MR. HALDANE'S ARMY PROPOSALS.
THOSE who accept Mr. Haldane's premisses will find little difficulty in accepting his conclusions also. That, however, is not an admission which takes us very far, for it was not likely that Mr. Haldane would make a mistake in logic. Here, as in all other matters, political, moral, and scientific, it is only the premisses that really matter. Those once obtained, the syllogisms look after themselves. If, then, we were able to accept Mr. Haldane's assumptions—(1) that the Militia is practi- cally worthless ; (2) that it is unimprovable, or at any rate unimprovable without doing fatal injury to the Regular Army ; (3) that the Volunteers do not give us what we require, and cannot be altered so as to give us it without a fundamental change in their constitution ; (4) that the Yeomanry are an unsatisfactory body as now organised ; (5) that the mobilisation of the Regular Army cannot be made effective without the creation of a new force on a new basis—we should accept also his inference that a case has been made out for a complete revolution. Further, granted that a complete revolution in our system is needed, we should, no doubt, be willing to admit that Mr. Haldane's particular scheme of revolution has some good things to be said for it. As it is, however, we cannot accept a single one of Mr. Haldane's premisses, but are compelled to dissent radically from them in every particular. We do not admit that the Militia is worthless even as it stands. Still less do we admit that it is unim- provable on existing lines without damage being done to the Regular Army. As strongly do we dissent from the proposition that the Volunteers in the form in which they have grown up are unfitted to our needs, or that the Yeomanry require alteration, or, again, that these forces are incapable of improvement except through a complete alteration of their status. To put the matter in a more concrete form, we believe that in abolishing the Militia— for that is what Mr. Haldane's policy comes to—we shall be 'throwing away, and throwing away for ever, since once destroyed_ it could never be revived, a most valuable national asset, although ,we have before us the alternative of improving it, and possibly of doubling its value, without recourse to any revolutionary 'change. Next, we hold that
the changes proposed in the Volunteers will most probably have the effect' of so reducing that force that it will cease to be what it has hitherto been,—first, a great school of arms for the nation, and secondly, a great reservoir of partially trained Men on which we can drayw in times of national stress and danger. We hold, also, that in the Yeomanry we possess a force of no little value which under the new scheme will probably suffer serious injury. Mr. Haldane, in our opinion, is running the tremendous risk of throwing the whole of the military forces of the nation into a con- dition of chaos, and running this tremendous risk without adequate cause.
If the Auxiliary Forces had proved worthless and un- trustworthy during the South African War, Mr. Haldane might be justified in proposing an experiment involving the dangers of his scheme. We deny, however, that the Auxiliaries proved worthless or untrustworthy during the war. No doubt they, like the Regular Army itself, might often have done a great deal better than they did, and no doubt, also, the war showed all sorts of weak places in them and brought out many blots and blemishes that ought to be remedied. On the whole, the lesson of the war, as we read it, was that it was the exist- ence of the Auxiliaries which enabled us to complete the war without a profound disaster. That being so, it seems to us somewhat extraordinary to contend that national safety lies in abolishing the Militia, and adopting a basis for the Volunteers which, instead of giving us a reservoir of three hundred thousand partially trained men, may very possibly leave us with a Volunteer Force of only a third of that number.
We have dealt elsewhere with the main details of Mr. Haldane's scheme, but desire to point out here what it seems to us was the fatal line of reasoning which led Mr. Haldane to his proposed revolution. Mr. Haldane when he came to the War Office took stock of the Army, and this, we most willingly admit, he did in a more thorough and scientific way than had ever been done before by a Secretary of State for War. He at once noted that on mobilisation there is a great deal of waste under our present system,— that is, after the Reserves have filled the gaps in the Second Battalions there are a great many' loose- links left scattered about the country which it is very difficult to utilise fully under existing arrangements. Very wisely, as we conceive, Mr. Haldane determined that he ought to try to find some method of forming those loose links into useful lengths of chain. The simplest way to have done this would have been to have added to the Regular Army ; but from this method Mr. Haldane was precluded on the ground of expense. He was obliged, therefore, to seek some other method. He seems at first to have thought of utilising the Militia for his purpose ; but here again he was faced with a difficulty. What he wanted was a force which would be able to supply drafts for Regular battalions and batteries, and these the Militia under its present constitution could not supply. The Militiaman enlists iu the Militia, and cannot, unless he volunteers, be trans- ferred into another force. Accordingly, Mr. Haldane and his military advisers appear to have come to the conclusion that their best way would be to create a new force which, though not Militia but Regulars, should be raised on a Militia basis. Mr. Haldane wanted about seventy-eight thousand men to link up his,scattered remnants on mobilisation, but he wanted these to be men raised,.not on an expensive Regular basis, but on a cheap Militia basis. He proposes, therefore, to enlist for the Regular Army about seventy-eight thousand men, who will receive a preliminary training of six months—as did the men of the Spectator Experimental Company— and to call those men up for a fortnight a year during their six years of enlistment. These men will be trained in some seventy-eight -" nucleus " battalions, there being: one nucleus battalion for every two-battalion regiment. Of course it would have been possible for Mr. Haldane to have raised this new force in addition to the Militia. The extra cost, however, would have been considerable, and Mr. Haldane was determined not to increase the cost of the Army. Therefore, 'in effect, he proposes to abolish the old Militia in order to pay for the new nucleus battalions raised on a Militia basis. At first sight the civilian may be inclined to say :—" Is not this only a, matter of words ? The old Militia will disappear, no doubt, but it will reappear again' in substantially, the same numbers in the new nucleus battalione, and therefore the supporters of the Militia need not bother themselves very much about the question." The answer to this is that the new nucleus battalions will not be anything like so valuable an asset as the existing Militia Force, and will not be nearly as likely to attract recruits, since they will be without tradi- tions or esprit de corps, which, though impoverished in the Militia, still exist, and might, we believe, be developed with the greatest possible advantage to the military strength of the nation. The nucleus battalions will not be real military units, but 'mere amorphoes bodies for draft- ing purposes, buckets into which the Regulars will be able to dip as required. It is in this power of dipping, indeed, that is to be found the reason why the Regular soldier prefers the new nucleus battalions to the old Militia. The new battalions will be absolutely at his disposal, while the Militia was not, since the War Office had not the power to break up the Militia battalions by drafting.
Though we are not, in fact, willing to grant that it was absolutely necessary to provide so big a field force as that designed by Mr. Haldane, we may point out that, even if we grant that it is necessary for him to provide a considerable number of men to string his links together, there are other ways in which the result might be achieved without destroying the Militia. For etample, an Army Reserve might be built up from which the thirty thousand infantrymen required on mobilisation might be drawn. If a bounty were offered to Militiamen after six years' service to enter an Army Reserve for another six years, a large number of well- trained men might be obtainable for mobilisation purposes. Again, the Government might offer a bounty to Militiamen to serve with the Army on mobilisation, and if the Militia had been increased in numbers by more rational terms of training and service—i.e., six months' training, with only a week or a fortnight's subsequent training each year—this could be done without bleeding the force too white. Another plan for supplying the thirty thousand men for mobilisationis to be found' in the service companies of the Volunteers. The Volunteers not only do not object to drafting, but like it, as it is, under their constitution, the only way in which they can see oversee. service.. Under a .proper scheme, then, we do not doubt that the Volunteers could be relied on to supply the whole of the infantry required for mobilisation, and without any extra cost during peace. The Militia to supply units for oversee., and the Volun- teers to supply drafts. That is a formula in which we believe a solution for the whole difficulty might have been found.
We have left ourselves little space to deal with the Volunteers, but must place it on record that we regard with the utmost anxiety the proposed terms of enlistment, mentioning parenthetically, however, that we see no objection, but, indeed, much that is good, in the scheme for the County Associations, and also in the admirable scheme for the increase of Reserve officers. We do not believe that men in cold blood and in peacetime will take a four years' engagement, plus the obligation on embodiment of six months' service. As to the Volunteers giving a worthy response to a patriotic appeal made to them in times of stress we have not the slightest doubt ; but we feel sure that, the nature of Englishmen being what it is, they will not bind themselves in peace by stringent regulations, even though, in theory, the County Associations may be given the power to dispense with the three months' notice and the paying of the £5. Besides, if this dispensing power is to be universal, why impose the regulation ? The life-breath of the Volunteer Force is the voluntary principle,—the sense that a man is not tied as a Regular soldier, or even as a Militiaman, but remains in all
essentials a civilian, though a civilian trained to arms. We hold that a force raised on this old basis is most valuable both as a school of arms and as providing a reservoir of partially trained soldiers, and it will be, in our opinion, an evil day for England when we destroy this in the hope of substituting for it a force such as Mr. Haldane has in
his mind. We see nothing, indeed, in Mr. Haldane's proposals to alter our conviction that the lines on which
the Volunteers should be organised are the old lines of elasticity, and of endeavouring to get as large a number of men as possible to join the cadres, and to learn to shoot and to act in organised units. We have always agreed with Sir John Ardagh's declaration that he would rather have four hundred thousand slightly trained. Volunteers than two hundred thousand so-called highly trained Volunteers, since the gain in training will not be compen- sated for by the loss in numbers.
It has proved impossible to compress all that demands attention in Mr. Haldane's scheme within the compass of a single article, and we shall have to return to the matter. Before we leave the subject to-day, however, we desire once more to try to bring home to our readers the very serious danger which the nation will run if Mr. Haldane's plan is adopted. Perhaps the best way of making them under- stand this is to ask them to consider what is the present position of a Secretary of State for War at the outbreak of hostilities, and to contrast it with his position under Mr. Haldane's scheme. He now feels that he has in the Militia a force of some eighty thousand men which on embodiment he can use to set free Regular regiments, not only throughout this country, but in the Mediterranean, and can also send to the front as units. Further, if the Militia were to be reformed, as it might be reformed, and a Militia Reserve created, it would be possible to create a Militia Force, on the six months' training basis, which would be vastly superior to the present force in personnel, and might easily number a hundred thousand men, and have a Reserve of fifty thousand to sixty thousand. Next, the Secretary of State for War of our thought has in the Volunteers a great reservoir of partially trained men which, if properly handled, can be relied upon to give him, as the Volunteers offered to give in the South African War, some sixty thousand to seventy thousand men, and men the greater part of whom could be used in drafts to fill gaps in the Regular battalions. Lastly, he has in the Yeomanry a most valuable force for home defence, which practically forms the cavalry of the Volunteer Army, and which would give him, as the Volunteers will give him in the case of infantry and artillery, a large contingent of mounted men, probably not less than five thousand or six thousand, for oversee service. If Mr. Haldane's scheme should ever be carried into effect, we venture to say that the Secretary of State for War would be in a far weaker position. Even if his Regular Army were somewhat larger owing to the nucleus-battalion system having proved a success—a matter upon which there must, how,. ever, be considerable doubt—he would have no Militia and no Militia Reserve with which to set free the Regular battalions at home. Again, if, as we fear must be the case, the new conditions of service ultimately cut the Volunteers and Yeomanry down to, say, one hundred and fifty thousand Volunteers and ten thousand or twelve thousand Yeomanry, he would have no reservoir on which to draw. In fact, when he had used up his Regulars, the military forces of the nation would be left almost without any source of expansion. It is here, indeed, that the danger is the greatest. Mr. Haldane is destroying the expansive character of the Army. No doubt he does not admit this, for he argues that the Militia will reappear in his nucleus battalions, and that the Volunteers and Yeomanry will not be diminished in numbers under the new system.
We come back, then, to the point at which we started. It is a question of premisses. If we accept Mr. Haldane's premisses, we must, speaking generally, accept his con- clusions. Those, however, who doubt his premisses must be excused if they regard the whole scheme with the gravest anxiety, nay, alarm. It remains to note the fact that even if Mr. Haldane's plan succeeds, there is good ground for believing that it will be anything but a cheap plan. We doubt, also, whether Mr. Haldane has realised the danger there is of the abolition of the Militia seriously diminishing the number of recruits obtained by the Regular Army.
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