[Speech of Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of
the British Army, at a dinner given by the Authors' Club, London,
November 6, 1899. Dr. Conan Doyle presided.]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I think that all people who know
anything about the Army should rejoice extremely that our first
experiment in mobilization has been as successful as it has been.
[Cheers.]
Your Chairman has mentioned the name of one, a most intimate friend of
mine, the present Military Secretary. [Lord Lansdowne.] I think the
nation is very much indebted to him not only for the manner in which
this mobilization has been carried out, but still more so for having
laid the foundation on which our mobilization system is based, and for
making those preparations which led to its complete success. [Cheers.]
There are many other names I might mention, others who have also devoted
themselves for many years past in a very quiet manner, and with all the
ability which now, I am glad to say, so largely permeates the Army, to
making these preparations and to try to bring this curious army of ours
up to the level of the modern armies of the world. [Cheers.]
Although I say it myself, I think I may claim for myself and for those
who have worked with me a certain meed of praise, for we have worked
under extreme difficulties. Not only under the ordinary difficulties in
dealing with a very complicated arrangement, but we have had to work in
the face of the most dire opposition on the part of a great number of
people who ought to have been the first to help us. ["Hear! Hear!"] The
Chairman has referred to the opposition of the Press; but that has been
nothing to the opposition we have met with in our own profession--the
profession of ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago, when great reforms were
begun in the Army by the ablest War Secretary who has ever been in
office--I mean Lord Cardwell. His name is now almost forgotten by the
present generation, and also the names of many other distinguished
officers in their day, whose names were associated with many of the
brightest moments of English victory and English conquest, and who set
their faces honestly against alteration, and firmly believed that the
young men of those days were a set of madmen and a set of Radicals who
were anxious to overturn not only the British Army, but the whole
British Constitution with it. [Laughter.] This prejudice spread into
high places, until at last we were looked upon as a party of faddists
who ought to be banished to the farthest part of our dominions. [Renewed
laughter.] But I am glad to say that the tree we planted then took root,
and there gradually grew up around us a body of young officers, men
highly instructed in their profession, who supported us, carried us
through, and enabled us to arrive at the perfection which, I think, we
have now attained. ["Hear! Hear!"]
There has been abroad in the Army for a great many years an earnest
desire on the part of a large section, certainly, to make themselves
worthy of the Army and worthy of the nation by whom they were paid, and
for whose good they existed. That feeling has become more intensified
every year, and at the present moment, if you examine the Army List, you
will find that almost all the Staff Officers recently gone out to South
Africa have been educated at the Staff College, established to teach the
higher science of our profession and to educate a body of men who will
be able to conduct the military affairs of the country when it comes to
their turn to do so. Those men are now arriving at the top of the tree,
thank God! while many of those magnificent old soldiers under whom I was
brought up have disappeared from the face of the earth, and others who
are to be seen at the clubs have come round--they have been converted in
their last moments [laughter]; they have the frankness to tell you they
made a mistake. They recognize that they were wrong and that we were
right. [Cheers.]
I quite endorse what the Chairman says about the success of the
mobilization, and I will slightly glance at the state of affairs as they
at present exist in South Africa. I have the advantage of having spent
some time in South Africa, and of having been--not only General
Commanding, but Governor and High Commissioner, with high-sounding
titles given me by her Majesty. I know, consequently, not only a little
of South Africa, but a good deal of Boer character. During my stay as
Governor of the Transvaal, I had many opportunities of knowing people
whom you have recently seen mentioned as the principal leaders in this
war against us. There are many traits in their character for which I
have the greatest possible admiration. They are a very strongly
conservative people--I do not mean in a political sense at all, but they
were, I found, anxious to preserve and conserve all that was best in the
institutions handed down to them from their forefathers. But of all the
ignorant people in that world that I have ever been brought into contact
with, I will back the Boers of South Africa as the most ignorant. At the
same time they are an honest people. When the last President of the
Transvaal handed over the government to us--and I may say, within
parentheses, that the last thing an Englishman would do under the
circumstances would be to look in the till--there was only 4_s._ 6_d._
to the credit of the Republic. [Laughter.] Within a few weeks or days of
the hoisting of the British flag in the Transvaal a bill for £4 10_s._
4_d._ came in against the Boer Government, and was dishonored. [Renewed
laughter.] The Boers at that time--perhaps we did not manage them
properly--certainly set their face against us, and things have gone on
from bad to worse, until the aspiration now moving them is that they
should rule not only the Transvaal, but that they should rule the whole
of South Africa. That is the point which I think English people must
keep before them. There's no question about ruling the Transvaal or the
Orange Free State--the one great question that has to be fought out
between the Dutch in South Africa and the English race is, which is to
be the predominant Power--whether it is to be the Boer Republic or the
English Monarchy. [Cheers.] Well, if I at all understand and know the
people of this nation, I can see but one end to it, and it will be the
end that we hope for and have looked for. [Cheers.]
But I would warn every man who takes an interest in this subject not to
imagine that war can be carried on like a game of chess or some other
game in which the most powerful intellect wins from the first. War is a
game of ups and downs, and you may rest assured that it is impossible to
read in history of any campaign that it has been a march of triumph from
beginning to end. Therefore, if at the present moment we are suffering
from disappointments, believe me, those disappointments are in many ways
useful to us. We have found that the enemy who declared war against
us--for they are the aggressors--are much more powerful and numerous
than we anticipated. But at the same time, believe me, that anything
that may have taken place lately to dishearten the English people has
had a good effect--it has brought us as a nation closer together. The
English-speaking people of the world have put their foot down, and
intend to carry this thing through, no matter what may be the
consequence. [Cheers.]
I have the greatest possible confidence in British soldiers. I have
lived in their midst many years of my life, and I am quite certain of
this, that wherever their officers lead they will follow. If you look
over the list of our casualties lately, you will find that the British
officer has led them well. Certainly he has not spared himself; he has
not been in the background. [Cheers.] He has suffered unfortunately, and
expects to suffer, and ought to suffer; and I hope most sincerely and
truly, whatever may be in store for us, whatever battles there may be in
this war, that when we read the list of casualties there will be a very
large proportion of officers sufferers as well as men. It would be most
unworthy of our Army and of our nation if our officers did not lead, and
if they lead they must suffer as well as those who follow. I am
extremely obliged to you for the compliment that has been paid to me. It
has been a very great pleasure for me to come here. I had no idea I was
to listen to such an admirable speech from your Chairman. I thank you
sincerely for having listened to me, and hope you will make every
allowance for any defect in a speech which certainly had not been
prepared. [Loud cheers.]