Gladstonian Ghosts

by Cecil Chesterton

Moreover if you leave the discussion of army reform to the representatives of the landed and capitalist classes, such reforms as we get will be carried out exclusively in the interests of those classes. At present our military and naval forces are officered and controlled by one class; they are an appendage of that class and will always, so long as this is so, be employed successfully to protect its interests. So long as the English people are asked to choose between such class army and the risk of a German invasion, they will choose the former, but it by no means follows that they would do so were a practicable alternative placed before them.

And this brings me to my third point. It so happens that for the purpose of formulating an alternative, Socialists are in an exceptionally favoured position. Our army has by common consent broken down. It is not even effective for the purposes for which the capitalist classes want it. It is not only, as foolish people suppose, the War Office that is decadent and inefficient; the army is decadent and inefficient. Our soldiers are perhaps the best raw material in the world, but the whole machinery of war and defence is eaten up by a corruption which is all the worse for being largely careless and unconscious. The two worst enemies of the British Army are the power of money and the power of caste. These are our enemies also. We Socialists alone are in a position to see what is really wrong. Would it not be worth our while to bring our best brains to bear upon the subject and see whether our Socialism cannot provide us with a remedy.

In spite of the unfortunate prevalence of the sort of sentimentalism referred to above, there have always been in the socialist movement witnesses to the common-sense view of militarism. Here and there throughout this volume I have been obliged to criticize the attitude of the Social Democratic Federation; I therefore admit the more gladly that on this question that body has indubitably led the way. Its views are obtainable in the form of a remarkably able pamphlet[2] from the pen of Mr. Quelch, wherein the old Liberal Quakerism is thrown completely overboard and the institution of universal citizen service on something like the Swiss model put forward as the socialist solution of the problem of national defence. The Fabians followed in “Fabianism and the Empire,”[3] adopting a suggestion of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb’s that the half-time age in factories and workshops should be raised to 21, and the time thus gained devoted to training in the use of modern weapons. Finally there is Mr. Robert Blatchford, whose plan is too elaborate to be detailed here—I refer my readers to his articles in the Clarion during July, August and September last year and to his forthcoming book on the subject—but whose cardinal demand is for an immense increase in the numbers and efficiency of the volunteers, who are to form a citizen force of almost national dimensions. Of course the Fabian programme and, I gather, Mr. Blatchford’s also imply the existence of at any rate a small professional army in addition.

Now it seems to me that the one defect of the S.D.F. plan is that, if I understand Mr. Quelch’s pamphlet rightly, it professes only to provide a militia for the defence of these islands. That is to say it does not provide for the defence of our possessions in different parts of the world nor for any aggressive movement against the territory of the power with which we chance to be at war; while even for purely defensive purposes it is open to the grave military objections which can always be urged against relying solely on irregular troops.

I have already discussed the question of Imperialism and I need not go into it again. But I suppose that all but the most fanatical Little-Englanders, whatever their views on expansion, would admit that it is both our right and our duty to assist in the protection of our fellow-citizens in other parts of the world against unprovoked attack. If, for example, Germany were to make a wanton attack on Australia, or Russia on India, or the United States on Canada, I suppose that every sensible Englishman would admit that we ought to come to the assistance of our fellow-countrymen. But in that case we shall want an army for foreign service as well as for home defence.

The other point needs rather more explanation because it is constantly misunderstood by people who will not try to comprehend the nature of war. Such persons are always confusing aggression in the political sense as the cause of war with aggression in the strategic sense as a method of conducting it. A war may be waged solely for defensive purposes, yet it may be the right course from a military point of view to take the offensive. France found this in the wars of the revolution; and Japan fighting (as I believe) for no other purpose than the protection of her own independence against the lies of Russian diplomacy and the brutalities of Russian power, has yet been obliged to conquer Korea, invade Manchuria, and lay siege to Port Arthur. Similarly we might easily find ourselves engaged in a purely defensive war with France or Germany, in which it might be still the only safe policy to raid the territory and seize the over-sea possessions and especially the coaling-stations of our enemies.

As a matter of fact the distinction so often made between offensive and defensive war is more theoretic than practical. It is seldom possible to say in the case of a modern war that either side is unmistakably attacking or defending. Which side was the aggressor in the Crimean or Franco-German wars? Are the Japs aggressors because it was they who actually declared war or are they only defending their country? The real question to be asked is not which side is the aggressor, but which nation is so situated that its triumph will be beneficial to mankind as a whole.

Lastly there are the serious disadvantages from a military standpoint of trusting to a citizen force alone. Experience seems to prove that such a force is suitable only to a certain kind of warfare. The example of the Boers to which Mr. Quelch appeals so confidently tells directly against him. The Boers doubtless did wonders in the way of guerrilla fighting and in the defence of strong positions, but they never followed up their successes effectively, and they had to waste a great deal of time, when time was of the utmost value to them, in sitting down before Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking when a professional army of the same size would have taken all three by assault.

It seems to me that we can get an excellent military policy for Socialists by a judicious combination of the three suggestions to which I have referred. Taking Mr. Webb’s plan first, let us by all means by a modification of the Factory Acts (much needed for its own sake) train the whole youthful population in the use of modern weapons—and not in the use of modern weapons alone but in the best physical exercises available and above all in discipline, endurance and the military virtues. Then, following Mr. Quelch and the S.D.F. we might keep them in training by periodic mobilizations on the Swiss pattern without subjecting them to long periods of barrack life. From the large citizen force so formed we ought to be able to pick by voluntary enlistment a professional army which need not be very large, but which should be well-paid, efficiently organised and prepared for any emergency. Another and larger professional army would be needed for the defence of distant dependencies such as India.

These forces must, of course, be constituted on a basis of equality of opportunity, efficiency and reliability and capacity to command being the only passports to promotion and no bar being placed between the most capable soldier, whatever his origin and the highest posts in the army. From the purely military point of view this would be an enormous improvement on the present system. It is worth noting that the two armies which, organised in an incredibly short space of time out of the rawest of materials, broke in pieces every force which could be put into the field against them, the army of Cromwell and the army of the First Republic, were alike based on the principle of the “career open to talent.” So the policy which I suggest would, I sincerely believe, convert our impossible army into one of the best fighting machines in the world. Not only would the officers under such a system be more capable than some of the fashionable commanders, whose glorious defeats and magnificent surrenders we were all eulogising five years ago, but better chances and a higher rate of pay would attract to the ranks of the professional army the very best type of man for the purpose, which the present system can hardly be said to do.