The attempt to take this imperial view was made in _Problems of Greater

Britain_, which Dilke wrote during the remainder of the year 1889. In

this work he discussed the defence of the North-West Frontier of India

as a prelude to the examination of the defence of the British Empire.

His reason for this separate treatment was that "only on this one of all

the frontiers of the Empire the British dominion is virtually

conterminous with the continental possessions of a great military

Power." He showed that the serious import of this condition was

understood by all who knew India well and by both the political parties

in England. He dissented from the view that security could be obtained

by an agreement with Russia, because it was not easy to see "how Russia

could put it out of her own power at any moment to threaten us on the

North-West Frontier." The suggestion that Russia should be allowed to

occupy the northern portion of Afghanistan he rejected, first because it

would have been a flagrant breach of faith with the Amir, and secondly

because it would give to Russia territory which she could quickly

transform into a base of operations against India.

He thought that Russia could not invade India with a good chance of

success if she started from her present frontier, but that if she were

allowed to occupy the northern portion of Afghanistan the Indian

Government would be put to ruinous expense for the defensive

preparations which would then be required. [Footnote: 'Lord Dufferin

wrote to me from the Embassy at Rome to express his satisfaction with

the Indian portion of my book, and especially those passages in which I

demonstrated the exceeding folly of which we should be guilty if ever we

consented to a partition of Afghanistan with Russia.'] He noted that the

policy of advance upon our left, which he had recommended in 1868, had

been adopted with success, chiefly by the efficacy of the Sandeman

system of recognizing and supporting the tribal chiefs and requiring

them to maintain order, and also by the occupation and fortification of

the position of Quetta and by the opening of roads from Quetta through

the Gomul and other passes to the Indus at Dera Ismail Khan and Dera

Ghazi Khan. This would enable an Indian army to attack the right flank

of any Russian force attempting to advance along the Khyber line, which

would be resisted in the Khyber hills and at Attock, and be stopped at

the fortress of Rawal Pindi. Generally speaking, he held that Indian

"defence must be by the offensive with the field army, and the less we

have to do with fortifications, the better." He urged the extension

northwards of the Sandeman system to all the independent tribes between

the Indian and the Afghan borders. If the separate armies for the

Presidencies were to be united under a single Commander-in-Chief, as the

Indian Government had long desired, and if the principle of enlisting in

the native army only men of fighting races were fully adopted, and the

native Princes induced to place effective contingents at the disposal of

the Government, he thought that India with reinforcements from home

would be well able to resist a Russian attack starting from the frontier

that Russia then possessed.

But if Russia should once be established at Herat, with railway

communications to that point, there would be hardly any limit to the

force with which it would become necessary to resist her. He therefore

urged that the Russian Government should be given to understand that any

advance of her forces into Afghanistan would be regarded by England as a

hostile act. At the same time he admitted that it was difficult to see

how Russia was in that event to be fought. He still thought that she

would be vulnerable at Vladivostock--at any rate until her railway to

the Pacific should be completed [Footnote: He considered that, with a

view to any future struggle with Russia, the abandonment of Port

Hamilton in 1886 by Lord Salisbury had been unfortunate. See, as to Port

Hamilton, _Life of Granville_, ii. 440; _Europe and the Far East_, by

Sir Robert Douglas, pp. 190, 248]--but he was aware that this view was

shared neither by the Indian nor the British officers likely to be

heard.

In his chapter on Indian Defence Dilke had exhausted the subject from

the Indian point of view. He was fully acquainted with the ideas of all

those who had been seriously concerned with the problem, of which he had

discussed every aspect with them, and his exposition was complete. When

in his last chapter he came to "examine the conditions of the defence of

the Empire as a whole, and to try to find some general principle for our

guidance," he was to a great extent breaking new ground. The subject had

been treated in 1888 by Colonel Maurice, afterwards General Sir

Frederick Maurice, in his essay on the Balance of Military Power in

Europe, but Maurice based his scheme on the assumption of a Continental

alliance which Dilke thought impracticable. It had also been treated

with great insight as early as 1880 by Sir John Colomb in his _Defence

of Great and Greater Britain_. His brother Admiral Philip Colomb had

more recently expounded the view that the right plan was to make the

enemy's coasts our frontier, and to blockade the whole of his ports, so

that it would be impossible for his fleets to issue forth. This seemed

to Dilke to imply a superiority of naval force which England did not

possess, and was not then intending to create. But Sir John Colomb in

1880 had admitted the absolute necessity of being prepared to render

invasion impossible by purely military forces. "It was necessary," he

had said, "that invasion be efficiently guarded against, so that, should

our home fleet be temporarily disabled, we may, under cover of our army,

prepare and strengthen it to regain lost ground and renew the struggle

for that which is essential to our life as a nation and our existence as

an Empire."

Sir Charles Dilke thought this sound sense, and that it was rash, in

view of the inadequate strength of the actual navy and of the

uncertainty as to the effect of new inventions on naval warfare, to

count upon beginning a future war with a repetition of Trafalgar. He

admitted that the navy, if concentrated in home waters, would be fully

able to defend the United Kingdom, but that the fleets if so

concentrated must abandon the remainder of the Empire, and that this

would involve the destruction of our commerce and would be as severe a

blow to the Empire as the invasion of England. He inferred that the navy

must be the chief agent in defence, but backed by fortification and by

land forces. There ought to be squadrons in distant seas strong enough

to hold their own, without reinforcements, against probable enemies on

the same stations. The coaling ports must be suitably fortified and have

all the troops necessary for their garrisons on the spot in time of

peace. [Footnote: Autumn of 1889: 'Among those with whom I corresponded

about my book was Lord Charles Beresford, who gave me a great deal of

information about coaling-stations for my chapter on Imperial Defence,

in which I also had Charles Brackenbury's help to a considerable

extent.'] He carefully considered the question of food-supply at home

and the possibility of a commercial blockade of the United Kingdom. He

did not think that such a blockade could be established or maintained.

"Our manufactures would be seriously assailed, our food-supply would

become precarious, but we should not be brought to the point of

surrender by absolute starvation, and the possibility of invasion is not

excluded, as some of the naval school pretend, by the fact that it would

be unnecessary."

"On the other hand, a defeat or a temporary absence of the fleet

might lead to bombardments, attacks upon arsenals, and even to

invasion, if our mobile land forces, our fortifications and their

garrisons, were not such as to render attacks of any kind too

dangerous to be worth attempting. In the absence of the fleet a

landing could not be prevented. But the troops landed ought to be

attacked. For this purpose we do not need an immense number of

ill-trained, badly-equipped, and unorganized troops, but an army

completely ready to take the field and fight in the open, supplied

with a well-trained field artillery."

But the mere protection of Great and Greater Britain was not enough. "It

is idle to suppose that war could be brought to a termination unless we

are prepared in some way to obtain advantages over the enemy such as to

cause him to weary of the struggle. The _riposte_ is as necessary in

warfare as in fencing, and defence must include the possibility of

counter-attack." "In view of almost any conceivable hostilities, we

ought to be prepared to supply arms and officers to native levies which

would support our Empire in various portions of the globe." But we had

too few officers for our own troops at home, in India, and in the

auxiliary forces. The stocks of arms ought to be larger than they were,

and there ought to be centres of production for them in various parts of

the Empire. "The moneys that the British Empire spends upon defence are

immensely great, and what is wanted is that those moneys should be spent

as is decided by the best advisers who can be obtained." "The main thing

needed for a joint organization of the whole of the defensive forces of

the Empire is the creation of a body of men whose duty it would be to

consider the questions raised, and to work out the answers." For this

purpose he thought the one thing needful was a General Staff, an

institution of which he gave a brief account, based on Mr. Spenser

Wilkinson's essay _The Brain of an Army_, of which the author had sent

him the proofs. "A General Staff," Dilke wrote, "would neither inspect

troops nor regulate the promotion of the army, but it would decide the

principles which would arrange the distribution of the Imperial

forces.... The very existence of a General Staff would constitute a form

of Imperial military federation."

II.

In December, 1890, Dilke read before the Statistical Society a paper on

the Defence Expenditure of the Chief Military and Naval Powers. He had

taken great pains to ascertain what each Power spent on its army and

navy, and what return it obtained for its money. The net result was

that, while France and Germany for an expenditure of about 28 millions

sterling could each of them put into the field a mobile force of two

million men, the British Empire, at a cost of 35-1/2 millions, had "a

nominal force of 850,000 of various degrees of training wholly

unorganized, and supplied only with the professional artillery needed

for a force of about 150,000 men." The British navy was more formidable

than the French, and "the German navy does not as yet exist. I say 'as

yet,' for the Germans mean business with their navy, and have begun, in

a businesslike manner, at the top, putting at the head of it their best

administrators." The French were spending altogether on defence a total

of 36 to 36-1/2 millions, the Germans 38, and the British Empire 57

millions. The moral was that, "whatever the peace expenditure, war

cannot be commenced with a fair chance of winning by a nation which

waits until war to make her organization perfect. Germany before 1870

prepared in time of peace her corps, her armies, and provided them all

with officers for the various commands, who knew what their duties would

be in war. All countries spending much on their armies now do the same,

except the United Kingdom, which stands alone in having still

practically little but a regimental system in existence. But although we

are old-fashioned, to the point of being utterly unprepared (except in

India) for the stress of war, we nevertheless spend sums so vast as to

stagger and amaze even the French and German critics, who ought to be

pretty well used, one would think, to large sums for military

expenditure." [Footnote: Sir Charles notes in 1893: 'Sir William

Harcourt on the British Army: "One knows a man who has ten thousand a

year, sixteen horses, and ten carriages, and yet if one guest comes he

has difficulty to find a dogcart to meet him, and if two come a fly has

to be hired. The British nation also spends its money freely, and has

equal difficulty in meeting the slightest emergency."']

Early in 1891 Dilke proposed to Spenser Wilkinson that they should join

in writing a new popular book on Imperial Defence. During that year the

two men kept up a constant correspondence, and Wilkinson was frequently

Dilke's guest in London, at Dockett and Pyrford, and in the Forest of

Dean. At Whitsuntide Dilke stayed at Aldershot (where Wilkinson was in

camp with his old volunteer battalion, the 2nd Manchester), and went

every day to see the regiment at work.

In September, on the eve of Dilke's starting for the French manoeuvres,

Wilkinson sent him the draft of an introduction to the proposed book. It

challenged the widely-held opinion that war is wicked in itself, and

might by political arrangement be rendered unnecessary, and deprecated

the abstention from inquiry into its methods which this opinion

encouraged. It challenged the maxim 'No foreign policy,' which meant

either having no relations with other countries, or, having such

relations, conducting them without system. War should be conceived of as

imposed upon States by an irreconcilable opposition of purposes, and was

always a means to an end. Peace could not be secured by a policy which

adopts it as a supreme end. The confusion between defence as a political

attitude and defence as an operation of war had led to the neglect, by

English public opinion, of all naval and military preparations that

might be available for attack. But the essential elements of defensive

strength, fleets and armies, were mobile and equally available for

offensive operations, and no efficient preparation for defence was

possible that would not also serve for attack. Without a clear and true

conception of the character of war as a conflict of national purposes,

proper conduct of military operations and of defensive preparations was

impossible, and to its absence was due the unorganized condition of the

defence of the Empire. Dilke, in acknowledging the manuscript, wrote:

"I've read it all and like it, but shall shorten it a little," and in

returning the manuscript, with his modifications, wrote: "The

introduction is most excellent--stately and interesting: I can say this,

as it is almost all yours." Wilkinson then sent a chapter entitled "The

Primacy of the Navy."

"An attack on land conducted across the sea is a most hazardous

speculation so long as there exists anywhere a hostile fleet that is

able to fight. In order to make such an attack safe, it is

indispensable that the attacker should secure himself from all

interruption by destroying or driving from the sea any hostile

fleet. The Power which should succeed in doing this would have 'the

command of the sea' as against its particular enemy.... The

territories of the Power having command of the sea are virtually

safe against attack by sea.... The British navy, then, so long as it

maintains the superiority at sea is a sufficient protection against

invasion for every part of the Empire except India and Canada. If,

however, the navy were to suffer decisive defeat, if it were driven

to seek the shelter of its fortified harbours and kept there, or if

it were destroyed--then, not only would every part of the Empire be

open to invasion, but the communication between the several parts

would be cut, and no mutual succour would be possible.

"The defeat of the British fleet or fleets would, of course, be

effected by purely naval operations; but the acquiescence in its

destruction could, perhaps, only be secured by a blow affecting the

British power at its source, and therefore the establishment by an

enemy of his naval superiority would almost certainly be followed by

an invasion of Great Britain. So long, then, as the British navy can

be maintained invincible, the Empire could be adequately defended

against attack of any European Power other than Russia, and for such

a defence, therefore, no more is needed than complete naval

preparation, and such military preparation as is required for the

full efficiency of the navy. Any additional military preparation is,

as against attack of this nature, merely an insurance to cover the

possibility of the failure of the navy. After such failure, it might

save the British Islands, but it could not save the Empire."

Dilke wrote that this doctrine was the opposite of what he had

previously held and preached, and expressed a doubt whether, that being

the case, the book could go on as a joint work. Wilkinson replied that

the first question was whether the doctrine of the chapter was sound,

and that the question of the names on the title-page could wait till the

work was done.

In _Problems of Greater Britain_ Dilke had discussed the view of Sir

John Colomb and of his brother, Admiral Colomb. The Admiral appeared to

rely upon "blockade," which required a navy much stronger than Great

Britain possessed, and might, with modern weapons and the torpedo, be

impracticable of execution, while Sir John Colomb appeared to admit the

necessity of purely military forces to prevent invasion. Dilke, looking

at the extent of the Empire to be defended, had thought that the

concentration of the navy in home waters must involve the abandonment of

the rest of the Empire. This is the view usually held by those who are

thinking of what they have to protect. Wilkinson thought first of the

enemy's forces and how to destroy them. If they can be destroyed, the

enemy is helpless and the territories of the victor are safe, because

the enemy has no force with which to molest them. On the appearance of

_Problems_, Dilke, as the extracts from his Diary at that time show, had

begun to doubt whether this view was not the right one; Wilkinson's

exposition and the discussion which accompanied it completed his

conversion. This was the turning-point of his studies of Imperial

Defence.

The next chapter was headed "The Command of the Sea." Here the debated

doctrine was applied.

"The purpose of Great Britain to render her territories secure would

be perfectly accomplished by the destruction of the enemy's navy, as

this would render any attempt at the transport of troops

impracticable. The destruction of the enemy's navy would, of course,

also be the best possible protection for England's sea-borne trade

(though, no doubt, for this purpose additional measures would be

required), and for her communications with every part of her Empire.

Thus, in every possible war in which Great Britain could engage, the

prime function of the British navy is to attack, and if possible to

destroy, the organized naval forces of the enemy."

Suppose the enemy sought battle, the question would soon be decided, but

if he wished to avoid it the difficulty would be to find him and to

compel him to accept it. For this purpose the best plan was that adopted

in 1803 by Lord St. Vincent, which consisted in placing at the outset,

in front of every one of the enemy's military ports, a British squadron

superior to that which the enemy had within it. This was incorrectly

termed "blockade," as the object was not to prevent the issue of the

French fleets from their ports, but to prevent their exit unwatched and

to fight them when they should come out. This plan must be supplemented

by a reserve fleet, and by numerous cruisers to hunt such of the enemy's

cruisers as might be at large. The alternative plan of Lord Howe, of

concentrating the fleet at one of the home ports, was also discussed,

but considered less advantageous, as it left the enemy's fleet free to

proceed to sea. But it was shown that the navy of 1891 was twenty

battleships short of the number believed by naval officers to be

required for the successful adoption of St. Vincent's plan against the

French navy alone.

The defence of India was treated in two chapters entitled "The Peace of

India" and "The North-West Frontier," which were in substance a

restatement of the view expressed in _Problems of Greater Britain_.

The chapter on "The Armies" was a translation into specific shape, with

full details and calculations, of Dilke's idea of a separation between

the British and Indian systems. It was argued that the militia and

volunteers should be organized into army corps with permanent fully paid

commanders and the necessary auxiliary troops, and it was pointed out

that the volunteer department of the War Office ought to be entrusted to

volunteer officers. A chapter on "The Management of the Home Army"

asserted that "Any system proposed for the better management of the army

must satisfy three distinct conditions: It must be framed with a view to

the preparation of the army for war; it must secure unimpaired the

authority of the Cabinet; and it must provide for an efficient control

over expenditure by the House of Commons." The first requirement of a

sound system was a general who could be entrusted with the duty of

advising the Cabinet upon the conduct of war and with the actual

management of campaigns. He ought to have a proper general staff and the

field troops at home should be organized into localized autonomous army

corps. "The British army at home has no generals, and can have none

until its battalions are settled and grouped into brigades, divisions,

and army corps." There must be a second general charged with all

branches of supply.

Any satisfactory Admiralty system, it was pointed out, would provide a

competent naval adviser for the Cabinet. But it was doubted "whether it

will be possible to secure unity of design in defence so long as the War

Office and the Admiralty are separately represented in the Cabinet. The

difficulty would be overcome if it became the practice for one Minister

to hold both offices." Dilke had long had the common-sense idea that a

single Minister ought to have general charge of all the preparations for

war and its conduct by sea and land.

He had made excisions and additions in the chapters as they had reached

him, and had closely scrutinized the expression throughout. The whole

book was read through by the two men together, and each point discussed

to complete agreement. Dilke then proposed that it should appear in

Wilkinson's name, as it was substantially Wilkinson's work, and that he

himself might write a preface. Wilkinison said that it was a joint work,

that the idea of the book was Dilke's, that its substance was the

outcome of the intimate exchange of views between them, and that it

ought to bear both their names. In his diary Dilke wrote: "Wilkinson's

part in it was far greater than mine, though we argued out the whole."

When the book appeared, Admiral Colomb wrote to Dilke: "On reading the

introduction and the first and second chapters, I am inclined to sing

'Nunc dimittis,' for, as far as I can understand the matter, you put

forward all the views for which I have contended; and coming thus from

your hands, I think they will henceforth be current views." Dilke sent

the letter to Wilkinson, noting on it: "Colomb thinks _he_ has converted

me. I reply, _he couldn't_. You did--after he had failed." He regarded

his collaboration with Wilkinson as an intellectual partnership in

regard to defence, and hardly ever spoke or wrote on the subject without

referring to it.

The development of Sir Charles Dilke's thoughts on defence has now been

fully traced and his method of work revealed. His mind was unreservedly

open to take in the thoughts of others, and he was incessantly trying to

know the best that was thought and said concerning the subjects that

interested him. He assimilated the substance of a vast correspondence,

and on every topic the ideas which he received became a part of him. His

intellectual life was thus an incessant dialectic with the best minds of

his time. But he never accepted ideas from others without the most

generous acknowledgment, and did not, as so many men do, proceed, after

assimilating another man's thought, to imagine that it was his own

invention. This intellectual candour, involving a rare modesty and

absence of affectation, was one of his finest characteristics.

CHAPTER LVI

ARMY AND NAVY IN PARLIAMENT

I.

In 1892, when Sir Charles Dilke returned to the House of Commons as

member for the Forest of Dean, his mind was made up in regard to the

subject of national defence, and from that time on he worked in and out

of Parliament to bring about an organization for war of the resources of

the nation and of the Empire.

At that time the management of both services was hampered by the

accumulated changes made by three generations of statesmen intent upon

home affairs, under which were buried and hidden the traditions of an

earlier period of wars. In 1857 the Duke of Cambridge had been appointed

Commander-in-Chief in deference to the belief of the Prince Consort,

inspired by Baron Stockmar, that in order to avert revolution the royal

authority over the army must be exercised through a Prince, and not

through the channel of a Minister responsible to Parliament. The Duke

thought it his mission to resist changes, and his obstruction had been

the bane of successive Ministers. Accordingly, the statesmen of Cabinet

rank and experience were anxious at all cost to establish the supremacy

of the Cabinet over the army, and for this purpose had welcomed the

proposal of the Hartington Commission to abolish the office of

Commander-in-Chief whenever the Duke of Cambridge should cease to hold

that post. The Commission had not considered that a change of persons

might solve the difficulty, and was led astray by the proposal to

appoint "a Chief of the Staff," who was to be, not the strategical

adviser of the head of the army, but rather its administrator in chief.

In every modern army there is a Chief of the General Staff to assist the

Commander-in-Chief, the principal executive officer, as well as an

Administrator-General to manage the business of supply. The Hartington

Commission proposed to give the name "Chief of the Staff" to an

Administrator-General. It further proposed the creation of a Committee

of the Cabinet to hold the balance between the requirements of the War

Office and those of the Admiralty.

Dilke recognized as fully as the occupants of either front bench the

necessity for the paramount authority of the Cabinet. He also felt the

need for co-ordination between the War Office and the Admiralty, and

considered that both these needs would best be met by a single Minister,

the Prime Minister, supervising or taking charge of both offices. The

essence of co-ordination would consist in framing the arrangements for

both services with a single eye to victory in war.

Dilke's first step was to get into touch with those members of

Parliament who were most keenly interested in the army and navy.

'On February 21st (1893) I had a meeting, which I had suggested,

with Lord Wolmer, General Sir George Chesney, and H. O.

Arnold-Forster, and agreed on joint action in all service matters,

and to attend the meeting of the service members fixed for the next

day, to which, although civilians, Arnold-Forster and I were asked.

We wrote Wolmer's motion for him.'

At this time Campbell-Bannerman was Secretary of State for War. On March

9th the House was to go into Committee of Supply, and on the motion

"that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair" Lord Wolmer moved "that in the

opinion of this House the present system of military administration

fails to secure either due economy in time of peace or efficiency for

national defence." Lord Wolmer in his speech referred to the breakdown

in the system of recruiting which had been disclosed in the report of

Lord Wantage's Committee. He was supported by Sir George Chesney, who

referred to the report of Sir James Stephen's Commission as "a scathing

exposure of mismanagement," and to that of the Hartington Commission as

"an unqualified and alarming denunciation of our military system."

Arnold-Forster also supported the resolution, in favour of which Dilke

made a short and incisive speech. Campbell-Bannerman declined to take

the discussion seriously. "The first observation," he said, "that must

occur to anyone reading the motion is, What in the world has the report

of Lord Wantage's Committee to do with the present system of military

administration? It is as if the noble lord were to call attention to the

Tenterden Steeple, and to move that the Goodwin Sands are a danger to

navigation." But the breakdown of recruiting was the crucial evidence of

the weakness of the military administration.

In September, 1893, the question of the then recent appointment of the

Duke of Connaught to the command at Aldershot was raised in the House of

Commons by Mr. Dalziel. It was defended by Campbell-Bannerman on the

ground that the Duke possessed sufficient qualifications for the post.

If that had been the sole question, said Dilke, he should have supported

the Government.

"But there was another point. Aldershot was a training-school not

only for the men and regimental officers there employed, but also

for the Generals commanding. It might be said to be the only school

in the United Kingdom where a general officer could obtain

experience in commanding men in battle, and therefore only officers

who were likely to command armies in case of serious war ought to be

put in command of such a place. Was it likely that the Duke of

Connaught, under the circumstances, would be called upon to take the

chief command against a European enemy in case of war?"

In the division Dilke voted against the appointment.

On December 19th Lord George Hamilton moved a resolution "that a

considerable addition should at once be made to the navy." Mr. Gladstone

regarded this proposal as a vote of censure on the Government, and

delivered an indignant reply. Dilke deprecated making the navy a subject

of party controversy, and made an appeal to his Liberal friends:

"All naval experts who have been consulted on the question have

always laid it down that, for safety, you must have a supremacy of

five to three in battleships, that you require that supremacy for

the policy of blockade.... If ever we engage in war ... it is a

necessity of the position of this country that our frontiers should

be at the enemy's ports.... I know this is not a popular policy, but

the existence of the Empire depends upon it.... Liberals should give

up thinking of this question of national defence as a hateful one,

and as one against which they ought to close their eyes and ears. I

know that, in these days of great armaments on the Continent, the

old tradition of the Liberal party, that they should look to the

possibility of using the forces of this country on behalf of

Continental freedom, has become a dream of the past. They must

remember that our liberties at home depend upon the efficiency of

our fleet, and that, beyond this, the very existence of our Empire

is concerned in the question which the House is at this moment

debating."

The sequel to this debate was Mr. Gladstone's retirement in February,

1894.

Early in the autumn of 1893 Dilke had talked over with Spenser Wilkinson

the line to be taken in Parliament by the service members. Wilkinson had

urged as a preliminary some effort to obtain agreement among the

"experts," suggesting that Chesney as the ablest of them all should

first be approached. On November 8th Chesney and Wilkinson dined at

Sloane Street, and, Chesney having expressed his general concurrence in

the views as to administration explained in _Imperial Defence_, Dilke

proposed that Wilkinson should draft a letter to the Prime Minister,

embodying the main points, to be signed by all three and by Arnold-

Forster, if he should be in accord with them, and to be sent not only to

Mr. Gladstone, but to the leaders of the Opposition. The result was the

following letter, which was eventually signed and sent on February 12th,

1894, to Mr. Gladstone (then Prime Minister), to Lord Salisbury, the

Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Chamberlain:

Sir,

The late debate in the House of Commons on the subject of the navy

was one of many symptoms of a widespread uneasiness with regard to

the defences of the Empire. There is a doubt of the sufficiency of

the naval establishments and of the efficiency in some respects of

the systems under which the navy and the army are administered. This

failure of confidence has been of gradual growth. Those who think it

justified do not attribute the responsibility for it to any one

administration or to either party in the State. Yet it seems

difficult to discuss these doubts in Parliament without, at least,

the appearance of censure upon the Government of the day, a result

which is unfortunate, for the subject should unite rather than

divide parties, and upon its paramount importance there is no

difference of opinion.

For this reason a service may perhaps be rendered by the

communication to the Prime Minister and to the leaders of the

Opposition of suggestions which commend themselves to men of

different parties who have from different points of view for many

years given attention to questions relating to national defence.

No arrangements which aimed at or resulted in a subversion of the

principles which experience has shown to be essential to the working

of constitutional government could be seriously considered. But no

system of defence, however constitutional, can avail unless it be

shaped with a view to war. It is to the conciliation of these two

necessities, that of compatibility with the constitution and that of

adaptation to the purpose of war, that our attention has been

directed.

If the preservation of peace depended upon the goodwill of the

British Government, there would perhaps be little need for a navy or

an army. The existence of these services implies that this is not

the case, and that safety in time of war depends upon forethought

and preparation in advance. Such preparation involves a view of the

nature of a possible war and an estimate of the intensity of the

effort it would impose, this view and this estimate furnishing the

standard for the quantity and quality of the means to be kept

available.

The design, without which even a defensive war cannot be carried on,

and in the absence of which preparations made during peace must fail

to serve their purpose, is properly the secret of the Government.

Yet, where the Government is responsible to a Parliament, it is

indispensable either that so much of the design should be

communicated to Parliament as will enable it to judge of the

necessity and of the sufficiency of the preparations for which

supplies must be voted, or that Parliament should know who are the

professional advisers upon whose judgment the Government relies.

Neither of these conditions seems to us at present to be fulfilled,

and as a consequence of the omission there has arisen in the public

mind that distrust to which we have alluded.

The leading decision in the administration of the national defence,

governing the whole course and character of any future war, is that

which settles the total amount of expenditure upon preparation and

apportions it between the naval and military services. For this

decision the Cabinet is, and must ever be, responsible. Yet in the

distribution of the business of the Cabinet into departments there

appears to be no office specially entrusted with the consideration

of war as a whole, embracing the functions both of the navy and of

the army. Of the sums usually devoted each year to warlike

preparations, the larger part is spent upon the army, and only a

lesser part upon the navy, upon which the maintenance of the Empire

and the security of Great Britain must ever chiefly depend. It is

difficult to believe that this apportionment is the result of

deliberate examination of the requirements of war. It would seem

more probable that the separate existence of a department of the

navy and a department of the army leads in practice to the

management of each for its own sake rather than as an instrument

serving a more general purpose.

In order to secure the special consideration by the Cabinet of

national defence as distinct from and superior to the administration

either of the navy or of the army, we would suggest the appointment

of one and the same Minister to the two offices of Secretary of

State for War and First Lord of the Admiralty, or the amalgamation,

with the consent of Parliament, of these two offices.

We would further suggest that the Cabinet should select for each

service an officer whose professional judgment commands its

confidence, to be at once the responsible adviser of the Cabinet

upon all questions regarding the conduct of war so far as his own

service is concerned, and the principal executive officer of that

service.

We understand by a responsible adviser one who stands or falls by

the advice which he gives. He would, of course, have at his

disposal, in the formation of his views, the best assistance which

the professional staff of the navy or of the army could supply. But

the opinion which, after mature consideration, he would submit to

the Cabinet, and formally record, would be his own and would be

given in his own name. It follows that a difference of opinion

between the Cabinet and its naval or its military adviser upon any

important matter of naval or military policy would lead to the

resignation of the latter. In our view, the essence of

responsibility for advice is that the officer giving it is

identified with it, and remains in the post only so long as his

judgment upon the professional matters with reference to which he is

consulted is acceptable to the Cabinet which he serves. In order to

facilitate his independence in this respect, provision should be

made, in case of his resignation, for his employment in another post

or for his honourable retirement.

If these suggestions were adopted, the passage in case of need from

peace to war would take place without personal or administrative

change. The adaptation of the whole service, whether naval or

military, to the necessities of war, as understood by a competent

officer studying them with full responsibility, would be assured.

The House of Commons and the public would have in the person of the

naval and of the military adviser a guarantee of the sufficiency and

of the efficiency of the navy and of the army. The authority of the

Cabinet and the control of the House of Commons would be unimpaired.

We are, sir,

Your obedient servants,

Charles W. Dilke.

George Chesney.

H. O. Arnold-Foster.

Spenser Wilkenson.

In December, 1893, Dilke had communicated to Mr. Balfour the draft of

this letter and his plan for sending it to the leaders of both parties.

Mr. Balfour thought the best plan for co-ordinating the two services

would be by a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, of which Dilke put his

finger on the weak point, that it gave no guarantee of meeting the

requirements of war. [Footnote: The letters printed in Appendix I., p.

451, embody the substance of previous conversations between Dilke and

Mr. Balfour. In Appendix II., p. 456, are given the replies of Mr.

Gladstone and the other leaders to the joint letter, which was

afterwards published in the newspapers.--Ed.] It was after these

communications that Mr. Balfour made his speech at Manchester on January

22nd, 1894, in which he said:

"It is responsibility which is chiefly lacking in our present

system. If anything goes wrong with the navy, you attack the First

Lord of the Admiralty. If anything goes wrong in the army, you

attack the Secretary for War. If anything goes wrong in the Home

Department, you attack the Secretary to the Home Department. But if

the general scheme of national and imperial defence is not properly

managed, there is nobody to attack but the whole Cabinet; and the

Cabinet as a whole is not, in my opinion, a very good body to carry

on the detailed work of that, any more than of any other, department

of the State."

These private discussions between Dilke and Mr. Balfour foreshadowed the

actual course which reform was to take. It began in 1895 with the

adoption of Mr. Balfour's plan of a Committee of the Cabinet; it ended

in 1904 by Mr. Balfour as Prime Minister adopting Dilke's plan, and

undertaking himself, as chairman of that Committee, the co-ordination of

the two services. Then and not till then the fundamental principle of

the primacy of the navy in the defence of the Empire was formally

recognized.

The next step of the signatories to the joint letter was action in

Parliament. Dilke gave notice that, on the introduction of the Army

Estimates, he would move the following resolution:

"That this House, before voting supplies for the maintenance of

military establishments in the United Kingdom, seeks an assurance

from Her Majesty's Government that the estimates for that purpose

submitted to it are framed upon consideration of possible war by sea

and land, and upon a consideration of advice tendered in that behalf

by such officer of either service as is fitted to command in war Her

Majesty's forces of that service."

The debate took place on March 16th, 1894. In the course of his speech

Dilke said:

"What I want to know, and what the Cabinet in framing the estimates

ought to know, is this: Are the proposals before the House those

which alone are capable of securing the safety of the country and of

the Empire?... I wish to know whether the Government present these

estimates as representing the least, but still what is sufficient,

for the needs of the country for the next twelve months, not only

for the protection of the whole country and the Empire, but for the

protection of our trade in all parts of the world....

"The Cabinet must obtain the best advice possible. I, for my part,

should prefer that the advice should be concentrated for each

service, because I think it is far more responsible advice if it

comes mainly on the responsibility of a single man as regards the

army and navy respectively than if you dispersed it among a great

number of people.... As far as I am concerned, form in this matter

is immaterial. I have stated what I want to secure, and I will put

two or three different ways of securing it which would very often

come to the same thing. What I ventured to suggest at first was that

the Prime Minister should be brought to take more personal concern

in the defence of the country than is the case at the present time;

that he should consider himself mainly responsible for the joint

consideration of the whole defence proposals; that he should hear

the Secretary for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and their

advisers, if he is doubtful, and that they together, more seriously

than has been the case in the past, should go into the difficulties

of the problem, and he should then advise with them as to the

estimates.... There was another suggestion made--that a Defence

Minister, a Minister who should represent the army and navy, should

be the person charged specially with the responsibility to this

House.... But I am not wedded to any particular form. Whether the

Prime Minister specially undertakes the duty, whether it is

undertaken by a Defence Minister, or whether the suggestion is

adopted--which, I believe, is that of the Leader of the Opposition

(Mr. Balfour)--that a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, which I have

heard was instituted by the late Government, should be provided with

a more avowed and distinct position, armed with permanent

responsible advisers, and equipped with records so as to hand over

its work to those by whom they might be succeeded in office--all

these plans would come at the present moment to very much the same

thing."

The resolution was seconded by Arnold-Forster, and supported in a clear

and relevant speech by Sir George Chesney. In the debate which followed,

Mr. Balfour expressed his adherence to the third of the plans described

by Sir Charles Dilke. "I rather contemplate," he said, "that the Prime

Minister, with or without his colleagues, or a Committee of the Cabinet,

with or without the Prime Minister, should constitute themselves a body

with permanent records and confidential advisers." Campbell-Bannerman

expressed general agreement with the object Dilke had in view, and

added: "I entertain almost identically the opinion which has been

expressed by the Leader of the Opposition." Having thus obtained the

concurrence of both parties to one of the plans which, it was thought,

might fulfil the purpose in view, Dilke withdrew the motion.

In 1895 (March 11th) a resolution couched in the precise words of that

of 1894 was moved by Mr. Arnold-Forster on the introduction of the Navy

Estimates. In supporting it Dilke said:

"The sole purpose of all this very large expenditure was to enable

us to achieve victory at sea, which was essential to our very

existence as a nation; and what the resolution asked was an

assurance that the Government had had under its consideration the

nature of the efforts that would be called for to secure victory and

the distribution of these efforts between the land and sea forces."

On March 15th, in the discussion of the Army Estimates, Dilke raised a

doubt "whether there was in our system of military administration any

security that those we put into positions of high command, where they

were able to get military experience, were only those men who were

fitted for such posts and would hold command in time of war."

On June 21st, 1895, Campbell-Bannerman announced the retirement of the

Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, and his own intention to

adopt the main lines of the scheme of the Hartington Committee. He would

appoint a Commander-in-Chief with reduced powers who would be the

principal military adviser of the Secretary of State, and he, with the

other heads of departments, who would each be directly responsible to

the Minister, would constitute a deliberative Council, so that the

Secretary of State, when he gave his decisions, would be guided and

supported by the express opinions of all the experienced officers by

whom he was surrounded.

Thereupon Mr. Brodrick, now Lord Midleton, moved to reduce the salary of

the Secretary of State by way of a vote of censure on the insufficiency

of the supply of cordite ammunition. A brief debate followed in which

Campbell-Bannerman failed to convince the House that the supply was

adequate, and in the division this vote of censure was carried by 132

against 125. This division overthrew the Liberal Ministry. Dilke took no

part in the debate, but voted in the majority. For this vote

Campbell-Bannerman never forgave him.

In the new Ministry formed by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister, Mr.

Balfour became First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of

Commons, Lord Lansdowne Secretary of State for War, Mr. Brodrick

Under-Secretary of State for War, and Mr. Goschen First Lord of the

Admiralty. The first act of the new Government was to remodel the

general arrangements for national and imperial defence. The scheme was

described in general terms by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords on

August 26th, and more specifically by Mr. Brodrick in the House of

Commons on August 31st. There was to be a Defence Committee of the

Cabinet under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire. Mr. Brodrick's

words implied that the creation of this body was due to the action of

Sir Charles Dilke, who, in the debate on the Address, had again urged

his views on this subject.

Of the army Lord Wolseley was to be the new Commander-in-Chief. But,

instead of being at the head of the military departments of the War

Office, he was to have charge only of the intelligence and mobilization

departments, and to be the President of an Army Board of which the other

members were to be the Adjutant-General, the Quartermaster-General, the

Director of Artillery, and the Inspector-General of Fortifications, each

of whom was to be directly responsible for his own department to the

Secretary of State. "The main principle of the change," said Mr.

Brodrick, "is the separate responsibility of the military heads of

departments to the Secretary of State for their departments, and the

focussing of military opinion by means of the Army Board presided over

by the Commander-in-Chief." When Mr. Brodrick had finished his

statement, Dilke immediately rose and said that

"he had listened to the statement with something like dismay, for

some of the changes made had been in his view entirely in the wrong

direction.... There certainly had not been, during the many years he

had been in the House, any debate in which the issues presented to

the House had been so momentous.... To that portion of the

Government's scheme which involved the position of the Duke of

Devonshire in relation to Imperial defence he was fully favourable.

He believed he was the original suggester of the proposal in 1888.

What had been said by the Undersecretary went to suggest the

creation of a Committee of the Cabinet only, which had been formed,

they were told, by the late Government. If so, the matter was

minimized, and there was less security given to the country than

they had hoped. The first thing to be secured was that there should

be the individual responsibility of one great member of the Cabinet

rather than the collective responsibility of a considerable number.

"In regard to the reorganization of the War Office itself, he viewed

with dismay the further explanations given to-day by the

Under-Secretary. What had been the main objection to the past

management of the army in this country? It had been that

responsibility had been frittered away among a great number of

different Boards.... He hoped that the new man chosen to be the head

of the army would be in practice the real head of the army and the

real adviser of the Secretary of State. What he feared they were

doing was to create a copy of the Admiralty in those particular

points in which the Admiralty itself had been the subject of

criticism.... The Government, he contended, ought to recommend the

one man, the Commander-in-Chief, and in the first instance take his

opinion and regard him as ultimately responsible. Having picked out

the most competent man, he hoped the Government would put the

arrangement under that man and not under the civilian Secretary of

State.... It was a mistake to give the Commander-in-Chief a

department; he ought to be above the departments, and the

departments ought to report to him. He had ventured for many years

to ask in the first place that the Cabinet should consider the whole

problem of Imperial defence, and in the second place that they

should pick out the best man and trust him."

In reply to Dilke, Mr. Balfour said:

"If you put the Secretary of State for War in direct communication

with the Commander-in-Chief alone, I do not see how the Secretary of

State for War can be anything else than the administrative puppet of

the great soldier who is at the head of the army. He may come down

to the House and express the views of that great officer; but if he

is to take official advice from the Commander-in-Chief alone, it is

absolutely impossible that the Secretary of State should be really

responsible, and in this House the Secretary of State will be no

more than the mouthpiece of the Commander-in-Chief. It seems to me

that the differences in this branch of the subject between the right

hon. gentleman (Sir Charles Dilke) and the Government are of a more

fundamental character than I anticipated."

The difference was indeed fundamental, for Dilke was thinking about war,

and Mr. Balfour was thinking only of Ministerial responsibility. In case

of a war in which the welfare, possibly the independence, of the nation

would be at stake, what civilian Secretary of State would wish to be

personally responsible for victory or defeat, or to be more than the

mouthpiece of a great soldier at the head of the army?

The Commander-in-Chief had been a military officer whose function was to

co-ordinate the work of the heads of the several military departments.

The change made in 1895 transferred to the Secretary of State this duty

previously performed by the Commander-in-Chief. Sir James Stephen's

Commission had reported in 1887 that it was morally and physically

impossible that any one man should satisfactorily discharge the

functions which at that time belonged to the Secretary of State. To them

in 1895 the Government added those of the Commander-in-Chief. The result

was that in 1899 the Secretary of State failed to fulfil the most

important of all his functions, that of maintaining accord between the

policy of the Cabinet and the military preparations. The Committee of

Defence, which was appointed in 1895, might perhaps have performed this

essential function if it had ever taken a serious view of its work. But

it in doubtful whether it ever did any work at all.

II.

In the new Parliament, Dilke moved on March 5th, 1896, for a return of

the number of British seamen available for service in the navy in time

of war.

"One difficulty," he said, "that had to be faced was that in debates

like the present they had no real opportunity of engaging in a

collective review of the whole defensive expenditure of the country on

the army and navy taken together.... They expected from the Government a

policy which could be explained to the House--either a policy of

alliances, to which he himself was rootedly opposed; or the policy,

which was the only true policy for this country, of keeping up such a

fleet as would make us safe against any probable combination. The point

to which he wished to draw most urgent attention was that the real

reserve of England was disappearing very fast. The British sailor was

becoming more and more a rare article of luxury. He was used on the

first-class liners, and not used elsewhere.... There was another point

of importance. Among these foreigners there were many masters of ships,

and they were taught the pilotage of our rivers. That was a very serious

matter, and might become a great danger in time of war."

It soon became evident that the changes made in 1895 had not produced

improvement either in the Government's arrangements for national defence

or in the management of the army. In November, 1896, Lord Lansdowne,

Secretary of State for War, and Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Chancellor of

the Exchequer, made speeches the same evening at Bristol. The Secretary

of State expressed the intention to make a slight increase in the number

of battalions in the army, while the Chancellor declared that he would

consent to no increase in the Army Estimates until he could feel more

confidence in the manner in which the money was expended. This

disagreement between members of the Cabinet led to inquiries, through

which Dilke became aware that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley,

wished for a larger increase in the number of battalions than the

Secretary of State was willing to propose. The opportunity seemed

suitable for raising the question whether or not the military measures

proposed by the Government were those suggested by their military

adviser--a fundamental question. Lord Lansdowne having explained in the

House of Lords in February, 1897, that his proposal was to add two

battalions to the Guards and one to the Cameron Highlanders, and that he

hoped in this way to restore the equilibrium between the number of

battalions at home and the number abroad, Dilke in the House of Commons

pointed out (February 8th) that the measure proposed would not establish

the desired equilibrium, and that the proposal was anonymous. Who, he

asked, were the military authorities on whose advice the Government

relied? Mr. Brodrick, in reply, said that the proposals of the

Government, taken as a whole, had been gratefully accepted by one and

all of the military heads of the War Office, as, in the words of the

Commander-in-Chief, "such a step forward as has not been made for many

years." Thus it became clear that the military heads, including the

Commander-in-Chief, were as ready to be overruled in regard to their

views as to what was necessary for the army as the civilian Minister was

to overrule them.

In the Christmas recess of 1897-98 Dilke prepared for the next Session

by writing a pamphlet on Army Reform in which he reviewed the position.

He and the other reformers had steadily asserted that the home army

could not take the field until it had drawn heavily on the reserve; that

it was terribly short of artillery; that the seven to eight years'

enlistment was a hybrid, and that the sound course was to have a

short-term service with the colours at home followed by a choice between

a long term in the reserve and a long term in the Indian or Colonial

army; and, lastly, that the administration was over-centralized at the

War Office, to the detriment of the authority, the efficiency, and the

character, of the generals. The critics had further urged that the

linked-battalion system and the hybrid term, bad as they were, could not

be worked at all without a large increase of the number of battalions at

home. In 1897 the War Office had replied that an increase of three

battalions would suffice.

The new estimates were introduced in the House of Commons on February

25th, 1898, by Mr. Brodrick, who admitted that, in order to put 50,000

infantry into the field, it would be necessary to call out 28,000

reservists. In order to have artillery enough for a fraction of the army

he asked for fifteen more batteries. He had to admit that the three

battalions added in 1897 were not enough, and to ask for six more. The

speech was an admission of all the contentions of the critics, though it

began by abusing them.

In the debate Dilke moved: "That no scheme for the reorganization of the

army will be satisfactory which involves the sacrifice of one unit to

secure the efficiency of any other." He referred to the admitted

breakdown of the eight-years and linked-battalion system. Mr. Brodrick,

quoting Lord Wolseley, had reassured the country by telling them that

they could despatch two army corps abroad.

"Two army corps!" exclaimed Dilke, "when it is twenty army corps which

this country pays for!... Out of the men at home, if cavalry and

artillery were provided, twenty corps instead of two corps might be

made.... In the last three years the cost of the army has been

considerably increased, and there has been an increase in numbers voted.

Yet there has been a decrease not only in the militia, but also in the

regular army and in the army reserve as well during that period--an

additional evidence of breakdown.... The territorial system here can

never be anything more than a sham so long as we have to provide for

India and garrison coaling-stations, and so long as the battalions are

constantly moved about.... We have year by year made our statements with

regard to artillery to the House. Nobody believed a word we said, and it

was only last year, when three batteries were sent out to the Cape, and

twenty batteries wrecked in men and horses to provide them, that the War

Office at last admitted that we had all along been right.... On this

occasion we see some results, in the speech of the right hon. gentleman

to-night, of our action in the past."

The Navy Estimates were introduced in July. Lord Charles Beresford in

his argument had pointed out that the cost of the navy bore a much

smaller proportion to our mercantile marine than that of the navies of

other countries. Dilke said:

"The position of the British Empire is such that, if by the

mercantile policy of other countries our mercantile marine were

wholly to disappear, or if it were to disappear as the result of a

war in which our carrying trade passed, say, to the United States,

it would be just as necessary as now for us to have a predominant

fleet.... If the pressure of taxation on the poorer classes, if the

unrest in this country on the subject, were so great that it was not

possible to make the sacrifices which I for one think it necessary

to make, I would sooner give up the whole expenditure on the army

than give way upon this naval programme.... This matter of the fleet

is vital to our position in the world. The army is an arguable

question."

Dilke continued steadily to press for a strong navy. In 1899 he once

more supported Mr. Goschen's proposals, and again urged that, if the

cost of the army and navy should be too great, we must save on the army,

but not on the navy. His chief criticism of the Admiralty was that "we

have got into the vicious position of beginning our building programme

each year at the extreme end of the financial year."

The keynote of his speech was: "This Empire is an Empire of the seas,

and the navy is vital to our existence, but our army is not. Our Indian

army is vital to our possession of India, but India pays the full cost

of it, perhaps rather more."

III.

During the winter of 1898-99 the opposition of purposes between the

British Government and the Government of the South African Republic was

causing grave apprehension to public men. The High Commissioner, Sir

Alfred Milner, paid a visit to England, and on his return to the Cape

was authorized in May, 1899, to meet President Kruger in a Conference at

Bloemfontein. On June 7th the failure of the Conference was announced,

and was thought by many to be the equivalent of a diplomatic rupture,

the prelude to hostilities. No serious military preparations were made

by the British Government, though various measures were suggested by the

Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley, and by Sir Redvers Buller. It was not

until September 10th that 10,000 men were ordered from India to Natal,

and not until October 7th that orders were issued for the calling out of

the reserve and for the mobilization of an army corps and other troops

for South Africa. The Boers began hostilities on October 11th, and the

operations were unfavourable to the British until the middle of

February, when Lord Roberts began the advance towards Kimberley.

At the end of January, 1900, the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, said in

the House of Lords: "I do not believe in the perfection of the British

Constitution as an instrument of war ... it is evident that there is

something in your machinery that is wrong."

In the debate on the Army Estimates on February 1st, Dilke, with his

usual courage, raised the question of responsibility, in a speech to

which little attention was paid at the time, but which will now, in the

light of subsequent events, be better appreciated.

"The country," he said, "has gone through an awful winter, and under our

constitutional system there are persons responsible, and we have to

examine the nature of their responsibility. Some Government speakers,

who during the recess have addressed the country, have drawn certain

comparisons between the occurrences in this war and those of the Crimean

War.... I confess that I believe the present war has been far more

disgracefully conducted than the Crimean War had been, and that the

mourning is far more applicable to this case. Now, with regard to the

checks or reverses--that is the accepted phrase--we are really afraid in

these days to talk about 'disasters.' The First Lord of the Treasury at

Manchester distinctly stated there had been 'no disaster.' There has

been no single great engagement in which we have met with an absolute

disaster, but for the first time in our military history there has been

a succession of checks or reverses--unredeemed as they have been by a

single great military success in the whole course of the war--in many of

which we have left prisoners in the enemy's hands. We began with the

abandonment of the entrenched camp at Dundee, and of the great

accumulation of stores that had been made there, of the wounded, and of

the dying General, and we lost the headquarters of a regiment of cavalry

that tried a cavalry pursuit. We lost the headquarters of two battalions

at Nicholson's Nek; we lost the headquarters of one battalion and a very

large portion of another battalion in the repulse at Stormberg; we lost

the Colonel, most of the field officers, and the whole of one company of

the Suffolks, on another occasion. These headquarters of cavalry, and

the principal portion of the remaining men of five battalions of British

infantry, are now prisoners at Pretoria--not to speak of what happened

to the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein, or of the loss of the guns in

the repulse at the Tugela, or of the fact that thirteen of our field

guns, besides a mountain battery, are now in the enemy's hands. The loss

of guns in proportion to our small strength of guns is equivalent to the

loss of some 300 guns by the German army. None of these events

constitutes what the First Lord of the Treasury calls a disaster.

Probably he is right. But can any member of this House deny that the net

result of these proceedings has been disastrous to the belief of the

world in our ability to conduct a war? Therefore, if there has been, as

the right hon. gentleman says, not one disaster, surely the result of

the proceedings has been one disastrous to the credit of this country.

There has been one immense redemption of that disaster, which is that

all the Powers, however hostile, have very frankly acknowledged on these

occasions the heroism of the officers and men. Our military reputation,

which undoubtedly never stood lower in the eyes of the world than at the

present moment, is redeemed in that respect, and the individual courage

of officers and men never stood higher in the estimate of the world than

it does now. It seems to me to be a patriotic duty of those who have in

the past discussed in this House the question of Cabinet responsibility

for military preparations to discuss the question now; to see who is

responsible, whom--I will not say we will hang, but whom we are to hold

blameworthy in the highest degree for what has occurred. I believe that

the opinion is attributed to the Prime Minister that the British

Constitution is not a fighting machine. I am told that he has thrown

doubt upon the working of the British Constitution as a Constitution

which will allow this country successfully to go to war. That is a very

serious matter. The Constitution of this country has been maintained as

a fighting machine by the members of this House who are now responsible

for the Administration. No one has ever put the doctrine of Cabinet

responsibility for the preparation for war higher than it has always

been put by the present Leader of the House (Mr. Balfour), and anything

more direct than the conflict on that point, as on many others, between

his opinion and the opinion of the Prime Minister it is impossible to

conceive.... On Thursday last the right hon. member who preceded me in

this debate--the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr.

Brodrick)--delivered a speech and said that all that had been done in

this war had been 'solely dictated by military advice,' and 'military

advice alone determined all that had been done.' I should like the House

to consider what that statement means. The right hon. gentleman was the

member who, on three occasions, brought the question of the ammunition

supplies of this country before the House: it was he who moved the

amendment which turned out the Rosebery Administration on the cordite

vote, and he led the discussion on two subsequent occasions on which we

debated the same question. At the opening of the next Parliament the

whole question of Ministerial responsibility for war preparation was

thoroughly and exhaustively considered by this House. I confess that I

did not expect to hear the right hon. gentleman--who on those three

occasions so firmly pressed, to the very extinction of the Government

itself, the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility--as it were sheltering

the Cabinet behind military advice, advice which he rejected, as also

did the Leader of the House, with scorn upon that occasion.... I feel it

a duty to myself, and to all who hold the same opinion, to press home

this doctrine of Cabinet responsibility on this occasion. In that debate

the hon. member who seems likely to follow me in this debate--the

present Under-Secretary for War (Mr. Wyndham)--took part. He was then a

private member and warmly occupied his mind upon this question, and he

used these words: 'If they were overwhelmed by disasters, the Minister

for War would be held responsible.' Not only he, but the whole Cabinet

are responsible, and the present Leader of the House, in following the

hon. member in that debate, emphasized that fact, and pointed out the

importance of complete Cabinet responsibility. That doctrine was

emphatically maintained. There are practical reasons why this question

should be pressed home on this occasion. This is obviously the time to

press it home if ever it should be done, and it seems to me that such

practical reasons are to be found in two considerations. We have been

told that at the beginning of every war it is always fated that there

should be muddling. We have been told it from both sides of the House,

that we always begin by muddling our wars. If there is one fact more

certain than another, it is that in future wars, not with Boer

Republics, but with Great Powers, there will be no time for muddling at

the beginning of war, and it is vital that this muddling should be

guarded against. If we are to look forward as a matter of certainty that

this country is always to muddle at the beginning of a war, then we may

look forward with almost certainty to defeat."

Dilke then examined the excuses that had been made for the Government,

to the effect that the war took them by surprise and that they had no

knowledge of the Boer preparations. He showed that both these pleas were

inconsistent with the facts. Mr. Balfour had said that the Government

had thought it their duty, during the negotiations which preceded the

war, to abstain from unnecessary menace. Dilke pointed out that they did

not so abstain. Lord Salisbury had said on July 28th, 1899, "the

Conventions are mortal ... they are liable to be destroyed." That could

only be understood by the Boers as holding out the prospect of a war in

which the independence of their country would be taken away. Were these

words wise when used without the smallest preparation for war having

been made? As regards knowledge of the Boer preparations, the

Intelligence Department had admirably done its work. No Government was

ever so well informed as to the resources of its opponents as the

British Government in entering upon this war. Dilke went on to say:

"Both by those who would have anticipated war and by the Government

it has been alleged that the existence of a Parliamentary Opposition

was the reason why the military precautions of the Government were

inefficacious. But the Government has been in power since July,

1895, and has been supported by overwhelming majorities, and it

would have had the cheerful acquiescence of the House of Commons for

every measure of military precaution and all the military

expenditure which was asked. The Cabinet are responsible; but if

there is to be any difficulty on account of the existence of a

constitutional Opposition--even a weak one--I say that by that

doctrine we are fated to be beaten on every occasion we go to war.

The time for the reform of our military system will come when this

war has ended. We cannot reform it in a time of war. We have often

addressed the House upon this subject. We preached to deaf ears. We

were not listened to before war. Shall we be listened to when war is

over? While I admit that in a time of war you cannot reform your

military system, what you can do is to press home to the Cabinet the

responsibility.... For some years past there have been discussions

as to Empire expansion which have divided some of us from others on

military questions. There are some of us, who are strong supporters

of the Government in preparing for war in the present situation of

the world, who are not in favour of what is called the expansion of

the Empire. We have resisted it because we believed the military

requirements of the Empire were greater--as it was put by Lord

Charles Beresford, whom we see here no longer--than we were prepared

to meet. And the Government now come down to the House and quietly

tell us that that is so. They have put it in the Queen's Speech. We

have it stated that, although the money we have to spend in military

preparations is more than that of any other Power in the world, we

are going to be asked to spend more. I should hope that good may

come out of evil, and that a result of this sad war may be the

proper utilization of our resources in preparing, in times of peace,

all the military forces of what people call Greater Britain.... I

venture to say that the Government went into this war without the

preparation they should have made. Their neglect of that precaution

has brought about the reverses we have met with, and the natural

consequence is the failure of our arms I have described. As regards

the Crimean War, which in some respects has been compared with this,

one is reminded of the present Commander-in-Chief, who has written

these momentous words: The history of the Crimean War shows 'how an

army may be destroyed by a Ministry through want of ordinary

forethought.' I confess that I think there is only one point in

which the two cases are exactly parallel--for there are many

distinctions between them--and that is in the heroism of officers

and men."

On July 27th, 1900, on the occasion of a supplementary estimate for the

South African War, Dilke criticized the censorship of letters from the

front, in consequence of which the truth about the military mistakes

made remained unknown. He reviewed a series of blunders that had been

made in the war, and quoted the opinion of an eminent foreign strategist

to the effect that "the mistakes which had been made were mistakes on

immutable and permanent principles." Thus, there was a doubt whether the

army had been properly trained for war in the past and was being

properly trained at that moment. He asked for a full inquiry into these

matters.

That inquiry was never made. The Royal Commission appointed after the

war to inquire into its conduct began by disclaiming authority to

inquire into the policy out of which the war arose, and by asserting its

own incompetence to discuss the military operations.

In a paper contributed to the _New Liberal Review_ of February, 1901,

Dilke reviewed the South African War, and summed up:

"The war, then, has revealed deficiency in the war training of the

Staff in particular, and of the army generally. It has shown that

the recommendations of the Commander-in-Chief to the Cabinet for the

nomination of Generals to high commands were not based on real

tests. It has called attention to the amateurishness of portions of

our forces. It has proved that for years the reformers have been

right, and the War Office wrong, as regards the number and

proportion of guns needed by us and the rapidity of the mobilization

of our artillery.

"Remedies which will certainly be attempted are--Better training of

the Staff, especially in the thinking out and writing of orders;

weeding out of incompetent amateurs from among our officers; better

pay for the men; careful preparation in time of peace of a picked

Imperial force of mounted infantry from all parts of the Empire. But

greater changes, urgently as they are demanded by the national

interest, will not be accomplished, as public excitement will die

down, and triflers and obstructives will remain at the head of

affairs, in place of the Carnot who is needed as organizer to back

the best General that can be found for the Commander-in-Chief.

"The greatest of the lessons of the war was the revelation of the

neglect, by statesmen, to prepare for wars which their policy must

lead them to contemplate as possible.... The long duration of the

war, with all its risks to our Imperial interests, is to be laid at

the door of the politicians rather than of the Generals. This, the

greatest lesson, has not been learnt."

IV.

After the General Election of December, 1900, there was a shifting of

offices in the Cabinet, by which Mr. Brodrick succeeded Lord Lansdowne

as Secretary of State for War, and Lord Selborne became First Lord of

the Admiralty instead of Mr. Goschen. Lord Roberts was brought home from

South Africa to become Commander-in-Chief, and the direction of the war

was left in the hands of Lord Kitchener. The first important event in

the new Parliament was a speech by Lord Wolseley in the House of Lords,

in which he warned the nation against the dangerous consequences of the

system introduced in 1895, which failed to give its proper place to the

military judgment in regard to preparations for war. The warning was

disregarded. Mr. Brodrick announced the determination of the Government

to maintain the system set up in 1895, and to give to Lord Roberts as

Commander-in-Chief the same position of maimed and crippled authority as

had been given to Lord Wolseley six years before.

Mr. Brodrick, while carrying on the war in South Africa, attempted at

the same time to reform the army. The results were the more unfortunate

because on vital matters, both of organization at the War Office and of

the reorganization of the army, Mr. Brodrick insisted on overriding the

great soldier to whom, as Commander-in-Chief, was due whatever

confidence the country gave to the military administration. Mr. Brodrick

was much preoccupied with the defence of the United Kingdom against

invasion. In the debate on the Army Estimates of 1901, Dilke said:

"I am one of those who hold that the command of the seas is the

defence of this country. I believe that the British Army exists

mainly for the reinforcement of the Indian garrison, and, if

necessary, as the rudiment of that army which, in the event of a

great war, would be necessary."

Dilke continued to support the Admiralty in its endeavours to strengthen

the navy. In the debate on the Navy Estimates of 1901 (March 22nd) he

said:

"The Secretary of State for the Colonies a few years ago made a

speech in favour of an alliance with a military Power. [Footnote:

See _infra_, p. 491.] He said that the alternative was to build up

so as to make ourselves safe against a combination of three Powers,

and that that would entail an addition of fifty per cent. to the

estimates. Since that time we have added more than fifty per cent.

to our estimates. Of course the expenditure is very great; but is

there a man in this House who believes that it is not necessary for

us to maintain that practical standard which would lead even three

Powers to hesitate before attacking? During the last year we have,

happily, had friendship between ourselves and Germany; I believe

that friendship may long continue, and I hope it will. But it is

impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that there have been

distinctly proposed to the German Houses, by Admiral Tirpitz,

estimates which are based on the possibility of a war with England.

Von der Goltz, who is the highest literary authority on this

subject, has said the same thing. We have seen also that remarkable

preparation of strategic cables on the part of Germany ... in order

to be entirely independent of British cables in the event of a

possible naval war. In face of facts of that kind, which can be

infinitely multiplied, it seems to me it would be monstrous on our

part to fail to maintain that standard, and that it is our bounden

duty to make up for the delays which have occurred, and to vote

programmes for the future which should be sufficient to keep up that

standard."

When the Navy Estimates for 1902 were introduced into the House of

Commons by Arnold-Forster as Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty,

Mr. Lough moved an amendment: "That the growing expenditure on the naval

defences of the Empire imposes under the existing conditions an undue

burden on the taxpayers of the United Kingdom." Dilke, in opposing the

amendment, deprecated the introduction of party considerations into a

discussion concerning the navy. The time taken to build ships ought to

be borne in mind. The usual period had lately been four years; many of

the ships of the 1897 programme had not yet been commissioned; therefore

it was necessary to remember that the country would go into a naval war

with ships according to the programme of four or five years before war

was declared. Mr. Goschen was a careful First Lord of the Admiralty, yet

Mr. Goschen in his programme year after year alluded to the necessity of

maintaining a fleet which would cause not two but three Powers to pause

before they attacked us. To his (Dilke's) mind, it was infinitely more

important to the country that its expenditure should be shaped, not

towards meeting a sudden attack by two Powers, which was not going to

occur, but towards meeting--not immediately, but in time to come--the

possibility of an eventual joining together of three Powers, one of

which was very rapidly building a magnificent fleet. From that point of

view the programme of the Government this year was a beggarly programme.

In introducing the Navy Estimates for 1903 Arnold-Forster said that they

were of a magnitude unparalleled in peace or war. Dilke, in supporting

them, said (March 17th):

"The standard which Lord Spencer gave to this House was not a fleet

equivalent to three fleets--not a fleet, certainly, on all points

equivalent to the fleets of France, Germany, and Russia--but a

standard which gave us such a position in the world of fleets as

would cause three Powers to pause before they entered into a

coalition against us. That was a position he had always contended

was necessary for the safety of this country.... The only weak point

that one could discern as really dangerous in the future was the

training of the officers for high command and the selection of

officers, which would give this country, in the event of war, that

real unity of operations which ought to be our advantage against any

allied Powers."

V.

On June 20th, 1902, Lord Charles Beresford had raised the question of

the organization of the Admiralty, which he held to be defective for the

purpose of preparation for war. "The administrative faculty," he said,

"should be absolutely separate from the executive faculty, but at

present they were mixed up." Campbell-Bannerman held that no change was

necessary. Dilke supported Lord Charles Beresford, and after reviewing

the cordite debates of 1895, to which both the previous speakers had

referred, gave his reasons for holding that the duty of the Cabinet was

to control both services in order to secure that each should take its

proper share in defence. "If there was a very strong man, or even one

who thought himself very strong, at the head of either department, the

present system tended to break down, because, unless there was some

joint authority in the Cabinet strong enough to control even a strong

First Lord of the Admiralty, no joint consideration of the views of the

two departments could be obtained. At the present moment the two

services competed." Lord Charles Beresford and Dilke were supported by

Sir John Colomb, and in his reply Arnold-Forster said: "I cannot but

reaffirm the belief I held before I stood at this table, and since I

have stood here, that there is a need for some reinforcement of the

intellectual equipment which directs or ought to direct the enormous

forces of our Empire." The question was raised again on August 6th by

Major Seely, in a speech in which he commented on the lack of a body

charged with the duty of studying strategical questions. Mr. Balfour

thereupon said:

"We cannot leave this matter to one department or two departments

acting separately. It is a joint matter; it must be a joint matter.

I hope my honourable friend will take it from me that the Government

are fully alive, and have, if I may say so, long been fully alive,

to the difficulty of the problem which presents itself to his mind

and which he has explained to the House; and that that problem is

one always present to our minds. It is one which we certainly do not

mean to neglect to meet and grapple with to the best of our

ability."

In 1903, in an article contributed to the Northern Newspaper Syndicate,

Dilke wrote:

"We are face to face with the fact that Mr. Brodrick's scheme is

admitted from all sides, except by those actually responsible for it

who are still holding office, to be a failure; that under this

scheme the charge on the British Empire for defence in time of peace

stands at eighty-six millions sterling, of which fifty-two millions

at least are for land defence, nevertheless ill secured; that

without a complete change of system these gigantic figures must

rapidly increase; and that, while all agree that in our case the

navy ought to be predominant, no one seems to be able to control the

War Office, or to limit the expenditure upon land defence as

contrasted with naval preparations. The service members of the House

of Commons, who used to be charged with wasting their own and the

nation's time upon military details, or upon proposals for increase

of expenditure, have shown their patriotism and their intelligence

by going to the root of this great question. They brought about the

declaration of the Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Arnold-Forster,

on June 20th, 1902, and the complete acceptance of that declaration

by the Prime Minister on August 6th. They have now forced on

Parliament and on the Prime Minister the necessity of taking real

action upon his declaration that 'the problem of Imperial defence

cannot be left to one department or two departments acting

separately.' The utilization of the resources of the British Empire

for war must be the business of the Prime Minister, who is above the

War Office and the Admiralty, and who alone can lead the Cabinet to

co-ordinate the efforts of the two services."

In October, 1903, Arnold-Forster was appointed to succeed Mr. Brodrick

as Secretary of State for War. He had previously expressed, in

conversation, his wish to see the whole subject of Imperial defence

entrusted to a Committee of three men conversant with it, and had named

Sir Charles Dilke and Sir John Colomb as two of the three whom he would

choose if he had the power. In November a Committee of three was

appointed by Mr. Balfour to report on the organization of the War

Office. Its members were Lord Esher, Admiral Sir John (now Lord) Fisher,

and Sir George Sydenham Clarke (now Lord Sydenham). The first instalment

of this Committee's report, published on February 1st, 1904, proposed

the reconstitution of the War Office on the model of the Board of

Admiralty, and as a preliminary the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief

and the heads of the great departments at the War Office.

At the same time the Cabinet Committee of Defence was reconstituted

under the presidency of the Prime Minister (Mr. Balfour). Thus at

length, eleven years after Sir Charles Dilke's first conversations with

Mr. Balfour on the subject, was adopted the suggestion he had urged for

so many years, and so fully explained in his speech of March 16th, 1894,

that a Prime Minister should undertake to consider the needs both of the

army and navy, and the probable functions of both in war.

VI.

The result was very soon manifest in a complete change of policy, which

was no doubt facilitated by the presence in the Cabinet, as Secretary of

State for War, of Mr. Arnold-Forster, one of the signatories of the

joint letter of 1894.

On March 28th, 1905, Arnold-Forster said:

"We have been adding million after million to our naval expenditure.

Are all these millions wasted? If it be true, as we are told by

representatives of the Admiralty, that the navy is in a position

such as it has never occupied before--that it is now not only our

first line of defence, but our guarantee for the possession of our

own islands--is that to make no difference to a system which has

grown up avowedly and confessedly on the basis of defending these

islands by an armed land force against an invasion? Is that to make

no difference? Is this view some invention of my own imagination?

No, sir, that is the deliberate conclusion of the Government,

advised by a body which has been called into, I believe, a useful

existence during the last eighteen months, and which I regret was

not called into existence much longer ago--the Committee of

Defence.... I have seen it stated that, provided our navy is

sufficient, the greatest anticipation we can form in the way of a

landing of a hostile army would be a force of 5,000. I should be

deceiving the House if I thought that represented the extreme naval

view. The extreme naval view is that the crew of a dinghy could not

land in this country in the face of the navy."

This speech showed the conversion of the Government, for which Sir

Charles Dilke had laboured so long, to the doctrine of the primacy of

the navy and of defence by the command of the sea.

On May 11th, Mr. Balfour in the name of the Committee of Defence put

forth the general view which that body had reached. In the first place,

provided the navy was efficient, a successful invasion of the country

upon a large scale need not be contemplated. Secondly, the Committee had

gone on the broad line that our force should as far as possible be

concentrated at the centre of the Empire. This had rendered unnecessary

expenditure which had been undertaken under a different view of our

needs, the most notable case being the works at St. Lucia, which had

been made by Lord Carnarvon into a great naval base. Lastly, with regard

to India, the Government adopted Lord Kitchener's view that in addition

to drafts there should be available in the relatively early stages of

the war eight divisions of infantry and other corresponding arms.

Dilke, who had described himself as a constant supporter of the

blue-water view, agreed with the Government with regard to invasion, and

welcomed Mr. Balfour's moderate view with regard to the needs of India.

But he pointed out that vast sums of money had been spent in the

fortification of places which were now discovered to be unnecessary.

"He asked the Committee to remember how far the responsibility of

all this expenditure had been on the present occupants of office. He

believed that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet was created by

Lord Rosebery at the end of his Administration in 1895. That was the

first form of the Committee. Immediately the new Government came in

it assumed its second form, and the Defence Committee of the

Conservative Government, formed in 1895 under the presidency of the

Duke of Devonshire, lasted for many years, and was composed of

substantially the same gentlemen as were in power now. It was

constantly vouched to the House as the great co-ordinating

authority, and as the body responsible for expenditure on an

enormous scale on principles diametrically opposed to those now

held. The third form of the Committee was that which was adopted

when the Prime Minister acceded to his present office. The right

hon. gentleman came to this House and at once explained the new form

of the Committee on March 5th, 1903.... The Committee had heard

to-day the extent to which invasion at home was believed in by the

Defence Committee.... It was firmly expected from the moment that

the Government announced their naval view that the reduction would

be under the military head. But instead of that the reduction had

been on the Navy Estimates, and that had not been accompanied by a

reduction on the army votes. That had been the amazing effect of the

co-ordination. Had any member of the Committee calculated how much

money had been wasted in the last nine and a half years by the

non-adoption in 1895, when virtually the present Government came

into office, of the policy which had been adopted now?"

VII.

The Government which had thus tardily followed Sir Charles Dilke's lead

had lost the confidence of the country. The General Election of 1905

gave the Liberals a large majority. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the

new Prime Minister, had not forgotten Dilke's vote in the cordite

division of 1895, and did not share his view of the necessity to be

ready for war, and to rely, not upon arbitration, but upon the

organization of defensive preparations. Dilke was not included in the

new Ministry, in which Mr. (now Lord) Haldane was appointed Secretary of

State for War. Mr. Haldane undertook a fresh reorganization of the

military forces of the country, taking the Committee of Defence and the

Army Council as they were left by Mr. Balfour after the changes proposed

by the Esher Committee. The Order in Council gave the Secretary of State

the power to reserve for his own decision any matter whatever, and to

impose that decision upon the Army Council, a power not contemplated by

the Esher Committee's report. Mr. Haldane availed himself of this power

and of the assistance of Colonel Ellison, who had been Secretary to the

Esher Committee, but was not a member of the Army Council, to prepare

his scheme. It consisted in the organization of an expeditionary force,

which was to be composed of six divisions and a cavalry division, with a

total field strength of 160,000 men, fully equipped for war, together

with additional troops at home to make good the losses of a campaign.

This force was to be made up of the regular army (of which the

establishments were reduced by some 20,000 of all arms), of its reserve,

and of the militia, renamed special reserve, also with a reduced

establishment, and with a liability to serve abroad in case of war. The

Volunteer force was to be renamed the Territorial force, and its

officers and men to be brought under the Army Act, the men to be

enlisted for a term of years and paid. It was to be organized, as the

Norfolk Commission had suggested, into brigades and divisions. But the

further suggestion of the same Commission, that a member of the Army

Council familiar with the volunteer system should be charged with its

supervision, was not adopted. Mr. Haldane's view was that the

territorial troops could not in peace receive a training which would

prepare them for war, but that, as England was not a Continental Power

and was protected by her navy, there would be six months' time, after a

war had begun, to give them a training for war. The force was to be

administered by County Associations to be constituted for the purpose.

The scheme was gradually elaborated, and in its later stage improved by

the transformation of the University and some other volunteer and cadet

corps into officers' training corps. The works which, at the suggestion

of Sir John Ardagh, had been prepared for the defence of London were

abandoned.

Mr. Haldane first expounded his plans in March, 1906, and in the debate

of March 15th Dilke said:

"There was a little too much depreciation of the Volunteers; and

although he had always been considered a strong supporter of the

'blue-water' view, yet he had always believed in accepting from the

Volunteers all the service they could give, as he believed they

would give an enormous potential supply of men."

Mr. Haldane explained (February 25th, 1907) that the expeditionary force

would require only seventy-two batteries, while the army actually had a

hundred and five; there was therefore a surplus of thirty-three

batteries which he would use as training batteries in which to train men

for divisional ammunition columns. Upon this Dilke's comment was that

"if the officer difficulty could be solved, then the real military

problem would be solved." We could raise men fast enough through the

volunteer system, and turn them into good infantry, provided there was a

sufficient supply of officers qualified to train them; but the infantry

which could thus be produced in a few months would require to be

supplemented by artillery and cavalry which could not be improvised. He

would have faced the cost of keeping up these arms, and would not have

saved by turning batteries into ammunition columns.

In the debate on Mr. Haldane's Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill (June

3rd), Dilke voted for an amendment of which the purpose was to establish

a department at the War Office under an officer having special knowledge

and experience with the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, ranking as

third member of the Army Council. This amendment, however, was not

carried.

In an article in the _Manchester Guardian_ of June 6th, 1907, Dilke

explained his main objections to Mr. Haldane's scheme and to the Bill

which was to lay its foundation.

"The cost," he wrote, "must undoubtedly be large, and it is difficult to

see where the substantial saving on Army Estimates, twice promised by

Mr. Ritchie when Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not yet secured, is to

be obtained. As an advocate of a strong fleet, I have a special reason,

equivalent to that of the most rigid economist, for insisting upon the

reduction in our enormous military charge, inasmuch as the money

unexpectedly needed for the army will come off the fleet."

Dilke thought that the defence of Great Britain depended upon the navy;

that so long as the navy was equal to its task invasion was not to be

feared. The function of the military forces would be to fight an enemy

abroad. He, therefore, held it a mistake to increase expenditure on

troops which it was not proposed to train to meet foreign regulars. The

Territorial army would be the volunteers under a new name, but without

an improved training. As the linked-battalion system and the long term

of service were retained, the regular army would still be costly, and

its reserves or power of quick expansion less than they might be. Mr.

Haldane would be compelled to retain a high rate of War Office

expenditure, and this would involve a reduction on the outlay for the

navy, which was all-important. Mr. Haldane, however, had the support of

a very large majority, and argument was of little avail. Sir Charles

Dilke therefore threw his weight into the debates on the Navy estimates,

in which he consistently supported the Admiralty in every increase.

Year after year he persevered in the effort to counteract the tendency

to exaggerate the importance of military schemes and military

expenditure, especially upon troops not fully trained and not kept ready

for action abroad, and to point out that the effect of such schemes

could not but be to reduce the amount of attention and of money devoted

to the navy. In 1904 (March 1st) he had said:

"It was an extraordinary fact that, in all calculations on the

subject of the expenditure of the army, the cost of the army outside

the United Kingdom was never taken into account. We were spending

vastly more upon the land services than we were upon our naval

services, and so long as that was so he confessed that he should

view with more than indulgence what was called the extravagant

policy in regard to the navy."

In 1907 (March 5th) he expressed his disapproval of the sweeping change

by which the defence of ports by submarine mines had been abolished.

"Newcastle had been defended by means of an admirable system of

submarine mines which had no equal in the world. So good was it that the

volunteer submarine miners of the Tyne division were employed to do the

laying of electric mines at Portsmouth and other naval ports. Newcastle

was now without that defence." He explained that these mines, which had

cost a million, had been sold. Had they fetched £50,000? He was not

content with Mr. Haldane's account of the steps taken to prepare for

defence against possible raid. On this subject, writing for the _United

Service Magazine_ of May, 1908, a paper entitled "Strong at all Points,"

which enforced his view of the supreme importance of the navy, he said:

"The provision for time of war, after complete mobilization of the

Territorial army, may be perfect upon paper; but the real question

is, how to obtain the manning of the quick-firing guns, say on the

Tyne, in time of political complication, by trained men, who sleep

by the guns and are able to use them when awakened suddenly in the

dead of night."

In the discussion of the estimates of July 31st, 1907, he said that,

"bearing in mind the enormous importance in naval matters of a steady

policy, he should resist any reduction that might be moved." On the same

occasion he pointed out that, "if there was any danger from Germany, it

was not the danger of invasion or from the fleet, but it was her growing

superiority in the scientific equipment of her people." Yet he declined

to encourage panic, and in the debate of March 22nd, 1909, when the

Opposition moved a vote of censure because of a supposed unforeseen

start gained by Germany in shipbuilding, pointed out the reasons for not

indulging in a scare.

Dilke closely watched the new developments in armament and construction,

and from time to time pressed them upon the attention of the Government.

As early as 1901, in an article reviewing the progress of war in the

nineteenth century, he had said: "The greatest change in the

battlefields of the future, as compared with those of a few years ago,

will be found in the developments and increased strength of the

artillery." In 1907, in the debate on the Navy estimates, he suggested

that "the reserve of guns was a matter which needed the utmost

diligence." Docks, he thought, were proportionately more important than

battleships. In 1907 (April 25th) he said: "A base was needed east of

Dover--Rosyth or Chatham: he need not suggest or criticize the spot that

should be chosen. Whether the Hague Conference prohibited floating mines

or not, they would be used; and that being so, they must contemplate

either the extension of Chatham or the creation of an establishment at a

different point of the east coast." To this subject he repeatedly

returned. In 1908 (March 3rd): "The necessity for a large establishment

in a safer place than the Channel had been raised for many years, and

was fully recognized when Rosyth was brought before them. Both parties

had shirked the expenditure which both declared necessary." On March

10th: "There were important works, docks and basins in which big ships

could be accommodated, and these by universal admission should be made

as rapidly as possible. Big ships were worse than useless if there was

no dock or basin accommodation for them.... The limited instalment of

one dock and one basin contemplated was only to be completed in eleven

years. He believed that was bad economy.... The need for this

expenditure had long been foreseen." Again, in 1909, on July 1st, he

pointed out that the Governments of both parties had shirked the

expenditure on Rosyth, of which the need had been known as early as

1902. The delay had been enormously grave. The report which contained

the whole scheme had been presented to Parliament in January, 1902; the

land had been bought in 1903, and the contract was made only in March,

1909.

Sir Charles's command of detail made his hearers apt to suppose that he

was mainly concerned with technical matters. But no impression could be

farther from the truth. Never for a moment did he lose sight of the

large issues, and of the purpose to which all measures of naval and

military preparation are directed. It was to the large issues that his

last important Parliamentary speech on the subject of defence was

directed.

"We talk a little," he said on March 7th, 1910, "about the possibility

of invasion when we talk of our Territorial army, but we do not--the

overwhelming majority of us--believe the country is open to invasion, or

that the fleet has fallen off in its power of doing its duty as compared

with days past.... No one of us who is prepared to pay his part, and to

call upon others to pay their part, to keep the fleet up to the highest

standard of efficiency and safety which we at present enjoy--no one of

us ought to be prepared to run the Territorial army on this occasion as

though it were the main and most costly portion of the estimates that

are put before the House. The Territorial army is defensible as the

Volunteers were defensible. It is an improvement on the volunteer

system, and it might have been made without the statute on which it is

based, but that it will add an enormous expenditure to our army is not

the case. Our Territorial army, in fact, cannot be kept in view as the

first object which we have to consider in the course of these

debates.... It is supposed to be the one certain result of the last

General Election that there is a large majority in favour of maintaining

our naval position; but we cannot maintain that naval position without

straining every nerve to do it, and we shall not be able to put all our

energy into maintaining that position if we talk about invasion, and

tell the people of this country that the fleet cannot do its duty.... If

you put the doctrine of invasion so high, and if you tell them that in

any degree their safety depends upon the Territorial army trained and

serving here at home, then you run a great risk of compromising your

naval defence and taking money out of one pocket and putting it into

another, and of being weak at both points, and creating a Territorial

army which could not face a great Continental force landed on our

shores, and at the same time detracting from the power of your fleet....

The Territorial army, like the Volunteers, is really defended by most of

us, in our hearts if not in our speech, as a reserve of the regular,

expeditionary, offensive army for fighting across the seas.... My right

hon. friend Mr. Haldane has always maintained the view that your army

and army expenditure must depend upon policy. It is no good fighting

him; he has both Houses of Parliament and both parties in his pocket. He

is a man of legions political as well as military. The school

represented by myself and the dominant school represented by him have

differed, not upon the question of policy dictating your armaments, but

upon the question of how your policy and your armaments together would

work out."

Sir Charles Dilke's last utterance on defence was a review of Sir

Cyprian Bridge's _Sea-Power, and Other Studies_, in July, 1910. It was a

plea for reliance upon the navy to prevent invasion and upon a mobile

military force for a counter-stroke. "I confess," Dilke ended, "that, as

one interested in complete efficiency rather than especially in economy

to the national purse, I join Sir Cyprian Bridge in asking to be shown,

at least, the mobile, efficient, regular force ready for immediate

service across the seas."

In the effort of a quarter of a century to have his country prepared for

the struggle which was to come Dilke was associated with others, many of

them conspicuous for knowledge and zeal; the services of Arnold-Forster,

of John and Philip Colomb, and of Chesney, have been too little

appreciated by their countrymen. Of their common endeavour Dilke was the

chief exponent. At every stage of the movement his was its most

characteristic and most comprehensive expression, marking the central

line of thought. Some of the dominant ideas were his own. From him came

the conception of defence as not merely national but imperial. He first

pointed out the true function of the Prime Minister in relation to it.

The actual development proceeded along the lines which he drew--a strong

navy; a general staff at the War Office; a regular army of first-rate

quality, that could be sent abroad at short notice, most likely for the

defence of Belgium against attacks from Germany; expansion to be sought,

in the first instance, from the numbers furnished by the volunteer

system. There were points which he failed to carry--the provision of

arms and ammunition for the multitude of soldiers who would be

forthcoming from the Empire, as well as of that modern artillery which

must play so great a part in a future campaign; the search for generals

capable of command in war; the enforcement of the responsibility of

Ministers for preparations neglected. What was accomplished and what was

left undone give the measure of Sir Charles Dilke as the statesman of

Imperial Defence.

APPENDIX I

'"_December 21st_, 1893.

'"Dear Mr. Balfour,

'"I have been thinking over the matter which you mentioned in the

tea-room yesterday. I am absolutely convinced of your own detachment

from party in connection with it, and I write as one not likely at

any time to act generally in connection with your party, unless in

the (I hope most improbable) event of doubtful or unfortunate war.

'"The suggestion that I am inclined to make is that a letter should

be written, to be signed by Sir George Chesney as a Conservative, by

myself as a Gladstonian Liberal, by Arnold-Forster as a Liberal

Unionist, and Spenser Wilkinson as a civilian expert, to Mr.

Gladstone as Prime Minister, you and Chamberlain as leaders of your

parties in the House of Commons, and Lord Salisbury and the Duke of

Devonshire as leaders of the same parties in the House of Lords;

that a copy should be sent by me confidentially to the Prince of

Wales, it not being right, of course, that we should in any way

address the Queen; that this letter should not be made public either

at the time or later; that this letter should press for the joint

consideration of the naval and military problem, and should point to

the creation of a Defence Ministry, of which the War Office and the

Admiralty would be the branches, or to a more active control of the

Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty by

the Prime Minister personally. We should be put in our places by Mr.

Gladstone, but I fancy, probably, not by the other four.

'"I had sooner discuss this matter first with you, if you think

there is anything in it, than with Chamberlain, because he is, oddly

enough, a much stronger party man than you are, and would be less

inclined (on account of national objects which to him are

predominant) to keep party out of his mind in connection with it. I

have not, therefore, as yet mentioned the matter to him. If you

think ill of the whole suggestion, and are not even disposed to

suggest modification of it, it can be stopped at the present point.

'"The addition of Spenser Wilkinson to a member of each party is

because I owe to him the clearing of my own mind, and believe that

he is probably the best man on such questions who ever lived, except

Clausewitz. When I first wrote upon them in _The Present Position of

European Politics_ in 1886-87, and in _The British Army_ in 1887-88,

I was in a fog--seeing the existing evils, but not clearly seeing

the way out. In the Defence chapter of _Problems of Greater Britain_

I began to see my way. Admiral Colomb, and Thursfield of _The

Times_, who are really expositors of the application to our naval

position of the general principles of military strategy of

Clausewitz, helped me by their writings to find a road. I then set

to work with Spenser Wilkinson, whose leaders in the _Manchester

Guardian_ (which he has now quitted, except as an amateur) struck me

as being perfect, to think out the whole question; and we succeeded,

by means of a little book we wrote together--_Imperial Defence_,

published in February, 1892--in afterwards procuring the agreement

of Lord Roberts in views widely different in many points from those

which Lord Roberts had previously held. We are now in the position

of being able to declare that in naval particulars there is no

difference of opinion among the experts, and that in military there

is so little upon points of importance that the experts are

virtually agreed. This is a great point, never reached before last

year, and it is owing to Spenser Wilkinson, and in a less degree to

Arnold-Forster, that it has been reached.

'"The question of the length at which the proposed letter should

develop the existing dangers and the remedies is, of course,

secondary.

'"The dangers are much greater than even the alarmist section of the

public supposes. For example, the public have not in the least

grasped the fact that we were on the brink of war with France at the

moment of the Siam blockade, nor have they realized the great risk

of the fall of the monarchy in Italy and of a complete change in

Italian policy, leading more or less rapidly to an alliance with

France and Russia. The adoption of Lefevre's policy by the Liberal

party, which is possible at any time, and the announcement that we

do not hope to hold the Mediterranean, might attach to the Franco-

Russian combination even the present advisers of King Humbert.

'"With regard to Siam, neither the English nor the French Government

dare publish the despatches which passed about the blockade, and

they have not been able to come to an agreement as to what portion

of the papers should be published, although both Governments have

long since promised publication. The words used in the House of

Commons by Sir Edward Grey were altered by the French Government

into meaningless words, and the words actually used excluded by

Governmental action from every newspaper in France."'

[Footnote: On December 25th, 1913, M. d'Estournelles de Constant

wrote to the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ an article warning Europe against

the chance of war breaking out, not because it is desired, but "by

chance, by mistake, by stupidity," and he cited an instance from his

experiences in 1893:

"The stage was Siam, where British India and French Indo-China were

seeking to push, one against the other, their rival spheres of

influence. Lord Dufferin, British Ambassador in Paris and ex-Viceroy

of India, was upholding the British claim, but it was in London that

the negotiations were carried on. The irreparable conflict broke out

on the day when the French Admiral, the bearer of an ultimatum,

anchored his ships in the very river of Bangkok. I was negotiating,

but during this time the British Government telegraphed to the

Admiral commanding the Pacific station to proceed also to Bangkok

with his whole fleet, which was far superior in numbers to ours.

"I knew nothing about it; no one knew anything about it. I was

negotiating, and it was war almost to a certainty without anybody

suspecting it. I only knew this later. Happily, wireless telegraphy

did not then exist, and the orders of the Admiralty did not reach in

time the British squadron, which was then sailing somewhere in the

Pacific. Thanks to this chance delay, the negotiations had time to

come to a successful conclusion, and the agreement was concluded."]

On the same day Dilke received the following reply:

"I shall be most pleased to have a further conversation with you on

the all-important subject on which we had a brief talk yesterday,

and which is dealt with in your letter of to-day.

"I should like, however, to discuss the matter first with Lord

Salisbury (whom I shall see to-morrow), and, if you will allow me,

to show him your letter.

"I may, however, say at once that I have _always_ been in favour of

a Defence Committee of Cabinet, with expert advisers and permanent

records carrying on the work from Government to Government; and

that, oddly enough, I pressed the idea on Asquith last week. I think

he and Rosebery would be in favour of the plan; not so the older

members of the Cabinet."

'On Friday, January 5th, 1894, I had a long interview with Balfour

upon my letter, and wrote on it to Wilkinson as follows:

'"_Confidential_.

'"76, Sloane Street, S.W.,

'"_January_ 5_th_, 1894.

'"Dear Wilkinson,

'"I saw Balfour (in a full discussion) this afternoon. We

provisionally agreed, with Lord Salisbury's consent, that Sir George

Chesney, Arnold-Forster (if he agrees), you, and I, should sign a

letter which we should address (with the view to publishing it with

the replies) to Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister and leader of my

party, to Lord Salisbury and to Balfour as leaders of Sir George

Chesney's party, and to the Duke of Devonshire and Chamberlain as

leaders of Arnold-Forster's party, and of which I should privately

send a copy to the Prince of Wales in the hope of its reaching the

Queen. In this letter we should press for the joint consideration of

the naval and military problem, and point either to the creation of

a Defence Ministry, of which the War Office and Admiralty would be

the branches--to which the objection is that Parliamentary consent

would be necessary--or to a more active control over the Secretary

of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty, and their

Estimates, by the Prime Minister personally, or to that which is

Balfour's own scheme and which has the support, among our people, of

Rosebery and Asquith: the creation of a Defence Committee of the

Cabinet, ordinarily to consist of the Prime Minister, of the leader

of the other House, of the Secretary of State for War, the First

Lord, and (doubtless) the Chancellor of the Exchequer (?), with

expert advisers and permanent records which would carry on their

work from Government to Government. Mr. Gladstone would snub us. The

other four would not, and our proposal (that is, our third proposal,

which is Balfour's) would probably be adopted when the Conservatives

came in, and continued by the Liberals.

'"Balfour would be very willing to express his favourable opinion of

our view in debate in the House of Commons, should we raise one next

Session, and Lord Salisbury is less inclined to make a strong and

distinctly favourable reply to our letter than is Balfour.

'"Balfour would go more willingly, if possible, than he does into

the schemes if he could see his way beforehand to the saving of

money on the army for the purpose of devoting it to the navy. He

says that he himself cannot put his finger on the waste which he

knows must exist, that Buller has to some extent his confidence and

tells him that there is none, although Balfour is not convinced by

this. We discussed our Indian army scheme, to which he sees no

objection, and (very fully) the Duke of Cambridge and the extent to

which he will be supported by the Queen.

'"Balfour sees immense difficulty in the absence of a sufficiently

commanding expert, and in the consequent jealousy between the

Admiralty and War Office officials.

'"Will the letter which Sir George Chesney has do as a base, or

would it be better to write a shorter and a fresh letter? If the

latter, will you try your hand at it, if you approve? And after

noting this will you return it to me, that I may send it to Sir

George Chesney and then to Arnold-Forster?

'"Balfour had in reading _us_ [Footnote: "Us" refers to the joint

work on Imperial Defence. One of the recommendations was to

substitute marines for soldiers in the small garrisons, such as

Bermuda.] asked questions through George Hamilton, who agrees with

us, on the point of further employment of marines, and has been told

that they would be sadly costly.

'"Yours very truly,

'"Charles W. Dilke."'

APPENDIX II

In reply to the joint letter, Chamberlain wrote to Dilke:

"I have received the interesting paper on the subject of National

Defence which you have communicated to me on behalf of yourself and

the other signatories. One of the greatest difficulties which any

politician must feel in dealing with this question has been the

apparent difference of opinion among those best qualified to speak

authoritatively on the subject, and it is an important advance to

find practical proposals agreed to by some of those who have given

special study to the problems involved. Without venturing at the

present state of the inquiry to commit myself to any specific

proposal, I may say that I am favourably inclined to the main lines

laid down in your paper--namely, the closer union between the two

great departments of national defence, and the recognition of the

responsibility of the professional advisers of the Cabinet on all

questions of military and naval provision and administration."

Mr. Balfour wrote:

"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of February 12th,

dealing with certain very important points connected with the

problem of National Defence. Though it would be inopportune for me

to pass any detailed judgment upon the scheme which you have laid

before me in outline, and though it is evident that difficulties of

a serious kind must attend any effort to carry out so important a

change in our traditional methods of dealing with the Admiralty and

the War Office, I may yet be permitted to express my own conviction

that the evils that you indicate are real evils, and that the

imperfections in our existing system, on which you insist, might

under certain not impossible contingencies seriously imperil our

most important national interests.