At the end of January, 1900, the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, said in the House of Lords: "I do not believe in the perfection of the British Constitution as an instrument of war … it is evident that there is something in your machinery that is wrong."
In the debate on the Army Estimates on February 1st, Dilke, with his usual courage, raised the question of responsibility, in a speech to which little attention was paid at the time, but which will now, in the light of subsequent events, be better appreciated.
"The country," he said, "has gone through an awful winter, and under our constitutional system there are persons responsible, and we have to examine the nature of their responsibility. Some Government speakers, who during the recess have addressed the country, have drawn certain comparisons between the occurrences in this war and those of the Crimean War…. I confess that I believe the present war has been far more disgracefully conducted than the Crimean War had been, and that the mourning is far more applicable to this case. Now, with regard to the checks or reverses—that is the accepted phrase—we are really afraid in these days to talk about 'disasters.' The First Lord of the Treasury at Manchester distinctly stated there had been 'no disaster.' There has been no single great engagement in which we have met with an absolute disaster, but for the first time in our military history there has been a succession of checks or reverses—unredeemed as they have been by a single great military success in the whole course of the war—in many of which we have left prisoners in the enemy's hands. We began with the abandonment of the entrenched camp at Dundee, and of the great accumulation of stores that had been made there, of the wounded, and of the dying General, and we lost the headquarters of a regiment of cavalry that tried a cavalry pursuit. We lost the headquarters of two battalions at Nicholson's Nek; we lost the headquarters of one battalion and a very large portion of another battalion in the repulse at Stormberg; we lost the Colonel, most of the field officers, and the whole of one company of the Suffolks, on another occasion. These headquarters of cavalry, and the principal portion of the remaining men of five battalions of British infantry, are now prisoners at Pretoria—not to speak of what happened to the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein, or of the loss of the guns in the repulse at the Tugela, or of the fact that thirteen of our field guns, besides a mountain battery, are now in the enemy's hands. The loss of guns in proportion to our small strength of guns is equivalent to the loss of some 300 guns by the German army. None of these events constitutes what the First Lord of the Treasury calls a disaster. Probably he is right. But can any member of this House deny that the net result of these proceedings has been disastrous to the belief of the world in our ability to conduct a war? Therefore, if there has been, as the right hon. gentleman says, not one disaster, surely the result of the proceedings has been one disastrous to the credit of this country. There has been one immense redemption of that disaster, which is that all the Powers, however hostile, have very frankly acknowledged on these occasions the heroism of the officers and men. Our military reputation, which undoubtedly never stood lower in the eyes of the world than at the present moment, is redeemed in that respect, and the individual courage of officers and men never stood higher in the estimate of the world than it does now. It seems to me to be a patriotic duty of those who have in the past discussed in this House the question of Cabinet responsibility for military preparations to discuss the question now; to see who is responsible, whom—I will not say we will hang, but whom we are to hold blameworthy in the highest degree for what has occurred. I believe that the opinion is attributed to the Prime Minister that the British Constitution is not a fighting machine. I am told that he has thrown doubt upon the working of the British Constitution as a Constitution which will allow this country successfully to go to war. That is a very serious matter. The Constitution of this country has been maintained as a fighting machine by the members of this House who are now responsible for the Administration. No one has ever put the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility for the preparation for war higher than it has always been put by the present Leader of the House (Mr. Balfour), and anything more direct than the conflict on that point, as on many others, between his opinion and the opinion of the Prime Minister it is impossible to conceive…. On Thursday last the right hon. member who preceded me in this debate—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Brodrick)—delivered a speech and said that all that had been done in this war had been 'solely dictated by military advice,' and 'military advice alone determined all that had been done.' I should like the House to consider what that statement means. The right hon. gentleman was the member who, on three occasions, brought the question of the ammunition supplies of this country before the House: it was he who moved the amendment which turned out the Rosebery Administration on the cordite vote, and he led the discussion on two subsequent occasions on which we debated the same question. At the opening of the next Parliament the whole question of Ministerial responsibility for war preparation was thoroughly and exhaustively considered by this House. I confess that I did not expect to hear the right hon. gentleman—who on those three occasions so firmly pressed, to the very extinction of the Government itself, the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility—as it were sheltering the Cabinet behind military advice, advice which he rejected, as also did the Leader of the House, with scorn upon that occasion…. I feel it a duty to myself, and to all who hold the same opinion, to press home this doctrine of Cabinet responsibility on this occasion. In that debate the hon. member who seems likely to follow me in this debate—the present Under-Secretary for War (Mr. Wyndham)—took part. He was then a private member and warmly occupied his mind upon this question, and he used these words: 'If they were overwhelmed by disasters, the Minister for War would be held responsible.' Not only he, but the whole Cabinet are responsible, and the present Leader of the House, in following the hon. member in that debate, emphasized that fact, and pointed out the importance of complete Cabinet responsibility. That doctrine was emphatically maintained. There are practical reasons why this question should be pressed home on this occasion. This is obviously the time to press it home if ever it should be done, and it seems to me that such practical reasons are to be found in two considerations. We have been told that at the beginning of every war it is always fated that there should be muddling. We have been told it from both sides of the House, that we always begin by muddling our wars. If there is one fact more certain than another, it is that in future wars, not with Boer Republics, but with Great Powers, there will be no time for muddling at the beginning of war, and it is vital that this muddling should be guarded against. If we are to look forward as a matter of certainty that this country is always to muddle at the beginning of a war, then we may look forward with almost certainty to defeat."
Dilke then examined the excuses that had been made for the Government, to the effect that the war took them by surprise and that they had no knowledge of the Boer preparations. He showed that both these pleas were inconsistent with the facts. Mr. Balfour had said that the Government had thought it their duty, during the negotiations which preceded the war, to abstain from unnecessary menace. Dilke pointed out that they did not so abstain. Lord Salisbury had said on July 28th, 1899, "the Conventions are mortal … they are liable to be destroyed." That could only be understood by the Boers as holding out the prospect of a war in which the independence of their country would be taken away. Were these words wise when used without the smallest preparation for war having been made? As regards knowledge of the Boer preparations, the Intelligence Department had admirably done its work. No Government was ever so well informed as to the resources of its opponents as the British Government in entering upon this war. Dilke went on to say:
"Both by those who would have anticipated war and by the Government it has been alleged that the existence of a Parliamentary Opposition was the reason why the military precautions of the Government were inefficacious. But the Government has been in power since July, 1895, and has been supported by overwhelming majorities, and it would have had the cheerful acquiescence of the House of Commons for every measure of military precaution and all the military expenditure which was asked. The Cabinet are responsible; but if there is to be any difficulty on account of the existence of a constitutional Opposition—even a weak one—I say that by that doctrine we are fated to be beaten on every occasion we go to war. The time for the reform of our military system will come when this war has ended. We cannot reform it in a time of war. We have often addressed the House upon this subject. We preached to deaf ears. We were not listened to before war. Shall we be listened to when war is over? While I admit that in a time of war you cannot reform your military system, what you can do is to press home to the Cabinet the responsibility…. For some years past there have been discussions as to Empire expansion which have divided some of us from others on military questions. There are some of us, who are strong supporters of the Government in preparing for war in the present situation of the world, who are not in favour of what is called the expansion of the Empire. We have resisted it because we believed the military requirements of the Empire were greater—as it was put by Lord Charles Beresford, whom we see here no longer—than we were prepared to meet. And the Government now come down to the House and quietly tell us that that is so. They have put it in the Queen's Speech. We have it stated that, although the money we have to spend in military preparations is more than that of any other Power in the world, we are going to be asked to spend more. I should hope that good may come out of evil, and that a result of this sad war may be the proper utilization of our resources in preparing, in times of peace, all the military forces of what people call Greater Britain…. I venture to say that the Government went into this war without the preparation they should have made. Their neglect of that precaution has brought about the reverses we have met with, and the natural consequence is the failure of our arms I have described. As regards the Crimean War, which in some respects has been compared with this, one is reminded of the present Commander-in-Chief, who has written these momentous words: The history of the Crimean War shows 'how an army may be destroyed by a Ministry through want of ordinary forethought.' I confess that I think there is only one point in which the two cases are exactly parallel—for there are many distinctions between them—and that is in the heroism of officers and men."
On July 27th, 1900, on the occasion of a supplementary estimate for the South African War, Dilke criticized the censorship of letters from the front, in consequence of which the truth about the military mistakes made remained unknown. He reviewed a series of blunders that had been made in the war, and quoted the opinion of an eminent foreign strategist to the effect that "the mistakes which had been made were mistakes on immutable and permanent principles." Thus, there was a doubt whether the army had been properly trained for war in the past and was being properly trained at that moment. He asked for a full inquiry into these matters.
That inquiry was never made. The Royal Commission appointed after the war to inquire into its conduct began by disclaiming authority to inquire into the policy out of which the war arose, and by asserting its own incompetence to discuss the military operations.
In a paper contributed to the New Liberal Review of February, 1901,
Dilke reviewed the South African War, and summed up:
"The war, then, has revealed deficiency in the war training of the Staff in particular, and of the army generally. It has shown that the recommendations of the Commander-in-Chief to the Cabinet for the nomination of Generals to high commands were not based on real tests. It has called attention to the amateurishness of portions of our forces. It has proved that for years the reformers have been right, and the War Office wrong, as regards the number and proportion of guns needed by us and the rapidity of the mobilization of our artillery.
"Remedies which will certainly be attempted are—Better training of the Staff, especially in the thinking out and writing of orders; weeding out of incompetent amateurs from among our officers; better pay for the men; careful preparation in time of peace of a picked Imperial force of mounted infantry from all parts of the Empire. But greater changes, urgently as they are demanded by the national interest, will not be accomplished, as public excitement will die down, and triflers and obstructives will remain at the head of affairs, in place of the Carnot who is needed as organizer to back the best General that can be found for the Commander-in-Chief.