Lord Roberts addressed many meetings in favour of National Service during the years which followed his return from South Africa in 1905; but the first of his speeches to arrest widespread popular attention was delivered in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, on October 22, 1912. A popular audience filled the building to overflowing, listened with respect, and appeared to accept his conclusions with enthusiasm. His words carried far beyond the walls of the meeting-place, and caused something approaching a sensation, or, as some thought, a scandal, in political circles.

Of the commentators upon this speech the greater part were Liberals, and these condemned his utterances with unanimity in somewhat violent language. Official unionism was dubious, uncomfortable, and disapproving: it remained for the most part dumb. A few voices were raised from this quarter in open reprobation; a few others proclaimed their independence of party discipline and hastened to approve his sentiments.

There was no doubt of one thing—Lord Roberts's speech had at last aroused public interest. For the first time during the National Service agitation {333} blood had been drawn. This was mainly due to the object-lesson in the consequences of military unpreparedness, which the first Balkan War was just then unfolding before the astonished eyes of Europe. In addition, those people, who for a year past had been puzzling their heads over the true meaning of the Agadir crisis, had become impressed with the urgent need for arriving at a clear decision with regard to the adequacy of our national defences.

NEED FOR NATIONAL SERVICE

The speech was a lucid and forcible statement of the need for compulsory military training. It was interesting reading at the time it was delivered, and in some respects it is even more interesting to-day. It was compactly put together, not a thing of patches. A man who read any part of it would read it all. Yet in accordance with custom, controversy raged around three isolated passages.

The first of these runs as follows: "In the year 1912, our German friends, I am well aware, do not—at least in sensible circles—assert dogmatically that a war with Great Britain will take place this year or next; but in their heart of hearts they know, every man of them, that—just as in 1866 and just as in 1870—war will take place the instant the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human calculation can be made certain. Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. That is the time-honoured policy of her Foreign Office. That was the policy relentlessly pursued by Bismarck and Moltke in 1866 and 1870. It has been her policy decade by decade since that date. It is her policy at the present hour."

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The second passage followed upon the first: "It is an excellent policy. It is or should be the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part in history. Under that policy Germany has, within the last ten years, sprung, as at a bound, from one of the weakest of naval powers to the greatest naval power, save one, upon this globe."

The third passage came later: "Such, gentlemen, is the origin, and such the considerations which have fostered in me the growth of this conviction—the conviction that in some form of National Service is the only salvation of this Nation and this Empire. The Territorial Force is now an acknowledged failure—a failure in discipline, a failure in numbers, a failure in equipment, a failure in energy."[1]

The accuracy of the first and third of these statements now stands beyond need of proof. It was not truer that Germany would strike so soon as her rulers were of opinion that the propitious hour had struck, than it was that, when the British Government came to take stock of their resources at the outbreak of war, they would find the Territorial Army to be lacking in the numbers, equipment, training, and discipline, which alone could have fitted it for its appointed task—the defence of our shores against invasion. Slowly, and under great difficulties, and amid the gravest anxieties these defects had subsequently to be made good, hampering the while our military operations in the critical sphere.

The second statement was of a different character, and taken by itself, without reference to the context, lent itself readily to misconception as well as {335} misconstruction. A certain number of critics, no doubt, actually believed, a still larger number affected to believe, that Lord Roberts was here advocating the creation of a British army, for the purpose of attacking Germany, without a shred of justification, and at the first favourable moment.

The whole tenor of this speech, however, from the first line to the last, made it abundantly clear that in Lord Roberts's opinion Britain could have neither motive nor object for attacking Germany; that the sole concern of England and of the British Empire with regard to Germany was, how we might defend our possessions and secure ourselves against her schemes of aggression.

POINTS OF CRITICISM

Lord Roberts, however, had in fact pronounced the intentions which he attributed to Germany to be 'an excellent policy,' and had thereby seemed to approve, and recommend for imitation, a system which was revolting to the conscience of a Christian community.

The idea that Lord Roberts could have had any such thoughts in his mind seemed merely absurd to any one who knew him; nay, it must also have seemed inconceivable to any one who had taken the trouble to read the speech itself in an unprejudiced mood. To an ordinary man of sense it did not need Lord Roberts's subsequent letter of explanation[2] to set his opinions in their true light. It was clear that his object, in this 'peccant passage,' had merely been to avoid a pharisaical condemnation of German methods and ambitions, and to treat that country as a worthy, as well as a formidable, antagonist. Being a soldier, {336} however,—not a practised platform orator alive to the dangers of too-generous concession—he went too far. The words were unfortunately chosen, seeing that so many critics were on the watch, not to discover the true meaning of the speech, but to pounce on any slip which might be turned to the disadvantage of the speaker.

At first there was an attempt on the part of certain London[3] Liberal journals to boycott this speech. Very speedily, however, it seemed to dawn upon them that they had greater advantages to gain by denouncing it. A few days later, accordingly, the torrent of condemnation was running free. The ablest attack appeared in the Nation,[4] and as this pronouncement by the leading Radical weekly was quoted with approval by the greater part of the ministerial press throughout the country, it may fairly be taken as representing the general view of the party.

A RADICAL ATTACK

The article was headed A Diabolical Speech, and its contents fulfilled the promise of the title. "There ought," said the writer, "to be some means of bringing to book a soldier, in the receipt of money from the State, who speaks of a friendly Power as Lord Roberts spoke of Germany." He was accused roundly of predicting and encouraging a vast and 'hideous conflict' between the two countries. Lord Roberts was a 'successful'[5] {337} soldier; but 'without training in statesmanship.' He 'had never shown any gift for it.' His was 'an average Tory intellect.' He was a 'complete contrast to Wellington, who possessed two great qualities; for "he set a high value on peace, and he knew how to estimate and bow to the governing forces of national policy.... Lord Roberts possesses neither of these attributes. He is a mere jingo in opinion and character, and he interprets the life and interests of this nation and this Empire by the crude lusts and fears which haunt the unimaginative soldier's brain."

We may pause at this breathing-place to take note of the healing influences of time. Radical journalists of 1832, and thereabouts, were wont to say very much the same hard things of the Duke of Wellington, as those of 1912 saw fit to apply to Earl Roberts.... We may also remark in passing, upon the errors to which even the most brilliant of contemporary judgments are liable. There has never been a man in our time who set a higher value on peace than Lord Roberts did. He realised, however, not only the intrinsic value of peace, but its market cost. His real crime, in the eyes of pacifists, was that he stated publicly, as often as he had the chance, what price we must be prepared to pay, if we wanted peace and not war. It was in this sense, no doubt, that he did not know 'how to estimate and bow to the governing forces of national policy.' His blunt warnings broke in rudely and crudely upon the comfortable discourse of the three counsellors—Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, who, better than any others, were skilled in estimating the 'governing forces,' and the advantages to be gained by bowing to them.

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The writer in the Nation then proceeded to riddle Lord Roberts's theories of defence. "He desires us to remain a 'free nation' in the same breath that he invites us to come under the yoke of conscription"—intolerable, indeed, that the citizens of a free nation should be ordered to fit themselves for defending their common freedom—"conscription, if you please, for the unheard-of purpose of overseas service in India and elsewhere...." This invitation does not seem to be contained in this, or any other of Lord Roberts's speeches; but supposing it to have been given, it was not altogether 'unheard-of,' seeing that, under the law of conscription prevalent (for example) in Germany, conscript soldiers can be sent to Palestine, or tropical Africa as lawfully as into Luxemburg, Poland, or France. According to the Nation, the true theory of defence was Sea Power; but this, it appeared, could not be relied on for all time.... "While our naval monopoly—like our commercial monopoly—cannot exist for ever, our sea power and our national security depend on our ability to crush an enemy's fleet.... We were never so amply insured—so over-insured—against naval disaster as we are to-day."

A LIBERAL ATTACK

"Lord Roberts's proposition, therefore," the writer continued, "is merely foolish; it is his way of commending it, which is merely wicked. He speaks of war as certain to take place 'the instant' the German forces are assured of 'superiority at every point,' and he discovers that the motto of German foreign policy is that Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. Germany does not happen to have struck anybody since 1870, and she struck then to secure national unity, and to put an end to {339} the standing menace of French imperialism. Since then she has remained the most peaceful and the most self-contained, though doubtless not the most sympathetic, member of the European family.... Germany, the target of every cheap dealer in historic slapdash, is in substance the Germany of 1870" (i.e. in extent of territory), "with a great industrial dominion superadded by the force of science and commercial enterprise. That is the story across which Lord Roberts scrawls his ignorant libel.... By direct implication he invites us to do to Germany what he falsely asserts she is preparing to do to us. These are the morals, fitter for a wolf-pack than for a society of Christian men, commended as 'excellent policy' to the British nation in the presence of a Bishop of the Anglican Church."

This was very vigorous writing; nor was there the slightest reason to suspect its sincerity. In the nature of man there is a craving to believe; and if a man happens to have his dwelling-place in a world of illusion and unreality, it is not wonderful that he should believe in phantoms. The credulity of the Nation might appear to many people to amount to fanaticism; but its views were fully shared, though less tersely stated, by the whole Liberal party, by the greater proportion of the British people, and not inconceivably by the bulk of the unionist opposition as well. The Government alone, who had learned the true facts from Lord Haldane eight months earlier, knew how near Lord Roberts's warnings came to the mark.

This article set the tone of criticism. The Manchester Guardian protested against the "insinuation that the German Government's views of international {340} policy are less scrupulous and more cynical than those of other Governments." Germany has never been accused with justice "of breaking her word, of disloyalty to her engagements, or of insincerity. Prussia's character among nations is, in fact, not very different from the character which Lancashire men give to themselves as compared with other Englishmen. It is blunt, straightforward, and unsentimental...." How foolish, moreover, are our fears of Germany when we come to analyse them. "We have no territory that she could take, except, in tropical Africa, which no sane man would go to war about. Our self-governing colonies could not in any case be held by force; and Canada is protected in addition by the Monroe doctrine. Egypt is not ours to cede. Malta could not be had without war with Italy nor India without war with Russia."[6]

This was a proud statement of the basis of British security, and one which must have warmed the hearts, and made the blood of Cromwell and Chatham tingle in the shades. Egypt, which we had rescued from a chaos of civil war, bankruptcy, and corruption, which during more than thirty years we had administered as just stewards for the benefit of her people, which we had saved from conquest and absorption by savage hordes—Egypt was not ours to cede. For the rest our dependencies were not worth taking from us, while our 'colonies' could defend themselves. By the grace of Italy's protection we should be secured in the possession of Malta. India would be preserved to us by the goodwill of Russia, and Canada by the strong arm of the United States.... {341} Such at that time were the views of the Liberal journal foremost in character and ability.

A unionIST ATTACK

Somewhat later the Daily News took the field, making up for lost time by an exuberance of misconstruction.... "The whole movement as represented by the National Service League is definitely unmasked as an attempt to get up, not defence, but an invasion of German territory. This discovery, which for years has been suspected, is most valuable as showing up the rea............