Our difficulties in the way of self-preservation are materially increased by the nature of our institutions and our feelings of personal independence. All other great nations in Europe have a power of compulsory enlistment; we have not: if we had, our standing forces for army and navy might be more moderate,—if we only retained efficacious means of rapid organization and equipment. According to our system, however, it is so long before we can procure the necessary number of men for the war establishment, that our only safety must consist in a much greater amount of permanent forces. In short, our purse must pay for our pride.
The volunteer system, however, tends, in some degree, to remedy this disadvantage, and will become more and more valuable in proportion as it shall conform itself gradually to such arrangements as will make our volunteers efficient for acting with our regular forces.
The first and prevalent idea from which the volunteer system sprang was of a levée en masse; that every man animated by British pluck and spirit (and they would number hundreds of thousands) should be well practised in the use of the rifle, and, in case of invasion, should turn out to oppose the enemy, to line the hedges, hang upon the flank and rear of the invading force, and cut it to pieces.
That our volunteers, who have nobly come forward spontaneously, without any prompting from government, would be ready to devote their lives, as they are devoting their time and energies, to the defence of their country against invasion, no one who appreciates the English character will doubt; but that such a heterogeneous body of men, if opposed to a highly-trained and disciplined force of veteran soldiers, would be able to repel the attack of an army, is now generally admitted to be a fallacy; and it would be doing injustice to the intelligence and good sense of Englishmen to blink the truth, which must be obvious to every soldier who has had experience of actual warfare.
Bodies of civilians, however courageous and well drilled, would be ill calculated to bear the hardships and fatigues of a soldier’s life; nor could they be relied upon, even as a matter of numbers: a rainy night or two in the open fields, and occasional short supplies of food, would thin their ranks prodigiously. It cannot be supposed that men of any class or nation, however brave, suddenly leaving comfortable homes and in-door pursuits, could endure that exposure and privation which is required of soldiers—men selected for their hardy constitutions and well-knit frames, and trained to implicit obedience, and habituated to act together. Composed of men of different descriptions and habits, without military discipline and organization, they would be wanting in cohesion and unity of action; or if each man or small party acted on individual impulse, their efforts would be unavailing to arrest the progress of an army advancing in solid masses, like some vast and complex machine animated by life and motion. Panics would be rife amongst them, and but few of the bravest even would stand when they heard the action gaining on their flanks and rear. Moreover, no general would know how to deal with numbers of them under his command, for fear of his dispositions being deranged by their proceedings; nor could any commissariat or other department be prepared to provide for so uncertain and fluctuating a body.
A confidence in the efficiency of an armed population to resist the invasion of their country by regular armies has been created by reference to history; and the examples of the United States, of the Tyrol, of Spain, and others, have been triumphantly quoted; but an investigation into the circumstances of each case will show how greatly they all differ from such circumstances as would attend an attack upon England. In the cases cited, either the country was wild and mountainous, without communications and resources, the invading army small, or the contest greatly prolonged: rarely, if ever, has the invader been thoroughly checked in his first progress; but when forced to break into detachments and to act in small bodies, he has, by a spirited and energetic population, been harassed beyond his strength, and thus eventually forced to abandon the attempt.
It being evident, then, that a mere rising in mass of the population would be unavailing, and even mischievous, leading to a lamentable waste of life, and encouraging the invaders in proportion as the defenders were discomfited, we have now to consider the best means of utilizing the present volunteer movement, which assumes for its basis some degree of organization and training.
Government prudently abstained from any interference with the movement, or from involving itself in any undertaking to organize the volunteers; for that would have led, not only to great and indefinite expenses, but to the abstracting of available resources from the established forces of the country, and also to other inconveniences, without, as yet, any reliable and adequate advantages in prospect. The movement being thus left to its own impulses, a large number of gentlemen, and others in sufficiently easy circumstances, determined to enrol themselves, in different localities, into self-supporting corps of riflemen. Their determination was most spirited and praiseworthy, and government, without pledging itself to any fixed or great amount of support, now affords, in many ways, aid and direction to the movement, without too minute an interference in its essentially voluntary arrangements.
Thus we have already many thousands of stout hearts, constituting an impromptu armed force, at little cost to government, advancing in organization and exercises, having arms and accoutrements, and above all, making preparation for thoroughly practising with the rifle—their strongest desire being to become first-rate shots. Here is a mass of most superb material; but we would earnestly impress upon the volunteers, and upon the country, not to rely too much upon stout hearts and good shots: much else is needful. It is quite a mistake to suppose that mere perfection in firing at a mark will make a good rifleman for the field. Volunteers, to be efficient in action, must form a component part of an army. Every part of an army in the field must be well in hand of the generals in command—light infantry and riflemen must be equal to all movements, in compact as well as dispersed order, and in the several combinations of the two. By this alone will they be really formidable, and by this alone will they acquire a confidence and steadiness which mere innate courage can never give.
In order to act as riflemen and light infantry conjointly with regular troops, volunteers will require the highest possible training as soldiers. Ordinary infantry are put together and kept together, and—unlike those who must act more independently and with greater skill—are always under the eye and hand of the officer who directs the movement. In the confusion of action, and amidst inequalities of ground and varying circumstances, light troops are very much at a loss, until, by practice, they acquire a steadiness which is the result of a thorough knowledge of the business and of active exercise in it. By the term “acting as light infantry and riflemen” is not meant a system of irregular or guerilla warfare, for which it may be readily conceived that a volunteer force of citizens is entirely unfit.