MR. BALP017R'S "APOLOGIA."
MR. BALFOUR'S apologia in regard to the strictures 11'1. passed upon the conduct of military affairs by the Government is remarkable for many things, but for nothing so much as for its misapprehension of the indictment pre- ferred against the Administration by public opinion. Mr, not wish to understand, what is the charge made against the War Office. Shortly, the nation does not expect him to be a good judge of sabres, but it does expect him, or rather the Secretary for War, to be able to count, and to realise, whatever the experts say or do not say, that eighty cavalry swords is not a large enough reserve with which to enter upon a war. We are by no means inclined to take up the position that the professional soldiers can always be relied on to give wise advice to the Government, or that expert military opinion must always be deferred to in regard to War Office business. On the other hand, we agree with Mr. Balfour in thinking not only that supreme civilian con- trol is necessary, but also that the civilian may be able by a judicious exercise of his controlling and examining in- telligence to make expert advice more useful than when it is given in isolation. We do not, that is, blame the Government for not acting on military advice, but rather for leaving too many things to the soldiers, and trying to shelter themselves behind the opinions of the experts. We hold, in fact, that the civilian head of the War Office —Lord Lansdowne—neglected to make due prepara- tions for war, and so went into war with the Army in an unfit condition. We hold, further, that in the matters iti which our military preparations broke down a wise and instructed civilian opinion was just as likely to be sound as a military opinion, and that a civilian of ability who had for six months brought his mind to bear upon military affairs ought to have been able to form as sound a general idea of our military needs as any soldier. In other words, the plea, "We were not told these things were necessary by the soldiers, and we could not have known them of ourselves," is one which will not suffice to shelter Lord Lansdowne and his colleagues when they are arraigned for neglecting to make proper preparations for the war.
Let us see what were the defects in preparation dis- closed to the War Commission. To begin with, the stores of khaki clothing were quite insufficient, although it was known to everybody that if war took place only khaki clothes would be used, and it was likewise known that war was possible. Tents were also deficient. The rifles in reserve were so badly sighted that at five hundred yards, if properly aimed, they would inevitably send the bullet eighteen inches to the left. That is, the better these rifles were aimed and the more steadily they were held, the more absolutely certain it was that they could not reach the enemy. Of field and horse artillery the supply was inadequate ; while there were three hundred and twenty-six less machine-guns available than had actually been authorised. Of artillery harness we had only five hundred sets, and this though the wear and tear of artillery harness is, of course, enormous when troops are in the field ; while we had, again, only five hundred sets of cavalry saddles in reserve to meet the requirements of sixteen thousand men. Of horse-shoes we were very short, and of mule-shoes we had none. Still worse, our nominal ammunition reserve was low, and of it some sixty-five million rounds were useless, as it was liable to "strip," and so injure both the rifle and the man who fired it. Now we contend that these were all matters in which a civilian judgment was likely to be quite as sound as that of a military expert. In other words, it does not take a military expert to see that an army has enough stores, and stores efficient of their kind. Experts are wanted to choose the best type of rifle or the best horse-shoe, but when the choice has been made the civilian chief can ensure proper supplies of them quite as well as the soldier experts. But perhaps it will be said : "Is it fair to blame Lord Lansdowne for not having counted the sabres, or the horse-shoes, or the machine-guns, or discovered that the reserve rifles could not shoot straight, or that the reserve ammunition stripped ? It could not be his business to look into such details." Our answer is that unless the responsibility for grievous neglect is visited on the person in supreme control, you will never get efficiency. It is equally true in business that the head of a great department cannot see to every detail himself. Yet, in spite of this, he is blamed and got rid of if things "which he could not be expected to know about" go wrong on a great scale. If he is not to be made responsible, then it is useless to try to oblain efficiency except from each ultimate individual and But even if this is admitted, we shall expect to be met by the assertion : "It is all very well to be wise after the event, but who could have thought that so much artillery and so many horses would be wanted ? Lord Lansdowne did his beet, but he could not foresee events, and make the kind of preparations that were required by the Boer War." But this is exactly what we contend that he could have done. We have the more right to say so because a year and a half before the war broke out we pointed out that Lord Lansdowne was only " patching " the Army, and sketched in rough outline the kind of preparation and organisation appropriate to the British Army. Writing of his proposals for increasing the artillery, made in March, 1898, we dwelt upon their insufficiency, and strongly urged the importance in an Army like the British of having an adequate supply of artillery, and we instanced incidentally the "almost exaggerated importance" given by the Boers to their artillery. We asked then for (1) a very full proportion of guns to our Regulars; (2) a large reserve of guns to meet war emergencies ; and (3) a very large force of artillery to stiffen and support our Auxiliary Forces :— "Yet, as far as we can make out [we continued], the Govern- ment seem to have refused to face this clear conclusion. They propose merely to supply a fairly full proportion of guns to their three army corps,—that formula so dear to the official mind. They do not, unless we have entirely misread their statement, intend to supply a large reserve of guns, and they make no sort of provision for supplying a largo for.N) of artillery to act with the Militia and Volunteers whenever they shall be called out. In fact, their proposals as regards the artillery seem based on no coherent principle. We are at present terribly short of guns, so the War Office proposes to give us a good many more; but that good many more' is not calculated on any reasoned or definite plan. Jones finds his house is very much under-insured ; he therefore adds a couple of thousand pounds to it offhand instead of thinking out what his house is really worth, and then bringing up his insurance to that figure. In other words, he lets his former deficiency, not his real needs, be the measure of the increase. But even doubling your insurance is not enough, is not even decently prudent, if before your house was only insured at a fourth of its proper value. We wish, then, the House of Commons could, or would, do in this case what a municipality does when a committee brings up an inadequate proposal,—send the artillery scheme back for reoon- sideration."—Spectator, March 5th, 1898.
Now if a journalist, writing without any expert knowledge whatever, and merely using his common-sense in regard to the question of a proper provision of artillery, could arrive at a right conclusion, as events have since proved that our conclusion was, why should we assume that Lord Lansdowne could not be expected to do so ? Why, with all his great official experience behind him, and with all the weight of responsibility urging him to bend his mind to the subject, could he not 'reasonably be expected to come to conclusions similar to ours in regard to artillery and horses and stores, and munitions of war of all kinds ? We need hardly say that we make no sort of claim to any wonderful prescience in the matter. We only asserted a very obvious thing in a very obvious way. But the more obvious and commonplace our criticism is shown to be, the more clear is it that Lord Lansdowne should have put his house in order in the four years which elapsed between his taking office and the outbreak of the war. We have no vindictive feeling towards Lord Lansdowne, and enter- tain, indeed, a keen sense of dislike in having to speak disagreeable things of so high-minded and amiable a man. If, however, Mr. Balfour will insist upon confusing the issue in regard to the Report of the War Commission, we must speak out.
Let us formulate our contention. It is that the Report of the War Commission shows that our military preparations were neither adequate nor efficient, and that Lord Lansdowne is primarily, and the Cabinet secondarily, responsible for this state of things, because Lord Lans- downe did not insist either on proper preparations being made or on resigning his office. Instead, he simply "carried on," and "carried on" when the course which was laid for the ship—and which he had power to alter—led straight to disaster. What Lord Lansdowne ought to have done when he went to the War Office was to have said to himself:—' My duty here is to prepare for war. All history shows that this is a responsibility most difficult to carry out properly, and that neglect in preparation has been committed again and again, even by the greatest military experts. I must not, therefore, dream of trusting to them alone, and if they say all is well, going to sleep. I must bear the responsibility myself, and must myself see that there is no neglect in providing the necessaries of war. I must, of course, trust the soldiers absolutely in the field ; but I will see that the Army is in peace-time prepared. and got ready to meet the demands that will be made upon it if war comes. And since it is notorious that wars when they come impose a much more severe strain than seemed at all likely, I will pro- vide, not against the likely, but against the unlikely strain.' But though this may have been what Lord Lansdowne ought to have said to himself, we know from the Report of the War Commission that he said nothing of the kind, but simply "carried on" from day to day, immersed in bureaucratic detail, and oblivious to the real needs of the great Department over which he reigned supreme. His re- sponsibility, then, is great and primary. Hardly less great, though secondary, is that of his colleagues. Ministers are responsible for each other, and to a very large extent may be said to guarantee each other's efficiency. If they saw that Lord La.nsdowne's administration was ineffective at the War Office—and they ought to have seen it—they should have removed him from office. The fact that he was not so removed, and that it was indolently assumed that he was doing all that was necessary, makes the whole Cabinet responsible. From that responsibility they cannot escape, and if the nation is wise it will hold them to it one and all, Free-traders quite as much as Protectionists. The matter is too vital a one for sectional politics, and we do not desire for a moment to protect any portion of the body re- sponsible. How, then, can the country exact the responsi- bility? By dismissing the Ministers concerned from office. We do not, of course, want them proscribed for ever; but it should at least be shown that men cannot bring the nation so near an unthinkable disaster without their neglect being marked and punished. The fact that at the crisis Mr. Balfour, as we have repeatedly pointed out, acted with splendid nerve and firmness, is no excuse for want of proper preparation in the years preceding the war.
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