Lord Roberts' Message to the Nation

by Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts

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.

[[1]] Apart from Free Trade and unrestrained competition, there are three other doctrines, or political principles, associated with the Manchester School: (1) To maintain peace at any cost; (2) strictly to avoid all interference with the internal affairs of foreign Powers; (3) to subordinate as far as possible all other interests to the interests of industry. The complete organization of industry was to have, as its immediate consequence, the abolition of war. These principles crystallized later into the familiar watchword of Liberalism: "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform."

[[2]] Succinctly, by "the Nation in Arms" I mean that every able-bodied citizen has patriotism enough to take his place in the firing-line to repel invasion; and, secondly, that he has common sense enough to undergo the discipline to make that self-sacrifice effective. In the second part of this book I have indicated what that preparation means. Here I may only observe that when Lord Haldane speaks of "the whole nation springing to arms at the call of duty" he is once more forgetting the part which discipline plays in modern war. A nation may "spring to arms," but if it is not disciplined, and thoroughly disciplined, its very courage will only serve to hasten its destruction. Within the last few weeks tens of thousands of brave Ottomans have sprung to arms, but with what dire results!