THE TERRITORIAL FORCE
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.
[[1]] In the course of the controversies raised by my Manchester speech the fallacy of the superiority of the volunteer to "the unwilling conscript" has once more reappeared. I must here repeat what I said in the House of Lords in April, 1911, that much of this talk about "one volunteer being worth two pressed men" is nonsensical. The truth is that one man, whether pressed or not, if well disciplined and carefully trained, is worth at least half a dozen undisciplined, insufficiently trained volunteers. No doubt, if I had to lead a forlorn hope requiring men determined to carry out the job, no matter what the odds against them might be, I would rather have half the number of men who volunteered than double the number ordered to perform it, provided all were equally well trained; but if it were a question of soldiers versus untrained volunteers, I would infinitely prefer to have ten well-trained and well-disciplined soldiers than fifty ill-trained and ill-disciplined volunteers.
I could give many instances from history in support of this view—the opinions of great commanders like Washington and Napoleon—but I will here cite only one incident from my own experience of war:
During the Franco-German War of 1870-71, the French, from having an army without any means of expansion, were forced, after the first few weeks, to employ hastily-raised levies. These levies, even in greatly superior numbers, were no match for the highly-trained German soldiers. On one occasion towards the end of the war, 35,000 German soldiers found themselves engaged with a force of these recently-raised levies, numbering between 140,000 and 150,000. They had been given such training as was possible while war was going on, for four and a half months. They were brave men fighting for their own country, and in their own country, and what happened? Within a month 60,000 of them were killed, wounded, prisoners, or missing, while the remaining 80,000 were driven over the Swiss frontier and there interned.
[[2]] And as regards the much-needed six months' training, supposing, for argument's sake, that we could calculate on being given six months' warning, can we feel absolutely certain that the few patriotic employers who have allowed their men to join the Territorial Army, and are good enough to spare them for a week's or fortnight's training yearly, would or could consent to their being taken away for six months, during which time their business would go to pieces, while their competitors in trade, who have refused to allow their men to serve their country, would be reaping great benefit from their selfishness and want of patriotism?