The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 2

by Stephen Lucius Gwynn

"We have been adding million after million to our naval expenditure. Are all these millions wasted? If it be true, as we are told by representatives of the Admiralty, that the navy is in a position such as it has never occupied before—that it is now not only our first line of defence, but our guarantee for the possession of our own islands—is that to make no difference to a system which has grown up avowedly and confessedly on the basis of defending these islands by an armed land force against an invasion? Is that to make no difference? Is this view some invention of my own imagination? No, sir, that is the deliberate conclusion of the Government, advised by a body which has been called into, I believe, a useful existence during the last eighteen months, and which I regret was not called into existence much longer ago—the Committee of Defence…. I have seen it stated that, provided our navy is sufficient, the greatest anticipation we can form in the way of a landing of a hostile army would be a force of 5,000. I should be deceiving the House if I thought that represented the extreme naval view. The extreme naval view is that the crew of a dinghy could not land in this country in the face of the navy."

This speech showed the conversion of the Government, for which Sir Charles Dilke had laboured so long, to the doctrine of the primacy of the navy and of defence by the command of the sea.

On May 11th, Mr. Balfour in the name of the Committee of Defence put forth the general view which that body had reached. In the first place, provided the navy was efficient, a successful invasion of the country upon a large scale need not be contemplated. Secondly, the Committee had gone on the broad line that our force should as far as possible be concentrated at the centre of the Empire. This had rendered unnecessary expenditure which had been undertaken under a different view of our needs, the most notable case being the works at St. Lucia, which had been made by Lord Carnarvon into a great naval base. Lastly, with regard to India, the Government adopted Lord Kitchener's view that in addition to drafts there should be available in the relatively early stages of the war eight divisions of infantry and other corresponding arms.

Dilke, who had described himself as a constant supporter of the blue-water view, agreed with the Government with regard to invasion, and welcomed Mr. Balfour's moderate view with regard to the needs of India. But he pointed out that vast sums of money had been spent in the fortification of places which were now discovered to be unnecessary.

"He asked the Committee to remember how far the responsibility of all this expenditure had been on the present occupants of office. He believed that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet was created by Lord Rosebery at the end of his Administration in 1895. That was the first form of the Committee. Immediately the new Government came in it assumed its second form, and the Defence Committee of the Conservative Government, formed in 1895 under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire, lasted for many years, and was composed of substantially the same gentlemen as were in power now. It was constantly vouched to the House as the great co-ordinating authority, and as the body responsible for expenditure on an enormous scale on principles diametrically opposed to those now held. The third form of the Committee was that which was adopted when the Prime Minister acceded to his present office. The right hon. gentleman came to this House and at once explained the new form of the Committee on March 5th, 1903…. The Committee had heard to-day the extent to which invasion at home was believed in by the Defence Committee…. It was firmly expected from the moment that the Government announced their naval view that the reduction would be under the military head. But instead of that the reduction had been on the Navy Estimates, and that had not been accompanied by a reduction on the army votes. That had been the amazing effect of the co-ordination. Had any member of the Committee calculated how much money had been wasted in the last nine and a half years by the non-adoption in 1895, when virtually the present Government came into office, of the policy which had been adopted now?"

VII.

The Government which had thus tardily followed Sir Charles Dilke's lead had lost the confidence of the country. The General Election of 1905 gave the Liberals a large majority. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the new Prime Minister, had not forgotten Dilke's vote in the cordite division of 1895, and did not share his view of the necessity to be ready for war, and to rely, not upon arbitration, but upon the organization of defensive preparations. Dilke was not included in the new Ministry, in which Mr. (now Lord) Haldane was appointed Secretary of State for War. Mr. Haldane undertook a fresh reorganization of the military forces of the country, taking the Committee of Defence and the Army Council as they were left by Mr. Balfour after the changes proposed by the Esher Committee. The Order in Council gave the Secretary of State the power to reserve for his own decision any matter whatever, and to impose that decision upon the Army Council, a power not contemplated by the Esher Committee's report. Mr. Haldane availed himself of this power and of the assistance of Colonel Ellison, who had been Secretary to the Esher Committee, but was not a member of the Army Council, to prepare his scheme. It consisted in the organization of an expeditionary force, which was to be composed of six divisions and a cavalry division, with a total field strength of 160,000 men, fully equipped for war, together with additional troops at home to make good the losses of a campaign. This force was to be made up of the regular army (of which the establishments were reduced by some 20,000 of all arms), of its reserve, and of the militia, renamed special reserve, also with a reduced establishment, and with a liability to serve abroad in case of war. The Volunteer force was to be renamed the Territorial force, and its officers and men to be brought under the Army Act, the men to be enlisted for a term of years and paid. It was to be organized, as the Norfolk Commission had suggested, into brigades and divisions. But the further suggestion of the same Commission, that a member of the Army Council familiar with the volunteer system should be charged with its supervision, was not adopted. Mr. Haldane's view was that the territorial troops could not in peace receive a training which would prepare them for war, but that, as England was not a Continental Power and was protected by her navy, there would be six months' time, after a war had begun, to give them a training for war. The force was to be administered by County Associations to be constituted for the purpose. The scheme was gradually elaborated, and in its later stage improved by the transformation of the University and some other volunteer and cadet corps into officers' training corps. The works which, at the suggestion of Sir John Ardagh, had been prepared for the defence of London were abandoned.

Mr. Haldane first expounded his plans in March, 1906, and in the debate of March 15th Dilke said:

"There was a little too much depreciation of the Volunteers; and although he had always been considered a strong supporter of the 'blue-water' view, yet he had always believed in accepting from the Volunteers all the service they could give, as he believed they would give an enormous potential supply of men."

Mr. Haldane explained (February 25th, 1907) that the expeditionary force would require only seventy-two batteries, while the army actually had a hundred and five; there was therefore a surplus of thirty-three batteries which he would use as training batteries in which to train men for divisional ammunition columns. Upon this Dilke's comment was that "if the officer difficulty could be solved, then the real military problem would be solved." We could raise men fast enough through the volunteer system, and turn them into good infantry, provided there was a sufficient supply of officers qualified to train them; but the infantry which could thus be produced in a few months would require to be supplemented by artillery and cavalry which could not be improvised. He would have faced the cost of keeping up these arms, and would not have saved by turning batteries into ammunition columns.