\/V, /, vVi. <^f 
 
 /as/
 
 COMPULSORY SERVICE
 
 "Sir, I considered myself as entrusted with 
 a certain portion of truth. I have given my 
 opinion sincerely; let them show where they 
 think me wrong." 
 
 Dr. Johnson
 
 COMPULSORY 
 SERVICE 
 
 A STUDY OF THE QUESTION IN 
 THE LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 BY GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. R. B. HALDANE 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 WITH NOTES ON THE ADMIRALTY VIEW OF THE 
 RISK OF INVASION 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 191 1
 
 U3 
 
 /fit 
 
 First Edition .... November 1910 
 Second Edition .... January 191 1
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Organisation of the Army — The Anxieties of an Adjutant- 
 General — The Engagement to Serve Over-soa — British and 
 Foreign Armies — The British Over-sea Army a Large One — The 
 Comrnittoo of Imperial Defence — Character of this Committee — 
 Its Development — Principles laid down by it — Relations of Navy 
 and Army — The Expeditionary Army — Prevention of Invasion — 
 Difficulties of Invasion — Function of tho Territorial Force — 
 The Territorial Force — Its Training — Its Development — Homo 
 Defence — Future of Territorial Force — The Sceptics — Tho Alter- 
 natives — Naval Strength— National Service League Plan — Its 
 Difficulties — Tho Officer Question — A Defoctivo Estimate — The 
 Other Way — Conclusion ...... pp. 9-42 
 
 COMPULSORY SERVICE 
 
 Introductory — Tho British Soldier — Stato Policy — Its Instru- 
 ments — Regular and Militia Systems — Compulsory and Volun- 
 tary S'Tvico- Drawbacks of Compulsory Service — Two Schools 
 — Our Military Problem — Foreign Experience — Differences of 
 I'roblorn — Citizen Armies — Their Limitations — Staying Power 
 — Tho South African War — Foar of Invasion— Temptation to 
 
 C omp r o mise — Fooling in Groat Britain Difficulty of Increasing 
 Regulars — Continental Opinion -German Experience — German 
 Ovor-soa Soldiers — Their Cost — Foreign Expeditions— Russian 
 Experience — French Exporionco — Foreign Legion and Colonial 
 Army — French Terms of Service — Pay and Rowards in Franco 
 
 5
 
 6 CONTENTS 
 
 — Government Posts— French Experience— French Soldiers- 
 Attitude towards Colonial Army— Numbers of French Over-sea 
 Army— Proportion kept at Home— The British Expeditionary 
 ;F orce _Continental Analogy Fails— Lessons from Home Experi- 
 ence — The Three-Years System— Its Results— The Lesson— Atti- 
 tude towards Compulsion— Dangers of Compulsory Service- 
 Summing Up— Alternative Plans— The German Model— Details— 
 Our Six Divisions— Drawbacks of Continental Model— Advantages 
 and Disadvantages— Balance of Advantage— Another View— Loss 
 of Strength Over-sea — National Service League Plan — Its General 
 Scheme— Its Financial Aspectr— Recruit Training— Period of 
 Year— Danger to Regular Recruiting — Current Misconceptions 
 —Further Difficulties— The Five Alternatives— Their Respective 
 Merits— Another Possibility— The Territorial Force— Its Value, 
 Present and Future — Misconceptions — Fighting Quality — Lead- 
 ing of Territorials— Tho Moral Factor— The Voluntary Spirit 
 — The Parade at Windsor — Quality of Territorials— South 
 African Experience— The Imperial Light Horse — The Colonials 
 — The City Imperial Volunteers — Royal Commission Evidence 
 — Attainment of Fighting Value — Character of Territorial 
 Soldier — The Moral Factor— Development of Territorial Force 
 — Useful Expenditure — Real Alternative Policies — A Continental 
 Army — Home Defence Policy— Its Danger to tho Empire— The 
 Better Way PP- 43-139 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 Growth of Our System— A Now Factor— A Conception- 
 Some Fallacies— A Third Line— Compulsion for Third Line- 
 Final Words PP- 139-148
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 APP. 
 
 I Text of the Bill Introduced in the House of Lords 
 to Give Effect to the Proposals of the National 
 Service League pp. 151-159 
 
 II Memorandum of the National Service League on 
 the National Service (Training and Home Defence) 
 Bill pp. 160-162 
 
 III Estimate by the National Service League of the 
 Numbers and Cost involved under its Proposals. 
 
 pp. 163-181 
 
 IV Parliamentary Paper (House of Lords, July 8, 1009) 
 containing the Remarks of the Finance Department 
 of the War Okbice on the Estimate of the National 
 Service League pp. 182-188 
 
 V Notes on War Office Paper " Army, July 8, 1909," 
 by the National Service League . . pp. 189-197 
 
 VI Supplementary Note by the Finance Department 
 of the War Office pp. 198-201 
 
 VII Financial Notes on a Possible Conscript Army for 
 Home Defence pp. 202-208 
 
 VIII Notes containing the Admiralty View of the Risk 
 of Invasion pp. 20'J-212
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Interest in the question of compulsory 
 military service in these islands is very 
 general, and it is important that materials 
 for forming a judgment on the subject should 
 be before the public. I have therefore 
 thought it right to publish a memorandum 
 written for me by one who has very recently 
 held the position of Adjutant-General — Sir 
 Ian Hamilton. It is an unofficial docu- 
 ment, originally prepared for my private 
 information, and it does not profess to do 
 more than record the conclusions about 
 various alternatives to the existing system 
 at which he has individually arrived, after 
 study of facts and figures which came 
 before him during the period of his work 
 as Adjutant-General. 
 
 For the information of the lav reader, I 
 may mention that the work of organising 
 the British Army ;it headquarters is one 
 which is carefully distributed. The General 
 Staff plans out the scheme of the various 
 forces on the basis of preparation for 
 war ; determines the number, structure, and 
 
 u
 
 10 THE ORGANISATION OF THE ARMY 
 
 proper size or establishment of the cadres 
 in war, and the purposes and standard of 
 their equipment, accessories, and weapons. 
 These last are supplied by the Quarter- 
 master-General and the Master-General of 
 the Ordnance. To the Department of the 
 Adjutant-General falls, among other duties, 
 that of finding and organising in peace 
 the men to fill the cadres which the 
 General Staff demands for war. These 
 cadres may be on paper the best in the 
 world, but their reality depends on whether 
 it is possible to get recruits, adequate in 
 number and in quality, to fill them. To 
 an Adjutant-General, therefore, the idea of 
 compulsory service is naturally an attractive 
 one. He looks with envy on the easy 
 fashion in which cadres are filled in Germany, 
 France, and Switzerland. He thinks of 
 the physical training and habits of exactness 
 which compulsory service makes general. 
 
 But, as a great critic of life has told us, 
 he who acts on only one maxim is a pedant 
 and spoils things for himself and for others. 
 The Adjutant-General of the British Army 
 has more than one thing to consider, and 
 he must resist temptations into which the 
 abstract mind is prone to fall. He has to 
 approach the proposition to fill cadres by
 
 ANXIETIES OF AN ADJUTANT-GENERAL 11 
 
 compulsion, even for preliminary training, 
 with anxious regard to certain peculiarities 
 which are characteristic of the British Army, 
 and of it alone among the armies of the 
 world. What he has never to lose sight of 
 is that the little islands on which we live 
 are the centre of an enormous and scattered 
 Empire, the parts of which are separated 
 by great stretches of ocean from the parent 
 islands and from each other. No other 
 nation possesses this peculiar feature to 
 anything approaching the same extent. 
 It is therefore no accident or result of 
 haphazard conjecture, but rather a deep- 
 seated instinct, that has, for generations 
 past, led our rulers and our sailors and 
 soldiers to base their strategy on a principle 
 to which they have held tenaciously. It 
 is that, first in the order of importance 
 comes sea-power, backed up not only by 
 adequate over-sea garrisons, but by an 
 expeditionary army, kept at home in time 
 of peace, but so organised that it is ready 
 for immediate transport by the fleet to 
 distant scenes of action, and is capable 
 of there maintaining long campaigns with 
 the least possible dislocation of the social 
 life of the nation. Such an expeditionary 
 army is essentially a long-range weapon
 
 12 THE ENGAGEMENT TO SERVE OVER-SEA 
 
 and can be raised only on a long-service 
 basis.* Those who compose it must there- 
 fore accept the Service as their profession 
 for some years, and with it the obligation 
 to embark without any delay. Modern con- 
 ceptions of mobilisation preclude any idea 
 that time will be available for a search for 
 those willing to go. The undertaking must 
 be a term of service agreed to from the 
 very first day the recruit joins. Sir Ian 
 Hamilton's conclusion is that it is only from 
 a volunteer recruit who proposes to make 
 the Army his profession that we can suc- 
 cessfully ask for such an undertaking. 
 
 It is customary to speak of the British 
 Army as a very small one. But for purposes 
 of comparison like must be compared with 
 like. Our Home-Defence Army ought, for 
 reasons which I will develop later on, to 
 be small relatively to that of continental 
 nations. This is a further result of our 
 geographical conditions. The Home frontiers 
 
 * By long service, I do not hero mean the pre-Cardwell 
 system, under which soldiers served in the ranks until 
 they were pensioned, but a system under which men 
 continue in the ranks long enough (six or seven years) to 
 give a fair period of service abroad after they have been 
 fully trained, and thereafter serve a further period (six or 
 five years) in the Army Reserve, liable to be called up and 
 sent abroad in a national emergency.
 
 BRITISH AND FOREIGN ARMIES 13 
 
 of this country are not land but sea frontiers. 
 But considerations of strategy require that 
 the other force, which is raised for the 
 purpose of service over-sea, should be 
 relatively greater than would suffice for 
 other nations that have not, to anything 
 approaching the same extent, to reinforce 
 distant over-sea outposts. As the result, it 
 is in point of fact enormously larger than 
 the similar forces of Germany and France 
 put together. These countries have not 
 had our obligation in this respect, but they 
 have had a quite different obligation, under 
 which they have fashioned their armies on 
 another principle. Their main anxiety is 
 as to how they may best defend open land 
 frontiers ; and to this end they have found 
 that the only adequate means is to sub- 
 ordinate all other considerations to that of 
 organising the nation through compulsory 
 service into a huge short-service Army. 
 Their ordinary citizens are trained thor- 
 oughly as soldiers, but in reality with a 
 view only to serving in a brief though 
 colossal campaign which must be brought 
 to a decision comparatively speedily ; and 
 are passed to the Reserve as soon as their 
 training is finished. When war breaks out, 
 the cost of keeping such an army mobilised
 
 14 BRITISH OVER-SEA ARMY A LARGE ONE 
 
 is enormous. Not only the outlay on pay 
 and equipment, but the indirect cost 
 arising from dislocation of industry and 
 civil life generally, is such that these cam- 
 paigns speedily end in exhaustion, and the 
 final question is as to which nation, by 
 the perfection of its military organisation, 
 can count on wearing out the other before 
 it itself collapses. Such national armies 
 are therefore in substance, and of necessity, 
 short-service armies, and weapons adapted 
 only for operations at short range. What, 
 for the purposes of the present question, is 
 of importance is that, as Sir Ian Hamilton 
 shows, they preclude that other sort of 
 army, which is essential for long-range 
 operations over-sea, from being raised along- 
 side of them out of the same material. 
 
 But just because Great Britain is not 
 compelled to maintain enormous armies 
 for the defence of its home frontiers against 
 invasion, it can organise a relatively very 
 large over-sea professional force, and keep 
 it, even in peace time, not only in being 
 but in a high state of training, and fit to 
 serve for a prolonged campaign without 
 exhausting the country in either men or 
 money. We have nearly 76,000 British 
 soldiers in India, and some 37,000 in other
 
 THE COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE 15 
 
 over-sea garrisons. We possess at home, in 
 addition, the Expeditionary Army, the annual 
 training of which now culminates regularly 
 in the autumn manoeuvres, and with which 
 the public has thus become familiar. This 
 force mobilises, with its accessories and 
 Army troops, at a figure of about 170,000. 
 In other words, we recruit and maintain 
 a professional long-range army of nearly 
 300,000, and we are able to do so because 
 our geographical position leaves us free to 
 concentrate on this. We accomplish the 
 result on the only basis on which it can be 
 accomplished — by making service in the 
 Army a voluntary profession. 
 
 One of the advantages which followed on 
 the foundation by Mr. Balfour of the 
 Committee of Imperial Defence was that 
 the subjects assigned to that Committee 
 began to be systematically and scientifically 
 studied. The Committee affords to the 
 Chiefs of the Staff at the Admiralty and at 
 the War Office a meeting-place where they 
 li;ive a constant opportunity of bringing 
 their operations into harmony, and of 
 working out in detail objects and principles, 
 common to both Services, which arc to be 
 followed by those who serve under them. 
 But the Committee does more than this.
 
 16 CHARACTER OF THIS COMMITTEE 
 
 Recently it has developed the scope of its 
 procedure. The Foreign and Colonial Of- 
 fices, the India Office, the Home Office, the 
 Treasury, the Board of Trade, and the Post 
 Office are now, not only through their 
 Ministerial Chiefs, but in the persons of 
 the permanent heads of departments, called 
 into council whenever occasion renders it 
 useful. The organisation works largely 
 through carefully chosen sub-committees, 
 of which several are always sitting and col- 
 lecting and investigating materials. When 
 the main body assembles the Prime Minister 
 presides, having summoned not only the 
 permanent members, but colonial statesmen 
 who may be in London and are concerned 
 in the particular problem of defence which 
 is under investigation. More and more 
 each year the Committee is being trans- 
 formed into a body, of which the Prime 
 Minister is the controlling head, but which 
 works mainly through experts. The Sub- 
 Committees, which report to the main 
 body, deal with work much of it so highly 
 technical that it is necessarily carried out 
 by experts. This work the highly qualified 
 secretary, Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Ottley 
 and his special staff, arrange, under the 
 eye of the Prime Minister. With the Ad- 

 
 ITS DEVELOPMENT 17 
 
 miralty and the War Office the Secretary 
 is in daily communication. The Defence 
 Committee thus organised contains the germ 
 of a Great General Staff for the Empire. 
 The Admiralty consults it on problems that 
 are more than merely naval. The Imperial 
 General Staff of the Army is in constant 
 relation with it over matters that concern 
 the defences of the Empire. The Committee 
 has now become a body which is in effect 
 sitting and working, largely through the 
 medium of its sub-committees and officials, 
 almost as continuously as is the General 
 Staff of the Army. If war were threatened 
 it could develop into a War Council for 
 the Prime Minister, the duty of which 
 would be to furnish him, and through him 
 his Ministers, with the expert knowledge 
 required before policy could be settled in 
 the Cabinet. It is a body the function of 
 which is to study in time of peace, as a 
 Great General Stall' ought, possible situa- 
 tions with a view to the nation and the 
 Empire knowing what to do should war 
 come. Whenever the day arrives at which 
 Mr. Balfour is again its head I think he will 
 find that the organisation which he founded 
 has developed under Sir Henry Cainpbcll- 
 
 Bannerman and Mr. Asquith as nearly as 
 
 2
 
 18 PRINCIPLES LAID DOWN BY IT 
 
 could be along the lines he originally laiddown. 
 Continuity in organisation for defence is a 
 great advantage, and the leaders on both sides 
 have been loyal to each other in insisting on it. 
 
 Now, one of the most useful contributions 
 which this Great General Staff of the Empire 
 has made to the problem of Home Defence 
 in particular is the laying down of funda- 
 mental principles with great distinctness. 
 First under Mr. Balfour, and again under 
 Mr. Asquith, certain conclusions have, after 
 prolonged investigation and examination of 
 expert opinion, been affirmed and re- 
 affirmed. I will set out the substance of 
 these conclusions as they have been in- 
 dicated by Mr. Balfour, Mr. Asquith, and 
 others in Parliament. 
 
 The primary proposition is that command 
 of the sea is the essential foundation of our 
 strategy, not only for Imperial but for Home 
 defence. The Navy undertakes to protect 
 British shores from invasion on a great 
 scale. Writing as a layman who has had 
 the duty of endeavouring to weigh the state- 
 ments on the question made by the only 
 people whose opinions are of real weight 
 on this point, the responsible representatives 
 of the Navy, I add here that I have reason 
 to believe that the Admiralty is to-day in a
 
 RELATIONS OF NAVY AND ARMY 19 
 
 position to make this undertaking good,* and, 
 if we do not in our policy stray away from 
 first principles, and divert our resources into 
 a wrong direction, I see no reason to doubt 
 that the ability to afford this protection will 
 continue. Moreover, the undertaking of the 
 Admiralty extends to this, that on existing 
 lines of policy the guarantee will be made 
 good without tying to these coasts ships which 
 are required for command of more distant 
 waters. Our first and fundamental duty in 
 the organisation of our defences is thus to 
 keep the Navy at such a strength as will 
 maintain this strategical position. Although 
 my immediate connection is with the Army, 
 I call this our basic principle. It is the clear 
 outcome of accepted premises that it should 
 be so, and, looking to our geographical 
 position, it is vital that the Army and the 
 Navy should be organised with this conclusion 
 in clear view. When, therefore, expansions 
 of the Army for Home defence purposes are 
 
 * "In Appendix VJ1I I have, with their permission, 
 printed the notes supplied by the Hoard of Admiralty for 
 the nee of tho War Office in a debate which was to have 
 taken place last November in the ||., ii e of Lords, on a 
 motion by Lord Roberta, From these notes it will he seen 
 that our naval line of defence ifl now not tingle but 
 twofold. The first line consists of the Fleet; the second 
 
 of a separate coast defence organisation of subinarino 
 and destroyer flotillas."
 
 20 THE EXPEDITIONARY ARMY 
 
 proposed which would add largely to the Esti- 
 mates, the first question I ask is whether those 
 who propose them are holding firmly, in spirit 
 as well as in words, to the basic principle, 
 or whether the new expenditure would have 
 as its tendency, intentional or unconscious, 
 to trench upon what is requisite for the main- 
 tenance of the proper standard of sea-power. 
 The second conclusion is that to make 
 the Navy an effective weapon we require a 
 military instrument capable of being used 
 in conjunction with it. This must not be a 
 mere force for Home defence. The true 
 strategical foundation of all adequate de- 
 fensive preparations is the power of rapidly 
 assuming the offensive by striking wherever 
 a blow will be most effective, it may be at 
 some distant point in the enemy's organisa- 
 tion. To this end a highly trained army for 
 over-sea work is for us essential, an army such 
 as can be raised only on a professional and 
 therefore voluntary footing. Such an army 
 can never be large compared with those that 
 can be raised for the mere purpose of domestic 
 defence. But with us it is and ought to be 
 much larger than the over-sea force of any 
 inland nation with comparatively little to 
 garrison abroad, whose military strength has 
 to be developed and concentrated in the shape
 
 PREVENTION OF INVASION 21 
 
 of an army to guard land frontiers capable 
 of being guarded in no other way. 
 
 It follows inevitably that in shaping our 
 military preparations for Home defence we 
 must bear in mind the purpose to which they 
 are shown by these two conclusions to be 
 limited. A first-line army for Home defence 
 we do not want. The first line here is com- 
 posed of the divisions of the Fleet in Home 
 waters and the flotillas of destroyers and 
 submarines which guard our coast-line. 
 These we have to keep at such a strength 
 that they can afford adequate protection 
 against the advent of hostile transports. 
 But it is at least conceivable that some 
 hostile transports may succeed in evading 
 the observing fleet, to the extent of landing 
 a force of moderate dimensions or a series 
 of small detachments. That such attempts 
 at landi ng are, by reason of wind and weather, 
 very uncertain and very difficult operations 
 of war, the experience of the Territorial 
 Manoeuvres of this autumn shows. But 
 they may succeed ; and in a matter of 
 such vast importance the risk must be 
 provided for. Therefore, although the 
 Admiralty accepts the duty of maintaining 
 the command of the seas which surround 
 our coasts, a second line of security is re-
 
 22 DIFFICULTIES OF INVASION 
 
 quired against forces which are small enough 
 to have a chance of slipping through — a 
 second line that can fulfil the double function 
 of being able either to deal with such 
 forces if they do arrive, or to compel the 
 enemv to send them in such magnitude 
 that they cannot escape the Fleet. The 
 method approved by the Defence Committee 
 for this purpose is to raise and train a citizen 
 force which will be greatly superior in 
 numbers to any force that can slip through, 
 and will drive the adversary on to the other 
 horn of the dilemma — that of his transports 
 becoming the target for a superior navy. 
 It does not matter how secretly or how 
 swiftly the enemy could, in his own territory, 
 and with a view to crossing the sea, bring his 
 troops to the ports of embarkation. Wire- 
 less telegraphy, the vigilance of those who 
 live by watching indications that affect the 
 Money Market, and other reasons besides, 
 make, it is true, even the most admirably 
 planned of such operations difficult of execu- 
 tion without warning. The real question is, 
 however, one for seamen. Those who desire 
 to learn what the transport across the ocean 
 of a force of, say, 70,000 means ; what sort 
 of target the transporting vessels and their 
 convoys would present, and what are the
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF INVASION 
 
 23 
 
 difficulties in point of place, time, and 
 weather of the process, will find light upon 
 them in an article which appeared in The 
 Contemporary Review for February 1909 
 under the signature " Master Mariner." 
 
 This expert seaman calculates that an 
 invading force of 70,000 men — with horses, 
 guns, and transport — would need at least 
 150 vessels of sorts, or about 200,000 tons 
 of shipping. Three or four days would, 
 in his opinion, be required to get the troops 
 on board ; one or two days to get the ships 
 clear of the harbours ; and another two or 
 more days would be needed for the passage. 
 Allowing two days for news of such a venture 
 to leak out, our Admiralty would thus 
 get at least five days' notice of a threatened 
 attack. The convoy of ships would, he 
 estimates, cover at least twenty miles from 
 van to rear, and would throw up smoke 
 visible for another ten to fifty miles. On 
 an ival off our coasts, the business of getting 
 the ships in their proper places and rightly 
 anchored would, he says, be "a colossal 
 insk f;ir exceeding anything <»f the kind 
 ever attempted before." Even given fair 
 weather throughout, and assuming that 
 there was do opposition afloal <>r ashore — 
 1 an assumption that no seaman will con- 
 
 >/. c«. f 
 
 
 • 

 
 24 FUNCTION OF THE TERRITORIAL FORCE 
 
 cede " — the writer concludes that three 
 weeks would elapse from the first move in 
 the game to the day on which the invading 
 army would be ready to advance inland.* 
 
 The question whether the Admiralty are 
 right in the view they take, that the transports 
 of a force of probably a great deal less than 
 70,000 could not escape them, is essentially 
 a naval one. It has been closely considered 
 in the Defence Committee, and the answer 
 is that if the force exceeds 70,000 the opera- 
 tion has no chance of success. But, if so, 
 then all that has to be done is to provide 
 against a force of 70,000 at the outside, and 
 against those small and subsidiary opera- 
 tions of war called raids, whose purpose is 
 the secondary one of effecting, not a great 
 defeat, but disturbance and damage. 
 
 For the fulfilment of this purpose the 
 Territorial Force is being organised. Only 
 those who know what ground has to be 
 covered in the construction of a field army of 
 fourteen divisions and of fourteen mounted 
 brigades can appreciate how large and how 
 long an operation this is. It is all very well 
 
 * It must not be assumed that the General Staff adopts 
 this conclusion as the basis of its preparations. In plans 
 providing for risks of such supreme importance the factor 
 of safety always is made large and always ought to be so.
 
 THE TERRITORIAL FORCE 25 
 
 to criticise. Differences of opinion as to how 
 best to proceed and where and to what extent 
 money has to be spent, will abound. Mis- 
 takes on the part of those responsible there 
 are certain to be. But with time and 
 patience these difficulties will be got over, 
 and the mistakes will be corrected, provided 
 only the public care sufficiently. And if 
 the conclusions of the Defence Committee to 
 which I have referred have been genuinely 
 adopted by the country as its policy, then 
 it seems to me that this nation, sensible 
 and wise as it has proved itself to be in 
 practical matters, will do what is necessary 
 in providing the men. The Force has been 
 in legal existence for little over two years, 
 and, though practically nothing but the In- 
 fantry and Yeomanry existed at the begin- 
 ning, it has already attained to five-sixths of 
 the numbers of its establishment. It is large 
 enough for further valuable developments 
 of its training. Surely the wise course for 
 doubters is to do what they can to assist 
 its further growth, rather than to indulge 
 in discouraging criticism. The; reports on 
 this year's training show not only that 
 definite progress lias been made, even in the 
 case of the Artillery, but that the volunteer 
 citizen soldier — with whom his work is a
 
 26 ITS TRAINING 
 
 i labour of love — has been putting in training 
 in excess of what the Regulations require of 
 him. There are many difficulties still to be 
 overcome ; there is much to be accomplished, 
 in the light of the experience which even two 
 years has given us, in the way of effecting 
 improvements in certain directions. But, 
 if there is steady persistence, there seems to 
 be good ground to hope that the Force will 
 before very long attain to its full establish- 
 ment and become efficient up to the standard 
 that is necessary. To the standard of our 
 very highly trained Regulars the Terri- 
 torials, notwithstanding their keenness and 
 intelligence, cannot hope to attain, at all 
 events on this side of the outbreak of serious 
 war and a long embodiment. But it is equally 
 untrue, as Sir Ian Hamilton points out, to 
 say that they can never be expected to take 
 the field until after six months embodied 
 training following on mobilisation. That 
 amount of training, and probably more, 
 would be requisite were we asking them to 
 be ready to hold their own against picked 
 Regulars whom they met in equal numbers 
 and on equal terms. But it is not too much 
 to say that, if the present rate of progress in 
 training continues, the Force, stiffened with a 
 small number of Regular units and a much
 
 ITS DEVELOPMENT 27 
 
 larger number of Special Reserve and 
 surplus Regular soldiers who would remain 
 at home even were the expeditionary force all 
 gone abroad, would be a formidable barrier 
 in the path of any invading force that had 
 succeeded in escaping the Navy. On a general 
 mobilisation the Territorials ought automati- 
 cally to be embodied under the Act of 1907, 
 and before the whole of the Expeditionary 
 Force could have left us they would be well 
 on with their embodied training. Therefore, 
 although it would not be prudent to dismiss 
 the Territorials from that training back to 
 their homes before six months had elapsed, 
 it is a fallacy to say, as is sometimes said, 
 that for six months they would be a non-ex- 
 istent or negligible defence to the country.* 
 
 * It may be convenient to state here the numbers and 
 organisation of the forces normally at home and available 
 for meeting a sudden invasion. 
 
 Ah regards numbers, there were serving at home on 
 Octobor 1, 1010, under legal liability for service in war : 
 
 Officers Other ranks 
 Regular* serving .. .. 8,658 121,802 
 
 Regular Reserve (after making 
 
 nffcssary (IfdiKtions) .. 2,000 128,688 
 
 Special Reserve . . . . 1,07:5 01,116 
 
 Territorial Force (including Per- 
 manent Staff) .. .. 11,002 289,698 
 
 In addition there will, in fu*ur«\ bo the nun of the 
 Territorial Force Reserve and of the Veteran Reserve;
 
 28 HOME DEFENCE 
 
 Such are the principles for guarding 
 these islands from invasion which have 
 been worked out under the supervision of 
 the Committee of Imperial Defence. Such 
 is the citizen army which is being organised 
 under the eye of the General Staff, in com- 
 pliance with the principles so laid down. 
 Its function is to compel an enemy attempt- 
 ing invasion to face the dilemma of either 
 having his force destroyed at sea, or of 
 having any part of it that has a chance 
 of slipping past the British Navy surrounded 
 
 both these Reserves being at present in their infancy. 
 The men of these Reserves will be available to fill up any 
 shortages in Territorial cadres and for other purposes. 
 As regards the Veterans, these are men who exist in large 
 numbers. They have passed out of the Regular Reserve 
 and are highly trained, and many of them are still botween 
 thirty and forty years of age. 
 
 As regards units, there exist in the United Kingdom 
 the following : 
 
 Cavalry and Yeomanry : 
 
 Regular regiments . . . . . . . . 17 
 
 Irish Horse . . . . . . . . . . 2 
 
 Yeomanry regiments . . . . . . . . 56 
 
 75 
 Mobile Artillery : 
 
 Regular service batteries (horse, field, and 
 heavy) . . . . . . . . . . 101 
 
 Territorial batteries (horse, field, heavy, and 
 mountain) . . . . . . . . . . 182 
 
 283
 
 HOME DEFENCE 29 
 
 by greatly superior numbers and worn to 
 pieces. 
 
 Whether we succeed in making the system 
 thus planned complete and effective at all 
 points seems to me now to depend on the 
 spirit of the nation itself. That the men 
 required are available, and are willing to 
 make the requisite effort, does not seem to 
 
 Infantry : 
 
 Guards battalions . . . . . . . . 8 
 
 Regular battalions . . . . . . . . 74 
 
 Special Reserve battalions . . . . . . 101 
 
 Territorial battalions (including Cyclist bat- 
 talions) . . . . . . . . . . 204 
 
 387 
 
 These units again are organised into formations as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Cavalry Brigadi - . . . . . . . . 4 
 
 Mouuti-d Brigades 
 
 Territorial Force Mounted Brigades 
 
 Regular Divisions 
 
 I • rritoria] Divi iions 
 
 2 
 14 
 
 8 
 14 
 
 Thorn am thus in organised form twenty divisions at 
 pre 'nt in thn United Kingdom, the equivalent of ten 
 Army Corps, without counting the Coast Defence and 
 Line of Communioation units, which amount to a largo 
 amber. 
 
 Had the Expeditionary Force left the e shores, the 
 Territorials would have commenced their embodied war 
 training before any part of that Force bad begun to 
 embark.
 
 30 FUTURE OF TERRITORIAL FORCE 
 
 me doubtful. It has been my duty to 
 visit many parts of the country during the 
 last three years, and I have come into 
 contact with much that we have not yet 
 touched — an apparently very large number 
 of willing citizens who, to-day outside the 
 Territorial Army, would gladly join it if 
 they could get the chance. It may well 
 prove unnecessary to resort to these further 
 sources. I think that, with the Force at a 
 strength of five-sixths of the establishment 
 after a couple of years of the new system, 
 we may now concentrate our energies on 
 improvements in the training and condi- 
 tions as to which experience is already 
 instructing us. As the Force improves 
 its very reality will probably gradually 
 bring in the remaining sixth that is still 
 wanting. But there are regions which lie 
 close at hand where we could apparently 
 without delay wipe out the deficit by 
 merely extending the organisation which 
 the General Staff originally planned. The 
 question is one of the reality of the spirit of 
 voluntary service to the State, and of this 
 reality the best judges are not soldiers but 
 civilians. It is no matter of imposing con- 
 ditions for their good on the great mass of 
 the population. The real point is whether
 
 THE SCEPTICS 31 
 
 among the thirty-nine million inhabitants 
 of Great Britain there are to be found 
 three hundred and fifteen thousand young 
 men who have in them the spirit of 
 patriotism. 
 
 The Churches constitute a voluntary or- 
 ganisation, and they maintain a far larger 
 establishment with little effort, simply be- 
 cause the sense of religious duty is a real 
 one. Not less real, and probably at least 
 as general, is the sense of the obligation of 
 social service, a sense which has grown 
 with the growth of democracy. Are we 
 then to despair of modern capacity for 
 patriotic duty ? If the natural leaders of 
 opinion elect to sit down in doubt and tears 
 over the incapacity of their fellow citizens 
 for the higher aspects of life, doubtless the 
 latter will begin to weaken in their con- 
 fidence in their country and themselves. 
 But if, instead, these leaders, animated by 
 feeling even much short of the faith that 
 moves iiM.uiil.iins, set themselves steadily 
 and unanimously to that work of encourage- 
 ment and organisation which is already 
 being done admirably by those who are 
 working in the County Associations, then 
 the result does not seem to me doubtful. 
 I may be called an optimist, and I shall be
 
 32 THE ALTERNATIVES 
 
 glad to be so called. For the belief that is 
 in me is born of experience. I have travelled 
 into most parts of the country, and I have 
 addressed meetings in many centres, great 
 and small. I have had as much oppor- 
 tunity as most men of studying the attitude 
 of my fellow countrymen when the appeal 
 has been made to them to do that which 
 love of their country should enjoin. I have 
 seen party politics put on one side, and I 
 have witnessed a response from men and 
 women in every class of society to the call 
 of duty. And as the outcome I wholly 
 decline to think so ill of them as do certain 
 of the prophets. But suppose that we gave 
 up the struggle, and that we could succeed 
 in a yet more difficult task. Suppose that, 
 contrary to the national instinct as it is to- 
 day — an instinct which some scientifically 
 minded soldiers and sailors think a sound 
 one — we had succeeded in persuading the 
 electors to agree to raise and pay for a 
 Home Defence Army compulsorily recruited 
 and trained for a couple of years after the 
 fashion of Regulars. The Financial Notes 
 printed as Appendix VII. (written for me 
 some little time ago) show that an Army 
 on these lines, to furnish the same numerical 
 strength as the Territorials for Home De-
 
 NAVAL STRENGTH 33 
 
 fence, and as the present Expeditionary 
 Force for service abroad, would cost about 
 a million and a half more than at present.* 
 Suppose we raised the Home Defence Army 
 to a million men it would cost many 
 millions more than at present. Suppose, 
 further, that we had been able to do this 
 without materially impairing the industrial 
 capacity which makes our output per head 
 of the population greater by much than 
 that of our competitors. Suppose all this 
 accomplished — what then ? Should we be 
 better off with this ring of a million bayonets 
 bristling round the coast ? They would be 
 more, by a long way, than was necessary to 
 force the adversary to come in such numbers 
 ;is to constitute the requisite target for the 
 Navy. But what if the Navy could not 
 command the sea ? Then we should sooner 
 or later starve and have to submit, not the 
 less certainly for having the million men 
 with us. Command of the sea lies at the 
 root of the whole matter. We have not a 
 population that can raise a home army of 
 the magnitude that is possible for some 
 Continental Powers. Hut our wealth and 
 
 * An Expeditionary Forco raised by Compulsion could 
 
 be U-. i| "lily for whorl ciiiiij>iii|/ns, and could not bo bout to 
 
 Judin or elsewhere for long Ben ice over-sea. 
 
 3
 
 34 NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE PLAN 
 
 -x-ti 
 
 our great naval tradition make it com- 
 paratively easy for us to keep well ahead of 
 any possible adversary in naval strength, 
 at all events for many years to come, and 
 after that the development of the Naval 
 and Military organisation of the Empire 
 ought to have done the rest. We can there- 
 fore remain in superior power on the water, 
 and we ought to do so; for nothing else 
 can give us security, and under cover of this 
 superiority we can easily build the relatively 
 small military structure that is necessary 
 for a second line for Home defence. I 
 therefore dismiss, in entire agreement 
 with Sir Ian Hamilton's view, the pro- 
 position that an army on the Continental 
 model is necessary for purposes of Home 
 defence. 
 
 Let us look at another proposal which 
 has more support at this moment, that of 
 the National Service League, of which the 
 details will be found in the Appendix. 
 What should we gain on balance by sub- 
 stituting for the Special Reserve 80,000 
 men less well trained, and for the Terri- 
 torials 320,000 men compulsorily enlisted 
 and trained for four months ? * Would this 
 
 * This is the figure for Infantry ; for other arms, six 
 months.
 
 ITS DIFFICULTIES 35 
 
 force be a better one ? To begin with, 
 would they do more than the amount of 
 training to which the Act of Parliament 
 compelled them ? The Territorial, as a rule, ]o^^ 
 d oes much more thanJiis standard training. l, 7rt „ aj 
 He is on the look-out for the chance of 
 improving it at odd times ; and experience 
 shows that what he accomplishes depends 
 on the chances of improving himself that 
 he can get from his employer and from 
 his commanding officer. There is a great 
 difference between the man who has got no 
 choice and the keen enthusiast who is there 
 because he is an enthusiast. If the first 
 or Regular Line must be recruited, as it 
 is to-day, on a voluntary basis, then, for 
 the reasons assigned by Sir Ian Hamilton, 
 recruiting for it would be seriously 
 jeopardised if a general system of training 
 were made compulsory during the period 
 <>!' life al which recruits enlist for the Regular 
 Army. The risk of depleted cadres is, in 
 my opinion, too great for any Adjutant- 
 General to face willingly, and Parliament 
 ought not to put it upon him. He may 
 have in :i single year to collect fifty or sixty 
 thousand men for the Rrs1 line and Special 
 Reserve -men willing to take the obliga- 
 tion of ;i Long period of service. !!<• gets
 
 36 THE OFFICER QUESTION 
 
 them to-day, and, under present conditions, 
 without much difficulty. But would he get 
 them under the altered circumstances ? Sir 
 Tan Hamilton's observations on past ex- 
 perience in our own and other countries 
 should make those on whom lies the burden 
 of proof pause before they assert that the 
 change can be made without the risk of 
 disaster. 
 
 Moreover, there is a difficulty hardly less 
 formidable in the question of Officers. To 
 train 150,000 recruits annually for at least 
 four months would require an addition to 
 the present establishment of officers esti- 
 mated by the National Service League it- 
 self at nearly 5,000. For obvious reasons, 
 these would have to be professional officers, 
 though the League reckons only 2,000 of 
 them as such. But where are these addi- 
 avJ»*-^y [tional officers to come from ? It is difficult 
 . r °^' 1 enou gh to keep up the present establishment 
 for the Regular Army ; and to get even 
 2,000 more for an unattractive service is a 
 task which passes at all events such wits as 
 I possess. The figures given in the Re- 
 marks printed as Appendix IV show the 
 extent of a difficulty which appears to have 
 escaped the attention of those who drew 
 up the programme of the National Service
 
 A DEFECTIVE ESTIMATE 37 
 
 League. That programme, which is also 
 printed as Appendix III, can hardly have 
 been the work of any one familiar with the 
 difficult business of estimating the require- 
 ments and cost of an army. When one 
 looks at the figures in the light of the 
 remarks upon them written by the author- 
 ity to whom Sir Ian Hamilton refers — a 
 public servant whose name is associated by 
 those engaged in military administration 
 with a reputation for far-reaching know- 
 ledge and experience and for great accuracy 
 —one finds that the estimate of cost has left 
 out so much that is essential that it is wrong 
 by at least four millions sterling. What- 
 ever else is obscure, it is clear that the 
 system sketched in the Bill and programme 
 of the National Service League would cost, 
 roughly, eight millions of pounds per annum 
 more than do the Territorial Force and 
 Special Reserve to-day. Now, if this some- 
 \\ lintsubstantial addit tonal sum is to be found 
 by the public, I should, for reasons already 
 assigned, prefer to spend the money on 
 increasing the Navy still further, and in 
 adding to the establishment of the Regular 
 Army a new Division i<> be kept always at 
 home. But I do nol 1 hink that any such sum 
 OUght to be spent, at least on the Army.
 
 38 THE OTHER WAY 
 
 Of the size of the Navy I do not presume 
 to judge ; what is clear is that it is strong 
 at present. But the scheme for the reor- 
 ganisation of the Forces which was in 1907 
 adopted by Parliament seems to me, if 
 carried out properly, to rest on the right 
 principle so far as the Army is concerned. 
 To make a huge addition to the Army 
 Estimates for the purpose of carrying out 
 the plan of the National Service League 
 appears to many soldiers to be not only an 
 extravagant and unnecessary proceeding, 
 but to be strategically unsound. It was not 
 by dwelling on the idea of passive defence 
 that our forefathers made our country what 
 it is to-day. It is our inherited tradition 
 that the real foundation of our system of 
 defence, at home and abroad, must always 
 be the capacity of promptly assuming the 
 offensive and of launching a counter attack 
 at the points where the enemy is vulner- 
 able. We cannot by training infantry 
 recruits compulsorily for four months hope 
 to raise a force that we can send abroad to 
 fight battalions that have had two years' 
 training. The projectors of the system I 
 am discussing appear to have had no par- 
 ticularly clear idea of what it was they 
 wanted to be at. I have read many of their
 
 CONCLUSION 39 
 
 articles and speeches, and I hasten to say 
 that there are some things in them which 
 I fully understand and with which I agree. 
 I am with them in thinking that physical 
 training ought to be organised as an essen- 
 tial part of an educational system, and I 
 attach much value to the habit of self- 
 restraint and co-operation in a common 
 endeavour which is the outcome of dis- 
 cipline. The principles of organisation so 
 admirably illustrated by the Cadet and Boys' 
 Brigade systems, and by Sir Robert Baden- 
 Powell's Boy Scouts, appear to me to be 
 altogether good and proper for adoption 
 by the State. The point is, not whether 
 these things are excellent, but whether there 
 are not cheaper ways of acquiring them 
 for the nation than one which imperils 
 the first line of our Army. I venture 
 to commend to public consideration the 
 broad question whether it is possible any- 
 where to establish adequate military systems 
 of compulsory and voluntary service side 
 by side in the same country. I doubt 
 it. At all events, the question requires 
 much study, far more than it has re- 
 ceived, before an affirmative answer is 
 given. Neither the habits and record of 
 
 our own people nor the analogies of foreign
 
 40 CONCLUSION 
 
 experience appear to encourage such an 
 answer. 
 
 The study of the question of National 
 Defence which I have made during the four 
 years in which I have applied my mind to 
 it as closely as I could, has led me to a 
 definite conclusion. I now submit it to 
 the public. On the assumption, not to be 
 lightly made, that we can get over all 
 preliminary difficulties, industrial, social, 
 and financial, it would be possible for us 
 to substitute a larger force for the Expedi- 
 tionary Army of six divisions and a Cavalry 
 division, which we have now organised and 
 keep at home ready for service over-sea. 
 This force would be prepared after the Con- 
 tinental model and compulsorily recruited, 
 with the minimum of two years' training 
 that would be requisite. Such a force could 
 be sent to the Continent for a comparatively 
 short campaign, but it could not be sent 
 to reinforce the British Army over-sea in 
 India and elsewhere for a prolonged 
 campaign. Yet the scheme of the National 
 Service League would, to the best of my 
 judgment, neither give us a Force of Conti- 
 I nental quality nor leave us our Expeditionary 
 f Army at anything like its present strength. 
 This scheme, therefore, whatever its merits
 
 CONCLUSION 41 
 
 from an educational and peace point of view, 
 appears, from that of preparation for war, 
 to be open to grave objection. It exposes 
 us to substantial risk of becoming weaker 
 than we are at present as an armed nation, 
 and it appears to contain neither the 
 promise nor the potency of filling up the 
 gaps which it threatens to make. Its ten- 
 dency is in the direction of the merely 
 defensive, and away from the tradition 
 which we have hitherto believed to be the 
 inheritance of our people from Chatham 
 and from Nelson. It was not by waiting 
 for the enemy to arrive on these shores, 
 or by wasting their resources in preparations 
 for it, that these great British strategists 
 carried on the operations of war. They 
 defended the Empire, and with it these 
 islands, not by sitting down and making 
 preparations for the enemy's coming, but 
 by throwing their efforts into seeking him 
 out, and into fashioning their instruments 
 for offence. 
 The main reasons for the conclusion thus 
 
 indicated are contained in this little book. 
 Although a layman, I do not apologise for 
 
 having taken a part in stating them. For 
 
 the problem of our strategy is a problem 
 which oiu- history as a nation shows to have
 
 42 CONCLUSION 
 
 been one not for soldiers alone. It is too 
 large and too far-reaching to be so con- 
 fined. Sir Ian Hamilton knows this well, and 
 because he knows it well I commend his 
 memorandum to the study of all interested 
 in the question of National Defence. 
 
 R. B. Haldane. 
 October 1910.
 
 COMPULSORY SERVICE 
 
 Dear Mr. Haldane, 
 
 You have asked me to consider how 
 far, if at all, compulsory service could be 
 made applicable to our Imperial system, 
 and I gather that your choice has fallen 
 upon me because, during the year I have 
 held the post of Adjutant-General to the 
 Forces, I have been compelled to take daily 
 cognisance of those recruiting and drafting 
 problems which underlie the existence of 
 our Empire. Also, because, having sol- 
 diered at various times with t lie armies of 
 Prussia, Saxony, Austria, Russia, Japan, 
 and the United Slates of America, I have 
 (as you know from my reports) already 
 made some attempts to analyse the con- 
 ditions ol those great Services. 
 
 To the best of my belief, there is no good 
 military work advising as to the problems, 
 Bocial, political, and recruiting, Greal Britain 
 
 would have to face were she to endeavour 
 
 43
 
 44 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 to shape her land forces on the Swiss, 
 German, French, or any other European 
 model. But there are facilities for grasping 
 at least the outlines and general drift of 
 conscription in the countries where it has 
 prevalence. The book " Jena or Sedan," 
 written as it is by an officer of high repute 
 amongst his comrades, renders available to 
 the world at large a convincing picture of 
 the German military system with its ad- 
 vantages and drawbacks. Therein the 
 reader may study the working of the 
 greatest engine the world has yet seen for 
 the manufacture of a particular type of 
 human intellect and body. He may watch 
 it turning out sealed-pattern citizens by 
 the hundred thousand ; backs straightened, 
 chests broadened, clean, obedient, punctual, 
 but, on the other hand, weakened in their 
 individual initiative. 
 
 Yes, conscription is a tremendous leveller. 
 The proud are humbled ; the poor-spirited 
 are strengthened ; the national idea is 
 fostered ; the interplay of varying ideals is 
 sacrificed. Good or bad, black or white, 
 all are chucked indifferently into the mill, 
 and emerge therefrom, no longer black or 
 white, but a drab, uniform khaki. 
 
 The best way of getting at the British 

 
 THE BRITISH SOLDIER 45 
 
 people and of explaining to them the 
 strong and weak points of voluntary service 
 would be to write an English " Jena or 
 Sedan ' entitled, perhaps, " Delhi or Dork- 
 ing." Therein the fortunes of a young- 
 recruit might be traced from the day he 
 enlisted — hungry, hopeless, unable to get 
 the most poorly paid job — until, as one of 
 the new Veteran Reserve, he is reviewed 
 by his King, his broad chest glittering with 
 medals, a silken hat on his head, and a 
 pleasant sense of voluntarily performed 
 duty in his heart. Or, to take the seamiest 
 side of the garment, he fails, as a pro- 
 portion must fail everywhere. He has 
 dropped back, on reverting to civil life, as 
 low, or even lower, than his starting-point. 
 This happens, though not very often. Yet 
 even so ; even at the worst, he retains 
 one moral characteristic from his experi- 
 ences in the Army worth a great deal to 
 the State. English, Scottish, or Irish, once 
 a soldier always a King's man ; always, 
 with rarest exceptions, a preservative, not 
 a disintegrating, element in the population. 
 Unfortunately, I have neither the ability 
 nor the leisure wherewith to deal effectively 
 with an epic such as I have imagined, and 
 I am driven therefore to the more common-
 
 46 STATE POLICY 
 
 place expedient of laying down a few pro- 
 positions whereby some light may be thrown 
 upon the fundamental differences between 
 the two great forms of National Service, 
 as well as upon the deep, far-reaching 
 consequences of cleaving to the one, or of 
 embracing the other. 
 
 State policy is the art of carrying into 
 effect the scheme of existence of a nation. 
 
 State policy must be active. Passivity 
 — the motto "Live and let Live" — will no 
 longer carry a nation through the strain 
 and rivalry of this modern world. Hermit 
 kingdoms have no place assigned to them 
 in the latest phases of modern development. 
 
 When one State policy encounters the 
 policy of a rival it must either efface itself, 
 compromise, or stand firm. In the last two 
 cases the State must be prepared for war. 
 
 War is the pursuit of State policy over 
 the boundary of law and logic into the 
 domain of force. In war we see the devour- 
 ing of a moribund by an active policy, or 
 the clash of two active policies, with their 
 train of opposing ideas and interests. 
 
 Commerce is the leading idea and first 
 interest of the modern State ; and so soon 
 as a Government is faced by the alternative
 
 ITS INSTRUMENTS 47 
 
 of seeing some millions of workers lose 
 their livelihood through unemployment or 
 of losing a few thousand lives in battle, it 
 will quickly know how to decide. 
 
 Armies and navies are the instruments 
 of this ultimate policy of force. 
 
 In a well-governed State the most careful 
 proportion is maintained between policy 
 and instruments. So long as a different, 
 and therefore potentially rival, State policy 
 exists upon the globe there is no duty so 
 sacred. For, if the policy is allowed to 
 become too ambitious or enterprising for 
 the strength of the instruments, disaster 
 becomes merely a matter of time. If, on 
 the other hand, the instruments have been 
 allowed to become so powerful that they 
 shape the policy ; if the Home, Foreign, 
 Colonial, and Finance departments are 
 directed primarily by strategical considera- 
 tions, why then the rest of the world take 
 fright and band together, in hostile array, 
 like cattle confronted by a wolf. 
 
 Generally, the policy of a State may be 
 gauged by its Army and Navy. Tims, were 
 Greal Britain to raise her Regular Army at 
 home to a million bayonets, her claim i<> 
 possess :i supreme Navy would wear another 
 significance.
 
 48 REGULAR AND MILITIA SYSTEMS 
 
 To keep an army and navy up to the 
 mark, not only money but also thought, and 
 (if it is to be had) original thought, must 
 be freely forthcoming. An army may be 
 numerous and expensive and yet be un- 
 satisfactory, owing to its having been or- 
 ganised to meet conditions which no longer 
 exist. 
 
 Armies may be raised on a Regular or a 
 Militia basis. Under a Regular system men 
 are trained in barracks by professional 
 officers and non-commissioned officers. 
 Under a Militia system, all ranks are com- 
 posed of citizens living in their own homes. 
 
 A regular army is a more effective instru- 
 ment of war than a militia, and a militia is 
 more effective than a mob. Because, for 
 any work in the world, from writing poetry 
 to peeling potatoes, professionals are better 
 than amateurs and amateurs better than 
 people totally unpractised. 
 
 A mob represents the absolute negation, 
 or zero, of military efficiency. Multiply it 
 by what you will — number of its individuals, 
 number of days embodied — it still remains 
 zero. A militia generally represents a low or 
 mediocre military standard. But just as 
 the distinction between a practised gentle- 
 man rider and a jockey may become ex-
 
 COMPULSORY AND VOLUNTARY SERVICE 49 
 
 tremely fine, so, if a militia is embodied long- 
 enough (especially under the strain and 
 excitement of actual war) it may draw level 
 with its regular comrades. Therefore, it 
 is on the outbreak of war, particularly un- 
 expected war, that Regulars show their 
 greatest superiority over Militia. 
 
 So much of the life of the modern State 
 marches with its armies or is embarked in 
 its navy that the result of the first great 
 encounter must be infinitely more decisive 
 than in former times. Hence a growing 
 inclination to steal a march on the enemy 
 by dispensing with a declaration of war. 
 
 Compulsory service is inspired by the 
 spirit of self-conservation, by the spirit of 
 nationalism. Should statesmen endeavour 
 to use such a machine for distant or dynastic 
 purposes they betray an idea, and will 
 ultimately have to pay the penalty. 
 
 Voluntary service is inspired by the spirit 
 of self-expansion, by a spirit of self-con- 
 fidence so genuine and so deep as to en- 
 gender a belief that others will be benefited 
 by being brought under the flag. The spirit 
 of Imperialism, the adventurous spirit, the 
 appreciation of the romance of war, the 
 
 true spirit of the professional army, can 
 only there find its free expression. 
 
 4
 
 50 DRAWBACKS OF COMPULSORY SERVICE 
 
 In one way, compulsory service is cer- 
 tainly less civilised than voluntary service. 
 In a conscription country the average 
 healthy grown man remains a warrior until 
 he becomes superannuated, as was also the 
 case amongst the Vikings and Huns. From 
 another standpoint, it is less aggressive, less 
 of a danger to the world at large, seeing that, 
 by its very nature, it is a weapon that cannot 
 be lightly used, and that its statesmen are con- 
 stantly sacrificing their Imperial ambitions 
 on the altar of home defence. I beg of you 
 earnestly to ponder over the words I have 
 here italicised. The idea they attempt to 
 convey lies at the root of the whole problem 
 we are discussing. If the national mind once 
 gets set upon the defensive, the Imperial 
 idea must suffer — as, for example, in 1803- 
 4-5, when the thought that prepossessed 
 the people of England was the piling up 
 of partially trained men by the hundred 
 thousand. 
 
 Voluntary service coincides in one of its 
 leading attributes with a great principle of 
 modern life and progress, seeing that it 
 depends upon specialisation. Two classes 
 of the community undertake the fighting 
 part of the national business ; all the other 
 classes devote themselves uninterruptedly
 
 TWO SCHOOLS 51 
 
 to their own private business, and pay for 
 war, not with their persons but with their 
 purses. For this very reason the bulk of 
 the nation views war with a less tragic re- 
 gard, and is encouraged to run considerable 
 risks in home defence rather than abate 
 by so much as one square mile of barren 
 waste their Imperial pretensions. Thus the 
 " valour of ignorance " may not be wholly 
 disadvantageous. 
 
 British statesmen have been shy about 
 pledging themselves definitely to either of 
 these moral conceptions. When they do 
 harden their hearts and come down clearly 
 on one side of the fence, it is usually on 
 the side opposite to that which a soldier 
 would have expected. Tims we have the 
 Imperialist advocating that compulsory 
 service which, whatever its merits, is 
 not likely to strengthen our liold over 
 distant pails of the world; whilst we have 
 the Anti-Imp* rialisl holding up his hands 
 in horror a1 that same system, which is, 
 actually, a training-school for his tenets. 
 Meanwhile the count i) is becoming uneasy 
 and perplexed, [nstinctively the dullest 
 and most iiwIilT. n ni arc aware that the 
 military Eorces of a State should !><■ raised 
 and trained expressly to satisfy its needs,
 
 52 OUR MILITARY PROBLEM 
 
 only subject to the limitations imposed by 
 social considerations and by the funds it has 
 at its disposal. But what are those needs ? 
 Have they ever been clearly stated ? If 
 not, it is for you to make the statement, 
 and it may perhaps assist you to grasp 
 the essentials of the problem if its military 
 aspect is here clearly set forth. 
 
 The true military policy of any State must 
 be contained in one of the following three 
 definitions, or within some combination of 
 those same three definitions : 
 
 1. Imperial defence of distant fron- 
 tiers such as those of Rome or Great 
 Britain ; 
 
 2. Home defence where imminent 
 peril overshadows the very existence of 
 the State, as is the case to-day in France 
 and Germany ; 
 
 3. Home defence where the danger 
 appears to be less imminent, as is the 
 case in Great Britain to-day, and as was 
 the case in Rome during the reign of 
 Augustus and his successors for a period 
 of two or three hundred years. 
 
 Experience throughout the ages has shown 
 that the military forces employed as in (1) 
 must be raised on a voluntary basis. Rome
 
 FOREIGN EXPERIENCE 53 
 
 possessed a perfect Militia system, but the 
 moment she began to expand imperially 
 she was forced to abandon it in favour of 
 the professional and voluntary system. The 
 examples of Spain in Cuba and of Italy in 
 Abyssinia show how futile, nay, how disas- 
 trous, must be the attempt to conduct 
 Imperial defence on the basis of compulsory 
 service. In Germany certain Generals did 
 suggest that conscript troops should be sent 
 for the relief of Pekin. Not only were they 
 overruled, but they suffered in reputation 
 for having shown so little appreciation of 
 whal the country would or would not stand 
 in the way of forced service. 
 
 Besides the troops actually employed on 
 the frontiers of an Empire as in (1), there 
 must also be a strong central reserve kept 
 at home in readiness to reinforce those troops 
 in case of need. Neither politically nor 
 militarily would it be just or advantageous 
 to create such a reserve on a compulsory 
 basis. Kurop.'it kin lias lold us how poorly 
 
 the reservists from European Russia Fought 
 when compared with the Siberian Reservists, 
 who were defending their own frontier, and 
 explains that the distance from their homes 
 
 had become so great that the Europeans 
 were no longer sustained by the national idea.
 
 54 DIFFERENCES OF PROBLEM 
 
 The British could not employ a conscript 
 reserve with good results in such a con- 
 tingency as another Indian Mutiny or even 
 in a war in Afghanistan, or Persia, or Egypt. 
 Who is to guarantee that the parents of the 
 men would let them go, or that, if they did 
 go, they would fight ? No instance can be 
 drawn from history of the successful employ- 
 ment for such purposes of men compelled to 
 serve against their will. No ; not even if 
 they were only wanted temporarily, at a 
 crisis. 
 
 Turning now to (2), the case of immediate 
 danger to a State. Here readiness to take 
 the field at short notice is even more essen- 
 tial than in (1). The Army must be a first- 
 line Army. Experience proves it must be 
 raised on a Regular basis, the men being 
 exercised in barracks under professional 
 officers and, to a large extent, professional 
 non-commissioned officers. Modern prac- 
 tice puts the period of training at from two 
 to three years. Such a force should be 
 animated by the spirit of the citizen fighting 
 for his own home. It may therefore legiti- 
 mate] v be raised on the national basis — 
 that is, the compulsory basis. In the fore- 
 going paragraph I have shown that this 
 type of army never has been, and cannot
 
 CITIZEN ARMIES 55 
 
 now be, used for long-range purposes, for 
 distant wars. But for offensive purposes 
 at short range against a neighbouring 
 country it may be most formidable. Let 
 it be clearly understood, however, that 
 offence in this instance is, or ought to be, 
 simply an incident of home defence. When 
 I say " ought to be " I mean that the Army 
 must believe that the offensive is only being 
 taken to anticipate a blow aimed at the 
 homeland itself. Thus, were rulers and 
 Governments always unambitious and 
 honest, conscription might be actually, 
 what it so often professes to be, a guarantee 
 of peace. Unfortunately, history is one 
 unbroken series of events tending to show 
 that Governments can very easily impose 
 upon their people. Some of my reports 
 have shown you how strongly I am possessed 
 by the belief that even professed continental 
 Pacificists will fall quickly into line once 
 the national spirit has been thoroughly 
 inflamed. Here and there a pistol shot may 
 break the smoothness of the mobilisation 
 period. After that, silence ! Like the Free- 
 masons of the sixties, the Socialists and 
 Pacificists of the twentieth century will do 
 as they are told— though not quite so well, 
 I humbly submit, as voluntarily enlisted
 
 56 THEIR LIMITATIONS 
 
 soldiers. How can the cogwheel jib when 
 the engine begins to move ? 
 
 Still, the limitations of such a force are, 
 from the military point of view, sufficiently 
 serious, seeing that it can only be honestly 
 employed in wars which are believed to be, 
 in their essence, defensive, and that it be- 
 comes ineffective in proportion as the idea 
 of conquest begins to dominate the idea 
 of defence. Not the German soldier, but 
 Bismarck, fought for Alsace-Lorraine. A 
 conscript army then cannot be used at a 
 distance at all, and can only be used aggres- 
 sively against a neighbour when the bulk 
 of the nation are convinced that, by taking 
 the offensive, they are anticipating some 
 plot or preparation against themselves or 
 interposing on behalf of the downtrodden 
 of their own nationality. The employment 
 by Japan of her national army in Man- 
 churia represents the extreme point to 
 which long-range action by such a force can 
 be carried. Up to the battle of Mukden 
 the whole of the officers, non-commis- 
 sioned officers and men felt they were 
 fighting for the defence of Japan. After 
 Mukden, this idea lost force, and corre- 
 spondingly the energy of the army began 
 to fade away. The reaction was not very
 
 STAYING POWER 57 
 
 pronounced, owing to the intensity of the 
 initial patriotic impulse and the natural 
 secretive tendency of the Japanese character. 
 But it was unmistakable to the initiated, 
 and the Elder Statesmen were far too wise 
 to listen to the hotheads who spoke of 
 marching on Harbin. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that a volun- 
 tarily enlisted army possesses greater stay- 
 ing power than the force of a nation in arms. 
 The aching nausea of home-sickness ; the 
 exasperation to the strained nerves of the 
 ceaseless danger and intermittent crackling 
 of musketry, the sheer physical revolt from 
 dirt and rags and starvation; the enervating 
 dreams of decent food and of the girls they 
 left behind them ; all these influence conscript 
 campaigners in double or treble degree. 
 For three solid years did our British Regu- 
 lars in South Africa sec local corps dis- 
 solved and reconstituted ; see Yeomanry and 
 Volunteers and over-seas Colonial Corps sail 
 away to great receptions in their homes ; 
 Bee them relieved in due course by fresh 
 substitutes drawing more than four limes 
 the regular pay for identical work less 
 efficiently performed. Still, these British 
 Regulars stuck to if; always ready for a 
 fight if only their Commander would let
 
 58 THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 
 
 them go ; grumbling not more than usual ; 
 and then, at the end of it all, remaining to 
 garrison the desolated, war-stricken wastes 
 they had created — but had won ! Search 
 the world over, you will find no conscript 
 soldier, European or Asiatic, who could 
 have done what our voluntarily enlisted 
 Regulars did in South Africa, only ten short 
 years ago. 
 
 The present generation regard the German 
 campaign of 1870 with an admiration which 
 is absolutely justified. But if they had the 
 privilege of personal friendship with some 
 of the survivors of that historic epoch, they 
 might learn from them, though not from 
 military histories, to what alarming heights 
 rose the wave of war-weariness in the souls 
 of the invading armies during January and 
 February of 1871. Yet France was a plea- 
 sant, fruitful land compared with South 
 Africa ; the war was supposed to be essen- 
 tially a war of defence ; an uninterrupted 
 series of victories had shed their glamour 
 over the battlefields. 
 
 You remember how in March last year I 
 took my leave, so as to see as much as 
 an ordinary traveller could legitimately see 
 of the mobilisation in Budapest and Bel- 
 grade. Naturally I have often seen a corps
 
 FEAR OF INVASION 59 
 
 raised by voluntary enlistment get the 
 order to make ready for war. Could you 
 only share my experiences in these respects 
 they would explain better than volumes of 
 writing how it is that volunteers resist war- 
 weariness better than conscripts. 
 
 So far I have discussed (1), where the 
 home provinces are secure and the question 
 is that of the defence of distant frontiers ; 
 and (2), where there is no great outside 
 Empire, and where the question is one of 
 the defence of the home provinces. Now 
 I have to consider (3), where the Empire 
 has been built up under conditions of home 
 security, and where a certain anxiety begins 
 to be felt by statesmen regarding a possible 
 attack upon headquarters. History has 
 proved that only when a country is in the 
 main free from fear of its neighbours can it 
 spread its wings far abroad. The gradual 
 shrinkage of the Roman Empire as the home 
 menace increased is evidence enough of the 
 converse process. The most perfect of all 
 imaginary securities occurs when the State 
 is an island and possesses command of the 
 sea. As Bacon says, " lie that commands 
 the sea is at great liberty, and may take as 
 much and as little of war as he w ill." There- 
 fore, clearly, when an island has achieved
 
 60 TEMPTATION TO COMPROMISE 
 
 world empire, and is then challenged in its 
 naval supremacy, and threatened at its 
 heart, a situation of great complexity and 
 difficulty is certain to arise. 
 
 It may be assumed that the strain of 
 maintaining a long-service professional army 
 is already fairly heavy, and under such 
 conditions it will be doubly difficult to 
 persuade the citizen of the State to assume 
 the enormous additional burden that an 
 immediate state of readiness — on a com- 
 pulsory basis — will entail. Such a burden 
 is not only personal but financial. Accord- 
 ingly we expect to find, as we do find, a 
 tendency, an inclination, to compromise. 
 The long-range voluntary army must stand 
 for the defence of the Imperial frontiers ; 
 but it is in a sense counted twice over. It 
 is felt that the professional soldiers may, or 
 a part of them may, be counted upon to 
 lend a hand to the home provinces in time 
 of need. Therefore, it is argued, it is not 
 necessary to go so far as countries which 
 are not only exposed to greater dangers 
 on their frontiers but possess no volun- 
 tarily enlisted regular army. To sum up, 
 then, in this third case, where the frontiers 
 of the Empire are being held by a long- 
 service voluntary army, and where the
 
 FEELING IN GREAT BRITAIN 61 
 
 danger to the home provinces has not yet 
 become very immediate or universally ap- 
 parent, it will always be difficult to persuade 
 people to pay very heavily, either in purse, 
 or in person as well as purse, for a special 
 home-defence army raised and trained on 
 a Regular basis. 1 
 
 For the average practical statesman, the 
 conclusion reached in the foregoing para- 
 graph should, as far as it goes, suffice. So 
 long as their Navy remains supreme, the 
 people of Great Britain and Ireland will 
 regard with aversion and suspicion any 
 proposal for a large increase in their present 
 type of regular army or for the adoption of 
 universal compulsory service of the con- 
 tinental type, with its two or three years 
 spent in barracks, commencing not earlier 
 than the age of twenty. But I am address- 
 ing you on the assumption that you are in 
 search of higher truths than those comprised 
 
 1 I repeat, in caso of misunderstanding, that, under n 
 Regular system, men are trained in barracks by prof essional 
 officers and non-commissioned ollicers. Under a Militia 
 system, all ranks are composed of citizens, living in tlicir 
 own homes. Armies are divided materially into two 
 eate^.H-ics, Kcguiur or Militia j morally also into two 
 categories, Voluntary or Conscript. These divisions aro 
 perfectly cloar, and cannot bo confounded by the invention 
 of question-begging epithets.
 
 62 DIFFICULTY OF INCREASING REGULARS 
 
 in the gospel of political expediency. Not 
 easily will I forget the evening when, in 
 the interests of the discipline of the Army, 
 you doubled the powers of Commanding 
 Officers in a house containing a great 
 Liberal majority. I assume then, confi- 
 dently, that you would not exclude from 
 your consideration an unpopular idea merely 
 because of its unpopularity. Therefore I 
 will discuss these alternatives more fully. 
 
 From an ex- Adjutant-General's point of 
 view, from the expert's point of view, any 
 large increase of our present type of regular 
 army is impracticable, without an expendi- 
 ture disproportionate to the results. 
 
 There is no great margin of raw material 
 available over the, say, 60,000 first-line and 
 Special Reserve recruits we suck from the 
 unskilled labour market (to its huge relief) 
 in an average year. It is not a matter of 
 any moderate advance in rates of pay. 
 We might, without too much effort, increase 
 our establishment by 10,000 or 15,000, or 
 perhaps by 20,000 men ; but then we should 
 be at the end of our tether, unless the 
 recruiter was enabled to compete on even 
 terms with employers in the skilled labour 
 market. Therefore I definitely discard the 
 idea of enlarging our existing type of
 
 CONTINENTAL OPINION 63 
 
 regular army in normal times of peace by 
 more than one Division of all arms. 
 
 The question of the practicability, as apart 
 from the popularity, of adopting the pure 
 continental type of conscription is not quite 
 so easy to determine. But I have accumu- 
 lated experiences abroad during the past 
 few years which may shed some light on 
 the problem. 
 
 After compliments, the first remark made 
 by a foreign officer to a British officer is 
 now, almost invariably, " Is it the case 
 you are going to adopt conscription ? ' 
 
 To such an inquiry I invariably, if I 
 have time, avoid making a direct response, 
 but give my interlocutor instead a brief 
 sketch of the British Over-seas Army, with 
 its annual requirement in recruits and drafts. 
 Having done so, I ask, in the case of a 
 German, "Now, supposing you wished to 
 maintain 1 18,000 European soldiers in South- 
 West Africa, by voluntary enlistment, would 
 you be able, by the offer of good pay, to 
 get men to come forward ? ' Whether my 
 triend happens to be a Corps Commander 
 or a Subaltern, a Colonel or a Warrant 
 Officer, I he answer is more or less decisively 
 in the negative. All arc equally eager to 
 explain thai German conscripts are proud
 
 64 GERMAN EXPERIENCE 
 
 to serve their two years, and that, for the 
 rest of their lives, they look back upon their 
 period of military service with pleasure. 
 None the less they have had quite enough 
 of it, even before they have finished their 
 recruits' drill, to make it most difficult to 
 bribe them to accept a longer period of 
 voluntary service abroad. Far from being 
 able to keep 113,000 men abroad on such a 
 basis, Germany could not afford, unless she 
 were to cut down other Imperial services, 
 to increase her foreign-service army much 
 beyond its present microscopic dimensions. 1 
 The following facts are put forward in 
 support of my conclusion : 
 
 The rank and file of the German forces 
 in South-West Africa are recruited partly 
 from volunteers from the Navy and Army, 
 and partly from men who elect to do 
 their term of military service in the Pro- 
 tectorate. 
 
 The period of service is three and a half 
 years, and may be extended. 
 
 Four months' leave to Europe on full 
 
 1 The strength of this army is : 
 German S.-W. Africa 
 German East Africa 
 Cameroons 
 Togo land 
 
 2,190 
 
 326 
 
 170 
 
 9 
 
 Kiuuchao is entirely under the Naval authorities.
 
 GERMAN OVER-SEA SOLDIERS 65 
 
 pay, and with free passage to and fro, are 
 given during the first term of service. If 
 the term is extended, leave is again due 
 after a period of three years. 
 
 The annual pay of non-commissioned 
 officers and rank and file (Infantry) is : — 
 
 
 S.-W. Africa. 
 
 Home. 
 
 
 Sergeant 
 Under Officer 
 Lance Corporal 
 Private 
 
 . . £70 to £75 . , 
 . . £60 . 
 . . £55 . 
 .. £50 . 
 
 £23 15 
 
 . £15 2 
 
 £4 17 
 
 £3 19 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 £51 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 £38 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 £30 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 £25 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 In addition, a free ration and clothing 
 are given. 
 
 The annual pay (including proficiency 
 pay) of British non-commissioned officers, 
 and rank and file (Infantry) is identical in 
 South Africa, in India, and at home: 
 
 Sergeunt 
 
 Corporal 
 
 i. .hi. . < i.rporal 
 
 Private 
 
 The cost of passages is ;i very important 
 item in the cost of an over-sea garrison. 
 In lliis respect no exact comparison can 
 be made with the British short-service 
 man, who, however, usually serves about 
 five years abroad without furlough, and is 
 then brought home for transfer to the Re- 
 serve. But, comparing the German soldier 
 
 5
 
 66 THEIR COST 
 
 with the British re-engaged soldier, the 
 former is in this respect nearly twice as 
 expensive, seeing that he is allowed leave 
 every third year, whereas our men have 
 to serve six full years abroad before they 
 are brought home at Government expense. 
 Even then, the British soldier can only get 
 the indulgence provided he has two full 
 years yet to serve with the colours and is 
 desirous of remaining abroad. Again, under 
 such rules, one-ninth of the German garrison 
 will always be absent on leave, thereby 
 adding one-eighth to the total cost of a 
 garrison of given effective strength. 
 
 Taking these factors, then, into considera- 
 tion it seems that the cost to the Father- 
 land of pay and passages for a private serving 
 in South-West Africa is about twice as 
 much as we expend upon his red-coated 
 cousin serving practically alongside of 
 him. 
 
 Obviously India would ruin the Germans 
 in a very few years if they had to keep it 
 garrisoned by Europeans on such terms. 
 Equally obviously, if Germany did get 
 British South Africa and India, she would 
 have to recast in some way that whole 
 system of military training which some 
 Britons are now anxious to copy.
 
 FOREIGN EXPEDITIONS 67 
 
 In case of long-range expeditions, the 
 advantage possessed by Great Britain is 
 fully maintained. An examination has been 
 carried out of the comparative cost per 
 sabre, gun, and rifle of the expeditions of 
 the Powers to Pekin. Excluding the two 
 Powers on the spot, Russia and Japan, 
 the most costly was that of Germany, the 
 next Austria, the third France. Cheapest 
 of all, by a considerable margin, came Great 
 Britain. A similar investigation has been 
 made into the comparative cost per sabre, 
 gun, and rifle, of the South African War, 
 the Somali land Expedition, and the Sudan 
 Campaign, as against the German South - 
 West African Campaign. As a result, the 
 South African War and the Somaliland Ex- 
 pedition were found to be 40 percent cheaper 
 than the South-West African Campaign, 
 whilst, although the Sudan Campaign was 
 considerably more expensive than the other 
 two mentioned, it was still proportionately 
 more economical than the campaign con- 
 ducted by the Germans. 
 
 In Russia, the impossibility of combining 
 voluntary service with the presenl system 
 is still more emphatically asserted. The 
 whole of her military forces are recruited 
 under the uni\ <i sal-service system, and
 
 68 RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE 
 
 they could not, I will prove, be maintained 
 in any other way. Officers of all ranks 
 agree that national feeling, as well as 
 prohibitive cost, render anything like a 
 Russian edition of our existing Over-seas 
 Army inconceivable. The people have a 
 stronger traditional distaste for mercenary 
 military service than our people have for 
 unpaid military service. So intensely is 
 this prejudice engrained in their characters 
 that it has been found difficult to persuade 
 non-commissioned officers, even by very 
 handsome extra allowances, to prolong their 
 service with the Colours, and thus subject 
 themselves to the reproach of being pro- 
 fessional soldiers. 
 
 A Russian company of infantry has seven 
 non-commissioned officers of whom, by 
 regulation, three should be re-engaged men ; 
 but this proportion has never been attained, 
 and the deficiency has reached as much as 
 50 per cent. 1 At the commencement of 1904 
 only about one-seventh of the non-com- 
 missioned officers were re-engaged, and the 
 remainder were ordinary serving soldiers, 
 some of whom, to the astonishment of the 
 Japanese, were found to be practically 
 
 1 Another high authority from Russia put it at 65 per 
 cent, but I give the most moderate estimate in the text.
 
 RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE 69 
 
 uneducated. This lack of good non-com- 
 missioned officers is what, as much pro- 
 bably as any other single factor, lost them 
 the war. At the close of 1905, therefore, 
 new regulations were issued, trebling the 
 pay of re-engaged non-commissioned offi- 
 cers. It was laid down that upon the 
 expiration of two years' re-engaged service, 
 suitable men should be promoted to the 
 rank of sub-ensign. Upon the completion 
 of ten years' such service, sub-ensigns might 
 go to the Reserve or National Militia with 
 a bounty of £106. Upon the completion of 
 thirteen years' re-engaged service all sub- 
 ensigns should be discharged or transferred 
 to the Militia, with a life pension of £10 a 
 year. These sums may not sound very 
 magnificent in the ears of a rich Englishman, 
 but, actually, they arc liberal. 
 
 None the less, the amounts offered proved 
 inadequate to overcome the Russian dislike 
 of voluntary military service, and the new 
 regulations failed to attract the number of 
 men required. Arrangements were there- 
 fore made with other Ministries in 1009 for 
 the reservation of Government posts of an 
 average salary of £30 to £40 per annum for 
 all sub-ensigns discharged after ten or fifteen 
 years' extended service. It was further
 
 70 RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE 
 
 decided that they should be allowed a four 
 months' furlough on full pay in the first, 
 fourth, seventh, tenth, and thirteenth years 
 of their re-engaged service. I am writing 
 now in St. Petersburg, and I may say that 
 these new regulations are expected to prove 
 successful. At all events, they have had 
 some initial success, for the number of 
 re-engagements in the first three months 
 of 1910 exceeded by 4,000 those in the 
 corresponding months of the previous year. 
 The total number of re-engaged non-com- 
 missioned officers is now 25,000. It is 
 intended to increase it to 73,000. 
 
 There is special difficulty in inducing 
 men to re-engage in the Pri-Amur Military 
 District. To remedy this, re-engaged men 
 who are serving in Siberia are to be given four 
 months' leave every three years, and their 
 journey to and from Europe will be paid. 
 
 Thus we find that Russia has had to go 
 even further than Germany to get a volun- 
 tary force of at present only 25,000 non- 
 commissioned officers. These are men in 
 authority, whose life is made comparatively 
 agreeable in many ways. Clearly, Russia 
 could get no rank and file at all on a volun- 
 tary basis. 
 
 Here, then, we have the national idea
 
 RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE 71 
 
 underlying conscription at its highest power. 
 A Russian regimental officer has told me 
 how, when his battalion reservists arrived 
 in Manchuria, the first question they asked 
 was, " Where are the churches ? " When 
 the Company Officers were forced to reply 
 that there were no churches, the men 
 rejoined, " We must go home. What busi- 
 ness have we to be fighting for such a God- 
 forsaken land ? Evidently it does not belong, 
 and never could have belonged, to the 
 Tzar." Russia spreads, like the nettle, by 
 thrusting out roots under the surface of the 
 ground — not like the thistle, emblem of 
 Scotland, launching seed into the air on a 
 distant voyage. It is hard to conceive how 
 modern Russia could hold the plains of 
 India or the torrid zone of Africa. 
 
 The nearest approach to anything of the 
 sort in climatic and other conditions is the 
 Turkestan Military District, with a peace 
 strength of (X),000 men. The settled Russian 
 population in Central Asia amounted in 
 1901 to only 1*2 per cent of the total popula- 
 tion. Therefore, for some time to come the 
 reserves on mobilisation will have to be 
 drawn almost entirely from European Russia. 
 Still, Turkestan is not detached from the 
 national soil of Russia, and Russians can
 
 72 FRENCH EXPERIENCE 
 
 and do make their homes there. The same 
 remarks apply to the Far East, only that 
 there the climate is more suited to the 
 Russian, and settlement proceeds more 
 rapidly. 
 
 Service even in Central Asia or in Pri- 
 or Trans-Amur is very much disliked. An 
 attempt to add to the strain of national 
 feeling by adding Afghanistan and India on 
 to the Russian Empire would break down the 
 conscription system, which could only, as 
 has been shown, be replaced by the volun- 
 tary system at enormous expense. For the 
 voluntary idea is dead and would have to 
 be nursed at first like a hothouse plant 
 in a costly conservatory. 
 
 Owing to the cohesive force of the national 
 defence idea, it becomes even difficult for 
 Russia to maintain an efficient navy out- 
 side of the Black Sea and the Baltic. Where 
 her people cannot settle, cultivate, and beget 
 children, the limitations of Russia's con- 
 scription system have been overstepped, 
 and success becomes improbable. 
 
 France, again, has her own difficulties, 
 although they are not the difficulties of 
 Russia or Germany. Only one generation 
 has passed since France maintained her 
 armies on a system so honeycombed with
 
 FOREIGN LEGION AND COLONIAL ARMY 73 
 
 exemptions and re-engagements as practi- 
 cally to amount to a very undesirable type, 
 but still a type, of voluntary service. France 
 has also the magnificent memories of Napo- 
 leon to sustain her. Therefore we need not 
 be surprised to find that the Imperial soldier- 
 feeling is still alive in France, and that she 
 is able, whilst maintaining conscription for 
 home defence, to raise a foreign service army 
 (i.e. Frenchmen in the Foreign Legion, and 
 the Colonial Army) of some 56,000 men, of 
 whom 28,000 serve in France. If it can be 
 shown that French conditions closely re- 
 semble British conditions, then the problem 
 is in a fair way to solution. That is to say, 
 our present foreign service could, according 
 to the French analogy, co-exist with com- 
 pulsory home service, although it has already 
 been proved that on the German or Russian 
 analogy such a thing would be impossible. 
 
 The Foreign Legion and the Colonial 
 Army of France are recruited, with very 
 few exceptions, by voluntary enlistments 
 or by voluntary transfer from the Home 
 Army. Enlistments are for three, four, or 
 live years; but as men are not sent to the 
 Colonies until twenty-one years of age, they 
 must engage to serve for sucli a period as 
 will admit of their passing at least two
 
 74 FRENCH TERMS OF SERVICE 
 
 years in the Colonies. Re- engagements for 
 periods not exceeding five years, and 
 extensions of service up to twenty-five 
 years' service, are allowed. 
 
 The inducements offered to recruits are 
 briefly : 
 
 (a) Bounties on enlistment and re- 
 engagements ; 
 
 (b) A daily rate of pay and colonial 
 allowances ; 
 
 (c) Help in obtaining employment on 
 return to civil life. 
 
 The bounties vary, and the general pro- 
 gress of recruiting can be estimated by the 
 rates offered by the Government for enlist- 
 ments and re-engagements. But the fol- 
 lowing figures give the rates in force since 
 1908 : 
 
 
 Engagements for 
 
 
 3 years. 
 
 4 years. 5 years 
 
 Sous-Officier. (N.C.O. 
 
 
 
 above the rank of 
 
 
 
 Corporal. ) 
 
 £12 
 
 £24 £36 
 
 Corporal or Private . . 
 
 £6 10 
 
 £13 £19 10 
 
 For re-engagements, sous-officiers receive 
 £12, and other ranks £6 10s. for every year's 
 service up to ten. 
 
 A private who, by successive re-engage- 
 ments, completed ten years' service would
 
 PAY AND REWARDS IN FRANCE 75 
 
 have received £52 in bounties. No bounties 
 are given after ten years' service. 
 
 The Colonial rates of pay vary with 
 length of service from lOd. to Is. 2d. a day 
 for a private. In addition, a private would 
 receive a Colonial allowance (which varies 
 according to the locality) from \d. to 5d. 
 a day. A Colonial soldier serving in France 
 gets about half the daily rate of pay. The 
 pay of a private in the Home Army, being 
 \d. a day, comes to 155. 2\d. per annum. 
 But when the Colonial serves abroad his 
 pay comes to about £25 per annum or, as 
 nearly as possible, the equivalent of the 
 British rate in actual cash received. 
 
 The actual cash, however, by no means, 
 as in the case of the British soldier, exhausts 
 the pecuniary inducements offered. " Help 
 in obtaining employment on return to civil 
 life" stands for a great deal more than the 
 far-away chance of a pretty hard job as a 
 postman, which is as much as Thomas 
 Atkins can expect to get from the State. 
 For the French Government has provided 
 for its professional, as distinguished from 
 its conscript soldiers, 05,000 nice little posts 
 during the past twelve years. These are 
 positions as minor functionaries in the 
 oflices of the State Departments, positions
 
 76 GOVERNMENT POSTS 
 
 secured in private business by official pres- 
 sure, positions in the posts and telegraphs, 
 positions on the railways, positions as 
 foresters. What is the cash value of such 
 inducements ? That depends very much 
 upon the man. To the superior handy- 
 man who can always make his living in the 
 open market, they are worthless. To the 
 mediocrity, on the other hand, they are 
 a godsend. But in the Army, as everywhere 
 else, mediocre men largely predominate. 
 
 It is very difficult, then, fairly to appraise 
 the value of these inducements. Arith- 
 metic is a noble science, but it cannot build 
 a bridge between matters of fact and matters 
 of opinion. Thus, an admirer of voluntary 
 service may point to the withdrawal of 
 the conscript citizen for several years from 
 productive labour. The conscriptionist re- 
 torts that the man will live longer, will 
 measure two inches more round the chest. 
 Who can split the economic difference ? 
 Therefore here we find ourselves in the 
 region of guesswork. My guess is, then, that 
 the certainty, with decent behaviour, of 
 one of these Government posts is worth 
 to the soldier during his serving time at 
 least the sum of fourpence a day. But what 
 is the cost to Government of providing him
 
 FRENCH EXPERIENCE 77 
 
 with the post ? If he earns his wages — 
 nothing. I believe he does earn his wages 
 — handsomely. I believe that the French 
 Government get this sort of service better 
 performed for them by old soldiers than 
 they could possibly get it performed by 
 flinging the appointments into the com- 
 petition of the open labour market. But 
 what then ? The French professional sol- 
 dier, when time-expired, receives a gift that 
 costs the State nothing. Yet that gift 
 means something considerable to him, and 
 by just so much does the French soldier 
 of the Colonial Army become a more highly 
 paid article than his British equivalent. 
 
 So far as we have gone, there is nothing 
 to show that the French nation has not 
 successfully solved our problem. But there 
 are one or two further points Eor considera- 
 tion. First, have we any indications to 
 show us the direction in which the French 
 system is moving? Secondly, are there 
 any other special Inducements making Eor 
 the success of the French system which 
 would be wanting in Great Britain? 
 Thirdly, is the French system worked upon 
 a scale sufficiently important to serve as a 
 safe guide i (i (ireal Britain ? 
 
 The answer i<> the first question is dis-
 
 78 FRENCH SOLDIERS 
 
 couraging. True, the French military 
 authorities have had no difficulty so far in 
 recruiting for their Colonial Army. But 
 some keen observers have noticed a change 
 of sentiment, not only on the part of the 
 civil population but also in the Army itself, 
 which seems to indicate a movement to- 
 wards the Russian mental attitude as re- 
 gards voluntary service. I have travelled 
 with a shipload of French Colonial soldiers 
 from Marseilles to Saigon. They were physi- 
 cally of an excellent type, and they seemed 
 to me soldiers of whom any nation might 
 be proud. The rank and file are bigger, 
 more mature, better set up, and more 
 military-looking than the conscripts, by 
 whose side they are sometimes seen working 
 at manoeuvres. Yet invariably French 
 officers and men of other units speak of 
 them with a certain condescension. Should 
 a Colonial Brigade make a mistake, " What 
 else can you expect ? ' is the usual sort of 
 remark. Let them be late for a concen- 
 tration, perhaps owing to no fault of their 
 own, and the attentive ear may hear the 
 great man mutter : " Ces sacres Coloniales, 
 Us seront en retard au rendez-vous du bon 
 Dieu ! ' This phrase fairly expresses the 
 tone of the rest of the Army towards its
 
 ATTITUDE TOWARDS COLONIAL ARMY 79 
 
 voluntary-service comrades. The officers 
 rarely attain higher command. Whether 
 this is caused (as Frenchmen will tell you) 
 by lack of ambition, or whether (as an 
 Englishman might otherwise have suspected) 
 lack of ambition is caused by certainty of 
 non-success, is a point too delicate for a 
 foreigner to determine. Is it too much, 
 then, to assume that the French voluntary 
 system is moving towards unpopularity ? 
 If so, does not such a fact seem to show that 
 two such diametrically opposite principles 
 as voluntaryism and compulsion combine in 
 one country with difficulty, and that there 
 is a constant tendency for the weaker to go 
 to the wall ? 
 
 Secondly, as to special inducements 
 favouring the French system. Here we 
 strike up at once against the fact that the 
 French soldier elects for the Colonial Army, 
 with the negative inducemenl of thereby 
 escaping home conscription with pay at the 
 rate of \<l. a day. No one has yet suggested 
 
 that either British conscripts or national 
 
 defenders should he paid at such a price. 
 The National Service League, ill their esti- 
 mate dated February 1, 1!><M>, propose 
 to pay their recruits only sixpence a day 
 less than mil' present regular recruits, and
 
 80 NUMBERS OF FRENCH OVER-SEA ARMY 
 
 their trained men the same as the regular. 
 All the advocates of some form of com- 
 pulsory service appear to believe that the 
 Labour Members and the organisations of 
 working men they represent would no more 
 be likely to agree to a conscript being 
 paid hd. a day than they would be likely 
 to approve of the reservation of Govern- 
 ment posts for retired foreign-service volun- 
 teers. The stern clangour of the trumpet 
 of duty summons the British patriot to be 
 paid through the nose ! How strangely 
 must such a call to arms sound in the ear 
 of the \d. a day French soldier serving on 
 the opposite side of the Channel ! I am 
 by no means sure that the National Service 
 League are not here doing their fellow- 
 countrymen some injustice. Still, so far as 
 it goes, their opinion must be taken, and it 
 seems to strengthen the contention that the 
 British conscript of the future would be 
 much less likely to volunteer for foreign 
 service than the existing Territorial. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the scale on which the 
 French system is being worked. It has been 
 already stated that the French Colonial 
 Army numbers only 56,000 men, of whom 
 28,000 men are serving at home. According 
 to the last returns, our Regular British troops
 
 PROPORTION KEPT AT HOME 81 
 
 numbered 244,000 men, of whom 127,000 
 men were serving at home. Instead of 
 finding 65,000 posts in twelve years for her 
 foreign-service troops, as at present, France, 
 were she to take over our Empire as a 
 running concern, must find something well 
 over a quarter of a million posts. 
 
 But it may be argued, and is argued, that 
 if Great Britain and Ireland introduced 
 conscription, the portion of the existing 
 Regular Army which happened to be serving 
 at home would be swept away forthwith. 
 Therefore it is not correct, so it has been 
 urged, to count the 127,000 Regular soldiers 
 serving at home. Then why, may I ask, 
 does France, in addition to her enormous 
 conscript army, maintain 28,000 foreign- 
 service soldiers at home out of a total of 
 ."><», 000 — nearly the same proportion, be it 
 noted, as our own 127,000 Regular soldiers 
 serving at home out of a grand total of 
 244,000 ? The answer is clear. France 
 requires them. Whether for coast defence, 
 for reinforcing coaling stations or for supply- 
 ing drafts to her troops abroad, she requires 
 I hem. If the whole of Great Britain and 
 Ireland were one vast armed conscription 
 camp we would still have to keep up, not 
 only on the frontiers of the Empire, bu1 here, 
 

 
 82 THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 
 
 at home, large numbers of soldiers of the pre- 
 sent type. True, if we made up our minds 
 to sacrifice the linked battalions at home, 
 and adopt depots in their place, we might 
 reduce the number of Regulars at home by 
 about half — -but then we should have cut 
 off our right arm, the Expeditionary Force. 
 If, going a step further, we reduced the size 
 of the depots by adopting a true twenty- 
 one-years pensionable long-service force to 
 garrison our foreign possessions, we should 
 destroy our reserves, further weaken our 
 striking power, and in the end save little 
 or no money ! For in course of time the 
 pension bill for a long-service army carries 
 off the best part of economies at first 
 effected by cutting down the number of 
 enlistments. The long-service corps would 
 be inferior to the present type of corps for 
 purposes of war, and there would be no 
 reserves to send out to them in case of 
 any Asian or African campaign. Therefore, 
 even the Special Reserve could be abolished 
 only were it determined that another Indian 
 Mutiny or South African War must be 
 carried on, practically from the beginning, 
 by calling for volunteers from the Home 
 Army to replace casualties (a method re- 
 pugnant to any well-regulated military
 
 CONTINENTAL ANALOGY FAILS 83 
 
 mind), or by drafting out conscripts and 
 units composed of conscripts whether they 
 were prepared to fight or not. 
 
 As far as it goes, then, the Continental 
 analogy is disappointing to those who believe 
 that a Voluntary Regular Army such as 
 ours might be grafted on to a system of 
 conscription as it is understood and enforced 
 in Europe and in Japan. It is certain, 
 indeed, that neither Germany nor Russia 
 could graft the present British voluntary 
 system on to their own compulsory system, 
 and it is most doubtful whether France 
 could afford to do so, or whether, at any 
 cost, she could find the necessary number of 
 voluntary recruits. But it may be urged, and 
 with justice, that our people are so different, 
 so much more adventurous than Germans, 
 Russians, or French, that no analogy based 
 on those nations is convincing. May it 
 Dot also be urged, however, that it is our 
 reliance on the voluntary system which has 
 kept up our adventurous spirit ? However 
 this may be, it is certain that no sooner 
 do we endeavour to restricl the inquiry 
 
 entirely to the British Isles than we are met 
 by the difficulty that, there is so little here 
 to guide us as to the effect of military service 
 00 the natural bents of the recruiting market.
 
 84 LESSONS FROM HOME EXPERIENCE 
 
 Only one narrow beam from the searchlight 
 of experience illumines the dense'mist of con- 
 jecture wherein we find ourselves groping. 
 All the more necessary is it, then, that we 
 should make the best use we can of it. 
 
 The scheme approved by the old War 
 Office for enlisting men for three years' 
 Colour service applied to all the principal 
 Arms : Cavalry and Infantry of the Line, 
 Artillery, Engineers, Army Service Corps, 
 and Army Medical Corps. It came into 
 force from April 1, 1902, and was discon- 
 tinued from October 20, 1904. 
 
 The inducement offered to persuade three- 
 years men to extend their service was that, 
 by extending to eight years with the Colours, 
 they became entitled to " Service Pay." 
 They might extend at any time, but before 
 they could draw service pay they must 
 have completed two years' service — a con- 
 dition which applied to all soldiers, what- 
 ever their terms of enlistment. All extended 
 men with two years' service received Service 
 Pay, Class II., at fourpence a day. This 
 was all they could make absolutely sure of, 
 but, practically, they knew that Class I. 
 rate — sixpence a day — was attainable by 
 all who cared to satisfy a very moderate 
 prescribed standard of efficiency.
 
 THE THREE- YEARS SYSTEM 85 
 
 It was calculated that to make the 
 scheme a success, that is, to ensure the 
 required numbers being forthcoming for 
 drafts for foreign service, the following 
 percentages of men completing three years 
 must extend their service to eight years : 
 
 Cavalry of the Line 
 
 Horse and Field Artillery 
 
 Mountain and Garrison Artillery 
 
 Engineers 
 
 Infantry of the Line 
 
 41 90 per cent 
 3123 „ 
 All 
 20-20 
 71-68 
 
 In the actual event, of the Infantry en- 
 listed in 1002 about 31*60 per cent eventually 
 extended ; of the 1903 batch, 36' 53 ; of 
 the 1904 batch, 40'42. 
 
 The refusal of young Infantrymen to 
 extend came as a great shock to some of our 
 military authorities. Soldiers by their owl) 
 choice, their disinclination to continue in 
 the Service astonished those who had bc- 
 lieved thai ;i closer acquaintance with peace 
 service musl render young men desirous of 
 devoting their lives to it. Certainly I he 
 originator of the Bcheme had bad luck. If 
 the unhappy experience of thai experiment 
 w< ire not behind us it would probably aot 
 seem too unreasonable to any of us to imagine 
 that a very large proportion of our well- 
 cared-for, voluntarily enlisted, apparently
 
 86 ITS RESULTS 
 
 happy young soldiers would take on for 
 sixpence a day extra. Once again the 
 incalculable idiosyncrasies of the youthful 
 Briton baffled the theorists. But we are 
 no theorists now. We have an example to 
 guide us how not to do it. 
 
 The breakdown of the scheme resulted in 
 our having to send men all the expensive 
 journey to India merely that they might 
 remain there for one year. It led to 
 bounties. In March 1906 bounties were 
 offered to three-years men serving in India 
 at the following rates : 
 
 £10 to extend to 6 years ; 
 £12 ,, 7 years ; 
 
 £15 „ 8 years. 
 
 It was hoped that by these sums, in 
 addition to the extra sixpence a day, 3,772 
 Infantry soldiers might be induced to extend, 
 but only 1,586 did actually take on. The 
 bounties paid amounted to rather over 
 £23,400, and yet, despite the extravagant 
 sending of soldiers for one or two years 
 to India, and despite these bounties, we fell 
 short in our duty of keeping up the Indian 
 establishments. There was a correspond- 
 ing shortage in all Colonial battalions. 
 
 Taking the returns for May 1 — a date on
 
 ITS RESULTS 87 
 
 which the " trooping " for the year has been 
 completed — the figures stood as follows : 
 
 May 1, 1906 
 
 Infantry in India was 44 over establishment ; 
 All Arms in India were 746 ,, ,, 
 
 May 1, 1907 
 
 Infantry in India, 771 under establishment ; 
 All Arms in India, 558 ,, ,, 
 
 May 1, 1908 
 
 Infantry in India, 1,585 under establishment ; 
 All Arms in India, 1,674 ,, ,, 
 
 May 1, 1909 
 
 Infantry in India, 48 over establishment. 
 All Arms in India, 445 ,, ,, 
 
 It will be seen that whilst we were sending 
 three-years men to India, the strength did not 
 f.ill below establishment, but that when the 
 three-years men were no longer here to be 
 sent out, and declined to extend in sufficient 
 numbers, we could not complete the Indian 
 drafts until the nine-years men and then the 
 present seven-ye;irs terms <>i' enlistment, had 
 been some time in operation. Indeed, we 
 have not got over the ex erimenl yet. To- 
 day, in August loio, we are si ill suffering 
 from its indirect disorganising effects. 
 
 It has been shown how ihe national 
 service idea wars against and weakens
 
 88 THE LESSON 
 
 the voluntary foreign-service idea in conti- 
 nental lands, wherever an attempt has been 
 made, even on the smallest scale, to bring 
 both systems simultaneously into play. But 
 apart from these examples from abroad — 
 not always very convincing to the Briton 
 — there are certain obvious lessons to be 
 drawn from the region of common sense, 
 showing that, under the shadow of a con- 
 tinental conscription system, the distaste 
 exhibited by the short-service soldiers of 
 1902-4 to prolonging their military career 
 would tend to become greatly accentu- 
 ated. 
 
 1. Their pay as conscripts would be 
 less ; 
 
 2. Their work as conscripts would 
 be harder ; 
 
 3. They would be conscripts. 
 Against an adverse deduction from (1) 
 
 and (2), there may be some room for argu- 
 ment. The low pay of conscripts might 
 not of itself give a distaste to military service, 
 and it might indeed show up in pleasing 
 relief the larger urns the foreign-service 
 recruiter would offer. The harder work 
 necessitated by the shorter period of service 
 would not necessarily choke off good men. 
 But (8) ? Which of us, knowing his own
 
 ATTITUDE TOWARDS COMPULSION 89 
 
 countrymen, will not allow that the free- 
 born Briton tends to become incurably 
 prejudiced against any form of work or 
 even amusement he may be forced into ? 
 Let the British workman undertake a duty 
 of his own free will, and no one will be at 
 greater pains to execute it thoroughly. To 
 the authoritative command, " Fall in ! ' 
 his inclination (not always repressed) is to 
 retort, " Fall in yourself, and be d — d to 
 you ! ' Suppose that for two or three 
 years, say from the age of 18 to 21, the 
 youth of the nation were compelled, under 
 pain of fine or imprisonment, to attend 
 three church services daily ; would the 
 nation become more religious ? Would 
 such a law tend to swell the attendance at 
 extra voluntary services ? I think there 
 are many who would ;msw< r such questions 
 in the affirmative, Hut I myself deny, 
 and ever will deny, thai l<> force food down 
 a Briton's throal with :i stomach-pump will 
 give him an appetite lor his dinner. I 
 ard it as certain, then- as certain, thai is 
 to say, ;is anything concerning the impulses 
 of young Britons can be that if w< 
 had universal continental conscription we 
 
 should nol be able to get the necessary 
 
 number of volunteers from the ranks of the
 
 90 DANGERS OF COMPULSORY SERVICE 
 
 Home Army to keep our Foreign-Service 
 Army alive. 
 
 Before proceeding to discuss other forms 
 of service — and it must be remembered that 
 until now the adoption of continental con- 
 scription has not been seriously set before 
 the country — the alternative should be noted 
 whereby recruits for the Voluntary Army 
 should still be enlisted for that Army at a 
 nominal 18, whereas, as abroad, the com- 
 pulsory service would not commence until 
 the age of 20. Such a system would be 
 very wasteful. Instead of getting trained 
 conscripts of 21 to volunteer to take ship 
 for foreign ports at once, we should have to 
 keep and train our foreign-service recruits 
 for two or three years in England, very 
 much as they are kept and trained at present 
 both in England and in France, and we 
 should have to do this although, possessing, 
 as we should, an ample Home-Defence 
 Army, we should not really require them. 
 We might get the men. But personally I 
 should not like to be responsible that they 
 would be forthcoming in sufficient numbers, 
 at present rates. With the labour market 
 cleared of men between the ages of 20 and 23, 
 it seems to me that the services of the hobble- 
 dehoy, now so much at a discount, might
 
 SUMMING UP 91 
 
 appeal more attractively to the civil em- 
 ployer. If so, we should certainly fail in 
 our competition with him unless we doubled 
 our present rate of pay. 
 
 Summarising the conclusions reached thus 
 far, it appears that, under a system of 
 continental conscription, it would not be 
 safe to trust to the maintenance of our 
 Foreign-Service Army by volunteers from 
 the Home-Defence Army. We could not, 
 therefore, as has been suggested, balance 
 the cost of a Home-Defence Army on the 
 German model by sweeping away existing 
 Home-Service linked battalions of Regulars 
 unless we replaced these by depots, which 
 would be, as I have tried to show, a very 
 unsatisfactory method. 
 
 I do not propose to carry my examination 
 of the probable effects of universal military 
 service on the continental model any further. 
 The only tiling certain about its cost is 
 that it must largely increase — perhaps 
 double — our Army Estimates. Public feel- 
 ing is nut pipe for it. No one has proposed 
 its adoption. Hut by taking that extreme 
 case I have, I trust, been ;il>le to clear the 
 
 outline of the general subject before ap- 
 proaching proposals more modest and, in 
 so far, less impracl icable.
 
 92 ALTERNATIVE PLANS 
 
 When I say proposals, I go perhaps too 
 far. For the difficulty of the whole of this 
 question lies largely in the vagueness of 
 the case for compulsion and in the absence 
 of detailed proposals from any responsible 
 person or association. It is the details 
 that determine how a scheme will work 
 and what it will cost. Here, however, are 
 two schemes, detailed up to a certain 
 point, one of which has been unofficially 
 discussed by me with friends ; the other, 
 the only scheme as yet before the public. 
 
 (1) A Home-Defence Army, to be raised 
 on continental conscription lines. The ex- 
 isting Special Reserve and Territorial Force 
 to be abolished. The present voluntary, 
 foreign-service Army to be reduced to a 
 bare minimum by forming depots to replace 
 linked battalions, and by turning the Indian 
 and Colonial garrisons into twenty-one-years- 
 service pensionable forces. India, South 
 Africa, and the Colonies to pay the full cost 
 of their British garrisons and also of the 
 depots in this country necessary to maintain 
 them, whereas at present South Africa, for 
 instance, contributes not a halfpenny to 
 the cost of the troops we maintain there. 
 
 (2) Compulsory Service on a Militia basis, 
 as proposed by the National Service League.
 
 THE GERMAN MODEL 93 
 
 Let us first examine (1). 
 
 As a basis of comparison, I will take the 
 Home-Defence Army at such a strength 
 that it would give us on mobilisation a 
 force equivalent in numbers to the pre- 
 sent Territorial Force. The establish- 
 ment of the Territorial Force (excluding the 
 newly authorised first-line reserve, tech- 
 nical and veteran reserves, which have not 
 yet taken shape) is 315,000 officers, non- 
 commissioned officers and men. To pro- 
 duce an equivalent force on mobilisation by 
 German methods, a peace establishment of 
 123,000 officers, non-commissioned officers 
 and men would be required. Your financial 
 advisers have worked out the total annual 
 cost of an imaginary British conscript 
 soldier, maintained on the German scale, 
 for housing, clothing, food, and pay, at 
 £78 per head (including everything), instead 
 of £103 as at present. Whether the British 
 conscript would stand this, need not be 
 argued here. I will only remark in passing 
 that the pay Is 2§d. per diem. That the food 
 (one square meal in the t wenl y-four hours ; 
 
 breakfasl and supper being supplied out of 
 
 messing funds) is good, hut is admitted not 
 to be sufficient hy itself. Men whose homes 
 arc in the garrison town receive help from
 
 94 DETAILS 
 
 their parents. My soldier servants on Ger- 
 man manoeuvres have always received postal 
 orders from their relatives during the period 
 of absence from barracks. Others whose re- 
 latives are dead or absent get help from their 
 comrades, or make cupboard love to cooks, 
 like comedy policemen. As to clothing, 
 the men are provided with one good outfit 
 (not necessarily new), which is kept in 
 store for them. For every-day work they 
 have to wear old clothes, which are passed 
 on from generation to generation for so 
 long as they decently hang together, so as 
 to enable the unit to accumulate a large 
 supply of spare equipment. So much for 
 the conditions. As to the financial profit 
 and loss, I do not think I need here take 
 up your time by going into the further 
 details or by balancing savings with extra 
 expenditure. You have the figures, * and 
 know that we would seem, at the first 
 blush, to save twelve and three-quarter 
 millions sterling per annum by such a revo- 
 lution of system, of which sum six and 
 three-quarter millions would be increased 
 Indian and Colonial contributions, leaving 
 a real reduction of six millions. So far 
 so good ; but it is the military cost of 
 
 * See Appendix VII.
 
 OUR SIX DIVISIONS 95 
 
 the proposal which entirely puts it out 
 of court from my point of view. The 
 saving, in fact, is far too expensive ! The 
 whole Expeditionary Force of six Divisions, 
 composed at present of the finest troops in 
 Europe, would be wiped out. I repeat 
 advisedly, the finest troops in Europe, not 
 as one puffed up with national conceit, 
 but because they ought to be the finest, 
 largely composed, as they will be, of young 
 veterans, men under thirty who have done 
 seven years' service, including probably 
 some active service, with the Colours. There 
 are those amongst us, I am aware, who 
 adopt the magnificent attitude of despising 
 six Divisions of British Regulars with the 
 newly created Special Reserve standing 
 behind them to keep them up to strength. 
 They are fond of quoting a remark of Prince 
 Bismarck's (authentic or not, who knows?) 
 to I Ik- (licet that if the British Army landed 
 on the continent lie would have to send 
 the police t<> make them prisoners. They 
 
 forgel that at the lime the mot was supposed 
 
 t<» have been made Greal Britain and Ireland 
 could not, literally, have embarked one 
 
 Division lor war within any reasonable lime, 
 as time in war is counted. They forget 
 that these six Divisions are not standing in
 
 96 DRAWBACKS OF CONTINENTAL MODEL 
 
 the air, but that behind them is the might of 
 England, her half -trained men, her money, 
 her horses, guns, munitions, science. Finally 
 they do not actually, personally, know 
 the General Staffs of foreign armies, or 
 realise how hateful to those methodical 
 minds is the idea of the shifting base and 
 incalculable line of communications of a 
 Power in command of the sea. 
 
 Under Scheme (1) then, the money-saving 
 sounds magnificent, but the six Expedi- 
 tionary Divisions are indubitably lost. 
 The adoption of such a system must mean 
 a falling back on to the pure defensive — an 
 attitude immemorially precursive of de- 
 struction — and be it noted that the whole 
 of our existing regular Coast-defence troops 
 (Artillery and Engineers) at home have 
 similarly gone by the board. Therefore, 
 if we are to continue to exist, even on 
 sufferance, we must, in addition to the new, 
 315,000 strong, Home-Defence Army, create 
 a new equivalent to our present Expedi- 
 tionary Force and our Coast-defence troops 
 at Home. Working, as hitherto, on the 
 German model, we must add 100,000 men 
 to the peace establishment of 123,000 al- 
 ready given. Unfortunately, the cost of 
 such an addition will not only eat up the
 
 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 97 
 
 saving of six millions I have indicated, but 
 would actually cause the new system to 
 exceed the cost of our present system by a 
 million and a half. 
 
 Militarily we should be practically as we 
 are at present, only that : 
 
 (a) The conscript Home-Defence Army 
 would always be up to full strength, and 
 would be considerably better trained, dis- 
 ciplined, and generally more efficient than 
 the Territorials whom they would replace. 
 How much more efficient depends entirely 
 on the period for which the Territorials are 
 supposed to have been embodied when the 
 comparison is made. (I will advise you on 
 this obscure point later, for to do so here 
 would break the thread of my argument.) 
 
 (b) The conscript Expeditionary Force 
 would be (as lias been shown in discussing 
 i he general subject) inferior to our present 
 Expeditionary Force lor continental pur- 
 poses and would be useless, or nearly so, for 
 Asiatic or African purposes. 
 
 (c) Our long-service Over-seas Army would 
 be less effective in war than our present type 
 of s< vcn-ycars-colour-scrvice Army. It would 
 have no reserves to hill hack upon Tor any 
 
 s< rious campaign. 
 
 (d) A certain weakening of central autho- 
 
 7
 
 98 BALANCE OF ADVANTAGE 
 
 rity must ensue, in so far as we should have 
 to permit India and the Colonies to establish 
 by their depots, containing armed men, 
 an imperium in imperio. 
 
 (e) The numbers drawn by the ballot 
 would be so small compared with the able- 
 bodied male population, that the conscript 
 on whom the lot fell would feel that his was 
 the exceptional rather than the common 
 lot. A sense of hardship might thus be en- 
 gendered, from which the universality of the 
 obligation saves the continental conscript. 
 
 (/) Provided that, as abroad, no con- 
 scripts were taken before twenty, it is pos- 
 sible that a conscript Home-Defence Army 
 of such modest dimensions would inter- 
 fere but little with recruiting for the long- 
 service Over-seas Army, although I do not 
 myself believe many recruits would be 
 drawn from the ranks of the conscripts. 
 
 I have tried to put all the points as they 
 occur to me. What you have to consider is 
 whether the advantage shown in (a) counter- 
 balances the drawbacks disclosed in (b), (c), 
 (d), (e), plus the extra cost of one million 
 and a half. Under the suggested scheme we 
 should, I submit, feel absolutely secure from 
 invasion at home, and we should be at least 
 as powerful for action on the Continent as
 
 ANOTHER VIEW 99 
 
 at present. For, supposing the new Home- 
 Defence Army to be twice as efficient as the 
 existing Territorials, then, under many easily 
 imagined conditions, first a portion and 
 then the whole of the Home-Defence Armv 
 might be shipped off to support the Ex- 
 peditionary Force in any not too distant 
 part of Europe. 
 
 Another way of regarding the problem, 
 in the light of the assumed superior value 
 of the Conscript Army to the Territorial 
 Force, is that if 315,000 conscript soldiers 
 are really worth G30,000 Territorials, then 
 we might do with half the number, and 
 content ourselves with a Home-Defence 
 Army of, say, a war strength of 1G0,000. 
 Thus we should save three or four millions 
 per annum; he theoretically as safe at 
 home as we arc to-day, and retain an Ex- 
 peditionary Force as good, or nearly as 
 good, for service in Western Europe as our 
 existing six Divisions. Hut here we enter 
 upon treacherous ground. Alter all, are we 
 so certain that the number 315,000 hits the 
 
 exact mean between economy and safely? 
 I think perhaps not. The Territorial He- 
 serve has been recently inaugurated to till 
 
 up the gap between establishment and 
 
 strength which must, always exist, with a
 
 100 LOSS OF STRENGTH OVER-SEA 
 
 voluntary system. The Veteran Reserve, 
 when, as I hope may soon be the case, it 
 steps off paper on to the parade ground, will 
 be extra to the 315,000. Further, and most 
 important, under our existing system there 
 is a very considerable margin of enlisted 
 men available in one way or another to 
 swell the cadres for home defence should 
 necessity arise. On September 30, 1909, 
 our actual number of Regular soldiers at 
 home, including Army Reserve and Special 
 Reserve, was 339,000 officers, non-com- 
 missioned officers and men. Under a con- 
 scription system there would be no margin. 
 It would be safer, then, not to look on the 
 superior efficiency of a conscript Home- 
 Defence Army as affording an excuse for 
 cutting down rifles below the present Terri- 
 torial standard, and to content ourselves 
 with the fact that owing to that superiority 
 we should be safe in England, and something 
 more formidable within a radius of three or 
 four hundred miles from our island base 
 than we are to-day. 
 
 Against this must be set the fact that in 
 Asia, Africa, and ? America we should be 
 very much weaker than at present. Al- 
 though India now pays for her Army, the 
 troops remain by tradition, by reliefs of
 
 NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE PLAN 101 
 
 units, by free interchange at all times of 
 officers, non-commissioned officers and men, 
 essentially a part of the Home army. Were 
 India to establish her flesh-and-blood markets 
 in Great Britain, and buy officers for their 
 effective lives, and men for twenty-one 
 years, their sentiment of homogeneity with 
 their conscript comrades in Great Britain 
 and Ireland would soon begin to wear thin. 
 Still more so as regards South Africa. If 
 an African Government enlisted and carried 
 off officers and men to serve in the Transvaal 
 for twenty-one years, what would be their 
 value to Greater Britain ? Add to these 
 drawbacks the fact insisted upon earlier in 
 the paper, namely, that conscripts are not 
 suited for a central reserve Force for 
 Imperial purposes ! I doubt, Mr. Haldane, 
 if the game is worth the candle. But let us 
 proceed to try to find something better in the 
 proposals of the National Service League. 
 
 We now come to (2), the latest scheme 
 for compulsory service on a Militia* basis 
 
 put forward by the National Service League. 
 
 For the idea of a force of a million men 
 trained on a Regular, or Special Keservc* 
 
 * Militia in tin- m n-c <|'lin«d at p. ."»(',. n< >t involving 
 
 life in barracks, even daring tin- period of recruil drill The 
 "Special Reserve" peril involves life in barracks foi n oruito .
 
 102 THE GENERAL SCHEME 
 
 basis, has been killed by the discovery that 
 its acceptance would involve an increase to 
 Army Estimates of twenty millions sterling 
 per annum. 
 
 The proposal which now holds the field 
 is that the whole manhood of the nation, 
 subject to certain medical and other rejec- 
 tions, should become liable to do their turn 
 of compulsory service on the 1st of January 
 following the attainment of their eighteenth 
 birthday. On joining, the recruit is to 
 receive four to six months' training, varying 
 with the arm, and in his second, third, and 
 fourth years he is to undergo fifteen days' 
 continuous training and to be put through 
 a course of musketry. From his fourth 
 year until he is thirty, a man will receive 
 no further training, but will be liable to 
 embodiment in case of imminent national 
 danger. He will not be liable at any time 
 to be ordered out of the kingdom. The 
 existing Territorial Force would disappear. 
 The Special Reserve would be abolished and 
 would be replaced by men serving com- 
 pulsorily in the Territorial Force, who would 
 be induced by a money payment to accept 
 a liability for service abroad in case of 
 emergency. The Regular Army would re- 
 main. It is calculated, correctly I believe,
 
 ITS FINANCIAL ASPECT 103 
 
 that 150,000 recruits would be called 4 up 
 annually. When this machinery was in 
 full swing its out-turn would be 400,000 
 trained men, organised in cadres, as well 
 as 600,000 men in reserve, for which latter 
 category the scheme provides no arms, 
 clothing, equipment or organisation of any 
 sort or kind. The League estimate the 
 additional cost of adopting their proposals 
 at four millions sterling per annum. 
 
 I will now give you my views on this 
 scheme. 
 
 To take the last point first : your financial 
 adviser has shown you already that the 
 estimate of an additional four millions 
 sterling is under the mark by one half. 
 Figures, it has been said, can be made to 
 prove anything. Figures, in fact, are like 
 8 pile of first-class modern rifles. Each in 
 itself is accuracy materialised, is gauged 
 to one-thousandth <>f an inch, is capable 
 of making a bull's-eye every time at the 
 distance of a mile. How, then, do we 
 account for the disconcerting fact that 
 the marksman often brings down the crow 
 instead of the pigeon ? Sometimes because 
 lie is a bad, inexperienced shot. More 
 often because, also, whilst ostensibly aiming 
 at the pigeon he deliberately draws a bead
 
 104 RECRUIT TRAINING 
 
 on the crow. Everything, in short, depends 
 upon the sportsman behind the gun — the 
 authority who manipulates the figures. Here 
 you are surely on very safe ground. Not 
 only is your adviser a man of rare ability, 
 but he has had no brief from one side or 
 the other, and his experience is absolutely 
 unique. I take it, then, as certain that 
 your figures are the best and fairest obtain- 
 able, and that the actual extra cost of the 
 proposals just set forth would be some eight 
 millions sterling per annum. 
 
 From an ex-Adjutant-General's point of 
 view, the arrangement whereby in exchange 
 for the Special Reserve we are to be given 
 a number of individuals without any unit 
 or other organisation, is pernicious. Fur- 
 ther, the infantrymen, as recruits, would 
 be two-thirds less thoroughly trained than 
 are our present Special Reserve. 
 
 About three-fifths of the recruits for the 
 Regular Army enlist between October and 
 March, and the General Annual Report of 
 the Army shows that nearly half the total 
 of recruits raised every year are eighteen and 
 under nineteen. This is the age at which 
 the League proposes to claim lads for the 
 Territorial Force. Neither the Bill nor the 
 Memorandum supplies direct information as
 
 PERIOD OF YEAR 105 
 
 to the months during which it is intended 
 to train recruits. The League calculates 
 that there will be 150,000 for training every 
 year ; but as it apparently does not con- 
 template the provision of extra barrack 
 accommodation, it was probably the inten- 
 tion of the promoters of the Bill that 
 recruit training should take place under 
 canvas. It is extremely improbable that 
 these recruits could be trained during the 
 summer, for whenever numbers of men 
 were out of work, public opinion would 
 bring strong pressure to bear with a view 
 to ensuring that every man drawn for 
 service was at least given the option of 
 undergoing his training during the winter. 
 The argument that winter is the time when 
 a recruil would derive least benefit from 
 his training would carry little weight with 
 Employers 9 Associations, Trade Unions, and 
 Benefit Societies. Another consideration 
 making winter almost inevitably the normal 
 training season is thai labour is so Bcarce 
 in country districts tli.it there is no other 
 time of year when so large a number of 
 bands could be spared from agricultural 
 work. These views represenl more than 
 mere personal observation. They arc the 
 results of experience gained by a careful
 
 106 DANGER TO REGULAR RECRUITING 
 
 and responsible study of the recruiting 
 market and the various factors by which it 
 is dominated. 
 
 The majority of eighteen- to nineteen-year- 
 old regular recruits enlist because they have 
 just ceased to be boys and are unable to find 
 regular employment as men. About four- 
 fifths of them come to us because they can- 
 not get a job at fifteen shillings a week. The 
 immense work of national regeneration the 
 Army has been unostentatiously performing 
 by helping these lads and making fine men 
 of them is quite unknown to the average 
 citizen. But that by the way. The re- 
 luctance of employers to take weedy, over- 
 grown youths of seventeen and eighteen has 
 markedly increased since the introduction of 
 the Workmen's Compensation Act. This is 
 good for recruiting. But if, under altered 
 conditions, hungry hobbledehoys knew that 
 they would be called up for continuous 
 housing and feeding during the winter, the 
 Regular Army would begin to shrivel up 
 from the roots. I know that all this is 
 not very glorious, but it is true. There 
 are some youths who enlist because they 
 have been crossed in love ; some whose 
 nerve of romance has been thrilled by 
 stories of heroes and battles of the past ;
 
 DANGER TO REGULAR RECRUITING 107 
 
 some who naively confess that they were 
 charmed into enlisting by music, and that 
 a military band at guard-mounting first 
 turned their fancy towards the Army ; 
 some there are, also — and they are the 
 very best — whose fathers were old soldiers. 
 But these, all told, are only one-fifth of 
 the total in the generality of infantry 
 battalions. 
 
 It may be argued : 
 
 (1) That some young men might still 
 join the Regular Army between their 
 eighteenth birthday and the end of the 
 year. 
 
 (2) That it is not in any case proposed 
 to prevent men from volunteering from the 
 Territorial Force to the Regular Army. 
 
 As regards (1), lads who found themselves 
 out of work towards the end of a year 
 would have an inducement to try to hold 
 out till the new year, knowing they would 
 then get State employment of a sort just 
 calculated to tide them over hard times 
 until work grew brisk in summer. 
 
 As regards (2), most of those who, under 
 
 present conditions, enlist during the early 
 months of the year would at that time be 
 alread} paid, housed, and clothed at the 
 
 expense of the State. Would the experi-
 
 108 DANGER TO REGULAR RECRUITING 
 
 enccs thus gained be likely to tempt 35,000 
 of them, or, admitting the doubtful assump- 
 tion that our recruiters are still able to 
 pick up 10,000 youths in the open market, 
 say 25,000 of them, to take up the military 
 career as a profession ? Here is the crux 
 of the whole matter. I have already ap- 
 proached it indirectly several times. My 
 view is clear, that the present type of 
 recruit would not take on in anything 
 approaching his present numbers. Our own 
 experiment of 1902-04 is pretty conclusive 
 there. It is maintained by optimists that a 
 new class — the superior artisans' sons and the 
 sons of small shopkeepers — would acquire 
 a taste for the military life during their 
 compulsory training as recruits. To me 
 this notion appears too fanciful. It would 
 delight me to believe it, for in believing it 
 I should be paying a compliment to the 
 virility and love of adventure of my own 
 race. But, speaking as an official so lately 
 responsible, I cannot advise you that the 
 type of youth referred to, having been 
 compelled against his inclination to serve, 
 would be drawn by his experiences volun- 
 tarily to prolong that service. The only 
 fact tending to support such a view is that 
 during the Napoleonic wars a considerable
 
 CURRENT MISCONCEPTIONS 109 
 
 number of compulsorily enlisted militiamen 
 were tempted by bounties to join the 
 armies in the field. But the compulsory 
 system had not been fully enough established 
 then to have got a grip upon the sentiment 
 of the country, and, secondly, it is not here 
 a question of war and its excitements, but 
 of humdrum garrison work in peace. Again, 
 on page 12 * of the League Estimate it is 
 argued that because, under the voluntary 
 system, no difficulty was experienced in 
 getting militiamen to engage to serve with 
 regulars abroad in case of war, there is no 
 reason why a similar bounty of £l 10v. 
 should not prove similarly attractive to 
 the new conscript Home -Defence men. 
 The same idea is elaborated in the League 
 Journal, where the point is constantly made 
 that if the voluntarily enlisted Territorial 
 stimulates recruiting by acquiring a liking 
 
 for professional soldiering, so will the COn- 
 
 jcripted Territorial of the future help t<> 
 popularise what will then quickly come to 
 be looked upon as mercenary service ! I 
 submit to you thai here is a certain mis- 
 conception of the working and weight of 
 moral Forces. 
 
 you will gather, then, thai I am by no 
 
 * Bee p. 177.
 
 110 FURTHER DIFFICULTIES 
 
 means sanguine as to the prospect of 
 drawing a sufficient number of eighteen- 
 year-old youths either from the open market 
 or from the ranks of the Home-Defence 
 Force, were the National Service League 
 system now to be put in force. 
 
 I fear I have been forced to show that 
 compulsory home service, with continuous 
 recruit training, must deprive the Regular 
 Army of many thousands of eighteen to 
 nineteen years old recruits. What remains ? 
 The men over nineteen years of age. But, 
 obviously, the annual withdrawal of large 
 numbers of men from civil life would make 
 it easier for men of nineteen and over to 
 obtain civil employment. It is true that 
 men might enlist in the Army after they 
 had finished their recruit training, but 
 they would be released from training in 
 the summer, when work is plentiful and the 
 winter wolf still seems far from the door. 
 They might do so ; but would they do 
 so ? Experience in the Adjutant-General's 
 Department says No ! 
 
 Again, coincident with the grave recruit- 
 ing difficulties I have foreshadowed as a 
 result of the adoption of the proposals of 
 the League, more, and not fewer, recruits 
 would be required for the Regular Army.
 
 THE FIVE ALTERNATIVES 111 
 
 For, even when credit has been taken for the 
 difference between the Regular establish- 
 ments of the Special Reserve and the Depot 
 establishments which will still be required, 
 it would be necessary to increase the estab- 
 lishment of the Regular Army in order to 
 provide the larger Permanent Staffs and the 
 new cadres, especially for Ireland, without 
 which the annual contingent of Home- 
 Defence recruits could not be trained. 
 
 The course of my investigation has now 
 led me to touch upon five conceivable 
 methods whereby our military strength might 
 be so increased, modified, or redistributed, 
 as to give us more troops for service in 
 Western Europe and, consequently, more 
 self-confidence at home. These methods 
 were : 
 
 (1) The enlargement of OUT present 
 type of Over-seas Army ; 
 
 (*j) Universal Military Service on the 
 German model ; 
 
 (:i) Universal Military Serviee on a 
 
 Special Reserve l>;isis ; 
 
 (4) A Home-Defence Army and Ex- 
 peditionary Force on the German model, 
 but restricted in strength to the 
 present establishment of the Territorial 
 Force <>n i he one hand ; on I lie <tt her.
 
 112 THEIR RESPECTIVE MERITS 
 
 to the strength of our existing Expedi- 
 tionary Force of six Divisions ; 
 
 (5) Compulsory service on a Militia 
 basis, as proposed by the National 
 Service League. 
 
 The motive underlying each of these 
 proposals would be much the same as that 
 actuating the Admiralty when they strength- 
 ened the naval position in home waters 
 partly by drawing in ships from outstations, 
 partly by actual increases to the Fleet. Our 
 military problem is less simple. Naval 
 reductions in the Mediterranean, or in the 
 Pacific and Indian Oceans, affect nothing, 
 except perhaps our prestige, so long as peace 
 is maintained ; whereas any serious reduc- 
 tion of the white garrison in India might in 
 itself precipitate bloodshed. As to actual 
 increases, these are voted readily enough 
 for the Navy, but only once in a blue moon 
 do they commend themselves to Parliament 
 where we of the Army are concerned. 
 
 Taking now the five methods aforesaid in 
 their order : 
 
 (1) is impracticable on any sufficient scale. 
 
 (2) is far too costly. 
 
 (3) is still too costly. 
 
 (4) is practicable. The additional cost
 
 ANOTHER POSSIBILITY 113 
 
 would not be large. Recruiting for the 
 Regular Army would be hardly, if at all, 
 affected. The sum total of our military 
 strength would be left much as it stands 
 at present, but, by fortifying the heart 
 at the expense of the extremities, it would 
 be differently apportioned. 
 
 (5) The expense would be very heavy, 
 but perl taps not prohibitive. Its adoption 
 would, however, in all human probability, 
 gravely prejudice recruiting for the Regular 
 Army. You have now a new Adjutant- 
 General, and as soon as he is fairly in the 
 saddle you should consult him on this 
 point. Writing as an ex-Adjutant-General, 
 it is my firm opinion that the acceptance 
 ol' the proposals of the National Service 
 League as they stand at present would 
 within two yens bring about something 
 very like disaster in I he recruiting market 
 lor I he Regular Army. 
 
 Is there then no method by which we can 
 strengthen ourselves al and near home, 
 without greal additional expenditure and 
 wiilioui weakening ourselves upon the Im- 
 perial frontiers? I think' there is: hut 
 
 before making my recommendations it is 
 absolutely necessary I should diverge for 
 
 i line lii i le i ime into a consideral i<>n ol' t he 
 
 8
 
 114 THE TERRITORIAL FORCE 
 
 value, actual and potential, of our Territorial 
 Force as it stands. 
 
 The points we must weigh are, briefly : 
 
 (1) The actual war-value of the fourteen 
 Territorial Divisions. 
 
 (2) The probable war-value of the fourteen 
 Territorial Divisions two or three years 
 hence, when they will contain a due pro- 
 portion of four-years men ; when the first- 
 line reserve will have begun to fill up ; 
 when the Veteran and Technical Reserves 
 will have taken shape ; when rifle and 
 artillery ranges will have been rendered 
 available to every unit, and when mobilisa- 
 tion, equipment, and stores have been not 
 only purchased and stored but actually 
 handed over to the County Associations. 
 All these improvements will either take 
 place automatically or have been worked 
 out and already approved of in principle. 
 
 (3) The potential war-value of the fourteen 
 Territorial Divisions two or three years 
 hence, were expenditure not yet contem- 
 plated to be sanctioned. I think you know 
 how and where the shoe pinches the Terri- 
 torial, both literally and metaphorically. 
 A few hundred thousands a year in travelling 
 expenses to drills and to rifle ranges and in 
 facilitating week-end camps ; in a carefully
 
 ITS VALUE, PRESENT AND FUTURE 115 
 
 guarded extension, here and there, to the 
 establishment of Permanent Staff ; in mak- 
 ing it easier for the men to get the right 
 boots for their training ; such measures as 
 these would increase both efficiency and 
 numbers out of all proportion to the extra 
 cost involved. If, after full consideration, 
 the General Staff think our establishment 
 has been fixed at too low a point, I believe 
 it could then be raised. Add a Cyclist 
 Company to each battalion of infantry ; 
 you put on some 8,000 men at a stroke. 
 Select certain favourable districts for the 
 creation of corps troops. Or, more simply, 
 if less symmetrically, permit units up to 
 strength to recruit above establishment. 
 
 The existing fourteen Divisions of the Terri- 
 torial Force possess better lighting value 
 than is admitted by their critics or claimed 
 by their friends. So I must maintain, even 
 though i la- pronouncement may smack of 
 presumption. Wan1 of acquaintance with 
 Territorial standards on the pari of mosl 
 military officers, and want of experience 
 of Regular standards by mosl Territorial 
 
 officers, are I he Causes Of the double mis- 
 apprehension. As lo the professor the new 
 
 pupil may appear insignificant, so to the 
 
 pupil the unknown profeSSOT must seem
 
 116 MISCONCEPTIONS 
 
 magnificent. Let them but work together 
 for a year, and the one may loom less im- 
 posingly, whilst the other will assuredly grow 
 taller. When a larger number of Regular 
 officers are by degrees brought into contact 
 with our citizen soldiers they will learn to 
 appreciate the full difference between a 
 fourteen to fifteen shilling a week hobblede- 
 hoy and a twenty-five shilling to thirty 
 shilling a week man (a type they have never 
 handled). They will then be in a better 
 position to understand how more instruction 
 than seemed heretofore possible can be 
 crammed into a period of time which would 
 be of very little value to the regular recruit. 
 Again, if a certain number of Territorial 
 officers can be sent at State expense to 
 British and Continental manoeuvres, they 
 may, whilst learning a great deal, manage 
 at the same time to acquire a better conceit 
 of themselves. Thus, from Regulars and 
 Territorials alike, the cousins and aunts 
 who practically rule England may grow 
 to understand that things are not so desper- 
 ately bad as in some quarters they are 
 represented to be. 
 
 But there is more than mere want of 
 knowledge at the back of the existing, 
 almost universal, depreciation of our Terri-
 
 MISCONCEPTIONS 117 
 
 torials. There has been put into circulation 
 a statement, official or semi-official, which, 
 being misinterpreted, has largely helped to 
 transform ignorance into prejudice. The 
 Territorials, it has been said, would be able 
 to fight Continental troops after being em- 
 bodied for six months. That is no doubt 
 the truth, but it is a truth carrying with it 
 to the uninstructed public the damning 
 implication that they would not be pre- 
 pared to fight before that time. Such 
 generalisations are always extremely unsafe. 
 This one is particularly dangerous, seeing 
 it took hold of the mind of the country 
 before Napoleon himself could have said 
 how the Territorials were going to turn out. 
 Now we do know a little about the matter, 
 and it may safely be said that the statement 
 went too far or not far enough. II it means 
 that at the end of six months' embodiment 
 Territorial troops could cherish reasonable 
 hopes of defeating first-line Continental 
 
 Regular troops in the open field, on even 
 
 terms, rifle for rifle, ^un for gun, why, then 
 
 it goes tOO Ear. If il is to be held to imply 
 that Territorial troops arc so want inn- in 
 soldierly qualities and training that they 
 
 could not be n .<■<! I" figb.1 continental troops 
 to-morrow, then it is at least equally mis-
 
 118 FIGHTING QUALITY 
 
 leading. I can name you brigades of Terri- 
 torials ready and available to be entrained 
 and sent off at a few hours' notice. Taking 
 with them three days' rations and three 
 hundred rounds, they would fight any one 
 you like to name at daybreak to-morrow 
 morning, this being 3 p.m. They would 
 conduct themselves with more zeal than 
 skill. They would suffer heavy losses. 
 Proportionately the enemy's losses would 
 be slight. If defeated, they would go abso- 
 lutely to pieces for a time. Still, were they 
 respectably handled and were they in a 
 superiority of say three to one, they would 
 fight well enough to give the best of enemies 
 a bellyful. 
 
 Every day would make a difference. At 
 the end of a month's embodiment it would 
 be a different story. At the end of six 
 months' embodiment it would be a very 
 different story. By that time, in my opinion, 
 a twenty-five per cent superiority in 
 numbers ought to give them a fair 
 fighting chance, and a superiority of half 
 as many again ought to give them a good 
 chance of the victory, especially as we 
 must always bear in mind that after six 
 months' war a Continental army would 
 not consist so much of first-line troops
 
 LEADING OF TERRITORIALS 119 
 
 as of Reserves. In such case our Terri- 
 torials should be almost, if not quite, their 
 equals. 
 
 In the foregoing estimates (to which you 
 will attach just so much importance as 
 may be warranted by my personal ex- 
 periences) I am assuming existing con- 
 ditions. On the one hand, I do not allow 
 for any further improvement which may, 
 nay, must, take place in the Territorial 
 Force; on the other, I assume that even 
 although our full six Divisions have quitted 
 the country, there remain (as there must 
 remain) some thousands of odds and cuds 
 of Regulars to give here and there some 
 guidance, example, point, and coherence to 
 the ranks of the Territorial Divisions. 
 A few battalions of Guards, some bat- 
 teries of Horse Artillery, and some bat- 
 talions of Special Reserve, would also be 
 available to lend a hand under any con- 
 ditions I can conceive. Finally, I assume, 
 as I have already indicated, thai the Terri- 
 torials will be handled by sonic one who 
 
 understands them. A freshly embodied 
 Militia ni;i\ not be marched < > if their legs 
 or manoeuvred in precisely the same way 
 as the Brigade of Guards might with advan- 
 tage be marched or manoeuvred. If the
 
 120 THE MORAL FACTOR 
 
 enemy would like to have the fate of England 
 staked upon one great battle fought over 
 open ground, a sort of second Battle of 
 Hastings, in fact, he must not be indulged. 
 One of the numerous qualities we demand 
 (and sometimes do not get) in a General, is 
 the art of playing up to the characteristics 
 of his troops. Those, then, who lead Terri- 
 torials in war should have had some experi- 
 ence of them in peace. 
 
 I have tried to show that want of know- 
 ledge, aggravated by the misapprehension 
 of the statement about the six months, are 
 each in their way responsible for the low 
 prevailing estimates of Territorial efficiency. 
 But I think I can lay my finger on one more 
 reason for this unwonted fit of modesty on 
 the part of the British nation. 
 
 The moral factor, the greatest factor of 
 all, seems to have received but scant con- 
 sideration at the hands of any of the critics. 
 Foreign officers are more generous. They 
 admit that our Regular Army is sure to fight 
 well, because the men are volunteers, and 
 may therefore be presumed to be by nature 
 combative. But I have explained that only 
 a small proportion of our Regular recruits 
 join from a compelling love of soldiering, 
 whereas in the Territorials there is hardly
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SPIRIT 121 
 
 a man who has not joined for the express 
 object of having a good fight if any fighting 
 happens to come his way. There is hardly 
 a Territorial, I believe, who does not, at the 
 bottom of his heart, hope to go into one 
 historic battle during his military existence. 
 Otherwise why should he be there, sweating 
 and toiling during his holiday — attacking, 
 defending, aiming ? Defence of hearth and 
 home ? Yes ; but he will be delighted, not 
 downhearted, like some others of his fellow- 
 countrymen, when he hears that the in- 
 vaders have landed. 
 
 Napoleon has told us that the moral is to 
 the physical as three is to one. The Scriptures 
 tell us that " where there is no vision the 
 people perish." Clauscwitz has said, " In 
 the combat the loss of moral force is the 
 chief cause of the decision." Blindness to 
 moral forces and worship of material forces 
 inevitably lead in war to destruction. All 
 that exaggerated reliance placed upon 
 chassepots and mitrailleuses by France be- 
 fore '70; all thai trash writ ten by M. Bloch 
 
 before 190 1 aboul /oiks of fire across which 
 
 do living being could pass, h< raided nothing 
 
 but disaster. War is essentially the tri- 
 umph, not <»f a chassepol over ;i needle-gun, 
 not of a line of men entrenched behind
 
 122 THE PARADE AT WINDSOR 
 
 wire entanglements and fire-swept zones 
 over men exposing themselves in the open, 
 but of one will over another weaker will. 
 Are we then to leave our voluntary spirit, 
 a spirit dead or dying upon the Continent, 
 entirelv out of the count ? Are we to 
 imagine young men whose elders, safe from 
 service themselves, have passed a law com- 
 pelling them to serve willy-nilly — are we 
 to imagine them animated by the same 
 moral force as young men who have joined 
 the Colours from sheer love of them ? If 
 so, then all I can say is, Napoleon must be 
 wrong, and the ideal which has guided 
 British theory and practice for centuries 
 must be wrong and doubly wrong ! 
 
 You remember, do you not, the parade 
 of detachments of Territorials at Windsor ? 
 There were assembled together fishermen 
 from the misty islands of the North, miners 
 from the West, countrymen from South 
 and East, artisans from Birmingham, and 
 all sorts and conditions of life from the 
 great melting-pot of London. They had 
 come from all points of the compass to 
 receive their Colours from their King. At 
 two continental capitals have I seen a 
 similar parade ; and you may take my 
 word for it that in no essential point did
 
 QUALITY OF TERRITORIALS 123 
 
 our ceremonial suffer from the comparison. 
 Regular officers present were amazed. How 
 could the thing have been achieved ? Some 
 tried to explain the miracle by saying that 
 the officer in charge had a genius for 
 organising and instructing in spectacular 
 displays. I believe that to be the case. I 
 believe the Territorials were given every 
 possible chance to show the metal they were 
 made of. But can men be taught to march, 
 to handle arms, to salute and to stand 
 steady in the ranks, in twenty-four hours ? 
 The fact of the parade passing off, not only 
 without a hitch, but faultlessly, lay deeper 
 than any surface organisation or instruc- 
 tions issued on the spot and at the last 
 moment. The men were first-class men — 
 free men : alive to the business on hand 
 ;iikI previously prepared to perform it so as 
 to reflecl credit on their corps. To a 
 civilian, a spectacular show may seem as 
 Ear removed as anything well can be from the 
 realities of war ; bul it is none the less the case 
 thai a greal notion ol Bervice efficiency can 
 be obtained by watching how men of fighting 
 race carr) themselves on greal occasions. 
 It is ;i commonplace <»f military literal ure 
 
 lli.it ;i Militia c;innol Ik. Id its own against 
 
 Regulars. Bul there is not a soldier who
 
 124 SOUTH AFRICAN EXPERIENCE 
 
 would not admit also that the moral out- 
 values the material. Indeed, Monongahela, 
 Lexington, Bunker's Hill, Jemappes, Baylen, 
 Prestonpans, Falkirk, Valmy, Maiwand, and 
 Majuba show that there must be another 
 side to the story, and that, even in days 
 when volley-firing and close formations lent 
 special value to strictest discipline, enthu- 
 siasm has sometimes found means to redress 
 the balance. 
 
 Elandslaagte was a hard-fought action. 
 Famous regiments were there, well repre- 
 sented. Joined unto them was the Imperial 
 Light Horse. The corps held its first parade 
 as a unit on October 8, 1899, when it was 
 inspected by Sir Archibald Hunter at Pieter- 
 maritzburg. I saw the men at work for 
 several hours next day. The material was 
 excellent. Mining engineers, lawyers, stock- 
 brokers, land surveyors, foremen of native 
 labour gangs, and artisans, shop assistants 
 and clerks. Morale was exceptional, the 
 corps being animated through and through 
 by a burning desire to vindicate the fighting 
 honour of their race, impugned in South 
 Africa since Majuba and, more than ever, 
 since the raid. A fine body of men had 
 been organised into a unit and had received 
 its equipment, but discipline and corporate
 
 THE IMPERIAL LIGHT HORSE 125 
 
 training had naturally not yet come into 
 existence. On the 21st of that same month 
 was fought Eland slaagte, on a small scale 
 one of the sharpest actions of the war. I 
 watched the Imperial Light Horse carefully 
 in the second advance, and was near them 
 in the fight. 
 
 By this time their standard of military 
 efficiency, from the point of view of the 
 training ground, was about as near as can 
 be that of a good British Yeomanry regi- 
 ment of our existing forces after it has 
 been, say, one week in camp. Individually 
 the Imperial Light Horse were better edu- 
 cated and more able to think and act for 
 themselves, but what they gained in this 
 respecl over our Yeomanry (physically fully 
 their equals) w;is losl again by I heir relative 
 lack of homogeneity. 
 
 In the ensuing action our troops re- 
 ceived ;i free invitation t<> nil their bellies 
 full of fighting. tc Lei the little newspaper 
 boys in London proclaim a British victory 
 in the streets to-morrow morning," was 
 the word, or hortative, given. Here are 
 our losses, surest guide, in victory or defeat, 
 of t he si illness of t tie affair : 
 
 ( H\nlry . . . . . . . • '34 
 
 Artillery 1*50
 
 126 THE COLONIALS 
 
 Devons . . . . . . . . . . 3 - 98 
 
 Manchesters . . . . . . . . 12*72 
 
 Gordons 28-94 
 
 Imperial Light Horse . . . . 15*97 
 
 You will observe that the Territorial 
 regiment, less highly trained than our 
 own present Yeomanry at the close of their 
 annual camp, emerges by no means so 
 badly from a comparison with its Regular 
 comrades. Also please note, as confirma- 
 tory of what has been said as to the value 
 of the moral element in war, that the 
 Gordons, like the Imperial Light Horse, 
 were sustained by a special animus, the 
 rankling memory of Majuba. 
 
 When considering the voluntary prin- 
 ciple, do not (now that the time of danger 
 seems past) listen to those who would 
 belittle the services of levies sent us in our 
 hour of direct need by self-governing and 
 Crown Colonies. Good wine needs no bush ; 
 and it would be superfluous indeed were I 
 to recapitulate the deeds of these corps 
 who, in their first encounters with the 
 enemy, were assuredly neither more highly 
 trained nor disciplined than our existing 
 Territorials. Also, pause a moment to con- 
 sider, in the case of each of those units, 
 whether, had thev been raised on a com-
 
 THE CITY IMPERIAL VOLUNTEERS 127 
 
 pulsory basis for home defence, we should 
 have had the benefit of their assistance. 
 
 Yet another example from the South 
 African War, an example this time which 
 has been freely used against the voluntary 
 idea. I refer to the City Imperial Volun- 
 teers. If you will turn up my evidence 
 given before the Royal Commission on the 
 South African War you will see that I, 
 speaking as their responsible Commander, 
 expressed the following opinion regarding 
 the corps : 
 
 Question 13005. " I think you had a 
 good opinion of the City Imperial Volun- 
 teers ? ' Yes ; they ripened very quickly. 
 They improved before my eyes. At the 
 crossing of the Zand River was the first 
 time J let them go at nil, and I was not 
 quite Mire of them, but they were .-ill right, 
 and then they did better still at Doornkop, 
 
 and :il Diamond Hill they did very well 
 
 indeed." 
 Again, giving evidence before the Duke 
 
 of Norfolk's Royal Commission, I said : 
 
 Question lit."). (Chairman) "Now as re- 
 gards the Volunteers ? " " I had the City 
 Imperial Volunteers when they Btarted, 
 and afterwards I had the Elswick Battery 
 
 Volunteers; I think I am within the mark
 
 128 ROYAL COMMISSION EVIDENCE 
 
 in saying I must have had over 30 Volunteer 
 Service Companies at different times under 
 me ; and, generally speaking, I think it 
 would be difficult to overpraise them. I 
 think that they were wonderfully good. 
 Shortly after the City Imperial Volunteers 
 joined me, in May, we fought the Zand 
 River action. I was not quite sure about 
 them then, and I do not think they were 
 quite sure of themselves, but they did 
 very well." 
 
 Question 1146. " Do you mean that you 
 were not sure of them before the action ? " — 
 " When I saw them during the action they 
 did not show the dash and go and confidence 
 that they developed later. About a fort- 
 night later, in quite a serious action at 
 Doornkop, at Johannesburg, General Bruce 
 Hamilton, owing perhaps to indistinct orders 
 from me, extended too far to his left, leaving 
 a gap in our centre between my two Infantry 
 Brigades. The City Imperial Volunteers 
 were on his left, and I had to ask him to 
 draw them in under fire ; this is a very 
 high test, and the C.I.V.'s came through it 
 excellently. Altogether, that day they be- 
 haved exceedingly well. At Diamond Hill 
 I had the good fortune to be associated 
 with some very distinguished regiments,
 
 ATTAINMENT OF FIGHTING VALUE 129 
 
 and I can only say I do not wish to serve 
 with any better regiments than the City 
 Imperial Volunteers were then. . . ." 
 
 This has not been denied, no one being 
 likely to try to traverse the statement. 
 But it has been urged that the C.I.V. took 
 so long to attain to this standard that they 
 thereby demonstrated what must be the 
 special weakness of any voluntary militia 
 system. 
 
 Now, the C.I.V. were embodied on 
 January 4, 1900. One wing embarked for 
 South Africa on January 13, the other on 
 January 20. The dates of Zand River, 
 Doornkop, and Diamond Hill are respectively 
 May 10, 1900, May 29, 1900, and June 12, 
 1900. I have, in my evidence above quoted, 
 stated that at the last-named action the 
 C.I.V. were the equal, in fighting efficiency, 
 of a regular battalion of the Line. Permit 
 me, however, to remind you that, in my 
 main argument, I have not assumed ihat a 
 Territorial battalion will he the equal of a 
 Regular battalion even after six months. 
 Here the corps in quest ion undoubtedly did 
 attain the full Regular fighting value within 
 less than six months of its formation, oik 
 month of which time was spent COmparal i\ <Iy 
 ineffectually at sea. Further, it is hardly 
 
 9
 
 130 CHARACTER OF TERRITORIAL SOLDIER 
 
 fair to compare a scratch battalion made up 
 from 47 units, commanded by officers drawn 
 from sixteen different battalions (even if 
 eight of these officers were Regulars) with a 
 homogeneous Territorial battalion rooted, as 
 it must be under the new system, in a life 
 and local tradition of its own, bearing the 
 title of an old-established Regular corps and 
 officered by fellow-townsmen or gentlemen 
 drawn from the neighbourhood of its head- 
 quarters. In certain cases the homogeneity 
 of our new Territorial units is even closer. 
 I know batteries and companies of Engineers 
 where the manager of some great factory 
 commands a rank and file composed entirely 
 of his own employees, officered by his deputy 
 managers and foremen. I know of squad- 
 rons of Yeomanry where the bulk of the 
 men are the sons of the tenants and small 
 farmers of the squadron leader. Whether 
 for war or peace, the value of such a com- 
 bination is difficult to exaggerate. Under 
 a system of compulsory service its benefits 
 must all be surrendered. 
 
 A fairer comparison for the purpose of 
 estimating the potential value of our present 
 system (although, I admit, not entirely 
 fair) would be that of the Volunteer com- 
 panies sent out to join their own Regular
 
 THE MORAL FACTOR 131 
 
 battalions later on in the war. Read 
 the evidence given before the War Com- 
 mission, and see how, in a comparatively 
 brief period, these became the acknow- 
 ledged equals of their comrades of the 
 Line. 
 
 I fear you may think I have been wasting 
 your time and my own by urging, with so 
 much insistence, that the moral factor 
 should be given its due weight in a discus- 
 sion on the merits of rival military systems. 
 At the first blush it might seem super- 
 fluous to vindicate a maxim of Napoleon's. 
 It would be so were it not that the present 
 generation seems more inclined to gape 
 with admiration at a complicated piece of 
 machinery or at some vast palatial edifice, 
 than to spare one thought for the high, 
 resolute intellect of the poor devil who 
 invented or designed these marvels. 
 
 Schemes bused entirely on material con- 
 siderations may endure for a while in peace. 
 But war searches t lie innermost part and 
 the uttermost corner. It is on moral forces 
 we must stand or fall in battle; and I ask 
 you to consider whether these are most 
 likely to be found living and active amongst 
 volunteers or amongst conscripts. 
 
 I do not really know if you were ever
 
 132 DEVELOPMENT OF TERRITORIAL FORCE 
 
 imprisoned in that confused region of thought 
 wherein wiseacres discuss the dates by 
 which Territorials might be trusted to fight. 
 If so, I trust I have helped you to escape, 
 and to realise that our friends the Territorials 
 may be relied upon to put up a fight, effective 
 or not according to their standard of disci- 
 pline, training and equipment, the moment 
 (be it to-morrow or a year hence) they are 
 ordered to take the field. They will fight ; 
 but do not expect miracles. I have advised 
 you that our existing Territorials, after 
 being embodied for six months, might 
 reasonably expect to defeat a first - line 
 hostile Regular force if they outnumbered 
 that force considerably. Also that by such 
 a date they should be able to hold their own 
 with continental troops consisting mostly of 
 reserves. In proportion as the period of 
 embodiment is shortened, so must you 
 increase your numerical superiority. 
 
 So far, I have been writing of the Terri- 
 torial Force as it actually stands at present. 
 But obviously the last word has not yet 
 been said on Territorial efficiency. There 
 is room for much progress. Partly we may 
 expect this progress to be automatic : the 
 annual improvement of officers and non- 
 commissioned officers ; the eventual inclu-
 
 USEFUL EXPENDITURE 133 
 
 sion in the ranks of a due proportion of 
 men of four years' service. Partly we 
 must hope, and we do hope, that progress 
 will be accelerated and brought about by 
 supplementary expenditure. Many of my 
 comrades of the Regular Army understand 
 perfectly well how quickly the Territorial 
 ship would respond to the provision of the 
 additional ha'porth of tar. Yet they hesi- 
 tate to encourage you to be liberal, because 
 they think that any addition to expenditure 
 on the Territorial Force must be made, 
 ultimately, at the cost of the Regular Army. 
 But I submit that until some such ruinous 
 proposition takes actual shape, they are not 
 justified in framing their military opinions 
 upon suppositions concerning policy. For 
 myself at least, I do not hesitate to advise 
 you to brush aside all problematical fore- 
 casts and to press oil double-quick time with 
 your efforts to raise the Territorial standard 
 — provided always you conclude definitely 
 in favour of the maintenance of the existing 
 system. 
 
 At a length which must, I fear, have 
 wearied you, I have now .-it b-osi shown you, 
 as it were in rough framework, the general 
 shape, scope, and st rud ure of several diverse 
 military systems. Uul before electing for
 
 134 REAL ALTERNATIVE POLICIES 
 
 the type which seems most suitable, I beg 
 you to have still a little patience and to 
 revolve in your mind the various military 
 policies open to such an Empire as that of 
 Greater Britain. At present I distinguish 
 three possible policies, and I seem also to 
 be conscious of a fourth method, although 
 that, as yet, only vaguely emerges from 
 the background of my thought : 
 
 First Policy 
 
 (The Imperial Policy) 
 
 (1) A long-range Regular Force raised 
 by voluntary enlistment. 
 
 (2) A Regular, central Reserve based 
 on voluntary enlistment. 
 
 (3) A voluntarily enlisted Militia. 
 
 (1) and (2) provide the foreign garrisons 
 and the Expeditionary Force. (3), stiffened 
 by such Regulars as are not absorbed by (1) 
 and (2), supplies the force for Home Defence 
 in the first instance ; for reinforcement of 
 the Expeditionary Force (when the danger 
 of invasion does not exist or has passed 
 away) in the second. It should be numerous 
 enough and well enough trained to deal with 
 any invading army whose modest dimen-
 
 A CONTINENTAL ARMY 135 
 
 sions might have enabled it to slip through 
 the meshes of our naval defence. 
 
 Second Policy 
 (The Continental or European Policy) 
 
 (1) A short-range, regular, national 
 Army raised by conscription on the 
 German model. (For reasons of ex- 
 pense, more exemptions would have to 
 be made than on the Continent, so as 
 to keep our strength proportionately 
 lower.) 
 
 (2) A Regular force raised by volun- 
 tary enlistment to garrison India and 
 the over-sea stations. (For reasons of 
 expense, linked units serving al home 
 would be disbanded and replaced by 
 depots. The men would be enlisted 
 for long service. Special Reserve bat- 
 talions would be abolished. Long-rangi 
 reinforcements could only be obtained 
 liy tempting individuals from the 
 national Army t<> volunteer.) 
 
 The foregoing is ;i practicable policy. If, 
 ;is w;is stated Mi' 1 other day in thai sober 
 paper Le Steele, "the destruction <>f the 
 European equilibrium would bring with it
 
 136 HOME-DEFENCE POLICY 
 
 the ruin of the British Empire without 
 much delay " — if such a statement is ac- 
 cepted — then an army on a continental 
 scale may be required for service in 
 Europe, and it becomes conceivable that 
 a military system such as I have described 
 is the paramount necessity for Greater 
 Britain. 
 
 Third Policy 
 (The Home-Defence Policy) 
 
 (1) A Home-Defence Militia raised 
 on a national compulsory basis. 
 
 (2) A Regular Force as in (2) of the 
 " Second Policy." (It should be noted 
 that such a Force could furnish few, 
 if any, surplus troops wherewith to 
 stiffen (1).) 
 
 This third policy (less (2), which is in- 
 applicable to those countries) is, at the 
 moment I write, being frankly adopted by 
 Australia, New Zealand and, possibly, South 
 Africa. In the widely read editorial para- 
 graphs of The Observer newspaper of July 8, 
 1910, a similar system is suggested for our 
 own adoption ; not, be it remarked, as an 
 incident of, or auxiliary to, Imperial Defence, 
 but as a means of making Home Defence
 
 ITS DANGER TO THE EMPIRE 137 
 
 our paramount military policy. I quote 
 the extract, as it will convey to you, with 
 brilliant clearness and brevity, a conception 
 of war which has been held in turn by the 
 Poles and by the Boers. 
 
 "... We may have, if we choose, a citi- 
 zen reserve of some 2,000,000 well-trained 
 men at a less cost than that of our more 
 artificial and hopelessly inadequate pro- 
 fessional Army of to-day. Then, and not 
 until then, our shores will be impregnable, 
 our alliances will be secure, our naval pre- 
 dominance will be indirectly, but most 
 powerfully reinforced, and the maintenance 
 of the Empire will be guaranteed. A citizen 
 force of that kind never could be used as an 
 instrument of aggression, but it would be a 
 tremendous potentiality for defence in a 
 supreme crisis, and it would lay a new 
 foundation tor national health, as well as 
 for national safety." 
 
 There is nothing equivocal about the pro- 
 posal. We are i<> destroy our "artificial" 
 professional Army, Hi*' artificiality thereof 
 being presumably its military Bpirit. We 
 are, in lieu, to create an enormous, com- 
 pulsorily enlisted Militia, and make it the 
 mainstay of our whole system of Imperial 
 defence. I am trying to write in an
 
 138 THE BETTER WAY 
 
 impartial spirit and to discover whether 
 anything helpful to us can be found in any 
 proposal seriously put forward. But here, I 
 confess, I see nothing but harm and danger. 
 
 The threat of invasion either is, or is not, 
 a reality. 
 
 If it is a reality, and if a highly trained 
 Regular force of seventy thousand men could 
 be landed in England, where is the General 
 who is ambitious to face them with such 
 a monstrous agglomeration of half-baked, 
 conscript militiamen ? Hannibal, with 
 20,000 professional soldiers, went near to 
 destroying the Republic of Rome, which had 
 some seven or eight hundred thousand men 
 available for its conscript Militia. He sat 
 down amongst those Militia conscripts and 
 lived for a long time happily and well, as 
 it might be at Birmingham, snug as a snail 
 in a hive full of honey. Difficulties of 
 marching and manoeuvring increase with 
 the numbers employed, and the larger the 
 force the more necessarv that its com- 
 ponents should be " artificial," to accept 
 the new and clever differentiation between 
 the soldier and the militiaman. 
 
 No ; if we are to turn 70,000 continental 
 Regulars into a monument, let us, whatever 
 happens, find a few thousand Regulars in
 
 CONCLUSIONS 139 
 
 the country at the time we are invaded. Let 
 their Militia comrades be in manageable 
 strength and, as far as possible, in spirit, 
 in name and in associations assimilated to 
 those Regulars. Our present Territorials 
 exactly fulfil those conditions. Stiffened by 
 the Guards, Horse Artillery, and other very 
 considerable numbers of Regulars and 
 Special Reserve battalions unallotted to the 
 Expeditionary Force, they could make a 
 manageable field army of a quarter of a 
 million men, sufficient, I consider, for the 
 job we have under consideration. 
 
 If, on the other hand, invasion is so 
 improbable that it need hardly be taken into 
 account, our reserves of national strength 
 should be organised not for a " tremendous 
 potentiality for defence in a supreme crisis " 
 (the phrase embodies in highly concentrated 
 form a maximum <>f military heresy), but 
 for the purpose Eor which every true soldier 
 in the kingdom would desire them, namely, 
 
 the purpose ol over-se;is warfare. 1 
 
 1 W'Ihii the mind i BOnOentrated "ii .^.inHliinR, it i* 
 
 Btrango \\<>w > >< >< • k - . papers, Mid conversations teem to 
 combine to bring grist i" the mill. Sere, tot in.ti<n... 
 to-day, in Vienna of * » 1 1 places in the vrorld, jusi as I have 
 
 got so far, tho London 7 mt . ol AugU I 27, OOim 
 
 opportunely to my help. Bpeal I the Canadian 
 
 Regiment, its Military < k>] ra pondent says 'The supreme
 
 140 GROWTH OF OUR SYSTEM 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 In proportion as I have written so have 
 I gradually gained the impression that in 
 course of time political ideals must in- 
 evitably shape military systems. Our actual 
 military system has not sprung up in so 
 haphazard a fashion as has been imagined, 
 but is actually the result of generations of 
 endeavour, often by men of superior capa- 
 city, to adjust our military methods and 
 expenditure to our needs. In no other way 
 is it possible to explain how an organisation, 
 seemingly such a patchwork of expedients, 
 stands so well the test of careful comparison 
 with organisations much more logical and 
 
 test of war showed the value of a National Militia raised 
 upon a voluntary basis, well led and stiffened by a small 
 but very efficient force of Regulars. The glories of Detroit, 
 Queenstown Heights, Landy's Lane, Chrystler's Farm, 
 and Chateau Gay still cause a tingle of proper pride in 
 the heart of every true Canadian. The memorable victory 
 of de Salaberry, an officer of the 60th Royal Americans, 
 on October 26, 1813, who, with 360 Militia from Lower 
 Canada, defeated an American Army of 7,000 men under 
 General Hampton upon the banks of the Chateau Gay 
 River, near Montreal, will always be remembered as a 
 splendid feat of arms. It is an example for all time of 
 what Militia troops, well led, can do in defence of their 
 hearths and homes." Never a truer word written — 
 especially that about the leaven of Regulars.
 
 A NEW FACTOR 141 
 
 apparently more effective, but created for 
 other ends than ours. 
 
 A new factor — a danger since several 
 hundred years not so threatening — now 
 begins to cast its shadow across the path- 
 way of Imperial progress. What then ? 
 Have we not still to hold India and the 
 coaling stations ? Must we weaken that 
 hold ? Shall we, panic - stricken, destroy 
 all that has gone before : priceless regi- 
 mental traditions ; the voluntary idea, 
 typical of our race and the creator of our 
 national glory ? Would it not be wiser, 
 as well as more valiant, to preserve what 
 we have and make supplementary provision 
 for the storm ? 
 
 The ultimate conclusions I arrive at in 
 my own mind are : 
 
 (1). Our last shilling must be staked, 
 if necessary, on the maintenance of 
 sr a command. 
 
 (2) Only sailors can advise us how 
 far that command protects us iiHaiiisl 
 invasion. 
 
 (:>) When we are advised that no 
 overwhelming force can be landed, we 
 should — undisturbed by the considera- 
 tion of whether this or that land force 
 is sufficient to ward off invasion — set
 
 142 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 ourselves deliberately to perfect the 
 organisation of our military strength 
 for Imperial purposes. 
 If a rich nation turns its mind entirely 
 to defence, it commits the deadly sin of 
 tempting others to transgress. By renounc- 
 ing the offensive idea it goes just half-way 
 to inviting its rivals to attack ; the whole 
 way, of course, being disarmament. It is 
 as if a possessor of priceless jewels, living 
 in a lawless land (for what is international 
 law ?) were to break off the point of his 
 rapier and to turn all his energies to prac- 
 tising the guards. With such as he every 
 young braggart must long to cross swords. 
 There is so much to gain, so little to lose. 
 
 The patriotic men who are the driving 
 power behind the appeal for compulsory 
 service see this clearly enough, and they 
 hope, by emphasising the danger of invasion, 
 to secure from the people authority which 
 may be used to forge a weapon for attack, 
 whenever the moment to defend ourselves 
 arises. Unfortunately, a shield is not easily 
 convertible into a spear ; still less into a 
 projectile. 
 
 Better, then, be quite frank with the people. 
 So we may get half a loaf out of them, in 
 the shape of a force created for over-sea
 
 A CONCEPTION 143 
 
 purposes, instead of a stone in the shape of 
 a great defensive army, of no earthly use 
 except to hang round our necks whilst we 
 struggle in the slough of insolvency. 
 
 This is the bold game to play ; and in 
 military affairs the bold game generally 
 proves safest in the long run. 
 
 As to how we should proceed in perfecting 
 our Imperial military organisation, here is 
 my conception. You will observe that it 
 involves the minimum of change compatible 
 with the large potential forces it brings upon 
 the scene. 
 
 First Line. — The Regular Army and 
 Special Reserve as we know them. 
 
 Second Line. — The Territorial Force, very 
 much improved as an instrument for offence 
 as well as defence. In any case it must, in 
 the ordinary course of things, become auto- 
 matieally more eflieient year by year. Some 
 folk have seemed to imagine that fourteen 
 Divisions can be created, trained, and 
 equipped, cheaply and on the voluntary 
 system, within a period of two or three 
 years. Argumenl is wasted upon ignorance 
 
 so colossal. Hut you will have understood, 
 
 from what I have said before, I hat I think 
 
 the time has come when this necessarily 
 
 slow process should be accelerated by the
 
 144 SOME FALLACIES 
 
 exercise of greater liberality. The second 
 line would be ready, just as the old Militia 
 was ever ready, to come to the help of the 
 Regular Army in time of real national emer- 
 gency, wherever that army might be fighting. 
 The same men who argue that, because 
 voluntarily enlisted Territorials and Militia 
 freely enter the Regular Army, therefore 
 conscripts will also freely volunteer, main- 
 tain also that the Territorials will not leave 
 England as units to fight alongside their 
 Regular comrades. The misleading South 
 African analogy is trotted out, when the 
 authorities refused the offer of the Volun- 
 teers when they were enthusiastic, and then, 
 when the enthusiasm had burnt itself out, 
 when the war had officially been stated to 
 be practically over, asked them to step for- 
 ward. But apart from this the analogy is, 
 for other reasons also, absolutely misleading. 
 The Volunteer could not volunteer to go 
 abroad in his capacity as a member of the 
 Volunteer Force. It was not legal. If he 
 wanted to go and help the Regulars he had 
 first to be re-enlisted as something else. 
 The Territorial, like the old Militiaman, can 
 legally volunteer to go abroad, not only 
 individually, but in his unit. I may remind 
 you that it took us the whole period of the
 
 A THIRD LINE 145 
 
 Napoleonic wars to arrive at the latter 
 ideal. Not till 1813 were Militia units 
 allowed to volunteer for foreign service in 
 their corporate capacity. But we are going 
 ahead now, though so many seem to think 
 we are asleep. Again, during the South 
 African War the Volunteers were not em- 
 bodied. They were working men earning 
 their daily bread in situations not very 
 easily to be regained if once they were given 
 up. The Territorials, on the other hand, 
 will be automatically embodied when mo- 
 bilisation is ordered. They may be sent 
 to Ireland or to Salisbury Plain or to the 
 great fortresses of the South. No question 
 of giving up employment will arise. The 
 men themselves, their employers, their 
 sweethearts, the Cabinet, will all feel and 
 say the same : " Better fight this out on the 
 enemy's territory t lian on our own. Help the 
 Regulars and get the tiling over once for all." 
 Third Line. — A great organisation which, 
 
 for financial reasons, COIlld in peace he* 
 
 very little more than a paper affair, bu1 
 
 might, after the outbreak of war, become 
 
 operative. Remember it was the seemingly 
 dead paper law of L881, creating the nominal 
 Garde Nationale, which wenl within an ace 
 
 of saving France in '70 l>\ enabling Gam- 
 
 10
 
 146 COMPULSION FOR THIRD LINE 
 
 betta to call out the nation to fight. Had 
 the Rhine been the Channel, with even an 
 occasional French warship interrupting Ger- 
 man communications, that law would have 
 won the trick. The avowed purpose of the 
 organisation would be the maintenance in 
 the field during hostilities of both first and 
 second lines. This third line organisation 
 would be based on compulsion ; but as that 
 element would be latent, the voluntary 
 spirit of the nation would not thereby 
 become in any way impaired. If ever we 
 had to call upon our third line to advance, 
 it would be because the nation and the 
 Empire were fighting for bare life. Only 
 drafts, and those only for short-range Euro- 
 pean purposes, could we reasonably demand 
 from it. 
 
 It should be possible enough to pass a 
 Bill for such latent conscription now, in 
 time of peace, but it might easily prove 
 impossible for any one but a dictator to do 
 so in time of war, yes, even though patriotism 
 pointed clearly towards such a step. During 
 perhaps two or three months of the South 
 African War, conscription would have been 
 accepted, but I put it to you that the 
 nation would never have swallowed that 
 dose of physic during the preliminary or
 
 FINAL WORDS 147 
 
 later phases of the campaign. No ; not if 
 the refusal had involved the loss of South 
 Africa ; not if the loss of South Africa 
 had involved a mutiny in India and the 
 secession of Canada and Australia. 
 
 But if the power was there, latent, then 
 at the psychological moment — the states- 
 man applies his match to the priming. 
 
 Our Expeditionary Force, plus our Terri- 
 torial Force and its stiffening of unallotted 
 Regulars, represent between them a fighting 
 organisation of something like half a million 
 men. All things — especially finance — con- 
 sidered, I question whether it is possible or 
 necessary for us to contemplate larger 
 military effectives for over-seas offensive 
 purposes. 
 
 One last word. If you wish to count 
 your bayonets by the million, you must 
 make up your mind to retrace the steps of 
 Empire. If you wish to maintain the 
 
 Empire you must encourage the voluntary 
 
 spirit. The human heart is not a savings- 
 bank; rich in proportion as nothing is 
 
 drawn from it. Speaking of the fountain 
 
 of goodness, M;iiciis Aurdius Antoninus 
 
 says, ' k Ever dig and it will ever well forth." 
 
 The only way to run it dry is to bottle it 
 up. So with the Voluntary spirit. The
 
 148 FINAL WORDS 
 
 greater the demands you make upon it, the 
 more wonderfully will it rise to meet them. 
 But whatever you do, remember, I beg of 
 you, that the best defence to a country is 
 an army formed, trained, inspired by the 
 idea of the attack. If I have succeeded in 
 bringing prominently to your notice the 
 dangers of the mere defence, then indeed 
 I shall feel I have not written in vain. 
 Once we fall into that pitfall, once we 
 begin to develop (and pay for) " a tre- 
 mendous potentiality for defence," by just 
 so much must we paralyse our own attack, 
 sacrifice our initiative, and imperil all 
 that we stand for in the world. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Ian Hamilton.
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 APP. 
 
 I Text of the Bill Introduced in the House of Lords 
 to Give Effect to the Proposals of the National 
 Service League pp. 151-159 
 
 II Memorandum of the National Service League on 
 the National Service (Training and Home Defence) 
 Bill pp. 160-162 
 
 III Estimate by the National Service League of the 
 Numbers and Cost involved under its Proposals. 
 
 pp. 163-181 
 
 IV Parliamentary Paper (House of Lords, July 8, 1909) 
 containing the remarks of the finance department 
 of the War Offi< e on the Estimate of the National 
 Service League pp. 182-188 
 
 V Notes on War Omi ■ Paper " Army, July 8, 190'.t," 
 by the National Servp r. Leamt. . . pp. 189-197 
 
 VT Supplementary Note by the Finan< i: Dftaktment of 
 the War Office pp. 198-201 
 
 VII Financial Notes on a POMXOT ComamiFl An my fob 
 Home I r. pp. 202-208 
 
 VIII NbZM ffiNTAINIVfJ Till'. Al'MIKAITV Vll.W 
 
 of Tin. Risk of Invasion . . pp. L* ' » '. » 212 
 
 149
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 TEXT OF THE BILL INTRODUCED IN 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS TO GIVE 
 EFFECT TO THE PROPOSALS OF THE 
 NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE 
 
 A Bill intituled an Act to provide for a d. iwb. 
 National Service in the Territorial Force, 
 and for that purpose to amend the Terri- 
 torial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907. 
 
 Be it enacted by the King's most Excellrni 
 Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of 
 the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, 
 in this presenl Parliament assembled, and by the 
 
 authority of the same, as follows : — 
 
 1. — (1) After the commencement of this .Vt , ,,,,,^^1 
 and subject as hereinafter provided, every male 
 person who is a British subject and resident in ',''„.' ',". !'*,.'" 
 the United Kingdom or the [sle of Man, Bhall be 
 liable during the term of Bervice required under 
 thia Act to be trained in the manner and to 
 
 the extent provided III tlil-.Vt. .1 1 1 d , i 1 1 CI se nf 
 
 imminent national danger or great emergency, 
 to be oalled "nt for service, as a man of the 
 Territorial Force; said the provi i< d ot Part II. _ 
 of the Territorial and Reserve Forcea Act, 1907 
 
 (in this Act called the principal Act) shall, IUD- 
 
 151
 
 152 APPENDIX I 
 
 ject to such modifications as are contained in 
 this Act, apply to every person liable to serve by 
 virtue of this Act as if he had been duly enlisted 
 in the Territorial Force for the said term of 
 service. 
 
 (2) The term of service required in the case of 
 a person liable to serve by virtue of this Act shall 
 commence on the first day of January next after 
 he attains the age of eighteen years, and shall 
 terminate on the thirty-first day of December 
 next after he attains the age of thirty years : 
 
 (3) Nothing in this section shall apply to — 
 
 (a) Any person in or belonging to His 
 
 Majesty's Navy or the Royal Naval 
 Reserve ; or 
 
 (b) Any officer of the regular forces, any 
 
 reserve officer within the meaning of 
 the Royal Warrant regulating the 
 composition of the reserve of officers, 
 or any non-commissioned officer or 
 man belonging to the regular or re- 
 serve forces ; or 
 
 (c) Any person who has attained the age of 
 
 eighteen years before the commence- 
 ment of this Act. 
 
 ^oMof" ^' — (*) ^ e P rov i s i° ns °f subsection (3) of 
 
 ind ri R^lrle section nine °f t ^ ie principal Act (which entitle a 
 
 ^9°oT 8Act ' man °^ t ^ ie Territorial Force to be discharged 
 
 on complying with certain conditions), shall not 
 
 apply in the case of a person liable to serve by
 
 NATIONAL SERVICE BILL 153 
 
 virtue of this Act, and no such person shall be 
 discharged by his commanding officer under sub- 
 section (4) of that section without the consent of 
 the Army Council. 
 
 (2) The provisions of proviso (a) to subsection 
 (1) of section nine of the principal Act (which 
 relate to appointments to corps), shall not apply 
 in the case of a person liable to serve by virtue 
 of this Act, but every such person shall on being 
 enrolled in the Territorial Force be appointed to 
 serve in such corps, and posted to such unit in 
 that corps, as the Army Council in the prescribed 
 manner direct : 
 
 Provided that, in appointing or posting any 
 person, regard shall, so far as the circumstances 
 of the case admit, be had to his wishes in the 
 matter. 
 
 3. Subject to the provisions of this section PmUkm 
 every person liable to serve by virtue of this training. 
 Act— 
 (l) shall, in thf first year of his term of service, 
 undergo training as a recruit, that is to 
 say, be trained at such places within 
 the United Kingdom and at sinli times 
 .i may be prescribed, and, in the ease 
 
 of a man of tin infantry branoh, for a 
 oontinnons period of four months, and, 
 in the oase of a man in any o\ her branch, 
 for snob oontinnons period nol being 
 
 less than four nor more than -i\ months 
 as may be prescribed ; and
 
 154 APPENDIX I 
 
 (2) shall, in each of the three years next follow- 
 ing the year of his training as a recruit — 
 (i) be trained for a continuous 
 period of fifteen days at such time and 
 at such places in any part of the 
 United Kingdom as may be prescribed; 
 (ii) fire the prescribed course of 
 musketry and fulfil the other condi- 
 tions relating to training prescribed 
 for his branch of the service : 
 Provided that — 
 
 (a) the Army Council may, if they think 
 it desirable so to do in the case of 
 any person, postpone his training as 
 a recruit till the second or third 
 year of his term of service ; and 
 (6) except during any period when a pro- 
 clamation ordering the Army Re- 
 serve to be called out on permanent 
 service is in force, no person shall 
 be liable to be trained as a recruit 
 after the expiration of the third 
 year of his term of service. 
 
 Exemptions 4, — (1) The persons specified in the First and 
 fications. Second Parts of the Schedule to this Act shall be 
 exempt from liability to be trained under this 
 Act (but not from liability to be called out for 
 service in case of imminent national danger or 
 great emergency). 
 
 (2) The persons specified in the Third Part of
 
 NATIONAL SERVICE BILL 155 
 
 the Schedule to this Act shall be disqualified for 
 service in the Territorial Force. 
 
 (3) Where in any legal proceedings any person 
 claims to be entitled to an exemption under this 
 Act, it shall lie on the person alleging the exemp- 
 tion to prove that he is so entitled. 
 
 (4) Every person declared by the Army 
 Council to be disqualified for service in the 
 Territorial Force, and every person who is exempt 
 from training as belonging to one of the classes 
 of persons specified in the Second Part of the 
 Schedule to this Act, shall in each year in which, 
 if he had not been so disqualified or exempt (as 
 the case may be), he would have been liable to 
 be trained under this Act, be liable, if his total 
 income for the year exceeds fifty-two pounds, to 
 pay for the use of His Majesty a sum equal to 
 one per cent, of that total income, and any sum 
 so payable shall be recoverable on complaint to a 
 court of summary jurisdiction by the prescribed 
 officer, and any sums received by him shall 
 be accounted for by him in the presoribed 
 
 manner. 
 
 5. Every person liable to be trained anderpoaWuMsi 
 this Act who without leave lawfully granted, ortoattmd 
 
 ... . . . for tnialne. 
 
 such siekness or other reasonable excuse as may 
 be allowed in the presoribed maimer, fails to 
 attend for training in pursuance of tins Act, or 
 to attend on such ooca iom i he it required to 
 
 attend for the purpose of fulfilling the conditions 
 relating to training prescribed for his branch of
 
 156 APPENDIX I 
 
 the service, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour 
 and shall be liable on conviction on indictment 
 to imprisonment with or without hard labour for 
 a term not exceeding six months, or to a fine not 
 exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both, and on 
 summary conviction to imprisonment with or 
 without hard labour for a term not exceeding 
 three months, or to a fine not exceeding fifty 
 pounds, or to both. 
 liability to? 6. If any person liable to serve by virtue of 
 tions tor this Act is convicted under section twenty of the 
 
 evasion. 
 
 principal Act for failure to attend on embodi- 
 ment, the High Court, or in Scotland the Court 
 of Session, may, on the application of the Army 
 Council, order that he shall either permanently 
 or for any time specified in the order — 
 
 (a) be incapable of holding any office whatso- 
 ever in the service of the Crown ; 
 (6) be incapable of voting at any parliamentary 
 
 election ; and 
 (c) be disqualified for receiving an old age 
 pension. 
 Provision* 7. — (1) No person shall be recommended to 
 oftheTerri- His Majesty for appointment as an officer of the 
 
 torlal force. _ .,.,%, , 
 
 lerntorial force who — 
 (a) has not either undergone training as a 
 
 recruit, or held a commission as an 
 
 officer of the regular forces for at least 
 
 one whole year ; and 
 (6) does not satisfy the prescribed conditions 
 
 as to age, educational qualifications,
 
 NATIONAL SERVICE BILL 157 
 
 physical fitness, and any other require- 
 ments which may be prescribed. 
 (2) After the commencement of this Act the 
 provisions of section eight of the principal Act 
 (which relate to first appointments to the lowest 
 rank of officers of the Territorial Force) shall 
 cease to have effect. 
 
 8. — (1) The power to make orders and regula- Pow e r *° 
 
 - 1 ° make orders 
 
 tions under section seven of the principal Act and "guia- 
 
 r r tions. 
 
 shall extend to the making of orders and regula- 
 tions in reference to any of the following matters : 
 
 (a) any matters by this Act authorised or 
 required to be prescribed ; 
 
 (6) the preparation and keeping of lists and 
 registers of persons who are, or will 
 within six months become, liable to 
 serve by virtue of this Act, and the 
 obtaining of returns or particulars from 
 or as to any such persons ; 
 
 (c) the attendance for enrolment of persons 
 liable to serve by virtue of this Act ; 
 
 (<l) the notification to persons liable to serve 
 
 by virtue of this Act of their liabilities 
 under this Act ; 
 (e) the assignment to count} associations of 
 
 any powers and dul ie- in connect ion u it li 
 
 the oarrying of this Act into effect, 
 (2) If any person fails to comply with any 
 
 order or regulation made under tins section in 
 reference to attendance for enrolment or in 
 reference to returns or particulars to lie obtained
 
 158 APPENDIX I 
 
 from or as to persons liable, or about to become 
 liable, to serve by virtue of this Act, he shall be 
 liable on summary conviction to a penalty not 
 exceeding five pounds. 
 
 (3) Any orders or regulations made under sub- 
 section (6) of section seven of the principal Act 
 (which provides for the formation of a reserve 
 division of the Territorial Force) shall not apply 
 to persons liable to serve by virtue of this Act. 
 Raismg of 9. — (1) After the commencement of this Act 
 Force and voluntary enlistment and re-engagement for the 
 
 StiVinK for 
 
 men serving Territorial Force shall cease, and the Territorial. 
 
 at com- 
 
 mencement Force shall consist of the persons liable to serve 
 
 of Act. r 
 
 by virtue of this Act, and (until they are duly 
 discharged) of the persons constituting the 
 Territorial Force at the commencement of this 
 Act. 
 
 (2) Nothing in this Act shall affect the terms 
 or conditions of service of any person who is a 
 man of the Territorial Force at the commence- 
 ment of this Act. 
 short title io. — (1) This Act may be cited as the National 
 
 construction v ' J 
 
 and com- Service (Training and Home Defence) Act, 1909, 
 
 mencement. \ o ' 
 
 and shall be construed as one with the principal 
 Act, and that Act so far as it relates to the 
 Territorial Force and this Act may be cited 
 together as the Territorial Force Acts, 1907 and 
 1909. 
 
 (2) This Act shall come into operation on the 
 first day of January, nineteen hundred and ten.
 
 NATIONAL SERVICE BILL 159 
 
 SCHEDULE 
 
 Exemptions and Disqualifications 
 
 Part I 
 
 1. Any person who has held a commission as 
 an officer, or has served as a non-commissioned 
 officer or man for not less than three years in 
 the Navy or the Regular Forces. 
 
 2. Any person who has served for not less than 
 three years in any police force in the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 :{. Any person being the only son of a widow 
 who satisfies the Army Council in the prescribed 
 manner that his mother is wholly or mainly 
 dependent on him for support . 
 
 4. Any minister of religion of any denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 Part II 
 
 1. Any person who satisfies the Army Council 
 in the prescribed manner that by reason of 
 physical or mental infirmity he is permanently 
 unlit ted for i raining. 
 
 '2. Any person declared by the Army Council 
 
 to be exempt as being a person whom it is desir- 
 able to exempt in the interests ol the public 
 
 rvice. 
 
 Pari III 
 
 Any person declared by the Army Council to 
 be disqualified for lervioe in the Territorial Port e 
 as being a criminal, babitual drunkard, «>r othei 
 wise undesirable by reason oi bad oharaoter.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE 
 LEAGUE ON THE NATIONAL SERVICE 
 (TRAINING AND HOME DEFENCE) BILL 
 
 This Bill imposes on all male British subjects resi- 
 dent in the United Kingdom the obligation of serving 
 in the Territorial Force between the ages of eighteen 
 and thirty. There are, however, excluded from the 
 operation of the Bill all officers and men of the 
 Navy and Regular Army and of the Naval and 
 Military Reserve Forces (so that the existing volun- 
 tary system of raising the Regular Forces will in 
 no way be interfered with), and all persons who 
 reach the age of eighteen before the date on which 
 the Bill comes into operation, viz., 1st January 
 1910. 
 
 Subject to certain modifications, every person 
 who comes under the Bill will be in exactly the 
 same position as a person who now enlists volun- 
 tarily into the Territorial Force ; and will thus 
 during his term of service have to undergo training 
 and be liable to be called out for home defence in 
 case of imminent national danger, but will be under 
 no liability to serve outside the United Kingdom. 
 
 160
 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE BILL 161 
 
 Under the Bill liability to training will not (as 
 is now the case) extend over the whole term of 
 service, but will be limited to four years — normally 
 the first four years of the term, but in exceptional 
 cases the second to the fifth years, or the third to 
 the sixth. 
 
 The first year's training will be recruit training, 
 and will be four months for men in the Infantry, 
 and not less than four or more than six months for 
 men in other branches. In each of the three next 
 years, fifteen days' training as well as a course of 
 musketry and attendance at certain drills will be 
 required. 
 
 Liability to attend on embodiment {i.e. in case of 
 imminent national danger) will remain exactly as 
 it is under the Act of 1907. 
 
 The Bill secures absolute equality of treatment 
 
 bet ween .ill ola i ins imaon ae under no oir- 
 
 cumstanoec will any person be able t'> buj his dis- 
 
 charge <>r to procure any kind of exemption bj 
 
 means of ■■< money payment . 
 
 The Bill provide for the exemption from training 
 of (i) men who have served ;ii least three years in 
 tin- Arm} or KTavy, mini ten of religion, and (in 
 certain oa e ) onlj ion of widows; and (ii) persons 
 physioally incapacitated and certain persons em 
 ployed in public ervioe . and al o for the disquali 
 fioation of criminal and per on ol bad oharacter. 
 All person inola i(ii) and also persons disqualified, 
 will, if their inoomi oeed tiiu two pounds per 
 annum, be required, in each "i the four years 
 
 1 1
 
 162 APPENDIX II 
 
 during which they should have been trained, to pay 
 a special military tax amounting to one per cent 
 of their incomes. 
 
 As regards officers, it is proposed that first 
 appointments should only be given to persons who 
 have either been through recruit training or held 
 commissions in the regular army. 
 
 After the Bill comes into operation, voluntary 
 enlistment for the Territorial Force will cease, but 
 men now in the Force will complete their current 
 terms of service.
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 ESTIMATE BY THE NATIONAL SERVICE 
 LKAtJUE OF III i: M'MBERS AND COST 
 INVOLVED UNDER ITS PROPOSALS 
 
 Introductory 
 
 In advocating a great national reform which is 
 nti.illv based upon the principle of national 
 duty, it has naturally been necessary at final (<> 
 concentrate most of our efforts upon driving home 
 the justioe, necessity, and advantage of the adoption 
 oi compulsory military training for home defence. 
 It w:ii therefore thought advisable, in the first 
 in i moi to avoid going into minute detail as to 
 the precise periods <>i training proposed, as to the 
 numbers <•! men who would \><- trained, and the 
 oo i which would !»<• involved tinder such proposals. 
 The advance which has, however, been made in 
 the education of public opinion to the acceptance 
 of the principle oi National Bervioe for Some 
 Defence put forward by the League, makes it 
 d irable n<>\\ to deal with them- important practical 
 que tions <>f oost with all necossarj detail. This 
 has become all the more urgent in vien <>f the 
 
 lt',3
 
 164 APPENDIX III 
 
 strangely exaggerated and erroneous figures put 
 forward by official spokesmen. 
 
 Recently, both the Earl of Crewe in the House of 
 Lords, and Mr. Haldane in the House of Commons, 
 gave the figure of £20,000,000 as the additional cost 
 of adopting a system of compulsory military training 
 somewhat on the lines of the National Service 
 League. On November 23, 1908, in the debate 
 upon Lord Roberts's great speech in the House of 
 Lords, the Earl of Crewe said : ' The existence of 
 that force, trained in the manner in which the 
 Special Reserve is trained, which, I believe, is the 
 demand made, would mean, I suppose, an addition 
 of something like £20,000,000 a year to the Army 
 Estimates." Mr. Haldane, speaking at the City 
 Liberal Club, said that " of course " Lord Roberts 
 did not trouble about the addition of a trifling sum 
 like £20,000,000 to the Army Estimates. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the League has decided to show in the 
 following pages the probable number of men who 
 would be trained under our proposals ; and, further, 
 the cost of such training, estimated upon two 
 different bases, but in each case upon official figures. 
 
 The proposals of the League are as follows : 
 
 1. — One continuous training of four months 
 for the Infantry (with longer periods, not 
 exceeding two additional months, for the other 
 arms) shall be compulsory on all able-bodied
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 165 
 
 youths in this country between the ages of 18 
 and 21, without distinction of class or wealth. 
 Such training shall be followed annually by a 
 musketry course* and a fortnight's training in 
 camp for the next three years in the ranks of 
 the Territorial Force. 
 
 2. — The men thus trained shall be liable to 
 be called out for service in the Territorial 
 Force, for Home Defence only, in a time of 
 grave emergency, so declared by Parliament, 
 up to the age of 30. 
 
 II 
 
 Numbers 
 
 The number of lads reaching the age of 18 in any 
 ono year in the I cited Kingdom La (according 
 tut I,. I. n-ii , of 1'J'M ) aboul 
 
 In estimating the number who would come up 
 
 for aiiiiiuil Recruit Training we musl deduot — 
 
 i^ pear oenl for medical rejections and legal 
 
 1 1 1 1 it inns . . 
 
 i :• i -i-nit [or \'hv\ and Biarii 
 l '.< ■ i un foi I ■'• gular A rmj 
 Emigrant i 
 Mercantile Marin 
 
 l.i n\ in/ to i" ti .mil <i each year 
 S;iy h'iO.000. 
 
 Ili>. tint) 
 
 200,000 
 
 s.t inn 
 
 35,000 
 10,000 
 
 l :..in ii i 
 
 ooo 
 
 I is. iii in 
 116,000 
 
 In Switzerland the Dumber of medioal rejeotiona 
 annually amounts: on ao avei to '7 per cent, 
 
 * N'mti:. With nioh drill a mi- be pn wribed i"i 
 Territorial Foroe.
 
 166 APPENDIX III 
 
 and a similar result is experienced in France and 
 Germany. 48 per cent may therefore be taken as 
 a fair estimate for rejections and legal exemptions 
 under our proposals. 
 
 The number of British emigrants in 1907 was 
 just under 200,000 (see Board of Trade Return for 
 Emigration and Immigration, 1907). We have 
 taken 5 per cent of the number as the proportion 
 of able-bodied youths of 18. The number of British 
 sailors in the Mercantile Marine is about 180,000,* 
 and it may reasonably be assumed that some 8 per 
 cent of these are youths of about 18 years of age. 
 
 Under the above assumptions the numbers trained 
 annually would be as follows, allowing 5 per cent 
 for the annual wastage : 
 
 Recruits Training . . . . . . . . 150,000 
 
 Training in First Year . . . . 142,000 
 
 Training in Second Year . . 135,000 
 
 Training in Third Year . . . . 128,000 
 
 405,000 
 
 or, roughly, 400,000. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Cost 
 
 The cost has been calculated on two bases : 
 
 (a) On a proportional cost of the Regular Soldier 
 
 as given in the Army Estimates (1908-09), with 
 
 certain modifications. 
 
 * In 1907 the number was 194,848, see page 74, " Tables 
 showing the Merchant Shipping in the United Kingdom 
 and the principal Maritime Countries," 1908.
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 167 
 
 (6) On Mr. Haldane's figures as to the cost of the 
 Special Reserve. 
 
 In the case of the recruit undergoing his training 
 a deduction of 6d. per day has been made from the 
 pay of a Regular soldier, on the principle that, once 
 home defence is regarded as a national duty in- 
 cumbent upon all citizens, high and low, rich and 
 poor, it would be absurd to pay the citizen soldier 
 the same rate as is paid to the man for whose 
 services we have at present to compete in the open 
 labour market, and who enters the Army as a 
 profession. 
 
 With this exception the cost in both Estimates 
 (a) and (b) is calculated on the cost of the British 
 Regular soldier, admittedly the most expensive 
 soldier in the world, except the United States 
 Regular, and the probable saving due to an army 
 raised on the compulsory system as compared with 
 one raised on a voluntary basis has not been con- 
 sidered. 
 
 It si i ou Id also Im- borne in mind thai in Km [mate (a) 
 proportional charges for educational establishments 
 (Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Royal Military 
 Academy, Woolwich), Field Marshal's pensions, 
 etc. etc., are included, though it if obvious thai 
 such charges have little relation to ;i Territorial 
 Army. 
 
 The average period of nniiil training lias. 111 
 both est ini.il | Im . q i., |.. n .-, Ii\ . iim.iiI lis, t In- 
 
 mean between tour months for the Infantry and 
 si\ months for the other arms, and a Full st.di oj
 
 168 APPENDIX III 
 
 officers and N.C.O.'s (regular) has been allowed for 
 these 150,000 recruits. Moreover, charges are 
 allowed for this staff during the whole year, although 
 the longest period a recruit would be up for training 
 would be six months. This has been done in order 
 that a sufficient staff may be available if it is de- 
 cided to carry out the training of all the recruits 
 simultaneously. If, however, the training is carried 
 on throughout the year half this staff would be 
 sufficient, and a saving of about £1,000,000 would 
 result thereby, and would have to be deducted 
 from our final estimates. 
 
 Estimate of the System of Compulsory Train- 
 ing Proposed by the National Service 
 League 
 
 (1) The method on which the following figures 
 have been worked out is that of starting with the 
 assumption that a Territorial Army soldier trained 
 under the National Service League's system will 
 cost, time for time, the same as a Regular soldier. 
 Or, in other words, that if the average cost per 
 head of the Regulars amounts to a certain sum for 
 a year, the average cost per head of the Territorials' 
 training for five months will amount to five-twelfths 
 of that sum. This assumption may not be abso- 
 lutely accurate, but it appears to be the soundest 
 to start from. It is impossible to calculate, in the 
 abstract, the cost of a Territorial soldier, and in
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 169 
 
 taking the regular Army as our basis we rest our- 
 selves on existing facts and have a sure standard 
 of comparison. 
 
 (2) While, however, the assumption is, in the 
 main, sound, it is evident that modifications and 
 corrections must be introduced into it to meet the 
 conditions of a compulsorily trained Teriitorial 
 Army. These modifications will act sometimes in 
 the direction of increasing the cost of such an 
 army as compared with the Regulars, sometimes in 
 that of diminishing it. They are dealt with as 
 they arise in the calculations, and they are alluded 
 to here only to make the method of calculation 
 clear. 
 
 (.3) Working on this system, all the heads of 
 army expenditure summarised on pp. 210 and l'II 
 of the Army Estimates L908 '•», with the exception 
 of those dealing with the Reserves, have been 
 
 taken, and have been examined one by one, so that 
 
 under each bead the cos! of the proposed Territorial 
 Army is calculated at the same rate af the Regulars, 
 subject to the special modifications which eaoh 
 bead may seem to call for. Prom the total oo I 
 thus arrived at the savings on existing expenditure 
 winch the introduction ol our proposed system 
 would had to h.i.. been deduoted, and the 
 i. ult would be the net additional oosl of that 
 
 tern. 
 
 Annual expenditure only i dealt with throughout. 
 
 Capital cost is not entered upon. The figures are 
 correct to the pounds,
 
 170 APPENDIX III 
 
 (4) The following numbers, periods of training, 
 etc., are taken as bases : 
 
 (a) The period of training for the first-year 
 recruit is taken as averaging five months, 
 the mean between the four months' training 
 for the Infantry and the six months for the 
 Special Arms. 
 
 (b) The number of recruits undergoing this 
 training is taken at 150,000. This number 
 includes the Territorial N.C.O.'s, but ex- 
 cludes Regular and Territorial Officers and 
 Regular N.C.O.'s, all of whom are dealt 
 with separately. 
 
 (c) The number of Regular Officers and N.C.O.'s 
 required to supervise the five months' 
 training is taken at the following, per 1,000 
 men : 
 
 1 Commanding Officer. 
 
 2 Majors. 
 10 Captains. 
 
 1 Adjutant. 
 1 Quartermaster. 
 Making a total of 15 officers of various 
 ranks, but practically all above subaltern's 
 rank. 
 
 N.C.O.'s : 
 
 5 Staff Sergeants. 
 10 Pay Sergeants. 
 20 Sergeants. 
 40 Corporals. 
 Making a total of 75 N.C.O.'s of all ranks.
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 171 
 
 (d) The number of Territorial Officers employed 
 in the five months' training is taken at 20 
 per 1,000 men, all of whom would be 
 subalterns. Opportunities would no doubt 
 be given to Territorial Officers of higher 
 ranks to serve, but in this case they would 
 practically have to be treated as Regulars 
 and would come, therefore, under (c). 
 
 (e) The proportion between the Combatant 
 Personnel (Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers, 
 and Infantry) and the Departmental Ser- 
 vices (Army Service Corps, Army Medical 
 Department, and Army Ordnance Depart- 
 ment) is supposed to be the same in the 
 Territorial Army as in the Regulars. This 
 would divide the 150,000 first-year men 
 into 138,000 Combatant Personnel and 
 12,000 Depart mental Personnel in round 
 Dtunbera. 
 
 (/) The number of nun forthcoming in the 
 third year of the Annual Repetition i 'iiur.sc ..i 
 fifteen 'lavs will be MX),000. The Offioers 
 
 and N.C.O.'s WOUld be supplied from the 
 
 Territorial Offioen and N.C.O.'a already 
 t rained, and from (c) the Regular < Mb. i r 
 and N.C.O.'a training the first-year re- 
 cruits, or serving with the Regular troops 
 .it home. 
 (5) The above explains tbe system and the as- 
 sumptions on which the calculations have been 
 based. We proceed now to apply the e to the
 
 172 APPENDIX III 
 
 heads of Army Expenditure given on pp. 210-211, 
 Army Estimates, 1908-09. 
 
 I 
 Personnel 
 
 (1) Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers, and Infantry 
 (a) first year's training 
 
 The effective cost — i.e. the cost without any 
 allowance for retired pay or pension, of the Eegular 
 Combatant Personnel, exclusive of Officers, of 
 the Home and Colonial Establishment, averages 
 £63 17s. 10d., say £64 per head per year. Taking 
 five-twelfths of this, say £26 15s., for the Territorials 
 training in their first year, 138,000 men will cost 
 £3,691,000. 
 
 To this must be added the cost of the Regular 
 Officers and N.C.O.'s and of the Territorial Officers 
 employed. Under the proportions taken in assump- 
 tions (6) and (c) the numbers for 138,000 men will 
 amount to 2,070 Regular Officers, 10,350 Regular 
 N.C.O.'s, and 2,760 Territorial Officers (subalterns). 
 The Regular Officers and N.C.O.'s would be paid 
 at regular rates, including non-effective allowance. 
 For the Territorial Officers £50 for the five months' 
 training has been allowed. The average annual 
 cost of a Regular Officer (including non-effective 
 allowance) is £466 8s. 9d., and this will probably be 
 a fair figure to take for those employed with the 
 Territorials, for neither the Field-Marshals and
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 173 
 
 Generals on the one hand nor the subalterns on the 
 other would be required. At this rate 2,070 officers 
 would cost £965,526. 
 
 The annual cost of the Regular N.C.O.'s is more 
 difficult to estimate, as we have no official figures 
 giving us their average annual cost, including non- 
 effective pay. The average annual cost of the 
 Regular N.C.O.'s and men, taken together, is 
 *l~,2 9a. W. and the average annual cost of all 
 ranks, officers included, is £84 4*. <»/. We have 
 taken the Regular N.C.O.'s at £80. At this rate 
 10,350 N.C.O.'s would cost £828,000. 
 
 The 2,760 Territorial Officers at £50 would cost 
 £138,000. The gross cost of the first year's training 
 would therefore come to : 
 
 138. M- ii »t fci'ti I . . . . £3,691,1 
 
 2,070 !■• <ii H "ii,.-. re .. . . 065,62(1 
 
 10,3 ■" r ulai N I O.'a . . . . 828,000 
 
 2 760 !• rritorial « tffioers .. .. 138,000 
 
 
 Prom this, however, a deduction has to be made. 
 The League proposes to paj the Territorial recruit 
 Qd. a <!.i.\ I. than the Regular. Tins for 138,000 
 men for 160 days amounts to £617,600. Deducting 
 tin t be int <ii t be ft e monl bs' I ra ining ol I be 
 Combat mi Personnel in the firsl year will be 
 £6,106,026. 
 
 //' /'/ lilin/i ( 'nil i 
 
 The Territorial soldiei in bii repetition oourses
 
 174 APPENDIX III 
 
 will receive the same pay as the Regulars. But he 
 will not earn pension. The average annual charge 
 per head for the Regulars of all ranks at home, 
 exclusive of non-effective allowance, is £72 14s. 9c?., 
 or £3 for 15 days. At this rate the repetition 
 courses for 400,000 men would cost £1,200,000. As 
 regards Regular officers and N.C.O.'s who might be 
 required, see (/). 
 
 The total annual cost for the training of the 
 Combatant Personnel will then be : 
 
 First Year's Training £5,105,026 
 
 Repetition Courses 1,200,000 
 
 £6,305,026 
 
 (2) Departmental Personnel. — The annual cost of 
 the Regular Departmental Personnel is slightly 
 over a sixth of that of the Combatant Personnel. 
 Taking a sixth for our purpose, it adds 
 £1,050,838. 
 
 (3) and (4) The Labour and Instructional Establish- 
 ments, as given in the Army Estimates, together add 
 slightly under a fourteenth to the cost of the Com- 
 batant Personnel of the Regulars. One-fourteenth 
 of their cost works out to £450,359, and some 
 additional sum would certainly be wanted for 
 special schools of instruction. We take it at 
 £500,000. 
 
 (5) Reserve. — On this sub-head there is no charge. 
 
 This concludes the examination of Head I. on 
 
 p. 210 of the Army Estimates, " Charges for Per-
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 175 
 
 sonnel." For the Territorial Army these charges 
 will amount to : 
 
 Combatant Personnel . . . . £6,305,026 
 
 Depart mental Personnel •• •• 1,050,838 
 
 Labour and Instructional . . . . 500,000 
 
 £7,855,864 
 
 And this sum would cover " all emoluments, 
 allowances, expenses of transport and barrack 
 accommodation and the provision for the Royal 
 Military Academy, Royal Military College, Roj'al 
 Army Medical College, Recruiting Staff, Prison 
 Establishments, and Regimental and Garrison 
 Schools." (See p. 210 Army Estimates, 1908-09, 
 
 Vote I.) 
 
 Special /^serves <tn<l Territorial Forces. — This 
 head of the Army Estimates deals wit h the per- 
 sonnel <>l Hi' Reserves, Militia, Territorial Forces, 
 
 Volunteers, etc., and we have no additional cost 
 estimate for any «»l these. On the contrary, most 
 
 of these items are matters for deduction and arc 
 
 dealt with later. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ( '/in, -if for A, urn mi ni <, Works, Stores, Horses, 
 and Misot Uutk on ^< rvices 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the cost under (Inn 
 
 head. With the exception of the item for hones, 
 
 almost the whole of the oharg< arc for works, 
 
 buildings, and miscellaneous services which would
 
 176 APPENDIX III 
 
 not come against a Territorial Army, whose training 
 would be done, in the majority of cases, in camp. 
 As regards the horses, a Home-Defence Army to 
 act in a country as unsuited for cavalry movements 
 as England is, would require few in comparison with 
 Regulars. The proportionate method would, in the 
 case of this head of expenditure, lead to an exag- 
 gerated estimate, and the best way will be to take 
 a lump sum. A lump sum of £500,000 has been 
 allowed for this item. 
 
 IV 
 
 Staff and Administration 
 
 Here, again, the increase of expense would be 
 nothing like proportionate to the numbers of the 
 Territorial Force. The present staff deals not only 
 with the Regulars but also with the existing Ter- 
 ritorial Army, and a very small addition to its 
 strength, and that mainly in the lower branches, 
 would be all that would be required to enable it to 
 administer the Army proposed by the League. 
 An addition of £200,000 to the existing vote would, 
 in the opinion of the League, be amply sufficient. 
 
 Summary of Cost 
 
 This concludes the examination of the various 
 heads of Army Expenditure as given in the Army 
 Estimates, pp. 210-211. The extra cost under each 
 head for the Army recommended by the National
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 177 
 
 Service League will, on the estimates of the pre- 
 ceding paragraphs, amount to : 
 
 I. — Personnel (active) : Cavalry, Artillery, 
 Engineers, and Infantry 
 Departmental Services 
 Labour and Instruction 
 1 1 -Personnel (Reserve) 
 III. — Armami ate, Stores, Horses, etr. 
 1 \ Administration 
 
 £6,305,026 
 1,050,838 
 500,000 
 Nil 
 
 500,000 
 200,000 
 
 £8,555,864 
 
 To this must be added the bounty to be offered 
 to men of the Territorial Force to engage in a 
 Special rve to serve with the Regulars abroad 
 
 in oase of war. The strength of this reserve is 
 fixed by Mr. Haldane at 80,000. 
 
 Under the <>M system no difficulty was found in 
 getting Militiamen bo engage in b similar Reserve 
 for a bounty oi £l 10*. There is no reason why 
 tlii- Bhould n"t suffice now, as the men will already 
 done their recruit training. Allowing the 
 samebounty, this, for 80,000 men, comes to £120,000. 
 \" expenses will be incurred for the training of 
 this Re erve, as it will !>■• recruited bom men 
 who have done their five months 1 training in the 
 Territorial Army. 
 
 Tie- p >( , ni i he Territorial Force b r oom 
 
 mended by the National Service League will there- 
 amount to £8,670 364, 
 
 Saving 
 Against this must be e1 "ii the saving oi the 
 
 m) 1 1,. |,r. cut T( rritorial Arm] and of I he 
 
 12
 
 178 APPENDIX III 
 
 present Special Reserve. The cost of the existing 
 Territorial Force when complete has been given by 
 Mr. Haldane (Command Paper No. 3,296, and 
 Supplementary Estimate of May 22, 1907) as 
 £3,515,000 per annum. 
 
 The cost of the existing Special Reserve has been 
 given by him as £28 for the recruits in their first 
 year who serve for six months, and £9 for the men 
 in subsequent years. This cost is exclusive of 
 officers. The strength of the Reserve is 80,000, 
 and the engagement in it is for six years. Its 
 normal strength will, therefore, be about 13,500 
 first-year men and 66,500 men of upwards of one 
 year's service. 
 
 Its cost* will be (without officers) : — 
 
 13,500 First-year Men at £28 £378,000 
 
 66,500 Trained Men at £9 598,500 
 
 976,500 
 The Cost of the Officers will add 25% to this . . 244,125 
 Allowing 75 Non-Commissioned Officers per 
 1,000 men at £80 per annum we must add, 
 for 13,500 men 81,040 
 
 £1,301,665 
 
 The total savings, therefore, come to : 
 
 Territorial Force £3,515,000 
 
 Special Reserve . . . . . . . . . . 1,301,665 
 
 £4,816,665 
 
 * The Estimates for the Special Reserve in the Army 
 Estimates (1908-9), p. 210, include the cost of the Militia 
 (now in process of absorption).
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 179 
 
 Deducting this from the gross cost already arrived 
 at of £8,675,864, the net additional annual cost 
 eomes to £3,859,199. 
 
 It only remains i<» point out thai the figures in 
 this paper apply only to annual cost. Capital 
 i penditure has not been estimated. 
 
 B 
 
 This estimate is based upon i he answer given to 
 Mr. Arthur Lee by Mr. Haldane on December 14, 
 1!*oh. with regard to the cost of the Special Reserve. 
 The in »wer \\ as as follows : 
 
 dr. Haldane (Haddington): The estimate oi 
 19 c,/ includei barrack accommodation 
 clothing, pay, bountj m< ing allowance provisions, 
 equipment, arms, ammunition and charges for 
 travelling, fuel, and light, enlistment expenses, 
 barrack tore and ill other expenditure winch 
 .'ml' 'I a per i >na I to 1 be man. h dots not 
 include any portion of the co I ol the establi bmenl 
 of Regular oldier igned to ;i Special Reserve 
 battalion. The av< e oost ol an infantrj private 
 oi i be Special 1 1 er his n oruit year \t about 
 
 £9 .i pear 
 
 NoU Mr. 1 1 . 1 1 • J . • i * ' - iini.it. '•_•, 16 «;,/. for 
 1 1 oruit t raining ol i i mi >nt bs include £1 10 
 bounty. The actual cost ol training for ii tnontb 
 would therefore be £26 I" or £22 for five month 
 
 The e t imate I B p< i annum aftei I be recruit 
 drill include ' i bounty Deducting this we get 
 i th of the til U en daj I i.niniig.
 
 180 APPENDIX III 
 
 It will be seen from the above that no allowance 
 is made for the Officers and N.C.O.'s who carry 
 out the training of these Special Reserves. Con- 
 sequently we have to estimate this cost. 
 
 Fifteen Regular Officers, seventy-five Regular 
 N.C.O.'s, and twenty Territorial Officers are allowed 
 in this estimate (as in A) per 1,000 men. 
 
 We have, therefore, to add the cost of 2,250 
 Regular Officers, 3,000 Territorial Officers, and 
 11,250 N.C.O.'s. The cost is calculated as follows : 
 
 For each Regular Officer £466 10 1 (Am ^ . Estimates ' 
 For each N.C.O. .. 80 including non- 
 
 For each Territorial Officer 50 
 
 effective pay). 
 
 The above calculations deal solely with officers 
 required for the recruit training. We must allow 
 thirty-five Territorial Officers per 1,000 men for 
 the fifteen days' annual training of the Territorial 
 Army (400,000). The cost of these officers is cal- 
 culated at a proportion of £300, which is the effective 
 cost of an officer under the Army Estimates (ex- 
 cluding non-effective vote). 
 
 From the total cost of the recruit's training we 
 deduct 6d. per diem, as Mr. Haldane's figures given 
 above are based on the pay given at present to a 
 Regular soldier. 
 
 Estimated cost of stores, horses, etc., administra- 
 tion, and retaining fee must be added. The same 
 figures are taken as in A. Similar deductions are 
 also made for the present cost of the Territorial 
 Force and Special Reserve.
 
 ESTIMATE OF NUMBERS AND COST 181 
 
 These Estimates give the following results : 
 
 1. 150,000 Recruits at £22 .. £3,300,000 
 
 2,250 Regular Officers at 
 
 £466 10s 1,049,625 
 
 3,000 Territorial Officers at £50 1 50,000 
 1 1,250 N.C.O.'s at £80 .. 900,000 
 
 5,399,625 
 Deduct 6d. per diem for 150,000 
 
 Recruit . . . . 562,500 
 
 Total cost of Recruits' Training £4,837,125 
 
 2. 400,000 Territorial Force at £5 2,000,000 
 I 1.000 Territorial Officers at £13 
 (one twenty-fourth of £300) . . 1 82,000 
 
 2,182,000 
 
 3. Arraami'iiN. Stores, Horses, etc. .. .. 5(»(),(i(iu 
 
 4. Administration 200, I 
 
 5. £1 LOW. retaining f. . for 80,000 .. .. 120,000 
 
 7,830,125 
 .\'l<l 10 per oent. for contingencies . . .. 783,012 
 
 Ore Total 623,037 
 
 Deduct Co ' "I Territorial Faroe 3,615,000 
 < b of Special Re* n e 1,801 ,( 
 
 1,818 
 
 \. t total additional oo I of Territorial arm] 
 and* r I be I* agu< propo al . . • • £3,800 
 
 72, ViCToaii Si hi i.i. i Vtbmary 1009
 
 APPENDIX IV 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PAPER (HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 JULY 8, 1909) CONTAINING THE RE- 
 MARKS OF THE FINANCE DEPART- 
 MENT OF THE WAR OFFICE ON THE 
 ESTIMATE OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE 
 LEAGUE 
 
 1. The numbers which a scheme of compulsory 
 service would produce have not been examined, 
 and the estimate of the League in this respect will 
 therefore be accepted for the purposes of this 
 discussion. 
 
 2. As regards cost, the relation between the 
 four millions (or rather less) which is the figure 
 arrived at in the League's estimate, and the twenty 
 millions which is spoken of in the pamphlet as the 
 " strangely exaggerated and erroneous figure put 
 forward by official spokesmen," should be made 
 clear at the outset. The latter figure was a very 
 rough estimate of the cost of a force of a million 
 men on a special Reserve basis ; that is, trained in 
 barracks for six months on enlistment, paid on the 
 same lines as the Regular Army, all serving on the 
 peace establishment and organized in regimental 
 cadres. The four millions, as is now clear, is the 
 
 182
 
 REMARKS ON ESTIMATE 183 
 
 excess cost, after deducting the present cost of both 
 the Territorial Force and the Special Reserve, of the 
 force proposed by the League. And that force con- 
 sists not of a million men organised in cadres, but 
 of 150,000 recruits paid Qd. a day less than the 
 Regular and trained under canvas, 400,000 trained 
 men organised in cadres, of whom 80,000 replace the 
 present Special Reserve, and 600,000 men in reserve 
 who have passed through the ranks and are liable 
 to be called out, but for whom no arms, clothing 
 «-'|uipment or organisation of any kind are provided. 
 The two figures, in fact, have very little relation to 
 one another. 
 
 3. The figure- arrived at by the two methods of 
 calculation adopted by the League — £3,859,000 and 
 £3,806,000 — arc strikingly close, and this at lii 
 sight appears to confirm their accuracy ; bm both 
 methods are fallacious and their agreement is a 
 nun- coincidence. In Estimate A, on page i<>, a 
 rate oi ±:'< pel bead of all arms and rank i arrived 
 at a^ th« cost of a repetition ooui i oi fifteen 
 dag In Est una! e B, on page 14, a rate o\ 
 
 is taken ai the cost of the same coarse for the 
 
 Infantry private -the l0W< I i •• n k <»t the |e.i-t \\<-|| 
 paid arm. 
 
 4. The fundamental fallacy in Estimate A i the 
 a amotion thai a soldier trained for fifteen daj 
 <<p-t- one-twenty-fourth oi the annual oosl oi b 
 
 oldier trained all the year round. Thi implie 
 in etfeet, t hat the rifle vrhioh la I the Regular fox 
 twelve yean will la I the Territorialisl for oenturies;
 
 184 APPENDIX IV 
 
 that the same suit of clothing will last six successive 
 Territorialists, each serving for four years ; that 
 the Territorialists will fire, perhaps, one shillings- 
 worth of ammunition in the year, and so on. 
 
 5. The provision for officers is altogether in- 
 sufficient. Twenty Territorial Subalterns are to be 
 employed for about five months in the training of 
 each 1,000 recruits, at a cost of about £50 each. 
 The sum is quite inadequate, and, apart from this, 
 there is no provision for training the Subalterns 
 themselves, or for Territorial officers of any rank 
 whatever, except that the rate taken for fifteen 
 days' annual training is one-twenty-fourth of the 
 average cost of all ranks of the Regular Army. 
 
 6. The £500,000 taken for Armaments, Works, 
 Stores and Horses is also inadequate. Except that 
 it is stated (page 11) that a Home Defence Army to 
 act in a country as unsuited for Cavalry movements 
 as England is would require few horses in com- 
 parison with Regulars, there is no indication of what 
 proportion of the several arms of the Service is 
 assumed. Taking the proportion in the present 
 Territorial Force, £500,000 is not enough to provide 
 horses alone for 150,000 recruits training for five 
 months and 400,000 men training for fifteen days, 
 to say nothing of the other items. 
 
 7. The rate of £80 taken for a Regular non-com- 
 missioned officer of the Permanent Staff is far too 
 low. Corporals would not suffice. Sergeants and 
 Colour-Sergeants, all pensionable and with the right 
 to marry, would be required ; and £150 would not
 
 REMARKS ON ESTIMATE 185 
 
 be too high a rate to take. This single item would 
 add three-quarters of a million to the estimate. 
 
 8. In Estimate B the fundamental fallacy is that 
 the cost of an Army is got by multiplying the cost of 
 the individual Infantry private, and the individual 
 officer, with small additions of £700,000 for Arma- 
 ments, Stores, Horses, &c, and Administration, and 
 £120,000 for retaining fees for the Special Reserve. 
 The value of this method is best tested by applying it 
 to the Regular Army. The annual cost of the Regular 
 Infantry private, on the same lines as the figures for 
 the Special Reserve given in the answer to Mr. Lee 
 (on which the Estimate is based) is £57 10s. The 
 163,700 men on the Regimental Establishment of 
 the Regular Army at this rate, with 7,225 officers at 
 
 >oo (the rate taken in the Estimate) would cost 
 
 eleven and ;i half millions, wheieas the Anuy Bsti- 
 
 matee, after deducting pensions, Army Reserve, 
 Special Reserve and Territorial Force, bu< not 
 deducting (he contributions paid by India and the 
 Colonies, amount to eighteen and three-quarter 
 million-.-, a discrepancy of ov< i even million <>n a 
 fore- of 171,000. 
 
 9, A regard an official estimate of the cost of the 
 mum. no even roughly reliable figure can !»<■ 
 
 given without lull information ai to the proportion 
 and establishment! «>t the everal arms, with detail 
 io organ] ation, t;dT, localities ol training, eU 
 r.ut ;i, mode of obtaining a very rough idea oi the 
 minimum cost, upon the \«- < available ■> umptions, 
 
 may he indicated.
 
 186 APPENDIX IV 
 
 10. It may be assumed that, broadly speaking, 
 the proposed force would be similar, from an ad- 
 ministrative point of view, to the Territorial Force 
 rather than to the Special Reserve, having head- 
 quarters and drill halls, but no barracks. It may 
 also be assumed that the proportion of the several 
 arms, and the establishments, would be those ob- 
 taining in the Territorial Force ; so that there would 
 be regimental cadres for 550,000 men, all of whom 
 would train for fifteen days, and 150,000 of whom 
 would train for four and a half months longer 
 (making the five months' average recruit training). 
 
 11. Now the Territorial Force is estimated to 
 cost normally about £10 a head annually, of which 
 roughly £4 105. may be assigned to the fortnight's 
 camp (including hire of horses, etc.) and £5 10s. to 
 administration, clothing, equipment, ranges, build- 
 ings, etc. 
 
 The 550,000 men in the cadres of the proposed force 
 would similarly cost £10 a head, or five and a half 
 millions, for administration, etc., including fifteen 
 days' camp for every man. The four and a half 
 months' extra camp for 150,000 men, making allow- 
 ance for items which would not increase in proportion 
 to the duration of the training, would cost about 
 six millions. 
 
 12. For training staff for recruits the League's 
 estimate allows £2,100,000. Adding three-quarter 
 million for underestimate (see paragraph 7), and 
 allowing something for training of recruit officers, 
 this may be put at three millions.
 
 REMARKS ON ESTIMATE 187 
 
 On the other hand, the Territorial is paid 9d. 
 a-day (messing allowance) more than the Regular. 
 The League proposes to pay the recruit 6d. less 
 than the Regular, and the trained man the same 
 as the Regular. This would give a reduction of 
 Is. 3d. a day for 150,000 men for five months, and 
 9d. a day for 400,000 men for fifteen days, say 
 £1,650,000. 
 
 13. Thus the cost would be — 
 
 Administration and annual training .. .. £~>,~>00,ooo 
 
 Extra recruit training .. .. .. .. 6,000,000 
 
 Training staff 3,000,000 
 
 ml K. serve retaining fee (as proposed by- 
 tin; League) 120,0110 
 
 I 1,620,000 
 
 / on pay . . . . . . . . 1 ,660,000 
 
 12,070,000 
 
 Deduct -. normal cost of — 
 
 I • mi. 11. 1 I-. . . . . £8,160,000 
 ial Reserve 
 
 6,160, 
 
 \wrcnM! ,000 
 
 ( )i roughly, eight millions. 
 
 1 1. This «• 1 imate, it hould be remembered, is 
 purely for the normal annual upkeep <>i the f< 
 and includes nothing for capital expenditure ol any 
 kind. One item in particular mu I Ix taken into 
 con nil i,ii ion in t in iniiiM ii ion. At present I be 
 Territorials largely depend, for manoBUvre ai
 
 188 APPENDIX IV 
 
 and artillery ranges, on those maintained for the 
 Regulars. These would not suffice to accommodate 
 the larger force proposed. There are no data on 
 which to estimate what the cost of provision would 
 be ; but it would certainly be very large.
 
 APPENDIX V 
 
 NOTES BY THE NATIONAL SERVICE 
 LEAGUE ON WAR OFFICE PAPER 
 "ARMY, JULY 8, 1909" 
 
 Befork entering on a detailed examination of 
 the criticisms in the War Office Memorandum of 
 July 8, 1909, it may !><■ well to state briefly bow 
 the question "i fin- cost of a compulsory system of 
 military training for this country stands al present. 
 For "iii< years pasl the National Service League, 
 has advocated the adoption of such a system, .mil 
 ha indicated the Inn- on whioh it hould be oon- 
 ducted. On November 23, Mtos. Lord Crewe, 
 speaking in n ference i<> the propo al <>i the League, 
 bated that the additional co tof compul orj military 
 braining would be £20 000,000a j i ai and tlii ban 
 men! we repeated by Mr. Ealdane on the 26th "i 
 the lame month. As tin- figure wb entirely al 
 variance w ii h the calculation made by the League, 
 the liit. i drew up in February of bhi year its 
 < i [mate of I he addil iona I coal of I be m ii 
 
 advocated, giving in detail the calculation l>\ 
 which this was arrived at, and the grounds on whiob 
 it was in ed. Lord Lucas's paper, nam under 
 review, is a ci ii ici m of this i I imate. 
 
 180
 
 190 APPENDIX V 
 
 The calculations of the National Service League 
 were, in all cases, based upon official figures, the 
 sources of which were indicated. They were worked 
 out on two different methods, each of which was 
 fully explained, and the results obtained in the two 
 cases tallied with such closeness as to afford a strong 
 presumption that neither was far from the truth. 
 The conclusion to be drawn from them was that if 
 the system recommended by the League were 
 adopted, the increased annual cost, far from being 
 £20,000,000, as stated by the War Office, would not 
 exceed £4,000,000. 
 
 The answer of the War Office is to deny the ac- 
 curacy of the methods adopted by the League, and 
 to produce an amended estimate of its own. In 
 this, the increased annual cost, which ten months 
 ago was put at £20,000,000, has now shrunk to 
 £7,820,000. The immediate effect of the League's 
 calculations has therefore been to reduce the War 
 Office estimate by considerably more than half. 
 We venture to predict that a fuller consideration 
 of them will reduce it still further. 
 
 We shall now proceed to examine in detail the 
 various criticisms and arguments in Lord Lucas's 
 paper. These will be taken one by one, and, 
 when quoted, will be distinguished by being placed 
 between inverted commas. 
 
 The paper commences by explaining how it was 
 that the War Office promulgated the erroneous 
 estimates to which we have referred. As these are 
 now abandoned, it is not necessary to pursue the
 
 NOTES BY THE LEAGUE 191 
 
 matter further, beyond remarking that the excuses 
 put forward lor the error simply show that the \\ ai 
 Office had not taken the trouble to make itself 
 acquainted with the system of which it professed 
 to give the cost. We regret to say that the same 
 criticism applies to the paper now before us. 
 
 The Memorandum proceeds to Btate tint both 
 the methods of calculation followed by the League 
 " are fallacie , and their agreement is a mer< coinci- 
 dence," and to give i ason for tln-^ opinion. The 
 first criticism is : 
 
 In Estimate .\. on page I", a run- ( .t i:s per head ol all 
 ,,i in- ami i.ii.i i urrived at a thi ooat ><\ a repel ition 
 oonrae oi fifteen daya. in Estimate B, on page L4, a rati 
 ,,i i.~> | coat oJ the same ooursi for the lm anti \ 
 
 l>ii\ 
 
 We thank the War Office l«»i having, in thi re 
 in i.i k given hi incidental proof <>i the Boundn< 
 of the method \\«- have followed. Bj Lord Lucas's 
 (,u n i.,i. in- ni iii paragraph elevi n oi hif pap< r, 
 the ooal ol the Territorial soldier training foi fifteen 
 put at £ I Mte and, ai I he Tei i itoi ial re 
 oeivef 9d a daj more I ban I hi Eb gular I hi n pre 
 , h i { :; i g '.i./. on a Regular basi Now the mean 
 
 between £3 and £6 i I I w hich ooi r< ipond al I 
 
 ., it I, i be Wai ( office figun and o fai a n 
 diffei •!"• "'»ii i be Bid* of i « i \ mon 1 1 iking 
 
 n i ,,,,-. ,,i i b< oundm of oui oalculal ioni i h 
 thi-i mi nichiK.ii.il corroboration from offioiaJ oun 
 could not hav e be< n a iki d foi .
 
 192 APPENDIX V 
 
 The second criticism is : 
 
 The fundamental fallacy in Estimate A is that a soldier 
 trained for fifteen days costs one -twenty -fourth of the 
 annual cost of a soldier trained all the year round. 
 
 If those who drew up the War Office Paper had 
 read the estimate they were impugning, they would 
 have seen that it is based, not on the assumption 
 stated above, but on the assumption that (we quote 
 the actual words of the estimate) " if the average 
 cost per head of the Regulars amounts to a certain 
 sum for a year, the average cost per head of the 
 Territorial training for five months will amount to 
 five-twelfths of that sum." It is evident that the 
 more nearly the period of training, of which the 
 cost is to be estimated, approaches a year, the more 
 closely will the result of the proportional method of 
 calculation approach accuracy ; and, as the greater 
 portion of the expense is caused by the five months' 
 training in the first year, the d ifference between the 
 assumption we have made and that which the War 
 Office represents us as having made is very great. 
 Moreover, on December 14, 1908, Mr. Haldane 
 stated in the House of Commons that his estimate 
 of the cost of the training of a Special Reserve 
 recruit for six months was £27 195. Qd. This 
 included £1 10s. bounty. The League, working on 
 the proportional method, arrived at the conclusion 
 that the cost for five months would be £26 15s. 
 Will the War Office still maintain that our estimate 
 is an underestimate and our method fallacious ?
 
 NOTES BY THE LEAGUE 193 
 
 If there is any error in it, it is that we have placed 
 the cost too high rather than too low. 
 The War Office Memorandum then proceeds : 
 
 The provision for officers is altogether insufficient. 
 Twenty Territorial subalterns are to be employed for about 
 five months in the training of each thousand recruits. 
 
 We are perfectly certain the War Office would not 
 intentionally misrepresent our proposals, but we 
 can only acquit it of this on the assumption that 
 it has not read them. Would any one imagine from 
 the sentence quoted above that our provision of 
 officers per 1,000 men is not simply " twenty 
 Territorial subalterns," hut fifteen Regular ollieers 
 in addition — namely, a commanding officer, two 
 major-, ten captains, an adjutant, and a quarter- 
 master ? We 3hal] always he grateful for the 
 
 oned examination by the War oilier of any 
 estimates or proposals we may puf forward; but 
 
 We mij-t a 1. it in future to r < ft .tin from statements 
 
 bo misleading ae thai the training <>f 1,000 recruits 
 would be e.uiied out by t wenty Territorial subalterns 
 when m a matter of fact, thirty-five officers are 
 provided for tin's purp ad, of these, all in the 
 higher rani at e not Ten itoi ial . but Regula i 
 The aext paragraph bate I hat 
 
 'I'll'- £j "en taken for armaments, trorl n . and 
 
 horn alt ther inadequate. , . £000,000 is net 
 
 enough t" provide l » « • r- m for the I B0, recruit* training 
 
 for five months and 100,( men training for fifteen d 
 
 ay nothing of ■■• b< r Items. " 
 
 id
 
 194 APPENDIX V 
 
 A 'arge portion of the cost for armaments, works, 
 and stores (Appendix 17, Head III., Army Esti- 
 mates) is for fortifications, stations abroad, and 
 other expenses which have little to do with a Terri- 
 torial Army. The total amount taken in Army 
 Estimates (1908-9) for horses for the whole of our 
 Home Forces, Territorials included, was £913,275. 
 We have added £500,000, or more than 50 per cent. 
 We fail to see in what way this allowance is in- 
 sufficient. 
 
 The succeeding criticism is : 
 
 The rate of £80 taken for a Regular N.C.O. of the Per- 
 manent Staff is far too low. Corporals would not suffice. 
 Sergeants and colour-sergeants, all pensionable and with 
 the right to marry, would be required, and £150 would 
 not be too high a rate to take." 
 
 It may be that our estimate on this head is some- 
 what too low. In putting it forward we expressly 
 stated that this item of cost was " difficult to esti- 
 mate, as we have no official figures giving us the aver- 
 age annual cost of the Regular N.C.O.'s — including 
 non-effective pay." But if our estimate is too low, 
 that of the War Office is certainly too high. We 
 provided seventy-five N.C.O.'s for 1,000 men, of 
 whom forty were to be corporals. The War Office 
 would have them all sergeants and colour-sergeants. 
 Is not this an arrangement unheard of in any training 
 battalion or depot ? Some additions to our estimate 
 under this head may be required, but to nothing 
 like the extent proposed by the War Office.
 
 NOTES BY THE LEAGUE 195 
 
 We have now dealt with all the criticisms of the 
 War Office on our first method of calculation (Esti- 
 mate A). That on the second method (Estimate 
 B) need not detain us long. It is as follows : 
 
 In Estimate B the fundamental fallacy is that the cost 
 of an Army is got by multiplying the cost of the individual 
 Infantry private and the individual officer, with small 
 additions of £700,000 for armaments, stores, horses, etc., 
 and administration, and £120,000 retaining fees for the 
 Special Reserve. 
 
 We can only say that in Estimate B we have 
 followed Mr. Haldane's own figures for the average 
 cost of the Special Reserve, composed of 60,000 men 
 and training for six months. If, in these figun 
 items which ought to have been included have been 
 omitted t be fault is not ours. 
 
 This concludes our answer to 1 be oril icisms in t In- 
 War Office Paper, We nave Bhown that while the 
 War Office estimate* have dwindled from £20,000,000 
 to £8,000,000, the estimate of the League, arrived 
 at by two different roade and ba ed on official 
 figures, remain ab tantially unaffected by the 
 oriticism ed on it. We bave further Bhown 
 
 that tie- War Office, both in it original and its 
 amended estimate, lia^ failed to make itself i 
 quainted with what the prop of the League 
 
 i' ally are, and has, in oon iequ< doubtle unin- 
 tent tonally, i i ton ly mi n pr< • nt< <l the: <• pro- 
 posal . We ball dow examine into the ground on 
 which the late I War Office estimate il « It n te, 
 with the result that we shall be able to ho^i tl
 
 196 APPENDIX V 
 
 the League's estimate of £4,000,000 is far nearer 
 the truth than the War Office estimate of 
 £8,000,000. 
 
 The whole calculation in this latter estimate is 
 based upon the following statement : 
 
 The Territorial Force is estimated to cost normally about 
 £10 a head annually, of which, roughly, £4 10s. may be 
 assigned to the fortnight's camp, including hire of horses, 
 etc., and £5 10s. to administration, clothing, equipment, 
 ranges, buildings, etc. 
 
 From this annual cost of £10 a head for the Terri- 
 toria' Army, the writer of the paper arrives at 
 £11,500,000 as the cost of the annual training of the 
 force required by the League. But, having done 
 this, he proceeds to add the sum of £3,000,000 more 
 for training staff. On what ground is this addition 
 made ? Either the present training staff or the 
 Territorial Army is sufficient, or it is not. If it 
 is sufficient, no addition should be made. If it is 
 not, then this army is at present insufficiently sup- 
 plied with training staff, and its proper cost has been 
 understated. Lord Lucas must not take his own 
 figures and ours and mix them up to produce a large 
 result. We are ready to start from his basis of an 
 average of £10 a head for the whole of the present 
 Territorial Army, or he can take our basis of £26 155. 
 for the five months' recruit training, exclusive of 
 staff, and add to it that of the staff. But he must 
 not take his own figure of £10, which includes the 
 staff (as is shown by the fact that in the same cal- 
 culation the total cost of the present Territorial
 
 NOTES BY THE LEAGUE 197 
 
 Army of 300,000 men is put at £3,150,000), and then, 
 following our method, add to it a sum of £3,000,000 
 for staff already provided for — a sum which alone 
 equals the whole cost of our present Territorial 
 Army. We really must take exception to this. 
 
 When this £3,000,000 is deducted from Lord 
 Lucas's total, the War Office estimate, which, less 
 than a year ago, was £20,000,000, and which has 
 now fallen to less than £8,000,000, comes down to 
 £4,800,000. And the estimate of the League is 
 £4,000,000. 
 
 Is it necessary to add more ? We think not. 
 
 For the Executive Committee of the 
 National Service League, 
 
 gned) GEORGE F. SHEE, Secretary. 
 
 July 10, 1909.
 
 APPENDIX VI 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE BY THE FINANCE 
 DEPARTMENT OF THE WAR OFFICE 
 
 The criticisms in the memorandum published by 
 the National Service League on July 10, 1909, 
 so far as they challenge the figures in the War 
 Office Estimate, are briefly dealt with below. 
 
 (a) To paragraph 5 of the War Office Paper the 
 League replies : 
 
 Would any one imagine from the sentence quoted above 
 that our provision of officers per 1,000 men is not simply 
 " twenty Territorial subalterns," but fifteen Regular 
 officers in addition — namely, a Commanding Officer, two 
 Majors, ten Captains, an Adjutant and a Quartermaster ? 
 We shall always be grateful for the reasoned examination 
 by the War Office of any estimates or proposals we may 
 put forward ; but we must ask it in future to refrain from 
 statements so misleading as that the training of a thousand 
 recruits would be carried out by twenty Territorial sub- 
 alterns, when, as a matter of fact, thirty-five officers are 
 provided for this purpose, and of these all in the higher 
 ranks are not Territorials, but Regulars. 
 
 This misses altogether the point of the War 
 Office criticism, which is that (a) there is no ade- 
 quate provision for the cost of the Territorial officers 
 
 198
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 199 
 
 of all ranks necessary for the field units (not depots) ; 
 and (b) that the class of Territorial officer who will 
 do five months' continuous work at drilling recruits 
 for £50 does not exist. This criticism is not affected 
 by the provision of Regular officers for drilling 
 recruits. 
 
 (6) To paragraph 6 the League replies : 
 
 The total amount taken in Army Estimates [(1908-9) 
 for horses for the whole of our Home forces, Territorials 
 included, was £913,275. We have added £500,000, or 
 more than 50 per cent. We fail to see in what way this 
 allowance is insufficient. 
 
 This is a misconception. The sum of £913,275 
 (as the Estimates show) relates to the 31,913 horses 
 on tin- fixed establishment of the Army, and has 
 nothing to do with the Territorial Force. 
 
 (c) To paragraph 7 the League replies : 
 
 It may be that our e bimatc on this head U somewhat 
 too low. In putting it forward we expressly luted that 
 this item of cost we difficult to estimate," as we have no 
 official figures giving us tin- average annual cost of the 
 Kr^ular uon commit ioned officers, including oon effective 
 pay." Bui if our e timate i too low, that of the War 
 Office i -• certainly too high. We provide seventy-five non- 
 commie ioned offioei [or a tl w and men, oi whom forty 
 
 re to be corporals. The Wat Office would have them all 
 sergeant i and colour-sergeants. I oof this an arras 
 ment unheard of in any training battalion or depot 1 
 Soni'- additions to our estimate under thi head may be 
 required, but to nothing like the extent proposed by the 
 
 \\ at I >':
 
 200 APPENDIX VI 
 
 It is difficult to divine the conditions under which 
 the League proposes to carry out the training of 
 its recruits. Judged by the proportion of Per- 
 manent Staff found necessary for the old Militia 
 and for the Special Reserve, the League's numbers 
 are inadequate. If Territorial conditions are 
 taken, it must be remembered that practically 
 every sergeant-instructor of the Permanent Staff 
 of the Territorials is of colour-sergeant's rank. The 
 cost of pensions is a very serious item. 
 
 The addition of three-quarters of a million under 
 this head does not appear excessive. 
 
 (d) On paragraphs 11 and 12 the League remarks : 
 
 The whole calculation in this latter (the War Office) 
 estimate is based upon the following statement : 
 
 ' The Territorial Force is estimated to cost normally 
 about £10 a-head annually, of which roughly 
 £4 10s. may be assigned to the fortnight's camp. 
 . . . and £5 10s. to administration . . . etc. 
 
 " From this annual cost of £10 a-head for the 
 Territorial Army, the writer of the paper arrives 
 at £11,500,000 as the cost of the annual training 
 of the force required by the League. But, having 
 done this, he proceeds to add the sum of £3,000,000 
 more for training staff. On what ground is this 
 addition made ? . . . He must not take his own 
 figure of £10, which includes the staff . . . and 
 then (following our method) add to it a sum of 
 £3,000,000 for staff already provided for — a 
 sum which alone equals the whole cost of our 
 present Territorial Army." 
 
 Paragraph 1 2 clearly states that the three millions
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 201 
 
 relates to training staff for recruits. The pro- 
 portion of training staff allowed to Territorial 
 battalions and other units is not more than sufficient 
 — geographical distribution taken into account — 
 to carry on the training and other duties (corre- 
 spondence, care of arms, equipment, buildings, etc.) 
 of the units. Certainly no considerable reduction 
 of this staff could be made if recruits were concen- 
 trated in training battalions or depots for four to 
 six months' continuous recruit drills. The cost of 
 the training staff for recruits would therefore be 
 additional to the cost, on present lines, of the per- 
 manent staff of the units, though apparently the 
 recruit-training staff would be idle for half the year. 
 It is just this mixture of the " Militia " and " Volun- 
 teer ' principles that makes the system proposed 
 by the League so uneconomical. 
 
 C. H.
 
 APPENDIX VII 
 
 FINANCIAL NOTES ON A POSSIBLE CON- 
 SCRIPT ARMY FOR HOME DEFENCE 
 
 1. These notes are intended to give a very rough 
 indication, based on such data as are readily avail- 
 able, of the financial results of a reorganisation 
 of the British Army on the following lines : 
 
 The present Regular Army to be reduced to the 
 dimensions required for the Indian and Colonial 
 garrisons and the depots at home needed to support 
 them, and the entire cost to be paid by the countries 
 garrisoned. The Special Reserve to be abolished. 
 The Territorial Force to be replaced by a Home 
 Defence Army on German lines, of such a strength 
 as would give on mobilisation a force equal in num- 
 bers to the present Territorial Force (assumed to 
 be at its full establishment). 
 
 Numbers in Peace and War : German System 
 
 2. There are on the peace establishment in 
 Germany 621,000 officers and men of all ranks, 
 including about 504,000 rank and file, and a Reserve 
 (not including the Landwehr and Landsturm) of 
 
 about 934,000, making 1,438,000 " names on paper " 
 
 202
 
 FINANCIAL NOTE ON CONSCRIPTION 203 
 
 on mobilisation, besides officers and non-commis- 
 sioned officers. 
 
 3. The present establishment of the Territorial 
 Force is 315,000 officers and men of all ranks, 
 including about 285,000 rank and file. The pro- 
 jected Territorial Reserve would increase the 
 
 ' names on paper " on mobilisation ; but a much 
 larger proportion of men would be unfit for im- 
 mediate service than in a Conscript Army where 
 recruits are taken at military age. For purposes 
 of calculation, I assume that the Reserve would 
 just suffice to replace the immature and untrained 
 and to fill up the casual shortages (differences 
 between establishment and strength) incidental to 
 a voluntary system of recruiting. Taking the 
 
 ' names on paper " of available men as 285,000, 
 this number would be produced on the German 
 system by a peace establishment of 100,000 rank 
 and file, or about 123,000 of all ranks. 
 
 Comparative Cost ter Head, British and 
 GXBMAD A km IKS 
 
 4. There arc about 120,000 troops on regimental 
 e bablishment at borne, omitting the Regulars 
 serving with special Reserve units. Their cost, 
 exolusive of reserve pay and pensions, but not 
 
 deducl ing the India n Contribution for depot charges, 
 
 etc., is approximately eleven and a half millions. 
 
 Including a share of works, stores and adminis- 
 tration, the cost of the Army with the Colours at
 
 204 APPENDIX VII 
 
 home may be put at about thirteen millions, or 
 £103 a-head all round. 
 
 5. The German estimates, exclusive of colonial 
 troops and pensions, amount to about forty millions 
 for the peace establishment of 621,000 all ranks. 
 The one-year Volunteers, who cost practically 
 nothing,* have been omitted throughout. This is 
 at the rate of about £64 8s. a-head, or £38 12s. less 
 than the British average. 
 
 6. This difference in cost is mainly due to the 
 higher pay and more expensive clothing of the 
 British soldier. There is little difference as regards 
 cost of food. Leaving aside all questions of relative 
 quality and price, the expenditure on food in 
 Germany per man is approximately the same as 
 the British ration with messing allowance. 
 
 (a) Pay. — The German infantry private gets 
 £3 19s. a year, say 2hd. a day, and has to pay 
 stoppages out of it. The English infantry private 
 at home, with proficiency (service) pay, averages 
 Is. 2d. a-day. The difference is ll\d. a day, about 
 £17 7s. a-year ; or allowing for the British gratuity 
 of £1 a year on discharge and for the greater differ- 
 ences in the pay of Engineers and other arms, say 
 £20 a-year. 
 
 (b) Clothing. — The British soldier's clothing, in- 
 cluding kit allowance, averages £8 a-year. The 
 German soldier's clothing averages about £3 5s. 
 Difference, £4 15s. 
 
 7. These two items account for £24 15s. out of 
 
 * They pay even for the use of their equipment.
 
 FINANCIAL NOTE ON CONSCRIPTION 205 
 
 the difference of £38 125., leaving £13 175. still to 
 be accounted for. It is difficult, without making 
 very elaborate comparisons, to trace exactly the 
 differences making up this sum ; but it is to a very 
 large extent explained by the higher pay and larger 
 proportion of upper ranks of regimental officers and 
 non-commissioned officers in the British Army, by 
 the higher standard of comfort in barracks, and by 
 the more liberal allowances to those living outside. 
 
 8. Whatever legislation might be passed as regards 
 compulsory service in the ranks, it would always 
 be necessary to pay officers and non-commissioned 
 officers sufficiently to retain them in the Army, and 
 no saving could be looked for in such matters as 
 barrack comfort ; so that there will be no great 
 error in regarding this £13 175. a head on the total 
 establishment as a permanent excess of cost of a 
 British as compared with ;i German conscript 
 army, raising the average cost for the British army, 
 modelled and paid on German lines, to £78 55. a 
 head. 
 
 Financial Kksults 
 
 9. TheConBoripl Army of 123,000, all ranks, with 
 the Colours would co t at this rate aboul £9,625,000 
 a year. It is assumed, still following the German 
 model, thai the Army reservisl would gel ao pay at 
 all. 
 
 10. What remained of the present Regular Army 
 in this oountry would oosl the British Exchequer 
 nothing, as the soheme lays down that only the
 
 206 APPENDIX VII 
 
 depots necessary to maintain the over-sea garrisons 
 would remain, and their cost would be paid by 
 India and the Colonies. But in order to form a 
 rough idea of what this implies, it is necessary to 
 make some estimate of what those depots would 
 cost. Taking depots on the present short-service 
 plan, sufficient to give training as nearly as possible 
 equivalent to the present (Home battalion) standard, 
 but without the power of forming fighting units 
 on mobilisation like those of the present Ex- 
 peditionary Force, the cost would be about 
 £3,170,000. 
 
 11. Under the arrangements proposed, the foreign- 
 service army would naturally become a long-service 
 army. This would reduce the size and cost of 
 depots, but, as shown in the memorandum of the 
 Secretary of State on the Estimates of 1908-9, the 
 saving would be more than outbalanced by the in- 
 creased cost of pensions. These, it is true, would 
 not accrue at once : there would be a period during 
 which there would be a reduction in the annual 
 cost ; but on the other hand there would be heavy 
 initial charges to meet, consequent on the re- 
 organisation ; and ultimately the result as a whole 
 would be an increase of cost. 
 
 As the figure is one affecting not British but 
 Indian and Colonial exchequers, it is sufficiently 
 near the mark for present purposes to take the 
 £3,170,000. I do not here pursue the question of 
 how far it is practicable to make the Government 
 of Malta (e.g.), or of South Africa, pay the whole
 
 FINANCIAL NOTE ON CONSCRIPTION 207 
 
 cost of the troops there and their depots at 
 home. 
 
 12. Supposing the change made, we should stand 
 as follows : 
 
 Present System 
 
 Effective cost of — 
 
 Regular troops at home 
 
 ,, in Colonies 
 
 Army Reserve. . 
 
 Territorial Force 
 
 Special Reserve, etc. 
 
 War Office, etc. 
 Non-effective charges 
 Stores and works . . 
 Loan annuities . . 
 
 Repayments by India and Colonies 
 X. t Estimates, 1909-10 .. 
 
 £11,550,000 
 4,140,000 
 1,400,000 
 2,690,000 
 2,050,000 
 366,000 
 3,788,000 
 1,500,000 
 1,156,000 
 
 28,640,000 
 1,205,000 
 
 27,435,000 
 
 Pro-posed System 
 
 Regular troops in Colonies . . . . . . £4,1 10,000 
 
 ,, ni home (depots, etc., for India 
 
 and Colonies) 3,170,000 
 
 tpi Army 9,625,000 
 
 Non-effective charges 3,788,000 
 
 Limn .lniniit ii-s . . . . . . . . . . 1,1 ..(i.niii) 
 
 War Office, ston and works (share due to 
 
 troop abri »ad) . . . . . . . . 620,000 
 
 kymentsby India and Colonies 
 
 Nel El t in. 
 
 190,000 
 7,930, 
 
 I 1,669,000
 
 208 APPENDIX VII 
 
 13. This shows a reduction of £12,866,000 on the 
 net Estimates, of which £6,725,000 is the increase 
 assumed in Indian and Colonial contributions. 
 As these extra payments might equally well be 
 demanded under the present system, the real saving 
 is £6,143,000. 
 
 Possible Further Forces Required 
 
 14. The suggested reorganisation involves the 
 loss of the whole Expeditionary Force, including the 
 present Army Reserve and Special Reserve, and of 
 our Regular Coast Defence troops (Artillery and 
 Engineers). If it were held necessary to provide 
 Regular forces equivalent to these on the German 
 model (including six months' war wastage for the 
 Expeditionary Force) we should require to increase 
 the Home Defence peace establishment taken 
 above (123,000, giving 315,000 on mobilisation) by 
 at least 100,000 men. This would add about 
 £7,825,000 to the Estimates, or over a million and 
 a half more than the amount saved under para- 
 graph 13. 
 
 All the above figures assume the pay of the 
 British conscript reduced to the German level 
 of 2\d. a day. 
 
 C. H.
 
 APPENDIX VTII 
 
 NOTES CONTAINING THE ADMIRALTY 
 VIEW OF THE RISK OF INVASION * 
 
 The really serious danger that this country has to 
 guard against in war is not invasion, but interrup- 
 tion of our trade and destruction of our Merchant 
 Shipping 
 
 The strength of our Fleet is determined by what 
 is necessary to protect our trade, and, if it is suffi- 
 cient for that, it will be almost necessarily sufficienl 
 to prevent invasion, since the same disposition of 
 the ships to a great extent answers both purposes. 
 
 The main objeot aimed at by our Fleet, wheth< c 
 for the defence of commerce or for any other pur- 
 pose, is to prevent any ship of the enemy from 
 gettii far enough to do any mischief before 
 
 Bhe ifl brought to action. Any disposition 1 hat is 
 
 even moderately successful in attaining thisobjeel 
 will almost certainly be effective in preventing a 
 large fleet of transports, than which in. thine j s 
 nn.re vulnerable or more difficult to hide, from 
 reaching our shor< . 
 
 * These notes were supplied to the We* Offloe by the 
 
 Board of Admiralty in November, 1010, for the purp 
 mentioned at page I '.» .• upra. 
 
 209 14
 
 210 APPENDIX VIII 
 
 To realise the difficulty that an enemy would have 
 in bringing such a fleet of transports to our coast 
 and disembarking an army, it is necessary to re- 
 member that all the ships operating in home waters, 
 whether they are in the North Sea, the Channel, 
 or elsewhere, are in wireless communication with 
 the Admiralty and the Commander-in-Chief, so 
 that if a fleet of transports is sighted anywhere by 
 a single cruiser, or even by a merchant ship if 
 she is fitted with wireless, every ship which happened 
 to be in a position to intercept the transports would 
 at once get the order to concentrate as necessary 
 for the purpose, whether she was at sea or in harbour. 
 
 It is further necessary to remember that, even 
 supposing that by some extraordinary lucky chance 
 the transports were able to reach our coast without 
 being detected, their presence must be known when 
 they arrive there ; and long before half the troops 
 could be landed, the transports would be attacked 
 and sunk by submarines which are stationed along 
 the coast for that purpose. 
 
 Besides the submarines there would be always 
 a large force of destroyers, either in the ports along 
 the coast or within wireless call, as, in addition 
 to those that may be definitely detailed for coast 
 defence, the system of reliefs for those acting over 
 sea will ensure a large number being actually in 
 harbour at their respective bases, or within call 
 while going to or returning from their stations. 
 
 These destroyers, though not specially stationed 
 with that object, will always form, in conjunction
 
 ADMIRALTY VIEW OF INVASION 211 
 
 with submarines, a very effective second line of 
 defence in the improbable event of such a second 
 line being required. 
 
 To understand thoroughly the small chance of 
 an invasion from the other side of the North Sea 
 being successful, it is necessary to put oneself in 
 the place of the officer who has to undertake the 
 responsibility of conducting it. 
 
 His first difficulty will be to consider how he is 
 to get his great fleet of transports to sea without 
 any information of it leaking out through neutral 
 nations or otherwise. 
 
 Next, he will consider that somewhere within 
 wireless call we have nearly double the number of 
 battleships and cruisers that he can muster, besides 
 a swarm of destroyers. 
 
 He lias probably very vague and unreliable 
 information as to their positions which are con- 
 stantly changii 
 
 His unwieldy fleel will cover many square miles 
 of water, and as all the ships will be obliged to 
 oarry Lights for mutual safety, they will be visible 
 
 marly as far by Qlghl as by day. Bow eau he 
 
 hope to e ca pe discovery ? 
 
 Many of Ins transports will have speeds of not 
 more than ten to twelve knots, so that there will 
 he no hope for e cape by He hi if he is mel by a 
 Buperior tone. 
 
 If he is sighted by any of ourdestroyei at oighi 
 i hey will have little difficulty in avoiding the men- 
 of-war a iid t orpedoing t he fcrai poi
 
 212 APPENDIX VIII 
 
 Is it possible to entice part of our fleet away by 
 any stratagem ? Possibly. But even if he succeeds 
 in drawing off half our fleet, the other half, in con- 
 junction with destroyers and submarines, would 
 be quite sufficient to sink the greater part of his 
 transports, even if supported by the strongest fleet 
 he could collect. The fleets would engage each 
 other while the destroyers and submarines torpedoed 
 the transports. 
 
 Finally, even if he reached the coast in safety, 
 he would see that it was quite impossible to guard 
 his transports against the attacks of submarines 
 while he was landing the troops ; and that it was 
 quite certain that a superior force would be brought 
 to attack him before the landing could be completed. 
 
 Taking all these facts into consideration, he would 
 probably decide as the Admiralty have done, that 
 an invasion on even the moderate scale of 70,000 
 men is practically impossible. 
 
 A.K. W. 
 
 November 19th, 1910. 
 
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