I noted in my diary that excitable Pressmen imagined that regiments had been cut off, and indeed all sorts of misfortunes besides those which our troops suffered. I was occupied a considerable part of each day in assuaging the fears of ladies, whose fathers, brothers, or lovers were at the seat of War, and spent a good deal of private money in telegrams for news as to the safety of those loved ones, for the War Office covers only expenses of telegrams for casualties.
My duties were not confined absolutely to Military matters, and I had much correspondence with my friend Lord Wantage, the President of the Red Cross Society. He wrote to me on the 10th January: “The Red Cross has anticipated all your requirements mentioned in your letter, except crutches, and these shall be attended to at once.”
Some of the requests made to me by importunate ladies were peculiar; one was very angry with me because the War Office would not send out an establishment for curing, or destroying painlessly, horses. Another lady said she did not want her son to go to war, because he was only twenty-one. A third wished her son, who had just joined the army, transferred to a depôt and kept in England, or allowed to exchange to a regiment at home. I explained to her that if her craven request were granted, none of his associates would speak to him. On the other hand, another lady was angry with me because I had not time to see her former footman. He was getting 28s. a week, but wanted to give up his situation and join his two brothers, who were serving under General Gatacre.
Two friends of mine, Miss Agnes Keyser and her sister, gave up their house in Grosvenor Crescent for “Sick and Wounded Officers,” who might have no relatives in London. Some of the most celebrated Physicians and Surgeons volunteered to attend any patients in the Hospital gratis, and the Misses Keyser provided everything, including trained nurses, free of all expense to patients. This, however, was not in any way the limit of their generosity, for when a friend of mine, who had lost a foot in action, was leaving the Hospital, Miss Agnes Keyser asked me if he was fairly well off, to which I replied, “No, he has very small means, but is going to stay for a time with a married sister.” On learning which, Miss Agnes, who superintended the Hospital, sent with him a nurse who had been attending him at her own house.
As I was the means of introducing patients in the first instance, the correspondence connected therewith occupied an appreciable portion of my time. When, many months afterwards, one of my sons was returning to England, invalided on account of appendicitis, Miss Agnes Keyser said to Sir Frederick Treves, “I want you to do an operation for appendicitis.” “Yes, any day you like next week; a hundred guineas. Will you fix the day now?” She answered, “No, I cannot, for my friend’s son is on the sea.” “Why, is he in the army?” “Yes, he is on his way from South Africa.” “Then I revoke my offer to operate, and will do it only on my own terms.” “Well, you shall have them, whatever they are.” “I shall charge nothing for the operation. Your friend’s son will pay only the expense in the Home where I wish him to be under nurses whom I have trained especially for the aftercure of that operation.”
In 1897 I had taken up the question of Artillery, in which the British army was deficient[327] and by corresponding privately with the Commander-in-Chief in India, simultaneous efforts were made to obtain the much-required increase. Lord Lansdowne received favourably my application, which was strongly backed by the Commander-in-Chief, and the result, helped by the “War Fever,” was that in 1899–1900 we created 7 Batteries of Horse and 48 Batteries of Field Artillery. Some of them were very short of officers and sergeants; indeed one Battery was raised, and commanded for several months by a Riding-master. The popularity of the war enabled us to fill them up without any difficulty as regards the Rank and File; indeed all of them were, after a few months, considerably over strength, but in many cases there was only one sergeant for 60 or 70 Gunners and Drivers.
Three years before the war, on my suggestion to the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Owen Hay, Royal Artillery, was sent out to command at Ladysmith; and in January 1899, not forseeing the war would break out so soon, to my subsequent great regret (although his services were invaluable at home), I wrote to ask him as a favour to come home to help in this augmentation of the Artillery, and it was he who really did all the Head Quarters work of it.
Colonel Hay had no sooner got the Artillery augmentation into working order, than I turned his attention to our Depôts. When the war broke out in South Africa the administration of the Horse and Field Artillery was centralised at Woolwich, where an officer had two depôts under him. This arrangement for the Field Artillery did not work well even in Peace, and after Mobilisation the depôt became unmanageable. In March 1900, 200 Recruits joined at Woolwich every week, many sleeping on the floors in passages.
Although the army order which authorised Colonel Hay’s change was not introduced till August 1900, he had been at work at it for months, and had decentralised the Field Artillery. I then asked the Commander-in-Chief to allow him to return to South Africa, but he was unwilling to part with him, and Hay’s soldierlike resignation was a lesson to all of us.
Six months later we had some difficulty, as the Financial side of the office endeavoured, when the war took a more favourable turn, to reduce the batteries to one section each. This might have been carried out if the Commander-in-Chief had not, in strenuously supporting my objections, concurred in my view that it would be better to disband half the Batteries than have cadres of two guns only. This would have indicated such vacillation that I doubt if any War minister could have carried a reduction at the time; but the question was solved by its being made clear to the Secretary of State that the establishment of two guns per Battery would not produce the Reserve men required on Mobilisation.