 A large portion of its garrison was therefore to be 
 sent from Barbados when the emergency arose. This, 
 however, has now been changed, and, with such sanitary 
 precautions as are possible, a garrison is now to be kept 
 at St. Lucia. 
 
 So far as Canada is concerned, apart from any 
 calamity so terrible as that of a war with our cousins 
 in the States, there is always some danger during time 
 of war of filibustering attempts being made from the 
 United States against various points, and especially 
 against the long line of the Canadian Kailway. Sir 
 Charles Dilke, who has studied all such matters very 
 carefully, attaches very great importance to these. 
 Personally, I cannot say that any experience we have 
 had of them in the past leaves that impression upon me. 
 I could, if I pleased, which I certainly do not propose to 
 do, name what I have always considered a weak point 
 in our defensive arrangements on the American Con- 
 tinent. There is a point where a well-handled body 
 of filibusters might achieve a rather startling success.
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 
 
 Bui I do not think that, as long as the American 
 Government proves as loyal as it has hitherto done in 
 such matters, and as long as Fenian filibusters ha 
 little power of keeping a secret, or of acting loyally 
 towards one another, as they haw hitherto shown, there 
 ay serious danger for us of this kind. Canadian 
 statesmen, who necessarily have had to look into the 
 matter more closely than Sir Charles Dilke, have the 
 most complete confidence in the security for all practical 
 purposes of the great trans-continental line. 
 
 Though, in order to make myself intelligible, it has 
 been necessary occasionally to allude, especially in 
 regard to minor matters which need only brief treat- 
 ment, to some points in the nature of the defence which 
 we should have to adopt against certain possible forms 
 of attack, my object in this chapter has been to 
 consider the form of the various attacks which may 
 be directed against the nation in different parts of the 
 world. They may he enumerated thus : — 
 
 First of all, attacks upon our commerce by means of 
 cruisers or fleets. 
 
 Secondly, an attempt to wrest from us the command 
 of the sea, either permanently or temporarily. 
 
 Third, attacks upon open towns along our sea-hoard. 
 
 Fourth, attempted invasion either of this island or of 
 Ireland by sea. 
 
 Fifth, if a ( !hannel tunnel should ever be constructed, 
 an attempt to seize, by surprise or otherwise, the means 
 prepared for its destruction and the fortress which 
 guards them. 
 
 Sixth, aggressive movements of Russia, preparatory 
 to attack upon India itself. 
 
 <;
 
 82 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 Seventh, the actual attempt of Russia to invade India. 
 
 Eighth, attempts upon our Colonies other than coaling- 
 stations. 
 
 Ninth, attempts upon our coaling-stations in the form 
 of a cruiser attack upon the coal without any attempt 
 to seize the station itself. 
 
 Tenth, attack hy a serious force on a coaling-station 
 with a view to occupy it either permanently or during 
 the period of the war. 
 
 Eleventh, a mere predatory raid, such as that intended 
 by Russia from Vladivostock, upon Australia. 
 
 Twelfth, filibustering raids from America upon 
 Canada. 
 
 In addition to all of these forms of attack, which 
 relate to the possible action of hostile European Powers, 
 there is that which, in its practical effect in necessitating 
 preparation and expenditure, exceeds them all — the 
 danger, on the outlying frontiers of our Empire, of 
 hostile incursions by neighbouring tribes. It constantly 
 happens that British people assume that whenever an 
 Ashantee King or a Zanzibar Sultan defies the power of 
 the British Empire the thing is so absurd that it must 
 be the fault of our own people that he does not yield to 
 reason. They do not realise how one of these chiefs, 
 surrounded by flatterers as ignorant as himself, really 
 believes all the titles that are bestowed on him, as King 
 of Kings, Lord of the Universe, and the like, and has 
 not the slightest means of estimating his own feebleness. 
 Therefore, also, as war and not peace is for him and his 
 people the natural condition, he habitually assumes an 
 attitude of aggression, which is encouraged by the fact 
 that every one who has to carry on negotiations for
 
 in AGAINST WHAT HAVE WE TO DEFEND 83 
 
 Britain in any matter as to which the British people 
 have nut become excited and eagei wants before all 
 
 things bo avoid doing anything that can i mil the 
 
 nation to war. Constantly, in this way, a savage chief 
 is thus tempted, by his own aggressiveness and our 
 passivity, into jual overstepping the line of what it is 
 possible for as to tolerate. Then war comes, and half 
 Britain think- thai it is all our fault, and attributes 
 the cause to just the opposite of that to which a fair 
 b1 udy m[ the tacts leads. 
 
 All these possible forms of attack taken together, 
 provided our Fleet be supreme upon the seas, do not 
 represent a clanger as serious as that which menaces 
 Germany or Fiance; but they do represent a necessary 
 dispersion of force, dispersion of design in the nature 
 of the defence, a \ast number of independent Local 
 authorities in proportion to the number of men employed, 
 and a consequent costliness which cannot but appear 
 to compare unfavourably, no matter what schemes be 
 devised for it, with the larger, the simpler, the more 
 concentrated efforts of foreign countries. T am anxious 
 to emphasise this broad aspect of the case. I wish to 
 do so for this reason : I am convinced that it is a pure 
 and mere delusion, most costly, most mischievous in its 
 effects, to attempt to persuade the British public that 
 they can hold a world-wide empire, hold the commerce 
 of the seas, do it at a pro rata proportion of their wealth, 
 utterly insignificant as compared with that which any 
 European Power expends on guarding their own little 
 territory, and then allow themselves to be persuaded 
 that all the time they are being baml zled into a 
 
 wasteful and useless expenditure. I say that it is Oil
 
 84 NATIONAL DEFENCES , hap. 
 
 these broad lines that one may appeal to the common 
 sense of any rational man to judge for himself. 
 
 Sir Charles Dilke once said that directly the attempt 
 is made to go into detail it is extremely difficult for him, 
 or any non-military statesman, seeking for particular 
 items of wasteful expenditure, to answer the case made 
 for them by soldiers. He speaks, in the first instance, 
 as though it were the special interest of individual 
 soldiers to defend extravagance. The fact is that the 
 exact reverse is the case. If I, in any matter under my 
 own responsibility, could detect some means by which 
 the work could be done just a little cheaper than it 
 actually is done, I should be an imbecile of the first 
 water if I did not realise that in my own interest the 
 first thing I had to do was to point this out. So deeply 
 is this impressed on the minds of soldiers that I can- 
 not remember ever to have seen a scheme of reform 
 suggested by a soldier in which it was not proved, to 
 the satisfaction of the writer at all events, that his 
 proposals would lead to some, at least, trifling reduc- 
 tion of expenditure. The soldier in Britain who does 
 not realise that the easiest way to secure his personal 
 advancement is not to make £10,000 produce twice the 
 effective work that it has done before, but to show that 
 the same appearance of efficiency may be kept up for 
 £9999 : 19 : llf, simply does not understand British 
 finance. Soldiers may be great fools, but they are not 
 quite so blind as all that. 
 
 To put money in his own pocket by securing posi- 
 tions of much greater importance than he at the time 
 holds, this method of seeking out some apparent 
 economy might be commended to any soldier in a suffi- 

 
 in AGAIN8T WHAT SAVE WE TO DEFEND! 
 
 cienl position to practise it. It needs not to be o 
 commended. It is thoroughly understood, and much 
 practised. 
 
 There is an even better method, which has stood 
 some men in excellent stead. It consists in proving 
 excellent military grounds, that f< >r the sake of efficiency 
 it is highly necessary to carry out some petty military 
 economy. By Buch methods the individual gains both 
 in credit and pocket. It is the nation only that Buffers. 
 
 The officer, therefore, who points out, on grounds 
 that all men can understand, that it is not advisable to 
 be perpetually recasting your whole system because it 
 can hi' .shown that Germany or that France is able, Foi 
 the same sum of money that we expend, to turn out an 
 incomparably larger body of men than we do— ought not 
 to have his argument suspected or rejected on prima 
 facie grounds, because from his position he is necessarily 
 suspected. The balance of presumption is altogether 
 the other way. 
 
 It is not in this chapter that I can fully state the 
 conclusions to which these remarks lead ; hut, in making 
 out a statement of the variety of the attacks to which 
 the world wide extent of our empire on sea and land 
 lays us open, it seems well to draw attention at once to 
 the broad presumption to which they lead. It is in no 
 wise my intention to contend in this chapter that our 
 system admits of no improvement, and that no waste 
 occurs. For many reasons much waste occurs, and 
 oughl to he remedied; hut the comparison often made 
 with the armies of foreign Powers Is an alto-ether fal- 
 lacious one, and tends not to economy, hut to mischief.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE? — OUR PRESENT 
 SYSTEM AND METHOD OF RECRUITMENT, ETC. 
 
 The first broad contrast that strikes all foreign nations 
 between the nature of defensive measures in Britain and 
 those that any of them adopt, is the fact that our Navy and 
 Army alike depend on a system of voluntary enlistment. 
 The one other great naval Power of Europe, France, 
 has a system by which she compulsorily utilises for her 
 navy the whole of her maritime population. Nor, it 
 must be admitted, have we ever carried out a great war 
 in which we have not adopted compulsory methods, of a 
 very rough and brutal kind, for filling our ships of war. 
 Whether, if we are ever engaged again in a life and 
 death struggle, the system of voluntary service would 
 adequately fill up the Navy it is impossible to say. 
 What is certain is, that we have no experience of a 
 successful attempt of the kind to guide us. It is a very 
 serious question for several reasons, first, because, accord- 
 ing to the view taken by many of our ablest sailors, our 
 merchant seamen are no longer adapted in any case to 
 become the supply for our ships of Avar, if we were ever 
 so drastically to take them, the conditions required on
 
 ohap. iv II«)W Do WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 1 
 
 a man-of-war being nowadays bo much more different 
 from those on a merchant ship than was the case in the 
 days of Nelson. Secondly, the numbers of our British 
 sailors of the mercantile marine have appallingly dimin 
 [shed. Admiral Sir Vesey Bamilton calculates 1 that 
 whereas in L873 we had 133,631 mercantile Bailors, in 
 1893 there were only 55,000, the remaining 170,000 being 
 foreigners of almost every nationality. Thus, for the 
 manning of the Navy in time of war, wc require not only 
 enough men to furnish crews for all the ships we com 
 mission, but a sufficient number to replace the men whom 
 in former wars we drew from the mercantile marine. 
 There is only one practically unlimited source of supply 
 — the hoys gathered on our various training ships. Any 
 one who is familiar with the working of such a splendid 
 charity as that which provides the JVwspiie, for instance, 
 cannot hut think that if the funds of that Society 
 could he multiplied twenty-fold, it would he one of the 
 in.. -i splendid forms which the memorial of our 
 Queen's reign could take. It would relieve our streets 
 of undisciplined young hears, and would turn them into 
 the most valuable servants of the country. They are 
 only keen to go. They thoroughly enjoy their life on 
 board, and improve under it in all respects amazingly, 
 physically as well as morally. Any millionaire who 
 would provide the funds for one ship, to be specially 
 called after him, would leave a memorial of himself, and 
 contribute a service alike to patriotism, philanthropy, and 
 national defence, such as hardly any other could equal. 
 
 The contrast, however, which the war condition of 
 Britain presents to that of foreign Powers lies also in 
 1 In an article in the United S<
 
 88 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 the circumstances under which their land forces and 
 ours are enrolled. On that subject it is necessary to 
 say a few words to explain a point which appears to 
 be curiously misunderstood by most British popular 
 writers. Conscription, as that term is understood by 
 them, is a thing of the past. The armies of the Continent 
 are no longer filled in the old sense of the term by the 
 unfortunate men who have drawn unlucky numbers in 
 a conscription. On the contrary, in France it is only 
 the physically unfit, or those who for some motive of 
 advantage to the State are exempt, who do not receive 
 a military training and are not liable to be called into 
 the army in time of war. This applies to all trades, 
 professions, classes, and orders in the State. 
 
 In Germany, from motives of economy, a certain pro- 
 portion of the men liable for service are at present not 
 actually taken into the ranks. They are, however, kept 
 as a reserve, always liable to be called upon. They 
 receive only a limited amount of training, unless they 
 are summoned to enter the army. This they may, 
 quite apart from any option of their own, be called 
 upon to do at any moment. 
 
 It is excessively difficult to bring home to Englishmen, 
 living under such entirely different conditions as they 
 do, the extent to which this system permeates all the 
 relations of life, and influences the whole question of 
 national defence in innumerable ways. The notion that 
 it only affects the Budget because of the difference of 
 pay between the British soldier, the Frenchman, or the 
 German, is the most complete delusion. 
 
 I have said elsewhere l that the whole situation can 
 1 In Hostilities without Declaration of War.
 
 i\ HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE? 89 
 
 hardly otherwise be summed up than by the statement 
 that Britain and America arc the only two great 
 countries in which, properly Bpeaking, peace "rei^ 
 Everywhere on the * 'ontinent, though peace is maintained, 
 
 it is war that reigns. All the conditions of life ai. 
 based on tin- assumption that the first business of a 
 country is to he read}- to defend itself, or rather to 
 maintain its armed forces in the most efficienl condition, 
 whether for offence or defence The individual subjeel 
 in' citizen of a state has not to he induced, by any 
 consideration for his comfort or convenience, to enter 
 the army. Therefore no expense need he incurred such 
 as, altogether apart from the question of pay, we have 
 of late years heen continually incurring for the inci 
 of the comfort of the soldier. 
 
 Among the most costly services that we have in the 
 British Army is the Medical Service in all its depart- 
 ments. We have to provide medical officers in a 
 country where the ahlest doctors can command almost 
 any fees that the)' please. We have to provide a 
 Veterinary Service in a country of wealthy horse 
 masters, where a good veterinary surgeon is a man who 
 has a highly profitable position. Neither Germany nor 
 France has to reckon upon any such expenditure as is 
 involved in competition with the professions. They 
 simply call to the ranks of the army in war time enough 
 of the ahlest medical men and veterinary surgeons in 
 the country, who are very glad to he employed upon 
 their own proper work, anil not upon the duties of the 
 private soldier. 
 
 The continual pressure of philanthropists and of 
 Members of Parliament, zealous for the good of the
 
 90 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 private soldier, in various ways entails expenditure for 
 which there is no occasion in armies in which the service 
 is exceedingly brief and where the army has to enter 
 into no competition with general trade. We ask, never- 
 theless, from the soldiers whom we enlist by such 
 inducements as we offer, an abandonment of all home 
 ties, and a change of life such as no Continental country 
 demands. More than half our army is always in India 
 and in the Colonies. On the Continent the private 
 soldier is rarely far from his home, and never out of his 
 native country. 
 
 Without entering into details that would not be 
 suitable to a work of this kind, it is not difficult to 
 understand that the supply of armament and equipment, 
 not only to India but to our numerous stations dotted 
 over the world, Aden, Gibraltar, Malta, Halifax (Nova 
 Scotia), Bermuda, Hong Kong, the Cape, Sierra Leone, 
 St. Helena, and the rest, and the interchange of men 
 between those stations and home, represent conditions 
 altogether other than those of the maintenance of a 
 home fortress with a large garrison like Metz or Stras- 
 bourg. 
 
 Take another point. Among the most remarkable 
 features of our commercial life in England of late years 
 has been the gradual disappearance of small shopkeepers, 
 and the substitution for them of great organisations such 
 as those of Whiteley, the other large shops, and, notably, 
 the various co-operative stores. The reason why the 
 small shopkeeper has not been able to hold his own is, 
 clearly enough, that it is relatively very much more 
 economical to manage a very large business than a small 
 one. The small shopkeeper, if he is to compete success-
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE "l 
 
 fully, must employ a knowledge and :i talent, f< »r which 
 the profits of his business offer no adequate reward. If 
 
 he possesses the needed talent, the larger organisation 
 can offer him far better payment than lie can secure for 
 himself. If he does not possess it he is rapidly ruined. 
 Those who best know the back slums of London till you 
 that many of the worst of them are peopled with un- 
 fortunate men and women who have tried to manage 
 small shops. 
 
 Now we, relatively to France or Germany, are like 
 the owners of a large number of small shops. The 
 garrison of Metz, concentrated in one spot, consists of a 
 number of men not much less than is spread over the 
 whole of our different fortified coaling-stations, properly 
 so called, and our smaller possessions abroad. The 
 commandant of that garrison requires to be a carefully 
 selected man of large military knowledge and capacity. 
 But in close daily communication as he is with the Home 
 Government, it is impossible that he should have to 
 decide on his own motion questions as difficult as must 
 continually come before the commanding officer of the 
 troops at Hong Kong, or as may present themselves at 
 any moment to the commandant of troops in Mauritius, 
 at the Cape, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, or in most of our 
 other stations. A mistake on the part of one of our 
 local commanders, or of their staffs, may at any moment 
 involve Britain in war or costly expenditure. These 
 places are so far like the small simp, that the small 
 number of men that we have under the orders of the 
 commander at the station, must have at their head a 
 man of at least as large capacity, and supplied with as 
 adequate a stall' as the commandant at Metz, or els<
 
 92 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 the failure of the small business as compared with the 
 larger will be as conspicuous as it is in the case of the 
 small shops. Yet in relation, not to the number of the 
 troops but to the property and interests involved in 
 their right management, these places are not like small 
 shops, but like very large ones indeed. They are small 
 only because we are able to employ insignificant numbers 
 to do work such as would by a foreign country be under- 
 taken by very large military forces. We are able to do 
 this because these stations are after all only the outposts 
 of an empire, the great " territory " of which, if one may 
 venture on a contradictory expression, alone adequate 
 to convey the peculiar nature of our dominion, is the 
 sea. It is our dominion over the sea which makes it 
 possible for us, not without often incurring great risks, 
 and not without occasional disasters, to employ on our 
 expeditions beyond sea, and in our maintenance of 
 our territories beyond the seas, forces the numerical 
 inferiority of which habitually excites the astonishment, 
 it is hardly too much to say the reproach, for our folly, 
 of all the great military powers. Take a case which not 
 long since occurred in Egypt. We were threatened, or 
 supposed to be threatened, by the revolt of a nation, 
 perhaps of an army, which has, within the memory of 
 our generation, shaken to its foundations the Turkish 
 Empire. We have, not unsuccessfully, attempted to 
 restore to its ancient power and prestige that army, 
 equipped as it is with batteries of artillery which we 
 have ourselves organised and trained. There is no other 
 nation which, thus threatened, would meet the difficulty, 
 as we met it three years ago, by supplying to our in- 
 significant garrison six guns of the Royal Artillery. Any
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 98 
 
 other nation would have thought that it was absolutely 
 necessary to keep guns there pre> ioua to the emergency. 
 
 Far be ii from me to blame these bold methods by 
 which we retain our hold on such a dominion as the 
 world has never seen. They are mosl economical and 
 wisely economical methods by which we employ only a 
 representative force that may be strengthened at our 
 I ilea -tire, as and when we require it. But there is one 
 economy that is not wise but mad ; it is that which 
 would compare the duties which are thrown upon the 
 rulers of these isolated posts with the functions of the 
 brigadier of an equal number of troops under the orders 
 of a divisional commander, himself under the daily 
 orders of a corps commander, who receives his orders 
 from the commandant of Met/, who is himself under the 
 orders of the governor of Elsass-Lothringen, and in close 
 communication with headquarters at Berlin. 
 
 Is it credible that not one word of this comparison 
 between the circumstances of the cost of our Army and 
 the cost of the same number of German soldiers appears 
 in any of the evidence that was given before the Com 
 mittee appointed by the House of Commons specially 
 io inquire into that matter? It was not that there were 
 not men who gave evidence before it who thoroughly 
 understood these questions ; it was that the Committee 
 itself so conducted its inquiry as not to admit of such 
 evidence coming before it. Is it credible that an able 
 statesman like Sir Charles Dilke, who has travelled to 
 almost all the stations that I speak of, and knows well 
 the nature of the questions that must come before a 
 governor who has to rely for military advice upon the 
 commandant of the troops, omits all estimate of the
 
 94 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 duties that arc thrown upon the staff, let us say of the 
 commandant of the troops at the Cape, and treats the 
 numbers of our own Army and the numbers of the 
 German as the one standard by which we are to judge 
 of the economy with which the work that has to be 
 performed is carried out by the German Army and by 
 our own 1 
 
 For my own part I have for years believed that the 
 danger of extravagance and of injury which threatens 
 our services comes from an altogether different quarter. 
 I have often been tempted to exhibit the nature of that 
 danger with full details such as it would not be very 
 difficult to procure. I know already the most important 
 facts. The title I should choose would be " The Denuda- 
 tion of the Services." My own observation and that of 
 others, better placed than I am to observe, has led me 
 to the conclusion that a process is at present going on, 
 and is likely to go on faster in the future than it does now, 
 by which the enormous temptations that are offered to 
 able men in private life, tend gradually to deprive us in 
 the service of the State of most of the able young men 
 who enter it, long before they have attained to positions 
 where their ability can be of much value to the nation. 
 Every year it is more and more difficult for members of 
 the House of Commons to vote pay for the servants of 
 the State such as will retain competent men. Many 
 of their constituents share the feeling of the agitator 
 who said that he had never known the man whose 
 services were worth £600 a year. 
 
 A comic scene, which took place a few years ago in 
 the House, admirably illustrates the feeling of certain 
 members. Mr. Labouchere, with his tongue in his
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 
 
 check, as bis manner is, had announced, h propos of some 
 vote of money to a uccessful general, thai the man who 
 made two blades "f grass grov where one had grown 
 before was better worth rewarding than all the general 
 that ever commanded in the world. So far as .Mi. 
 Labouchere was concerned, he, if reports lie true, made 
 no secret afterwards of the fact that it was an elaborate 
 joke. But his words were received with rapturous 
 applause l>y a certain section of the House of Commons. 
 I suppose, from some experience in that matter, that the 
 cost of making two blades of grass grow where one had 
 grown before, seeing that that result is to be secured by 
 a trifling expenditure on manure, would be ludicrously 
 over-estimated by allowing, say the Duke of Wellington's 
 " twopenny dam " for it. The only objection to otl'ering 
 that kind of payment to a general is that if you succeeded 
 in getting him at the price, his blunders would probably 
 cost you many millions. It is not he who has to be 
 considered in the matter, but you. 
 
 If you choose to allow all work done for you at a risk 
 of life, and sacrifice of health, and sleepless nights and 
 laborious days to be treated with this kind of insolence, 
 you will get your reward, and it will be a pretty smart 
 one. How long would the Canadian Pacific Railway 
 manage to maintain its present prosperity if Mr. Van 
 Home's salary were cut down to the highest payment 
 that is even now made to any of our generals ? 
 
 Obviously it is not the rich but the poor who are 
 cut out of employment, when you pay salaries that do 
 not even cover the expense of the appointments for 
 which they are given. It is on that account that our 
 greal private enterprises find it profitable to pay the
 
 90 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 high salaries that they do. To be limited in your 
 choice of men by having to select only those who are 
 independent of your payment, means in the long run 
 that you cannot secure competent work. But if that 
 tells in private life, where men can be selected from any 
 source, it tells tenfold more in the working of great 
 organisations, when you are limited in your choice to 
 those who have remained in your service ; because, long 
 before you are able to make your selection for high 
 command, those who have seen their way to more 
 profitable employment elsewhere will have abandoned 
 the service which offers no prospects. That might 
 not have been the case in days when the public service 
 was held in the highest honour, but the efforts of those 
 who object to paying adequately for good work are 
 directed at the same time to degrade and dishonour it. 
 Among the comparisons that are made, as a proof of the 
 extravagance of our system, is that with the much lower 
 payments made in Germany. In Germany the payment 
 is made in honour. The service of the State is the one 
 honourable calling. On the Continent no soldier is 
 required to secure honour by expenditure. The State 
 undertakes for its Yon Moltke all the expenses of 
 entertainment that we should of course throw on him 
 himself. How can you then compare a salary paid to a 
 German chief of the staff for his own living with the 
 money you pay to those who must, in order to do your 
 work, expend many hundreds, in some cases many 
 thousands, more than you give them 1 
 
 Of course there are enormous advantages in the 
 condition of a free kingdom where the State is not the 
 only master whose service is honourable, and where
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE \>7 
 
 private enterprise leads as surely to public esteeii 
 does any work done directly for the State. But, in 
 estimating the advantages by which you secure good 
 service, it is idle to ignore the difference which this 
 
 condition of things produces. 
 
 What 1 have said about these matters at home ' and 
 in our small colonies applies with tenfold force to India. 
 The enormous reduction in the salaries of all officials, 
 civil and military, which has taken place there of late 
 years in consequence of the fall in value of the rupee, 
 is nothing short of a national danger. Whilst there 
 are those who have persuaded the working men that we 
 maintain our rule in India for the sake of providing 
 convenient places and large stipends for the sons of 
 aristocratic English families, those who know India best 
 can hardly speak unmoved of the terrible position 
 of hundreds of families who can barely keep soul and 
 body together or avoid finding themselves plunged into 
 debt, whilst they are still struggling to do their duty 
 with the same integrity as of old. "When a tradition 
 of honour has been established for generations in a 
 great profession, it is happily many years before 
 causes which tend to its deterioration operate with 
 effective force. But when once the decline has begun, 
 it is as difficult to avert its progress as it is easy 
 to maintain the high standard after it has been long 
 established. 
 
 When Clive undertook the reform of the Civil Service 
 of India, hardly any could have been more corrupt. It 
 is difficult to exaggerate the danger to our Indian Empire 
 
 1 Those who know our Civil Service tell me thai in certain 
 departments "denudation " goes on at a rapid rate. 
 
 H
 
 98 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 of the recurrence of a state of things from which he 
 then delivered it. 
 
 I have been careful to discuss first these questions 
 of the causes which affect the personnel of the higher 
 administration of our national defence, because I have 
 a rooted disbelief in the truth of the phrase, which is 
 always the solution of all difficulties, "It is the system 
 that is at fault." For my own part, I believe that if 
 you get the right men, they will make any system work, 
 and will in time create the system that suits the best 
 men. If you get the wrong men, no system will work 
 in their hands, and in time they will beget a system 
 that suits only the worst men. A system, in fact, is 
 valuable or not, in proportion as it tends to give you 
 good men. 
 
 It is, however, now time to pass to an examination of 
 the actual methods by which the land forces are pro- 
 vided for the Empire. There are points in regard to our 
 expenditure compared with other nations which cannot 
 be discussed till that has been explained, and I must 
 recur to the subject. When the victories of Prussia in 
 Europe forced attention to the means by which she had 
 succeeded in developing at relatively small cost enormous 
 armies, the question was naturally forced upon us, how 
 far we could take advantage of similar methods. 
 
 Our position at the time was this. The old standing 
 Army without reserves, which had come down to us 
 from the days of Wellington, had not, in its existing 
 form, a very long history. Ever since the Restoration 
 regiments had been raised as they were required for 
 successive wars ; the reductions which had followed on 
 the conclusion of peace had practically broken up the
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 00 
 
 army which had earned on the war. After the great 
 peace in 1*15, very large reductions had again been 
 made. The Duke of Wellington had endeavoured to 
 avoid these being carried beyond a poinl which he 
 
 deemed would be dangerous for the safety of the country, 
 by burying the army out of sight. For this purpo 
 had been scattered in small detachments in differenl 
 pails of the kingdom. All the organisation of the 
 brigades and divisions, which had made it so effective 
 during the Peninsular War, had been broken up. It 
 had become merely a number of battalions, with a very 
 small force of artillery reduced to almost complete 
 inefficiency, and a very few cavalry regiments. 
 
 The camp at Chobham, shortly before the Crimean 
 War, was the first attempt to gather together any La 
 nucleus of troops. 
 
 I'nder these circumstances, no one having paid the 
 least attention to any general question of the recruit- 
 ment of the Army for war, it cannot be said that there 
 was any method based upon careful investigation, which 
 connected the troops that were maintained during peace 
 time with the creation of an army such as would he 
 required for war. 
 
 It was inevitable that the system should break down, 
 as it did completely in the Crimean War. Neverthe- 
 less the great efforts that were made during that 
 campaign, and subsequently for the suppression of the 
 Indian mutinies, did provide a very fine body of troops, 
 who, as they stood on parade in Britain, deservedly 
 impressed onlookers with an appearance of efficiency. 
 
 When, however, reference is made now to some 
 period antecedent to our present condition of service,
 
 100 NATIONAL DEFENCES OHAp. 
 
 when " the good old Army " stood in its stalwart ranks 
 on parade, it is well to remember how very short that 
 period was. It can hardly be said to have much pre- 
 ceded 1860, by which time most of the regiments had 
 returned from India and the Chinese expedition. From 
 1860 to 1870 is certainly not a very long period to look 
 back to as that of the "fine old Army." Presumably 
 nobody would wish to restore the condition of things 
 which existed prior to' the Crimean War, when it was with 
 difficulty that sufficient horsed and equipped guns could 
 be provided to attend the Duke of Wellington's funeral. 
 But what was in fact the condition of that "good 
 old long -service Army," which during the ten short 
 years of its existence from 1860-70 established such a 
 hold upon the imagination of the British public that it 
 is looked back to now as if it were the Army which won 
 for us all our great campaigns? It is summed up in 
 the report of the Royal Commission on recruiting of 
 1866 : — "In fact it may be said that we were content 
 to exist from hand to mouth with no forecast of the 
 future. No preparations for a state of war were thought 
 of. . . . Men were enrolled and sent half-trained into 
 the field." " Its present strength is barely sufficient for 
 a period of peace, and the question is how we can most 
 readily and speedily increase it through the means of 
 a reserve of men who have already received their 
 training in its ranks, but may have fallen back . . . 
 into civil life." This Commission had been called on to 
 report avowedly because of " the great difficulty which 
 was experienced in procuring recruits for the Army, and 
 in point of fact the question" was "whether the British 
 Army should be allowed to collapse."
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 101 
 
 In other words, the long-service system of recruitmenl 
 
 had completely broken down, nut only as a means ol 
 providing any enlargement for the Army in time of 
 war, hut even as a means of keeping up the ordinary 
 establishment without any other forces behind it. 
 
 The attempt was made in 1866-G7 to stimulate 
 recruitment by increasing the pay and allowances of the 
 soldier, whilst still retaining a long-service system. It 
 completely failed. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the whole 
 question was reconsidered between 1870 and 1873, and 
 that from about 1870 the so-called short-service system 
 was adopted. In other words, during the whole period 
 of the existence of the good old long-service Army, it 
 was in a condition of suspended animation. It looked 
 very pretty to spectators at a review at Aldershot to 
 see fine, stalwart, well -drilled men marching past in 
 such numbers as could be procured ; it was very 
 pleasant for regimental officers during peace time to 
 have to deal with well-trained men, who did them great 
 credit with little trouble ; but the moment the slightest 
 incident occurred, such as an army, it may be supposed, 
 exists to meet, no one complained more bitterly of what 
 then happened than the men who most admired a good 
 old long-service soldier. 
 
 Captain Mercer, in his history of the Waterloo 
 campaign, has described how three other batteries had 
 to be broken up in order to enable the one with which 
 he served to take the field. During the Crimean War 
 regiments were first denuded of their best men in order 
 to fill up battalions which had gone on service, and then 
 were themselves sent to serve in the field with their
 
 102 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 ranks newly tilled up. If the system as it then existed 
 could be judged by the decision of regimental officers 
 at the moment when their batteries or battalions were 
 broken up, it is tolerably safe to say that its condem- 
 nation by them would have been complete and bitter. 
 Unfortunately, during periods of peace time, it is apt 
 to be forgotten that an army is an instrument for war, 
 and not for peace; that its condition during peace time, 
 so far as appearance and even warlike quality are con- 
 cerned, does not matter in the slightest degree, except 
 in so far as that condition tends to determine its readi- 
 ness for war. 
 
 In any case, because of the complete failure of the 
 old system, the short -service system was introduced 
 about 1870. The broad principles on which this system 
 was based were briefly these. The time that it takes 
 to train a soldier for war, if he be properly kept at 
 Avork during the whole time, is about three years. 
 After that he becomes an exceedingly convenient man 
 in saving trouble to those who have to train him. He, 
 if he is fit to be a soldier at all, looks very smart on 
 parade, and requires very little attention. Therefore it 
 is an immense convenience for those who want their 
 battalions, as every good commanding officer does, to 
 look smart on parade, to have hardly any men in the 
 ranks who are not of less than this standing. But 
 obviously from the time that the man is trained there 
 is a waste of training power. The work of officers and 
 non-commissioned officers is greatly reduced, but then 
 from the point of view of getting the most for the money 
 of the country it is much more economical to put the 
 training power we possess to work on new men. In
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIEE 
 
 Germany originally, and dow in both France and 
 Austria, bhia principle is applied in pretty much this 
 
 form, except that both in France and Germany the term 
 is now generally reduced to about two years. Our 
 conditions are different, and obviously we must modify 
 our system accordingly. We cannot afford to send out 
 to India, where we necessarily maintain BO much of our 
 army, men for only two years. Therefore we have 
 applied to the Guards alone the three-years system, and 
 that in a modified way. As the Guards do not go out 
 to India except for war, they can pass their men into a 
 reserve as soon as they are trained. As, however, with 
 voluntary enlistment, it is well to give men the option 
 of serving for such terms as will best suit them, and as 
 it is also well with a corps d'&ite intended to be a solid 
 nucleus for great emergencies to have a certain number 
 of old soldiers permanently in the ranks, we in the 
 Guards offer to any men who wish to do so the option 
 of serving on for seven years. A certain number serve 
 thus for three, and the remainder for seven years before 
 passing into the Reserve. The only danger in such a 
 relaxation of the system lies in this, that regimental 
 officers naturally look to the object immediately before 
 them, and prefer to keep their men for seven rather than 
 for three years, greatly to the improvement of the 
 appearance of the battalion on parade, but to the detri- 
 ment of the formation of the Reserve on which they 
 depend for increasing their strength for war. It is a 
 danger in this respect, that regimental pressure is apt to 
 be brought to bear to induce a man to extend his service 
 from three to seven years. A man under some com- 
 manding officers who do not like the system is treated as
 
 104 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 a "good " soldier and given every sort of indulgence if he 
 will extend his service, and as a " bad " soldier if he 
 intends to take his discharge at the end of three years. 
 Nevertheless, under the system the Guards' recruiting 
 has so enormously improved that it has been necessary 
 repeatedly to raise the standard in order to put a check 
 on the numbers who wish to enlist. Moreover, a most 
 satisfactory Reserve has been formed. 
 
 As regards the remainder of the infantry, however, 
 we are obliged to adapt our system to the fact that we 
 must keep the Army abroad in a high state of efficiency, 
 and that we cannot relieve it on a simple three-years 
 system. We therefore for the line enlist for seven 
 years. Moreover, the plan was devised of linking two 
 battalions together, so that one at home should receive 
 recruits from the depot, and send out to India and the 
 Colonies such drafts as the battalion abroad each year 
 required. It has made the Indian Army more efficient 
 than it has been in the whole course of our history 
 before. It has given us a force additional to those with 
 the colours of nearly 80,000 men, which we never had 
 before under any other system. As a necessary con- 
 sequence, however, it has made the battalions which 
 appear on a parade or at a review from Avhich these 
 men have been subtracted during peace time much 
 younger than was the case with the old long-service 
 battalions, which stood on parade just as they would 
 have had to go to war. Those battalions had nothing 
 behind them ; these have. 
 
 During the reign of the long-service system, when- 
 ever it was necessary to stimulate recruiting, very large 
 bounties were given to tempt men to enlist. Under the
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 105 
 
 short-service system bounties have been abolished. 
 
 Nevertheless, so popular with the class that enlists is 
 "short service" as compared with long, that with all its 
 bounties "long service," during the ten years of its 
 
 existence as a regularly-established peace system, main- 
 tained for the purposes of possible war, only induced 
 an average of 15,084 men to enter the ranks each year. 
 The short-service system, without any bounties, draws 
 to the ranks annually an average of 31,537. 
 
 Two conditions, however, were essential to the effective 
 maintenance of this method. One, that the cadres for 
 the training of this large number of recruits should be 
 strong ; the other, that the number of battalions at 
 home should be at least equal to those abroad. It was 
 necessary that there should be good non-commissioned 
 officers for the training of the young soldiers. It was 
 necessary also that the great strain thrown upon the 
 home battalions in supplying men for service abroad 
 should not be made unendurable by throwing upon any 
 particular battalion more than its fair share of the work 
 
 Here comes in one of the peculiar conditions of our 
 great Empire in tropical climes, that we are obliged to 
 send to India, not youths of the age at which we enlisl 
 them, but matured men. Here also comes in one of the 
 peculiarities of our system of voluntary enlistment, that 
 we are obliged to take recruits at the age when recruits 
 are most willing to come to us. If Ave attempted to 
 enlist at the age of a matured man, we should put our- 
 selves into direct competition with the ordinary trades 
 of the country. "We should then have to pay, not such 
 a sum as will be attractive to youths who have not made 
 up their minds as to their career, boys who are often much
 
 106 NATIONAL DEFENCES < hav. 
 
 inclined to the soldier's business, but we should have to 
 tempt out of the careers which they have already taken 
 up, men who have practically settled in life. 
 
 This has always been the case. All evidence goes to 
 show that, so far as the age of recruits at enlistment 
 is concerned, it was precisely the same under the long- 
 service system as under the present one. Thus in 1861 
 evidence was given that a great number of lads of 
 sixteen, and even of fifteen, were enlisted. In 1866 
 Lord William Paulet, the then Adjutant- General, 
 said, " I daresay that not one-half of them are above 
 sixteen." Other conditions, however, tend largely 
 now to increase the proportion of the recruits in the 
 home battalions. We enlist twice as many recruits as 
 formerly. In 1861 we sent out to India some boys not 
 more than sixteen, and the bulk under twenty. We now 
 endeavour at least to send only those men who are 
 carefully certified by a doctor as being presumably 
 twenty years of age. The effect of this, which has 
 nothing to do with short service as such, is to leave in 
 the home battalions a much larger number of recruits 
 than was formerly the case. For war purposes, however, 
 this is a far less important matter than it Avas under 
 former conditions. We have now over 80,000 trained 
 soldiers of the Army Reserve and 30,000 of the Militia 
 Reserve, altogether exclusive of the men we have in the 
 ranks of the Army. 
 
 A complaint has been made by some modern assailants 
 of our present system that the term " Reserve " thus 
 applied is a misnomer. They say that the Reserve will 
 be required to fill up the ranks of the Army immediately 
 on war being declared, and that therefore it is not a
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 1 
 
 reserve for war at all. It dues not represenl a i 
 remaining in the country available to replenish the armiee 
 in the field during the progress of a war. 
 
 It is quite true that the greater partj if nol the 
 whole, of the Reserve will berequired to fill up the ranks 
 of the Army, and that the particular men who now 
 form the " Reserve " will therefore not he available for 
 further reinforcements. Bu1 we shall have drafted into 
 thedepots to replace them many of the men who are at pre- 
 sent in the ranks— those at least of them who are not of 
 sufficient age for service in the field. The contrast which 
 this presents to the condition in which we have stood at 
 any previous time at the opening of a war is enormously 
 in our favour. The men at present in the ranks are no 
 younger, hut, by the length of time that they have been 
 enlisted, so much older than the recruits that we obtained 
 raw from the plough for the purposes of the Crimean 
 War. They have undergone a considerable amount of 
 valuable training, while the reserve men themselves are 
 in the very flower of their age, and have undergone 
 much more training than the men of any European army. 
 On the whole, therefore, taking into account the fact 
 that the Indian Army is kept up at a standard of efficiency 
 such as we have never approached before, and remember- 
 ing further that under the long-service system the Ann v 
 was many thousands below its establishment, it is not 
 unfair to say that, supposing that we are able to ensure 
 the services of the reserve men, the new system has 
 added 100,000 available men to our war strength, and 
 that at a very small increase of expenditure. 
 
 In two ways the system is essentially economical in 
 its working, and especially adapted to our needs in
 
 108 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 endeavouring to get the most we can out of a volun- 
 tary system. In the first place, after a man has been 
 thoroughly trained we do not keep him in pay longer 
 than our foreign service requires. We, so to say, bottle 
 him, and turn on our training power to make another 
 man efficient in his place. Secondly, the flow of recruits 
 is apt to be a very uncertain one. Sometimes large 
 numbers of men wish to enlist. At other times there 
 is great slackness in the recruiting. When we are 
 endeavouring to get the Army up to a standard of 
 strength which we have not attained, it is obviously 
 undesirable to be obliged to refuse, because the numbers 
 voted have been reached, recruits who are willing to be 
 enlisted. Under the old system it was impossible to 
 adapt our conditions to these needs. At present, by 
 passing a few more men into the Reserve, we can 
 often make room for recruits as they are ready to offer 
 themselves. 1 
 
 The great doubt which seems to affect men's apprecia- 
 tion of the value of the scheme is the idea that the 
 Reserve is only a paper force which would not be avail- 
 able in time of need. It does not appear to be under- 
 stood that a man is not counted as available merely 
 because he has passed through the ranks and been 
 transferred to the Reserve ; but that only those men 
 are reckoned who have actually appeared for pay at one 
 of the last two quarterly payments. If a man for two 
 quarters omits to report himself, he is struck off the list. 
 We have had to call out the Reserve on two occasions 
 
 1 This applies at present to the Infantry only. As regards the 
 Artillery, the difficulty caused by the check to recruiting every 
 year is most serious. Moreover, as to another point see p. 126.
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE! 109 
 
 either altogether or in part, viz. in 1878 and in 1882. 
 On both occasions tin- men came in most satisfactorily. 
 We have therefore no reason to suppose that they would 
 fail us, but, on the contrary, every reason to believe 
 thai they would come in in full strength. 
 
 As to the objection made to the term " Re erve, 1 the 
 answer is thai the name arose in the most natural way 
 possible. We were adapting to our circumstances an 
 already existing system. Everywhere else the term 
 "Reserve" was applied to men who had been pa 
 through the ranks and were kept to fill up the strength 
 of the Army for war. Nowhere are these men kept as 
 a special body designed to fill up the waste of war. 
 Every nation desires to be able at once to throw its 
 whole strength into the struggle. Abroad the supply 
 of waste will no doubt be made up from the men 
 who could not from mere excess of numbers be em- 
 ployed at once in the first line. We have practically 
 a very similar resource. The numbers that we can 
 send out of the United Kingdom in the beginning 
 of a war arc limited by the conditions of sea trans- 
 port. We should therefore only at first employ 
 so many as our transports could convey, and as 
 many as could be fed from sea. It becomes, therefore, 
 important to decide at what numbers these should be 
 reckoned. The inquiry, however, involves a great 
 variety of considerations, and it will be convenient to 
 postpone it for the present. For the moment it is 
 necessary to point out certain defects which have been 
 produced by the working of our present system. These 
 in no way affect the evidence we have had of its 
 superiority to any other that we have tried or that
 
 110 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 has been proposed. They are only such as necessarily 
 arise in the practical application of any new scheme. If 
 we decided, as it is, since the reports of Lord Wantage's 
 Committee and of Sir A. Haliburton have been sub- 
 mitted, practically certain that we shall not, altogether 
 to change our present system, we should have to go 
 through a similar experience in fitting sound practice to 
 sound principles of organisation. In almost all things 
 reform has great advantages over revolution. In matters 
 of army organisation it is scarcely possible to overrate 
 the importance of not indulging in perpetual radical 
 changes, though at the same time there are few cases 
 in which it is of more importance to adapt existing 
 forms to the conditions of the present time. I pointed 
 out that for the efficient working of the scheme it is 
 indispensable that no undue strain should be thrown 
 on the home battalions in the matter of supplying 
 matured soldiers for the Army in India and the Colonies. 
 Obviously the strain on any particular battalion depends 
 largely on the number of battalions that are kept at 
 home, in proportion to the number that have to be 
 supplied abroad. 
 
 When the system was first introduced it was intended 
 that there should be a slight excess in the number of 
 home battalions over those on the foreign roster. With 
 an Empire like ours, however, continually liable to 
 sudden demands for services from the Army on a small 
 scale, this arrangement was very soon upset. India for 
 local reasons required a slight increase in the number of 
 battalions in its garrison. Our rapidly-growing empire 
 in South Africa made it necessary to send there a few 
 more. The occupation of Egypt involved a direct
 
 iv HOW DO AVE DEFEND THE EMPIEEi ill 
 
 increase in the number abroad. As an illustration of 
 what is always liable to happen to us, this case is excep- 
 tionally important, because our occupation throughout 
 baa l>een avowedly temporary, and to make permanent 
 
 arrangements expressly to meet it would have presented 
 difficulties of a political as well as of a financial kind. 
 Nevertheless an occupation which has already lasted 
 for fifteen years, and may last for a considerably longer 
 period, cannot but tell severely on a system based on a 
 seven-years service. Moreover, fifteen years is a Long 
 period in the history of our Empire within which to 
 calculate that no fresh cause of disturbance will arise. 
 Practically, the result has been that we have for many 
 years from all these causes had an excess of battalions 
 abroad as compared with those at home. This lias 
 thrown the whole system out of gear, not only because 
 the number of battalions at home were, as a whole, set 
 to do more work than had been calculated upon, but 
 because the attempt to carry out a fair roster of service 
 abroad, disturbed the efficient working of almost every 
 battalion in the Army. The system depended on the 
 arrangements for relief between the home battalion and 
 that which was abroad. .Naturally in both battalions 
 there are men of various lengths of service. In the 
 home battalion the greater number of the men will 
 usually be of very short service. A certain number in 
 that battalion will consist of those who, having come 
 home from abroad, will be nearing the time of their 
 discharge to the Reserve. In the battalion abroad there 
 will be hardly any very young soldiers, but there will 
 be a considerable number who have nearly arrived at 
 the end of their period of limited service To send
 
 112 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 abroad men who have only a few years left to serve, 
 so that we are obliged to incur the expense of bringing 
 them home within a short time, is obviously not an 
 economical arrangement. It is therefore necessary to 
 establish certain regulations determining the period of 
 service at which men are allowed to be sent abroad. 
 As long as the battalion abroad and the battalion at 
 home, after the regulated period of service, interchange 
 positions with one another, adjustments of individual 
 soldiers are easily effected. The battalion going abroad 
 leaves behind it for the home-coming battalion all the 
 men who have only a few years of service to complete — 
 those whom, therefore, it Avould not be economical for 
 it to take abroad. It leaves also all men not up to the 
 standard age at which men are permitted on medical 
 grounds to go to India. Similarly, the battalion abroad 
 leaves for the home battalion all the men of suitable 
 service for India. Thus an adjustment between the 
 two is very easily effected. But when the proportion 
 between the number of battalions has been so disturbed 
 that on the whole there has to be a longer period of 
 service for the whole Army abroad, then in equalising 
 this between different regiments it necessarily happens 
 that both battalions of some regiments have to be for 
 a year or two abroad at the same time. The adjust- 
 ment which I have described cannot then be made, but 
 necessarily a depot has to be formed for the reception 
 of those whom the last outgoing battalion cannot take 
 with it. Any new organisation requires some time to 
 get into working order. Hardly has the depot been 
 allowed time thus to work into order than one of the 
 battalions comes home, and the depot is broken up,
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIBE I 113 
 
 probably jual at the moment when it is beginning to 
 be most efficient Thus the excess of battalions abroad, 
 which is ;i violation of the system, has been the one 
 
 ; cause of those defects which popular rumoar has 
 attributed to the system itself. Some one has remarked 
 
 — I think truly — that the position of most regimental 
 officers in regard to this question is happily described by 
 
 saying that for them the troubles which have attended 
 the application of the short -service system are like 
 "clouds that take its colour from the rose, which, 
 knowing not the darkness of the hour, but its own 
 sadness knows." They have felt and truly expressed 
 the fact that the situation was unsatisfactory. They 
 have not, at least till very recently, had the system 
 clearly enough explained to them to enable them to realise 
 how entirely the defects of which they complained were 
 due, not to the system, but to the failure to carry it out 
 in its integrity. 
 
 Various proposals have been made to meet the diffi- 
 culty, as it at present exists, of the excess of the battalions 
 abroad. The defect of most of them is this, that they 
 assume that because our occupation of Egypt, for instance, 
 is of a temporaiy character, therefore it is only necessary 
 to make temporary provision for the difficulty. The whole 
 history of our Colonial and Indian Empire shows that 
 that is a most dangerous view to take. Seeing that the 
 entire efficiency of our Army depends on our keeping at 
 least an equal proportion of battalions at home com- 
 pared to the number abroad, and seeing further that we 
 are perpetually liable to have to increase our garrison 
 abroad for long though intermittent periods, there can 
 be only one way in which the difficulty can be sati>- 
 
 I
 
 114 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 factorily met. It is by such an increase in the number 
 of battalions of the Army as will during normal times 
 leave us a surplus of two or three battalions at home, 
 and when demand is made for a small increase of our 
 foreign garrison, will still leave the numbers at least 
 equal. Moreover, the excess of two or three battalions 
 should be treated as a kind of nest-egg, never to be 
 reduced, except for the very shortest time, without a 
 proportionate increase to replace them. This will no 
 doubt cost a little more than some other make -shift 
 arrangement, but it is the only means by which the 
 most economical system we have ever had can be kept 
 in full efficiency, and be able to meet the continually 
 occurring demands of the Empire. 1 
 
 1 I ought to make intelligible the nature of the scheme which 
 has been at last adopted this year (1897), in order to give our much- 
 tried system at last a chance of working effectively. It may or 
 may not be modified hereafter, but as the most economical mode of 
 meeting the most serious defect we had, so far as the Infantry is 
 concerned, it is one that cannot but be received with satisfaction 
 by all who have realised how grave our trouble has been. At the 
 beginning of the year 1897, and for some time past, we have had 
 an excess of eleven battalions abroad. It is obvious that every one 
 brought home diminishes the excess by two, because the one so 
 changed from the foreign establishment to the home establishment 
 subtracts one from the excess abroad, and adds one to the numbers 
 at home. Thus, if three battalions can be brought home, the 
 excess will be diminished by six. Now it so happens that we have 
 in the Guards two regiments of two battalions each, and one 
 regiment, the Grenadiers, of three battalions. By raising two 
 extra battalions of Guards, one for the Fusilier and one for the 
 Coldstream Guards, we shall have in all nine battalions of Guards. 
 If a brigade of three battalions could be sent to one of the Mediter- 
 ranean stations or Egypt, the effect would be — 
 
 1. That we should be able to bring three battalions of the 
 Infantry of the line home. Their transfer to the home from the
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE? 115 
 
 1 must next make clear the fad that this question of 
 the proportion between the garrison at home and abroad 
 is altogether apart from the entirely separate difficulty 
 which is created by the conditions of our small expe- 
 ditions. The resei m, admirable for completing 
 our Army for effective war strength in the case of { 
 emergencies, cannol be applied in the case of these 
 minor wars. So frequent is the recurrence of some 
 small cause of disturbance on some one or otln-r of the 
 frontiers of our vast Empire, that it would destroy the 
 confidence of employers if we were perpetually calling 
 the reserve men to the colours every time that an 
 expedition had to he sent out. The case of Indian 
 small wars is provided for by the condition in which the 
 
 foreign establishment would reduce the excess of battalions abroad 
 from eleven to five. 
 
 •J. We should have a complete division of two brigades of the 
 Guards available for foreign service, whilst a third brigade would 
 remain at home. Thus the creating of two extra battalions of the 
 Guards, in itself a very desirable thing, will, so far as the r< 
 
 of the efficient working of the system is concerned, relieve 
 our difficulty to the extent of six of the eleven battalions now in 
 on the foreign establishment. It is at least obviously an 
 economical method of securing that result. It may or may aol 
 turn out that those who usually enlist in the Guards will dislike 
 the prospect of serving for a short spell in the Mediterranean. 
 Opinions on that point are greatly divided. It is a question for 
 experiment. So far as I can learn, it is not generally the men or 
 - now serving who dread at least the expei iment. A transfer 
 to Egypt would, I believe, with them be very popular. 
 
 There has long been one of the finest battalions in the si 
 which has been apart from the general organisation of the Army. 
 The Cameron Highlanders, which maintained in the 1882 cam- 
 to the fullest extent its ancient renown, has had no second 
 battalion. By adding one to it the excess of battalions abroad 
 is reduced to four, which means, of course, that Chere are two
 
 116 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 Indian battalions are maintained. Sir Kedvers Buller 
 some time ago suggested that this should be met by 
 keeping the Mediterranean garrisons always in condition 
 to furnish a small expeditionary force. Recruits from 
 home can very Avell be trained in the Mediterranean, 
 and would be sent out to re-supply the depleted garrisons 
 simultaneously with the despatch of the expedition. 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of the general principles 
 and conditions of our present system of recruitment. 
 Certain objections are made to the system. One 
 is that many tramps who have been in the Army 
 go about the country and are found in poorhouses a 
 great nuisance. Another that we do not obtain for the 
 same money that Germany spends anything like the 
 same force that Germany gets. A third that we have 
 
 battalions abroad whicb, if brought home, would restore the 
 equality of the home and foreign establishments. It is assumed 
 that their absence abroad is only temporary. From what has been 
 said in the text it is obvious that, judging from past history, this 
 is likely to prove an illusion. It is practically certain that before 
 they are brought home, others will be required for some fresh emer- 
 gency to be sent abroad. One, in fact, was ordered to go since the 
 scheme was propounded. Though the order was in fact changed, 
 the illustration is none the less valuable. No arrangement can be 
 permanently satisfactory which does not give us in addition to 
 equality a nest-egg of at least two or three battalions on which to 
 draw for these ever-recurring emergencies. Nevertheless the fact 
 that the absolute necessity for the working of our present system 
 of maintaining a proper proportion between the home and' foreign 
 battalions has been at last officially dealt with, and that a long step 
 has been taken towards remedying our evil condition, is a most im- 
 portant one, and deserves all recognition. The Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer represents you, Sir or Madam Dingaan ; and till you 
 see that more is needed, and for the sake of all you hold dear are 
 determined to have it, he must put on the screw against the most 
 needed reforms.
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 117 
 
 only at home an army of boys. In regard bo the first 
 objection it must he remembered that there are certain 
 tramps who, when they find their business Black, 
 regularly enlisl in the Army, and as naturally return to 
 
 the tramp's life when they leave it. There are not a 
 few of these who make a practice of deserting and 
 fraudulently enlisting in other regiments in order to gel 
 
 a new free kit, having sold their old one. There are 
 also a certain number of men who were thoroughly 
 useless as workers before they entered the Army, and 
 remain so all the time they are in it, returning very 
 little changed by their time in the Army. For main', 
 however, the Army is a very effective reformatory. For 
 all those for whom it becomes so, and for all those who 
 entered it with a good character and have maintained 
 that character whilst they are in it, there is little or no 
 difficulty in securing employment. Many who leave as 
 non-commissioned officers get excellent billets. By 
 the enterprise and public spirit of one retired officer, 
 Captain Walters, the great Corps of Commissionaires for 
 London has been created. Various agencies have been 
 established, some in connection with our recruiting 
 officers, some in connection with the officers in charge 
 of our depots, for finding places for good men. Some 
 private societies maintained by officers do much in this 
 way, and most regiments have some kind of organisa- 
 tion for assisting the men who have left them to get 
 employment. From every test by which the matter 
 can lie gauged on a large scale, the number of men who 
 wish to get good employment and fail to do so is 
 relatively small, though no doubt the numbers of 
 habitual tramps who have at some time or other enlisted
 
 118 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 are considerable. Among them are a large number of 
 pensioners of the long-service system. 
 
 To turn to the next comment, that we do not get as 
 many men or any approach to the same number as 
 Germany. I have already indicated some of the reasons 
 which make the comparison absurd. I propose now to 
 state the whole case as far as possible, briefly recapitu- 
 lating what I have previously said, and introducing those 
 other points which could not be discussed apart from the 
 system we actually employ. 
 
 1. Our immense colonial possessions, and especially 
 the Crown Colonies and mere coaling-stations, require, 
 in order that they may not be a danger instead of a 
 strength to the Empire, a staff out of all proportion 
 to the number of troops employed in them. Their 
 mere enumeration shows how large an element this is in 
 the calculation— Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Aden, 
 Singapore, Malacca, and Christmas Island, Perim, Ceylon, 
 Hong-Kong, Mauritius, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, 
 Gambia, St. Helena, Cape of Good Hope, Natal and 
 Zululand, Bermuda, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Halifax (Nova 
 Scotia), Barbados. In all of these there are actual 
 stations of troops. My list does not include any of the 
 great self-governing colonies, to which we supply large 
 numbers of officers who, though paid for during the time 
 of their actual employment there by the colony, come 
 back on to our general list and swell its total. The 
 same is the case with the large numbers lent to the 
 Egyptian Government, to the Niger, South African, and 
 East African Companies, Uganda and the Central 
 African protectorate. It omits all those numerous 
 dependencies which are under the general protection of
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE ! 119 
 
 our Navy and Army, many of which often involve 
 military expenditure, such us British Guiana, Tobago, 
 Trinidad, British Honduras, Selangor, Perak, King 
 
 George's Sound (Western Australia), an Imperial ch 
 
 — it omits St. Vincent, Antigua, St. Christopher and 
 
 Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, Virgin Islands, Borneo, — 
 
 all in short of those possessions where troops are not 
 actually quartered, but to which at any time troops 
 may necessarily be despatched from some of the other 
 stations for local reasons. It may be well doubted how 
 many Britons know even the names of many of these 
 possessions. 
 
 2. The fact, however, that we hold these vast and 
 dispersed territories with insignificant numbers of troops, 
 and therefore must have a staff proportioned not to 
 the number of troops with which we economise their 
 defence, but to the vast responsibilities and the ceaseless 
 vigilance involved in it, is by no means the only cause 
 which makes these possessions, valuable as they are, 
 costly, if the mere number of troops be taken as the 
 measure of cost. Most of those I have cited are the 
 fortified coaling-stations which in the judgment of the 
 Admiralty are necessary to secure our command of the 
 seas, and to leave our admirals free to use all their 
 oaval force for pure naval action and victory against 
 Meets opposed to them. Therefore certain protective 
 works are necessary for them, and heavy guns have to 
 be placed on them. The question whether we have 
 done enough, too much, or too little in that matter is 
 one of detail, as to which it will be perhaps admitted 
 that it is safer to take the opinion of those who have 
 deall with the question on the spot, carefully supervised
 
 120 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 as they have been by the ablest committees we knew 
 how to form in London. The principle adopted has 
 been rigidly and strictly to limit our expenditure on 
 these passive defences and on the garrisons needed for 
 them to the minimum that would ensure the protection 
 of our coal or, where harbours are concerned, the 
 security of our harbours, not against great expeditions 
 but against hostile cruisers. The whole conception has 
 been to free the right arm of Britain that it may 
 secure the safety of our homes, colonial and other, and 
 the security of our commerce by active warfare against 
 hostile aggression. It is to be feared that some of 
 those who are most anxious to secure this result have 
 done all they could to interfere with it by assuming 
 that this principle was ignored because they were not 
 consulted as to the details. As, however, in the aggre- 
 gate much work has necessarily to be done both in 
 fortification and armament in places spread over the 
 whole earth as widely as our commerce spreads, it does 
 not take much of a witch at a riddle to see that this 
 is a far more costly necessity than the erection and 
 armament of defences within a Continental kingdom. 
 Vast quantities of stores, much skilled labour, and an 
 immense tonnage of guns have to be transported across 
 the whole surface of the earth. Is this an element to 
 be quietly dropped out of calculation 1 
 
 3. I have already enlarged on the fact that the 
 accessories which are involved in a voluntary system, the 
 medical and veterinary departments, the better and more 
 costly food, the greater comfort and convenience of the 
 men, the fact that we must enlist boys and not men, 
 and therefore spend additional time and cost in training
 
 iv HOAV DO WE DEFEND THE EliPIRE 121 
 
 them — these, and many others of a similar nature, arc far 
 more heavy items than the difference between the pay 
 of a British soldier and that of the conscripted soldier 
 of the Continent. 
 
 4. It is not a little remarkable that those who com- 
 pare unfavourably our product of strength per million of 
 pounds sterling with that of Germany are, for the most 
 part, those who have a dislike to the short- service 
 system as applied to ourselves. Yet the greatest of all 
 the reasons why the German army is so large in pro- 
 portion to its expenditure is that they are aide in a given 
 period of seven or eight years to train with the same 
 cadres between three and four times as many men as we 
 do even under our present relatively short service. The 
 necessities of our vast Empire oblige us, as I have ex- 
 plained before, to adopt for most of our Army a period 
 of training of seven years with the colours and five in 
 the reserve. The German now trains his men in two 
 years. Obviously this is an enormous difference in point 
 of cost per man. 
 
 5. I have sufficiently discussed the difference pro- 
 duced by the conditions of a rich and free commercial 
 country, and need not repeat them. 
 
 6. The cost involved in the perpetual transport and 
 exchanges of position both of troops and officers, the 
 change of clothing involved between India, our various 
 other distant positions, and home, is a very large and 
 important element of expenditure. 
 
 7. All labour on barrack construction, or other con- 
 tractors' work, has to be paid for at high British and not 
 at low foreign rates. 
 
 8. Yet again we spend vast sums in four items
 
 122 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap 
 
 from which Germany is enormously relieved by her 
 complete command of all the resources of the country 
 for her army. I speak of our great tailoring estab- 
 lishment, of our educational establishments for ever}^ 
 sort of artificer, armourer, carpenter, etc., urgently 
 required as they are for our complicated modern 
 weapons, of our large expenditure on sending infantry 
 and artillery long distances to out-of-the-way places like 
 Okehampton, and of our necessary purchase of ground 
 large enough for manoeuvres of troops. In Germany 
 the best tailors, the best artificers in the whole country, 
 are in the ranks, and like the doctors and the veterinaries, 
 delighted to be employed on their proper trade. We 
 have to purchase this labour in the open market or to 
 devote costly machinery to developing it. The ground 
 is obtained close to each of the large stations for practice 
 in Germany, and strict regulation prevents any build- 
 ings from interfering with what is needed for the 
 purpose. The whole country is available for the 
 manoeuvres that take place annually. In Austria lately 
 84 miles of general country in length by 76 in breadth 
 were so used. 
 
 9. The comparison, however, even thus, cannot be 
 fairly made without taking account of the sums which 
 Germany spends indirectly on her army. In the first 
 place, the food provided for the private soldier is so 
 poor and bad that it is necessarily supplemented by 
 large supplies contributed to them by their families. 
 Again, the State has first, by using such railways as 
 were Government property to compete with private 
 enterprise, reduced the market value of private companies 
 to a nominal figure, and then bought them up. When
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 128 
 
 these railways so bought up are used for the transport 
 of war material, it obviously greatly reduces the War 
 Budget; as obviously that result is secured al the 
 expense of those whose property was ruined in order 
 
 to secure it for the State The railways and other 
 Government monopolies arc also used to provide for 
 officers and non-commissioned officers on their being 
 retired from the army. Thus the whole officers' and 
 non-commissioned officers' pension-list is saved; and 
 as the privates, after they have completed their train 
 in" are liable to be called to the colours at the mere 
 option of the State, there is no reserve pay whatever re- 
 quired. Officers and men have most extensive privileges 
 in regard to their payment for travelling by railway, and 
 as to their admission to theatres, music-halls, etc. Yet 
 again, vast sums from the indemnity paid by France 
 have been employed on military defences of various 
 kinds, and do not appear in the War Budget. 
 
 Whether it be within the competence of any of our 
 sn-eat actuaries to make an estimate of the difference in 
 the calculations of cost which all those various conditions 
 require, I do not know. My own belief is, that if it 
 could be carried out on any reasonable basis, the result 
 would be to show that, taking into account the work it has 
 to do, and the extent to which, thanks to the support of 
 a great navy, it is able really to achieve it, our Army is 
 incomparably the cheapest in the world. It abstracts 
 less money's worth out of the country than any Con 
 tinental system does, and does more for the money. 
 
 No one has ever faced fairly these considerations 
 which I lay before you, yet men go on repeating the 
 phrase that the country would be delighted to pay what-
 
 124 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 ever is necessary for their defences if they only believed 
 that they obtained their money's worth for their money. 
 I am as certain as I can be of any fact in existence that 
 you are beating the bush in vain as long as you ignore 
 these facts. You may go on, of course, under the plea 
 that you do not see that you get your money's worth for 
 your money, following the example of those inhabitants of 
 Constantinople, to whom Lord Wolseley recently referred, 
 who kept in their tills the money needed for the defence 
 of the State, only to provide the conquering Turk with 
 the wealth which would have secured his defeat. You 
 have the plausible excuse that if you refuse to examine 
 the question you may take the numbers of German 
 soldiers and their mere war-budget cost to the country 
 and, comparing their number with ours, say that there 
 must be waste in our system. If you really care enough 
 for your country to weigh what I have here put before 
 you, I do not believe that you will feel comfortable in 
 resting on that plea. 
 
 Nevertheless it would be idle to deny that there are 
 causes of waste of various kinds. Almost all of them 
 are due to the relation of our parliamentary system to 
 military expenditure. Let me make myself clear. I 
 have never been able to accept the view of those soldiers 
 or civilians who deride our system of placing a man who 
 is not an expert at the head of our great spending 
 departments. I am quite as likely to be assailed by 
 civilians as by soldiers for saying so. Nevertheless the 
 system will go on, and in the main it will go on because 
 it is based on sound principles, which, despite all the 
 abuse that is lavished on it, commend themselves to the 
 common sense of the country. If I am a householder,
 
 iv 1 low DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE.' 126 
 
 I have to employ experts of various kinds, plumbers, 
 painters, glaziers, architects, gardeners. I cannot get 
 what I want carried out without their advice, but I 
 must decide what I want, and whether I can afford to 
 follow their counsel. Now for you, Sir or Madam, the 
 Secretary of State of any .meat spending department 
 occupies the place of you in the position of householder. 
 As your representative he is in honour bound to take you 
 into his confidence, at least as far as he can do so with- 
 out endangering your interests, by revealing tacts thai 
 ought not to be known to those who may take ad van 
 of the knowledge to your detriment. But he and not 
 any expert as such must be supreme, because he is the 
 spender, the householder — you. It is probably, though 
 it causes many to blaspheme, in the main a sound 
 instinct which leads Cabinets rather carefully to avoid 
 assigning a particular office to those who are in any way 
 experts in that department. They more nearly represent 
 the master of the house who is not expert, and are more 
 likely therefore to carry him along with them in any 
 proposals they make. That is one story. 
 
 It is altogether another whether things that have 
 come down to us by mere tradition, and have ceased 
 to serve the purpose for which they were originally 
 designed, ought to be allowed to put the country to 
 wasteful expenditure. Let me take first this. In the 
 clays when Parliament was struggling to assert its 
 power in the realm, it was provided that the exact 
 number of troops to be raised in any year should be 
 expressly recorded. Now thai Parliament is supreme, 
 the effect of this is, under a voluntary system by which 
 the home army supplies at a certain particular time of
 
 126 NATIONAL DEFENCES citap. 
 
 year large drafts for India, most disastrous. Naturally 
 the numbers required for the home army, in order 
 to maintain a certain standard, fluctuate enormously 
 between the time when recruits are coming in freely 
 and no drafts are going out to India, and the time when 
 during the transport season great drafts are being sent 
 out. The consequence is that every year the same 
 thing happens. Recruiting, just when it is working 
 most successfully, is stopped because the numbers 
 sanctioned by Parliament have been reached. The mere 
 fact that the flow is stopped for some months acts as a 
 very severe check to its resumption. When the draft 
 season comes on there are no recruits ready to take the 
 places of the draft. No one, of course, would propose 
 that Parliament should not decide what the strength of 
 the Army in any given year should be, but there can be 
 no reason why the numbers voted in every branch 
 should not be so calculated as to allow of a free flow of 
 recruits all the year as long as they will come in to an 
 extent sufficient to supply the deficiency of the succeed- 
 ing period of Indian drafts. Only, Sir or Madam, do not 
 blame any Government if they do not do this. You 
 must understand the matter, and help others to under- 
 stand it; otherwise, if the check to recruiting be removed, 
 it will be called a reckless increase of the Army. All 
 waste of machinery tends to cause a diminished result 
 for your sovereigns, therefore this is one of the things 
 that involve a waste of money, though its actual result 
 in increasing expenditure is not so obvious as it is in the 
 other matters of which I have next to speak. 
 
 Another relic of ancient days is the rule that all 
 money not expended within the year must be paid in to
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 127 
 
 the Commissioners for the reduction of the National 
 Debt. I doubl if any provision ever made has led 
 within the positive knowledge of bo many men to such 
 direct waste, sir, of your hard-earned pelf as this has 
 done. After a given day nothing thai has not been 
 completed, certified, and "billed" as it is called, 
 can be paid for out of that year's estimates. It U 
 impossible to foresee exactly how expenditure will run. 
 Accordingly large margins have everywhere to he 
 reserved. Then towards the end of the financial year, 
 chiefly in February and March, there is a rush to spend 
 as nearly as possible up to the hilt. It cannot be a wise 
 and carefully thought out expenditure, and is most 
 wasteful. The money paid to the National Commis- 
 sioners does not represent real economies of expenditure, 
 but chiefly the balance of the sums that have been kept 
 back in the prosecution of needed works in order to 
 protect those who have the spending from over-running 
 the account. Surely it would be possible, without any 
 real interference with the authority of the House in such 
 questions, to devise a system which would put an end 
 to this waste. Only under naval and military loans- 
 bills which do not require to be voted each year — is it at 
 present possible to ensure any economical expenditure. 
 Even in these there is always the temptation for every 
 one to present an appearance of economy which may 
 often in the end prove most extravagant. Yet again, not 
 long since Mr. Charles Williams, in an article in the 
 United Service Magazine, cited a large and representative 
 number of instances in which money had from sheer 
 expenditure on useless objects been thrown away. In 
 almost if not quite all these cases the initial cause oi
 
 128 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 this waste lay in the fact that since the question had 
 been settled, and since it had therefore been decided 
 that the money should be spent, so long a period had 
 elapsed that all the conditions had changed. This 
 continually happens as a consequence of the successive 
 postponements to a more convenient season of altera- 
 tions approved in principle. For instance, take a case 
 which is very typical. Twenty years ago, huts at a 
 certain station had become utterly uninhabitable. It 
 had been decided in principle to replace them with 
 permanent barracks. Forty years ago, when the huts 
 were first built, this would have been a very convenient 
 arrangement. The cost in the forty years would have 
 been far less than the cost of keeping up the huts. At 
 that time the station in question was a beautiful country 
 quarter very little accessible from London, and admir- 
 ably adapted in every way for the training of troops. 
 The twenty years which passed before the huts had 
 become quite unfit for human habitation, changed all 
 the conditions of the station. The years which followed 
 continually increased the change, till, with the access of 
 railway accommodation and other causes, the place had 
 become, not a country station at all, but a town in 
 which all the conditions that had made it suitable for 
 troops had all but disappeared. When, however, the 
 huts proved hopeless for use, these changes were not 
 fully recognised. It was supposed that as the accom- 
 modation for troops had disappeared, it ought to be 
 replaced. Money, however, was not then or for many 
 years later forthcoming. When the loan bill made it 
 available, the old idea prevailed, and barracks that 
 might with great advantage have been built elsewhere
 
 iv HOW DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 129 
 
 were in fact built where they arc little better than a 
 mere encumbrance. I could multiply such cases almo • 
 indefinitely. They are all connected with whal I may 
 call the disconnection produced by annual Budgets. I 
 do not of course mean that annual Budgets can be dig 
 pensed with, but I hal the difficulties they present require 
 to he faced and dealt with if money is not to be wasted 
 by these causes which make any fair comparison with 
 the expenditure of other nations absurd. Another 
 fruitful source of waste is the separation of the accounts 
 of different departments and the competition between 
 the departments to throw expenditure on one another. 
 To take a simple but pregnant illustration. It would 
 often be possible to reduce the national gas bill by 
 providing more economical burners, hut the burners are 
 provided by a different sub-department from that which 
 provides the gas. Ergo it is useless to show that a 
 general economy will result from a slight increase of 
 expenditure on burners. It would increase the hill 
 that one sub-department has to present. If it were 
 possible that in any way any department should get 
 twice the credit for any economy it has been able to 
 effect in the payments of another as compared with 
 that which it gets for savings in its own, it would be, I 
 am certain, a most economical arrangement. Almost all 
 the cases which Mr. Williams established were due to 
 the extent to which each department fights for its own 
 hand. 
 
 Yet another vast cause of cost is traceable to our 
 parliamentary system. "Questions in the House of 
 Commons" have reached a stage of farce about which it 
 is difficult to know whether it is a subject for laughter 
 
 K
 
 ISO NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 or for tears. It is no exaggeration to say that a vast 
 proportion of the clerical and other labour for which the 
 country pays is expended in providing ministers with 
 the means of fending off questions inconvenient to them- 
 selves or the country, quite as often the latter as the 
 former. In so many of all these ways the money of 
 Britain is spent against itself, that till the House takes 
 the reform in hand of all these means by which money 
 is thrown away, it is idle to make a comparison hetwcen 
 our expenditure and that of foreign countries. 
 
 I believe I have established enough to show that 
 while in its executive parts the Army is far less really 
 costly to the country than is the army of any foreign 
 Power, the conditions of our parliamentary system, and 
 the mode in which expenditure is dealt with by the 
 House, tend to a wasteful expenditure, such as in no 
 other country occurs. In these respects, without in the 
 slightest degree trenching on its own prerogatives, but 
 by simply abandoning obsolete traditions, the House has 
 a vast field for economical reform. 
 
 As to our army of boys at home, I think I have 
 adequately dealt with that objection in the course of my 
 previous explanation, and do not now propose to recur 
 to it. There is, however, one aspect of the question on 
 which, on general national grounds, I am anxious to say 
 a few words. One of the difficulties which stand in the 
 way of our recruiting an adequately stalwart army lies 
 in the tendency of late years for the country districts to 
 be depopulated, and for the towns to develop a popula- 
 tion of by no means strong physical vigour. Football is 
 becoming a profession for which men are paid high 
 salaries. There is scarcely room for a large part of the
 
 iv llo\V DO WE DEFEND THE EMPIRE 131 
 
 population to obtain ground for other forms of healthy 
 exercise. Now, of late, we in the Army have been 
 developing ;i system <>t" physical training for our men 
 which, under the general care and supporl ol the 
 Adjutant-General, has been most scientifically worked 
 nut by Colonel Fox, our Inspector of Gymnasia, [tisas 
 unlike the old, merely tricky and pj rotechnic gymnasl ics 
 as two things ran well he. It is expressly designed, and 
 admirably applied, to develop the physical health and 
 condition of a man or boy. I cannot help believing that 
 if the very simple and inexpensive apparatus that is 
 required for it could lie provided on an extensive scale 
 in towns, and all hoys and girls after a certain age vrere 
 required to pass through a course, and encouraged after- 
 wards to keep up their training, it would largely tend 
 to save us from thai national deterioration in physical 
 vigour with which the unhealthy conditions of our 
 manufacturing towns now threaten us. At present there 
 tends to be a terrible separation between the health and 
 vigour of the upper classes, now more than ever devoted 
 to physical exercise, and that of the children born of 
 the too early marriages of the employes of the factories, 
 and nurtured under circumstances most unwholesome in 
 all respects. I look upon this as one of the most vital 
 conditions of National Defence. I believe that Lord 
 Wemyss, when he lately derided a proposal by the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief for universal compulsory gymnasia as a 
 means of national security, completely misconceived the 
 facts to which Lord "Wolseley referred. To begin with, 
 the question of general health apart, our military train- 
 ing could be very much simplified and shortened if 
 recruits joined us thoroughly well prepared in the est ah-
 
 132 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP, iv 
 
 lished physical drill. In the second and most important 
 place, we should have a people behind us like that 
 which stood behind the navies and armies of Elizabeth, 
 instead of one out of which it is getting yearly more 
 difficult to obtain either the soldiers or sailors that are 
 needed to maintain the position our country has so long 
 held among the nations of the earth. 
 
 It is obvious that in this chapter I have not dealt 
 with the means by which we meet any attempts at 
 invasion, nor therefore have I considered our various 
 auxiliary forces, yeomanry, militia, and volunteers. That 
 I reserve to a future chapter. My object in this chapter 
 has been to show the general nature of our present 
 system for the regular army, and the intimate connection 
 which exists between the strength at which our home 
 army is maintained, and the demands of India and the 
 Colonies. In fact, at present the force which we main- 
 tain at home is rigidly fixed by these conditions alone. 
 As an item of expenditure, however, it must be remem- 
 bered that the auxiliary forces cost three millions ster- 
 ling. It is therefore not fair, as is frequently done, to 
 take the total sum, ignore the auxiliary forces, and then 
 make comparisons with foreign armies.
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH OUR STRENGTH 
 I UN BE BEST, A I 'I 'LIED 
 
 THE next stage in our inquiry brings us to the question 
 how we can most effectually employ the strength we 
 possess, both naval and military, in the defence of the 
 Empire. It is impossible without this to ascertain how 
 far any given force is adequate for the purpose, to sec in 
 what direction we either possess any surplus of available 
 strength, or require what we have to be augmented. From 
 what has been already said it is obvious that the army 
 which we maintain at home has its numbers actually 
 fixed by the necessity for keeping up an adequate supply 
 of men for the Indian Army and for that of the Colonies. 
 The whole question on which I have at present touched 
 as to the necessity for a very small increase in the 
 number of the home battalions turns solely upon the 
 necessities involved in this condition. Nevertheless, 
 thanks to our reserves, we have the means of making 
 up a certain force at home, and the question is how, in 
 general terms, can this be mosl efficiently employed, 
 jo as to safeguard what is entrusted to its care 
 
 It is of course impossible to forecast the exact
 
 134 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 circumstances of any future war. Those who ask us to 
 say where we could in any case carry on a campaign 
 misapprehend the whole conditions of the higher 
 strategy, or what may properly he called political 
 strategy. It is of the very essence of any successful 
 combination of navies or armies that the nature of the 
 stroke shall be adapted to the circumstances of the time, 
 and shall be kept as strictly secret as possible up to the 
 moment when the blow is delivered. The expedition to 
 the Crimea, long advertised beforehand, may be safely 
 taken as a model of how such things ought not to be done. 
 Apart from all question of its political rectitude, the 
 attack upon Copenhagen may be taken as a model of 
 what is wanted in such matters, or, in our times, Lord 
 Wolseley's stroke against Ismailia preliminary to the Tel- 
 el-Kebir campaign may serve the same purpose. In both 
 these latter instances, the supremacy of our Navy was 
 the means which enabled us to land by surprise and 
 under the most favourable conditions an army sufficient 
 for the purpose required. But as an illustration of the 
 general principles involved in sea power, and of the 
 necessary co-operation of an army moved by sea in order 
 to enable the fruits of naval supremacy to be reaped, 
 I must again refer to Captain Mahan's volumes. 
 Concerned mainly with the question from a seaman's 
 point of view, Captain Mahan has not elaborated the 
 record of the services done by the portable army to the 
 navy during the great struggle. 
 
 To anybody who reads between the lines it is clear 
 from his narrative that the possession of Corsica and 
 subsequently of Sicily, as well as the defence of Acre, 
 Abercromby's victory at Aboukir, the capture of Copen-
 
 v HOW OUB STRENGTH CAM BE BEST APPLIED 135 
 
 hagen, the seizure of the West Indian [slands, all oi 
 which were the achievements of land forces, transported 
 under the protection of the Navy, were essential to the 
 effective carrying out of the policy which he Bhows to 
 have been so powerful. 
 
 So too it has been said of India that it is "the gift 
 of the sea power." In a sense the term is true, bul the 
 great campaigns which placed us in the position which 
 we there hold were carried oul by Clive, by Wellington, 
 by Napier, llavelock, Outrani, Clyde, ami other soldiers, 
 and no navy, without abnegating its proper functions 
 altogether, could possibly have presented us with the 
 gift, which nevertheless could not have been secured 
 without its supremacy. These Facts are so simple thai it 
 may seem to be hardly worth while to state them. \ et 
 the principle which they involve is continually forgotten. 
 One has to be perpetually ramming, cramming, and 
 jamming Mr. Kinglake's admirable phrase, "the amphi- 
 bious power of Britain," in season and out of season, into 
 the minds of one's countrymen. For if it is, as I hope 
 to show presently, an exaggeration to speak of the Navy 
 as our single line of defence, it is also true that so to 
 speak of it underrates its most important value to us. 
 Under all conditions of war and in all circumstances 
 naval and military, a purely passive defence is hopeless. 
 There is a certain amount of hypocrisy about the way in 
 which our countrymen habitually speak of all their I 
 as defensive Eorces. Defensive forces, in the proper 
 of the term, they are and ought to be. We have the 
 
 1 The whole Life of Nelson, published since the above was in 
 teems with illustrations of the mutual dependence of the two 
 services on each oi her.
 
 136 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 best reason possible for being in a national sense one of 
 the most conservative nations of the world. There is 
 probably not a man in the Army, in the Navy, or 
 out of them, who wishes for any territorial possessions 
 on the Continent of Europe. We have, on the other 
 hand, certain national duties to fulfil. Those duties 
 cannot be discharged by invariably adopting a purely 
 passive role. We can only gain our defensive objects 
 by retaining the power to strike as well as the power to 
 ward off a blow. Captain Mahan has well shown that 
 even in the great war the position of Britain was at 
 first necessarily a defensive one. That necessity has 
 since that time been greatly increased by the enormous 
 development of the territory which we have to defend. 
 Both Captain Mahan and Admiral Colomb have, in their 
 different ways, shown clearly that the very obligation of 
 defence enforces upon us in practice for action the most 
 aggressive and vigorous procedure in order to drive the 
 stress of war home upon the shores of our enemies, so as 
 at one and the same time to keep it as distant as possible 
 from our most vulnerable commerce, and to produce that 
 pressure which alone can secure for us the restoration of 
 peace. It is under this aspect that the full force and 
 meaning of " amphibious " strength requires to be under- 
 stood. It must be remembered that in all warlike 
 operations the cpiestion at issue can only be decided not 
 by the number of troops that are enrolled on the musters 
 of opposing powers, but by the number of efficient troops 
 that are present at the decisive points of action. Prob- 
 ably to most of us the clearest illustration of the im- 
 portance of this distinction is to be found in the history 
 of the Crimean War. There Russia, with all her vast
 
 v HOW OUB STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 187 
 
 resources in men, found herself unable to deliver more 
 than very limited numbers on ;i point of her own territory. 
 Nor could Bhe even Bucceed in Bending the armies thai she 
 did into the Crimea without the most appalling sacrifice 
 of men and of material in the process of doing so. Thai 
 was due td the difficulties of land transport, the absence 
 of sufficient good roads and railways, the difficull nature 
 of the country, and the character of the weather with 
 which she had to deal. Now, whatever may have been 
 the ease in the days of Nelson, in these times of strain 
 navigation and of large and powerful ships, a country 
 possessed of the command of the sea is aide to transport 
 from point to poinl along the sea coast armies and their 
 -i Mies with a facility which no land transport can approach. 
 Even where largely-developed facilities of railway transport 
 exist, these are necessarily laid down on certain definite 
 lines, not determined by the precise conditions of Buch 
 attack as may lie applied againsl them. They are liable 
 to destruction at many points. The movement of troops 
 by railway is, unless for small numbers or great distances, 
 necessarily a very slow process hecause of the time which 
 i> required to entrain and detrain large bodies of men. 
 Therefore, if the power possessing the command of the 
 sea has also large command of independent sea transport 
 and a highly efficient mobile army which can he landed 
 at any given point equipped for a campaign with great 
 rapidity, it is clear that it may strike a blow at some 
 definite point which may he of very greal importance long 
 before any adequate force can be assembled to oppose it. 1 
 
 1 My statement < . 1 1 1 1 i ^ fad has bei d bo habitually and recklessly 
 misrepresented that 1 implore my readers to study it^ re] 
 illustration in the lucid pages of Nelson's Life.
 
 138 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 The Black Sea, exclusive of the Sea of Azoff, has 
 a coast line of at least 2500 English miles. There 
 is probably no part of that where it might not under 
 certain circumstances be of importance to land a British 
 army. The army opposed to a force in possession of 
 the Black Sea would be liable to an attack at any point 
 of that whole line wherever it was possible to effect 
 a landing ; and when once the hostile cruisers had 
 been driven into their ports, the general and admiral 
 co-operating together in the Black Sea would be able to 
 act with the certainty that the enemy could have no 
 means of knowing where the blow was about to be 
 delivered. Probably at no time would the uncertainty 
 extend to the whole of the 2500 miles ; but when it is 
 remembered that the whole of the common frontier of 
 Germany and France is only about 200 miles in extent, 
 the contrast is too sharp not to be intelligible. As an 
 object lesson of its effects, even in the days when steam 
 navigation had not attained its present development, a 
 study of Mr. King-lake's brilliant description of the 
 effects of the Kertch Expedition may be commended to 
 any one who desires to appreciate the nature of the 
 subject. It must, however, be realised that I only take 
 this case of the Black Sea as an illustration of the nature 
 of the power which we possess, provided we have a 
 supreme Navy and an adequate Army. The same ad- 
 vantage which we in this respect should have on these 
 shores, France has as against Italy, at all times and at 
 once, in a far higher degree as long as her navy is 
 supreme in the Mediterranean. The coast of Italy, 
 though not as extensive as the coast of the Black Sea, 
 is enormous in proportion to the extent of her territory.
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 
 
 It is liable to attack everywhere. It is very nearly ten 
 
 times as long as the common frontier of France and 
 Germany, even excluding the coasl lines of Sardinia, 
 .nid Sicily from consideration. France, with her ports 
 of the Riviera, of Corsica, Tunis, and Algeria, has such 
 facilities for embarking troops thai it has been calculated 
 that she could send an expeditionary force, sufficiently 
 complete for so short a transport as would be required, 
 of 120,000 men. The danger which is held over Italy 
 by this possibility is greatly enhanced by the difficulties 
 which are presented to movement from her north eastei n 
 to her south-western coast by the chain of the Apennines, 
 It is hardly too much to say that it is almost impossible 
 to conceive by what defensive arrangements on shore 
 Italy could, throughout the greater portion of her 
 territory, ward off the danger of such an attack as is 
 thus threatened- that is to say, that supposing the 
 Italian fleet has been crushed at sea, and all Italian 
 cruisers driven into their ports, so that no information 
 of the movements of French fleets or transports could 
 reach the Government, it is impossible to suppose that 
 the Italians could assemble an army with sufficient 
 rapidity to prevent such an expedition as I have de- 
 scribed from seizing almost any point that might be 
 desired either of the islands or of the mainland. This 
 danger is thoroughly felt and understood in Italy, and 
 is one among many reasons which have induced the 
 rulers of that kingdom, at the most serious risk to their 
 finances, to develop their navy, to keep up their army, 
 and to cultivate the mosl friendly relations wit h England. 
 Obviously, whatever assistance is given to or withheld 
 from Italy is assistance given to or withheld from her
 
 MO NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 allies, whoever they may be at the time ; and as the 
 effect of the alliance of our fleet alone is sufficient to 
 liberate for external action the whole army of Italy, the 
 power we here hold is enormous. 
 
 Before drawing out the effect which this condition of 
 things has upon the problem of our national defence, 
 or rather upon the only true defence, the means by 
 which we can best use our power, it is necessary to cast 
 a glance at the present political situation in Europe. 
 Ten years ago it seemed to me, and it seems to me 
 now, that it was the case then that, assuming, what I 
 shall presently show, that we have at all times the 
 power of giving or withholding most efficient aid to any 
 of the Great Powers of the Continent, we could best 
 maintain the peace of the world and the security of our 
 own Empire by a firm alliance first with Italy and then, 
 through her, on well-defined conditions, with the league 
 of the Central Powers, provided they were ready to 
 secure for us peace in Asia in return for our securing 
 them peace in Europe. My ideas received the warmest 
 possible approval in very high, if not the highest, quarters 
 in Germany, Austria, and Italy. So far as I am able 
 to judge from many indications, public opinion in 
 Britain was steadily working round to that view. 
 Many who did not approve of it recognised the fact 
 that it had become the prevailing opinion among all 
 those who considered such questions at all. Unfortu- 
 nately it is extremely difficult to make Continental 
 statesmen understand the conditions under which public 
 opinion is formed in Britain, and the nature of its effect 
 on our politics and statecraft. Lord Beaconsfield's 
 famous saying about the Conservative party is much
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 141 
 
 truer of Britain aa a whole. It is a great self-governing 
 country, and on any subject on which public passion is 
 not suddenly roused by some overt acts or words thai 
 reach every one simultaneously, ii takes a long time foi 
 a new idea to penetrate into the minds of the greal 
 body of those who determine the votes of the electorate 
 or the policy of British statesmen. Bence, with great 
 anxieties and responsibilities on their shoulders, the 
 statesmen of the Continent become impatient with the 
 slow movement of political thought on foreign policy 
 in Britain, and looking upon the country as given over 
 to trading considerations, they venture on some overt 
 insult just to rouse the sleepy animal. Suddenly, in a 
 moment, all is changed. The question of foreign politics 
 has passed from Downing Street to the gutter, and all 
 between. Statesmen, who could not have ventured on 
 using even strong language till then, now take action as 
 promptly and decisively, and with more confidence in 
 public support than those of any other nation could do. 
 It is all most intelligible to us, and needs no explaining : 
 but it completely confuses those who live under an 
 altogether different system from ours. Hence more 
 than one foreign nation is apt at times to take action or 
 use language as regards Britain which can hardly be 
 to its own advantage. France or Germany, in fact, at 
 such times docs everything in its power to depress its 
 friends and to give encouragement to its enemies. For 
 some time past this has been the process which has 
 been adopted in Germany, till it would be absurd to 
 pretend at present that any but a dreamer could imagine 
 that for a long time to come there is now the remotest 
 chance of anv alliance between Britain and a combination
 
 142 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 of which Germany is the centre. That in no way 
 alters the nature of the pressure which we are able to 
 exercise upon the armed nations of the Continent, 
 though it no doubt xovy materially alters the direction 
 in which we may have to apply it. As long as there 
 were two definite groups of Powers arrayed against one 
 another — one, at least, in the main desirous of keeping 
 peace ; the other waiting, for very obvious reasons, the 
 moment when a favourable opportunity should occur for 
 war — it was tolerably clear that our interest lay in 
 supporting those who desired peace, provided we could 
 obtain their support against aggression in return. Now 
 everything is for the time at least in a condition of un- 
 stable equilibrium. France seems to be getting tired of 
 a mere servile adherence to Russian policy which brings 
 her little advantage. There is a tendency at least 
 towards a rearrangement of forces. It does not appear 
 by any means certain that France and Italy may not 
 draw together. Possibly that may tend to connect 
 us with what would then become at least one of 
 the most powerful combinations of naval power ever 
 formed, with ample military power to make it effective. 
 The Turkish Empire now seems to threaten once again, 
 as it has so often threatened before, to break up from 
 internal disorder and the hopeless corruptness and 
 tyranny of its government. The times are therefore 
 so stormy that it is impossible to say almost from hour 
 to hour what combinations may take place. What 
 concerns my purpose is that no possible combination 
 that can be foreseen tends to diminish the importance 
 for any side that it may espouse of the action of the 
 sea power and of the amphibious strength of Britain.
 
 v Mow OUK STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 143 
 
 Therefore, apart altogether from the political conditions 
 of the hour, and aparl from thai state of things with 
 which I deall ten years ago, I am anxious now to bring 
 out those facts which make for the power of Britain, 
 as long as the map of Europe is arranged as it is at 
 present. In order, however, to illustrate how the 
 power of Britain may be thus used in almosl any 
 combination of the Powers of Europe, it is convenient 
 first to take the combination hitherto most familial' t<> 
 us, that of the three Powers — Germany, Austria, and 
 Italy — as against the alliance of France and Russia. 
 Neither the "Concert" nor the clouds of 1807 have yet 
 destroyed that grouping as the permanent element of the 
 situation. The opportunities which, in a military sense. 
 ,ne thus presented to us can then be easily examined, 
 and it will not be difficult to show how far any valua- 
 tion in the grouping of the Powers will affect the extent 
 to which our power will tell on the new combination. 
 
 Even if for a moment there is a possibility, mainly due 
 to the impatience of German statesmen with the fact 
 that they cannot make definite terms with Britain, that 
 the three empires may draw together, hardly any one 
 supposes that that arrangement can be a permanent one. 
 Nothing that has happened has even tended to allay 
 the mutual suspicion of one another of Russia and 
 Germany, or the sense in the minds of Austrian states- 
 men that for them it would be a fatal thing for the 
 Black Sea to become a Russian lake, and the Dardanelles 
 a strait through which Austrian ships would have to 
 pass under the guns of a powerful and then even 
 dominant Power. Therefore, whatever the temporary 
 combination may be, the importance of the armed aid
 
 144 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 which we are able to give to or to withhold from 
 Germany against Russia, or to Russia against Germany, 
 is an important element in our power. Mutatis mutandis 
 the same thing is true of our relations with France and 
 Germany, and with France and Italy. Abundantly is 
 it true of the assistance which we are able to give or to 
 withhold, under almost any condition of things, in 
 dealing with Austria. So keenly is this felt by Austrian 
 statesmen that they are, and have long been, almost as 
 eager for a firm alliance Avith us as with Germany. 
 Recent events have not a little tended to make them 
 trust us somewhat more than they do a Power which 
 could carry on negotiations of an at least doubtful kind 
 with the Czar at the very moment Avhen she was 
 cementing an alliance with Austria for protection 
 against the same Power. If it be only as a check on 
 the vagaries of Germany, it is well that our people 
 should realise how much we have in our hands to offer 
 or to withhold from her. To begin with, for the reasons 
 I have already given, it is scarcely possible for Italy to 
 maintain her position in the Central Alliance at all if 
 Germany makes it impossible for us to assist her allies. 
 Though this is, as I shall show, by no means the only 
 pressure which we are able to exercise on the mighty 
 forces of the Continental Powers, it is perhaps convenient 
 to discuss in relation to it the nature of the advantage 
 with which all such means of bringing our influence to 
 bear on them supplies us. Comically enough, I have 
 found that those who had not studied my statement of 
 the case, but felt themselves, nevertheless, quite com- 
 petent to discuss it, have alleged that in showing that 
 we were able to give or to withhold certain very im-
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH LAX BE BEST APPLIED 
 
 port-ant help to the mighty armies of differenl Powers on 
 the Continent, I showed how we could belp them • 
 ively enough, but I failed to show how that would be oi 
 advantage to us. So, then, if 1 go into a market with 
 money in my hand ready to purchase certain wares which 
 1 do not possess, or at least do not possess in sufficient 
 quantity for my needs, the fact that I have the monej 
 is of no advantage to me, but only to those from whom 
 I propose to buy. A novel doctrine certainly, and one 
 to which I must concede the credit of being a humorous 
 one. Obviously it is for a well-informed diplomacy to 
 take advantage of those means of influencing Continental 
 Powers which I have shown that it possesses. My 
 business was to show that from a military point of view 
 our naval power could operate with telling- effect on the 
 European situation as it exists. The advantage u> us 
 may perhaps be best illustrated by the case of Austria 
 and Germany. 
 
 Prince Bismarck once used an expression, which has 
 become proverbial, about the bones of a Pomeranian 
 soldier. By it he illustrated his belief that a statesman 
 has no right to sacrifice the lives of his countrymen in 
 mere crusading enterprises with which they have no 
 concern. If Austria were entirely unable to furnish 
 important aid to the defence of the German monarchy, 
 her statesmen woidd say of Austria as Bismarck said on 
 that other occasion, "We are very sorry for you, bul 
 we cannot think it right to sacrifice the lives of our 
 soldiers, who are enlisted for the service of their own 
 country, in order to do you a good turn." As, on tin 
 contrary, the alliance of Austria is of the greatest im- 
 portance to the German Empire, the German statesmen 
 
 i.
 
 146 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 unhesitatingly pledge themselves under certain condi- 
 tions to fight in the cause of Austria. This is what 
 is meant by the " Do ut des " principle. To me it 
 seems the very essence of national morality for states- 
 men. I say this emphatically, because I have heard it 
 attacked as a purely selfish and unchristian principle of 
 action. 
 
 I can only say for my own part, and I believe the 
 instincts of the great majority of my countrymen are with 
 mc in saying it, that it seems to me that the act of 
 a statesman who sends soldiers to Avar in a cause in 
 which national duty and right are not involved, is 
 criminal and murderous. On the contrary, when it is 
 clear that two Powers have a common national duty in 
 resisting aggression, when each of them may be crushed 
 severally, but are able when united to present so strong 
 a force that they are able by the mere certainty of their 
 union to ensure peace, then it becomes the highest duty 
 of the statesmen of the two countries to make such 
 arrangements as will secure that result. I think 
 that this is the feeling with which most of us read the 
 history of the relations of Prussia with Napoleon during 
 the time when he was crushing Austria and bribing 
 Prussia with perpetual sops. Of course any brief 
 formula may be so turned as to be selfish and dishonour- 
 able in its meaning; but in so far as the formula "Do 
 ut des " means that British statesmen cannot hope, and 
 have no right to hope, that they will be allowed to sit 
 by in utter indifference to the fate of the Continent 
 without suffering for it by finding themselves isolated, 
 it seems to me not an immoral principle, but one based 
 on the soundest morality. A statesman cannot be
 
 v llow OUR STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 117 
 
 judged on the same principles as an individual. He 
 charged with an enormous responsibility. Assuredly 
 • ■veil before thai Tribunal to which the unjustly con- 
 demned by human judges appeal, he will be held firsl 
 responsible for those whose lives and honour, with the 
 sanctity of their domestic hearths, were entrusted to his 
 care. It is therefore a question of strictly moral obliga- 
 tion for us to know what power is in our hands for 
 action in these matters. No man can be held responsible 
 for doing that which he cannot do, and no nation 
 can sum up the obligations winch lie upon it without 
 realising first what its power is. It is for this reason 
 that I desire to state briefly here what I have elsewhere 
 elaborated, the means of action which we possess in 
 Europe, and the mode in which we can apply them for 
 the purposes of national defence. I have already shown 
 whal great means of action we have or may have in the 
 Mediterranean and in the Black Sea. But in all our 
 wars the Baltic has been almost as important a field for 
 us as the Mediterranean. It is not less important in 
 our days than it was formerly. It is, if possible, a more 
 valuable field of action now than then. 
 
 As long as the danger of a real war-alliance between 
 Russia and France hangs over Central Europe, Denmark 
 as a stepping-stone for one very effective form of inva- 
 sion of Germany must always be an important element 
 in the question. Her ample sea-board makes her at 
 once peculiarly exposed to the attacks of a dominant 
 sea power, and if that dominant power were the Rnsso- 
 French Alliance, her position would offer greal facilities 
 to either or both Powers for landing troops thai mighl 
 penetrate into the heart of Germany in rear of the g
 
 148 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 belt of fortifications that have been thrown out towards 
 France. 
 
 The narrowness of the proper frontier between France 
 and Germany continually suggests the question by what 
 means either Power may avoid the necessity of crossing 
 it. A menace therefore from the side of Denmark by 
 an adequate force would be a serious one for Germany. 
 .Similarly, it must depend upon the balance of naval 
 power how far the whole northern coast of Germany 
 is open to very much such attacks as I have described 
 as threatening Italy from France. More especially is 
 this the case in regard to the province of East Prussia. 
 The sea-coast of that province has been elaborately 
 fortified by Germany. Those fortifications are most im- 
 portant both for the purposes of protection against direct 
 attack by Russia through the province of East Prussia, 
 and as serving as a base or source of supply for German 
 armies striking against a Russian force in Poland. They 
 are exceedingly strong against a pure land attack, but 
 would probably succumb without much difficulty, after 
 a certain time, to a combined attack by land and sea 
 carried out by a Power that had complete command of 
 the Baltic. Considering the preponderance of naval 
 force which would be at the command of an alliance 
 between Russia and France, it is obvious that here also 
 a great sea Power which can throw its weight into the 
 opposite scale, may be able to render services of extreme 
 value to the opposing alliance. 
 
 When one has been discussing a question of this 
 kind for some time one gradually discovers points on 
 which one has not made oneself clear. I was once 
 asked, " Why should we undertake such expeditions in
 
 v HOW on; STRENGTH CAN BE BE8T APPLIED 141) 
 
 the Baltic and towards Denmark, seeing thai Russia has 
 shown herself so weak in the l s 77 78 campaign thai 
 we need have do fears of any action thai she could 
 take?" Now, in the firsl place, I have proposed no ex- 
 peditions in that direction at all. I have (inly said that 
 we have it in our power, provided always that urn- Navy 
 be supreme, to stop other people from carrying out 
 expeditions which they may be strongly tempted to 
 undertake. In any great war in which we have been 
 interested our Navy has always been employed in the 
 Baltic. I only say that if our Navy be so employed 
 hereafter, there air certain conditions of the present 
 relations of the European Powers which oiler oppor 
 tunities to our Navy for certain special forms of action. 
 Captain Mahan has shown how enormously powerful 
 our Navy was in exercising pressure upon the military 
 Powers during the great war. Supposing that the whole 
 land frontier of Russia were closed by Germany and 
 Austria, I do not think that any of those forms of naval 
 pressure upon her which he has so graphically described 
 would be diminished in their efficiency in our time. The 
 special conditions which I have described arc simply so 
 much additional valuable work that may be done in our 
 time by sea power. 
 
 To the objection that we need take account of none 
 of these things because of the experiences of the 1*77-78 
 campaign, I answer that the task which Russia then 
 undertook, and before which she to a great extent 
 certainly collapsed, was by no means a small and easy 
 task, but one of exceeding difficulty, which might 
 have tried the resources of the most formidable of 
 Powers. A winter campaign across the Balkans, carried
 
 150 NATIONAL DEFENCES niAP. 
 
 on through the semi-civilised provinces of Turkey, was, 
 in point of those physical difficulties which caused the 
 greatest losses to the Russian army, a very different 
 affair from a march upon Paris through the cultivated 
 plains of France richly provided with good roads and 
 railways. 
 
 It is curious how difficult it is to keep men's minds 
 on an even balance between exaggerated fears and 
 exaggerated contempt for so little understood a Power 
 as Russia. At one time one is told that because of the 
 enormous numerical force of the Russian army it is 
 ridiculous for any Power to attempt to resist her will ; 
 at the next, that because the Russian army could not 
 overcome such physical obstacles as hardly any other 
 Power would have attempted to face, therefore she is a 
 military " quantity " that may be altogether neglected. 
 I think, therefore, that if Germany finds it worth while 
 to ally herself with Austria, because for reasons into 
 which I need not here enter Austria is able very 
 powerfully to contribute to the defence of Germany 
 against Russia, it is well worth the while both of 
 Germany and Britain, despite the excited passions of 
 the hour, to consider whether analogous circumstances 
 do not exist as between them. It seems to me that from 
 the point of view which I have already discussed, the 
 single question for the statesmen of the two countries is, 
 whether they are not better able to ensure peace or, if 
 war be forced on them, to carry on war by a defensive 
 alliance than by isolated action. 
 
 It is not to be expected that the importance to either 
 Power of the alliance of the other should be so immedi- 
 ately realised, or generally understood, as is the case
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH OAN BE BEST APPLIED 151 
 
 between the two greal German Powers. Ii needs thai 
 the matter should be thoroughly debated in public and 
 should sink into the minds of the people of both 
 countries before the question can enter the region of 
 practical politics. But both in Germany and in Britain 
 great progress lias been made in at Leasl an understand- 
 ing of the question. The hot baste with which the 
 German Government is pressing on their fleel indicates 
 how clearly they understand it. It would he atrange 
 indeed if a book of such [tower as that of Captain 
 Mahan did not, in the long run, tend to affect the 
 minds of Continental statesmen so as to produce a higher 
 appreciation of the enormous importance to them of the 
 alliance of the great sea Power. There have been times 
 when the reports they have received of the internal 
 weakness of Austria have tended to make German 
 statesmen doubt whether alliance with her did not 
 increase the danger of war with Russia without con- 
 tributing a sufficient element to the resisting power of 
 Germany to compensate the increased risk. On the 
 whole, however, in the case of a neighbouring Power 
 actually covering certain very important frontiers of 
 Germany, the hesitation has not led to more than an 
 occasional earnest demand that Austria would perfect 
 her military organisation. In the case of our own 
 Asiatic relations with Russia, all the circumstances are 
 far more remote and difficult for them to ascertain with 
 certainty. Till lately the frontier which we desired to 
 keep inviolate has been ill-defined and subject to the 
 possibilities of quarrel, the nature of which it was diffi- 
 cult for European statesmen to understand. All these 
 elements tended, up to the time of the famous telegram,
 
 152 NATIONAL DEFENCES OHAP. 
 
 to make German statesmen rather hanker after an 
 alliance with Britain than ready to commit themselves 
 to definite pledges. That very Pamir incident which 
 caused us anxiety some time ago has, however, now led 
 to a clearing up of that part of the frontier which has 
 not hitherto been delimitated. Considering the small- 
 ness of the numbers of Russian troops actually main- 
 tained in Asia, and the vast accumulation on the 
 western frontiers of the empire, it is difficult to believe 
 that German statesmen can consider that any alliance 
 with Britain which covered Asia as well as Europe 
 would entail upon them such risk of being involved in 
 the quarrel of another Power as is entailed by the 
 alliance with Austria. The assistance which we are 
 able to offer to the Central Alliance in Europe is, when 
 it is properly understood, of such vast importance and 
 has so penetrated into the minds of German statesmen, 
 and undoubtedly into the mind of the Emperor himself, 
 that I cannot help believing that any difficulty in secur- 
 ing, if we wish it, a guarantee of peace on the " Do ut 
 des " principle must be due to the entire want of training 
 of onr own statesmen in the higher strategy which is 
 one of the essential conditions of the diplomatic know- 
 ledge of all European Ministers. They get excellent 
 advice, but that is altogether another matter from follow- 
 ing it out with conviction into diplomacy. We have 
 so much to offer that the danger is rather lest we 
 should ask too little in return, lest we should be content 
 to make mutual arrangements in Europe without taking 
 Asia into account. 
 
 Noav it is the peculiar condition of our Asiatic 
 frontier which makes it desirable for us to enter into
 
 v HOW OUi: STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 153 
 
 a "iv.it defensive alliance. It is nol because wr have 
 al present anj immediate reason to fear a collision 
 mi a large scale with the Russians in A - i ; i thai it i< im 
 portanl to us to be able to bring pressure upon Russia 
 elsewhere than in India. It is rather, as I have shown, 
 because the steps which Russia may take for improving 
 her position againsl us ;ire beyond our immediate reach, 
 and because we are yel committed to pledges wisely or 
 unwisely undertaken to resist them, that we want to 
 mala 1 our power tell where we ran employ it more at our 
 ease. Captain Mahan has traced in case after case with 
 what decisive effect in past times our sea power was 
 brought to l»eai' upon the great territorial empire of 
 Russia. To some extent, no doubt, we still retain that 
 means of action, but the development of railways and of 
 intercourse across the western land-frontier of Russia has 
 materially modified it. If we attempted as we did in 
 1780, and again in 1788 and 1801, to exert pressure upon 
 Russia by naval action in the Baltic as long as the western 
 land-frontier of Russia was open to her, the conditions 
 would he very different now from then. Captain Mahan 
 tells us that under the pressure of the British Orders in 
 Council, and of Napoleon's Continental System, which 
 by no means interfered with land transport across the 
 western frontier of Russia, "the Czar felt the ground 
 trembling under his feet." " Alexander feared war ; but 
 he remembered his father's fate and feared assassination 
 more." The destruction of sea commerce for Russia then 
 meant the destruction of all her commerce. In order that 
 the same result should be produced now it is necessary 
 thai the land frontier of Russia should be closed. Thus 
 the power of the Central Alliance and that of Britain
 
 154 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 are complementary of each other. Together that pressure 
 may be I in night upon Russia which made Alexander 
 prefer to run the risk of Avar with Napoleon, master of 
 all the rest of the Continent, rather than that which 
 was involved in a contest with the great sea Power. 
 The mere statement of the case shows how great to 
 either Power is the value of alliance of the other. 
 Captain Mahan has logically demonstrated that the Czar 
 was forced to prefer the invasion of his country, the 
 defeat within it of his armies, and the burning of 
 Moscow, to the losses involved in the destruction of 
 commerce at sea, at a time when transport across the 
 land frontier was only difficult. Is it not clear that the 
 combined action in our times of a closure of the land 
 frontier and of the sea would put upon Russia a more 
 potent pressure than could be exercised by the com- 
 bined armies of Germany and of Austria 1 Vast there- 
 fore as are those advantages which we are able to offer 
 to the Continental Powers by the direct action of our 
 Navy in protecting Italy, in commanding for aggressive 
 purposes the Black Sea, in prohibiting the use of 
 Denmark as a means of aggression for Russia and Fiance 
 against Germany, in protecting the northern coast of 
 Germany, and especially in rendering secure the sea 
 fortresses of East Prussia, it yet appears to me that 
 none of them, scarcely all of them together, are ecpual in 
 importance to the services which we are able to render 
 in completing the line of investment of the Russian 
 frontier in combination with Germany and Austria, 
 This is an aspect of the case the importance of which I 
 had not myself realised until it was brought home to 
 me by the study of Captain Mahan's history. It seems
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 155 
 
 to me verj greatly to enhance the value both oi our 
 alliance to Germany, and of the German alliance to us. 
 The case of the alliance of Alexander with Napoleon 
 after the peace of Tilsit is the only instance in which, 
 prior to the Crimean War, the action of our fleel in the 
 Baltic had not been to produce immediate compliance 
 with our demands on the part of Russia. The case of 
 the Crimean War is especially significant, because that 
 which rendered our naval blockade of the coast- of 
 Russia comparatively inoperative was the neutrality 
 friendly to Russia of Prussia, and the improved facilities 
 of land communication compared with those of the 
 period of the great war. Unless the teaching of history 
 lie altogether false, the Central Towers and Britain 
 together are able without active land-campaigning to 
 bring such a pressure to bear upon Russia as would force 
 her to submit to almost any terms. To me it seems as 
 though the case were analogous to that of two states 
 which, being under the necessity of making war with a 
 third, were unable cither of them separately to manu- 
 facture gunpowder, because one of them possessed the 
 materials of saltpetre but no sulphur and charcoal, while 
 the other possessed ample supplies of sulphur and char- 
 coal but had no saltpetre. Therefore, as it seems to me, 
 the true means of securing the defence of our Indian 
 frontier lies in bringing home these facts to our own 
 people, in taking advantage of their importance in all 
 negotiations with Germany and the Central Powers, and 
 when the facts are fully realised, taking further advan- 
 tage of them to secure such a treaty as will enforce 
 peace in Europe and peace in Asia. 
 
 For these reasons it still seems to me that as a
 
 156 NATIONAL DEFENCES ciiat\ 
 
 " Counsel of Perfection," as an ideal, that is to say, of 
 what would really serve best in the interests hoth of 
 Britain and of Europe, this grouping of the Powers is 
 most favourable for us, provided that, appreciating the 
 advantages we are able to offer her, Germany is ready 
 to behave herself, as she has much interest in doing, in 
 matters South African and other. In the actual present 
 and proximate condition of affairs, it at least looks as if 
 for a time, the length of which no one can forecast, the 
 condition of the Turkish Empire, and all that it involves, 
 would determine the grouping of the Powers. The 
 future is emphatically just now "on the knees of the 
 gods." What will come out of it can hardly be guessed 
 from hour to hour. Nevertheless every incident serves 
 to show the importance of the influence of Britain as a 
 European Power. When admirals are the agents of the 
 will of Europe, sea power at all events is to the fore. 
 Moreover, as Greece and the contiguous Turkish coasts 
 are emphatically places " where land and sea do much 
 intertwine," the second form of English power is applic- 
 able in a very high degree. Here, as during the Russo- 
 Turkish campaign, the relative facility with which an 
 army can act, operating from the coast, as compared 
 with one that has to pass over the territory of Turkey 
 in Europe, ill provided as it is with roads or railways, is 
 a very important factor. The forces that can determine 
 any issue on the frontiers of Greece and Turkey are not 
 the numbers that may be available in Germany, Austria, 
 or Russia, but those that can be supplied with food and 
 ammunition on the Thessalian frontier. So measured, 
 the armed force of Britain is more than the equivalent 
 of that of all the three empires combined. The three
 
 v HOW OUR STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 157 
 
 empires together are not able to place on thai frontier a 
 
 Larger army than anj i of them can. No one of them 
 
 could feed and supply an army in thai region with any- 
 thing like the facility thai Britain can. The combined 
 effeel of fleet and army are immeasurably more effective 
 factors thrown into the cauldron of European politics 
 than all the forces of the three great military l'<> 
 The ease is altogether different in Armenia. There land 
 and sea do not much intertwine. 
 
 The main thesis which I have attempted to establish 
 iii this chapter may now be thus drawn together. In 
 speaking of National Defence we use a form of ex- 
 pression very nearly the equivalent of the boxer's phrase 
 — "the noble art of self-defence." The boxer under- 
 stands that to mean that he is to learn to ward off the 
 blows of his adversary certainly, but that that will be a 
 very unlikely way to terminate the contest unless he 
 learns also how to knock his opponent "out of time. 
 For nations, as for boxers, this is true. To dream of 
 National Defence as a defence of these islands alone, 
 or a passive defence of the whole Empire alone, is to 
 condemn ourselves to that most unfortunate form of 
 light long since described by Juvenal, where the enemy 
 does all the heating, and you have only to submit while 
 you are being beaten. That no empire on this earth 
 would, under these conditions, be so hard to defend as 
 that of Britain scarcely needs demonstration. None, 
 taking together population and territory, is so vast. 
 None is so dispersed over the world's surface. As I 
 have shown in a previous chapter, the variety of types 
 in the attacks that may he made on it are more numer- 
 ous than those that can he directed against any other.
 
 158 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 On the other hand, looking at the question from the 
 point of view of the teacher of the " nohle art of self 
 defence," these dispersed positions properly defended, as 
 we have now every prospect that they will be, are so 
 many footholds of advantage in any contest in which 
 we may be engaged. They give to our Navy, and there- 
 fore to our portable Army, a freedom of movement not 
 possessed by any other Power. There is no possible 
 antagonist who may not thus be made to feel the might 
 of Britain. In all contests, nevertheless, it is not 
 enough to reckon up the forces on one side of the 
 question. It is necessary also to consider the nature of 
 the forces that may be brought against us. Now, with 
 a world in arms, it would be a rather serious matter if 
 it was likely to be unanimous against us. As a matter 
 of fact, the causes which make for mutual antagonism 
 among the various Powers are too strong to allow that 
 to be at all probable. It becomes, therefore, of import- 
 ance to consider how the unique form of strength which 
 we possess can be most effectively employed under the 
 actual conditions which exist at any given moment. 
 There are, however, certain permanent features, such as 
 the nature of the coast-line of Europe, and certain semi- 
 permanent features, such as the frontiers in a military 
 sense of the European Powers, which must under any 
 conditions determine the nature of the action of an 
 amphibious Power. My object has been, therefore, to 
 show that the nature of the influence which we are able 
 to exert, either against or in behalf of any of the 
 European nations, is of such a kind that, taking account 
 of the permanent and semi -permanent features of the 
 map, we ought, by the use of a satisfactory diplomacy
 
 v HOW OIK STRENGTH CAN BE BEST APPLIED 159 
 
 necessarily based on this knowledge of our strength, to 
 l)c able to .i^ain most easily such objects as we put before 
 ourselves, by securing, if need be, the movement in our 
 
 favour of armies other than OUT own -that in fait we 
 can now, as in the past, translate naval, and still more 
 amphibious, strength into the full equivalent of the 
 armies of the Continent, even though we do not attempt, 
 as we never can attempt, to rival them in numerical 
 strength. For that purpose we have need of "a 
 supreme Navy, an adequate Army, and an incomparable 
 diplomacy." 1 
 
 1 A toast given at a dinner of the Geographical Society by its 
 President, Sir Mountstuart Grant Dull'.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FORCE WE NEED 
 
 Foil the reasons given in the last chapter, it appears 
 to me that it must he entirely upon the development of 
 our naval power, and of a military force adapted to take 
 advantage both of our command of the sea and of our 
 great mercantile marine, that our power for effective 
 action must necessarily depend. To devote all our 
 energies, for instance, to doubling in time of war against 
 Russia the British army which we maintain in India 
 would have for us many disadvantages. 
 
 In the first place, from the nature of the territory 
 which lies between us and Russia, to do so would be to 
 exercise our power where it can be least effective. In 
 the second place, it would be to remove all our military 
 force from Europe, and to leave these islands without 
 any serious body of regular troops that could be rapidly 
 recalled in case of emergency. It would deprive us of 
 that means of taking advantage of our command of the 
 sea for land operations which has proved so effective in 
 former wars — which has, in fact, given to us India itself 
 and almost all of our colonial empire. It is impossible 
 to say precisely how and where such a power would
 
 ohap. vj THE FORCE WE NEED 161 
 
 have to lie used ; the poinl ia to realise that we do or 
 may possess it, and i" retain it in full efficiency. It 
 
 follows, therefore, that independently of ujiestions ,,t 
 pure home defence, to be deal! with hereafter, the Bori 
 of army which we require to maintain is one that ia 
 limited in numbers by the conditions of sea transport, 
 that is complete in all its parts, one that is rather 
 efficient for its numbers than dependent on numbers foi 
 its strength. 
 
 That which the power of the sea confers on us is the 
 facility for striking a rapid Mow at an unknown point 
 In speaking of the case of France and Italy, I mentioned 
 that it has been computed that France could probably 
 embark four army corps, or about 120,000 men. It 
 might perhaps seem that we, with our far greater 
 mercantile marine and our great facilities for embarka- 
 tion, ought, if we possessed them, to be able to embark 
 an even larger body of men. But the cases are not 
 analogous. France, for the purposes of a movement into 
 Italy, need only, from the shortness of the voyage, 
 embark the troops themselves, or little more. YVe, for 
 almost any point where it would be at all probable that 
 we should have to disembark troops, should have to send 
 with them large means of transport onshore, and the 
 food and supplies for a comparatively long voyage for 
 both men and animals. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, though the subject is one 
 that it is difficult to work out with certainty, it is 
 probably true that even if we were able to have in 
 England as large an army as we pleased, we should 
 secure all that we could possibly want in order to take 
 full advantage of our naval power, if, after we have 
 
 M
 
 162 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 filled up the regiments in India to their full establish- 
 ment, we are able to embark two army corps, including 
 a cavalry division, and to follow them with a third. By 
 a slow but silent and steady progress, we have now 
 arrived at a position at which we are able to do this 
 faster than transports can be made ready for the required 
 troops. Considering that we had no previous arrange- 
 ments for making up an army in a condition to take the 
 field, great advance has lately been made. Large store- 
 houses have been built at various stations, in which the 
 equipment for war service is placed in a fair condition of 
 readiness. 
 
 Much still requires to be done in the organisation of 
 these, even where they are fairly ready, but progress is 
 steady if slow in this respect, and it is certain that more 
 has been done the last few years towards facing the facts 
 of what would be required for war than in any previous 
 period of our history. 
 
 The difficulty, however, here as elsewhere, in having 
 things put on a proper footing in this respect, lies with 
 you, my readers of this series. No Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer can sanction the expenditure which is neces- 
 sary for this purpose without your intelligent and active 
 support. If you think that the troops that you see 
 marching past you on a parade at Aldershot or else- 
 where constitute by themselves and as they there stand 
 an army fit for fighting purposes in the field, and are 
 content with what you see, all attempt to do more 
 appears to be a wasteful expenditure which it would be 
 dangerous for any Government to attempt. Yet surely 
 it is not very difficult for you to understand that when 
 a body of men, who have stomachs, and have also arms
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 163 
 
 in their hands, and have a certain Dumber of artillery, 
 are landed in a hostile country where they will not 
 necessarily find food, and will certainly not he provided 
 by their enemy with ammunition either for the artillery 
 or the infantry, there must Ik; some means of providing 
 i hem wii h both. 
 
 Furthermore, if they land at a distant port, it is nol 
 enough that large stores of food and of ammunition 
 should be carried to that port, it is necessary also that 
 there should be some means of transporting it from the 
 port to the successive places that the army may reach in 
 the course of its march. Xor is it enough that the 
 general stores of the army shall be transported from the 
 port at which they disembark to such a distance from 
 it as the army on any particular day has reached. An 
 army of even 70,000 men, small as it is as compared 
 with the great forces which are moved on the Continent, 
 occupies a very considerable area of ground. The food 
 and the necessary ammunition must, on a regulated 
 system, well thought out and understood beforehand, be 
 distributed from the central point, wherever it may be, 
 to the several parts of the army so as ultimately to 
 reach the particular man who needs to be fed, and to be 
 provided with his supplies of ammunition. Furthermore, 
 the fact of fighting implies that a certain number of 
 men will be wounded. It is necessary that arrangements 
 shall be made to provide such men with ambulances to 
 remove them, and with medical attendants to look after 
 them. In every campaign, no matter where it may be con- 
 ducted, the strain and exposure which are the necessary 
 result of military operations cause very many more men 
 to fall sick than are actually wounded by the enemy.
 
 164 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 Often campaigns have to be conducted through very 
 unwholesome districts. These throw an especial strain 
 upon the resources of the medical department. For 
 all these purposes ordnance, commissariat, and medical 
 transport has to be provided. Sometimes an army is 
 able to seize upon a line of railway, or a canal, or a 
 river, which greatly facilitates the transport of the 
 general stores of the army. In fact it very commonly 
 happens that the whole course . of a campaign is de- 
 termined by the facilities which are presented in this 
 respect by some particular line of movement. Thus 
 during the campaign of '82 in Egypt, the existence 
 of the Freshwater Canal and an adjacent line of 
 railway mainly determined the line which was chosen 
 for the expedition. During the campaign for the relief 
 of Gordon it was the facilities for transport presented 
 by the Nile which made it certainly quicker to pass by 
 that route, long as it was, rather than by the much 
 shorter movement across the desert. In many cases, 
 however, as for instance in the Abyssinian campaign 
 or in our campaigns in Afghanistan, no such facilities 
 exist. As is illustrated by these different instances, the 
 circumstances of our campaigns vary so much that it is 
 not possible for a British army, as it is possible for a 
 German or a French army, completely to organise all 
 the transport that it would require for some possible 
 future campaign. 
 
 In some cases we require canals, in others, as in the 
 Ashantee campaigns, we can only depend upon porterage 
 by men, or, not to do injustice to the best porters in 
 that country, by women. In others, mules or cattle 
 drawing large waggons form the regular local transport,
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED L65 
 
 that which it is therefore most convenient to use. 
 Obviously, where canals or rivers are the mode of 
 transport, some form of boal Bervice suitable to the 
 particular case has to be employed All the more 
 wary is it thai we, who cannot completely work out 
 our transport system as Continental nations can, Bhould 
 have that pan of the transport which actually accom- 
 panies the army itc ompletely ready as possible. 
 We require a well-organised department ready to meet 
 ahy emergencies that may arise. We require to know 
 where to lay our hands upon the number of ho 
 which we shall certainly require, and upon the mules 
 and other animals which we may require, and to have 
 ready suitable carts and waggons such as must be with 
 an army for the immediate distribution of ammunition 
 and food to its different parts. Moreover, finally, it is 
 a familiar fact to every householder in Britain that 
 clothes, and especially boots and shoes, do not last for 
 ever, and it is not surprising that under conditions of 
 continual exposure and constant marching they have a 
 tendency to wear out very rapidly. Supplies of these, 
 therefore, and transport for them must necessarily be 
 provided for any army that is to be ready for war. 
 
 All these different stores require to be transported 
 with an army in the held, but the circumstances attend- 
 ing their transport are very different. The clothing, 
 boots and shoes, for instance, need only be sent to a 
 centra] spot and thence sent up as they are required for 
 distribution at longer or shorter intervals. 
 
 The food and a certain proportion of the medical 
 attendance and stores have to be available from day 
 to day, as well as the forage for animals. There are
 
 166 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 certain circumstances connected with the arrangements 
 for the supply of these which it will be necessary to 
 explain a little more fully presently, but at the moment 
 I am anxious to draw a distinction between them all 
 and the supply of ammunition both for infantry and 
 artillery which is an integral part of the fighting force 
 of the army in the field. As with the other stores so 
 with the ammunition, a large proportion requires only 
 to be available at what is known as the base of 
 operations, such as was, for instance, Ismailia during the 
 Tel-el-Kebir campaign. The base is usually, for our ex- 
 peditions beyond seas, the port at which the debarkation 
 takes place. From the base the supplies of ammunition 
 have usually to be sent forward to some more advanced 
 point where it may still be stored in large quantities. 
 Subsequently, however, from some point, as little distant 
 from the army as possible, at the time that it takes the 
 field, the ammunition must be sent on in vehicles which 
 can be transported along such means of communication 
 as the country possesses. In the final stages it must be 
 placed in regularly organised bodies which can follow 
 at close distance the movements of the infantry and 
 artillery in the field. It is scarcely possible to give a 
 better idea of the work that has been done of late years 
 in order to bring our army into the condition of a 
 fighting force for the field as compared with a body of 
 troops merely available for a spectators' review, than 
 by stating the fact, that in the year 1893, for the first 
 time, organised bodies in the form of ammunition trains 
 were practised at Aldershot in the arrangements for 
 supplying troops in fighting formation with the ammu- 
 nition they will require. In passing I cannot omit to
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 167 
 
 borne thf point that again this is a question of the 
 Treasury as representative of the taxpayer and pre- 
 eminently of those to whom this Beries is addressed. 
 You have absolutely no interest whatsoever in possessing 
 a body that will look very pretty on parade You have 
 the deadliest interest in possessing an army available 
 at once to take the held under conditions which make 
 it efficient for fighting purposes, whether at home or 
 abroad. Probably no reader of this series is unfamiliar 
 with the fact that the introduction of the breechloader 
 and the magazine ritie for infantry has enormously 
 increased the necessity for an adequate supply of 
 ammunition in the field, and that similarly the develop- 
 ments that have taken place in artillery make the 
 organisation of supply of ammunition to it a matter of 
 vital moment. But the difficulty of our conditions is 
 that these things which are necessary to the efficiency 
 of an army do not show as increasing the actual 
 numerical force of regiments and batteries. There is 
 therefore always the most tremendous temptation for a 
 Minister speaking to the representatives of those who 
 do not concern themselves with these questions to leave 
 these vital matters on one side as unnecessary expenses. 
 The greatest credit therefore is due to those who, in the 
 teeth of such obstacles, have established the necessity 
 for having these questions worked out. 
 
 In regard to the supply of food, there is usually a 
 considerable difference between the conditions under 
 which it can be provided for a German army moving 
 through France, or a French army moving through 
 Germany, and those which obtain for almost all our 
 British campaigns. With us it almost always happens,
 
 168 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 as in Abyssinia, in Egypt, and elsewhere, that the 
 greater part of our supplies of food have to be sent 
 up from the base. During the Nile campaign certain 
 purchases of corn and of cattle could be made in the 
 country. These were, however, small in proportion to 
 the quantities that had to be sent up over nearly the 
 whole distance that was traversed. With regard to 
 this matter there is a point of great importance which I 
 am very anxious that the readers of this series should 
 clearly understand. Taking them as representatives of 
 the British people, their misunderstanding of it in every 
 campaign has tended to do such injury to Britain that 
 I do not think that one ought to omit any opportunity 
 of pressing home the point. Perhaps it is easiest to 
 explain the subject thus : — Suppose that I have at a 
 given spot transport sufficient to carry the food and 
 forage required for the men and animals of a force of 
 10,000 men for four days. Suppose that I move the 
 10,000 men two days' march forwards, and attempt to 
 supply them in that position. Those 10,000 men, if 
 they are dependent upon the food to be carried by my 
 transport, would soon be short of supplies. For the 
 transport, after moving with them for two days, will 
 take two days to come back to fetch fresh supplies, and 
 two more to get back again to the troops, so that it will 
 be only on the sixth day that fresh food will arrive, and 
 the troops will for two days be without food. In this 
 statement I am making no allowance for the food 
 required by the men and animals of the transport itself. 
 That, however, is in itself a very serious matter, for, in 
 addition to the food for the troops during those six 
 days, food and forage will be required for the men and
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 169 
 
 animals that are carrying the supplies to the front. 
 Therefore, even if the army were provided sufficiently 
 to live till the first supply reached them, they would on 
 the second occasion receive only supplies less whal bad 
 already been eaten up by the transport. At the besl 
 the army could doI advance another day's march, three 
 days in all from the base, without actual starvation, 
 because it would take the transport sis da back 
 
 to the base and to bring up the fresh supplies. Bow 
 am I tn arrange so that, with this amount of transport, 
 T can enable the army to advance at all? There is only 
 one way. If I keep the whole 10,000 men at the base, 
 or if necessary employ a few men to protect the advance 
 of the transport to a point a few marches ahead, then 
 gradually I can accumulate there as many days' supplies 
 as I please, whilst the force is being comfortably ted 
 from ships at the base. When I have made my accumu- 
 lation at a given point I can, with only the loss of what 
 is required to feed the transport, transfer it to a yel 
 more distant point farther forward. The fewer men I 
 am able to employ for the protection of this movement 
 at the front, the less of my transported stores will they 
 eat up ; the more rapid, therefore, will be my accumula- 
 tion. "When I have, sufficiently near to the front and 
 along the line by which the army will advance, accumu- 
 lated enough supplies of food and ammunition, then 1 
 can with safety and rapidity push forward the 10,000 
 men, who, if they had been prematurely advanced, 
 would have eaten up the supplies on which my move- 
 ment depends. 
 
 Thus, during the earlier stages of one of our distant 
 campaigns, that which hastens and facilitates movement
 
 170 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 is not the pushing forward prematurely of the bulk of 
 the fighting force, but, on the contrary, the keeping of 
 it back until everything is ready for its rapid advance. 
 This is true of all cases in which the greater part of the 
 food and ammunition have to be brought up from a 
 ship-supplied base, through a country which furnishes 
 few or no resources for an army. The difficulty lies in 
 this, that the public at home during all the time that 
 this process is going on receives innumerable letters 
 from correspondents on the spot, more by far from 
 officers of the army who do not understand the situation 
 than from any one else, in which complaints are made as 
 to the absurd delay which is taking place in the move- 
 ments of the army, and as to the dilatoriness of the 
 commander-in-chief and his staff. Zealous officers, whose 
 feelings are very soon communicated to their men and 
 to the friends of both of them at home, eager to get to 
 the front, chafe at the delay. Ministers, who do not in 
 the least understand the situation, have to answer ques- 
 tions about it in the House of Commons. There never 
 has been yet one campaign of this description beyond 
 seas in which pressure of this kind of the most danger- 
 ous character has not been brought to bear upon the 
 commander-in-chief in the field. Not all the Duke of 
 Wellington's victories saved him from it. Naturally, 
 therefore, all lesser men suffer far more. As, therefore, 
 the matter is an exceedingly simple one, as it practically 
 amounts to this, that you must arrange for the provision 
 of food and ammunition, in a country where they do not 
 exist, before you send forward the men who are to eat 
 up the food and employ the ammunition, you, my dear 
 sir, would be doing a great service to your country if
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 171 
 
 you would first thoroughly understand it, and then, 
 when that happens, which as surely as the sun rises will 
 happen during the next campaign we have beyond 
 when every newspaper teems with the folly of which I 
 speak, if you would either yourself point out its mischief 
 and absurdity, its lack of common sense, and its hope- 
 lessly unpatriotic character, or else induce some one else 
 who can make their words sting like a lash or burn like 
 a hot iron to do so, you will merit the thanks of all 
 loyal Britishers. 
 
 Perhaps I could hardly have taken a better illustra- 
 tion than this fact supplies, of the importance of the 
 whole question of transport, and of the value to us of a 
 properly organised transport corps, such as we are now 
 within fair prospect of possessing. 
 
 Thus much, then, I have endeavoured to show, that 
 the army we need is one which must be so worked that 
 whatever is done for it shall tend to make it complete 
 and efficient for war in all its parts, and that those 
 portions of an army, which do not merely swell the 
 pomp and circumstance of a review, are often as im- 
 portant to us as those that do. I press this matter 
 upon you because, whereas your interest lies wholly on 
 the side of having for what you pay an army effective 
 for war, complete in all its parts and ready to take the 
 field, it is the tendency of the general public to look 
 only to peace appearance, and to give no credit for those 
 steps which are taken for war efficiency. It is this fact 
 which makes it difficult to get what is wanted in these 
 matters. That leads me to the next point, on which I 
 am anxious to insist. As I have said in another connec- 
 tion in the last chapter, the question of what we want
 
 172 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 for war depends on the nature of the forces that wc 
 have to oppose in war. When the great wars of the 
 French Eevolution and of Napoleon began, armies were 
 formed for each war as they were wanted. Prussia, 
 under Frederick the Great and his father, had gained an 
 enormous advantage by having an army perfectly drilled 
 during peace time — one which, therefore, relatively to 
 all others, was ready for war manoeuvring. The system 
 was, however, slow and cumbrous. The long years of 
 war, which followed the outbreak of the Revolution, 
 gave ample time for the gradual formation of armies 
 trained in the school of war — obviously the most perfect 
 for its purpose ; but even during those days the army 
 with which Napoleon won in succession the campaigns 
 of Ulm, Austerlitz, and Jena, owed its perfection to the 
 relatively long peace, or virtually peace, organisation 
 and training which it acquired in the camp at Boulogne, 
 when it was either really or nominally, as you please to 
 think, being trained for the invasion of Britain. Since 
 the war of 1870, all Continental armies have for the last 
 quarter of a century been, in a far higher degree than 
 was the case in the camp at Boulogne, trained as armies, 
 in all their parts, to work together as they would have 
 to do in war. Varied ground of vast extent is each 
 year placed at their disposal for large manoeuvres on a 
 grand scale. In Britain, solely because the people do 
 not understand our necessities, we meet with the greatest 
 difficulties in obtaining ground on which we can work 
 with any approach to the efficiency which is attained by 
 foreign officers. The Military Manoeuvres Act, which 
 was intended to give us these facilities, has been rendered 
 impossible by parliamentary obstruction. The purchase
 
 vi 1 III-; I ORCE WK NEED 178 
 
 of adequate land at Salisbury — a meagre substitute for 
 constant change of ground — receives only a grudging 
 assent. Ye\ il is surely in your interest not t<» have the 
 millions which are spent on the Army thrown away 
 because, while all the men we may have to meet in war 
 have a training in common, adapted to the conditions 
 of modern war, we cannot get it. All these things 
 in Britain depend on the free assent of the people. 
 Abroad the}' are regulated by authority, as the first 
 necessity of national protection. The free assent of our 
 people would be readily given it' they only understood 
 the necessity; but, absorbed as they are in their own 
 daily work, there is no means by which we can reach 
 them and make them understand, unless you will throw 
 yourselves into the task, and bring it home to them. 
 The process which has been going on is one which 
 tends everywhere to make the ground available for 
 training men unsuited for its purpose. On the one 
 hand, the range of weapons, both of artillery and in- 
 fantry, has enormously increased, so that the nature of 
 even minor manoeuvres has necessarily been modified, 
 in a sense requiring greatly extended areas of ground. 
 On the other hand, the growth of population and the 
 movement towards towns has tended to restrict the area 
 available. Hence, almost everywhere, while greater 
 facilities are required, fewer are attainable. Moreover, 
 from the facts not being understood, popular feeling i-, 
 continually apt to be jealous of all attempts of soldiers 
 to learn their work. Surely it is a thing ultimately very 
 dangerous for freedom that the despotic governments 
 of the Continent should be able to train effectively their 
 officers and soldiers, whilst the soldiers of a free country
 
 174 NATIONAL DEFENCES otiap. 
 
 cannot get permission to train themselves. None of 
 the Continental governments are more despotic in these 
 matters than the Republic of France, despite the 
 constant changes in the personnel. It has inherited 
 the machinery of government, devised for that very 
 purpose by Napoleon. For my own part, I have the 
 most complete belief in the power of the educated 
 classes in Britain to bring home to the mass of the 
 electorate the truth on any subject in which they will 
 interest themselves, and to carry the electorate with 
 them. If, therefore, I have succeeded in showing you 
 that this matter is one vital for the work and safety of 
 Britain, I submit to you that it lies with you to decide 
 whether free Britain shall be able to have effective 
 soldiers, or whether that shall be a privilege reserved 
 for the despotisms of Europe. 
 
 Nor is it only in ground that we fail to get what is 
 needed. Armies depend on an organisation as complete 
 as a regiment. On the Continent army corps of 30,000 
 or more men live habitually in an organic relationship 
 to one another, which with us exists only at Aldershot 
 for bodies larger than the 700 or 800 men who compose 
 a battalion. This is almost entirely due to civil, not 
 military causes. The Army dispersed in isolated stations 
 is looked on as a means for adding to the profits of the 
 local tradesmen, and as a means of supplying shows and 
 bands for the delectation of the neighbourhood. Nothing 
 but a strong national feeling that the Army does not 
 exist for these, but for quite different purposes, can 
 overcome local prejudice and local interests. Will you 
 not help to beget such a feeling'? Whether for 
 effective action abroad or at home, it is an organic
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 175 
 
 army that you need, not a dispersed congre 
 battalions. 
 
 So far I have spoken of the formation of the Army 
 for war, and chiefly of the preparation <>f the Army for 
 action, to co-operate with a triumphant Navy beyond 
 The <|iiestion, however, which has nexl to be 
 discussed, is whether we ought to leave the defence of 
 these islands purely to the Navy, and whether therefore 
 all defensive arrangements on land are superfluous. 
 That we ought to do so is a position which has been 
 sustained on plausible grounds rather frequently oi 
 It has been contended that a foreign army would never 
 think of invading Britain, because if they succeeded in 
 overcoming our Navy they would be able to starve us 
 into submission, and would, therefore, never trouble 
 themselves to risk attack upon our shores. Now, in my 
 judgment, that mode of speaking is very like that of the 
 Irish peasant who tells you, when a corporal and a 
 drummer-boy have passed him, "Sure the Army went 
 by, it may be ten minutes ago." "The Navy " has not 
 been annihilated because for a time a superior force of 
 the enemy has been concentrated in the Channel. If 
 our Navy were once fairly swept off the face of ocean, 
 undoubtedly our case would be hopeless. But every 
 victory and every retreat that takes place in war does 
 not settle the fate of a campaign, still less of a kingdom, 
 whether it be on land or sea. Considering what the 
 changes and chances of naval warfare are at the present 
 moment as I discussed them in Chapter III., it certainly 
 would seem to be almost inconceivable madness that we 
 should run the risk of national destruction, because a 
 few naval officers, who by no means represenl the besl
 
 176 NATIONAL DEFENCES OHAP. 
 
 mind of the Navy, consider that any attempt to make 
 our home defence forces effective on land is an insult to 
 the Navy. I am content to know, even from the naval 
 point of view, that the man to whom, up to the day of 
 his death, the Navy looked as " the first tactician of his 
 day," Sir Geoffrey Hornby, in the most public manner 
 at a meeting of the Aldershot Tactical Society, over 
 which he presided, declared his belief in the value and 
 importance of the Volunteers as an element in National 
 Defence. 1 
 
 Mr. Thursfield, from whom I quote that most accurate 
 description of Sir Geoffrey's position in the mind of 
 sailors, 2 tells us that it is ridiculous to talk of invasion 
 as a possibility against which we have to provide, because 
 if we lost the command of the sea this problem would 
 be presented to us, " With our mills standing, our forges 
 silent, and furnaces cold, and our mines closed, where is 
 the teeming industrial population of our land to find the 
 wherewithal to buy its food 1 There is no arguing with 
 an empty belly. The working man is now in the last 
 resort the arbiter of our fate. Can any one doubt that 
 a government, which resolved to fight on after the com- 
 mand of the sea had passed into the hands of our enemies, 
 would be swept away like chaff before the wind 1 " 
 
 Now Mr. Thursfield has done such yeoman service in 
 pressing forward the most certain of our needs — the 
 creation of a supreme Navy— that I only venture to 
 
 1 On 10th January 1893. See a publication by Gale and Polden 
 of a lecture by Admiral P. H. Colonib on '"The Command of the 
 Sea and its Effect upon Military Operations," price 6d., with the 
 discussion which followed. 
 
 2 The Navy and the Nation (1897), p. 68.
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 177 
 
 differ from him, cap in hand, and with the utmost 
 respect; but I think that his most valuable zeal fur the 
 Navy has blinded him to some considerations which 
 were very clear to two men for whom lie has expressed 
 the most profound admiration— Sir Geoffrey Hornby 
 and Sir George Tryon. In the first place, aa regards 
 coast defence, 1 can answer for it that at leasl nine 
 years ago Sir George Tryon, in his own office at the 
 Admiralty, explained to me the reasons why he was 
 then pressing forward the proposal which has only this 
 year (1897) been actually put forward by the Govern- 
 ment for the fortification of Lough Swilly and Bear 
 Haven. His view was that our swift ocean steamers 
 could, with very little protection from the fleet, make 
 those harbours, and that if they were secured havens of 
 refuge, our supplies of food and material would come 
 into the United Kingdom by way of the Irish railways 
 with very great security. Moreover, the mere specu- 
 lative activity which would be roused in America and 
 Canada by any considerable rise of price in England, 
 would tend to keep our supplies of raw material at a 
 pretty safe level. Further, it seems to me that Mr. 
 Thursfield asks too much of our Xavy. "To lose 
 command of the seas " is one thing. If that loss were 
 more than temporary, it must be fatal to us. We did 
 lose command of the seas at various times in the course 
 of our history, notably when Van Tromp sailed up the 
 Thames, and during the American War of Independence. 
 It was, however, only a temporary loss, and it was not 
 fatal to us. We also at times lost command of the 
 Indian seas. If that loss had been more than temporary 
 we must have lost India. As it was only temporary, 
 
 N
 
 178 NATIONAL DEFENCES i hai-. 
 
 and as we gained battles on land, we did not lose India. 
 But apart from that question, without at all losing 
 command of the seas in the sense that when our Navy 
 has had time to gather we may resume it everywhere, it 
 is obvious that we may be strong enough on the whole 
 and yet at a given moment not strong enough at the 
 precise point required. To quote again an authority 
 he respects: "Considerations of defence naturally in- 
 volve an estimate of what they are to be prepared 
 against. History is apt to repeat itself ; squadrons and 
 fleets have escaped the most vigilant admirals, and the 
 most skilful strategists failed in days of old so to order 
 our fleets as to prevent this. Since those days the 
 composition of the navies of the world has greatly 
 altered, and at this time it is far easier for an admiral 
 to avoid notice and conceal destination." x Further, 
 for my own part I am old enough — I believe Mr. 
 Thursfield is so also — to remember the behaviour 
 of our Lancashire operatives during the war between 
 North and South America. I absolutely refuse to 
 assume that the noble sacrifices which the men then 
 made rather than in any way contribute to the slavery 
 of blacks would not be made by them for the sake of the 
 freedom of their own country. We had in those days 
 plenty of "mills standing, forges silent, furnaces cold," 
 plenty of "empty bellies," but the argument of freedom 
 was heard then, and I have no sort of doubt that it would 
 be heard again if their own land were threatened. 
 
 Sir George Clarke has, however, in another article in 
 the same volume 2 elaborated a different argument. He 
 
 1 Life of Sir George Tryon, p. 212. 
 2 The Navy and tfu Nation, article "Can England be Invaded ? "
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 179 
 
 takes the history of the pas! and tells ns thai in no 
 has any Invasion of England been successful when the 
 enemy has had to deal with a united nation. Thai is 
 undoubtedly true, because whenever a united nation has 
 been threatened by an invader it has me1 him both by 
 sea and land. Invasions haw been defeated when the 
 union was hy no means united, as for instance when 
 Monmouth failed. He w a s defeated because after 
 effecting his landing he was beaten on shore. Sir 
 George Clarke goes far hack into the history of the past, 
 and shows that in the third century the forces of 
 Constantius were successful in an invasion intended to 
 restore Britain to the Roman Empire after it had been 
 severed from it by the revolt of Carausius because, as he 
 puts it, after Constantius had effected a landing he 
 "found everywhere obedient servants." 
 
 In all these cases the point lay in this, that because of 
 the previous feelings of the inhabitants there was either 
 no armed resistance on shore or no adequate resistance 
 after the invaders had landed. If Richard III. had 
 defeated Richmond and killed him at Bosworth there 
 would have been no Tudor reign, despite the fact that 
 the fleet of Richmond had evaded that of Richard. On 
 the other hand, during all the periods of our history 
 when we have most successfully met our enemies at sea, 
 our ancestors invariably prepared also to meet them on 
 land because they were a united people. The most 
 Famous picture connected with the times of the Armada 
 is t hat of Queen Elizabeth reviewing her troops at Tilburv. 
 During the threat of Napoleon at Boulogne we trusted 
 in our Navy, and had good reason to do so, but for all 
 that the Government elaborated plans of national defence
 
 180 NATIONAL DEFENCES OHAP. 
 
 on shore in the most complete maimer. I have now in 
 my hands Moore's orders for the steps to be taken on 
 the landing of the French army, and further, an elaborate 
 discussion of the Government proposal to adopt the 
 method afterwards carried out in Portugal by Wellington 
 of clearing the country of supplies in front of the enemy. 
 In no sense did this imply that we were slack in our 
 naval preparation. I cannot think that Mr. Thursfield 
 disposes of the Armada illustration by scolding Queen 
 Elizabeth. Elizabeth sinned in that she did not provide 
 adequately for the needs of her Navy, not in evoking a 
 national spirit which, while it expressed itself first in 
 the personal zeal by which the Navy was inflamed, could 
 not be content with that alone, but made each man 
 anxious to play his part in the national defence. It 
 seems to me that to portion off the work of Navy and 
 Army by speaking of the Navy as the one defence of 
 Britain and of the Army as its means of offence, is to 
 confuse both statements. The Navy is the right arm of 
 Britain, the Army its left arm ; both are needed alike 
 in offence and defence. If India is in any sense a " gift 
 of the Sea Power," that surely is a pretty heavy offensive 
 stroke delivered by the Navy. Yet exactly in the same 
 sense and in no other in which India is a "gift of the 
 Sea Power," Canada, South Africa, and all our colonies 
 are " gifts of the Sea Power." Yet, as Sir George Clarke 
 truly says, no one of these was actually conquered by the 
 Navy alone. "The British Army has fought in every 
 land, from China to South America, from the Himalayas 
 to South Africa and New Zealand. It has a long and 
 brilliant record of operations all carried on beyond the 
 naval frontier. It has conquered for us an empire
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED l-l 
 
 greater than that of Rome. It has been almost con- 
 tinuously employed on active service throughout thi< 
 century." And as both Navy, Army, and Mercantile 
 Marine have been needed for those operations which 
 
 have given us this vast dominion, so both Navy and 
 Army have been needed for the security of home defence. 
 In our offensive operations the Navj has stood behind 
 the Army ; often, as Mr. Thursfield has admirably shown 
 in the case of the Crimean War, doing its most valuable 
 and important work for us when that work was so 
 complete and triumphant that it hardly attracted the 
 attention of the public at all. 80, similarly, in defence 
 it is the role of the Arm}' to stand behind the Navy. 
 What Sir George Clarke appears to put as an hypothesis 
 of the right mode of our defence — " naval supremacy and 
 the maintenance of a home army able to oppose any 
 force that could possibly be landed on the shores of 
 England " — exactly sums up what 1 believe to be our t rue 
 defence, and it is, as I think, established by the long 
 catena of historical deductions which he has drawn out 
 in his article "Can England be Invaded?" but then if 
 that is true, the Navy is no more the sole defence of 
 Britain than the Army is its sole means of offence. 
 What avc need is a supreme Navy and an Army adequate 
 to fulfil those duties which remain to be done for the 
 strength of the kingdom by help of a supreme Navy. 
 In both questions of offence and defence it is necessary 
 that each should free the other for delivering that 
 kind of blow from the shoulder which is the only true 
 defence. The Army when employed beyond seas relies 
 securely on the Navy that it shall not be disturbed in 
 its active operations by any fear of interruption of its
 
 182 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 communications with home. It would be a terrible thing 
 if the Navy had to hang trembling about these islands, 
 deprived of the opportunity of concentrating for some 
 decisive action, lest an unarmed and helpless population 
 should fall a victim to some foreigner who took advan- 
 tage of their temporary absence to attempt to throw an 
 army on our shores. I cannot therefore admit that " the 
 only conditions which could render invasion practicable, 
 would at the same time imply that the vital communica- 
 tions of the Empire were in the hands of an enemy, 
 that India and every colony lay open to attack in any 
 force, that trade was paralysed, and that the means of 
 existence of the home population were destroyed." 
 
 If " the sea " (p. 327 x ) " is no impossible barrier," the 
 stake is too great to allow us to rest comfortably on the 
 thesis that "in war it is reasonable probabilities, not 
 possibilities, which must be taken into consideration." 
 We want to make the invasion of Britain impossible, not 
 improbable, or at least to omit no precaution that can tend 
 to that result. We can, so far as human foresight can 
 go, attain that end by having in addition to a supreme 
 Navy a home defence adequate to meet a force larger 
 than any that could venture on our shores during a 
 momentary collapse of local naval strength such as no 
 human skill can prevent in any affairs. In war it is a 
 maxim, applicable alike to naval and to military affairs, 
 that he is the greatest leader who makes the fewest mis- 
 takes. It is not those who have been actually charged 
 with the enormous responsibilities involved in the com- 
 mand of great fleets who wish to have thrown on their 
 
 1 The Navy and the Nation, by Lieiit.-Col. Sir George Clarke and 
 James R. Thursfield, M.A.
 
 vi THE FORCE WE N"EED 
 
 shoulders the awful duty of protecting a help!'" and 
 unarmed kingdom. It is the mere professional Chau- 
 vinists from whom Mr. Thursfield and sir < reorge < llarke 
 have Learned to talk in this way. 
 
 That, however, Leads me to a point of i lern naval 
 
 strategy, the authorities for which Mr. Thursfield has 
 evidently not known, and the nature of which he has 
 altogether misapprehended. It represents an extremely 
 important point in the question of the possibility 
 invasion. As I noticed in a previous chapter, the condi- 
 tions under which our Navy during the great war met 
 that of France were, owing to the effect of the Revolu- 
 tion in destroying the efficiency of the French navy, so 
 exceptional, that from almost the commencement we 
 asserted over them a superiority which enabled us after 
 a time to shut them up in harbour and there blockade 
 them. So shut up, they lost all practice at sea, and 
 became more and more incapable of meeting our fleets. 
 Admiral Colomb has admirably shown that no security 
 for our whole Empire can approach that which is con- 
 ferred by a condition in which we are able thus virtually 
 to close all the harbours of a hostile coast. The 
 question therefore is one of supreme importance whether 
 the modern conditions of war, the existence of land 
 telegraphs and the substitution of steam for sails, has 
 tended to make this blockade process easier or more 
 difficult for us. Mr. Thursfield has himself in his article 
 on "The Naval Manoeuvres and their Lessons" very 
 well shown that the process is more difficult and requires 
 a larger force for this reason, that the outlying fleet 
 engaged in the blockade has now to exercise incessant 
 vigilance. In former days blockaded ships could only
 
 184 NATIONAL DEFENCES cttaf. 
 
 escape when the wind was favourable. Therefore it 
 was always possible to know when to expect escape. 
 Now that the blockaded ships are independent of wind, 
 the ships Avhich blockade them can never rest for a 
 moment; and during the manoeuvres of 1888 the ex- 
 haustion of officers and men from the exercise of this 
 incessant vigilance became so great that the two fleets 
 which were engaged in the blockade of Lough Swilly 
 and Bear Haven were scarcely from this cause alone able 
 to maintain their watch during a period when the 
 blockaded fleets were under the orders of the Admiralty 
 only allowed to demonstrate, and were not attempting 
 escape at all. The two blockades had from this one 
 cause alone all but broken down at the moment when, 
 for the first time, Sir George Tryon was set free to 
 attempt escape. So much is agreed on all hands. 
 Another very important point is still in dispute. As 
 a matter of fact, during those manoeuvres, on the first 
 night that Sir George Tryon was free, he by a telegraphic 
 order to his subordinate Admiral Fitzroy at Lough 
 Swilly, being himself at Bear Haven, directed that two 
 ships should endeavour to make their escape from that 
 harbour, and he assigned a point in latitude and longi- 
 tude to which he directed them to repair, in order that 
 they might there effect a concentration with three ships 
 with which he designed to break the blockade at Bear 
 Haven. Further, it is a fact that all the ships from 
 Bear Haven and Lough Swilly did make good their 
 escape, and did, without difficulty, effect their concentra- 
 tion at the assigned point. The question is, what 
 deductions ought to be drawn from these facts. That 
 the authorities on both sides may be fairly stated, I will
 
 vr THE FORGE WE NEED 185 
 
 first of all give what Mr. Thursfield, no doubl after 
 coDsultation with some naval officers, writes: "There 
 are those who maintain that a blockade Lb impracticable 
 in modern conditions of naval warfare; and thej 
 probably a1 Least so far right, that it is impossible so 
 closely to blockade a porl as completely to prevenl the 
 occasional and clandestine escape of individual ships. 
 But a blockade at best is only a means to an end ; the 
 end being to bring the enemy to an action, or to nullify 
 the strategic value of his force so long as he declines to 
 fight. So long as that end is attained, therefore, the 
 blockade is effectual for its purpose notwithstanding the 
 occasional and clandestine escape of individual ships. 
 Only two courses are open to ships which thus break the 
 blockade : either to engage individually in a guerre de 
 course, a campaign of commerce-destroying, or as some 
 ingenious strategists have suggested, to proceed forthwith 
 to some preconcerted rendezvous, there to constituti 
 organised fleet capable of acting on the offensive. Now 
 a guerre de course is always a vexatious incident of naval 
 warfare, and often a very costly one to the naval power 
 attacked. But it has never yet sufficed by itself to 
 determine the broad strategic issues of maritime conflict ; 
 and, according to Captain Mahan, it never can. It is 
 even doubtful whether in these days of swift steam 
 navigation it is likely to be so destructive as it was in 
 the old sailing days. It is quite certain that it will 
 never overthrow' the strategic supremacy of a Power 
 which holds the command of the sea ; that can only be 
 done by the suppression of the organised naval force, 
 strategically distributed in sea-going fleets, which con- 
 stitutes and embodies that supremacy. On the other
 
 186 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 hand, the enterprise of forming ships which have broken 
 the blockade into an organised fleet capable of acting on 
 the offensive is necessarily exposed to many hazards and 
 perils. It amounts at best to a redistribution, not to an 
 augmentation of existing naval force, and the strategic 
 answer to it is a corresponding redistribution of the 
 forces of the superior adversary. That may or may not 
 be successful in the immediate issue ; it can hardly fail 
 in the long run. Evasion on a large scale may frustrate 
 the purpose of a series of blockades, and compel the 
 blockading fleets to concentrate. But command of the 
 sea cannot be wrested from a superior naval power by 
 evasion, it can only be won by fighting. The idea that 
 the evading fleet can engage in independent "territorial 
 enterprise of serious moment is purely chimerical ; the 
 ' fleet in being ' forbids it. With a superior force at its 
 heels or on its track, fugitive raids are the utmost limit 
 of its offensive capacity, and fugitive raids are of little 
 or no strategic moment." 
 
 Furthermore I must admit that, not a little to my 
 surprise, Admiral Colomb, in a recent discussion at the 
 United Service Institution, stated that "the weight of 
 naval opinion " was against the effect of such action as 
 Sir George Tryon used in showing the extreme difficulties 
 which now lie in the way of blockade as compared with 
 former times. I have never seen anywhere the state- 
 ment with which Mr. Thursfield begins the passage I 
 have quoted. I do not know who they are who main- 
 tain that a blockade is impracticable under modern 
 conditions ; but as I am tolerably sure, for reasons that 
 I shall presently give, that the "ingenious strategists" 
 whom he so contemptuously dismisses are a paraphrase
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 187 
 
 or a multiplication, as he supposes, of my ?ery bumble 
 self, it is of some importance that I should Bhow thai 
 he has to reckon not with rue but with the very 
 admirals for whom he has the most profound respect 
 I should imagine that on any subject on which Sir 
 George Tryon and Sir Geoffrey Hornby wen/ completely 
 in agreemenl Mr. Thursfield would prefer, as I should, 
 to be wrong with them rather than to he right even 
 with Admiral Colomb. It happens that that is tin- 
 case in the present instance. It is very natural that 
 that should not be obvious to Mr. Thursfield, because 
 the statement of the changed conditions of blockade 
 first appeared in two articles written by me, the first of 
 which having been anonymous may be ignored. The 
 second appeared with my name in the Contemporary 
 Review of October L889. It was perhaps hardly fair to 
 critics that that should have been the case. Tiny 
 naturally looked upon it as an impertinent intrusion of 
 mine into questions of naval strategy. They could nol 
 know the basis on which it rested. I had, in fact, been 
 a guest on board one of the ships which was with Sir 
 George Try on throughout the naval manoeuvres of 
 1888, and the facts which had passed under my eyes 
 having seemed to me exceedingly interesting, I had 
 ventured on an anonymous account of them which was 
 by all the critics taken to be the work of a naval officer. 
 Sir George Try on, however, who had, as his custom was, 
 most hospitably entertained me during the year 1888, 
 detected my hand, and so entirely approved of and 
 agreed with the deductions which I had ventured to 
 draw from what I had narrated, that in the following 
 year he invited me to go with him as his guest, and
 
 188 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 showed me, day by day, exactly what he was going to 
 do and why he was going to do it before he issued his 
 orders. Under his pressure and that of some other 
 naval friends I then prepared an article in which the 
 thesis in regard to blockade, which Mr. Thursfield, 
 though he does not state it correctly, intends to assail 
 in the passage I have quoted, was fully set forth. The 
 proofs were carefully gone over by Sir George Tiyon 
 and approved by him. As soon as the article appeared 
 in the Contemporary Sir Geoffrey Hornby wrote to me a 
 letter which began, " I think I and every naval officer 
 owes you a debt of gratitude for your article," and went 
 on to express his acceptance of the conclusions established 
 in it. But that was not all. Admiral Colomb, not 
 being content to accept what he supposed to be my 
 deductions, proposed to the Aldershot Tactical Society 
 that he should deliver a lecture on the subject, and 
 that Admiral Hornby should be invited to take the 
 chair. He most courteously sent me an invitation to be 
 present and to answer him if I could. The meeting 
 duly came off on 10th January 1893. After we had both 
 stated our cases, Sir Geoffrey summed up, as Admiral 
 Colomb himself admitted, and as I, of course, knew 
 beforehand would be the case, wholly and without stint 
 in my favour, declaring that Sir George Tryon had 
 shown the truth of the propositions I had advanced 
 as to the advantage conferred on blockaded ships by 
 the new conditions of electric light, steam and land 
 telegraphs. 1 What then are the conditions which, if 
 
 1 The shorthand writer's too brief account of this very valuable 
 speech scarcely does justice to the definiteness of Sir Geoffrey's 
 statement. As I went into the room Admiral Colomb met me
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 189 
 
 Sir Geoffrey Hornby and Sir George Tryon are naval 
 authorities hardly to be impeached, were illustrated by 
 the naval manoeuvres of 1888 so convincingly that, as 
 Ear as any principle can lie determined prior to actual 
 war, this ought to be reckoned with as an importanl 
 element in future naval warfare .' 1 have already stated 
 the facts up to the moment when, under Sir ('<< 
 Tryon's order, conveyed by land telegraph, a fleet, 
 combined from .ships which had escaped from Lough 
 Swilly and Bear Haven, effected a rendezvous at a point 
 assigned them in latitude and longitude. As a matter of 
 further fact in this instance, Sir George Tryon sent this 
 little fleet on a guerre de cov/rse round the north of Scot- 
 land to attack various English towns and harbours on 
 the east coast. Sir George was certainly not unwilling 1 1 1 
 read England and Scotland a lesson as to the defenceless 
 condition of their commercial harbours and coast-towns, 
 the application of which is to be found in the principle.-, 
 he laid down when in Australia for the defence of the 
 colonial harbours. No one, however, more fully than 
 Sir < reoffrey Hornby and Sir George Tryon agreed with 
 Captain Mahan and Admiral Colomb in disbelieving in 
 the decisive effect of & guerre de course. The point in 
 the concentration of the fleet under Admiral Fitzroy 
 was altogether other than that. The point was that it 
 broke both blockades. Mr. Thursfield misses it alto- 
 gether when he says that the formation of such a fleet 
 " amounts, at best, to a redistribution, not to augmenta- 
 tion, of existing naval force." It is quite true that 
 "command of the sea cannot be wrested from a superior 
 
 with the words, "You are all right, for Sir Geoffrey agrees with 
 you," and that agreement was certainly publicly stated at the timi .
 
 190 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 naval power by evasion, it can only be won by fighting " ; 
 but distribution makes all the difference as to the 
 fighting. If the "superior naval power" has a hundred 
 ships of equal value to ninety of an inferior naval 
 power, but the inferior naval power is able to bring into 
 the first great naval engagement thirty ships against 
 twenty of the superior naval power's, then, other con- 
 ditions being equal, the twenty ships will be certainly 
 defeated, and if circumstances favour that result, as at 
 Trafalgar or the Nile, the twenty will most of them be 
 destroyed or captured, while the thirty will only require 
 to refit in order, with the ships they have captured, to 
 form a new fleet equal or superior to that which the 
 thirty formed before the engagement. Now, what Sir 
 Geoffrey Hornby and Sir George Tryon foresaw was 
 this, that if instead of there being only two harbours 
 comparatively near to one another, like those of Lough 
 Swilly and Bear Haven, there was a long line of many 
 harbours to be closed, the ends of which might be 
 hundreds of miles apart, then if the exterior fleet was 
 formed by the evasion of many ships from blockaded 
 ports, it might attain a superiority to the blockading 
 fleet at, at least, some one of the blockaded harbours. 
 Obviously, if that were so, by making direct for that 
 harbour before its concentration and direction were 
 known, the newly -formed fleet might engage the 
 blockading squadron, and, by ensuring the co-operation 
 of its own fleet within the harbour, might destroy or 
 capture it. It was this danger which, after the evasion 
 of Sir George Tryon's ships, hung over Admiral Baird's 
 blockading squadrons at either port. It was merely in 
 order to avoid all risk from the operation of the "rules
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 191 
 
 for the manoeuvres" that Sir George Tryon preferred 
 to allow Admiral Fitzroy's fleel for a time to vanish 
 into some unknown region, thereby threatening both 
 blockading squadrons alike, raising both blockades, 
 throwing Baird on to a rather helpless defensive, and 
 gaining for himself, though still in command of the 
 inferior fleet, the enormous advantage of the initiative. 
 It is all very well to saj thai these were only naval 
 manoeuvres. The point is to show in what respect, for 
 these purposes, the facts would have been changed had 
 the conditions been those of war. Sir Geoffrey Hornby, 
 at all events, expressly used the term thai Sir George 
 Tryon had demonstrated ' I hese facts. I think most of my 
 countrymen, I almost hope to include Mr. Thursfield 
 himself, will lie certain, at least so far, to accept his 
 conclusion against all comers, as to agree that, any 
 precautions for the safety of Britain, which are made 
 necessary by the chance that two men like Sir George 
 Tryon and Sir Geoffrey Hornby may be right and Mr. 
 Thursfield wrong, ought to be taken, more especially 
 as Mr. Thursfield has shown clearly that he does not 
 appreciate the reasoning on which they relied. It may 
 perhaps be consoling to him if he will consider that the 
 concentrated fleet of evaders from blockaded ports 
 becomes a "fleet in being," in presence of which such 
 an operation as the blockading of a squadron at all 
 even approximately equal to the blockaders become- a 
 very risky operation indeed. Nor does he offer us a 
 satisfactory solution in saying that all that is required 
 is a redistribution of the blockaders. That implies the 
 
 1 As I remember liis expression; "shown" as it is quoted by 
 the shorthand w i
 
 192 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 entire abandonment, at least for the time, of the whole 
 system of blockade. Seeing that his friend Admiral 
 Colomb has insisted that only by an effective blockade 
 of the enemy's coasts can our fleet adequately fulfil its 
 mission, that is a rather important result from his own 
 point of view. The true deduction, however, is not 
 that a general blockade is impossible, but that to meet 
 the case a fleet is required adequate to carry out the 
 necessary conditions of blockade under the very difficult 
 circumstances which Mr. Thursfield has so well shown 
 to be involved in the constant relief of ships, necessary 
 because of the fatigue to officers and men entailed by 
 the incessant vigilance required for watching blockaded 
 steamers, and that in addition there should be a free 
 fleet adequate to deal with any blockade-runners that 
 may attempt to concentrate in order either to raise the 
 blockade or do other mischief. Further, the additional 
 element of uncertainty which is introduced by the 
 possibilities involved in these difficulties of modern 
 blockade, as compared with that of the period of the 
 great war, is a further reason why we should have for 
 home defence an adequate Army as well as a supreme 
 Navy. 
 
 The arrival of Captain Mahan's Life of Nelson, as I 
 am returning these pages to press, makes it right that I 
 should introduce another question of great importance, 
 on which I should have hesitated to say anything with- 
 out the almost unanswerable authority which Captain 
 Mahan draws from Nelson's words and practice. Mr. 
 Thursfield and others have accepted from Admiral 
 Colomb a view of a certain naval event in the reign of 
 William III. which involves principles applicable to our
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 
 
 own time, the truth or falsehood of which ia of iraporl 
 ance as a question of the possibility of invasion, and as 
 
 at least one of the elements thai have to be deal! with 
 in considering whether a land defence ia or i- not ;i 
 proper supplement to the naval defence of these islands. 
 Torrington, whose fleel was beaten by the French fleel 
 in 1690, was severely dealt with al the time by William's 
 Government. Be is by these writers treated as the one 
 great naval authority of his time, because he believed 
 that if he kept his fleet intact, the fact thai he so pre- 
 served it would make it impossible for a superior French 
 fleet to cover the transportation of a hostile army to the 
 shores of Britain, lie believed, as he expressed it. 
 that a "fleet in being," though inferior, would prevent 
 by the mere fact of its presence any superior fleel from 
 attempting to cover invasion. Now, in or, lei- to define 
 the point at issue, it is necessary to make clear what is 
 and what is not in dispute. There is no question what 
 ever that a fleet which has to cover the movement of a 
 number of transports is at great disadvantage as com- 
 pared with a fleet which is free from these encumbrances. 
 Therefore, if a fleet is able to keep itself intact for the 
 moment when a superior fleet is involved in the difficult 
 operation of escorting transports, and can then attack it, 
 there is no doubt that as a naval question the inferior 
 attacking fleet chooses in doing so a very favourable chance 
 for itself . Moreover it is tint! also that ordinarih the 
 most favourable moment for attack will be the time when 
 the transports and troops are committed to the attempt 
 to effect their landing, and when the covering navy is 
 engaged in supporting ami assist ing the movement. The 
 only question in dispute is whether, granting these
 
 194 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 advantages which thus fall to the inferior fleet, they are 
 so overwhelming that practically they make it certain 
 that the superior fleet will not be able to drive off and 
 repel the inferior fleet which declines to fight with it, 
 and so enable the transports covered by it, perhaps 
 assisted by such warships as can be spared, to secure 
 for the troops a landing. I put this so because, in order 
 to sustain the contention for which Admiral Colomb, and 
 still more Mr. Thursfield and others who follow Admiral 
 Colomb, cite the case of Torrington, this is necessary to 
 them. Now the importance of the question for us lies 
 in this, that if their contention be true, then even if our 
 Navy be temporarily inferior in the Channel, it would 
 be impossible for a foreign invasion to take place as 
 long as we had an inferior "fleet in being" here. 
 Furthermore, their contention is that if that did happen, 
 the correct policy for our fleet would be to follow 
 Torrington's theory and not engage the French fleet, 
 but preserve their own ships intact as a threat against 
 an attempt at landing. Torrington when he fought at 
 Beachy Head did so under protest and against his judg- 
 ment. Now it is not too much to say that against all 
 these theories in a bunch Captain Mahan, in his noble 
 Life of Nelson, in my judgment one of the very greatest 
 books from every point of view that have appeared in 
 our time, flings himself and Nelson. He shows distinctly 
 in case after case and on page after page that Nelson's 
 theory and practice was directly in opposition to every 
 one of them. He recurs to the point again and again, 
 even before he comes to the question of the chase of 
 Villeneuve. He says distinctly (p. 137, vol. i.) that in 
 Tourville's place in 1690 Nelson would not have been
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 195 
 
 stopped from moving French troops across the Channel 
 because of Torrington's "fleet in being." Be shov 
 distinctly, both in the description of the Villeneuve chase 
 and in case after case in the Mediterranean, thai Nelson 
 
 would lint have acted as Torrington wished to do and 
 in part did, but that he would have engaged the French 
 fleet in order to cripple it. Never was there such clear, 
 straight, well-defined antagonism not Mahan's only, it 
 is only forced on him by historical veracity, but Nelson's 
 — to every one of these theories of Admiral < iolomb's. It 
 is clear that on Mary's Council Nelson would have voted 
 with those who condemned Torrington. I think I am 
 not the only reader hitherto silent who has been bund 
 to death with this phantom " fleet in being " which has 
 occupied such reams of print. Pray heaven that Mahan 
 may have sent it to the bottom never to rise. again ! 
 
 On the naval side, therefore, that particular argument 
 which t reats the danger of invasion as not to be reckoned 
 with because, even if we for a time lost command of 
 the Channel, we should still have there a "fleet in 
 being," which would without Bghting prevent invasion, 
 has received so severe a blow, that of this as of some 
 others one may at least say that it no longer affords 
 us such security as to make it patriotic to omit other 
 precautions, lest haply Mahan and Nelson should be 
 right and Colomb and Thursfield wrong. 
 
 On the military side of the question, moreover, there 
 is a further circumstance which, under modern conditions 
 of war, greatly facilitates sudden invasion. Napoleon in 
 1803—1804, in order to be ready to embark an army, 
 necessarily concentrated it before doing so in the camp 
 of Boulogne. But, supposing an army sufficiently
 
 196 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 practised in the work of rapid embarkation is dispersed 
 at different railway stations, its accumulation at the 
 point of embarkation will be all the quicker if it is able 
 to move from these part by part, so as to secure a 
 continuous succession of arriving trains. The difficulty 
 and delay in the movement of troops by rail depends on 
 the time required for entraining and detraining, and the 
 more stations we can use for these at the same time 
 the quicker can we get the troops off. Therefore, if 
 Napoleon were now contemplating the invasion of 
 Britain, he would certainly not collect an army at a 
 point immediately opposite our shores, thus both giving 
 us notice of his intention and indicating the ports that 
 required watching. On the contrary, having first taken 
 care to select well-organised corps for the purpose, he 
 would practise them at their own . stations on shore in 
 the interior of France in the work of embarking and 
 disembarking. That is naturally easily done, because a 
 ship at the time of embarkation in dock is simply an 
 annex to the land, and the conditions can be closely 
 imitated on shore. He would then, shortly before the 
 time he contemplated invasion, and when everything 
 had been done to make it appear that it was the last 
 thing he thought of, disperse the intended force to such 
 stations in the interior of France as had the most con- 
 venient railway communication with the port or ports 
 he intended to use. His chief previous preparation, 
 other than naval, would have consisted in providing 
 within the port or ports large sidings and platforms 
 running close to the docks and connected with as many 
 independent railways as possible. The telegraph would 
 give ample notice of the moment when the troops should
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 197 
 
 arrive tooccupj bheinnocenl shipping thai had previously 
 been lying withoul offence in the docks. Obviously, if 
 possible, he would make a Peace of Amiens in order to 
 be able to strike on some sudden pretext, either actually 
 before declaration or immediately after. All the prepara 
 tione I have indicated could 1"' made withoul attracting 
 the least attention. They would be, some of them, mere 
 matters of local drill, others of commercial development, 
 [f his intention to acl elsewhere on the outbreak of war 
 could be well announced and strongly indicated, he could 
 at least make all his arrangements for obtaining a naval 
 superiority temporarily in the Channel without being 
 hampered by the advertisement of his intention supplied 
 by the concentrated camp of soldiers. Taking all these 
 facts together with the other points I have discussed, 
 there is not the smallest reason why we should modify 
 the general principles of our development of armed force. 
 The Army does not need to he a conscripted army, it 
 needs only to he adequate to furnish the nucleus of 
 home defence and the largest available force for beyond 
 sea operations, with the support of the supreme Navy. 
 There is every reason why both Navy and Army should 
 heartily co-operate with full understanding of one 
 another's capacities and needs. There is every reason 
 why our administrators and the public, without whose 
 support our administrators cannot act, should under- 
 stand these things also. 
 
 I do not think that it would be useful for the purpose 
 of this series if, having endeavoured to establish the 
 facts that we require two conditions, so far as the Army 
 is concerned, one a highly effective mobile force, com- 
 plete in all its parts, and available for employment
 
 198 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 beyond seas, and that we require an adequate land 
 defence, I were to enter into details of what is required 
 for the latter purpose. It seems to me that the whole 
 discussion shows clearly that we should abandon all the 
 advantages of our position if we adopted as the method 
 of home defence Lord Wemyss' proposal for a universal 
 service system for that purpose. It Avould be to treat 
 the defence of Britain as if Britain were Switzerland, 
 a laud dominion, not an island set in the silver sea and 
 only the nucleus of a great sea domain. On the other 
 hand, I do think that it would be well if we could 
 devote our energies, without carping criticism from those 
 who realise the importance of our Navy as a defensive 
 force, to perfecting our ancient constitutional force, the 
 Militia, which has lately shown itself so effectively at 
 Aldershot, and is so anxious to be seriously dealt with. 
 Further, far from thinking that the Volunteers "take 
 themselves too seriously," I should like to see them 
 take themselves much more seriously than many of 
 them do. I wish we could have put into the hands of 
 the Volunteer Artillery an effective field weapon, and 
 that generally the whole question of the provision of 
 an adequate force of mobile Artillery for our home 
 defence could be taken in hand. I have always myself 
 believed that, considering the enclosed nature of our 
 country, and the extent to which it is everywhere inter- 
 laced by roads, the organisation on a large scale of 
 bicycle corps of Volunteers who are good shots might 
 be made a most effective addition and support to the 
 small mounted force we should have available. There 
 is no question, however, that both in regard to Militia 
 and Volunteers the difficulty is that of getting a proper
 
 vi THE FORCE WE NEED 199 
 
 supply of officers. The men would eery soon be all 
 
 right if we could get over the other trouble. < 'onsider 
 ing that but for the money difficulty the officer class is 
 the one of which for all purposes in Britain we have 
 the greatesl plethora, and thai we have an immense 
 number of effective officers who yearly retire from the 
 active army, it can only be a question of making the 
 inducements adequate to get them to take up, as many 
 have done, the work of adapting themselves to the 
 conditions of Volunteers, of studying what they want, 
 and supplying it. It has always seemed to me, when- 
 ever I have been with a camp of Volunteers of late 
 years, that it is only the enormous improvement which 
 has taken place since the movement was started 
 that has raised a standard among them which it is 
 much harder to reach than was the case formerly. I 
 believe that with all the best corps, all who know them 
 will bear this testimony. It is most cruel to tell them 
 that because we want an effective Navy we do not want 
 them to be effective. What is quite certain is that 
 the Navy would lose some of its best friends if the 
 Volunteers disappeared. The Volunteers represent the 
 patriotism of the country, ami it is only when England 
 is in its patriotic mood that Ave get an effective Navy 
 or Army either for that matter. 
 
 One word in conclusion. I am not able to imagine 
 the principle on which a calculation is made of the Army 
 and Navy estimates for the purposes of comparison. 
 Both taken together, the insurance paid by the country 
 on any calculation of its wealth is indefinitely small, 
 but surely, in the name of common sense, the things 
 we need are the supreme Navy and the adequate Army
 
 200 NATIONAL DEFENCES CHAP. 
 
 worked by the "incomparable diplomacy" of Sir 
 Mountstuart Grant Duff's speech. How is it possible 
 to arrive at any estimate of what we ought to spend on 
 the Navy by comparing it with what we do spend on 
 the Army, or vice arm ? We want a certain number 
 of ships and men to man them. In what relation does 
 that stand to the expenses involved in keeping up an 
 army adequate for the defence of India, home, and the 
 Colonies, and for taking such advantage of the supreme 
 Navy as our mercantile marine enables us to take in 
 order to deliver blows that will bring war to a con- 
 clusion 1 We have greater advantage in building ships 
 than any country in the world. Man with us is a more 
 costly article than in any country. All those conditions 
 which I have sketched in Chapter IV. tend to make 
 our Army man for man far dearer than in any other 
 country. That must and will always be so. No possible 
 or conceivable reform can alter it till we lose our world- 
 wide Empire. Our Navy, as long as our shipbuilding 
 facilities continue what they are, must and always will 
 be ship for ship, tonnage for tonnage, and gun for gun 
 the cheapest in the world. That must be so ; only 
 intolerable muddling could alter it. These facts must 
 be faced if any useful result is to be secured. Moreover, 
 these attempts at useless and mischievous comparison 
 tend to that most dangerous competition of departments, 
 to throw burdens on one another. 
 
 If all the coaling-stations and harbours which the 
 Army holds, much to its individual disgust, solely for 
 the sake of the Navy, and for no other cause whatever, 
 were charged to the naval vote and removed from that 
 of the Army, a very different set of figures would appear.
 
 V] THE FORCE WE NEED 201 
 
 On the whole, for very sound Imperial reasons, and 
 at the wish of the Admiralty, that change of tenure 
 do< ! nol take place; but, as one who raised my voice 
 for the Navy at a time when it was not so popular a 
 cry as it is now, I venture to protest as an Englishman 
 againsi a method of discussion which is false, mischiev- 
 ous, and tending to set the right arm of Britain againsi 
 the left in a worse than fratricidal struggle for what is 
 in jded by both for efficiency. 
 
 1 Throughout this volume I have spoken not of "England" but 
 ui ■■ Britain." There is no convenient term which includes the 
 nation as a whole. I do not altogether like the terms " Britain " 
 and •• British," becausi they seem to exclude one part of the race 
 which has contributed more than its share to the victories won by 
 the forces of the United Kingdom. .Many, who are like myself 
 Englishmen, though like many others I have both Welsh and [rish 
 blood in my veins, use by preference the terms "England" and 
 "English," not because we tor a momenl forget that part of the 
 nation which lies beyond the Tweed, or its services in war. but 
 because by putting a part for the whole we are able to include not 
 this island only, but that which, however inconveniently it may 
 occasionally display its fighting proclivities, has furnished to the 
 ranks many of our best soldiers, and to the Army nol a few of our 
 dearest friends. I everywhere, whatever terms I use, intend to 
 include all the race.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 THE FORCE WE HAVE 
 
 During the year 1887, when I for one and many 
 other soldiers were anxiously endeavouring to ascertain 
 whether in the judgment of our best sailors we still 
 held our old supremacy at sea, there happily was at 
 the Admiralty a young captain who, having seen fight- 
 ing, had had his mind directed to the question of our 
 preparedness for war. 1 As an executive officer he had 
 assumed that everything was ready. At the Admiralty 
 he found nothing ready. The state of things was such 
 that to men in high office when the truth was laid 
 before them it appeared incredible. The reason was 
 simple. The nation had not been taken into confidence, 
 and without the motive force of strong popular feeling 
 no party dared to ask for what was necessary. Lord 
 Charles Beresford's resignation and Lord Wolseley's 
 speaking out together led first to the creation of a Naval 
 Intelligence Department, modelled on that which already 
 existed for the Army, and to an increase to our fleet 
 
 1 See in the Times of 28th January 1888 the unanswered and 
 unanswerable statement of the facts in Lord Charles Beresford's 
 address to his constituents.
 
 chap, vii THE FORCE WE SAVE 
 
 based on whal to any thoughtful mind must appeal 
 it did to Sir Geoffrey Hornby, the utterly irrelevant 
 principle that our fleet was to be strong enough to meel 
 any other two navies. That that standard is an absurd 
 one appears from this, thai ul and beam that 
 
 is used in building requires to be strong enough to 
 supporl the weight it has to carry, and that in relation 
 to all oilier forms of strength the same principle applies. 
 Our Navy requires to be strong enough to do the work 
 it ought to do, and the comparison with other Powers 
 cannoi be instituted because their navies have no work 
 to do proportioned to ours in any degree. The crowd 
 of ships on the sea is a British crowd, not a French or 
 a German crowd. Nevertheless at this moment, a 
 as I am able to ascertain, the number of new ships thai 
 we have is so great as compared with those of other 
 Powers, that thai fact alone gives us an advantage which, 
 as long as it lasts, satisfies those who know as to the 
 practical supremacy of our Navy, not because it is ship 
 for ship and gun for gun equal to any other two navies, 
 but because on the whole it is so strong and in such 
 good condition that it would be tolerably well able to 
 fulfil the duties which are laid upon it. Obviously this 
 is not a (piestion for statistics, as to which figures have 
 been given over and over again and as invariably dis- 
 puted. Lord Brassey's Annual gives the figures with 
 much completeness, and it would be easy but useless to 
 copy them. They would be simply bewildering and 
 misleading. What, however, must be remembered is 
 that in these matters we can never "rest and he 
 thankful." It was not our statesmen who obtained for 
 us a supreme Navy. They never can do so. It was
 
 204 
 
 NATIONAL DEFENCES 
 
 the aroused attention and interest of the nation. If 
 that is not kept up, e.very year will see a falling bach by 
 the mere efflux of time in the efficiency of ships -which 
 gradually become antiquated. Every year also will see 
 in other countries, as has already happened in France 
 and Germany, a strenuous effort to put their fleets on 
 an equality, or more nearly on an equality, with ours. 
 It depends on those to whom this series is addressed 
 whether that shall lie met by us and our supremacy 
 kept up. That is the first and vital matter. 
 
 As regards the Army and the other land forces, it is 
 easier to give exact figures which represent something 
 intelligible. We have — 
 
 At home and iu the Colonies, 
 
 of a 
 
 1 rank 
 
 
 of Regulars 
 
 
 149,653 
 
 Army Reserve of two classes . 
 
 
 
 80,080 
 
 On the Indian establishment . 
 
 
 
 73,217 
 
 Militia in England 
 
 
 
 133,502 
 
 ,, Channel Isles 
 
 
 
 3,996 
 
 , , Malta and Bermuda 
 
 
 
 2,490 
 
 Yeomanry (with staff) . 
 
 
 
 11,891 
 
 Volunteers „ 
 
 
 
 263,968 
 
 
 Total 
 
 718,797 
 
 The militia includes about 30,000 men of the "militia 
 reserve " who are liable to join the Army in case of Avar. 
 Actually at home we have 117,152 men of the regular 
 army, 80,080 of reserve, and 30,000 militia reserve — 
 197,232 men in all available for service in all parts of 
 the world. If, therefore, two corps about 70,000 men 
 were sent abroad, we should have 127,232 regulars 
 besides the militia and volunteers left at home, both for 
 home defence and for filling up casualties in the field.
 
 vii THE FORCE WE HAVE 
 
 The men of the two corps would be all men in the very 
 prime of their age, between twenty-three and thirty. Of 
 those remaining, at leasl another corps would beofaboul 
 the same age. Most of the men coming back from the 
 reserve have bad three times as long military Bervice as 
 any French or Germans. Two army corps, complete in 
 all their parts, with a cavalry division, would be ready 
 for shipment quicker than transports could be ready for 
 them. So far, therefore, as organisation goes for this 
 strength we have perhaps had enough of abuse of army 
 methods. If the points 1 have made be sound, this is 
 the kind of force that we do require. Whether it is 
 enough is a question of the nature of the work it may 
 be called on to do. That is a political question. That 
 with an exceedingly small increase in the army estimates 
 relatively this is an incomparably larger and better force 
 than we have ever had before, and more ready for 
 immediate war, there can, I believe, he no question 
 whatever. It would he madness, under the suggestion 
 of those who have not studied the organisation and 
 make reckless misstatements about it, to go back, not 
 forwards. That we still need much I have all along 
 maintained, but it is necessary to show that the country 
 does get its money's worth for its money, in order to 
 remove distrust which prevents what we need from 
 being granted us. For the reasons I have explained, 
 we need .still a small increase to the number of our 
 battalions even after the improvements of this year, not 
 in order merely to add to the numerical strength of the 
 Army, but in order to avoid breaking up its efficiency 
 based on the system of home and foreign battalions. 
 At present we are always in danger of doing this when
 
 206 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 ever a few extra battalions are sent abroad. We need 
 therefore, for the sake of general efficiency, the nest-egg 
 of which I have spoken. Our direst need is, however, 
 of Artillery, proportioned to the available forces of other 
 kinds. Hitherto what has been most essential as regards 
 the Artillery was an increase of men and officers available 
 to man the defensive works of our harbours and coaling- 
 stations. It was obviously useless to fortify these places 
 on broad imperial principles without providing men to 
 man the guns by which they are protected. So far as 
 the armament is complete, and it is now in most places 
 approaching that condition, these have been fairly pro- 
 vided for for the first time this year. But as regards the 
 field artillery, Ave are still in a peculiar difficult}'. The 
 system of relief which is, if the infantry battalions at 
 home are equal in number to those abroad, and the cadres 
 of a definite strength, adequate to maintain efficiency 
 has a special effect in regard to field artillery. A 
 battery is not, like an infantry battalion, practically 
 homogeneous. It consists of two different parts, the 
 drivers who ride the horses and carry the guns where 
 they are required to be placed for firing on the enemy, 
 and the gunners who move about the gun after it has 
 been left on the ground ready for action by the horse 
 teams. Among the gunners there are practically special- 
 ists, men who are trained as "gun-layers." Now if a 
 " draft " has to be sent out to India under the restric- 
 tions now necessary as to age, length of service still re- 
 maining to complete the (seven or eight) years of colour- 
 service, etc., it frequently, as far as the gunners are 
 concerned, becomes necessary to include " gun-layers " 
 in the draft. When these men arrive in India they are
 
 vn Till. FORCE WE IIAVK 
 
 relegated to the duty of ordinary gunners, because the 
 battery to which they go has already its trained 
 layers. The battery at home is thus injured in its 
 efficiency quite out of proportion to the gain to the 
 battery in India Again, the drivers cannot I"' all 
 taught together like a set of independent recruits. 
 The first time a man is put into a team it is much 
 better to let him drive the centre horses between 
 two more experienced drivers managing the Lead and 
 wheel horses of the gun. Again, a battalion going to 
 the autumn manoeuvres can adjusl to a considerable 
 extent the work of its recruits by not having their 
 knapsacks or valises filled. Even if some recruits who 
 ought not to be exposed to the strain of manoeuvre 
 work arc left behind, the strength of the battalion is 
 only reduced by the number so left, and the recruits 
 can continue their training in the barrack square. But 
 the work of a driver taking the horses with the guns 
 behind them over any rough -round that he may come 
 across at manoeuvre is so dangerous for an inexperienced 
 man that practically only fairly-trained drivers can be 
 put into the teams; thus the very men who most 
 require to be taught driving are necessarily lefl behind 
 during such times. They cannot, like the infantry 
 recruit, be taught just what they ought to learn, bul 
 must be employed on mere stable duties. I only give 
 these details in order to show that it is not possible 
 without special adaptations to its own service to apply to 
 the Artillery the system which, when fairly worked, has 
 done so much for us in regard to the Infantry. There 
 is always great danger of our merely showing an in- 
 creased number of guns without corresponding efficiencj .
 
 208 NATIONAL DEFENCES chap. 
 
 "War is a grim thing, and I must put it to you bluntly, 
 that for the safety of your homes, and for the protection 
 of your great interests and the fulfilment of your duties 
 throughout the world, the important matter fur you is, 
 not how many guns can move in a review, but how 
 many shells those guns can place at the right spot at 
 the right time ; in other words, effectively among those 
 who come to assail your homes or your other interests. 
 Now it is these difficulties of arranging for an econo- 
 mical method by which guns can be provided with 
 the trained men who shall from them so deliver these 
 shells, that have hitherto prevented our having that 
 complement of guns which is the chief thing now 
 required to make both your home defences and your 
 army for the field complete as far as its personnel is 
 concerned. It is here, therefore, as always, a question 
 of money. We still also require the most expensive 
 thing in Britain next to men, ground — ground that shall 
 enable us properly to manoeuvre and to train, and 
 ground that shall make us an effective army organically 
 kept together in the parts and in the functions that 
 will be required for war. 
 
 I close my little volume amid the storms of war, 
 sounding or threatening in many quarters. I doubt if 
 there was ever a time when Ave were at peace when 
 there was such peremptory need for our being ready for 
 war, unless we are to abandon the position which has 
 been handed down to us by our fathers. What I am quite 
 sure of is, that we shall not be ready for war unless you 
 interest yourselves in the matter, unless, furthermore, 
 you will fairly study the case as I have laid it before 
 you, and judge whether or no you have been fairly
 
 vii THE FORCE Wi: BAA E 
 
 served by those who have been working under man) 
 difficulties to place your Army on an effective footing. 
 Just now the Army is inu-li oul of favour, but, as I 
 have shown you, if it be so, it is largely because we our- 
 3, from love of Britain and from thai alone, put 
 ourselves in the second place when you in your f< 
 fulness were disposed to accord us the first. We cannot 
 yield to any sailor in the Land in claiming Nelson as a 
 representative British hero, or in loving him whatevei 
 
 his faults may have l u. We do not believe thai you 
 
 will long forget the names of Wellington and Marl 
 borough, of Gordon, Havelock, Out ram, the Napiers, 
 ('live, and Henry Lawrence. Time would fail me to 
 touch your memories further, and I note them at 
 hazard, but I think there is loss, not gain, to our sailors 
 if they cannot claim their birthright in these men as 
 we claim ours in Nelson, St. Vincent, .Monk, and the 
 Since your mood changed from about the date of 
 '88, you have not been badly served by army officers in 
 Egypt, the Niger, West and Central Africa, and in India. 
 and perhaps you have had sometimes reason to re-ret 
 that you had not them in command when danger loomed. 
 When they arc responsible they are more easily kepi in 
 the leash, as well as more effective when let slip. In any 
 case, just as it depends on you whether what is need< d 
 shall be done for your protection, so it depends on you 
 whether those who write to tickle your palate shall think 
 they do the Navy service by crabbing the Army, or 
 whether both the right arm and the left arm of Britain 
 shall be encouraged to work together under wise direc 
 tion in hearty copartnership for the glory of Britain 
 and the fulfilment of national duty. 
 
 P
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 WAR. 
 Reproduced, with amendments, from the article in the last 
 edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," to which 
 is added on Military Literature, and a li-t of 
 
 books, with brief comments. Bj General I-'. Maubice, 
 C.B., R.A., Professor of Military Art and Bistory in 
 the Royal Staff < lollege. 8vo. 5s. net. 
 
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