THE DEFENCE OF ENGLAND
To keep this England secure, what are the means? A glance at that question
at once makes it necessary to tell of Britain rather than of England. There
is no English Army, no English Navy. In each case it is a British force,
and in the case of the Navy it is being rapidly developed into an Imperial
force representing the strength not merely of England and of Britain, but
also of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the other Dominions. Yet no
picture of England could pass without some reference to the Navy, which is
the supreme maritime force of the world, and the Army, which, though it is
a very thin line these days compared with the great continental masses, is
probably prepared to uphold in the future the great traditions of the past.
And Navy and Army, though not wholly English, are in the main
representative of the senior partner in the British firm.
The problem of the defence of England is a great deal complicated by the
fact that the British power has spread itself so much over the globe.
Outside of Europe it possesses nearly one half of North America, a great
share of the East Indies, the West Indies, and the islands of the Pacific,
the whole of Australia and New Zealand, the best parts of Africa and of
Asia. In past days there have been some astonishing cases of a wide range
of power from a small focus: the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the
Portuguese Empire, the Mohammedan Empire, for examples. But in no case was
the comparison between the mother-country and the actual stretch of real
dominion so astonishing as in the case of Britain and her Empire. In most
of those cases, too, the Empire was short-lived, and soon broke up into its
constituent parts. But the British Empire remains incredibly vast, and
seemingly permanent.
The position is that the parent country of that Empire has to face a far
greater task than the securing of her own safety. History shows that part
of the price of Empire to be paid by Britain is a mutual jealousy and
hostility between her and the next greatest Power in Europe. British
foreign policy, more or less consciously, has had to be always founded on
that basis. She has in the past fought down Spain, Holland, France. After
the Napoleonic Era, when Russia seemed to be the paramount power of Europe,
she inevitably set herself to thwarting and checking Russia. When Russian
power lessened and Germany became the first Power of Europe, she likewise
stepped into the place of the Power which is doomed to be in antagonism to
Great Britain. Were German might to fade away, the nation that took
Germany's place as the most powerful in Europe would also take her place as
the feared rival. The British Empire has taken up so much of the limited
room "in the sun" that it must tempt to attack an aspiring Power; and it
must face with a nervous dread the growing strength of the paramount Power
for the time being in Europe.
In the old struggles to maintain the British Empire, we relied successfully
on a policy of "splendid isolation." Without making permanent alliances we
held aloof and when a struggle came threw in our weight with one set of
Powers or the other and usually secured thus a victory. For many reasons
that policy is not the "official" policy of England to-day, though it still
has many warm advocates. But, as under that policy for a century a supreme
Navy was considered to be necessary for Britain, so to-day that need still
survives, and the Navy is the senior defence force of the country. The
reliance on naval strength is so complete that the Army is kept to very
small dimensions, comparatively speaking, and none of the great cities are
fortified. The naval ports have fortifications, but one looks in vain for
fortresses around London, Birmingham, and Manchester. England is committed
to float or sink on the Navy. As Campbell proudly put it:
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
This Navy, which has such a great responsibility, has its present
headquarters at Portsmouth and Plymouth on the south coast--great naval
ports since the days of the Armada and the Napoleonic wars, and very handy
in case of war with Spain or France, and in case of expeditions to the
Mediterranean, the West Indies, or the Pacific. But its striking force is
now rapidly being based on new headquarters facing the North Sea, such as
Rosyth in Scotland.
My first view of the British Fleet in the mass was at the great review held
for the Imperial Press Conference delegates in June 1909. It singled that
day out from life as great events of pride or of dread mark days. Out from
grey and reverend London, settling to the tasks and pleasures of day with
quiet confidence, past the villages and fields of the beautiful English
country-side smiling in sweet security, we journeyed to Portsmouth to see
the ramparts of the Empire. The very train, gliding with unruffled speed,
seemed to have a sense of sure stability as it ate up the miles between the
chief citadel of our race and its guardian walls.
The sea was dull and leaden, reflecting a dull and leaden sky, as we
steamed out past the old _Victory_--significant reminder of great danger
of the past greatly overcome--to the Solent, lined like a busy street with
great dull, leaden-hued ships. It seemed fitting so, more fitting to the
spectacle than a bright heaven and dancing water; for the Fleet had little
suggestion of gaiety as it stretched line upon line out to the horizon
where sea and sky met. It told rather of a grim resolve to meet menace with
menace. So dominant was the note of sternness that the colours of the
bright bunting flaunted by the ships faded out of the eye, and one only saw
the vast bulk of brooding power.
There was an Armada of one hundred, and again almost half a hundred
vessels, ranging from the great fortress of the _Dreadnought_ type to the
viperish destroyers, bringing danger with their speed, and the uncanny
submarines, stealing under the water, invisible to the ships they threaten
except for a little staff, slender as the antenna of an insect, serving as
an eye to the brain below, for offence or defence. Yet practically all
those 144 vessels were the fruit of the previous ten years' work; and there
was melancholy proof in the row of big ships sulking in the far
background--apparently stern, vigorous, and great in strength, but excluded
from this parade as useless--of how quickly Time, bringing new inventions,
destroys the usefulness of the sea-fighting machine. How vast the task of
maintaining a power so hard to bring to life, so quick to decline! The
monstrous strength of the elephant comes only of slow growth; once
attained, it is slow to decay and fall. But the unit of sea-power seems
almost shorter of life than of gestation.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIPS MANOEUVRING]
Past the serried lines of destroyers, we were carried to cross the stern of
the _Dreadnought_, noting best thus its wide bulk, and turned down a long
lane of water lined with battleships. With happy symbolism, the right edge
of sea-guardians represented the nations of the Empire--_Africa_, the
_Commonwealth_, _New Zealand_, the _Dominion_, _Hindustan_, _Hibernia_,
_Britannia_, with _King Edward VII._ at their head. It was good to be
represented, if only by a name, in such a Fleet. Then to the submarines,
swimming like a school of killer-whales on the surface of the sea; then
again to the big cruisers to see the _Invincible_, the _Inflexible_, the
_Indomitable_, proudly flaunting their justly insolent names; then to note,
with a throb of grateful memory, a new _Temeraire_ of deadliest might
riding beside a ship bearing Nelson's name; and, finally, to be received in
welcome on the giant deck of the _Dreadnought_, noting the linked lines of
bluejackets, the oldest element of British naval supremacy, and the
spider-webs of the wireless telegraphs, the newest sign of British resolve
to keep that supremacy.
Before the _Dreadnought_ there paraded then the submarines, some showing
their decks awash, others betraying their route only by their periscopes,
yet others diving to disappear completely. Next, a herd of black destroyers
rushed by with vindictive speed, discharging unloaded torpedoes at the
_Dreadnought_, whose sides were protected by nets. Each torpedo found the
mark; many, their driving force far from expended, searched and spluttered
at the nets, foaming up the water, spitting out fire and smoke. It was
significant of the perfect confidence in the Navy that no one of the
onlookers crowding the sides of the _Dreadnought_, within a few feet of the
nets, flinched. Yet had one of those torpedoes by mistake been loaded, it
would have sprinkled death far around. But no one thought of danger. It was
"the Navy," which does not often make mistakes.
That was my first view of the British Navy. I had many opportunities
afterwards of studying its ships, its men, its system. I saw, on a day of
grey fog blurring the features of England and hiding its defending sea,
such a day as might make this island fortress open to attack, the _Neptune_
(an improvement even on the _Dreadnought_) take the water. This, the latest
addition to the ramparts of Empire, seemed as if eager to get into her
element, anxious to hurry to the fighting line. The first steps towards
letting her to the sea were taken some while before the appointed time, and
the _Neptune_ glided so swiftly down the ways that she was afloat before
the moment announced for her naming. The water fled back from the onrush of
her vast bulk, then, returning, took the _Neptune_ to its bosom, and she
floated easily and confidently. The launching could not have testified
better to that perfection of calculation and arrangement which Britain
expects of her naval men. One moment the ship pushed a monstrous form high
up on to the land, the flowers bedecking her prow accentuating rather than
relieving the impression of uncouthness; the next moment she was swimming
bravely on the water, a mere hulk of a ship as yet, but in all her lines
telling clearly of vast power and swiftness in defence or in attack.
The simple religious service with which the launching was prefaced came
harmoniously into the spirit of the occasion. There was no bluster of
threat, no echo of the fierce war hymns of the Old Testament; but a humble,
and yet confident invocation to the Supreme Power for guardianship and
safety. It might have been taken as a declaration that this handiwork of
man, terrible engine of battle as it was, had for its aim and end no desire
of rapine or aggression, but that of peace and conservation.
Since the _Neptune_ I have seen many other warships launched, including the
Australian vessels, which are to help the Empire to hold the Pacific
marches; and the Armada seems ever to grow, and yet ever to be thought
insufficient for its grave responsibility.
The influence of the Navy is very great on English public life. It draws
away for its service a considerable proportion of the best young manhood of
the country, and subjects them to a special training and discipline. The
habit of thought and of action that they acquire thus gives a tinge to the
whole life of England, for, after naval training, these men come back to
civil life. In all ranks of life ex-naval men may be found doing good
service, from governors down to grooms. An unfortunate fact is that there
is a pronounced leakage of British naval men to foreign service, attracted
by the pay and the chances of promotion.
Linked up with the Navy is the British Mercantile Marine, the best of the
_personnel_ of which is organised into a naval reserve. At the back of both
are the fishing fleets of England, which were the first nurseries of the
Navy, and are still a valuable school for sea-craft. Calculating together
the Navy, the Mercantile Marine, and the fishing fleets, a large percentage
of England has its home, more or less constantly, on the sea; that sea
which serves England "in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a
house," and which established thus its claim on her blood.
The Army of Britain has had for a century all its work to do abroad, and it
might without exaggeration be said that its chief station now is in India.
But, setting on one side for the moment the garrisons of India, Egypt, and
other parts of the Empire which are peopled by subject races (the free
Dominions are not garrisoned, but defend their own territories with their
own troops; there is one temporary exception, South Africa, but the British
garrison will leave that station shortly), the Regular Army in England has
its chief camp at Aldershot on the road between London and Portsmouth. It
is organised on an expeditionary basis, and is always spoken of as an
expeditionary force. The idea is that, in case of war, it should go abroad
to India or Egypt if an attack were threatened there, to the European
continent if that were the theatre of operations. Meanwhile the supremacy
of the Navy would ensure that no enemy should be able to land a large army
in England. The defence of English territory against such a raiding force
as might elude the Navy is entrusted to the "Territorial troops "--enlisted
on a volunteer basis.
Perhaps the English Army system will be best made clear by tracing it from
its beginnings with the schoolboy age. In the first place, it has to be
noted that there is no compulsory military service in England. Until quite
recently it was possible to recruit for the militia (though not for the
Regular Army) by a ballot, _i.e._ by the drawing of a lot to determine a
certain number of recruits who were forced to join whether they liked it or
not (this system is still in force in the Channel Islands). Now there is
absolutely no compulsion in England to undertake any form of military
service. It is not even compulsory that schoolboys should undertake cadet
drill. The English boy can altogether neglect any training for the defence
of his country if that is his wish and the wish of his parents. In the
majority of cases he takes full advantage of that freedom. If, however, he
has some stirring of a desire to equip himself for defence, he may join the
Boy Scouts--a non-military, but a disciplined organisation recently set
afoot by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who was a very prominent figure
during the last big war that Britain had. If the English boy is of a more
marked martial inclination he can, whilst at school, usually join a cadet
organisation or the Officer's Training Corps,--a body of cadets recruited
from the higher schools. If it is intended that he should seek a career in
the army as an officer, he will, as a very young boy, be sent to a
preparatory school, and go from that to a military college, and from there,
on passing his examinations, go into the commissioned ranks of the Army.
So much for the boys. The adults may join the Territorial Force, a civilian
army which makes slight demands on their leisure and does not interfere
with them following civilian associations; or they may join the Regular
Army. In every other great country of the world (except the United States)
a certain proportion of adult men have to join the Regular Army for a term
whether they wish to or not; in some countries almost every able-bodied man
is thus passed through the military organisation. But in England the Army
is recruited on a voluntary basis. It is sought to get men by offers of
good pay and good conditions of service. Naturally this makes the British
Army a far more expensive affair, regiment for regiment, than any other
army of the world (again except the United States). Its friends claim,
however, that this extra cost is compensated for by extra quality, and that
the willing recruit will be a more "willing" fighter than any conscript
soldier.
[Illustration: CHANGING THE GUARD, ST. JAMES'S PALACE]
Though the English are a naval rather than a military nation, their
battlefield record is a particularly proud one. The English character in
battle shows the stubborn, dogged traits of the people from whom the
soldiers are drawn; and since in any British army there is always a great
admixture of Irish and Scottish soldiers to give dash and _elan_, the net
result usually proves to be an ideal fighting force.
To turn to less serious things, the British Regular is a very decorative
personage. It has cost a good deal of money to turn him out, and the
military authorities insist that he should show that money's worth. This is
partly from pride in the force, partly from a desire to encourage
recruiting for the Army by the parading in the streets of these
well-set-up, gorgeously uniformed men. The regiments kept in London
barracks are "show" regiments, and a very fine note of pageantry they bring
to the old grey city. The ceremony of changing the guard at the palaces
draws a crowd of spectators daily; and he is an unlucky wight indeed who
does not find often his glimpse of London park or road brightened suddenly
by the passage of a troop of cavalry, plumes nodding, cuirasses gleaming,
spirited horses pannading.
The populace love the soldiers. Yet there is no abatement of the old
English jealousy against encroachments by standing armies. The military
power is kept strictly subservient to the civil power, as a hundred and one
regulations and customs constantly remind. The civilian people are resolved
that their defenders shall never become aggressors against their liberties.
To the visitor from the European continent, where the soldier is supreme,
the position of the military force in England seems strange, even
undignified. But it is a jealously guarded survival of the days of old
strifes, when there was real danger of a king using the army to destroy the
liberties of the common people. There is little or no reason for the
survival now; but the sentiment of it is good.
With that I may well conclude these notes on England; for, after the green
fields and the dear homes of England, the strongest trait of the country's
character is the tender guardianship of old forms and symbols and customs.
England does not lag behind in the work of present-day modern civilisation.
But as she goes forward she takes the Past affectionately along with her.
INDEX
Alcuin, 47
Aldershot, 198
Ampthill Park, 36
Angles, 17
Anglo-Saxon, the, 15, 24
Anglo-Saxon victory, 18
Army, the, 187
Arnold, Matthew, 107, 131
Arthur, Prince, 129, 130
Arthurian legend, 19
Arts in England, the, 155
Avebury temple, 10
Balsham, Hugh de, 51
Bank Holiday, 80
Bath, 102, 110, 111, 136
Beau Nash, 111
Becket, Thomas a, 112, 129
Beverley, John of, 47
Bird-Cage Walk, 104
Boadicea, 110
Bodichon, Madame, 52
Bodleian Library, 55
Bourne End, 123
Boy Scouts, 88, 199
Bristol, 112
British climate, 9
British Empire, the, 2, 188, 189
British Mercantile Marine, 197
British oysters, 14
Briton, ancient, 6, 11
Brittany, 5
Browning, 38
Buckingham Palace, 79
Buckinghamshire, 135
Caedmon, 46
Caesar, Julius, 6, 18, 102, 111, 121
"Caesar's camps," 14
Cambridge, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 136
Cambridge University, 48
Campbell, 190
Canterbury, 112, 129, 131, 135
Carausius, 13, 15
Casserterrides, the, 8
Caxton, 19
"Celtic fringe," 11, 160
Changing the guard, 201
Charles I., 69, 73
Charles II., 56
Chelsea, 121
Chester, 25, 111
Cities of England, the, 101
Clough, Miss Anne J., 52
Cornwall, 5, 9, 11, 21, 37
"Coronation" stone, the, 133
Coventry Patmore, 38
Cricket, 94, 185
Cromwell, 135
Dane, the, 15, 17
Davies, Miss Emily, 52
Defence of England, the, 187
Devon, 11, 37
Devonshire Moors, 28
Disraeli, 135
Dobell, 116
Dover, 112
Drake, Sir Francis, 5, 112
_Dreadnought_, the, 193, 194, 195
Durham, 109, 141
Durham, William of, 55
East End, the, 153
Education, English system of, 43
Educational Institutions in England, 45
Edward I., 50
Edward II., 51
Ely, 47
England at play, 81
English agriculture, 70, 72
English Channel, 1
English kindliness, 137
English manor house, an, 33, 78
English public service, 75
English spring, 117
English work, solidness and honesty of, 74
Englishman, aesthetic, 31
Englishman, the, as an exile, 34
Englishman's love of nature, 31
Ethelred, 54
Eton, 63, 122
Fen lands, 73
Flamborough Head, 42
Fleet Street, 103, 127
Flying Meetings, 98
Football, 94
Forest of Dean, 73
Fox-hunting, 96
Fredeswide, 54
Gauls, the, 5, 6
Giraldus Cambrensis, 130
Girton College, 52
"Girton Girl," the, 47
Glastonbury, 7, 130, 131, 135
"Grand tour," the, 157
Greenwich, 41, 58, 121
Grey, the poet, 78
Guinevere, 131
Gulf Stream, the, 1, 9, 12, 37
Hampden, 135
Hampstead, 139
Hampstead Heath, 81
Hampton Court, 121, 122
Harrow, 63
Hecataeus, 9
Hedges, the, 30
Henry I., 47
Henry VIII., 121, 130
Home-management, 79
Horse Guards, the, 104
Horse-racing, 95
House of Commons, 65, 69
House of Lords, 65, 69
Houses of Parliament, 69, 102
Hugolina, Dame, 47
Hyde Park, 107
Hyperboreans, Isle of the, 9
"Ipswich Man," the, 10
Jutes, 17
Kensington Gardens, 107
Kent, 17, 42, 116
Kew Gardens, 35, 120
King Arthur, 21, 112, 130
Land's End, 37
Landscape, human interest in, 4
Leonidas, 4
Life of the lowly, the, 145
London, 101, 102, 116, 136
London coster, the, 83
London parks, 105
"Lord Mayor's Day," 87, 88, 89, 90
Malory, Sir Thomas, 21
Marches of Wales, 11
Marsh village, the, 7
May Day, 90, 91, 92
May-pole, the, 91
Medland Hall, 147, 148
Merton, Walter de, 51
Midlands, the, 109, 139
Milton, John, 58, 135
"Mr. Speaker," 65
Music, English, 158
Music halls, the, 169
"Musical Comedy," 169
Navy, influence of the, 196
Navy, the, 187, 198
Nelson's Monument, 102
Neolithic Age, 10
New Forest, the, 42, 73
Newnham College, 52
"Newnham Girl," the, 47
Norfolk Broads, 28
Norman, the, 15, 22
Norman architecture, 22
Norman Conquest, 54
Norsemen, 17
Northampton Camp, 6
Olympic Games, 100
Oxford, 41, 46, 53, 55, 59, 60, 62, 116, 136
Pageants, 24
Pall Mall, 103
"Park-like" England, 29
Peacock, Thomas Love, 17
Pepys, 56, 60, 113
Peterborough, 47
"Philistinism" in England, 89
Pictures, English collections of, 156
Plague Year, the, 56
Plymouth, 37, 112, 191
Political activity, English, 174
Political Clubs, 179, 181
Political life in England, 171
Political organisations, 173
Population, the poorer, 137
Portsmouth, 191
"Predominant partner," 24
Pre-Roman Briton, 7
Pre-Roman relics, 8
Richmond, 120
Richmond Hill, 120
Rivers of England, the, 114
Rochester, 112
Roman culture, 23
Roman invasion, 13
Roman military camps, 14
Roman roads, 14
"Rowton House," a, 147
Rugby, 63
St. Albans, 109, 110, 139
St. Augustine, 112, 129
St. Joseph of Arimathea, 131
St. Paul's, 103, 135
Salisbury, 113
Saxons, 17
School of York, 46
Scotland, regalia of, 133
Scotland Yard, 76
Shakespeare, 90, 109, 168
Southampton, 129
Southend, 84
Spanish Armada, 5
"Sport," 93
Stoke Court, 78
Stonehenge, 10
Stourbridge Fair, 49
Strand, the, 102
Stratford-on-Avon, 109
Street meetings, 174
"Suffragettes," 67
Sun worship, 9
Surrey Downs, the, 28
Sussex Marshes, 38
Terra Alba, 1
Territorial Force, the, 200
Thames, the, 12, 103, 117, 120, 123
Thames Embankment, 149
Thames Valley, the, 28, 37, 41, 116, 122
Tower of London, 105
Tree, Sir Herbert, 162
Trees, regard for in England, 36
Triskele, the, 7
Venerable Bede, the, 46
Watling Street, 111
Westminster, 70, 135
Westminster Abbey, 103, 131, 132, 135
Westminster Hall, 69
White Cliffs, 5
Whiteway, Sir Thomas, 63
Wilfrid of York, 47
William of Durham, 55
William of Normandy, 5
William the Conqueror, 73
Winchester, 63, 111
Windsor, 122
Winkelried, Arnold, 4
Wolsey, Lord, 121
Worcester, 129, 131, 135
Worcestershire, 135
Wren, Matthew, 51
Wren, Sir Christopher, 51, 56
Wykeham, William of, 55
York, 46, 131
Yorkshire, 17, 116
Yorkshire Hills, the, 38
Yorkshire Wolds, the, 41
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF ENGLAND]