The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

The position of Commander-in-Chief under the Order in Council of 1895 has been the subject of severe criticism. At the expiration of his term of five years, Lord Wolseley recorded in a memorandum his opinion that the attempt to give the Commander-in-Chief a supervision over the departments of the War Office, and yet make their heads responsible to the Secretary of State, involved a contradiction, and had resulted in depriving the Commander-in-Chief of all effective control, and in making his office a high-sounding title with no real responsibility. He insisted that no army could be efficient unless the command, discipline and training of the troops were in the hands of one man, and that man a soldier; and he urged that the Commander-in-Chief should either be made the real head of the forces, or that the office should be abolished, and the Secretary of State for War should be himself a military man.[98:1] The only direct result that the memorandum had on the organisation of the War Office was the reëstablishmemt of the control of the Commander-in-Chief over the department of the Adjutant General by an Order in Council on Nov. 4, 1901.[98:2] But a statement by Lord Wolseley of his views, in a speech in the House of Lords in March, 1901, led to an unseemly altercation with Lord Lansdowne, the late Secretary of State for War, in which each sought to cast upon the other the blame for the lack of preparation for the war in South Africa.[98:3] The occurrence would appear to show that the relations between the military and civil authorities at the War Office are not yet upon a well-recognised or satisfactory basis; and it shows also that this relation is very different from that which ordinarily prevails between ministers and their expert officials. For reasons that will be explained in a later chapter, such a dispute in any other department would be well-nigh inconceivable. From a political point of view the Army and Navy officers are, in fact, in an exceptional situation. They are not subject to the general rule which excludes from the House of Commons all office-holders who are not ministers.[98:4] And just as military officers are allowed to play a part in politics forbidden to other public servants, so those among them who hold high administrative posts stand in a position peculiar to themselves, a position which in the case of the Admiralty is definite and satisfactory, although anomalous, but in the case of the Army is not altogether definite or satisfactory.

Effect of the South African War.

The efficiency of the War Office was put to a rude test by the South African War, and some branches of the service did not stand the test very well. The results recalled, although in different respects, the experiences of the Crimean War. The commission on the war found that, both as regards plans and stores, there had been a grave lack of preparation which was not wholly due to the suddenness of the emergency.[99:1] There was not merely a deficiency in warlike stores, such as guns[99:2] and ammunition for them,[99:3] cavalry-swords[99:4] and clothing;[99:5] but some of the stores were unfit for use. Such clothing, for example, as there was on hand six months before the war broke out was all red and blue cloth, quite unsuitable for the campaign; and even after the manufacture of khaki suits had begun, changes were ordered first in the material and then in the pattern.[99:6] More than one third of the small arms ammunition on hand was found to be unserviceable and was discarded;[99:7] and all the reserve rifles were wrongly sighted, so that at a distance of five hundred yards they shot eighteen inches to the right—an occurrence the more extraordinary because the government had been manufacturing those weapons for some years, and never discovered the defect until after the war broke out.[99:8]

It would be a mistake to suppose that all the shortcomings in the South African War arose from defects in the War Office. Some of them were of a kind certain to occur where a military organisation is suddenly expanded beyond its normal size. Still, the errors already described certainly showed a lack of efficiency, and they have led to a remodelling of the office. In November, 1903, another commission was appointed for this purpose, and its principal recommendations[100:1] were put into effect in the course of the following year.[100:2]

The Changes of 1904.

According to this last system, for which the Admiralty served as a pattern, an Army Council has been formed, consisting of the Secretary of State for War, the parliamentary under-secretary, the Financial Secretary to the War Office, and of four military members. The post of Commander-in-Chief having been abolished, and that of Chief of Staff created instead, the four military members of the council are the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General, and the Master General of Ordnance. By the terms of the Order in Council the military members are responsible to the Secretary of State for so much of the business relating to the organisation, disposition, personnel, armament and maintenance of the Army as he assigns to them or each of them, while the Financial Secretary is responsible for finance, and the parliamentary under-secretary for the other matters that are not strictly military. The permanent under-secretary acts as secretary of the council, which has also under its orders a new officer, the Inspector General of the Forces, charged with the duty of reporting to it upon the results of its policy, and of inspecting and reporting upon the training and efficiency of the troops, and the condition of the equipment and fortifications. But the Army Council has in the last resort only advisory powers, for the Secretary of State is expressly declared responsible to the Crown and to Parliament for all its business.

Lack of Initiative among Officers.

An army, and especially a standing army, is liable during a long period of peace to fall into habits that impair its efficiency in war. One of the chief criticisms made after the South African War related to the lack of initiative, and of capacity to assume responsibility, on the part of the officers both in the War Office and in the field.[100:3] Now, this is precisely the defect that one would expect to find under the circumstances. With the traditions of strict discipline ingrained in military men, there is a natural tendency in time of peace to regulate everything with precision, leaving to subordinate officers little independence of action. And in fact the Committee on War Office Organisation in 1901 reported that the Army was administered by means of a vast system of minute regulations, which tended on the one hand to suppress individuality and initiative, while on the other their interpretation led to protracted references, and to absorbing the time of high officials by matters of routine.[101:1] The evidence presented to the Committee on the war in South Africa pointed to the same evil, for it showed that the deficiencies of the officers arose from their being too much controlled and supervised during their training.[101:2]

Their Training.

The excessive tendency to routine, and the consequent lack of initiative, might be counteracted in some measure by a keen intellectual interest in the profession on the part of the younger officers; but the military education they receive is hardly of a character to stimulate such an interest. As a rule the candidates for commissions, after leaving the great public schools, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby, where the sons of the upper classes are educated, obtain admission to the military academies by means of competitive examinations based upon the curriculum of those schools. The ordinary time then spent in studying at Woolwich, where the engineer and artillery officers are taught, is two years; that at Sandhurst, the school for the infantry and cavalry, was eighteen months before the South African War, and later only a year. Periods of this length are obviously too short to give a thorough training, or even a strong interest, in military science; and, in fact, the object is rather to produce a good subaltern than a highly educated officer.[102:1] If a man is ambitious for promotion he is expected to pursue his studies by himself, or to attend the staff college, later in life. Now, with the modern application of science to warfare, a military officer has become a member of a learned profession. But in England the preliminary teaching is insufficient for this purpose; and what is more, the conditions of the service are very unlike those of learned professions, and hardly such as to stimulate intellectual activity. Moreover, the private contributions to the mess, and the other expenses of an officer, are often so great that it is difficult for a man without private means to follow the Army as a career. In short, after the abolition of the purchase of commissions in 1871, the Army ceased to be a caste without becoming a profession.[102:2]