A SURREY RIFLE CLUB FIELD DAY.
[To THII EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
Six,—The year before last several of the Surrey rifle clubs, as a token of recognising the stern circumstances in which their sport would and should have its ultimate expression, took the field, dug themselves into a fortified position on a hillside, and challenged an invading force of Volunteers to turn them out. They earned many commendations for their plan and their spirit; but last year, when the day was over, Colonel Sturmey Cave, of that notoriously well-organised body, the 1st Volunteer Battalion Hants Regiment, in speak- ing of the day's proceedings, made a series of criticisms the general spirit of which may be summarised in some such words as these After all, an army, to be an army at all, must be mobile. Let us see how these civilians could take the offensive (for a good part of such defensive work as they would be likely to undertake in war would necessarily be offensive), and let us see if they could manage to keep their columns in touch with one another, and generally remain a coherent force, while they ranged the country, instead of digging their graves in the chalk, as they have done to-day: No sooner said than decided upon for the next adventure. The experiment was tried this August Bank Holiday, and the following account is an attempt to describe what happened; to point out the admitted difficulties of controlling undrilled men,•on the one hand, and the possibilities which attend, on the other hand, the services of men who allow their unspoiled fancies to conceive war as a practical problem, giving obvious scope for tricks, and gumption, and mother-wit. The latter are vital qualities, and though at the first glance it may be a discouragement to see them leaking away through unsullied executive inexperience, it is well worth considering whether they could not very simply and very speedily be made effectual by being provided with a medium for translating themselves.
Of course, there is only one such medium for fighting men. It is drill, and the discipline which comes of drill. Whether it would be possible to co-ordinate the rifle clubs of a county, and convey enough instruction to them in the form of simple drill to make them, as it were, articulate, is a question that deserves discussion. But it is a question that cannot be con- sidered apart from that of recruiting for the Volunteers.
To put it quite plainly, some one will not unnaturally say: " Is it wise to try to inspire civilian rifle clubs with any very definite military purpose? Knowledge of a rifle is very valuable in itself, and well worth giving as it is given now; but if you go further and try to produce a quasi-military system, will you not trespass on the province of the Volunteers ?
Will you not actually divert from the Volunteers men who might become better soldiers than your modicum of organisa- tion can ever hope to make them ? " In answer to such a question, it ought to be said at once that those who are interested in the rifle clubs do not propose, or dream of pro-
posing, that the clubs, even if it were ever thought possible to give them such a discipline as would make it easier for an officer to handle them in the field, should become a substitute for any existing military organisation. The present writer believes, as he heartily does, in the immense value of the clubs because he also believes that the appetite grows by what it feeds on, or, to go to another proverbial verity, that all is grist that comes to the mill of national defence.
It would be interesting if figures could be kept to show how many members of the clubs pass into the Auxiliary Forces. The writer knows of one small Surrey club which has sent two men into the Yeomanry, and he is told that they would not have gone there but for the influence of the club.
In short, he believes that the clubs, if properly managed, will always be ancillary to the proper military organisations, and not rival institutions. If they send some men on to the recognised forces, and give practice in shooting and some idea of what fighting means to more men who otherwise would not get 'such experience at all, then their influence must always be entirely and obviously good, and we cannot have too many of them. The clubmen came out with frank humility to learn something of a business of which most of them knew nothing. It was as though they were appearing for the first time on a rifle range, and it was very pleasant to see the good nature and cordial patience with which Colonel Buston and the other umpires from Aldershot explained the sense of this and that to their pupils. Nothing but profit can come of such a day, if the right meaning be read into it, and the writer, for one, hopes that it will be possible to repeat the instructive experiment every year.
It was a rather remarkable sight when the commandos, as they were called by common consent, concentrated on that beautiful ridge of the downs at Newlands Corner from which you look on one side down on to the flat country, spread out like a map, to the Thames ; and on the other into the deep and rich valley which divides Newlands from the heights of the Hurtwood and Leith Rill. Tendrils of heavy
morning cloud trailed along the opposite hills, making one feel the association of all battles with early morning ; nearer at hand St. Martha's quaint pilgrim church stood on its lonely summit above the valley, and as the riflemen came on bicycles, on horseback, or on foot to the appointed spot in civilian clothes, with their rifles as often as not slung across their backs, one could have believed oneself to be in any country but England. That was the way the Boers came on commando. 'And even the levies of Justice Shallow's orchard were not more various in appearance. Farmers, landowners, labourers, shopkeepers, apprentices to village trades,—all were there. There was not a uniform among us. We were " a civil population in arms," ultimately protecting our homes, and incidentally ministering to that primordial instinct of self-defence by an attempt to capture or destroy the convoy of an invading army.
All we knew was that the enemy (the 1st Volunteer Bat- talion Hants Regiment, some of the Queen's Westminsters, and others) were trying to take the convoy from Leith Hill towards Woking, where the headquarters of the invading army were established. " You can expect," wrote the General Officer Commanding the British Forces, "no help from the Regular Army." Our force, about two hundred strong, was made up of larger or smaller contributions from the Newlands Rifle Club (which, by the way, was the first founded in Surrey, if not in England, of the new rifle clubs which sprang up in 1900, although a recent Blue-book seems to place its birth after that of Sir A. Conan Doyle's club), and the Guildford, Merrow, Albury, Shere, Wotton, Byfleet, Epsom, Dorking, and Sutton Place Clubs. The spirit which animated the defenders would not have done discredit to Roman matrons. The complaint of one patriot that other attractions had called away " some of our best shots " was really as admirable as for a moment it sounded ominous. The strategical scheme was drawn up by Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey (who founded the Newlands Rifle Club), it was supervised by Captain the Master of Ruthven, D.S.O., and it deserved to succeed. Indeed, there was a moment when it looked as though the first attack, suddenly delivered, really might succeed.
The first point to the credit of the riflemen was the speed with which they dashed off the mark, so to speak, when war was declared. A few words were enough to explain to them —at least, that was the writer's experience in his own com- mando—that the issue of every action depends a good deal upon the advantage of position, and that such an advantage can often be procured by speed, and by speed alone. The first part of the march lay up an almost precipitous hill, and the way in which two men of over fifty years of age in this commando of cyclists kept pace with the van, and ran, pushing their bicycles, up that part of the hill which was unrideable, was a revelation. Some of these cyclists had ridden eighteen miles from their homes, and the speed at which they kept moving all day over roads, lanes, and tracks put the services of horses simply to shame. If it had not been shown over and over again already, this one day's experience would have shown the various usefulness of cyclists, even in the most difficult country. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is the one means of personal transport which it is worth while for the ordinary man to cultivate for military purposes in England. The cyclist puts on seven-league boots—he multiplies himself by his speed—and there is no wastage of personal attention upon his mount, as there is in the case of every indifferent horseman. Of course, good horsemen will always be needed for work that cyclists cannot do, but cycling is a considerable national accomplish- ment, and in an enclosed country like this it simply cries out (on the principle that every nation should turn its own habits to military account) to be laid systematically under contribu- tion. The combined Guildford, Newlands, and Merrow command, who conducted the main attack, also by virtue of speed, came upon the enemy's camp before the enemy ex- pected it. The enemy was, in fact, just moving off after breaking camp. The attack was delivered at once, but the umpire was not satisfied that the assailants were in sufficient force, since they numbered only a, hundred men, while the body they attacked were over two hundred strong, and ordered the rifle-club men to fall back. It is perhaps fair to say, however, that in South Africa experience proved that even an attack by inferior numbers delivered when a force was just moving out of camp had great chances of success. After this failure, if failure it was, the com- mandos found themselves fighting a delaying action while they retired—nothing more confusing and utterly dis- organising to undrilled men!—and the different commands fell more and more out of proper touch with one another. The difficulties were made worse by the reports con- tinually coming in that the convoy had been seen going East, West, North, and South. There were about twenty convoys, it seemed, and the existence of each of them was guaranteed by some person of acknowledged probity who had seen it with his own eyes. As Colonel Buston said at the subsequent "Pow-wow," the most instructive lesson of the day was the apparent impossibility of getting accurate infor- mation from a non-military population, even when that popu- lation was well disposed towards the questioners. And of course in real war there would not be any civil population left to question. If the riflemen learnt nothing else; they learnt the bitter meaning of "the fog of war." At all events, the convoy, after its " close shave," passed to its destination without much opposition, and for a large part of the way unobserved. In one place three men met it and fired on it, and, of course, had the whole secret of its route in their possession, and yet, as one of the umpires remarked, the secret never reached the defending headquarters. The Intelligence work of the invading force under Major Johnson, who deserves his reputation for cultivated ingenuity, was extremely good.
Another year it is to be hoped that the rifle-club men will not be outnumbered, and then they will have a better chance of keeping in touch with the enemy all day, and of perform- ing the natural function of a civil population in arms,— planning ambuscades. As it was, the business of ambush was curiously neglected. But that what might be called the spirit of ambush was there was shown to the writer in his own commando by the proposals to disseminate false information, strew the roads with nails for puncturing tyres, divert the course of streams, and blow up bridges, as well as by the capacity some of the men showed for secreting themselves in positions where they could see and aim well. Altogether, it was a most entertaining day, which no one who took part in it will easily forget. The clubs were grateful for what they were taught—one day of this sort in a whole year might easily make a man look at the country in which he lives with new eyes and a new purpose—and as for the Regular officers, one does not, perhaps, overstep the mark in saying that they were glad of the opportunity of examining the material of an
English guerilla force.—I am, Sir, &c., Z.
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