Stooge in Command
The Royal George, The Life of H.R.H. Prince George, Duke of Cambridge. By Giles St. Aubyn (Constable, 35s.)
IN 1874, an army officer 'of some standing' was quoted as saying, 'The country may have a royal duke, or it may have an army; it cannot have both.' Remarks of this kind are seldom as apt as they are easily made. Yet in this case, with respect to the Duke of Cambridge's long tenure of the post of Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, it is difficult not to believe that the disgruntled officer was substantially right. When the Duke was appointed in 1856, his qualifica- tions for the post, apart from royal birth and genial, soldierly appearance, were scarcely ob- vious. He had seen active service only for a short period during the Crimean War, when he had shown himself an uninspired and dilatory commander in the field; without experience, re- quired to bear too much responsibility, his nerves had collapsed under the strain of war, and to Queen Victoria's horror, he had been forced to ask for sick leave to return from the fighting. Shortly before, his appointment as Commander- in-Chief, he was rejected for any further active command in the war.
It seems clear, from this new and engrossing biography, that the Queen picked on her cousin George because she and Albert wanted a reliable and royal 'stooge' in what they regarded as a key post. The Queen must occasionally have regretted her decision. Once firmly established, the Duke became almost immovable; for nearly forty years, except for the short period from .1859 to 1861 when Sidney Herbert was at the War Office, he consistently fought against almost
every important change and reform proposed by the politicians and military reformers. Once changes had been made, as with Cardwell's Army Enlistment Act and the abolition of commissions by purchase, the Duke, as he never tired of saying, was ready to help in carrying them out. But although Mr. St. Aubyn attempts to defend the Duke's conservatism, he is scarcely successful.
Mr. St. Aubyn makes good use of the exten- sive private papers of the Duke and of the Fitzgeorge family. He has unearthed what must certainly be one of the most malicious and un- inhibited diaries ever kept by a Victorian, that of Lady Geraldine Somerset, lady-in-waiting to the Duke's mother; and with these, together with material from the Royal Archives, he throws a flood of light on the Duke's morganatic marriage and his somewhat irregular private life. Behind the beard and whiskers, the gruff military jokes, the uniforms and the public ceremonies, there lurked a sensitive, nervous and kindly old gentle- man with a good memory, who was fond of the opera and his family, and was perhaps happiest in the routine of his office, writing long letters to soldiers at the outposts of Empire, or surrounded by adoring women at cosy tea parties. The 'great German Bumble Bee,' as Wolseley once called him, perfectly symbolised the peace- time traditions of the British Army. It was per- haps fortunate that when it came to wars, there were men like Garnet Wolseley and Lord Roberts to do the Duke's fighting for him.
ANGUS MACINTYRE
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