In the first place, an undoubted and severe strain has been put upon our resources. It is not usual for more than three battalions of the Guards to leave England at the same time for active service. The zeal and patriotism of the London Scottish, the Inns of Court Volunteers, the 20th Middlesex, the Artists’ Corps, induced them to volunteer to take up several of the day guards in London; special arrangements having been worked out to make the duties as little irksome as possible, and to arrange for a free interchange of the men. With the exception of the Bank Guard, all-night duties have been handed over to the police, and it is hoped that this arrangement may become a permanent one. Thus relieved, the single battalion of the Grenadiers left in London will, it is believed, be sufficient for the indispensable remainder of the day duties, though we have seen solemn old heads gravely shaken from the windows of ‘The Rag,’ as they looked across the way at the policeman who, even for day duty, has assumed the protection of the War Office and Horse Guards.
Thus, in addition to the brigade of Guards which moved with Sir Evelyn Wood to Antwerp, a second Guard Brigade has been formed for the corps which His Royal Highness is to command.
According to the method intended to be the normal one for our mobilisation, as soon as the 1st Corps has moved off to the ports of embarkation, their places are to be taken at the stations they have vacated by the regiments of the 2d Army Corps, who will then be mobilised, and will subsequently be embarked from the same ports as the others. This arrangement has been disturbed by the fact that Sir Evelyn Wood’s troops, forming about a division and a half of the 1st Army Corps, as originally intended, were prepared for movement in ample time, it having been known for nearly a year that such a movement might be required at any moment. When it was subsequently known that it would be necessary to send two Army Corps to the seat of war, as the troops from England would necessarily precede those from Antwerp, the places vacated at Aldershot were taken up by regiments of the proper 2d Army Corps, and their Reserve men sent to them there.
RESERVE MEN SERVED WITH THE NEW MAGAZINE-RIFLE, AND OFF TO THE FRONT TO-MORROW.
As regards the equipment of Sir Evelyn’s force, there was nothing to find fault with,—the material for the necessary transport and stores was actually at Aldershot, and, for the Guards, in London. The troops embarked complete in every respect, except for the unavoidable absence of their Reserve men, which has now been supplied. On the whole, the Reserve men have come in very well, and the deficiency in the calculated numbers is very slight. The contrast in their age and physique to the boys of the battalions as we have known them, is very marked. On the other hand, it is reported that those who have left the colours for some years show sadly the defects of their not having been called out regularly for training. Many of them have certainly seen and handled the magazine-rifle. Others have not even done that. A certain falling off also in military habits and discipline is perhaps better indicated in a description which has been given by one of the correspondents of a trip he took in a railway carriage, with five men going to join their depôt from certain quarries in the north. We shall abridge his graphic sketch of the men in order to record the conversation he details.
One of them, a big man with sandy whiskers and indifferently shaved, but evidently a good-natured fellow, clapped him familiarly on the knee after certain gifts of baccy and a little nip from his flask, which latter was, however, refused by two out of the five, had made them all disposed to be communicative. ‘Look ye here, sir, I doesn’t mind a bit going back for a little soldiering, but it seems strange like. Why, a few months ago, one of the officers of my old regiment came down to see us at the quarries where we was. He was a very nice young officer, had been adjutant, and if I’d seen him by myself on the road, I’d have liked nothing better than to touch my hat to him, and get a bit of a chat about old times. But, lor’ bless yer, if I’d saluted him down in the quarries I shouldn’t have heard the last of it this side of Christmas. He seemed rather worried like at the way we treated him, though we was all glad to see him, and he asked me about it. “Well,” says I, “the reason the chaps don’t salute you, is just that they darn’t for fear of the chaff.” “What do yer salute him for? yer needn’t, yer know,” that’s what all the other men in the quarries would want to know. Well, yer know, sir, ’tain’t that. It’s a kind of way of saying as you belong to the same body like as he does. He’s got his dooty and you’ve got yours. But, lor’ bless you, you never could make the quarry chaps see that. “See what John Morley says,” they’d say, “he tells yer it’s rank slavery, and that’s just what it is. You make believe to like it, cos you’ve lost yer tail and ’ud like to see other chaps lose theirs.” Well, yer know, sir, when you’ve been five or six years among that sort o’ thing, and all the time you haven’t had the chance of so much as seeing a regiment, and feel that you don’t know nothing about this here blooming new drill, and about these yer magazine rifles and smokeless powder as they talks about, well, it seems strange like. You feel as if your blood had got changed since you was with the regiment. However, when we went off with a chance of going away to the war, and even when the Proclamation was fastened upon the village inn, and the women was howling fit to split, one old quarryman claps me on the back, and says he, “I’d like to be going with you, my lad; good luck for old England,” for their blood got up pretty quick when they heard of the row, and they like fighting as well as any one.’
READING THE MOBILISATION ORDER.
We must reserve for next week the reports we have heard from the Militia and the state of the proper 2d Army Corps, half of which will now become the 1st Army Corps under the Duke of Connaught, and the other half will, with Sir Evelyn’s troops, form the 2d Army Corps under him.