THE SOLDIER
"With a tow-row-row-row-row-row for the British Grenadiers!" Which,
of course, means the English Grenadiers, inasmuch as there never were
any Scottish Grenadiers. To-day, however, the English do not sing this
song. Their grandfathers delighted in it, and the tune still survives
as a soldier-man's march. But when the modern English wish to celebrate
the English soldier vocally, they do it in their own decadent, bathotic
way. They have an idiot-song called _Tommy Atkins_. The chorus of it
goes somewhat in this wise:
Oh! Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
You're a good 'un, heart and hand;
You're a credit to your nation
And to your native land.
May your hand be ever ready!
May your heart be ever true!
God bless you, Tommy Atkins!
Here's your country's love to you!
And since the outbreak of the late war, at any rate, the English do not
speak of soldiers, but of Tommies; and the principal English poet has
gone farther, and dubbed them Absent-Minded Beggars. Since the outbreak
of the war, too, it has been necessary to issue from time to time words
of caution to the great English public. Lord Roberts--"Little Bobs,"
I suppose, I should call him, in the choice English fashion--has on
two or three occasions deemed it advisable to let it be known that
his desire was that the great English public should discontinue the
practice of treating Cape-bound or returned Tommies to alcoholic
stimulants, and substitute therefor mineral waters or cocoa. This was
very wise on Little Bobs's part, and it has no doubt saved at least
two Cape-bound or returned Tommies from the degradation of an almighty
drunk. I mention this because it illustrates in an exceedingly quaint
way the attitude of the English towards the soldier. When there is
war toward, the soldier is absolutely the most popular kind of man in
England. In peace-time an English soldier is commonly credited with
being socially vile and unpresentable. There is a popular conundrum
which runs, "What is the difference between a soldier and a meerschaum
pipe?" and the answer, I regret to say, is, "One is the scum of the
earth, and the other the scum of the sea." Tommy's place in the piping
times of peace is just at the bottom of the social ladder; there he
must stay, and drink four ale, and smoke cheap shag, and sit at the
back of the gallery in places of amusement. Then war comes along, and
the English bosom expands to the sound of the distant drum, and to
the rumour of still more distant carnage. Who is it that's a-working
this 'ere blooming war? Blest if it ain't our old friend Tommy Atkins!
Fetch him out of the four-ale bar at once. The nation's heroes have
no business in four-ale bars. The saloon bar is the place for them,
and the barmaid shall smile upon them, and they shall have free drinks
and free cigars till all's blue; for they are the nation's heroes, and
they deserve well of their country. Furthermore, if they wish to visit
those great and glorious centres of enlightened entertainment commonly
called the Halls, they shall no longer be stuffed obscurely away in the
rear portion of the gallery, but they shall come out into the light of
things; they shall come blushingly and amid acclaim into the pit or the
stalls, or, for that matter, into any part of the 'ouse.
Throughout the war this has been so. It was so till yesterday. But
the ancient English smugness has begun to assert itself once more;
and Tommy--dear Tommy, God-bless-you Tommy, in fact--finds staring
him in the face, as of yore, "Soldiers in uniform not served in this
compartment"; "Soldiers in uniform cannot be admitted to any part of
this theatre except the gallery." The English Kipling hit the whole
matter off in his vulgar way when he wrote _Tommy_:
I went into a theatre as sober as could be;
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to a gallery, or round the music-'alls;
But when it comes to fightin'--Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this and Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide--
The troopship's on the tide, my boys--the troopship's on the tide
Oh! it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
We were told that this war, if it were doing England no other good,
was at least bringing her to a right understanding of the soldier-man.
It was teaching her to take him by the hand, to recognise in him a
creditable son and an essential factor in the State. It has ended in
the way in which pretty well every English revival does end--namely, in
smoke. Though England has as much need of the soldier and is as much
dependent upon him for peace and security as any other nation, she has
never been able--excepting, as I have said, in time of war--to bring
her greedy mind to the pass of doing him the smallest honour or of
rendering to him that measure of social credit which is obviously his
by right.
That the English Tommy is not altogether a delectable person, however,
goes, I think, without saying. According to General Buller and other
more or less competent authorities, the men in South Africa were
splendid. I do not doubt it in the least. On the other hand, the
"returns" from that country have not struck one as reaching a high
standard of savouriness or manliness; and, however splendid he may
have been as a campaigner, as an ex-campaigner the English Tommy has
scarcely shone; so that in a sense the changed attitude of the English
public mind towards him is not to be wondered at.
Elsewhere in this essay I have pointed out that the late war has not
reflected any too much credit upon that chiefest of snobs--the English
military officer. To go into the army has long been considered good
form among the English Barbarians, and to be an officer in a swagger
regiment may be reckoned one of the best passports to English society.
It gives a man a tone, and puts him on a footing with the highest,
because an officer is a gentleman in a very special sense. But it
is well known that, during the past half-century or so, the English
Barbarians have been too prone to put their sons into the army for
social considerations only, and without regard to their qualification
or call for the profession of arms. And in the long result it has come
to pass that the English army is officered by men who know as little
as possible and care a great deal less about their profession, and are
compelled to leave the instruction, and as often as not the leadership,
of their men to non-commissioned officers. Over and over again in the
South African campaign it was the commissioned officer who blundered
and brought about disaster, and the non-commissioned officers and the
horse sense of the rank and file that saved whatever of the situation
there might be left to save. Probably the true history of the British
reverses, major and minor, in South Africa will never be made public.
But I believe it can be shown that in almost every instance it was
the incapacity or remissness of the English commissioned officer
which lay at the root of the trouble. The fact is, that the monocled
mountebank who is in the army, don't you know, seldom or never
understands his job. He is too busy messing, and dancing, and flirting,
and philandering, and racing, and gambling, and speeding the time
merrily, ever to learn it. That the honour of Britain, and the lives
of Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Irishmen, should be in his listless, damp
hand for even as long as five minutes is an intolerable scandal. That
he should haw and haw, and yaw and yaw, on the barrack-square, and
take a salary out of the public purse for doing it, shows exactly how
persistently stupid the English can be. Of course, the common reply
to any attack upon these shallow-pated incompetents is that you must
have gentlemen for the King's commissions, and that the pay the King's
commissions carry is so inadequate that no gentleman unpossessed of
private means can afford to take one. This is a very pretty argument
and exceedingly English. The money will not run to capable men;
therefore let us fling it away on fools. Army reform, sweeping changes
at the War Office, new army regulations, an army on a business footing,
and so on and so forth, are always being clamoured for by the English
people, and always being promised by the English Government. But
until the day when the granting of commissions and promotion are as
little dependent upon social influence and the influence of money as
advancement in the law or advancement in the arts, the English army
will remain just where it is and just as rotten as it is.
For downright childishness the modern English soldier, whether he be
officer or file-man, has perhaps no compeer. When the South African War
broke out, Tommy and his officers were men of scarlet and pipe-clay and
gold lace and magnificent head-dresses. Also all drill was in close
order; you were to shove in your infantry first, supported by your
artillery, and deliver your last brilliant stroke with your cavalry.
The men should go into the fray with bands playing, flags flying, and
dressed as for parade. You commenced operations with move No. 1; the
enemy would assuredly reply with move No. 2; you would then rush in
with move No. 3; there would be a famous victory, and the streets of
London would be illuminated at great expense. In South Africa matters
did not quite pan out that way; the enemy declined absolutely to play
the stereotyped war-game, for the very simple reason that they did
not know it, and that South Africa is not quite of the contour of a
chess-board. And so the English had to change their cherished system,
and to learn to ride, and to throw their pretty uniforms into the
old-clothes baskets, and to get out of their old drill into a drill
which was no drill at all, and to give up resting their last hope on
the British square, and to get accustomed to deadly conflict with an
enemy whom they never saw and who never took the trouble to inform
them whether they had beaten him or not. It was all very trying and all
very bewildering, and it is to the credit of the English army that in
the course of a year or two it did actually manage to understand the
precise nature of the work cut out for it and made some show of dealing
with it in a workman-like way.
Here was a lesson for us, and we learned it. An Englishman, you know,
can learn anything when he makes up his mind to it. And he has learned
this South African lesson thoroughly well; so well, indeed, that it
looks like being the only lesson he will be able to repeat any time
in the next half-century. For what has he done? Well, to judge by
appearances, we must reason this way: "I was not prepared for this
South African business. It was a new thing to me. It gave me a new
notion of the whole art and practice of war. The old authorities were
clean out of it. Therefore I solemnly abjure the old authorities. For
the future I wear slouch-hats and khaki and puttees and a jacket full
of pockets, and I drill for the express notion that I may some day
meet a Boer farmer. The entire sartorial and general aspect of my army
shall be remodelled on lines which might induce one to think that the
sole enemy of mankind was Mr. Kruger, and the great military centre of
the world was Pretoria." It does not seem to occur to the poor body
that his next great trial is not in the least likely to overtake him
in South Africa. He has had to fight on the Continent of Europe before
to-day, and I shall not be surprised if he has to do it again before
many years have passed over his head. Yet, wherever his next large
fighting has to be done, you will find that he will sail into it in his
good old infantile, stupid English way, armed cap-a-pie for the special
destruction of Boers. It is just gross want of sense, and that is all
that can be said for it.