Ordeal by Battle

by Frederick Scott Oliver

In the case of the rank and file of our army, a contract for a term of years (with obligations continuing for a further term of years) is entered into, and signed, under the circumstances which have already been considered. We are faced here with a phenomenon which seems strange in an Age which has conceded the right to 'down tools,' even though by so doing a solemn engagement is broken—in an Age which has become very fastidious about hiring agreements of most kinds, very suspicious of anything suggestive of 'servile conditions' or 'forced labour,' and which deprecates the idea of penalising breach of contract, on the part of a workman, even by process in the civil courts.

As regards a private soldier in the British army, however, the Age apparently has no such compunctions. His contract has been made under duress. Its obligations last for a long period of years. The pay is below the ordinary market rates. Everything in fact which, in equity, would favour a revision, pleads in favour of the soldier who demands to be released. But let him plead and threaten as he please, he is not released. It is not a case of suing him for damages in the civil courts, but of dealing with him under discipline and mutiny acts, the terms of which are simple and drastic—in peace time imprisonment, in war time death. Without these means of enforcing the 'voluntary' system the British people would not feel themselves safe.

This phenomenon seems even stranger, when we remember that a large and influential part of the British people is not only very fastidious as to the terms of all other sorts of hiring agreements, as to rates of pay, and as to the conditions under which such contracts have been entered into—that it is not only most tender in dealing with the breach of such agreements—but that it also regards the object of the agreement for military service with particular suspicion. This section of the British people is anti-militarist on conscientious grounds. One would have thought, therefore, that it might have been more than usually careful to allow the man, who hires himself out for lethal purposes, to have the benefit of second thoughts; or even of third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. For he, too, may develop a conscience when his belly is no longer empty. But no: to do this would endanger the 'voluntary' system.

THE ANTI-MILITARIST CONSCIENCE

This anti-militarist section of the British people is composed of citizens who, if we are to believe their own professions, love peace more than other men love it, and hate violence as a deadly sin. They are determined not to commit this deadly sin themselves; but being unable to continue in pursuit of their material and spiritual affairs, unless others will sin in their behalf, they reluctantly agree to hire—at as low a price as possible—a number of wild fellows from the upper classes and wastrels from the lower classes—both of whom they regard as approximating to the reprobate type—to defend their property, to keep their lives safe, to enforce their Will as it is declared by ballot papers and House of Commons divisions, and to allow them to continue their careers of beneficent self-interest undisturbed.

But for all that, we are puzzled by the rigour with which the contract for military service is enforced, even to the last ounce of the pound of flesh. Not a murmur of protest comes from this section of the British people, although it has professed to take the rights of the poorer classes as its special province. The explanation probably is that, like King Charles I., they have made a mental reservation, and are thus enabled to distinguish the case of the soldier from that of his brother who engages in a civil occupation.

Roughly speaking, they choose to regard the civilian as virtuous, while the soldier, on the other hand, cannot safely be presumed to be anything of the sort. Sometimes indeed—perhaps more often than not—he appears to them to be distinctly unvirtuous. The presumption is against him; for if he were really virtuous, how could he ever have agreed to become a soldier, even under pressure of want? For regulating the service of such men as these force is a regrettable, but necessary, instrument. The unvirtuous man has agreed to sin, and the virtuous man acts justly in holding him to his bargain. If a soldier develops a conscience, and insists on 'downing tools' it is right to imprison him; even in certain circumstances to put him against a wall and shoot him.

These ideas wear an odd appearance when we come to examine them closely, and yet not only did they exist, but they were actually very prevalent down to the outbreak of the present war. They seem to be somewhat prevalent, even now, in various quarters. But surely it is strange that virtuous citizens should need the protection of unvirtuous ones; that they should underpay; that they should adopt the methods of 'forced labour' as a necessary part of the 'voluntary system'; that they should imprison and shoot men for breach of hiring agreements—hiring agreements for long periods of years, entered into under pressure of circumstances.

ANTI-MILITARIST CONFIDENCE

But there is a thing even stranger than any of these. Considering how jealous the great anti-militarist section of our fellow-countrymen is of anything which places the army in a position to encroach upon, or overawe, the civil power, it seems very remarkable that they should nevertheless have taken a large number of men—whose morals, in their view, were below rather than above the average—should have armed them with rifles and bayonets, and spent large sums of money in making them as efficient as possible for lethal purposes, while refusing firmly to arm themselves with anything but ballot-boxes, or to make themselves fit for any form of self-defence.