Linked up with the Navy is the British Mercantile Marine, the best of the personnel of which is organised into a naval reserve. At the back of both are the fishing fleets of England, which were the first nurseries of the Navy, and are still a valuable school for sea-craft. Calculating together the Navy, the Mercantile Marine, and the fishing fleets, a large percentage of England has its home, more or less constantly, on the sea; that sea which serves England "in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house," and which established thus its claim on her blood.
The Army of Britain has had for a century all its work to do abroad, and it might without exaggeration be said that its chief station now is in India. But, setting on one side for the moment the garrisons of India, Egypt, and other parts of the Empire which are peopled by subject races (the free Dominions are not garrisoned, but defend their own territories with their own troops; there is one temporary exception, South Africa, but the British garrison will leave that station shortly), the Regular Army in England has its chief camp at Aldershot on the road between London and Portsmouth. It is organised on an expeditionary basis, and is always spoken of as an expeditionary force. The idea is that, in case of war, it should go abroad to India or Egypt if an attack were threatened there, to the European continent if that were the theatre of operations. Meanwhile the supremacy of the Navy would ensure that no enemy should be able to land a large army in England. The defence of English territory against such a raiding force as might elude the Navy is entrusted to the "Territorial troops "—enlisted on a volunteer basis.
Perhaps the English Army system will be best made clear by tracing it from its beginnings with the schoolboy age. In the first place, it has to be noted that there is no compulsory military service in England. Until quite recently it was possible to recruit for the militia (though not for the Regular Army) by a ballot, i.e. by the drawing of a lot to determine a certain number of recruits who were forced to join whether they liked it or not (this system is still in force in the Channel Islands). Now there is absolutely no compulsion in England to undertake any form of military service. It is not even compulsory that schoolboys should undertake cadet drill. The English boy can altogether neglect any training for the defence of his country if that is his wish and the wish of his parents. In the majority of cases he takes full advantage of that freedom. If, however, he has some stirring of a desire to equip himself for defence, he may join the Boy Scouts—a non-military, but a disciplined organisation recently set afoot by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who was a very prominent figure during the last big war that Britain had. If the English boy is of a more marked martial inclination he can, whilst at school, usually join a cadet organisation or the Officer's Training Corps,—a body of cadets recruited from the higher schools. If it is intended that he should seek a career in the army as an officer, he will, as a very young boy, be sent to a preparatory school, and go from that to a military college, and from there, on passing his examinations, go into the commissioned ranks of the Army.
So much for the boys. The adults may join the Territorial Force, a civilian army which makes slight demands on their leisure and does not interfere with them following civilian associations; or they may join the Regular Army. In every other great country of the world (except the United States) a certain proportion of adult men have to join the Regular Army for a term whether they wish to or not; in some countries almost every able-bodied man is thus passed through the military organisation. But in England the Army is recruited on a voluntary basis. It is sought to get men by offers of good pay and good conditions of service. Naturally this makes the British Army a far more expensive affair, regiment for regiment, than any other army of the world (again except the United States). Its friends claim, however, that this extra cost is compensated for by extra quality, and that the willing recruit will be a more "willing" fighter than any conscript soldier.
CHANGING THE GUARD, ST. JAMES'S PALACE
Though the English are a naval rather than a military nation, their battlefield record is a particularly proud one. The English character in battle shows the stubborn, dogged traits of the people from whom the soldiers are drawn; and since in any British army there is always a great admixture of Irish and Scottish soldiers to give dash and elan, the net result usually proves to be an ideal fighting force.
To turn to less serious things, the British Regular is a very decorative personage. It has cost a good deal of money to turn him out, and the military authorities insist that he should show that money's worth. This is partly from pride in the force, partly from a desire to encourage recruiting for the Army by the parading in the streets of these well-set-up, gorgeously uniformed men. The regiments kept in London barracks are "show" regiments, and a very fine note of pageantry they bring to the old grey city. The ceremony of changing the guard at the palaces draws a crowd of spectators daily; and he is an unlucky wight indeed who does not find often his glimpse of London park or road brightened suddenly by the passage of a troop of cavalry, plumes nodding, cuirasses gleaming, spirited horses pannading.
The populace love the soldiers. Yet there is no abatement of the old English jealousy against encroachments by standing armies. The military power is kept strictly subservient to the civil power, as a hundred and one regulations and customs constantly remind. The civilian people are resolved that their defenders shall never become aggressors against their liberties. To the visitor from the European continent, where the soldier is supreme, the position of the military force in England seems strange, even undignified. But it is a jealously guarded survival of the days of old strifes, when there was real danger of a king using the army to destroy the liberties of the common people. There is little or no reason for the survival now; but the sentiment of it is good.