ENTER THE NEW ARMY
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which
is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under
the sun.”--ECCLES. 1. 9.
The public at large first heard of the arrival of the New Army at the
front through the Commander-in-Chief’s Despatch, published on July 12,
covering the second battle of Ypres and the military operations down
to the end of May. In that Despatch Sir John French announced that,
since the date of his last report, several divisions of the New Army
had arrived in France, and added that their physique was excellent, and
that their bearing and appearance on parade reflected great credit on
the officers and staffs responsible for their training.
But there were many homes in England in which this carefully guarded
secret had long been known--in fact, ever since the sinister spectre of
the war had crept into the house on the sudden departure of husband,
son, or brother for the port of embarkation. Imagination, quickly
stirred by love, pictured the young soldier landed in post-haste in
France, and forthwith marched into the trenches--into battle.
I met one of the first divisions of the New Army to come out to France
within a few days of its landing. I fell in with it, indeed, at the
end of its very first march towards the front from the railhead, where
it had detrained on its journey up from the coast base. One of its
battalions came into the little village where the war correspondents
had their camp.
It was a picture that will not soon fade from my memory, the files
of wet and mud-stained Highlanders tramping in through the gathering
twilight, their baggage-carts and field-kitchens rumbling along behind.
Their transport seemed strangely spick-and-span under its layer of
yellow splashings from the road, and then, reading on the side of
a cart the inscription, giving number and name of the battalion, I
realized with a thrill that this was the New Army.
With what fresh interest I looked at those men again! The smiles and
tears of a thousand homes seemed to wreathe themselves about those
fine stalwart figures. If these bonny Highlanders did not each carry
a Marshal’s baton in his haversack, then, at least, they bore there
the hopes and pride of England. For, say what you will, the New Army
occupies a place of its own in the nation’s thoughts. Regulars and
Territorials both have their warm corners in the national heart, but
the New Army--it is you, it is I, it is all of us. It is a child of the
war, born since we broke with our old peaceful past, born of the new
spirit of self-sacrifice and determination that is remaking a nation
under our very eyes. The thought that is uppermost on seeing the New
Army in the field is that these are the men who must complete what has
been begun, the men that must carry on the torch so long and so bravely
upheld by the Old Army.
That battalion was quartered in the village for a few days. That
very evening, and each evening during its stay, their pipers strode
once up and once down the village street, playing the time-hallowed
tattoo. After nightfall the men quartered in the barns and sheds
all around chased dull care away by impromptu concerts. The rousing
choruses--veritable symposia of all the music-hall successes of the
past two years--mingling with the strains of mouth-organs, evoked
memories which were positively poignant in our isolation at the front
of tired crowds streaming back into London on hot Bank Holiday nights
in summer. For a few days one caught a glimpse of the kilt in the
village, one heard now and then the skirl of the pipes, and then, one
morning at daybreak, the battalion moved on.
After that, I continually came across the New Army at the front. I
seemed to be following, stage by stage, its progressive acclimatization
to the new life, its training for the new work. More than once I
encountered an entire division on the march between towns in rear of
our lines. The men’s uniform seemed to be of a more homogeneous khaki
tint than that of the veteran battalions in the field, and I was
particularly struck by the excellent leather harness and the splendid
condition of the big shire horses of the transport.
Little by little the New Army was creeping towards the front. Now I
would meet one of its officers doing a spell in the trenches, now a
company trudging with full equipment towards the firing-line along some
Flanders road, whose forlorn appearance spoke of “frightfulness” past
and to come. In the same way as the Territorials, the New Army was
gradually familiarized with the conditions in the trenches, until a
whole division was deemed suitably prepared for holding its part of the
line alongside of Regular and Territorial troops.
Like the Commander-in-Chief, everybody in the field was impressed
by the remarkably fine physique of the men of the New Army. Their
appearance fully dispelled an idea that was current at one time,
not only in England but also at the front, that the first of the
New Armies would be made up of poor specimens of the nation’s
manhood--that wastage in the form of the permanently unemployed and the
casual labourers, who are always the first to be hit by an economic
disturbance such as war produces. The splendid proportions of the
men in many new battalions, not only in stature but also in muscular
development, suggested that these men were ideal fighters, whatever
their training might prove to be like. This impression was amply
confirmed by the easy poise of the head and the clear expression of the
eyes of the men of the New Army.
Said the General commanding one of the first divisions of the New Army
to come to France, in talking to me about his men:
“I don’t believe they have a nerve in their bodies. They are
magnificent men in spirit as in physique. All they want now is to
‘have a go’ at the Germans, and once they get going, there will be
no holding them back, I give you my word for that. I have never seen
the Territorial system to better advantage than in the New Armies. In
almost every battalion the men come from their own recruiting area,
and, in addition to the bond of a common dialect, have all kinds of
family, business, and social relations with their officers and with one
another. Their discipline is excellent, and they are taking to the new
conditions of life out here like a duck to water.”
One who is in a position to judge adumbrated to me the theory that
the men of the later classes of the New Armies--men who joined for
“conscience’ sake,” after taking a month or two to settle up their
affairs--would be more “intelligent” soldiers, more to be trusted
individually and in a sudden emergency, but less good with the bayonet
and the spade than the earlier classes.
I believe this to be the veriest hair-splitting. Experience has shown,
I think, that war, or at any rate this war, gives a uniform mentality
to all men who are drawn into it, and they become good or bad soldiers
as the case may be. I am convinced that there is not a pin to choose
between a good Regular battalion and a good Territorial battalion, even
if the latter, like so many of the London Territorial regiments, for
example, is in the main composed of men from the educated classes.
The entrance of the New Army upon the stage of the theatre of war marks
the passing of the old soldier, the man who put the battle honours on
the regimental colours. He has left his magnificent spirit of courage,
devotion, and endurance behind, but he is taking away with him many
of his whimsical ways as expressed in his mysterious army slang, his
curious army games, his love of sentimental ditties of the “Just before
the Battle, Mother” order, or of doggerel like “Cock Robin” and “The
Song of Shame.”
Already you may find trenches at the front where an allusion to the
Motherland as “Old Blighty,” to bread as “roti,” and jam as “pozzy,”
will meet eyebrows lifted in haughty amazement, where “Crown and
Anchor”[1] is never played, where that cry, so familiar to army ears,
of “’Ouse!”[2] is never heard.
You remember the apoplectic horror of the old Colonel in the story
because a private of Regulars on parade blew his nose on his
handkerchief, “like any damned militiaman.” What would the old gentle
man say, I wonder, to privates who go into action with a pocket edition
of Ruskin in their haversacks and a couple of _Times Broadsheets_ in
their breast-pockets?
However, the long-service man is by no means wholly extinct in the
army in the field, and in many battalions his influence lingers strong.
In battalions of the New Army it is maintained by old soldiers who have
re-enlisted for the duration of the war, and upon whom, with their
tales of service in Malta, Gibraltar, Aden, Egypt, and India, their
comrades, fresh from civil life, seek to mould themselves. But for all
that, the soldier of Kipling’s stories is disappearing from the army as
the fighting unit, mainly because his numbers are gradually becoming
extinct through wastage of war, but also because the character of the
army is changing.
Under the influence of the introduction of so much new blood, the army
has ceased to be the close corporation it was, the kind of exclusive
association that, by its terms of service and its small numbers, was
able to select its material and shape it to its own form. It has
become more universal in character, more identified with the nation at
large. I believe that the change is only temporary, and that, as far
as one may look into the future at the present juncture, our military
traditions are strong enough to mould any amount of new material
into the old form: moreover, the men of the Expeditionary Force, now
prisoners in Germany, will alone suffice to furnish the backbone
of a new army on the old lines after the war. The introduction of
conscription would, of course, sound the knell of the army as we knew
it in the past.
The regimental officer of the type that Sandhurst and Woolwich turned
out is gradually being replaced by the subaltern from civil life. In
the new conditions, it will be impossible, I imagine, to maintain to
the full the old atmosphere of our officers’ corps, in which patriotism
and pride of regiment were rivals in the affections. The subaltern of
the New Army no longer talks of his regiment by its old army number,
nor does he recognize in the men around him those little symbols that
express our great military past, the red beckle of the Black Watch, the
Sussex plume, the eagle of the Scots Greys, nor could he tell you why
the officers of the Royal West Kents drink the King’s health sitting,
and the Grenadier Guards not at all.
We are here confronted with the introduction of an entirely new type
into the army. In the boys fresh from a Public School and in the
’Varsity graduates the army draws on a class that has always supplied
a large proportion of officers, but in addition to these there is
found in the New Army the vague young man--_le petit jeune homme_ that
Tristan Bernard writes of so delightfully--who has never done anything
particular until his response to the call of duty pitched him into a
period of intensive training among men to whom the army and its great
traditions meant as little as to himself.
Service in the field will make or mar this type of officer which is
found so largely in the New Army. In his training-camp at home he has
probably already dimly discerned that upon him, as an officer, devolves
the enormous responsibility of “mothering” a large number of men, all
of whom are older and more experienced in life than he. But he will
scarcely realize how much he is on his trial, that he must “make good”
or go under, until he comes out to the front. In the field he will
learn that his neat uniform and his Sam Browne belt are something more
than mere sartorial embellishments which are _de rigueur_ in England
this year. He will soon find out that the honour attaching not to him
but to the coat he wears carries with it obligations which he must meet
unflinchingly or be crushed.
In the field he will understand the true inwardness of those
regulations, continually impressed upon him at home by senior officers,
whom he was disposed to regard as “fussy” and “red-tapey,” which lay
down a clear social distinction between the officer and his men. He
must find out for himself how to adjust those regulations with that
measure of good-fellowship which, if he keeps his eyes open, he will
see existing between officers and men already at the front. Presently
he will begin to comprehend that the leader must be different from his
men, that the men must look up to him as to a real “superior,” for
guidance, for moral support. Then, when he begins to realize that it
largely depends on himself whether his men are good or bad, he will
take his place as a tiny cog in the position allocated to him by the
army in its vast system of machinery.
But even should it prove impossible to maintain the old atmosphere of
our officers’ corps, the new atmosphere will, I believe, be impregnated
with the same ideals as the old, though their origin may be different.
Our present army, composed of veterans of the Expeditionary Force,
Territorials, and New Army men, is inspired by the same determination
to prevail as held our little army firm at Mons and Ypres. In the case
of the Expeditionary Force, probably military tradition, which has all
the force of habit, was the main source from which this rare tenacity
was fed; with the New Army this unanimous resolve to conquer or die
springs from a blending of our great military traditions with the
mighty uplifting of our British civilization against a tyranny in which
liberty cannot live. Therefore I think one need not be apprehensive
lest the change which is coming over the character of the British
Army should detract from its fighting worth. Our military traditions
will see to it that discipline remains unimpaired: our resolve as a
nation to see this thing through will inspire our new troops to model
themselves on the glorious example of the men who have gone before.
The men in the field were glad to welcome the New Army. Already the
young troops have sustained their baptism of fire, not only in the
trenches but also in the open field. Obviously, not only officers and
men, but also the staffs, are lacking in experience of trench warfare.
Their immediate usefulness would rather seem to lie in the assault,
but, pending a resumption of the offensive by the Allies on the Western
front, every day the New Army spends in the field adds to its knowledge
of the peculiar conditions of the war of positions.
The future is to the New Army. Their arrival in the field betokens the
end of the era of insufficient men and resources. It ushers in the day
when the Allies, with all the force that in them dwells, shall essay
to break the wall of steel which Germany has flung across Europe. In
a dawn as full of promise as that which saw the rising of the sun of
Austerlitz, the young levies of Imperial Britain are waiting at the
parapet of our trench-line, looking out across the void at the barrier
behind which victory lies.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Crown and Anchor”--a soldier’s game of chance played with a
pointer which is spun round a board marked out in fields of different
colour on which the players stake. Stakes are paid according to the
field at which the pointer stops. This and “’Ouse” (see following
footnote) are great games among Regulars at the front. They are, or
used to be, extensively played on troop transports homeward bound from
India. Quite considerable sums of money are said to change hands at
“Crown and Anchor” on these transports.
[2] “House”--a kind of lotto, played with numbered cards, mostly for
copper stakes.
THE END
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_September, 1915._
Mr. Edward Arnold’s AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1915.
WITH OUR ARMY IN FLANDERS, 1915.
By G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS.
_Demy 8vo. Illustrated._ =12s. 6d. net.=
The author of this timely volume is one of the few accredited special
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THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE NEW FOREST.
By the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES.
_With Illustrations. Demy 8vo._ =12s. 6d. net.=
It is safe to say that never before has a book been written about
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large estates, he was appointed to an official post in the New Forest
at a comparatively early age, and has spent the best years of a long
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and engaged as he has been for over thirty years in administering its
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A SURGEON IN KHAKI.
By A. A. MARTIN, M.D., F.R.C.S. ENG.
_With Illustrations. Demy 8vo._ =10s. 6d. net=.
Dr. Martin is a New Zealander, who served as a surgeon in the South
African War, and last summer he made a professional tour of some
well-known British and American clinics. When the war broke out he
was attending the British Medical Association meetings at Aberdeen.
He at once came to London, and offered his services to the Royal Army
Medical Corps, and was given a temporary commission in that body.
After a short time at Aldershot he was transferred to the base of the
British Expeditionary Force in France. From there he moved to the
front, arriving on the scene of actual fighting just at the moment
when the great retreat had reached its furthest point, and the French
and British armies were about to assume the offensive. Dr. Martin was
attached to one of the Field Ambulances, and did his share of its work
at the battles on the Marne and the Aisne, and afterwards in Flanders.
Although it is written by a surgeon, and contains one or two chapters
on the professional side of the campaign, this book is essentially one
for the general reader. It is written in a fresh, free style that is
becoming noticeable as a characteristic of writers from the Antipodes;
and as the author does not scorn to give the small details of how he
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REMINISCENCES OF JOHN ADYE CURRAN, K.C.
_With Portrait. Demy 8vo._ =10s. 6d. net.=
A fund of good stories seems inseparable from a career at the Irish
Bar, and when their possessor elects to place them on record for the
benefit of the public, the reader may look forward to a treat. The
earlier portion of the book deals with the author’s career at the Irish
Bar, in the course of which we get illuminating sketches of many of
the great Judges and Advocates who have so nobly sustained its fame.
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detailed and most interesting account of the unravelling of the Phœnix
Park Conspiracy, and the steps by which the ringleaders were brought
to justice. This episode exhibits him as a strong and fearless man
equipped with a fund of shrewd common sense and the enviable power
of guessing correctly at the line events had taken. Later on Mr.
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crime from a disturbed district in which he again showed a remarkable
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THIRTY YEARS A REFEREE.
By EUGENE CORRI.
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These Reminiscences differ from any other in the present generation,
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first-hand account of the notabilities and conditions prevailing, will
be heartily welcomed.
Mr. Corri considers that boxing--viewed as a great national sport--was
never in a healthier state than it is to-day, and that a great change
has taken place since thirty years ago, when the heavy gambling element
was rather too much in evidence. Of the actual exponents of the art his
opinion is equally encouraging. He says: “If a fellow has a genuine
love of boxing, it is long odds that he is a white man at bottom, for
there is something in boxing that shames the little shabby meannesses
out of a man.” This means a good deal, for Mr. Corri is a shrewd
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NIETZSCHE AND THE IDEALS OF MODERN GERMANY.
By HERBERT LESLIE STEWART, M.A., D.PH., PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN
DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA; FORMALLY JOHN LOCKE
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that Nietzsche, properly understood, has been a force making for
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which he believes the opposite. One key to the enigma of Germany is
to be found in a sinister aberration of thought on ethical questions,
especially on the issues of international conduct. Nietzsche was one
representative of this phase of thought: that he “made the war” would
be a grotesque overstatement; but that he enforced with singular
effectiveness just those doctrines of immoralism which Prussia has put
into execution this book endeavours to show. He is taken, not as the
originator of a policy, but as typical of a mood which has had fearful
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MODERN ESSAYS
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THE CAPTURE OF DE WET.
By P. J. SAMPSON.
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The rebellion in South Africa is one of the very few chapters in the
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Africa to which it formed a preliminary. To people in England reading
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whole thing was not only distressing but perplexing and unintelligible.
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strangely diverse currents of feeling that animate the heterogeneous
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of movement--forms a striking contrast to the trench warfare of Western
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Germanized Beyers, and Christian de Wet, fanatical and irreconcilable
to the last, a pitiful, tragic figure; on the other Botha plays the
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FROTH AND BUBBLE.
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GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
A Study of Degrees of Reality.
CONTAINING THE DONNELLAN LECTURES FOR THE YEAR 1913-14, DELIVERED
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The principle of Degrees of Reality has been coming to light more and
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HUMAN IMMORTALITY AND PRE-EXISTENCE.
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A SURGEON IN BELGIUM.
By H. S. SOUTTAR, F.R.C.S., LATE SURGEON-IN-CHIEF OF THE BELGIAN FIELD
HOSPITAL.
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STORIES FROM “THE EARTHLY PARADISE.”
By WILLIAM MORRIS.
Retold in Prose by C. S. EVANS.
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It is through our natural love of a story that we are led to appreciate
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GENTLE LOVER,” ETC.
_Crown 8vo._ =6s.=
This is the most elaborate and finished piece of work its author has
yet given us. The history of a young man’s life, it begins with his
schooldays and follows him through the years of early manhood and of
marriage, the picture being presented largely through his relations
with three women, each of whom reflects the principal character from a
different point of view. The study of middle-class life, in its aspects
of alternate comedy and tragedy, is painted on a broader canvas than
the author has hitherto employed, but the central theme is followed
closely, for from the first the hero is confronted by a spiritual
reality which, while perpetually eluding him, seems ever about to come
within his grasp. And in the last chapters it is this which gives a
meaning to all that has gone before, so that we leave him, if not at
the end of his journey, at least with the open door within sight, and
the light shining beyond.
HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND.
By SETON GORDON, AUTHOR OF “THE CHARM OF THE HILLS,” ETC.
_With numerous full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo._ =12s. 6d. net=.
Mr. Gordon is recognized as one of the highest authorities on the birds
of the hills; and he has made a life-study of them and their ways. He
has spent all hours of the day and night at all seasons of the year
watching the habits of these mountain birds. In his new book the author
discusses exhaustively the habits of the Ptarmigan; he was the first
person to obtain photographs of this bird in the Scottish hills. Much
information is also given about the Golden Eagle, its eggs and young;
its food, nesting haunts, and habits. There is an exhaustive account
of the Snow Bunting, a bird which only nests on the highest and most
inaccessible hills, close on 4,000 feet high. Mr. Gordon was the first
ornithologist to photograph this bird in its British nesting haunts.
A great deal of the information given in this book is quite new and
original. It is illustrated with numerous photographs of the birds and
their nests and nesting sites dealt with in the book; all these have
been taken by the author himself, mostly on the wildest moors of the
Highlands.
POULTRY HUSBANDRY.
By EDWARD BROWN, F.L.S., LATE HON. SEC. NATIONAL POULTRY ORGANIZATION
SOCIETY; PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POULTRY INSTRUCTORS
AND INVESTIGATORS. AUTHOR OF “RACES OF DOMESTIC POULTRY,” “POULTRY
FATTENING,” ETC.
_Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo._ =8s. 6d. net=.
Twenty-four years ago (1891) the first edition of “Poultry-Keeping as
an Industry for Farmers and Cottagers,” by Mr. Edward Brown, F.L.S.,
whose labours for development of this branch of rural industrialism are
recognized all over the civilized world, was published. That book has
contributed greatly to the adoption of practical and scientific methods
scarcely known previously. It has passed through eight editions, and
been adopted as a textbook at educational centres in many countries.
Author and publisher now feel that the time has arrived for a work
dealing with the question on a broader basis. For the past year,
therefore, the former has been engaged upon an entirely new work, in
which has been brought into one focus from his former works what is
applicable to modern conditions, together with the result of practical
experience, and research work of later years, dealing with the entire
problem--productive, technical, and commercial. In it will be found a
vast amount of new material, and special attention has been given to
future developments, whether on extensive or intensive lines.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 7: “D’AZINCOURT” changed to “D’AGINCOURT”
Page 22: “all German soliders” changed to “all German soldiers”
Page 31: “on the balks” changed to “on the baulks”
Page 50: “first gas attac” changed to “first gas attack”
Page 62: “eight o’cloc” changed to “eight o’clock”
Page 125: “French Arym” changed to “French Army”
Page 284: “in comparsion” changed to “in comparison”