There is one advantage of short enlistments that has been overlooked both by Dr Fergusson and by Mr Marshall, but which nevertheless is, in our opinion, an important one. It is the increased military character that it would give to the nation, the greater number of men whom it would familiarize with the use of arms, and render competent to use them effectually at a moment's notice. We believe that short enlistments, and the other improvements already referred to, and which we shall presently speak of at greater length, would produce, in this thickly peopled kingdom, a regular annual supply of recruits, a large proportion of them of a very superior class to those who now offer. On the other hand, the army, instead of being thinned by desertions, transportations, and feigned diseases, would each year give up from its ranks a number of young and able-bodied men, who, whilst entering upon the occupations of civil life, would in a great measure retain their soldierly qualities, and be ready, in case of an emergency, to stand forward successfully in defence of their homes and families. We have long been accustomed to look upon this country as guaranteed from invasion by her wooden walls. Noble as the bulwark is, there is no dissembling the fact, that its efficiency has been greatly impaired by the progress of steam, rendering it extremely difficult, in case of a war, effectually to guard our long line of coast. And although Europe seems now as disinclined for war as a long experience of the blessings of peace can render her, this happy state cannot, in the nature of things, last for ever. Let us suppose a general war, and a large body of French troops thrown upon our shores in a night, whilst our armies were absent on the battle fields of the Continent, or of America. The supposition is startling, but cannot be viewed as absurd; many looked upon its realization as certain when circumstances were far less favourable to it than they would now be. How far would volunteers and militiamen, hastily raised, unaccustomed to services in the field, and many of whom had never fired a ball-cartridge in their lives,[3] be able to cope, with any chance of success, with fifty thousand French soldiers? And admitting that they did successfully contend, and that superior numbers and steadfast courage—although these, without good drill and discipline, are of little avail against a veteran army—eventually gained the day, how much more effective would they be, and how much loss of life and injury to the country might be avoided, did their ranks contain a fair proportion of men trained to arms, and able to instruct and encourage their comrades? But these are subjects so suggestive as to afford themes for volumes, where they might be better discussed than in the scanty pages of a review. We can only afford to glance at them, and to throw out hints for others to improve upon.
The liability to the lash, inflicted, until very recently, even for the least disgraceful offences, has long been thrown in the teeth of the British soldier by his foreign brethren in arms. That infamous punishment has been utterly disapproved and eloquently argued against by military men of high rank and great abilities, whose enlightened minds and long experience taught them to condemn it. The feeling of the nation is strongly against it, the armies of other countries are seen to flourish and improve without it, and yet it is still maintained, although gradually sinking into disuse, and, we hope and believe, drawing near to its abolition. Unnecessarily cruel as a punishment, ineffectual as an example to repress crime, and stamping the indelible brand of infamy on men the soul of whose profession should be a feeling of honour, why is it so lovingly and tenaciously clung to? "The service would go to the devil—could not be carried on without it—no soldiering without flogging," is the reply of a section of officers—the minority, we assuredly believe. "No one can doubt," says Dr Fergusson, "that for infamous crimes there ought to be infamous punishments, and to them let the lash be restricted." Be it so, but then devise some plan by which the soldier, whose offence is so disgraceful as to need the most humiliating of chastisements, shall be thenceforward excluded from the army. When he leaves the hospital, let his discharge be handed to him. "A fine plan, indeed!" it will be said. "Men will incur a flogging every day to get out of the service." Doubtless they will, so long as service is unlimited. And this is one reason why short enlistments and abolition of corporal punishment should go together. Against desertion, transportation has hitherto been found an ineffectual remedy. If men were enlisted for seven years only, it would cease to be so. Few would then be sufficiently perverse to risk five or seven years' transportation in order to get rid of what remained of their period of service. To flog for drunkenness, however frequent the relapse, is an absurdity, for it usually drives the culprit to habits of increased intemperance, that he may forget the disgraceful punishment he has suffered. In war time, when in the field before the enemy, discipline should assume its most Spartan and inflexible aspect. The deserter, the mutineer, the confirmed marauder, to the provost-marshal and cord. For minor offences, there would be no difficulty in finding appropriate punishments; such as fines, imprisonment in irons, extra guards and pickets, fatigue-duty, and the like. No military offenders should be punished by the cat. It is in direct opposition to the spirit by which armies should be governed: a spirit of honour and self-respect.
"The incorrigible deserter," says Dr Fergusson, "may be safely committed to penal service in the West Indies or the coast of Africa; and should the pseudo-philanthropists interfere with the cant of false humanity, let them be told that the best and bravest of our troops have too often been sent there, as to posts of honour and duty, from which they are hereafter to be saved by the substitution of the criminal and the worthless. The other nations of the Continent, who have not these outlets, conduct the discipline of their armies without flogging; and why should not we? They, it may be said, cultivate the point of honour. And does not the germ of pride and honour reside as well, and better, in the breast of the British soldier, distinguished, as he has ever been, for fidelity to his colours, obedience to his commanders, pride in his corps, and attachment to its very name?"
Mr Marshall's history of punishments in the army is rather to be termed curious than useful. Agreeable it certainly cannot be considered, except by those persons, if such there be, who luxuriate in Fox's Book of Martyrs, or gloat over the annals of the Spanish Inquisition. It shows human ingenuity taxed to the utmost to invent new tortures for the soldier. The last adhered to, and, it may safely be said, the worst devised, is the lash; and we need look back but a very little way to find its infliction carried to a frightful extent. A thousand lashes used to be no unusual award; and it sometimes happened (frequently, Mr Marshall asserts, but this other information induces us to doubt) that a man who had been unable, with safety to his life, to receive the whole of the punishment at one time, was brought out again, as soon as his back was skinned over, to take the rest. At one time there was no limit to the number of lashes that a general court-martial might award. Mr Marshall says, that at Amboyna, in the year 1813 or 1814, he knew three men to be condemned to fifteen hundred lashes each. The whole punishment was inflicted. At Dinapore, on the 12th September 1825, a man was sentenced to nineteen hundred lashes, which sentence the commander-in-chief commuted to twelve hundred. Such sentences, however, were in direct contradiction to the general order of the 30th January 1807, by which "his Majesty was graciously pleased to express his opinion, that no sentence for corporal punishment should exceed one thousand lashes." In 1812, when the powers of a regimental court-martial had been limited to the infliction of three hundred lashes, "many old officers believed, and did not hesitate to say, that such limitation would destroy the discipline of the army."—(Marshall, p. 185.) We cannot put the same faith that Mr Marshall appears to do in the outrageous narratives of some of his authorities. It is impossible, for instance, to swallow such a tale as we find at page 267 of the Military Miscellany, of seventy men of one battalion being flogged on the line of march in one day. This, however, is only given as an on dit. Equally incredible is the story quoted from the book of a certain Sergeant Teesdale, of ten to twenty-five men being flogged daily for six weeks for coming dirty on parade; and another, which Mr Marshall tells, of seventeen thousand lashes being for some time the monthly allowance of a regiment in India—the said regiment being, we are informed, treated very little worse than its neighbours. The articles of war, as they stand at the present day, restrict the award of corporal punishment, by a general court-martial, to two hundred lashes; by a district court-martial, to one hundred and fifty; and by a regimental court, to one hundred.
We would put the question to any military man—even to the strongest advocate of flogging—what is the usual effect of corporal punishment on the soldier? Does it make or mar him, improve his character and correct his vices, or render him more reckless and abandoned than before? The conscientious answer would be, we are persuaded, that seldom is a good soldier made of a flogged man. "There is not an instance in a thousand," says Dr Jackson, "where severe punishment (flogging is here referred to) has made a soldier what he ought to be; there are thousands where it has rendered those who were forgetful and careless, rather than vicious, insensible to honour, and abandoned to crime." But then the example is supposed, erroneously, as we believe, to be of good operation. We cannot admit that, to justify the practice of marking a man's shoulders with the ineffaceable stripes of disgrace.
In speaking of corporal punishment, we have considered only its moral effect, and have not touched on the unnecessary and unequal amount of pain it occasions. Much might be said upon this head. "My first objection to flogging," says Sir Charles Napier, in his treatise "On Military Law," published in 1837, "is, that it is torture,"—using the word, no doubt, in the sense of inhumanity, and meaning that more pain than is necessary is inflicted. Sir Charles's second objection is, that it is torture of a very unequal infliction—varying, of course, according to the strength of the drummers or others employed, to the rigour of the drum-major superintending their exertions, and to other circumstances. Mr Marshall tells us that different men suffer in very different degrees from punishment of like severity. Tall slender men, of a sanguine temperament, feel a flogging more severely than short, thickset ones; and instances have been known of soldiers succumbing under a sixth part of the punishment which others have borne and rapidly recovered from. The presence of a surgeon is in many cases no guarantee against a fatal result. "It is impossible to say what may be the effect of corporal infliction with more certainty than to predict the consequences of a surgical operation."—(Military Miscellany, p. 224.) "No medical officer can answer either for the immediate or ultimate consequences of this species of corporal punishment. Inflammation of the back, or general fever, may occur after a very moderate infliction, and may terminate fatally, notwithstanding the greatest diligence and attention on the part of a well-informed and conscientious surgeon."—(Ibid. p. 276.) Besides the reasons against corporal punishment above stated, Sir Charles Napier advances and supports by argument six others equally cogent. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, although he introduced into his army the species of flogging known as the gantlope or gauntlet, rarely had recourse to it, being persuaded that "such a disgrace cast a damp upon the soldier's vivacity, and did not well agree with the notions which a high spirit ought to entertain of honour." "Il ne faut point," says Kirckhoff, a medical officer in the army of the king of the Netherlands, quoted by Mr Marshall, "soumettre le soldat fautif à des punitions avilissantes. A quoi bon les coups de bâton qu'on donne trop légèrement au soldat, si ce n'est pour l'abrutir, et pour déshonorer le noble état du defenseur de la patrie? Ce genre de punition déshonorant ne devrait être réservé qu'aux lâches et aux traîtres; et dès qu'une fois un militaire l'aurait subi, il faudrait l'exclure à jamais d'un ordre auquel les destins d'une nation sont confiés; d'un ordre qui a pour base le courage, l'honneur, et toutes les vertus généreuses."
It is singular that whilst such remarkable ingenuity has been exhibited in devising punishments for the soldier, so very little should have been displayed in the invention of rewards. Of these latter, the most legitimate and desirable are pensions and promotion. We would add a third—a military order of merit to be bestowed upon men distinguishing themselves by acts of gallantry, or by steady good conduct. Decorations of this kind—we are convinced of it by our observations on various foreign services—act as a strong incentive to the soldier. There exists in this country a prejudice against their adoption, principally because we are accustomed to see such rewards heaped without discrimination, and with a profusion that renders them worthless, upon the soldiers of foreign nations. There seems a natural tendency to the abuse of such institutions, and Napoleon might well shudder were he to rise from his grave and see his "Star of the Brave" dangling from the buttonhole of half the pamphleteers and national guardsmen of the French capital. In other countries the lavish profusion with which stars, crosses, riband-ends, and rosettes are bestowed, is enough to raise a suspicion of collusion between the royal donors and the jewellers and haberdashers of their dominions. But even when largely distributed, we believe them to act as a spur to the soldier. If there is a fear of England's becoming what we find so ridiculous in others, a country where the non-decorated amongst military men are the exception, let great caution be used in the bestowal of such honours. We now refer to an order of merit for the soldiers only. With officers we have at present nothing to do; although we shall be found upon occasion equally ready and willing to support their just claims. But they can plead their own cause, if not effectually, at least perseveringly, as the recent numerous letters in newspapers, and articles in military periodicals, claiming a decoration for Peninsular services, sufficiently prove. Such a decoration was certainly nobly deserved, but, if conceded at all, it should be given quickly, or its existence, it is to be feared, will be very brief. Our present business, however, is with the soldier—the humble private, the deserving non-commissioned officer.
It is not unnatural that when tardy reflection comes to the thoughtless lad who has sold himself to unlimited military bondage, he should be anxious to know what provision is made for him when age or disease shall cause his services to be dispensed with. Inquiry or reference informs him, that should he be discharged after fourteen and under twenty-one years service, so far disabled as to be unable to work—this is a condition—he may be awarded the magnificent sum of from sixpence to eightpence a-day! Discharged under twenty-one years' service, as disabled for the army only, he may get a temporary pension of sixpence a-day for a period varying from one month to five years. Discharged by indulgence after twenty-five years, he may receive sixpence a-day. We have already remarked on the little heed taken by civilians in this country of the treatment and ordinances of the army. These statements will probably be new to most of our non-military readers, many of whom, we doubt not, entertain an absurd notion, that when a man has served his country well and faithfully during twenty-five years, or is dismissed, as unable to work, after fourteen years' servitude, he invariably finds a snug berth ready for him at Chelsea, or at least has a pension awarded to him tolerably adequate to supply him with the bare necessaries of life, and to keep him from begging or crossing-sweeping. As to the savings of soldiers out of their pay, facilitated though they now are by the establishment of savings' banks in the army, they can be but exceedingly small. A soldier's pay varies from thirteen to fifteen pence, according to the time he has served. Deduct from this the cost of his clothing, only a portion of which is supplied to him free of charge, and sixpence a-day for his rations of bread and meat, and what remains will frequently not exceed threepence a-day for tobacco, vegetables, coffee, and other small necessaries. The great difference between the pay, rations, and pensions of soldiers and sailors, is not generally known. Besides receiving rations far more abundant and varied, an able seaman gets thirty-four shillings per month of twenty-eight days, more than double the pay of a soldier under seven years' service. Seamen have a claim of right to be discharged after twenty-one years' service with a pension of one shilling to fourteen pence a-day. And, besides this, it must be remembered that a sailor may enlist for a short time, and at its expiration, or at any time that he is discharged, employment is open to him in the merchant service. But what is the soldier to do when dismissed from the army at forty years of age or upwards? "A very small number of men," says Mr Marshall, "are fit after forty years of age for the arduous duties of the service." Surely it may be claimed for our brave fellows that a more liberal system of pensioning be adopted. We do not lose sight of the necessity of economy in these days of heavy taxation; and before deciding on a plan, the matter should be well sifted and considered. But we have already expressed our conviction that limited service would of itself in various ways produce a pecuniary saving to the government. Adequate pensions would have other beneficial results. Mr Marshall throws out suggestions for a new scale of pensions, and declares his opinion, that no man who has served twenty-one years should receive a smaller allowance than a shilling a-day.
"The more striking," he proceeds to say, "the honourable example of an old soldier enjoying his pension, the more likely is it to contribute to spread a military feeling in the neighbourhood. But to repay the retired soldier by a pension inadequate to his sustenance, must have the effect of consigning him to the workhouse, and of sinking him and the army in the estimation of the working class of the population; destroying all military feeling, and, whilst the soldier is serving, weakening those important aids to discipline—the cheerfulness and satisfaction which the prospect of a pension, after a definite period, inspires."
We now come to a branch of our subject encompassed with peculiar difficulties, and that will be met with many objections; the present system of disposing of commissions in the army is too convenient and agreeable to a large and influential class of the community for it to be otherwise. The most important part of the proposed scheme of rewards is the bestowing of commissions upon sergeants. We are aware that, in the present constitution of the army, much may be urged against such a plan being carried out beyond an exceedingly limited extent. But most of the objections would, we think, be removed by the adoption and consequences of limited service, and by the extinction of corporal punishment. Others would disappear before a greater attention to the education of the soldier, and before some slight reductions in what are now erroneously considered the necessary expenses of officers.