The doubt and anxiety of public opinion in 1912 were not allayed when the strength and composition of the British Army came to be considered.

Leaving out of account those troops which were recruited and maintained in India, the Dominions, and the Dependencies, the actual number of British regulars employed in garrison duty abroad was in round figures 125,000 men. The number in the United Kingdom was approximately the same; but by no means the whole of these were fit to take the field. The total strength of the Regular Army in 1912-1913 might therefore be taken at somewhere between 250,000 and 254,000 men,[1] of whom half were permanently out of this country, while from 25,000 to 50,000 could not be reckoned on as available in case of war, for the reason that they were either recent recruits or 'immatures.'[2]

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The reserves and additional troops which would be called out in the event of a serious war were so different in character that it was impossible simply to throw them into a single total, and draw conclusions therefrom according to the rules of arithmetic. For when people spoke of the Army Reserve, the Special Reserve, and the Territorial Army, they were talking of three things, the values of which were not at all comparable. The first were fully trained fighting soldiers; the second were lads with a mere smattering of their trade; while the third were little more than an organised schedule of human material—mainly excellent—which would become available for training only at the outbreak of war, and whose liability for service was limited to home defence. The sum-total of these reserves and additional troops was roughly 450,000 men; but this row of figures was entirely meaningless, or else misleading, until the significance of its various factors was grasped.[3]

THE THREE RESERVES

The first of these categories, the Army Reserve, was the only one which could justly claim to rank as a true reserve—that is, as a fighting force, from the outbreak of war equal in calibre to the Continental {319} troops against which, it would be called upon to take the field.

The Army Reserve consisted of men who had served their full time in the Regular Army. They were therefore thoroughly trained and disciplined, needing only a few days—or at most weeks—to rub the rust off them.[4] Nominally their numbers were 137,000[5] men; but as over 8000 of these were living out of the United Kingdom the net remainder had to be taken at something under 130,000. Moreover, as the Army Reserve depended automatically upon the strength of the Regular Army, and as the strength of this had recently been reduced, it seemed necessarily to follow that ultimately there would be a considerable diminution.

The second category to which the name of a reserve was given was the Special Reserve. This, however, was no true reserve like the first, for it was wholly unfit to take the field upon the outbreak of hostilities. It was the modern substitute for the Militia, and was under obligation to serve abroad in time of war. The term of enlistment was six years, and the training nominally consisted of six months in the first year, and one month in camp in each of the succeeding years. But in practice these conditions had been greatly relaxed. It was believed that, upon the average, the term of training amounted to even less than the proposals of the National Service {320} League,[6] which had been criticised from the official standpoint—severely and not altogether unjustly—on the ground that they would not provide soldiers fit to be drafted immediately into the fighting line.

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of its military education, this Special Reserve was relied upon in some measure for making up the numbers of our Expeditionary Force[7] at the commencement of war, and individuals from it, and even in some cases units, would therefore have been sent out to meet the conscript armies of the Continent, to which they were inferior, not only in length and thoroughness of training, but also in age. It was important also to bear in mind that they would be led by comparatively inexperienced and untrained officers. The strength of the Special Reserve was approximately 58,000[8] men, or lads. Under the most favourable view it was a corps of apprentices whose previous service had been of a very meagre and desultory character.

The third category was the Territorial Army, whose term of service was four years and whose military training, even nominally, only consisted of fifteen days in camp each year, twenty drills the first year, and ten drills each year after that. In reality this training had, on the average, consisted of very much less. This force was not liable for service abroad, but only for home defence.

The minimum strength of the Territorial Army {321} was estimated beforehand by Lord Haldane at 316,000 men; but these numbers had never been reached. The approximate strength was only 260,000 men, of whom only about half had qualified, both by doing fifteen days in camp, and by passing an elementary test in musketry.[9] These numbers had recently shown a tendency to shrink rather than swell.[10]

THEIR VALUES AND TRAINING

The value of the Territorial Army, therefore, was that of excellent, though in certain cases immature, material, available for training upon the outbreak of war. But in spite of its high and patriotic spirit it was wholly unfit to take the field against trained troops until it had undergone the necessary training.

In the event of war we could not safely reckon upon being able to withdraw our garrisons from abroad.[11] Consequently, in the first instance, and until the Special Reserve and the Territorial Army had been made efficient, all we could reasonably depend upon for serious military operations, either at home or abroad, were that part of the Regular Army which was in the United Kingdom, and the Army Reserve.

In round figures therefore our soldiers immediately available for a European war (i.e. that portion of the Regular Army which was stationed at home and the Army Reserve) amounted on mobilisation to something much under 250,000 men. Our apprentice troops (the Special Reserve), who were really considerably less than half-made, numbered something {322} under 60,000 men. Our unmade raw material (the Territorial Army), excellent in quality and immediately available for training, might be taken at 260,000 men.


The main consideration arising out of this analysis was of course the inadequacy of the British Army to make good the numerical deficiency of the Triple Entente in the Western theatre during the onset and the grip of war. Supposing England to be involved in a European war, which ran its course and was brought to a conclusion with the same swiftness which had characterised every other European war within the last half century, how were our half-made and our unmade troops to be rendered efficient in time to effect the result in any way whatsoever?

SCARCITY OF OFFICERS

There was yet another consideration of great gravity. If our full Expeditionary Force were sent abroad we should have to strain our resources to the utmost to bring it up to its full nominal strength and keep it there. The wastage of war would necessarily be very severe in the case of so small a force; especially heavy in the matter of officers. Consequently, from the moment when this force set sail, there would be a dearth of officers in the United Kingdom competent to train the Special Reserve, the Territorial Army, and the raw recruits. Every regular and reserve officer in the country would be required in order to mobilise the Expeditionary Force, and keep it up to its full strength during the first six months. As things then stood there was a certainty—in case of war—of a very serious shortage of officers of suitable experience and age to undertake the duties, which {323} were required under our recently devised military system.[12]

Half-made soldiers and raw material alike would therefore be left to the instruction of amateur or hastily improvised officers—zealous and intelligent men without a doubt; but unqualified, owing to their own lack of experience, for training raw troops, so as to place them rapidly on an equality with the armies to which they would find themselves opposed. What the British system contemplated, was as if you were to send away the headmaster, and the assistant-masters, and the under-masters, leaving the school in charge of pupil-teachers.

In no profession is the direct personal influence of teaching and command more essential than in the soldier's. In none are good teachers and leaders more able to shorten and make smooth the road to confidence and efficiency. Seeing that we had chosen to depend so largely upon training our army after war began, it might have been supposed, that at least we should have taken care to provide ourselves with a sufficient number of officers and non-commissioned officers, under whose guidance the course of education would be made as thorough and as short as possible. This was not the case. Indeed the reverse was the case. Instead of possessing a large number of officers and non-commissioned officers, beyond those actually required at the outbreak of war for the purpose of {324} starting with, and repairing the wastage in the Expeditionary Force, we were actually faced, as things then stood, with a serious initial shortage of the officers required for this one purpose alone.

Lord Haldane in framing the army system which is associated with his name chose to place his trust in a small, highly-trained expeditionary force for immediate purposes, to be supplemented at a later date—if war were obliging enough to continue for so long—by a new army of which the Territorials formed the nucleus, and which would not begin its real training until after the outbreak of hostilities. Under the most favourable view this plan was a great gamble; for it assumed that in the war which was contemplated, the onset and the grip periods would be passed through without crushing disaster, and that England would, in due course, have an opportunity of making her great strength felt in the drag. It will be said that Lord Haldane's assumption has been justified by recent events, and in a sense this is true; but by what merest hair-breadth escape, by what sacrifices on the part of our Allies, at what cost in British lives, with what reproach to our national good name, we have not yet had time fully to realise.

But crediting Lord Haldane's system, if we may, with an assumption which has been proved correct, we have reason to complain that he did not act boldly on this assumption and make his scheme, such as it was, complete and effective. For remember, it was contemplated that the great new army, which was to defend the existence of the British Empire in the final round of war, should be raised and trained upon the voluntary principle—upon a wave of patriotic enthusiasm—after war broke out. This new army {325} would have to be organised, clothed, equipped, armed, and supplied with ammunition. The 'voluntary principle' did not apply to matters of this kind. It might therefore have been expected that stores would be accumulated, and plans worked out upon the strictest business principles, with philosophic thoroughness, and in readiness for an emergency which might occur at any moment.

WANT OF STORES AND PLANS

Moral considerations which precluded 'conscription' did not, and could not, apply to inanimate material of war, or to plans and schedules of army corps and camps, or to a body of officers enlisted of their own free will. It may have been true that to impose compulsory training would have offended the consciences of free-born Britons; but it was manifestly absurd to pretend that the accumulation of adequate stores of artillery and small arms, of shells and cartridges, of clothing and equipment, could offend the most tender conscience—could offend anything indeed except the desire of the tax-payer to pay as few taxes as possible.

If the British nation chose to bank on the assumption, that it would have the opportunity given it of 'making good' during the drag of war, it should have been made to understand what this entailed in the matter of supplies; and most of all in reserve of officers. All existing forces should at least have been armed with the most modern weapons. There should have been arms and equipment ready for the recruits who would be required, and who were relied upon to respond to a national emergency. There should have been ample stores of every kind, including artillery, and artillery ammunition, for that Expeditionary Force upon which, during the first {326} six months we had decided to risk our national safety.

But, in fact, we were provided fully in none of these respects. And least of all were we provided in the matter of officers. There was no case of conscience at stake; but only the question of a vote in the House of Commons. We could have increased our establishment of officers by a vote; we could have laid in stores of ammunition, of clothing, of equipment by a vote. But the vote was not asked for—it might have been unpopular—and therefore Lord Haldane's scheme—in its incept............