My prediction unfortunately turned out perfectly correct, and nearly six thousand men died within six months of the beginning of the operations. A road had to be made for the iron carts, and if the natives had not proved arrant cowards, the war would have ended in frightful disaster. It was only due to the untiring energy of Colonel Bailloud, who was in charge of the transport, that the troops were enabled to receive any supplies.
What struck me most, however, in that expedition was the jealousy between the Army and the Navy.
During the Tonkin War, the supreme command of the naval and military forces had been vested in Admiral Corbet, and the military officers strongly objected to being commanded by a sailor. In order, therefore, to avoid a repetition of what had then taken place, the whole of the flotilla which was sent to Madagascar was placed under the command of a mere Captain, who had to take orders from the General commanding the troops. The Navy, of course, resented what they considered a slight, and carefully avoided helping the Army in any way. Of course they did not openly display their rivalry, but they took good care to give no help whatever to the Military Chiefs, allowing them to commit the greatest blunders without warning them beforehand. For instance, the War Office having decided to use the River Betsiboka as far as it was navigable, a large number of steel barges were sent over to Menjunka, which was supposed to be at the mouth of the river. Unfortunately, the real mouth of the river stood nearly thirty miles farther inland, so that, unless the weather was perfectly calm, the barges were swamped before they had reached the river itself; the water on the other hand being too shallow to enable steamers, except those of the smallest draft, to reach the mouth. When I arrived in Madagascar, in a small 180-ton steamer I had chartered in Zanzibar, I was ordered to follow the course of the river as far as I could go, and to make a survey on my way, as none existed. After considerable trouble I managed to get about seventy miles inland, and on my return to Menjunka, as I was making my report to the General, the naval officer in command walked into the room just as I was asking the General whether he could allow me twenty-four hours to put my survey on paper. The naval officer inquired what survey I was speaking of, and on being told that it was a survey of the river, he replied that I had been wasting my time, as his officers "had surveyed it long ago, long ago"; and he added that he would send it to the General when he returned to his ship. He knew perfectly well, before I left, that I had been instructed to make a survey, but he had never offered to hand over to the General the map he had in his possession.
Again, the Naval Commander was fully aware that a large number of transports were coming, but he carefully abstained from advising the War Office that there was only one steam launch at Menjunka to land the cargo, and the consequence was that at one time there lay as many as twenty-four steamers in the harbour, with no means of unloading them; an average of £200 per day having to be paid for demurrage on each. I could quote scores of similar instances, but it is not my object to write the history of the Madagascar campaign.
In conclusion, Englishmen regard their own "little army" with a just pride, tempered by a consciousness of its more or less obvious defects; but when any comparison is suggested between the British forces and the "bloated armaments" of the Continent, the pride is apt to become humility, and deprecatory remarks are made to the effect that we do not, of course, profess to be a great military power.
Yet how does the case really stand? Are these armed multitudes as formidable as mere arithmetic would have us think? France, for instance, prides herself upon being able to put in the field millions of trained men. What does this boast amount to? Upon the outbreak of war, in these days of rapid mobilisation, much—perhaps all—would depend upon the troops first in the field. And these troops, upon whose behaviour in the brunt of sudden battle the salvation of their country might depend, would be—not a body of well-trained fighting-men, leavened with veterans, and relying on their leaders with glad confidence—but a crowd of half-taught lads, lacking in thews as well as training, and led—or driven—to battle by officers whom either they have never seen until the day of conflict, or whom they know—and hate.
As for the reserves, suffice it to say that officers of the active army refuse to regard them seriously, and consider them merely in the light of civilians playing at soldiering. The officers of the reserve (for the most part promoted privates) have received no military education worthy of the name. The non-commissioned officers and men consider the month they have to serve every other year a hateful episode. Awkward in their unaccustomed uniforms, they do not even look like soldiers, and it would take months of training to convert them into such once more. In point of efficiency they are, of course, far inferior to our Volunteers.
But behind these stands yet another "line of defence"—the territorial army and its reserve—an army composed of men who have a faint recollection that they once were drilled. There is something pathetic, as well as absurd, in picturing these middle-aged citizens in time of war, clad in antiquated uniforms, handling unaccustomed weapons, and painfully, if conscientiously, struggling to acquire a knowledge of new regulations and modern drill. To sum all up, it may be true that Providence is still on the side of the big battalions, but chiefly, we think, when those battalions are well officered, well trained, and animated with all the virtues of the soldier.
