A SPEECH TO THE CITIZENS OF MANCHESTER,
OCTOBER 25, 1912.
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
This is only the second occasion in a long
life on which I have had the privilege of
speaking in your city; and it is with no inadequate
sense of the value of that occasion and of the
responsibility attaching to the position which, for the
past ten years, I have taken up towards this
Empire and its armies that I come before you this
afternoon. For in the upbuilding of that Empire
what city in our dominions has taken a more
conspicuous part than this city, made illustrious almost
since its foundation by commercial enterprise and
by its political sagacity and spirit in affairs? In
the eighteenth century your merchants aided the
designs of the elder Pitt, and of the statesmen who
followed him, in founding that power in India and
the East which to-day is the envy and the admiration
of the nations. In the nineteenth, within my
own memory, your city, under the unforgotten
leadership of John Bright, Richard Cobden, and
Milner Gibson, gave a great watchword[1] to a great
and still living party, and by its resolute effort
forced through Parliament the repeal of the Corn
Laws, one of the most momentous and revolutionary
measures in this nation's history.
Nor, in more recent times, has Manchester abated
her zeal or her vital energy in every phase of
English political life. The greatest, most temperate,
and statesmanlike Liberal newspaper in England is
night by night printed within your walls; so that,
at least in one phase of our national life and
amongst one group of our fellow-citizens—the
Liberal party, that is to say—it is literally true
that what Manchester thinks to-night London
thinks to-morrow. And a certain election the
other day, and the overflow meetings which, I
understand, have been held in favour of Tariff
Reform within the sacred precincts of the Free
Trade Hall itself, give a further proof that here in
Manchester you are not petrified in your opinions,
but that the stream of your political life flows fresh
and from the fountain-head.
Judge then, gentlemen, whether it was not with
some concern that I looked forward to this
occasion; judge whether it was not with some
searching of the heart that I reflected upon what I
have this afternoon to say to you. For does it not
appear at first sight as if what I have to say is not
merely antagonistic to the teaching of the two
greatest names of the Manchester School, John
Bright and Richard Cobden, but is in every way
the contradiction of the characterizing ideas and
the traditions associated with this city itself?
For I come before you to-day to advocate the
necessity of National Service; to affirm once more
that the "Nation in Arms" is the only worthy
and sure bulwark of this Empire and these
islands.[2] Cobden, on the other hand, has left it on record
that he considered it the glory and the exceeding
great reward of all his labours that he had
contributed, in however small a degree, to that universal
disarmament of Europe, which, he sanguinely
hoped, would be the result of Free Trade and of
expanding commerce and the organization of labour.
And John Bright, his great colleague, in one speech
after another, added the lustre of his eloquence to
that same high and flattering anticipation. I can
remember easily the ardent and sympathetic reception
which those anticipations met in the France of
Louis Napoleon; I can remember also the added
weight which France's enthusiasm gave to those
happy anticipations here in England. War, indeed,
seemed at an end. To-morrow, it seemed, we
should be turning our barracks into granaries and
our arsenals into banking houses.
Gentlemen, I am, I trust, doing no wrong to the
memory of these statesmen when I point out that
in the very years—nay, in the very months—that
they were cherishing these illusions of peace and
universal disarmament, in those very months the
mightiest and most disciplined force that this earth
has ever contained was silently being drilled in that
wide region from the Rhine to the Elbe and the
Oder, and from the North Sea to the Bavarian
frontier, until, the right hour having struck, that
army disclosed itself in all its prodigious and
crushing mass and in all its unmatched capacity for
destruction and war. And, amid those auspicious
dreams of peace, for what was that army being
trained? Koeniggrätz, Metz, St. Privat, and Sedan
are the answer. Nor did that army pause until
upon the ruins of the Empire of the third Napoleon—upon
the ruins, I may say, of France, unprepared
in peace, and in war scattered and dismayed—it had
reared a new Empire, the Empire of William I., of
Frederick I., and of William II., for whose personal
character, noble and imaginative patriotism, and
capacities as a ruler, I yield to no man in my
admiration. Such, gentlemen, was history's ironic
comment upon John Bright's and Richard Cobden's
eloquently-urged enthusiasm. Let me not increase
by any word of mine the crushing weight of
Destiny's criticism.
Now, gentlemen, at the present day, now in
the year 1912, our German friends, I am well
aware, do not, at least in sensible circles, assert
dogmatically that a war with Great Britain will
take place this year or next; but in their heart
of hearts they know, every man of them,[3] that,
just as in 1866 and just as in 1870, war will take
place the instant the German forces by land and
sea are, by their superiority at every point, as
certain of victory as anything in human calculation
can be made certain. "Germany strikes when
Germany's hour has struck." That is the
time-honoured policy of her Foreign Office. That was
the policy relentlessly pursued by Bismarck and
Moltke in 1866 and 1870; it has been her policy
decade by decade since that date; it is her policy at
the present hour. And, gentlemen, it is an
excellent policy. It is, or should be, the policy of
every nation prepared to play a great part in
history. Under that policy Germany has, within
the last ten years, sprung, as at a bound, from
one of the weakest of naval Powers to the greatest
naval Power, save one, upon this globe. But
yesterday, so to speak, the British Fleets did
not feel the furrow of a German war-keel on
the wide seas. To-day every British warship and
every British merchant vessel thrills in all her
iron nerves to that mighty presence. Just as
in 1866, by the massing of her armies towards
this frontier or towards that frontier, Prussia
controlled the action of Austria, so Germany
constrains the action of England at the present day.
Do you wish for proofs? I point to the gradual
displacement of the British Fleet before the German
menace. I point to the Mediterranean, bereft of
British battleships, and to the gradual narrowing,
year by year, of our once far-flung battle-line.
We may stand still: Germany always advances,
and the direction of her advance, the line along
which she is moving, is now most manifest. It is
towards that consummation which I have described—a
complete supremacy by land and sea. She has
built a mighty fleet; but, as if nothing were done
so long as anything stands between her and her
goal, still she presses on—here establishing a new
Heligoland, for every available island in the North
Sea has been fortified—there enclosing Holland in
a network of new canals, and deepening old riverbeds
for the swifter transport of the munitions of
war, whether to her army or her fleet.
Contrasted with our own apathy or puerile and
spasmodic efforts, how impressive is this magnificent
and unresting energy! It has the mark of true
greatness; it extorts admiration even from those
against whom it is directed!
But, it is urged by the advocates of universal
peace, how monstrous is this expenditure of human
strength and human ingenuity, if unused, and how
yet more monstrous the waste of human life if
actually used in war![4] And how much more sane
is the policy of Cobden and of Bright and of
their imitators or followers at the present day!
Gentlemen, arguments which prove the folly and
criminality of war are, at the present stage of
history, like the arguments which prove the folly
and criminality of ambition and of the love of glory.
Even those who argue most eloquently against
glory do, by that very eloquence, seek to win glory;
and those who argue most forcibly against war do,
nevertheless, live, and for long will continue to live,
under an invisible power which has made war an
inseparable portion of human polity. Much, during
the autumn of 1911, was said and written upon
arbitration. America's action in the Panama Canal,
and the impotence of diplomatists in the Balkan
crisis,[5] are again history's ironic comment in the
autumn of 1912! Arbitration most certainly is
more humane than war; but, at the present stage
of the polity of nations, arbitration again and again
refuses to extend itself to some of the most vital
and essential questions—questions which, to a
nation or empire sensitive alike to its honour and
to its abiding interests, make war unavoidable.
Again, we have heard much during the current
year of the power of Labour in international
politics. The German Socialist, it is said, will not
make war upon his French or his English comrade.
Gentlemen, it is to the credit of the human race
that patriotism, in the presence of such organizations,
has always proved itself superior to any class
or any individual. Love of country has on the
actual day of battle always proved itself superior
to love of profit. That law has not been abrogated,
and if war broke out to-morrow the German
working man would quit himself like a German, and
the British working man, I hope, like a Briton.
Hence, gentlemen, the mistrust with which I
have always viewed the proposals of British
Ministers for a limitation of armaments. Emanating
from Great Britain, such proposals must always,
I imagine, impress a foreign observer as either too
early or too late in English history. For how was
this Empire of Britain founded? War founded
this Empire—war and conquest! When we, therefore,
masters by war of one-third of the habitable
globe, when we propose to Germany to disarm, to
curtail her navy or diminish her army, Germany
naturally refuses; and pointing, not without
justice, to the road by which England, sword in
hand, has climbed to her unmatched eminence,
declares openly, or in the veiled language of
diplomacy, that by the same path, if by no other,
Germany is determined also to ascend! Who
amongst us, knowing the past of this nation, and
the past of all nations and cities that have ever
added the lustre of their name to human annals,
can accuse Germany or regard the utterance of one
of her greatest Chancellors a year and a half ago,[6]
or of General Bernhardi three months ago, with any
feelings except those of respect?
Gentlemen, other world-Powers besides Germany
have arisen and are arising around us; but there
is one way in which Britain can have peace, not
only with Germany, but with every other Power,
national or imperial, and that is, to present such a
battle-front by sea and land that no Power or
probable combination of Powers shall dare to attack
her without the certainty of disaster. That is the
only reply worthy of our past and wise for our
future which we can or ought to make to those
unparalleled efforts which I have described. And
there is a way in which England can have war;
there is a way in which she is certain to have war
and its horrors and calamities: it is by persisting
in her present course, her apathy, unintelligence,
blindness, and in her disregard of the warnings of
the most ordinary political insight, as well as of the
examples of history.
And what is the lesson which History enforces?
Of two courses you must choose one: you must
either abandon your Empire, and with it your
mercantile wealth; or, in the world as it is at
present, be prepared to defend it.
But, you will say, are we so unprepared? Have
we not a Fleet? Have we not an Army?
We have a Fleet, but that Fleet is rapidly
becoming unequal to the fleets by which we may be
opposed, and by the inadequacy of our land forces
it is maimed and hampered in its very nature as a
Fleet. For the essence of a Fleet in such an
Empire as ours is the utmost mobility: it must
have complete freedom of action. But if, in
addition to its own duties, our Fleet has to perform the
role of an army of defence, what must follow? It
becomes a "wooden wall" indeed, unmoving and
inert, anchored around these shores. It is helpless
to protect our food-supplies, without the regular
arrival of which we must starve.
A paramount Navy we must possess, whether of
two keels to one or three keels to two. That is a
self-evident truth. But if this Empire is to keep
abreast of the rapid and tremendous developments
amongst the world-Powers around us, something
more is necessary, and the necessity increases with
every year, almost with every month. It is the
necessity for an Army strong enough to insure the
mobility of our Navy, and strong enough also to
make our strength felt on the mainland of Europe,
should we ever appear there as the armed ally of
another Power, as we were on the verge of doing
last autumn. That also is, or ought to be, self-evident.
What, then, is my plan, and what is my ultimate
counsel to the nation and the message to my
countrymen that at this solemn hour I would
utter? It is the message burnt into my mind
twelve years ago during the crisis of the South
African War; it is the message which every hour
of that protracted and not too glorious struggle
made me feel to be more and more necessary; and,
I am compelled to say frankly, it is the message
which events, some quite recent and some remoter,
have compelled me to regard as more pressing in
1912 than in 1900-1901. Gentlemen, that message
is: "Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men,
for the time of your ordeal is at hand." A long
interval has been allowed us for preparation; for in
this era of rapid evolution twelve years is a big
space in human affairs. Twelve years have been
given to us, and in those years what have we done?
We have modified and remodified the effete
voluntary system; we have invented several new names
and a new costume. But as regards efficiency and
as regards preparedness for war, we are practically
where we were in 1900.[7]
For, so far as the choice between the voluntary
system and some form of National Service is
concerned, what have these twelve years demonstrated,
except the futility and positive danger of any and
every other system except some form of compulsion?
There has, I say, been much juggling with words
and names. The old Militia and Volunteers have
disappeared, and the Special Reserve and the
Territorials have taken their place; there has been
much complimentary and interested or disinterested
laudation by Members of Parliament, and, I regret
to say, by some few officers of the army. The fact
remains, that in the opinion of every impartial
soldier with any experience of modern war—in the
opinion, I say, of every soldier, whether British,
German, or French, who has given any attention
to the subject, this great Empire is wholly
unprepared for war. As a European Power, as a
Continental Power, we do not exist—for war. Our
Army, as a belligerent factor in European politics,
is almost a negligible quantity. This great Empire,
indeed—and the more we exalt its greatness and
its unrivalled character, the more astounding does
our recklessness appear—this great Empire is at all
times practically defenceless beyond its first line.
Such an Empire invites war. Its assumed security
amid the armaments of Europe, and now of Asia,
is insolent and provocative.
For remember that war does not begin, nor does
it end, on the day of battle. There is a kind of
war which goes on silent and unperceived amid
apparent peace. That is the war which undermines
commerce, which profoundly affects a city
like your city. If once you permit any one State
to be your undisputed superior by sea and land,
that hour, even if not a shot be fired, you cease
to be a free nation. You are no longer an Empire.
Your commercial greatness is vanished. You hold
your very lives by the sufferance of another, and
would have to submit to any terms he might
dictate.
Such, gentlemen, is the origin, and such the
considerations which have fostered in me the growth
of this conviction—the conviction that in some
form of National Service is the only salvation of
this nation and this Empire. The Territorial Force
is now an acknowledged failure—a failure in
discipline, a failure in numbers, a failure in equipment,
a failure in energy.[8] I have so often demonstrated
this thesis; I have so often analyzed the
contradictions[9] in the arguments of the supporters of the
Territorial movement; I have so often exposed
their vamped-up statistics, and the rewards and
encouragement offered by politicians to every
soldier or civilian willing to say a word in praise of
that scheme—I have done all this so often that
there seems nothing left for me to say. To you,
as practical business men, I will merely repeat this
one statement—a statement the truth of which is
known to every experienced soldier—that so long as
the Territorial Force is based on voluntary
enlistment, it is impossible to give its members a
sufficiently lengthy and continuous period of
training to insure a discipline which will stand the
severe test of modern war. In saying this, I am
making no aspersions against the zeal or intelligence
of the patriotic men who compose the Force;
neither they nor their employers can afford the
necessary time, so long as all men in this country
are not treated alike, and all compelled to serve
their apprenticeship in the National Forces.[10] And,
unless I am misinformed, the majority of the
Territorials are now in favour of compulsion.
Gentlemen, only the other day I completed my
eightieth year, and to some of you, doubtless to
many of you, I am indebted for one of the moments
of the deepest gratification in my life, and the
words I am speaking to-day are, therefore, old
words—the result of earnest thought and practical
experience; but, gentlemen, my fellow-citizens
and fellow-Englishmen, citizens of this great and
sacred trust, this Empire, if these were my last
and latest words, I still should say to you, "Arm
yourselves!" And if I put to myself the question,
How can I, even at this late and solemn hour,
best help England?—England that to me has been
so much, England that for me has done so
much—again I answer, "Arm and prepare to quit
yourselves like men, for the day of your ordeal is at
hand." I have commanded your armies in peace
and in war. In my early years, as in my middle
life, and now in these my latest years, I have felt
to the quick the glories accompanying the armies
of the past across every battlefield. What made
the valour of those armies so distinguished? One
thing at least: it was that, in officers exclusively,
and in the ranks mainly, they were composed of
men who regarded citizenship as incomplete unless
it involved soldiership. Gentlemen, you have been
enfranchised, many of you, by the great Acts of
1832 and 1867. I say to you, the young men of
this city and of this nation, that your enfranchisement
is not complete until you have become soldiers
as well as citizens, prepared to attest your manhood
on the battlefield as well as at the election booths.
Much has been said recently of the rights and
the power of the workers of this nation. We all,
I hope, belong to that class—workers—but the
artisan class of the nation has been urged—and
to you, the working men of Manchester, I now
specially address myself—you have been urged, I
say, to refuse to do your duties in war until your
rights in peace are granted. Gentlemen, I say to
you, that is not the policy either of Britishers or
of men. I will go further: I say to you that it
is not by declining or shirking duty that you will
extend your rights. He who diminishes the power
and vital resources of Great Britain diminishes the
power and the vital resources of every Britisher.
How can you most easily and most securely better
yourselves as Britishers—as working men? By
making England better, by making it better worth
your while to be a citizen of, and a worker in
that nation! If you seized by violence or by
Act of Parliament all the accumulated capital
of the centuries, you might have a madman's
holiday for a time; but in the end you would
emerge bankrupt and starving. You yourselves
are the capital of the nation—the life-wealth of
the nation—its manhood. Weapons, however
perfect, will not make an army. Men are necessary—men
of spirit, men of energy, loving their country,
not merely loving their class or themselves. And
on you, in turn, that discipline and those duties will
confer unreckonable benefits. A tyranny imposes
an exterior restraint; but you, in your free
democratic constitution, should consider it as your
privilege to impose upon yourselves from within
that discipline and those sacred duties.
I say to you, therefore, assert your rights as
Britishers by demanding the greatest, the highest
of all civic and of all national rights—the right to
be taught to defend your country—the right, that
is, to defend your own honour as Britons and your
liberties as citizens of this Empire. Thus, and thus
only, shall you be worthy of that Empire's great
past and of the dignity which that past confers
upon every man of you, whatever your position in
life may be.
ENGLEMERE, ASCOT, BERKS.
November 5, 1912.
To THE EDITOR OF THE "MANCHESTER GUARDIAN."
Sir,
My attention has been drawn to the leader
in your issue of the 4th instant, in which you deal
with a passage in my speech in Manchester. I am
too much accustomed to adverse criticism in my
efforts to arouse the nation to a sense of its
unpreparedness for war to resent in any way the attacks
of my opponents. But when a paper of such
standing as that of the Manchester Guardian completely
misconstrues what was certainly a salient passage in
my speech, I feel bound, in justice to the cause
which I have at heart, to explain my meaning more
fully than was possible when I was dealing with the
whole question of National Defence in relation to
our position as a world-Power.
It is true that I pointed out the striking process
by which Germany has developed from a loose
congeries of petty federated States to the united
Empire which arouses the admiration of the world
to-day. Before 1866 the German States, under
the scarcely-established leadership of Prussia, were
surrounded on every side by jealous rivals or hostile
neighbours, and it seemed doubtful whether the
unity which was the dream of Stein in 1806, and of
the Revolutionists in 1848, could ever be attained,
except by a policy of blood and iron. Certain it is
that Bismarck, the architect of united Germany, saw
in the policy of successful war the only means of
realizing German nationality, and of constructing
the edifice of national greatness so firmly that it
should stand "foursquare to all the winds that
blow." The three hammer strokes of 1864, 1866, and 1870,
were needed to achieve this result, but the strength
and precision of those hammer blows were prepared
by long years of patient, self-sacrificing labour,
during which the German forces were made "as
certain of victory as anything in human calculation
can be made certain, by their superiority at every
point." Of this process and development, inspiring
the whole nation to manful effort and to individual
sacrifice for the common fatherland, even if it be in
preparation for death or victory on the battlefield,
I said that "it is an excellent policy. It is, or should
be, the policy of every nation prepared to play a
great part in history." And I repeat that statement
to-day, when the glorious achievements of the
younger Nations in Arms have lent point to its
truth, while they have established their claims to
nationhood and the gratitude of hundreds of
thousands of their kinsmen.
But to suggest that I am urging upon England
that it should be her policy, first, to arm herself
better than Germany, and then to make war on
Germany, with or without a just cause, with or
without even a quarrel, simply because England
thinks herself at that moment able to win a war—this
is a suggestion so strange and so repugnant to
my mind that I am utterly at a loss to understand
how it could be attributed to me, or elicited from
my speech. A moment's reflection will show the
vast difference between the position of Germany,
with which I was dealing, and that of England
to-day. While Germany, owing to her rapidly
expanding population and vast economic development,
is impelled to look for means of expansion in
a world which is already for the most part parcelled
out, we, on the other hand, do not require or seek
another square mile of dominion. Our object must
be to develop the resources of our Empire,
commercially, industrially, and socially. But in order
to be able to do so we must be in a position to
defend ourselves successfully against aggression,
and so to remove the temptation which a wealthy
but ill-defended Empire must always offer to a
strong and virile people, proud of its achievements
and conscious of its fitness to fill a greater place
amid the nations. My whole speech was directed,
therefore—as are all my efforts—to impressing
upon my fellow-countrymen the terrible danger
which is involved in the present situation, in which
we alone find ourselves, as a nation, untrained,
unorganized, and unarmed, amid a Europe in which
every people, not only great Powers like Russia,
Germany, and France, but the smaller States—Bulgaria,
Servia, Greece, Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark—stand as armed nations, providing a
balance of forces which, while it strengthens each
one of them physically and industrially, makes for
peace with honour—or for the triumph of the right.
Yours very truly,
ROBERTS, F.M.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The controversies raised by my Manchester speech
prove that there is still much misapprehension, not
always involuntary, in regard to the position of the
National Service League towards the Territorial
Force. I therefore insert in this place a statement
of that position which I made in a speech delivered
in the Mansion House in July last.
As an introduction to that speech I may be permitted
to quote from a statement which, as President
of the League, I published in the Times in January,
1912:
"It is not infrequently asserted that the League
is hostile to the Territorials, that we have
discouraged recruiting for them, and that, were our
programme adopted, the Territorial Force would
disappear. Nothing is further from the truth.
From the date of its formation we have constantly
praised the Territorial Force as an organization; we
have again and again borne willing witness to the
patriotism of those who joined its ranks.
Thus in 1908, Lord Milner, speaking at the annual
dinner of the League on June 24, said: "Let
us hold up high the standard of efficiency for the
Territorial army as we have got it, and let us back
up those who have originated that army and who
are trying to make the best of it; let us back them
up in all their efforts to make it as like a real army
in training and in equipment as it is possible to
make it. That, I believe, is the proper course for
us to pursue."
In our official statement issued in February, 1909,
these words occur: "The National Service League
has consistently given the warmest support to the
Territorial Force from its inception, recognizing the
great superiority in organization and capabilities
that this Force provides as compared with the old
Volunteer Force."
And, during the past year (1911), in his volume,
"Fallacies and Facts," the President of the League,
whilst criticizing Lord Haldane's and Sir Ian
Hamilton's deductions, allots the highest praise to
the public spirit alike of employers and employees
who support the Territorial movement.
In addition to this, our members have actively
helped the Territorial Force by working on the
County Associations and by obtaining recruits.
We are represented on the majority of the County
Associations, and nearly one-fourth of the members
of these Associations are also members of the
National Service League. Again, many of our
members are enrolled in the Territorials, and Lord
Haldane himself, speaking at the headquarters of
the 6th City of London Rifles on December 1, 1911,
said there were numbers of the National Service
League who had assisted in the work of recruiting
for the Territorial Force, and he "took this
opportunity of thanking them."
Moreover, it is to be observed that the whole
programme of the National Service League is now
based on the maintenance and expansion of the
Territorial Force. Our programme, far from
involving the disappearance of that Force, or of any
part of that Force, accepts it in its entirety. All
that it does is to change the system of recruiting,
and thus enable the training to be given before and
not after war breaks out. Were the League's
proposals adopted, not a single unit of the Territorial
Force would be reduced, nor a man called upon to
leave its ranks. The whole organization and
personnel would be preserved, and their services would
be invaluable in bridging the difficult period of
transition from the old system to the new. The
Territorial Force would be increased to an adequate
strength, made efficient as a military machine, and
would rest on the firm basis of universal military
training of the manhood of the nation, instead
of—as at present—on insufficient service given with
difficulty by a patriotic minority.
The above, we trust, will be sufficient to dispose
of the idea that there is, or ever has been, any
antagonism on the part of the League towards the
Territorial Force as a body. We contend that all
able-bodied men should be trained in it.
But, whilst we have from the beginning praised
the organization of this Force, whilst we have
admired the patriotism and self-sacrifice of those
who have joined it, and encouraged our members
to support it, we do not conceal our opinion that,
resting as it does on voluntary enlistment alone, it
can never become a Force on which the country
can rely for its protection in time of peril. Every
year that passes emphasizes the correctness of this
view. The Territorial Force is in the fourth year
of its existence, and, despite the large measure of
support given to it and the unwearied labour of one
of the ablest War Ministers we have ever had, what
is its condition? Its strength in round numbers
should be 314,000. It is 264,000. All its members
should do fifteen days' drill in camp every year.
Only 155,300 have done so this year. It should
have 11,300 Territorial Officers. It has only 9,500.
Finally, 40 officers and 6,703 men were absent from
camp this year without leave.
We ask any open-minded man whether a Force
thus constituted is an army at all, much less an army
to which this country can entrust its existence as a
great Nation?
We do not bring these facts forward in order to
discredit Lord Haldane's courageous efforts or to
depreciate the patriotism of those now serving in
the Force. We bring them forward simply in
order to demonstrate the impossibility of
constructing a defensive Army equal to this country's
needs on a basis of voluntary enlistment. If Lord
Haldane, backed by the hearty support of King
and country, has failed—and by his own admission
he has failed—who is likely to succeed?
Not many weeks ago this country was on the
verge of a gigantic war. And it was a war which,
if it had come, would have come unexpectedly and
suddenly. What would have been our position?
All the soothing fallacies which pass current in
time of peace—the belief that our Expeditionary
Force can at the same time be sent abroad and yet
kept at home to cover the training of the Territorial
Force; the belief that this Force is sure of six
months' unmolested leisure in which it can fit itself
for the serious business of war—would have been
shattered in twelve hours. The Expeditionary
Force—to be of any use at all—must have been
despatched abroad without a day's delay; and, for
the defence of these islands, we should have had to
rely upon a handful of Regulars left behind in the
depots as "unfit"; such of the Special Reserve as
may not be required for the Expeditionary Force,
and the National Reserve; but mainly upon a Territorial
Force,[1] nominally 264,000 strong, untrained
for war, and further weakened by a shortage of 1,800
officers!
Now, making every allowance for the immense
resisting power which in moments of supreme peril
nations and cities have occasionally derived from
enthusiasm or despair, is it either fitting, we ask, or
even prudent, that, in the twentieth century, Great
Britain should repose her trust in so problematical
and hazardous a presumption? For the transformation
of the most heroic enthusiasm into an
effective weapon of war demands time, exactly as
the transformation of the Territorials into an
efficient Army demands time. But when war
comes it will come with great suddenness; the
essential crisis will be on us in an instant, and for
Great Britain—as Lord Salisbury in his latest
utterances significantly warned us—the stake is not
to be reckoned in millions of a war indemnity; the
stake is our very existence as an Empire.
When Lord Haldane cites the exploits of
untrained or semi-trained forces, when he speaks
of "a whole nation springing to arms at the call of
duty," he has his eyes fastened upon other
circumstances and upon other times than ours. Under
the conditions of modern war, discipline alone can
confront discipline on a field of battle.
"We appeal to our countrymen to join us in our
effort," I went on to say. "We appeal, above all,
to the officers and men of the existing Territorial
Force. We are working to insure that their
sacrifice to patriotism should not be made futile,
nor their devotion thrown away. We are working
to make the Army to which they belong a reality—that
is to say, a Home Army efficient and sufficient;
an Army which shall always be ready to
take up the defence of these islands, and leave
our Regulars free and our Fleets free to fight our
battles elsewhere. We ask them to assist us in
our efforts to introduce a system of compulsory
training, the only system under which the safety of
the country can be secured and the Territorial
Force made really effective."
LORD HALDANE'S SCHEME EXAMINED
Speech delivered in the Mansion House,
July 22, 1912.
MY LORD MAYOR, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN,
It is seven years, almost to the day, since I
had the honour of addressing a meeting of City
men in this historic House on the subject of
Imperial Defence. On that occasion I prefaced my
remarks by saying: "I have but one object in
coming before you to-day, namely, to bring home
to my fellow-countrymen the vital necessity of their
taking into their earnest consideration our
unpreparedness for war." I then affirmed that the
armed forces of this country were as absolutely
unfitted and unprepared for war as they were in
1899-1900. And, my Lords and gentlemen, I grieve to
have this afternoon to repeat to you that we are
now scarcely better fitted or better prepared to
carry on a war to-day than in 1905. The experience
that we gained in the Boer War has had little
effect upon our general military policy. We have
neglected, except as regards the Regular Army, to
profit by the lessons which that war ought to have
taught us.
What are the causes of this indifference and this
deep-seated apathy?
The causes, I think, are not far to seek. In the
first place, if you will permit me as a soldier to
speak with the frankness of a soldier, it is one of the
most dangerous tendencies of a nation, especially a
democratic and self-confident nation, devoted to
commerce and industry as we are, to ignore so
disturbing and apparently so remote a contingency as
our being forced into war. But there is another
more immediate and a more particular cause, and
it is to this that I mainly wish to direct your
attention this afternoon.
Those who are responsible for our defences—and
I must include in this category the late Minister for
War—are, I maintain, either so blind to the lessons
of history, or so enamoured of their own schemes,
that they have deliberately lulled the nation into
the belief that our present system is adequate, and
that we are amply prepared to meet any dangers
which come within the sphere of consideration by
practical men. Thus the very men who ought to
declare the facts in the plainest terms to the nation,
the very men who ought to be endeavouring to
rouse the nation from its fatal apathy, are the men
who are fostering that spirit of indifference and
self-confidence to which the nation of itself is
already too prone. A democracy like ours will
never take the necessary measures to safeguard
itself so long as Ministers and a partisan Press
proclaim that we are as a nation perfectly safe, when,
as a matter of fact, our position is precarious in the
extreme. This is a serious statement; but, if you
will have patience with me, I hope to convince you
that it is well founded, and it can be demonstrated
from the principles of Imperial Defence which
Lord Haldane has so frequently, and, it must be
admitted, so plausibly, urged upon us.
My Lords and gentlemen, I have on many occasions
paid a tribute to Lord Haldane's services.
He has placed the problems of National Defence
upon what is, for a British Minister, a new and
comprehensive basis; and he will go down to posterity
as the first British statesman who, in theory,
embodied in an actual scheme the idea of a National
Army, "A Nation in Arms." This conception is so
important to my whole subject this afternoon that
it is worth while to recall some of Lord Haldane's
expressed ideas with regard to it.
Speaking at Newcastle-on-Tyne in September,
1906, Lord Haldane said that we must have a
highly trained nucleus in time of peace, and must
look for a great expansion in time of war, "and for
that expansion we must go to the nation, and ask
for the co-operation of the nation," adding: "A
nation in arms is the only safeguard for the public
interests," and that "this idea has been neglected
in our military contemplation. The problem," he
went on to say, "is not a problem of the Regular
Forces nearly so much as the problem of the nation
in arms, of the people as a whole, with all the forces
of the country welded into one."
Such an expression of opinion by the newly-created
Secretary of State for War was to many of
us an augury of great hope. It seemed that at last
Great Britain might have an army adapted to
modern conditions of war; that we had at last a
Minister who not only understood, but had
enunciated in a clear and masterly manner our own
conception of a Nation in Arms. From that time
forward, we imagined, the Nation in Arms would
be regarded as a vigorous trunk from which the
Regular Army and the personnel of the Navy
would spring forth as branches, drawing their sap
and the vigour of their life from the qualities—mental,
moral, and physical—of the nation itself.
For that, and no other, is the real meaning of the
phrase "A Nation in Arms."
Such, my Lords and gentlemen, was Lord
Haldane's language in September, 1906—less than
six years ago. Might it not be imagined that he
was speaking as President of the National Service
League, addressing a meeting such as I am addressing to-day?
Nor can it be denied that, in his subsequent
description of the functions to be fulfilled by the
Forces which he has substituted for the Volunteers,
Lord Haldane has correctly kept in view the
relationship which ought to exist between the
branches and the trunk, between the Navy and
the Regular nucleus on the one hand, and the
"National Army lying behind" them on the other.
In his Memorandum on the Army Estimates for
1908-09, when the Territorial Force was created,
Lord Haldane said that it was "designed—
"1. To compel any hostile Power which may
attempt invasion to send a force so large that its
transports could not evade our own fleets and
flotillas.
"2. To free the Regular Army from the necessity
of remaining in these islands to fulfil the functions
of Home Defence.
"3. And," he said, "a further result will be to
permit greater freedom to the Navy."
Elsewhere Lord Haldane protested that the
"essence of the duty of the Territorial Force is to
protect us against invasion"; and he pointed out
that the Territorial Force might have to be
entrusted with the defence of these shores after the
whole of the Regular Army had left the country.
You will see, my Lords and gentlemen, that an
efficient Territorial Force is thus made the
fundamental condition of the effectiveness of our whole
defensive system, and the question immediately
arises, Can the Territorial Force perform the
functions assigned to it? If it cannot perform
those functions, the whole defensive system, of
which it is the central pillar, must fall to the ground.
What, then, is this system?
It consists, for an Empire such as ours, of three
parts—
1. A supreme Navy, the standard for which has
been laid down by the present Government as that
of a 60 per cent. superiority over the next strongest
Navy.
2. A Regular Army, to act as a garrison and
police force to our Empire in time of peace, and as
a striking force in time of war.
3. A Home Army of such a character as regards
numbers and training as would enable it to free
the Navy and the Regular Army from the primary
duties of Home Defence by providing direct security
against an attempted invasion of these shores, and
at the same time to form a potential reserve which
could supply by voluntary effort in a national
emergency powers of expansion to the Regular
Army when fighting for the very existence of our
Empire abroad.
Does our Territorial Force, as it stands to-day,
provide us with a Home Army of this character?
I have no hesitation in answering this question in
the negative. The Territorial Force is not and,
under the conditions of voluntary service, never
can be fit to perform the functions allotted to it by
Lord Haldane himself.
My Lords and gentlemen, three conditions must
be fulfilled in order that an Army may be efficient.
These conditions are—
1. Sound organization.
2. Sufficient numbers.
3. Adequate training.
To the soundness of the organization established
by Lord Haldane I have frequently testified. He
wisely followed the advice given by the Royal
Commission on the Auxiliary Forces, and there
is, therefore, as regards organization, nothing to
criticize.
With regard to numbers, I have reminded you
that, when the scheme was first put forward, Lord
Haldane talked of a "Nation in Arms," and the
figures he gave—"seven, or eight, or nine hundred
thousand"—showed that he contemplated the
training of a Home Army of a strength which would
correspond in a measure to that phrase. At that
time, too, he declared his intention of including in
his scheme a comprehensive plan for the training of
boys in Cadet Corps, which would have contributed
materially to broaden the basis of the Home Army,
and might have shortened the period of training for
those who joined the Territorial Force, had that
period in itself been adequate. But this most useful
proposal he dropped at the outset at the bidding of
a small section of his political supporters. And, my
Lords and gentlemen, in actual numbers what do we
possess? The establishment of the Territorial Army
is 315,000. On April 1, 1912, the numbers obtained
(a large proportion being mere boys) were 278,955—that
is to say, four years after the scheme was started
the force is about 25,000 short of the establishment
laid down, but more than 400,000 short of the
smallest number that Lord Haldane originally
hoped for.
Can it be pretended for a moment that such
a number provides the Home Army which Mr. Asquith
described as necessary, if we are to be able
to guard against a successful invasion of even
70,000 men? I say nothing at this point of the
danger of believing that no force larger than 70,000
may have to be dealt with; but I must point out
that, in order to deal with an invasion of even
70,000 highly-trained soldiers, a field force of at
least 300,000 partially-trained men are required, in
addition to some 200,000 men needed for the
protection of the naval bases and arsenals, and to
garrison the principal places in Great Britain and
Ireland.
It is important that you should realize the facts:
that the number asked for was quite inadequate;
that even that number has not been obtained, and
that the age and physique of a considerable
proportion of those who have come forward are not up
to a satisfactory standard; for Lord Haldane has
been concentrating all his efforts and the attention
of the public on securing, at almost any cost, the
number of men for the Territorial Force—that is,
the total of 315,000 men, to which his ideal of a
Nation in Arms has shrunk. But even in this he
has failed. These frantic efforts to secure a nominal
success are designed to distract attention from the
far more serious question of the training of the
Territorial Force, and to create the impression that
the scheme is a masterpiece which is beyond criticism,
and which has, once for all, made it quite unnecessary
to discuss the question of compulsory service
for the Home Army.
So much for organization and numbers; now for
the third condition—namely, the training of the
Territorial Force. In discussing this question I
must try to avoid misinterpretation by saying that,
in stating plain facts, I am not criticizing the officers
or men of that Force. On the contrary, I honour
them for their patriotism, and for the admirable
example they are setting to their apathetic
fellow-countrymen. It is the voluntary system that I
condemn, and the politicians who are hoodwinking
this nation into the belief that that system is
adequate and sufficient for our needs. And surely
I need not apologize for examining the standard of
training laid down for the Territorial Force. Lord
Haldane himself, in 1906, declared, "It is preparedness
for war which is the key to the sort of
organization we ought to have in peace"; and on another
occasion he said, "The contemplation of large
numbers by the people of this country, who are
unable to take into account questions of war
efficiency and war organization, necessarily promotes
dangerous national illusions." It is against such
"dangerous national illusions" that I wish to warn
my fellow-countrymen in the following analysis of
the training of the Territorial Force.
The Territorial soldier can be enlisted at seventeen
years of age, and the engagement is for four years.
In the first year he must do a minimum of forty
drills of an hour each, and a minimum of eight days
or a maximum of fifteen days, in camp. In the
next year he must do ten drills of an hour each, and
the same camp training. The musketry standard
can hardly be described as high, seeing that each
man is only provided by the State with 90 rounds
per annum, and in some cases this number is
disposed of on an enclosed range on one day in the
year. This is simply ludicrous, considering that, in
modern war and with the modern rifle, the soldier
who cannot use this weapon with skill and confidence
is absolutely useless.[1]
Such is the minimum peace training laid down
for the Territorial Force. It is less than the
minimum training in any army or Militia in the
world. I am aware that many officers and men do
a great deal more as individuals. But what is far
more important—and I ask you, my Lords and
gentlemen, most earnestly to realize the fact—a
large number do not reach even this minimum
amount of training.
The proposal to give six months' training after
war breaks out is so amazing as to be unworthy of
consideration, and it is difficult to believe that it
was made seriously by its talented author, seeing
that readiness for war is the purpose aimed at by
every European nation; and now-a-days, when war
breaks out with the greatest suddenness, and the
stake at issue between two great nations going to
war would be so gigantic, the temptation to secure
the advantage of the initiative and to commence
hostilities without declaration of war could hardly
be resisted.[2]
But it may be urged that, although the Territorial
Force is evidently not fit to perform its
functions without a proper course of recruit training,
surely it would be possible to secure that training
in time of peace, instead of postponing it until the
outbreak of war, as Lord Haldane proposed. If
the nation still hugs this delusion, I hope it will
abandon it before it drags us down to disaster. For
one hundred years the voluntary system for Home
Defence has been tried and found wanting. Under
it a sufficient number of men have never been
forthcoming, and can never be forthcoming, to
devote enough time in peace to render the Army
fit for war. Discipline cannot be acquired by
homeopathic doses; nothing but a considerable
period of continuous training can give individual
soldiers and military units that self-confidence and
cohesion which are essential to success in war;
and no modification of the voluntary system, no
amount of lavish expenditure, no cajolery, no
juggling with figures, will ever produce an adequate
and efficient Home Army.
This truth was clearly expressed by the Duke of
Norfolk when he said, with reference to the Report
of the Royal Commission on the Auxiliary Forces,
of which he was the President: "The breakdown is
in almost every case attributed essentially to the
nature of the voluntary system itself, which makes
it impossible to demand a reasonable standard of
efficiency without greatly reducing the forces."
Curiously enough, Lord Haldane, speaking of
the Territorial Force, seems to have recognized the
correctness of this conclusion, for in the House of
Commons on March 9, 1908, he said: "Because it
is a voluntary Army on a voluntary basis, you can
only give it just so much training as volunteers are
able and willing to take...." Can anything be
more condemnatory of the value of a Force, which
will assuredly be required the moment war breaks
out? And to quote the Duke of Norfolk again:
"If you trust the present organization ... you
will be leaning on a prop which will fail when the
day of trial comes."
What would be the result is simply this—for
six months the striking force could not strike. The
Regular Army could not leave these shores to
assist our fellow-countrymen in India and the
oversea Dominions, or to reinforce our friends and
allies in accordance with the obligations of honour
and mutual interest which we have undertaken.
For six months the Navy would be hampered and
shackled in performing its traditional duties of
seeking out the enemy's fleets—it would, in fact,
be deprived of that "greater freedom" which the
Territorial Force was intended to give it.
But, my Lords and gentlemen, we have not had
to wait for war to see the effects of this pernicious
policy; its evil effects are already upon us, though
nominally we are at peace with all the world.
Year by year, during the past decade, the ocean area
over which the British flag floats has been steadily
narrowed, and within the past three months, the
most presageful, the most ominous narrowing of all,
has taken place. We have abandoned the Mediterranean
Sea. But yesterday that great sea was like
a British lake; to-day not a single British battleship
disturbs the blue of its waters. Could any more
significant, more startling warning ever be given to
a Government not wilfully deaf, or to a nation not
wedded to luxury and self-indulgence, indifferent
alike to its past glories and its present security?
What better exemplification could be imagined of
the truth of Mahan's axiom that "a fleet charged
with the care of its base is a fleet so far weakened
for effective action"? And what does this whole
process of the withdrawal of the British flag from
one sea after another and its concentration in home
waters indicate? It indicates just this, that while
"the British Navy a hundred years ago was
superior to the combined navies of all Europe,"
it is to-day little more than equal to the next
largest European Navy, and is quite inadequate in
proportion to the interests it has to guard.
This revolution in our relative strength at sea is
mainly owing to the want of foresight on the part
of successive Lords of the Admiralty, and it is
incidentally an additional condemnation of our
retention of the old voluntary system of our land
defence. While we are standing still, Germany is
moving, and we have this year the announcement
of a new and larger programme, a programme
which goes much beyond the Navy Law of 1900,
and will, when completed, give Germany—the
greatest military Power in the world—a group of
battle fleets in the North Sea calculated to make
us consider whether even our concentrated naval
strength will be sufficient to cope with them.
My Lords and gentlemen, in mentioning Germany
in this connection I want to make it perfectly
clear that I do so in no spirit of hostility, with no
wish to stir up any feeling of resentment or enmity
against a great people bent upon working out their
own salvation. I have not the slightest sympathy
with the Press controversies carried on in both
countries, which have done so much to embitter
the feeling between what are really two
branches of the same race. What I desire to point
out to my fellow-countrymen is simply this: Great
Britain has attained to the limits of her territorial
expansion. She neither requires nor seeks another
square mile of dominion. Her object should be to
develop the resources of her people commercially,
industrially, and socially, and to maintain the
traditions of religious and political freedom which
have been the main cause of her greatness. At the
same time there is Germany, a great homogeneous
State, with a population of 66,000,000, which is
consciously aiming at becoming a world-Power with
"a place in the sun," where its vigorous progeny
may develop a German life, actuated by German
thought and ideals. This nation has already built
up, in an incredibly short space of time, the second
Navy in the world, not, moreover, scattered over
the seven seas, but concentrated like a clenched
mailed fist in the waters of the German Ocean.
Who is there with any knowledge of the history
of nations, or of the trend of European politics, but
must see in these plain facts a danger of collision,
no one can say when, but within a limit of time
indicated by the convergence of the lines of destiny
of the two peoples, and which at any moment may
be accelerated by some misunderstanding or some
conflict with the friend or ally of either country. To
one whose sole desire is to see his country safe and
at peace, pursuing the path of her destiny to even
greater heights than she has as yet reached, it is
simply amazing that anyone can imagine that the
conflict of which I have spoken can be permanently
averted merely by denying that there is any danger,
or by abandoning our preparations for defence as
an amiable invitation to Germany to do the same.
Germany—indeed the whole world—is well aware
of the real feebleness underlying the proud
appearance of our naval and military strength. She
knows that the efficacy of armaments to-day, even
more than a hundred years ago, depends essentially
upon their being founded upon the nation itself,
and drawing their strength of mind and muscle, of
courage and inspiration, from the very heart of the
whole nation. Such armaments can be attained by
one means only—the training of all the able-bodied
men of the State. This alone will give a basis,
solid as a rock, to all machinery of war; this alone
will enable the nation to bring to bear, in support
of the national will, the whole might of the nation's
power.
But, my Lords and gentlemen, our statesmen
still assert that the country will never stand
compulsory training. Is that so certain? I am
persuaded it is by no means certain. On the other
hand, it is certain that so long as our
fellow-countrymen are soothed and flattered by their
leaders into believing that the Territorial Force, as
at present constituted, gives all the backing that is
necessary to the Navy and Regular Army, they
can see no need to consider compulsory training,
and are not to be blamed for their belief. But if
our leaders would have the honesty and courage to
tell the people the truth—the truth being that we
are on the eve of a great crisis—a crisis without
parallel certainly during the past hundred years,
and that our national forces are unfit to meet the
strain that may be put upon us with any assurance
of success—then I feel confident that the present
generation of Britishers would willingly adopt the
first necessary reform, the substitution of universal
training—compulsory upon all, high and low, rich
and poor, from the son of a duke to the son of a
labourer—as the foundation of our Territorial Force,
instead of the present foolish and unfair method of
basing it on a voluntary enlistment. The real
difficulty is to move our leaders to take the people
into their confidence and tell them the truth about
this vital matter.
My Lords and gentlemen, when I consider the
certainty of the struggle in front of us, its probable
nearness, and the momentous issues at stake, I am
astounded that the nation should be kept in the
dark as to the dangers we have to cope with, and
for which we most certainly are not prepared. But
if our political leaders will take no part in putting
our true position before the people, all the more
necessary is it for those who love their country, and
who have great commercial interests at stake, to
help us in our efforts to prevent Great Britain
falling from her high estate, and to preserve for her
the blessings of peace. With all the strength and
earnestness I possess, I want to impress upon you,
gentlemen of this great city, that this aim cannot
be fulfilled unless we are to have a Navy strong
enough to insure our supremacy at sea, and an
Army strong enough to prevent invasion, and free
the Navy from the necessity of being tied to these
shores.
THE NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE AND THE WORKING CLASSES
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
I here insert a letter on the political situation,
which I wrote to the Times a year ago. This
letter, I hope, will serve to show that the National
Service League has at least considered the effects
which National Service in Arms would have upon
the working men of this country.
The assertion advanced by Mr. Blatchford in
criticizing my Manchester speech, that the working
men of Great Britain will never hear of compulsory
service because they distrust the ruling classes, rests
upon a misconception of the English Constitution
almost too obvious to require exposure. This
subject has already been dealt with in Part III. of
"Fallacies and Facts" (pp. 208-217), and to that
work I must refer the reader. I shall only
observe in this place that in a democratic nation the
working classes are themselves the ruling classes,
and that the interests of England and of the
Empire are their interests. Does Mr. Blatchford
really imagine that the working men are so blind
that, rather than defend those interests like men,
they will prefer tamely to hand them over to
Germany or to any other foreign Power? For this,
and this only, is the logical consequence of his
assertion, that he and his fellow-workers prefer
invasion to universal compulsory service.
In former times, when the ruling classes of this
nation consisted in very deed of the men of birth
and property, that class considered it as its sacred
right and inalienable privilege to serve the nation
in war. Now, in the twentieth century, when the
working men of this country have by the gradual
extension of the franchise succeeded to the political
influence and supremacy of the old aristocratic
class, is it too much to hope that, as their condition
of life improves, they will seek in the same spirit
to secure that right and that inalienable privilege—service
in war? For such service is the only mark
of the true and perfect citizenship.
Surely that were a greater path and to a nobler
goal than the path and the goal prescribed to the
workers of this nation by the criticism in the
Clarion, to which I have just referred.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES."
SIR,
The notification in the Times that Lord
Selborne will shortly address a meeting in London
on Imperial unity has caused me to reflect very
seriously on what Imperial unity means to us, and on
the disastrous effects that must follow any diminution
on the part of the oversea Dominions in the
splendid feeling of loyalty to the Mother Country
of which we have quite recently had such a
convincing example.
Personally, I have had sufficient proof of the
strength and practical value of that loyalty to make
me feel that we should do all in our power to
strengthen and foster it; and to this end, and in
order that we may retain undiminished the confidence
of our distant fellow-subjects, we must begin
to put our own house in order, and show the peoples
of the oversea Dominions that we are determined
to grapple with the several problems with which
we are confronted and with which they are
immediately concerned—that our Government, for
instance, is established on a firm and constitutional
basis; that our fiscal policy is sound; and that our
Navy and Army are strong enough to defend our
own interests, and to give the Dominions such help
as they may require in time of trouble.
Yet, what is the present condition of affairs in
this country? We have just passed under the
domination of a Single Chamber. Tariff Reform,
which occupies the chief place in the Unionist
programme, is supported only in a half-hearted
manner by the leaders of the party, and is opposed
by some of its most powerful members. Our Navy
is being rapidly approached by other navies in the
number, speed, and power of their warships. Our
Army is quite unfitted to meet the demands that
may at any moment be made upon it.
How and by whom is this all to be changed?
It can hardly be changed by the party now in
power. That party has declared openly enough its
policy, alike in regard to a Second Chamber, to
Tariff Reform, to the Army and Navy, and therefore
also in regard to our position as a first-rate
European Power. The men to whom, on account
of their high public character and culture, the
nation looked for a steadying influence on the
ultra-Radical and Socialistic sections of the party, have
not fulfilled those expectations, and seem prepared
to make any concessions that their most advanced
supporters may demand.
On the other hand, is the Unionist party in a
condition to bring about the changes that are
absolutely necessary before we can take up the question
of Imperial unity in any practical manner? Has
that party placed before the country a definite
policy upon those primary and all-important
problems to which I have referred? Is it doing
anything to make clearer to the people of this
country what these mean to them? Or is it
endeavouring to deal with them in a business-like way?
I confess I can detect no indications of such a
policy, and am not surprised, therefore, that a large
number of the most earnest and most thoughtful
Unionists have become disheartened and discontented.
It seems to me that the only way the desired end
can be attained is for the prominent members of
the Unionist party at once to place before the
country a constructive policy; above all, as to the
two problems that are the most pressing and the
most vital—Social Reform and National Defence.
These two problems are intimately connected, and
a satisfactory solution of them must precede any
real strengthening of Imperial bonds.
The question of Social Reform has been very fully
discussed in the public papers during the last few
months, and one of the writers on this subject has
happily explained it as meaning "securing for
the slum-dwellers good air, good housing, good
food, good clothes, and good education." The
conditions amid which millions of our people are living
appear to me to make it natural that they should
not care a straw under what rule they may be
called upon to dwell, and I can quite understand
their want of patriotic feeling.
Again, by Social Reform I mean a reform which
includes essential changes in our primary schools.
No other civilized nation leaves its young boys and
girls to shift for themselves, as we leave ours when
they are thirteen or fourteen years of age. Nor is
the education they receive an education calculated
to make them lovers of their country. They are
never told anything of its history, or taught to be
proud of their country and its past. They are not
given any idea of what their duty is to their country
or what they owe to it. In some schools, indeed,
it is even forbidden to hoist the Union Jack. Much
of the teaching has no bearing upon actual life, and
it comes to an end at the very age at which boys
are most receptive of tuition, be it good or evil, and
most require to be under some kind of control. Our
oversea Dominions are wiser in this respect than
we are. By means of Cadet Corps the boys are
looked after until they reach the age of manhood,
and the ground is thus prepared for the formation
of a reliable Citizen Army.
The same excellent results are obtained to some
small extent in this country by training-ships,
homes such as the Gordon Boys' Home, schools like
the Duke of York's and the Royal Hibernian
Military Schools, and societies like the Church
Lads' and Boys' Brigades. Why are the failures
in after-life amongst the lads brought up in these
institutions so remarkably few? It is simply owing
to the habits of order, obedience, and discipline
they have been taught in their youth. And the
Scout movement has already produced remarkable
results. But such organizations are too limited in
scope and too few in number, and, with the exception
of the two Royal schools, they depend almost
entirely upon private enterprise, and to a serious
Government or a serious nation they are only
signposts to the true policy. They should be an
integral part of our national education.
Social Reform is a preliminary to any thorough
system of national defence. "My country right or
wrong; and right or wrong my country!" is the
sentiment most treasured in the breast of anyone
worthy of the name of man. Nevertheless, with
how much more confidence should we be able to
appeal to the young men of this nation and the
Empire to do their duty as citizen soldiers if we
had the certainty that they regarded England, not
as a harsh stepmother, but as a true motherland,
sedulously nurturing its youth, and not indifferent
to their welfare in manhood or in age, and if
we could further appeal to them to defend the
nation and the Empire, because within its bounds
they can live nobler and fuller lives than on any
other spot on earth! Yet recent unimpeachable
evidence makes it clear that, to tens of thousands
of Englishmen engaged in daily toil, the call to
"sacrifice" themselves for their country must seem
an insult to their reason; for those conditions
amid which they live make their lives already an
unending sacrifice.
Will the Unionist party realize the gravity of
this state of affairs? The Liberal party, by the
Act for Payment of Members, has fulfilled to the
letter the trust committed to it by the rising
democracies of the 'forties. That Act, the last of
the five points of the Charter, ends an epoch of
which I can remember the beginnings more than
sixty years ago. But the Radical-Liberal party
has no longer a policy of construction; it seems
only to have given the democracy enfranchisement
in order to lead it to the disintegration of a
time-honoured Constitution and the gradual
dismemberment of a great Empire.
Is it too late to hope that the Unionist party
will come forward to lead the millions that wait for
a leader?
No party can long continue in power which relies
for its prestige solely upon fomenting class hatreds—that
is, by dividing the State against itself. But
before a great national sacrifice to patriotism can
fitly be demanded, a great act of national justice
must be performed. The Unionist party missed
its opportunity with respect to granting old-age
pensions on a contributory basis. Now in 1911 it
is confronted by larger issues; by problems affecting
the industrial life of the entire nation, and touching,
so to speak, the very fountain-head of the Empire's
life.
Is it too late?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
ROBERTS, F.M.
ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE
KENTISH MEN AND MEN OF KENT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Whilst seeing the present little book through the
press an opportunity unexpectedly offered itself
to me of speaking to some officers of the existing
Territorial Force in regard to the dilemma in
which they are placed between their duty as
patriotic citizens and their growing conviction of
the inadequacy of the Territorial Force to perform
the task imposed upon it in the event of war.
I therefore subjoin the address which, on the
invitation of the officers themselves, I delivered at
the annual dinner of the Kentish Men and the
Men of Kent, on November 27, 1912.
In that address I was able to state more fully
than at Manchester my reasons for criticizing the
Territorial Force with regard to discipline,
numbers, equipment, and energy.
ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE
KENT TERRITORIAL ASSOCIATION,
LONDON
NOVEMBER 27, 1912.
GENTLEMEN,
Words fail me when I try to tell you what
a great pleasure it was to me to be able to accept
the invitation of the Kentish Men and the Men
of Kent to their annual dinner. I was more than
gratified by their invitation, for I felt that I should
not have been asked to be their guest had they
interpreted my comments on the Territorial Force
in my Manchester speech in the way some people
have done, as an attack upon the members of the
Force. Indeed, I am profoundly grateful for this
opportunity having been given to me to explain
my views about the Force more fully than it was
possible for me to do at Manchester.
Well, gentlemen, if I am right in feeling that
you acquit me of any desire to disparage the
officers and men who compose the Territorial
Force, and that you will believe me when I
repeat, what I have often said before, that I am
second to none in my admiration of the patriotism
and self-sacrifice displayed by them in their
endeavour to make Lord Haldane's scheme a
success—you will not, I am sure, misunderstand
me if I now express my views quite frankly to
you.
At the Manchester meeting I gave it as my
opinion that the Territorial Force is a failure in
discipline, a failure in numbers, a failure in
equipment, and a failure in energy. Let me say a
few words on each of these supremely important
points.
Failure in Discipline.—Gentlemen, only those
who have taken part in war, or have carefully
studied the history of wars, can, I am persuaded,
realize to its full extent the significance of
discipline as applied to war. They alone can know
that it is by discipline, and discipline alone, that
bodies of men can be relied upon to work together
in times of great difficulty and danger, and to
withstand the disintegrating effect of war; for they
have learnt that it is discipline alone which
prevents panic seizing upon men when unforeseen
circumstances arise. They alone know that amongst
untrained or ill-trained troops panic spreads with
lightning rapidity, and that when there is no sense
of discipline to be appealed to and to keep the
men together, defeat is the inevitable result.
It is discipline alone which gives the soldier
confidence in himself, reliance on his comrades, and
belief in his officers. It is discipline alone which
gives him the courage to face vastly superior
numbers; to continue marching, though worn out
with fatigue and want of food, ready to fight again,
and yet again. It is discipline alone that supports
him under the strain of lying still for successive
hours in the punishing fire zone—one of the most
trying of the many exacting conditions of modern
warfare. It is discipline alone which makes the
soldier obey the word of command, even under
such circumstances as I have described. Clear
understanding of and prompt obedience to an order
become an instinct to the properly trained soldier,
whereas the imperfectly trained man, when he
finds himself in an unfamiliar and trying position,
frequently misunderstands the word of command,
and, when matters become acute, he does not
heed or even hear it.
Gentlemen, when I tell you that discipline is the
backbone of an army, I ask you whether it is
possible for that essential quality to be instilled
into the ranks of the Territorial Force with the
amount of training that is given to them.
Failure in Numbers.—Gentlemen, despite the
untiring efforts of the Territorial Associations—a
large proportion of whose members are staunch
supporters of the National Service League—the
Territorial Force is still far short of its established
strength of 315,000 men. Possibly this is a
blessing in disguise, for if men had come forward
in sufficient numbers to bring the Force up to its
establishment, politicians would have assured the
country, even more fervently than they do now,
that our Home Defence Army is in all respects
what is needed. The truth is that the number
315,000 has no relation to our real requirements.
It was fixed upon because the experience of
fifty years had proved that a larger number could
never be forthcoming under the voluntary system.
As with the Regular Army, so with the Home
Defence Army, the strength is governed by what is
known to be the limit obtainable by voluntary
effort. It has no relation to the requirements of
war. It solves no known problem. Again, therefore,
gentlemen, I ask you whether it is possible to
regard the Territorial Force as fitted, in respect to
numbers, for the defence of the United Kingdom.
Failure in Equipment.—In common with the
Regular Army the Territorial Force is armed with
a rifle inferior to the rifle possessed by foreign
nations, and with a less deadly bullet than is used
by them. But the Territorial rifle is even inferior
to the present Regular Army rifle in range, in
trajectory, and in stopping power.
Then the gun in use with the Territorial
Artillery is a mere makeshift. It is distinctly
inferior in power, range, and rapidity of fire to the
gun of any first-rate State, and it is not too much
to say that, if our Regular soldiers were armed as
the Territorials are armed, they could not keep the
field against the troops of any European nation.
If this is so, how unfair, how disastrous, it would
be to ask Territorial troops to undertake a task
which their seasoned and disciplined comrades of
the Regular Army could not face.
Then as regards mobilization arrangements,
supply and transport services, ammunition columns,
trains, horses, vehicles, harness, even boots for the
men—in none of these essentials are the Territorials,
as a Force, complete. I therefore repeat that
failure in equipment is not an unfair statement.
Failure in Energy.—By failure in energy, I do
not for a moment mean to imply that individual
members of the Territorial Force are wanting in
energy. I know how earnestly many of them
have striven to learn and to do their duty under
adverse circumstances. My criticism applies to the
Force itself—to its corporate energy—if I may
use such an expression. And even those who are
the firmest believers in the Force must, I think,
admit that, under existing conditions, it is not
practicable for it to attain that combined action,
that alertness, that intensity and vitality, all of
which are essential to success in war.
But, gentlemen, in addition to the shortcomings
of the Territorial Force which I have enumerated,
there is one defect in its conception which would
alone show its unfitness for what you all know is its
primary duty—that is, to defend these shores from
invasion. That defect lies in the strange condition
which is an essential factor in this scheme—a
condition unprecedented with any army in the
world—namely, that the Force is to receive six months'
training, after war has broken out, before it is even
supposed to be capable of dealing with an invading
army. Can any scheme for the defence of any
nation be more madly conceived? We have been
given an object lesson in the Near East as to the
insanity of the idea that our Citizen Army will be
given six months to prepare after war has been
declared. On October 8 Montenegro declared
war, and in four weeks the Turks were beaten in
all directions and were making their last stand
within a few miles of Constantinople.
Gentlemen, I am told by my opponents that it
is unpatriotic of me to express these opinions, and
that by doing so I am discouraging the Territorial
Force. But which is really the more unpatriotic
course, to tell the truth about the Force, so that
the people of this country may insist upon its
terrible deficiencies being remedied, or to gloss
over these deficiencies and thus to expose to certain
disaster the few patriotic men who have joined it,
and who are asked to be prepared with a Force
untrained, under-officered, and under-manned to
cope with a highly-trained enemy.
I venture to think, gentlemen, that I am doing
you no disservice in speaking plainly about the
Territorial Force. My hope is that when its grave
condition is no longer concealed from our countrymen,
they will realize the folly of trusting the
defence of these shores to a make-believe Army,
that they will take to heart the false position in
which the patriotic members of the Force are
placed, and that they will insist upon a law being
passed by which all able-bodied men must be
prepared to take their place in the Citizen Army.
The Territorial Force must either be made efficient
in all respects, or it will speedily cease to
be a Force even in name.
I hope, gentlemen, you will understand that I
am thinking and speaking of the Territorial Force
as a Force that must be prepared to move and
live, to march and fight as an army. I am not
thinking of individual men, or companies, or
batteries, or squadrons, but of a Force which, if
it is ever called upon to take the field, will have
to deal as a whole with highly-trained picked
troops.
What, then, gentlemen, is right for the Territorial
officers to do? It seems to me that a tremendous
responsibility rests upon those officers. If they
agree with me that neither they themselves, nor the
men they command, are sufficiently trained to take
the field against first-class soldiers; if they agree
with me that neither in discipline nor in numbers,
neither in equipment nor in vital energy, can the
Territorial Force be reckoned as a modern army;
if they agree with me that no great improvement
either in efficiency or numbers can ever be reached
under the conditions necessarily imposed upon all
citizens who enter a voluntary force; if they agree
with me that the safety of these islands, and therefore
of our Empire, is endangered by this state of
affairs—then their course of action is clear. While
still giving of their best to the Force to which
they belong, while still setting the fine example
which they have consistently done, they should
make the Government and the nation distinctly
understand that, in their opinion, they are unable
to carry out the duties entrusted to them, and that
unless they are given the trained assistance of the
manhood of the country, they can never guarantee
the safety of these islands and the integrity of the
Empire.
Such a warning, coming from such men, will
awaken the country in a way that I can never
hope to do. Such an announcement, coming from
the men who alone in the country have obeyed the
call of duty, and who, at the cost of convenience,
time, and money, have tried to fit themselves
for the defence of their country and the security of
the Empire—such a summons, I say, will arouse
the People, and they themselves will call upon the
Government to enact a law which shall impose
upon all citizens of a military age the noble duty
of defending the country and the Empire to which
they have the glory to belong.
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.