THE DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

IV. THE DEARTH OF OFFICERS

I MAKE no apology for calling attention to the difficulty which is being experienced in obtaining officers for the Army, because I do so in the hope that it may be possib'e, altogether apart from any political considerations, to bring home to the people of this country the very serious dangers which this shortage will entail if we are suddenly called upon to put an army in the field.

The British public, with the happy fatalism of the amateur actor who comforts himself with the hope that 'it will be all right on the night,' is content to let things drift, on the chance of muddling through somehow.

But the days of muddling through are over, as has been abundantly proved in the present war, to say nothing of our own experience in South Africa. This dearth of officers is a serious, and may prove a fatal, defect in our organisation. In the Foot Guards alone the deficiencies amount to between forty and fifty, and the Cavalry are about the same number below their establishment. To a certain extent it may be possible to improvise the rank and file; but officers, to be of any use, must be professional, and should be the best at that.'

Sir Ian Hamilton tells us that he has learnt in the war between Russia and Japan that nothing but the very best will do.'

Now, why won't our boys come forward? What is it that disgusts our officers and makes them leave the service?

It has hitherto been assumed that the supply of officers is inexhaustible, and that no matter how they are treated it will continue so. It has been argued that there are always more applications than there are vacancies, and that the latter could be filled up even if no pay were given at all.

Now all this is changed. The suitable young men have gone on strike. An abnormal number of officers are sending in their papers, and it is becoming more difficult every day to fill their places. The

supply no longer equals the demand, and we are face to face with a very grave national danger.

Now, there must be some reason why men are leaving the Army, and why men of a suitable age and position are not coming forward to officer the troops necessary for the defence of their country.

The way they volunteered for the South African war proves that it is from no want of patriotism.

What, then, is the reason for the slump?

In the first place, officers and would-be officers are beginning to ask themselves whether the terms offered them are good enough for the sacrifices they are called upon to make, and the answer is that they are not. The game is not worth the candle. The dearth of officers is, I firmly believe, due to the inadequacy of the pay, to the uncertainty as to their prospects, and to the constant worrying to which they are subjected. In the old days, no doubt, when the service required of an officer was comparatively light, and when many men joined with the object of passing a few few years among pleasant companions and with pleasant surroundings, the pay was enough to attract and keep the requisite number of officers.

Now, however, when so much more is asked of them, when they have to give up their whole time to soldiering, when they have to pass through continuous examinations, to lecture their men, to supervise their musketry, and to instruct them in all their duties, and at the same time have their leave docked to a very great extent, it is little wonder that they don't think the service good enough at the price. I am well aware that it is necessary and right that they should do all these things; but I quite see their point when they expect more pay for more work. Surely this is a case where the labourer is worthy of his hire.

The private soldier's pay has increased much in the last thirty years, and in many ways he is far better off than he was.

The officer's pay alone has remained stationary, while his work has increased tenfold, and this at a time when the cost of living has gone up to a very considerable extent.

There is, I think, another reason why young men are not so keen about joining as they used to be, and that is a feeling that, if a war takes place, they can always get out in the auxiliary forces without undergoing the drudgery of learning the trade and training their men. In the Boer War the Regulars were often much disheartened by seeing the bread taken out of their mouths by

amateurs.

Then again, the education craze is being run a little too strongly. It is all very well when you have a plethora of candidates, but I cannot see how at the present moment you are going to fill the ranks

of officers by making the examination harder. Good generals are born, not made. No amount of education will make them. Nothing but force of character and strength of will can do that. Many instances in South Africa can be recalled where the most highly educated generals were unsuccessful, while men of strong character and common sense came to the front with far less advantages from an educational point of view. This high standard of education, on which you insist, cuts both ways. The highly educated young gentleman is not to be caught with chaff. He is beginning to know his market value, and to wonder whether he had not better turn his attention to something more lucrative than what you have to offer him. Apparently he is already acting on this principle.

Then again, another reason for the depletion of officers is, I venture to think, that they are getting a little tired of being continually lectured and told that they are stupid and only halfeducated, and more or less ignorant of the rudiments of their profession.

They are a little inclined to take the public at its word, and to say to these superior persons, 'Very well. We are content to stand aside while you undertake the congenial task of guarding the shop yourselves. Leave your comfortable armchairs and your countinghouses, and show a little patriotism, not by paying money-anyone who has it can do that—but by taking some of the risks and facing some of the discomforts which we have relieved you of for so long. Either do this, which you will tell us means conscription, or make it worth our while to do it for you. You can't have it both ways. Either pay the market price and give us a living wage, or take upon yourselves the burden which is really yours.' Surely there is nothing unreasonable in such a contention.

Now, what are the conditions under which you ask the British subaltern to serve? In the first place, he has to pass a very stiff examination. His parents have to pay through the nose to enable him to do this, in consequence of the wretched education provided at our public schools. Having successfully gone through this ordeal, you pay him the wages of an artisan, and expect him to live like a gentleman-and, mind you, unless he does keep up appearances he is no use to you as an officer. And for this miserable wage he runs a very good chance of getting killed or dying of fever in some out-ofthe-way part of the world, in order that the said artisan may follow his trade in peace and security. If a distant grumble is heard as to the hardness of his lot, instead of increasing his pay, you begin cutting off his little comforts, and making his life as unattractive as it well can be. There is nothing so pleasant or comforting to the conscience of the ordinary citizen as lecturing the subaltern on his extravagance. He mustn't drink wine, he mustn't ask a friend to dinner, he mustn't hunt or play polo even if he can afford it. Now all this was excellent

as long as he would stand it, but at last the worm has turned, and the supply has fallen below the demand. It isn't good enough,' says the worm, and the worm is right. There can be little doubt that unless some further inducement is offered, the young men of the country will not come forward in sufficient numbers to fill the vacancies.

It is impossible to compare our officers with the Germans, às is sometimes done, with the object of showing how much more expensively the former live than the latter. The whole standard of comfort is, in the first place, so much lower in that country than in ours. Then again, the officer in Germany gets a social standing altogether out of proportion to that of any other calling. Military rank takes precedence of all other social distinction, so much so that, if an officer imagines himself to be insulted by a civilian, he draws his sword and runs him through, with a very fair chance of being acquitted if tried, and, in any case, being lightly punished. With us military rank gives comparatively little position in the social

world.

At present we are falling between two stools. We are osing the men who are fairly well off and who make excellent officers, especially in the Cavalry, because they won't stand so much interference with their liberty; and we are not getting the poor men, because the pay is not good enough. Surely it would be wiser in the first place to make the service sufficiently self-supporting to attract the poor man before getting rid of that class which has served us so well in the past. If we are not careful we shall end by getting neither. What we want in the Cavalry are sportsmen. Why was it the Boers were so good at scouting? Not because they were scientific soldiers, or were particularly well educated. They were neither. But because of the outdoor and sporting life they led. The cavalryman who can afford to hunt and play polo is, other things being equal, a more useful man to the country than the man who only plays cricket and lawn tennis, and never gets on a horse except on parade. He is a better horseman, and, what is even more important on service, he is a better horse master. He develops an eye for country, and is accustomed to making up his mind in a hurry. Some of the best scouting work in South Africa was done by the fox-hunting officers of the first contingent of Yeomanry. We have the authority of the late Commanderin-Chief that these sports are the best training for Cavalry officers, and this view is so strongly held in America that, instead of prohibiting polo, forty ponies are kept at the public expense at West Point for the use of the students. Now, it is only men who are fairly well off who can afford to indulge in these pastimes, and, instead of driving them out of the Cavalry, it seems to me it would be wiser to try and keep them, at any rate until we have something to put in their places. That they are the best class from which to draw Cavalry officers has

always been the opinion of every Inspector-General of Cavalry and every commanding officer of a cavalry regiment. I understand that at Sandhurst at the present moment the number of candidates for the Cavalry (i.e. the British Cavalry) has almost reached the vanishing point, whereas there are plenty of applicants for the Indian Cavalry, where the pay is better and the pension worth looking forward to. Now, even assuming that the regiments can be filled up without any increase of pay, the question arises, 'How are we to make the more capable of our officers remain on?' A love of adventure and the chance of seeing service will always attract a certain number of young men, but after a year or two the abler among them begin to look ahead and to see what their prospects are, and whether they cannot find a better opening in private life. In fact, it begins to dawn upon them that soldiering is not good enough at the price, and the result is that often it is the less capable who stay on and become the generals of the future, faute de mieux. Let us suppose that a man after, say, thirty years' service, retires, having commanded a regiment, on 4201. a year, or is put on half-pay at 300l. Is it not likely that in almost any other walk of life, with a similar amount of energy, and supposing him to have been even moderately successful, he would not find himself in an infinitely better position? No doubt, if he is a firstclass man, he will get employed again; but all men are not Napoleons, and there are many who have done good service in the lower grades, and who have by sheer hard work welded the machine with which their abler comrades have climbed to fame, who are worthy of a better fate than being put on the shelf at a comparatively early age with an inadequate pension. The fact is, the plums are too few to make soldiering a paying profession. A few years back, when the command at Portsmouth was vacant, three or four generals had to be passed over because they could not afford to accept the position, and the junior on the list had to be appointed because his private means enabled him to do so. The same remark applies to Dublin and other high commands. Now, surely these commands should be looked forward to as rewards for meritorious service, and should be paid accordingly. Otherwise it seems to me that it is a mockery to talk of soldiering as a 'poor man's profession.' In the Cavalry the prospects are even worse, because the chances of employment of an officer, after he has done his regimental service, are so much smaller, there being infinitely fewer billets in the higher grades open to Cavalry than to Infantry or Artillery. If a boy were to ask my advice as to going into the Cavalry, I should say, 'By all means, if you want to have a pleasant time for a few years, and can afford it; but if you really want to make a profession of it, choose some other branch.' There is no doubt that this dearth of officers is a very serious matter, and constitutes a very grave danger to the country. What I contend is that, if the country wishes to avoid conscription, it must no longer

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