I come now to the most fateful of all changes in the administration, namely the rise to supreme importance of the Secretary-at-War. Attention has already been drawn to the duties and powers which silently accumulated in the hands of this civilian official after the death of Monk, owing to the lack of efficient control by the Sovereign. The reigns of King William and Queen Anne, in consequence of the constant absence of the Captain-General on active service, did nothing to restore this lost control, and the almost unperceived change which released the Secretary-at-War from personal attendance on the Commander-in-Chief in the field virtually abolished it altogether. The terms of the Secretary-at-War's commission remained the same, "to obey such orders as he should from time to time receive from the Sovereign or from the General of the forces for the time being, according to the discipline of war;"[467] but the situation was in reality reversed. Even in King William's time the Secretary-at-War had countersigned the military estimates submitted to Parliament; from the advent of St. John he assumes charge of all military matters in the Commons, often taking the chair of the committee while they are under discussion. Thus he becomes the mouthpiece of the military administration in the House, and, since the Commander-in-Chief is generally absent on service he ceases to take his orders from him, but becomes, except in the vital matter of responsibility, a Secretary-of-State, writing in the name of the Queen or of her consort, or finally in his own name and by his own authority without reference to a higher power. Lastly, his office, thus exalted to importance, becomes the spoil of political party; Secretaries-at-War follow each other in rapid succession,—St. John, Walpole, Granville, Lord Lansdowne, Windham, Gwynne; and the Army is definitely stamped as a counter in the eternal game of faction.
The power of the Secretary-at-War in Queen Anne's time is sufficiently shown by his letter-books. In the Queen's name he gives orders for recruiting, for drafting, for armament, for musters, for change of quarters, relief of garrisons, hire of transports, embarkation of troops, patrolling of the coast, escort of treasure, and in a word for all matters of routine. In the Duke of Marlborough's name also he directs men to be embarked, money to be advanced, and recruits to be furnished, and even criticises the execution of the orders issued by him on behalf of the Queen.[468] On his own authority he bids colonels to send him muster-rolls and lists of recruiting staff and to provide their regiments with quarters, regrets that he cannot strengthen weak garrisons, and lays down the route for all marches within the kingdom.[469] He corresponds direct with every rank of officer without the slightest regard for discipline or dignity. We find Walpole threatening a lieutenant with forfeiture of his commission for absence without leave, bidding a captain be thankful that owing to his own clemency he is not cashiered for fraud,[470] regretting that he cannot in conscience excuse one subaltern from attending his regiment on foreign service,[471] ordering another to pay for his quarters immediately,[472] summoning a third person to the War Office to account to him for wrongful detention of a recruit. Granville promises an officer leave of absence from foreign service, but must first, in common decency, apply to the General in command.[473] Lord Lansdowne begs the Governor of Portsmouth not to be too hard on a young regiment in the matter of guard-duties, orders the discharge of a soldier when three years of his service have expired, and writes to the Irish Secretary-at-War for leave of absence for a friend.[474] Finally, all ask favours of colonels on behalf of officers and men. One thing only they left for a time untouched, namely the sentences of court-martial, which St. John expressly abjured in favour of the Judge Advocate-General; but for the rest they issued orders, approbations, and reprimands with all the freedom of a Commander-in-Chief.
The Office of Ordnance remained as before independent of the War Office, though of course liable to fulfil its requisitions for arms and stores. It is remarkable that Marlborough, like Wellington a century later, no sooner became Master-General[475] than he restored the organisation of King James the Second. But the strain imposed upon the Department by the multitude of forces in the field was too severe for it. Two months before Blenheim was fought the supply of firelocks and socket-bayonets was exhausted; and in succeeding years, as disasters grew and multiplied in Spain, the Office was obliged frequently, and to the great indignation of English manufacturers, to purchase arms abroad.[476]
The subject of weapons leads us directly to the progress of the Army in the matter of armament, equipment, and training. The first point worthy of notice is the disappearance of the time-honoured pike. Pikes were issued to a battalion in the proportion of one to every five muskets as late as 1703, but were delivered back into store in the following year;[477] and in 1706 a letter from St. John announces that pikes are considered useless and that musket and bayonet must be furnished to every man.[478] The bayonet was, of course, the socket-bayonet; and the musket, being of a new and improved model, was a weapon much superior to that issued in the days of King William.[479] Partly, no doubt, owing to the efficiency of this musket, which carried bullets of sixteen to the pound, as against the French weapon, which was designed for bullets of twenty-four to the pound, and still more owing to superiority of discipline and tactics, the fire of the British was incomparably more deadly than that of the French.[480] The secret, so far as concerned tactics, lay in the fact that the British fired by platoons according to the system of Gustavus Adolphus, whereas the French fired by ranks; and the perfection of drill and discipline was superbly manifested at Wynendale. For this, as well as for the better weapon, the Army had their great chief to thank, for the Duke knew better than any the value of fire-discipline, as it is called, and would put the whole army through its platoon-exercise by signal of flag and drum before his own eye.[481] Nevertheless, the cool head and accurate aim for which the British have always been famous played their part, and a leading part, in the victories of Marlborough.
Of the drill proper there is little to be said, though some few changes are significant of coming reforms. The number of ranks was left unfixed, being increased or reduced according to the frontage required, but probably seldom exceeded three and was occasionally reduced to two. The old method of doubling ranks was still preserved; but the men no longer fell in by files, and the file may be said definitely to have lost its old position as a tactical unit. A company now fell in in single rank, was sorted off into three or more divisions and formed into ranks, by the wheel of the divisions from line into column, which was a complete novelty. The manual and firing exercise remained as minute and elaborate as ever; and a single word of command shows that the old exercise of the pike was soon to be adopted for the bayonet.[482] With these exceptions there was little deviation from the old drill of Gustavus Adolphus; but the real improvement, which made that drill doubly efficient, was in the matter of discipline. That the lash and the gantlope were unsparingly used in Marlborough's army there can be no doubt, and that they were employed even more savagely at home can be shown by direct evidence;[483] but the Duke, as shall presently be shown, understood how to make the best of his countrymen by other means besides cutting their backs to pieces.
For the cavalry, of which he was evidently very fond, Marlborough did very signal service by committing it definitely to action by shock. Again and again in the course of the war the French squadrons are found firing from the saddle with little or no effect, and the British crashing boldly into them and sweeping them away. There are few actions, too, in which the Duke himself is not found in personal command of the horse at one period or another of the battle—at Blenheim in the great charge which won the day, at Ramillies at the most critical moment, at Malplaquet in support of the British infantry, and most brilliantly of all at the passage of the lines at Landen. Yet he was too sensible not to imitate an enemy where he could do so with advantage. The French gendarmerie had received pistol-proof armour in 1703;[484] the British horse in Flanders, at Marlborough's suggestion, received a cuirass in 1707, a reform which was copied by the Dutch and urged upon all the rest of the Allies.[485] It is characteristic of the Duke's never-failing good sense that the cuirasses consisted of breast-pieces only, so that men should find no protection unless their faces were turned towards the enemy.
As to the artillery there is little to be said except that the organisation by companies appears to have been thoroughly accepted, and the efficiency of the arm thereby greatly increased. The Duke was never greater than as an artillerist. Every gun at Blenheim was laid under his own eye; and the concentration of the great central battery at Malplaquet and its subsequent advance shows his mastership in the handling of cannon. For the rest, the artillery came out of the war with not less, perhaps with even more, brilliancy than the other corps of the army; and, though no mention is made of the fact by the historian of the regiment, it is likely that no artillery officers ever worked more strenuously and skilfully in the face of enormous difficulties than the devoted men who brought their guns first down to the south side of the Danube and then back across the river to the battlefield of Blenheim.[486]
It is impossible to quit this subject without a few words on the great man who revived for England the ancient glory of Creçy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, the greatest, in the Duke of Wellington's words, who ever appeared at the head of a British Army. There are certain passages in his life which make it difficult sometimes to withhold from him hard names; but allowance should be made for one who was born in revolution, nurtured in a court of corruption, and matured in fresh revolution. Wellington himself admitted that he never understood the characters of that period, nor exercised due charity towards them, till he had observed the effects of the French Revolution on the minds and consciences of French statesmen and marshals. Marlborough's fall was brought about by a faction, and his fame has remained ever since a prey to the tender mercies of a faction. But the prejudices of a partisan are but a sorry standard for the measure of one whose transcendent ability as a general, a statesman, a diplomatist, and an administrator, guided not only England but Europe through the War of the Spanish Succession, and delivered them safe for a whole generation from the craft and the ambition of France.
Regarding him as a general, his fame is assured as one of the great captains of all time; and it would not become a civilian to add a word to the eulogy of great soldiers who alone can comprehend the full measure of his greatness. Yet one or two small points are worthy of attention over and above the reforms, already enumerated, which were introduced by him in all three arms of the service. First, and perhaps most important, is the blow struck by Marlborough against the whole system, so much favoured by the French, of passive campaigns. It was not, thanks to Dutch deputies and German princelets, as effective as it should have been, but it still marked a step forward in the art of war. It must never be forgotten that we possess only the wreck of many of Marlborough's finest combinations, shattered, just as they were entering port, against the rocks of Dutch stupidity and German conceit. Next, there is a great deal said and written in these days about night marches and the future that lies before them. It will be well to glance also at the past that they have behind them, and to mark with what frequency, with what consummate skill, and what unvarying success they were employed under far greater than modern difficulties by Marlborough.
Next let it be observed how thoroughly he understood the British soldier. He took care to feed him well, to pay him regularly, to give him plenty of work, and to keep him under the strictest discipline; and with all this he cherished a genial feeling for the men, which showed itself not only in strict injunctions to watch over their comfort but in acts of personal kindness kindly bestowed. The magic of his personality made itself felt among his men far beyond the scope of mere military duty. His soldiers, as the Recruiting Acts can testify, were for the most part the scum of the nation. Yet they not only marched and fought with a steadiness beyond all praise, but actually became reformed characters and left the army sober, self-respecting men.[487] Marlborough, despite his lapses into treachery as a politician, was a man of peculiar sensitiveness and delicacy. He had a profound distaste for licentiousness either in language or in action, and he contrived to instil a like distaste into his army. His force did not swear terribly in Flanders, as King William's had before it, and although the annual supply of recruits brought with it necessarily an annual infusion of crime, yet the moral tone of the army was singularly high. Marlborough's nature was not of the hard, unbending temper of Wellington's. The Iron Duke had a heart so steeled by strong sense, duty, and discipline that it but rarely sought relief in a burst of passionate emotion. Marlborough was cast in a very different mould. He too, like Wellington, was endowed with a strong common sense that in itself amounted to genius, and possessed in the most trying moments a serenity and calm that was almost miraculous. But there was no coldness in his serenity, nothing impassive in his calm. He was sensitive to a fault; and though his temper might remain unchangeably sweet and his speech unalterably placid and courteous, his face would betray the anxiety and worry which his tongue had power to conceal.[488] With such a temperament there was a bond of humanity between him and his men that was lacking in Wellington. Great as Wellington was, the Iron Duke's army could never have nicknamed him the Old Corporal.