Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

by Various

Two methods of effecting this present themselves. In the first place, a regulation might be easily and advantageously made, in connexion with the army, whereby any nobleman, or son of a nobleman, or in fact any person belonging to the class which the law might define to be noble, (for some modification is wanted on this head,) might be allowed to attach himself as a volunteer officer to any regiment, and be bound to serve in it as such, without pay. He should receive his honorary promotion the same as any other officer, and should be subject to all the same duties and responsibilities; but "pay" he should not need; himself or his family should provide for all his charges. Or, in the second place, he should serve as an officer in a national force, the constitution of which we propose and advocate below: in this case, too, entirely without pay, and subject to all the articles of war. In either instance, we think it the duty of the country to give the nobleman an especial opportunity of serving her in a military manner; and we hold it to be his especial duty—one of the most essential duties of his order, without which his order degenerates and stultifies itself—to serve as a military man, and to serve with distinction.

We often hear it said that the English are not a military people; that they do not like an army; that they have a natural repugnance to the military profession, and other similar pieces of nonsense or untruth. Such libels as these on the innate courage of an Englishman, are never uttered but by those who have something of the calf in their hearts; the wish is father to the thought in all such declarations, when seriously made; and, if alleged as matters of argument, they are used only by the morbid lovers of la paix à tout prix who infest our age and country. It is just the same as when you hear a man say soberly, that he does not like shooting, nor hunting, nor fishing; that he cannot ride, nor drive, nor swim; that he cannot abide the country, and that he prefers a constant residence in town. Such a man is not only a useless, he is positively a noxious member of society—he is an excrescence, a deformity, a nuisance, and the sooner his company is avoided the better. Such men, however, do exist, and they do actually say such things; but they are tokens of the debased and degrading effects of over-civilisation, of social degeneracy, of national humiliation; and whenever their sentiments shall come to be approved of, or assented to, by any large portion of the people, then we may be sure that the decline and fall of the nation are at hand, and that our downward course is fairly commenced. No; the men and the nation that can, in cool blood, repudiate the noble profession of arms, forfeit the virility of their character, they may do very well for the offices that slaves, and the puny denizens of crowded cities, can alone perform; but they deserve to lose the last relics of their freedom, for thus daring to contradict one of the great moral laws of nature. Force and courage have been awarded to man like any other of his faculties and passions; they were intended to be exercised, otherwise they would not have been given: their exercise is both good and necessary; and, like their great development, War, they are destined by our Maker to be the causes and instruments of moral and physical purification and renovation. As long as the mind and body of man continue what they are, the Profession of Arms and the Science of War will be held in deserved honour among the great and good of mankind.

Great evils have no doubt resulted from their use, and more especially from their abuse; but not a whit greater than from the use and abuse of any other of the faculties and propensities of man: not so much as from the spirit of deceit and oppression, which is the concomitant of trading and manufacturing operations; not so much as from the spirit of religious fanaticism and superstition which haunts the human race; not so much as from the gluttony and sensuality of civilised nations. War and Arms are analogous to the Tempest and the Thunderbolt, but they purify more than they destroy, and they elevate more than they depress. The man that does not arm in defence of his country, of his family, and of himself, deserves to die the death of a dog, or to clank about for endless years in the fetters of a slave.

It has been well shown, by one of the most philosophic of modern historians,[7] that the final causes of war are indissolubly united with the moral constitution of man and human society; and that, as long as man continues to be actuated by the same passions as hitherto, the same causes of war must occur over and over again in endless cycles. Not but that the pain and misery thereby caused are undoubted evils, but that evil is permitted to form part of the moral and physical system of the world; it is what constitutes that system a state of probation and moral trial for man. When evil ceases to exist, men's evil passions shall cease also, and the world shall become another Eden; but not till then. The bearing of arms and the waging of war are no disgrace to a nation; they are an honour and a blessing to it if justly exercised, a disgrace and a curse, sooner or later, if undertaken unjustly. Believing, therefore, that the proper maintenance of a warlike spirit is absolutely essential to the welfare of any nation, and knowing how much the pecuniary and political embarrassments of our mighty though heterogeneous empire cripple the public means (in appearance at least) for keeping up a sufficient military force, we proceed to throw out the following hints for the formation of an improved description of a national military force. And we may at once observe, that it is one especially calculated to fall under the direction of the nobles of the land, and to revive that portion of the feudal spirit which depends on the proper constitution of the military resources of a great people.

The military strength of this country lies at present concentrated in the regular army, in the corps of veterans styled "pensioners," and, we may very fairly add, in the "police." We have nothing to say except in praise of these three bodies of men, the two latter of which are most useful adjuncts and supporters to the former. But we not only wish that the number of the regular army were permanently and considerably increased, we could desire also that the number of the police were augmented, and that they had more of military training about them. We shall revert to one of these points, at least, at a future period. We are also of opinion that the militia of the country should always be kept up, and regularly trained even in the intervals of war, were it for no other purpose than to maintain some faint degree of military spirit and knowledge among the common people. The question of expense and of interruption to labour does not, we confess, stop us in the least in our aspirations: we think that the country pays not a farthing too much for its military and naval forces; and, as for interruption to labour, anything that would draw off the attention of the lower orders from the grinding and degrading occupations of manufacturing slavery, we should consider one of the greatest benefits that could accrue to the country.

We wish to call attention, however, to another method—by no means a new one—of augmenting the military resources of the country, and to throw out some hints for rendering that method more efficacious than it may hitherto have been deemed. We allude to the system of volunteers. And here let not our military readers laugh: we would assure our gallant friends that we are fully aware of the thousand and one objections that will be immediately started; we know how easy it is to pooh-pooh a plan of this kind all to nothing. We can already hear them calling out about the Lumber Troop, and the City Light Horse: nay, we ourselves can actually remember that most astounding and heart-stirring event of the late war, the storming of Putney, and the battle of Wimbledon Common. We were present, gallant readers, not as actors but as very juvenile spectators of that memorable combat, to which Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo were mere farces; so we know all that is to be said against the volunteers. And now just have the goodness to let us say something for them.

A volunteer force, if it is to be merely a parade force, a make-believe force, is a "sham," a humbug, and a gross absurdity. If it is to be a "National Guard," playing the part of armed politicians, it is a dangerous nuisance, and ought never to be formed. If it is to consist of a crowd of pot-bellied citizens, with red noses and spectacles, who are afraid of firing off a musket, and cannot march above ten miles a day, nor go more than six hours without plenty of provisions tucked under their belts, nor sleep anywhere except between clean sheets and warm blankets—why, a set of wooden posts, sculptured into the human form, and painted to look like soldiers, would be far more serviceable. We are not going to commit the absurdity of advocating the formation of any such corps of men as these; but we wish to point out how a really efficient corps of volunteers might be raised throughout the kingdom, kept on a footing of constant service and readiness, costing the country not one farthing, and constituting a really useful and valuable auxiliary force to co-operate with the regular troops.

If these qualifications are to exist in any volunteer corps, then it is quite manifest that the following kinds of persons cannot form part of it. First of all, the whole generation of pot-bellied, red-nosed, counter-thumping fellows, alluded to above, would not be admissible; next, no man who is not endowed with a good quantity of bodily activity, health, and vigour of mind, could remain in its ranks; and further, no one need apply for admission who wanted merely to "play at soldiers," or whose means and occupations would not allow of his giving up regularly a certain portion of his best time to the service, and occasionally of absenting himself from home for even a considerable period—say of one, two, or more months, and proceeding wherever the government might wish him. Furthermore, no such corps could have the smallest pretensions to be effective, if it were left to its own guidance and command: it must be as much under the control, and at the orders, of the commander-in-chief—for home service—(for we do not contemplate the possibility of its being ordered abroad,) as any of the regular corps in her Majesty's army.

It will be seen at once, from the above stipulations, that we do not advert to anything at all resembling the loose and extremely local organisation of the old volunteers of 1805 and the subsequent years.

Now, a volunteer corps can only be held together by the two following principles:—first, a strong sense of public and patriotic duty; and, secondly, an acute feeling of Honour, and the Pride of belonging to a really distinguished arm of the service—a bona fide corps d'élite. Whenever war breaks out, we know, and we feel the most hearty satisfaction in knowing, that in every corner of the land—save, perhaps, in the murky dens of misery, discontent, and degeneracy abounding in our manufacturing towns—thousands of British hearts will beat with a tenfold warmer glow than heretofore, and will burn to give forth their best blood for the services of their country. Let but the most distant intimation of foreign invasion be given, and hundreds of thousands of brave and generous defenders of their beloved native land will instantly step forth. But we would say that, if the defence of the country from invasion be really desirable, it is not sufficient that the will to defend it be forthcoming at the proper moment—the knowledge how to do it, the preparatory training, the formation of military habits,—always a matter of slow growth,—the previous organisation of the defenders themselves, is much more important. In short, to keep the country safe from foreign invasion, (we do not allude to the naval strength of the country, which, after all, may prove abundantly sufficient for the purpose,) to take away from a foreign enemy even the spirit to dare an invasion, the previous formation, the constant maintenance of an efficient volunteer force must necessarily be of great value.