ARMING FOR THE STRUGGLE.
London was amazed.
The provinces were awestricken, paralysed by the startling suddenness
with which the appalling news of the invasion had been flashed to them.
Bewildered, the people could not believe it.
Only slowly did the vivid and terrible truth dawn individually upon the
millions north and south, and then, during the Day of Rest, they crowded
to the newspaper and telegraph offices, loudly clamouring for further
details of the overwhelming catastrophe that threatened. They sought for
information from London; they expected London, the mighty, all-powerful
capital, to act.
Through the blazing Sunday the dust rose from the impatient, perspiring
crowds in towns and cities, and the cool night brought no rest from a
turmoil now incessant. Never before were such scenes of intense
enthusiasm witnessed in England, Wales, and Scotland, for this was the
first occasion on which the public felt the presence of invaders at
their very doors.
A mighty force was on its way to ruin their homes, to sweep from them
their hard-earned savings, to crush, to conquer--to kill them!
Fierce antagonism rose spontaneously in every Briton's heart, and during
that never-to-be-forgotten day, at every barracks throughout the
country, recruiting-sergeants were besieged by all sorts and conditions
of men eager to accept the Queen's shilling, and strike for their
country's honour. Heedless of danger, of hardship, of the fickle fortune
of the fight, the determination to assist in the struggle rose instantly
within them.
At York, Chester, Edinburgh, and Portsmouth, volunteers came forward by
hundreds. All were enthusiastic, undrilled, but ready to use their
guns--genuinely heroic patriots of our land, such as are included in no
other nation than the British. Pluck, zeal for the public safety, and an
intense partisanship towards their fellows induced thousands to join the
colours--many, alas! to sink later beneath a foeman's bullet, unknown,
unhonoured heroes!
Already the Cabinet had held a hurried meeting, at which it had been
decided to call out the whole of the Reserves. Of this the War Office
and Admiralty had been notified, and the Queen had given her sanction to
the necessary proclamations, with the result that telegraphic orders had
been issued to general officers commanding and to officers commanding
Reservists to mobilise instantly.
The posters containing the proclamation, which are always kept in
readiness in the hands of officers commanding Regimental Districts, were
issued immediately, and exhibited on all public places throughout the
kingdom. On the doors of town halls, churches, chapels, police stations,
military barracks, and in the windows of post offices, these notices
were posted within a few hours. Crowds everywhere collected to read
them, and the greatest enthusiasm was displayed. Militia, Yeomanry,
Volunteers, all were called out, and men on reading the Mobilisation
Order lost no time in obtaining their accoutrements and joining their
depots. The national danger was imminent, and towards their "places of
concentration" all categories of Her Majesty's forces were already
moving. In every Regimental District the greatest activity was
displayed. No country maintains in peace the full complement, or
anything approaching the full complement of transport which its Armies
require; hence vehicles and horses to complete the Army Service Corps
companies, and for the supplemental service, were being immediately
requisitioned from far and near.
One of the many anomalies discovered during this critical period was,
that while transport could thus be rapidly requisitioned, yet the
impressment of civilians as drivers and caretakers of the animals was
not permitted by the law; therefore on all hands the organisation of
this requisitioned transport was fraught with the utmost difficulty, the
majority of owners and employees refusing to come forward voluntarily.
Registered horses were quickly collected, but they were far from
sufficient for the requirements, and the want of animals caused loud
outcries from every Regimental District.
The general scheme was the constitution of a Field Army of four cavalry
brigades and three army corps, with behind them a semi-mobile force made
up of thirty-three Volunteer infantry brigades and eighty-four Volunteer
batteries of position. The garrisons having been provided for, the four
cavalry brigades and the 1st and 2nd Army Corps were to be composed
entirely of Regulars, the 3rd Army Corps being made up of Regulars,
Militia, and Volunteers. Organised in brigades, the Yeomanry were
attached to the various infantry brigades or divisions of the Field
Army, and the Regular Medical Staff Corps being much too weak, was
strengthened from companies of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps. In
brief, the scheme was the formation of a composite Field Army, backed by
a second line of partially trained Auxiliaries.
Such a general scheme to set in battle order our land forces for home
defence was, no doubt, well devised. Nevertheless, from the first moment
the most glaring defects in the working out of details were everywhere
manifested. Stores were badly disposed, there was a sad want of
clothing, camp equipment, and arms, and the arrangements for the joining
of Reservists were throughout defective. Again, the whole Reserve had
been left totally untrained from the day the men left the colours; and
having in view the fact that all leading authorities in Europe had,
times without number, told us that the efficiency of an Army depended
on drill, discipline, and shooting, what could be expected from a system
which relied in great part for the safety of the country on a Reserve,
the members of which were undisciplined, undrilled, and unpractised in
shooting for periods ranging from nine years in the Guards to five years
in the case of the Line?
On the day of mobilisation not a single regiment in the United Kingdom
was ready to move forward to the front as it stood on parade! Not an
officer, not a man, was prepared. England had calmly slept for years,
while military reforms had been effected in every other European
country. Now she had been suddenly and rudely awakened!
Everywhere it was commented upon that no practical peace trial of the
mobilisation scheme had ever been made. Little wonder was there, then,
that incomplete details hampered rapid movements, or that the carrying
out of the definite and distinct programme was prevented by gaps
occurring which could not be discovered until the working of the system
had been tested by actual experiment.
It was this past apathy of the authorities, amounting to little less
than criminal negligence, that formed the text of the vehement
outpourings of Anarchists, Socialists, and "No War" partisans. A
practical test of the efficiency of the scheme to concentrate our forces
should have taken place even at the risk of public expenditure, instead
of making the experiment when the enemy were actually at our doors.
Another anomaly which, in the opinion of the public, ought long ago to
have been removed, was the fact that the billeting of troops on the
march on the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, other than owners of
hotels, inns, livery stables, and public-houses, is illegal, while
troops when not on the march cannot be billeted at all! At many points
of concentration this absurd and antiquated regulation, laid down by the
Army Act in 1881, was severely felt. Public buildings, churches, and
schools had to be hired for the accommodation of the troops, and those
others who could not find private persons hospitable enough to take them
in were compelled to bivouac where they could. Of tents they had
scarcely any, and many regiments were thus kept homeless and badly fed
several days before moving forward!
Was there any wonder, then, that some men should lose heart? Did not
such defects portend--nay, invite disaster?
Strange though it may seem, Geoffrey Engleheart was one of but two
persons in England who had on that Saturday anticipated this sudden
Declaration of War.
Through the hot night, without heed of the wild turbulence outside,
regardless of the songs of patriots, of gleeful shouts of Anarchists,
that, mingling into a dull roar, penetrated the heavy curtains before
the window of his room, he sat with brows knit and gaze transfixed.
Words now and then escaped his compressed lips. They were low and
ominous; utterances of blank despair.