It seems never to have crossed the minds of the anti-militarist section that those whom they thus regard—if not actually with moral reprehension, at any rate somewhat askance—might perhaps some day discover that there were advantages in being armed, and in having become lethally efficient; that having studied the phenomena of strikes, and having there seen force of various kinds at work—hiring agreements broken, combinations to bring pressure on society successful, rather black things occasionally hushed up and forgiven—soldiers might draw their own conclusions. Having grown tired of pay lower than the market rate, still more tired of moral lectures about the wickedness of their particular trade, and of tiresome old-fashioned phrases about the subordination of the military to the civil power—what if they, like other trades and classes, should begin to consider the propriety of putting pressure on society, since such pressure appears nowadays to be one of the recognised instruments for redress of wrongs? ... Have not professional soldiers the power to put pressure on society in the twentieth century, just as they have done, again and again, in past times in other kingdoms and democracies, where personal freedom was so highly esteemed, that even the freedom to abstain from defending your country was respected by public opinion and the laws of the land?
But nonsense! In Germany, France, Russia, Austria, Italy, and other conscript countries armies are hundreds of times stronger than our own, while the soldiers in these cases are hardly paid enough to keep a smoker in pipe-tobacco. And yet they do not think of putting pressure on society, or of anything so horrible. This of course is true; but then, in these instances, the Army is only Society itself passing, as it were, like a may-fly, through a certain stage in its life-history. Army and Society in the conscript countries are one and the same. A man does not think of putting undue pressure upon himself. But in our case the Army and Society are not one and the same. Their relations are those of employer and employed, as they were in Rome long ago; and as between employer and employed, there are always apt to be questions of pay and position.
It is useful in this connection to think a little of Rome with its 'voluntary' or 'mercenary' or 'professional' army—an army underpaid at first, afterwards perhaps somewhat overpaid, when it occurred to its mind to put pressure on society.
But Rome in the first century was a very different place from England in the twentieth. Very different indeed! The art and rules of war were considerably less of an expert's business than they are to-day. Two thousand years ago—weapons being still somewhat elementary—gunpowder not yet discovered—no railway trains and tubes, and outer and inner circles, which now are as necessary for feeding great cities as arteries and veins for keeping the human heart going—private citizens, moreover, being not altogether unused to acting with violence in self-defence—it might have taken, perhaps, 100,000 disciplined and well-led reprobates a week or more to hold the six millions of Greater London by the throat. To-day 10,000 could do this with ease between breakfast and dinner-time. Certainly a considerable difference—but somehow not a difference which seems altogether reassuring.
Since the days of Oliver Cromwell the confidence of the anti-militarists in the docility of the British Army has never experienced any serious shock. But yet, according to the theories of this particular school, why should our army alone, of all trades and professions, be expected not to place its own class interests before those of the country?
ARMIES AS LIBERATORS
When professional armies make their first entry into practical politics it is almost always in the role of liberators and defenders of justice. An instance might easily occur if one or other set of politicians, in a fit of madness or presumption, were to ask, or order, the British Army to undertake certain operations against a section of their fellow-countrymen, which the soldiers themselves judged to be contrary to justice and their own honour.
Something of this kind very nearly came to pass in March 1914. The Curragh incident, as it was called, showed in a flash what a perilous gulf opens, when a professional army is mishandled. Politicians, who have come by degrees to regard the army—not as a national force, or microcosm of the people, but as an instrument which electoral success has placed temporarily in their hands, and which may therefore be used legitimately for forwarding their own party ends—have ever been liable to blunder in this direction.
Whatever may have been the merits of the Curragh case, the part which the British Army was asked and expected to play on that occasion, was one which no democratic Government would have dared to order a conscript army to undertake, until it had been ascertained, beyond any possibility of doubt, that the country as a whole believed extreme measures to be necessary for the national safety.
If professional soldiers, however high and patriotic their spirit, be treated as mercenaries—as if, in their dealings with their fellow-countrymen, they had neither souls nor consciences—it can be no matter for surprise if they should come by insensible degrees to think and act as mercenaries.... One set or other of party politicians—the occurrence is quite as conceivable in the case of a Unionist Government as in that of a Liberal—issues certain orders, which it would never dare to issue to a conscript army, and these orders, to its immense surprise, are not obeyed. Thereupon a Government, which only the day before seemed to be established securely on a House of Commons majority and the rock of tradition, is seen to be powerless. The army in its own eyes—possibly in that of public opinion also—has stood between the people and injustice. It has refused to be made the instrument for performing an act of tyranny and oppression. Possibly in sorrow and disgust it dissolves itself and ceases to exist. Possibly, on the other hand, it glows with the approbation of its own conscience; begins to admire its own strength, and not improbably to wonder, if it might not be good for the country were soldiers to put forth their strong arm rather more often, in order to restrain the politicians from following evil courses. This of course is the end of democracy and the beginning of militarism.