73 Army {27 FEBRUARY 1907} short of the establishment for some and attempting a course of diplomacy time. MR. WYNDHAM said the establishment represented what their military advisers thought necessary in order that there should be soldiers to be drilled for The right hon. battalions at home. Gentleman in saying that the reduction of thirty men in every battalion at home would not injure these battalions was not using language which could be readily understood by those familiar with the problem. Every battalion at home suffered depletion on account of recruits not fit to drill with the regiment and other men being taken away for fatigue duty. which might result in war; and if war MR. HALDANE: Your three years right hon. Gentleman in the path which system caused the difficulty. MR. WYNDHAM said he could not follow that. If the right hon. Gentle man meant that the three years system had emptied the battalions at home, it was most surprising, because the previous Government found the three years enlistment more popular than the seven years. In respect of reliefs, in respect of recruits, in respect of drafts, and in respect of training the new scheme was no improvement. That was his first and a legitimate point. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that no one would be more delighted than he if they could get all the right hon. Gentleman expected under his scheme. He felt it his duty to apply this test to the Regular Army and also to the Auxiliary Forces in the country. He had in a dual capacity a duty to discharge his duty to the men whom he commanded and his duty to see that the House and the country understood the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman before they were finally committed to it. Then let them apply another test. Was the new plan better and cheaper than the old plan for the exigencies of the first phase of a war? No war could be concluded if we relied only upon defence and were unable to plant a decisive blow. It would be folly to spend the money we did on our Navy if war meant a war to which there would be no end. It would be economical, it we relied upon the Navy as the first defence, to have an Army that would prevent foreign Powers from believing this country weaker than it actually was, pursue. were The right he intended to hon. Gentleman was probably aware that since 1899 each Government had aimed at sending nine divisions of two brigades into the field at the outbreak of a war. The right hon. Gentleman proposed six divisions of three brigades each. That was the same thing; nine times two were eighteen, and six times three had a eighteen. The right hon. Gentleman talked much of his ammunition columns, but every modern army now larger proportion of artillery. The right hon. Gentleman exclaimed that by his plan he would be able to put 160,000 men into the field, and had said, truly, that that had never been contemplated before the South African war. If, however, the Committee would throw their minds back to the months at the end of 1899 and the beginning of 1900, they would find that in size and composition this new force was not very dissimilar from the force which actually was sent out to South Africa, and which was derided, in spite of its size, because it was made up of Militiamen as well as Regulars. He might say, in parenthesis, that, of course, in the years since the war great improvements had been made by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors, and by the right hon. Gentleman. The system which existed in 1899, which nobody defended, did, however, succeed, at a great in excess of anything that had been contemplated, in placing a very considerable number of men was seen that that force must be distance from this country. And when it expanded it was expanded. The force embarked, curiously enough, was almost the same size as the right hon. Gentleman's expeditionary force-168,840 men. It was criticised because it was made up in part of Militiamen, of Reservists, of Yeomanry, and of Regulars with the colours. But was the new expeditionary force to be made up of different materials? Was it a change, a revolution? Had the right hon. Gentleman got, or was he seeking, any more material than his predecessors? No, he was taking the old material and calling it by other names. Was his force going to be of a less composite character, was it going to leave less confusion at home when it had been despatched? He thought not. When the right hon. Gentleman's force left England for the first phase of a great war he would leave at home 76,000 Regulars and 45,000 of the old reserve -121,000 men in all. When during the last days of the South African war only some 107,000 Regulars and old Reservists were left at home, it was said, and said truly, that there were then no cadres in which they could be conveniently embodied. Would it be better now? What cadres would there be at home in which they could be trained by officers with some experience belonging to the Regular Army? Into the narrow compass of thirty-three gun batteries, on a two-guu establishment, which had been occupied in teaching the territorial Army the elements of an artilleryman's work, of two cavalry regiments, and seven infantry battalions, they would have to pour these 121,000 Regular soldiers who were left behind. Would those be ideal cadres for that purpose? He thought not. The right hon. Gentleman would say that he was omitting the seventy-four new third battalions. These were the pivot of the whole of the right hon. Gentle man's scheme, and if that part of the scheme was unsound the rest might be admirable, but the scheme was bound to fail. Even in the admirable report of the right hon. Gentleman's speech in The Times, this pivot of the whole plan appeared in a paragraph under the head of "Supply of Drafts." Nobody would suppose that here was the kernel and heart of the whole What were these seventy-four new third battalions? So far as he could make out they were the old small depots whose local habitation consisted largely of condemned barracks. Mr. Wyndham. He knew what he was speaking of, having been chairman of the Committee which examined into the value of these depots. That Committee found that the value of these depots was very slight, and that in any new scheme they would have to sell the bulk of the structures at scrap prices and begin again. If these seventy-four battalions which enabled the right hon. Gentleman to send out his expeditionary force, and which alone. supplied any centres to deal with the confusion of leaving 121,000 soldiers behind, were to be equal to that great task, this scheme was going to cost a very large sum of money indeed. Here again, they found what he called truncated Cardwellism. The right hon. Gentleman had gone back 100 years to the seed and origin of the Cardwell system, of which these depots which had been neglected for years were a part. Mr. Cardwell took the idea from Mr. Pitt, under whose Government it had been carried out, to a certain extent, in 1806. At that time it was described by the secretary to the then Commander-in Chief, in words which he could not better in order to describe what these seventy-four battalions must be like. "As there was much reason to apprehend that a great proportion of the numbers raised would not be fit for active service, a divisional battalion under the name of the battalion of reserve was formed, and appropriated for the with those who, from their age or size, we.e reception of all the overplus men, together not judged capable of active service." Such was the overplus which these depots were now to receive. What had been the main criticism of the Militia? That its recruits consisted largely of lads who had got into trouble, who were unhappy at home, who were poor and were in want of a meal, and who would like to become soldiers, but were rejected at the depot, afterwards enlisting in the Militia. Those who were not fit for the two-line battalions were to be enlisted in the special contingent. He doubted whether this plan for meeting the exigencies of the first phase of a war was really appreciably better than we had now. The right hon. Gentleman must either perfect the system under which they had organised the Army, or make the depots. realities, real centres from which military enthusiasm could be radiated into the Militia, or we we must adopt a totally different system. MR. HALDANE said that he had pointed out explicitly in respect of mobilisation that the overplus of men would not go to the depots, but to the barracks of the Regular Army who had gone to the front. He did not see any provision in the scheme for them. There would be no Militiamen for that service, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would explain more fully his proposals or repeat what he said, for he had failed to grasp the point in the course of a very long speech. In other wars the Militia were found to be admirably suited to that duty. The right hon. Gentleman would have 121,000 Regulars and Reservists to deal with in empty barracks as best he could, and he thought there would be the old confusion. He saw very little which led him to believe that the right hon. Gentleman would get rid of that confusion. In the present organisation of the Army we had tactical generals commanding Regulars and administrative generals in the same area; and now we were to have fourteen divisional generals, also Regular soldiers, commanding a new territorial Army. When that complex staff had to deal with all those left behind in a war and with the men obtained, he thought that the confusion would be greater and not less than in 1900. The right hon. Gentleman would allow the new territorial Army to volunteer piece-meal. He remembered the efforts made by Lord Lansdowne to prevent Yeomen starting out for South Africa before there were horses and equipment for them. Such a storm of patriotism had arisen throughout the country that it seemed as if any War Minister would be hanged at a lamp-post who refused to allow men to embark who were clamouring to go to the front. If the right hon. Gentleman had some propor tion of these men who had assembled and said that they were dying to go the front, no doubt he would be unable to resist their appeal. The right hon. Gentleman hoped that these men might go in units, but he was not confident. They would have Volunteers coming on before they had provided any thoroughly scientific scheme to carry out that purpose. In this territorial Army there was not to be any Regular adjutant, but unless they provided an adjutant he did not believe that these men would be trained at all. The right hon. Gentleman would have to give the Committee a great deal of encouragement, and would have to carry a great deal of conviction to their minds before they took the leap in the dark to which he had invited them. The two essential changes that touched this part of the scheme were that the Yeoman was MR. WYNDHAM said that that was exactly what happened during the South African war, and it was a subject of unmeasured criticism; and he asked whether relatively it was much better or cheaper than the scheme we had at present? These depots would not be any better unless the Government spent money on them, and then they would be dearer. The worst class of Militia recruit would go into this special contingent, and something that was obtainable from the officers of the Militia would be lost. Everyone knew that there were many officers in the Militia who were doing a great service to their country, and if they looked at this scheme they must find that these officers would be prohibited from doing that service which they were qualified to perform. Much of the patriotism of these officers, therefore, would be lost to the State. Much of the local patriotism which existed in the Militia might conceivably have been developed. He agreed that the Militia as it existed was an indefensible body, but he doubted whether this special contingent was going to be much better than the Militia, and he was sure that it would lack some things which the existing Militia possessed. Then, was this force going to be much cheaper? Apparently it was going to be rather cheaper. A militiaman now cost a little over £20 a year per effective. The new article was going to cost £18 15s.; but he doubted whether this cheapness would be effective economically. The old Reservist, who proved his excellence in the last war, cost per man £10 8s. 10d. Would anyone argue that this new special contingent ought to cost well over £18 if the old Reservists only cost £10? But was it better or cheaper in respect of the later phases of war? As he understood the scheme the Militia had gone, and had become the special contingent which was to serve in the first phase of a war and then to supply Militia drafts. The Militia, therefore, would not be available for the very useful service, as during the last war, of taking the place of the Regular troops in the Mediterranean garrisons. going to be deprived of a great deal of his pay, and the Volunteers were going to be given terms of enlistment which the Committee had no reason to believe at present were acceptable to them. He hoped that if this scheme passed it would succeed. He promised to do his best with his own Yeomen, and he would make speeches and give advice to the Volunteers. But why should they ignore the effect of local patriotism? The Yeoman farmer was a Íocal man who could be got to take more stringent terms of enlistment to serve for a longer period; but this end could not be attained if the right hon. Gentlemen asked him to do more for less money. It was not in human nature to concede that. Then as to the Volunteers who were to be the substance of the new territorial Army. They did not care so much about a private's pay as about-many of them being artisans, and often migratory artisans learning to shoot and to drill in circumstances which did not contravene the necessities of their avocations. One part of the Auxiliary Forces were those who had mind to their pay; the other portion were those who had a mind to their liberty. The Volunteer, who was intelligent, and would make a good infantry man, would cost £6 10s.; the private of the new territorial Army was going to cost £14 9s. They could not, by merely saying that the Yeomanry, the Militia and the Volunteers were to be merged, make them one. They were very dissimilar. He found very little comfort in the other part of the picture of the right hon. Gentleman-he was well aware that he did not represent the great body of opinion, which was probably far more weighty and valuable than his own opinion-in the fact that the artillery, transport, medical corps, telegraph companies, and all the adjuncts of an Army in the field in time of peace were to be attached to the new territorial Army. The tendency of modern military science was to separate the infantry from other arms of the service. The infantry won battles; the other arms prepared the way for them or followed them up to victory, or minimised the consequences of defeat; and the transport and other services were to keep the Army in the field. But the tendency of modern warfare was that the Commander-in-Chief, having these services, should apportion them to the infantry where they were Mr. Wyndham. wanted, and in the proportions in which they were wanted. He did not believe that they were taking so effective or so important a step towards complete organisation as to out-weigh the defects of the scheme for proportioning all these auxiliary services in time of peace. His view might be doubted in respect of transport and other services, but would anybody doubt it in respect of artillery? The territorial Army existed, after an expeditionary force had left our shores, to repel raids, or, at least, to be an insurance against raids. Unless it were a sound insurance it would be worth nothing. A raid would be attempted, if another Power believed that the insurance was unsound. By what troops would it be attempted? By the picked troops of a Continental Army. By what artillery would it be attempted By the picked artillery of a Continental Army. They could not settle the problem by saying that three batteries of the new territorial Army would be as good as one of those picked batteries. These batteries would be made up of men taught in the schools of the thirty-three 2-gun batteries with guns of old pattern. old pattern. Not three of them, not five, not ten of them could confidently be stated to be the equivalent of one picked battery of the best artillery of the best Continental Army; they would not get into position at all. If a raiding force landed, the first thing they would do would be to take up an artillery position, and he thought that the artillery arm under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme would experience, considerable difficulty in discovering, at eight or ten thousand yards, the position taken up by the raiders. As to the rest of the adjuncts of the territorial Army, he agreed that they should be taken in their order of urgency; but the artillery, if it was to be of value at all, must be as good as the artillery of the Regular Army. He might, perhaps, hesitate to say whether or not it was wise to have two lines at all for the artillery; but, looking forward to the strain of a prolonged war, the artillery arm of the territorial Army in order to be of any value, must be kept to the level of the artillery of the field force in time of war, and used for instructional purposes in time of peace. No national Army could be created by effecting changes, however great, in the pay and terms of enlistment of the Auxiliary Forces, and then calling it a national Army because in form it was a colourable imitation of some Continental model. We had to express the national genius of our own nation, which was rather conservative, timid of transitional periods, and wedded to old ways; and unless the right hon. Gentleman could really convince them, not as a certainty, but as a huge probability, that the scheme would produce an expeditionary Force of 160,000 men and a territorial Army of 300,000, he doubted whether it would be possible to induce the House and the country to accept it. We had got to adapt the national genius to the particular configuration of a problem peculiar to ourselves, and to the eternal truths of the science of war. He doubted whether under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme the Regular Army would be better adapted to normal peace exigencies, though no doubt it would be somewhat better adapted to the first stage of a great war; and he was by no means convinced that a non-Regular territorial Army, would, under this scheme, ever reach the standard that it must reach if it was to meet in the field the troops it might have to confront in the event of that last, and, he hoped, most remote contingency which they had to take into account. belonging to all political Parties, that this year's Estimates should show a reduction of 10,000 men, and of at least a million and a quarter of money. That did not meet with general support, and so they were forced to proceed to a division. This year they had, instead, a reduction of 16,600 men, and £2,600,000. It would be churlish, therefore, to renew their attack, or to claim a victory. All they could do was to say that they were glad that their views on that matter had been accepted, and that the right hon. Gentleman had made a reduction, although not exactly in the way many of them had suggested. He and his friends believed that it would be a mistake to keep a great body of Regular troops in this country. They believed that what was wrongly called the Cardwell system that they must keep as many men at home as abroad-was not founded on the true requirements of our strategic position. Last year the Leader of the Opposition voted against them because, he said, if they proposed to abandon the Cardwell system they must show something to put in its place. His right hon. friend had done that and proposed to make a real Army of the many heterogeneous units now composing our Auxiliary Forces. The broad lines laid down by the right hon. Gentleman were that the Regular Army was an expeditionary foreign service Army, and that the defence of this country from invasion, whether likely or unlikely, possible or impossible, must devolve upon the citizens of this country; it was wasteful to use foreign service troops to garrison Great Britain. His right hon. friend said that they needed a field force and a Home force, and they should be distinct. For that purpose, he proposed to arrange that the Regular troops in this country should be ready to proceed, with little or no delay, to the seat of war across of the seas. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover made a great point of the fact that in the South African war a force as large as that which his right hon. friend proposed was sent to the war. Yes, but after what interval of time? It took them months, long after the need was known, to send out anything that could be called an army to the seat of war. If the proposals which had been laid before the House for organising those six divisions were carried out he believed we should have a much larger MAJOR SEELY (Liverpool, Aber cromby) said the Committee had listened with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman who for some time represented the War Office in this House, and who was the only one who had escaped from that office with credit to himself and the good wishes both of the officers and men, and of Members of the House of Commons. ["No, no."] Well, he would say that the right hon. Gentleman was the one who had escaped from that office with the highest measure approval. No doubt it was because he was anxious not to condemn the whole scheme which none of them yet fully understood, but the right hon. Gentleman had touched more upon the fringes and interstices than upon the main outline put before them two days ago. He agreed entirely that they could not do everything at once; but there was no reason why they should not lay down some sound general principles, and proceed as fast as they could. Last year he moved, with the support of many Members |