THE TERRITORIAL FORCE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The controversies raised by my Manchester speech prove that there is
still much misapprehension, not always involuntary, in regard to the
position of the National Service League towards the Territorial Force.
I therefore insert in this place a statement of that position which I
made in a speech delivered in the Mansion House in July last.
As an introduction to that speech I may be permitted to quote from a
statement which, as President of the League, I published in the _Times_
in January, 1912:
"It is not infrequently asserted that the League is hostile to the
Territorials, that we have discouraged recruiting for them, and that,
were our programme adopted, the Territorial Force would disappear.
Nothing is further from the truth. From the date of its formation we
have constantly praised the Territorial Force as an organization; we
have again and again borne willing witness to the patriotism of those
who joined its ranks.
Thus in 1908, Lord Milner, speaking at the annual dinner of the League
on June 24, said: "Let us hold up high the standard of efficiency for
the Territorial army as we have got it, and let us back up those who
have originated that army and who are trying to make the best of it;
let us back them up in all their efforts to make it as like a real army
in training and in equipment as it is possible to make it. That, I
believe, is the proper course for us to pursue."
In our official statement issued in February, 1909, these words occur:
"The National Service League has consistently given the warmest support
to the Territorial Force from its inception, recognizing the great
superiority in organization and capabilities that this Force provides
as compared with the old Volunteer Force."
And, during the past year (1911), in his volume, "Fallacies and Facts,"
the President of the League, whilst criticizing Lord Haldane's and Sir
Ian Hamilton's deductions, allots the highest praise to the public
spirit alike of employers and employees who support the Territorial
movement.
In addition to this, our members have actively helped the Territorial
Force by working on the County Associations and by obtaining recruits.
We are represented on the majority of the County Associations, and
nearly one-fourth of the members of these Associations are also members
of the National Service League. Again, many of our members are
enrolled in the Territorials, and Lord Haldane himself, speaking at the
headquarters of the 6th City of London Rifles on December 1, 1911, said
there were numbers of the National Service League who had assisted in
the work of recruiting for the Territorial Force, and he "took this
opportunity of thanking them."
Moreover, it is to be observed that the whole programme of the National
Service League is now based on the maintenance and expansion of the
Territorial Force. Our programme, far from involving the disappearance
of that Force, or of any part of that Force, accepts it in its
entirety. All that it does is to change the system of recruiting, and
thus enable the training to be given before and not after war breaks
out. Were the League's proposals adopted, not a single unit of the
Territorial Force would be reduced, nor a man called upon to leave its
ranks. The whole organization and personnel would be preserved, and
their services would be invaluable in bridging the difficult period of
transition from the old system to the new. The Territorial Force would
be increased to an adequate strength, made efficient as a military
machine, and would rest on the firm basis of universal military
training of the manhood of the nation, instead of--as at present--on
insufficient service given with difficulty by a patriotic minority.
The above, we trust, will be sufficient to dispose of the idea that
there is, or ever has been, any antagonism on the part of the League
towards the Territorial Force as a body. We contend that all
able-bodied men should be trained in it.
But, whilst we have from the beginning praised the organization of this
Force, whilst we have admired the patriotism and self-sacrifice of
those who have joined it, and encouraged our members to support it, we
do not conceal our opinion that, resting as it does on voluntary
enlistment alone, it can never become a Force on which the country can
rely for its protection in time of peril. Every year that passes
emphasizes the correctness of this view. The Territorial Force is in
the fourth year of its existence, and, despite the large measure of
support given to it and the unwearied labour of one of the ablest War
Ministers we have ever had, what is its condition? Its strength in
round numbers should be 314,000. It is 264,000. All its members
should do fifteen days' drill in camp every year. Only 155,300 have
done so this year. It should have 11,300 Territorial Officers. It has
only 9,500. Finally, 40 officers and 6,703 men were absent from camp
this year without leave.
We ask any open-minded man whether a Force thus constituted is an army
at all, much less an army to which this country can entrust its
existence as a great Nation?
We do not bring these facts forward in order to discredit Lord
Haldane's courageous efforts or to depreciate the patriotism of those
now serving in the Force. We bring them forward simply in order to
demonstrate the impossibility of constructing a defensive Army equal to
this country's needs on a basis of voluntary enlistment. If Lord
Haldane, backed by the hearty support of King and country, has
failed--and by his own admission he has failed--who is likely to
succeed?
Not many weeks ago this country was on the verge of a gigantic war.
And it was a war which, if it had come, would have come unexpectedly
and suddenly. What would have been our position? All the soothing
fallacies which pass current in time of peace--the belief that our
Expeditionary Force can at the same time be sent abroad and yet kept at
home to cover the training of the Territorial Force; the belief that
this Force is sure of six months' unmolested leisure in which it can
fit itself for the serious business of war--would have been shattered
in twelve hours. The Expeditionary Force--to be of any use at
all--must have been despatched abroad without a day's delay; and, for
the defence of these islands, we should have had to rely upon a handful
of Regulars left behind in the depots as "unfit"; such of the Special
Reserve as may not be required for the Expeditionary Force, and the
National Reserve; but mainly upon a Territorial Force,[1] nominally
264,000 strong, untrained for war, and further weakened by a shortage
of 1,800 officers!
Now, making every allowance for the immense resisting power which in
moments of supreme peril nations and cities have occasionally derived
from enthusiasm or despair, is it either fitting, we ask, or even
prudent, that, in the twentieth century, Great Britain should repose
her trust in so problematical and hazardous a presumption? For the
transformation of the most heroic enthusiasm into an effective weapon
of war demands time, exactly as the transformation of the Territorials
into an efficient Army demands time. But when war comes it will come
with great suddenness; the essential crisis will be on us in an
instant, and for Great Britain--as Lord Salisbury in his latest
utterances significantly warned us--the stake is not to be reckoned in
millions of a war indemnity; the stake is our very existence as an
Empire.
When Lord Haldane cites the exploits of untrained or semi-trained
forces, when he speaks of "a whole nation springing to arms at the call
of duty," he has his eyes fastened upon other circumstances and upon
other times than ours. Under the conditions of modern war, discipline
alone can confront discipline on a field of battle.
"We appeal to our countrymen to join us in our effort," I went on to
say. "We appeal, above all, to the officers and men of the existing
Territorial Force. We are working to insure that their sacrifice to
patriotism should not be made futile, nor their devotion thrown away.
We are working to make the Army to which they belong a reality--that is
to say, a Home Army efficient and sufficient; an Army which shall
always be ready to take up the defence of these islands, and leave our
Regulars free and our Fleets free to fight our battles elsewhere. We
ask them to assist us in our efforts to introduce a system of
compulsory training, the only system under which the safety of the
country can be secured and the Territorial Force made really effective."
[1] On June 17, 1908, Lord (then Mr.) Haldane said: "In the event of a
great war breaking out ... the Territorials would be embodied, not for
immediate fighting, if it could be avoided, but for their war training."
THE TERRITORIAL FORCE
LORD HALDANE'S SCHEME EXAMINED
_Speech delivered in the Mansion House,
July_ 22, 1912.
MY LORD MAYOR, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN,
It is seven years, almost to the day, since I had the honour of
addressing a meeting of City men in this historic House on the subject
of Imperial Defence. On that occasion I prefaced my remarks by saying:
"I have but one object in coming before you to-day, namely, to bring
home to my fellow-countrymen the vital necessity of their taking into
their earnest consideration our unpreparedness for war." I then
affirmed that the armed forces of this country were as absolutely
unfitted and unprepared for war as they were in 1899-1900. And, my
Lords and gentlemen, I grieve to have this afternoon to repeat to you
that we are now scarcely better fitted or better prepared to carry on a
war to-day than in 1905. The experience that we gained in the Boer War
has had little effect upon our general military policy. We have
neglected, except as regards the Regular Army, to profit by the lessons
which that war ought to have taught us.
What are the causes of this indifference and this deep-seated apathy?
The causes, I think, are not far to seek. In the first place, if you
will permit me as a soldier to speak with the frankness of a soldier,
it is one of the most dangerous tendencies of a nation, especially a
democratic and self-confident nation, devoted to commerce and industry
as we are, to ignore so disturbing and apparently so remote a
contingency as our being forced into war. But there is another more
immediate and a more particular cause, and it is to this that I mainly
wish to direct your attention this afternoon.
Those who are responsible for our defences--and I must include in this
category the late Minister for War--are, I maintain, either so blind to
the lessons of history, or so enamoured of their own schemes, that they
have deliberately lulled the nation into the belief that our present
system is adequate, and that we are amply prepared to meet any dangers
which come within the sphere of consideration by practical men. Thus
the very men who ought to declare the facts in the plainest terms to
the nation, the very men who ought to be endeavouring to rouse the
nation from its fatal apathy, are the men who are fostering that spirit
of indifference and self-confidence to which the nation of itself is
already too prone. A democracy like ours will never take the necessary
measures to safeguard itself so long as Ministers and a partisan Press
proclaim that we are as a nation perfectly safe, when, as a matter of
fact, our position is precarious in the extreme. This is a serious
statement; but, if you will have patience with me, I hope to convince
you that it is well founded, and it can be demonstrated from the
principles of Imperial Defence which Lord Haldane has so frequently,
and, it must be admitted, so plausibly, urged upon us.
My Lords and gentlemen, I have on many occasions paid a tribute to Lord
Haldane's services. He has placed the problems of National Defence
upon what is, for a British Minister, a new and comprehensive basis;
and he will go down to posterity as the first British statesman who, in
theory, embodied in an actual scheme the idea of a National Army, "A
Nation in Arms." This conception is so important to my whole subject
this afternoon that it is worth while to recall some of Lord Haldane's
expressed ideas with regard to it.
Speaking at Newcastle-on-Tyne in September, 1906, Lord Haldane said
that we must have a highly trained nucleus in time of peace, and must
look for a great expansion in time of war, "and for that expansion we
must go to the nation, and ask for the co-operation of the nation,"
adding: "A nation in arms is the only safeguard for the public
interests," and that "this idea has been neglected in our military
contemplation. The problem," he went on to say, "is not a problem of
the Regular Forces nearly so much as the problem of the nation in arms,
of the people as a whole, with all the forces of the country welded
into one."
Such an expression of opinion by the newly-created Secretary of State
for War was to many of us an augury of great hope. It seemed that at
last Great Britain might have an army adapted to modern conditions of
war; that we had at last a Minister who not only understood, but had
enunciated in a clear and masterly manner our own conception of a
Nation in Arms. From that time forward, we imagined, the Nation in
Arms would be regarded as a vigorous trunk from which the Regular Army
and the personnel of the Navy would spring forth as branches, drawing
their sap and the vigour of their life from the qualities--mental,
moral, and physical--of the nation itself. For that, and no other, is
the real meaning of the phrase "A Nation in Arms."
Such, my Lords and gentlemen, was Lord Haldane's language in September,
1906--less than six years ago. Might it not be imagined that he was
speaking as President of the National Service League, addressing a
meeting such as I am addressing to-day?
Nor can it be denied that, in his subsequent description of the
functions to be fulfilled by the Forces which he has substituted for
the Volunteers, Lord Haldane has correctly kept in view the
relationship which ought to exist between the branches and the trunk,
between the Navy and the Regular nucleus on the one hand, and the
"National Army lying behind" them on the other.
In his Memorandum on the Army Estimates for 1908-09, when the
Territorial Force was created, Lord Haldane said that it was "designed--
"1. To compel any hostile Power which may attempt invasion to send a
force so large that its transports could not evade our own fleets and
flotillas.
"2. To free the Regular Army from the necessity of remaining in these
islands to fulfil the functions of Home Defence.
"3. And," he said, "a further result will be to permit greater freedom
to the Navy."
Elsewhere Lord Haldane protested that the "essence of the duty of the
Territorial Force is to protect us against invasion"; and he pointed
out that the Territorial Force might have to be entrusted with the
defence of these shores after the whole of the Regular Army had left
the country.
You will see, my Lords and gentlemen, that an efficient Territorial
Force is thus made the fundamental condition of the effectiveness of
our whole defensive system, and the question immediately arises, Can
the Territorial Force perform the functions assigned to it? If it
cannot perform those functions, the whole defensive system, of which it
is the central pillar, must fall to the ground.
What, then, is this system?
It consists, for an Empire such as ours, of three parts--
1. A supreme Navy, the standard for which has been laid down by the
present Government as that of a 60 per cent. superiority over the next
strongest Navy.
2. A Regular Army, to act as a garrison and police force to our Empire
in time of peace, and as a striking force in time of war.
3. A Home Army of such a character as regards numbers and training as
would enable it to free the Navy and the Regular Army from the primary
duties of Home Defence by providing direct security against an
attempted invasion of these shores, and at the same time to form a
potential reserve which could supply by voluntary effort in a national
emergency powers of expansion to the Regular Army when fighting for the
very existence of our Empire abroad.
Does our Territorial Force, as it stands to-day, provide us with a Home
Army of this character?
I have no hesitation in answering this question in the negative. The
Territorial Force is not and, under the conditions of voluntary
service, never can be fit to perform the functions allotted to it by
Lord Haldane himself.
My Lords and gentlemen, three conditions must be fulfilled in order
that an Army may be efficient. These conditions are--
1. Sound organization.
2. Sufficient numbers.
3. Adequate training.
To the soundness of the organization established by Lord Haldane I have
frequently testified. He wisely followed the advice given by the Royal
Commission on the Auxiliary Forces, and there is, therefore, as regards
organization, nothing to criticize.
With regard to numbers, I have reminded you that, when the scheme was
first put forward, Lord Haldane talked of a "Nation in Arms," and the
figures he gave--"seven, or eight, or nine hundred thousand"--showed
that he contemplated the training of a Home Army of a strength which
would correspond in a measure to that phrase. At that time, too, he
declared his intention of including in his scheme a comprehensive plan
for the training of boys in Cadet Corps, which would have contributed
materially to broaden the basis of the Home Army, and might have
shortened the period of training for those who joined the Territorial
Force, had that period in itself been adequate. But this most useful
proposal he dropped at the outset at the bidding of a small section of
his political supporters. And, my Lords and gentlemen, in actual
numbers what do we possess? The establishment of the Territorial Army
is 315,000. On April 1, 1912, the numbers obtained (a large proportion
being mere boys) were 278,955--that is to say, four years after the
scheme was started the force is about 25,000 short of the establishment
laid down, but more than 400,000 short of the smallest number that Lord
Haldane originally hoped for.
Can it be pretended for a moment that such a number provides the Home
Army which Mr. Asquith described as necessary, if we are to be able to
guard against a successful invasion of even 70,000 men? I say nothing
at this point of the danger of believing that no force larger than
70,000 may have to be dealt with; but I must point out that, in order
to deal with an invasion of even 70,000 highly-trained soldiers, a
field force of at least 300,000 partially-trained men are required, in
addition to some 200,000 men needed for the protection of the naval
bases and arsenals, and to garrison the principal places in Great
Britain and Ireland.
It is important that you should realize the facts: that the number
asked for was quite inadequate; that even that number has not been
obtained, and that the age and physique of a considerable proportion of
those who have come forward are not up to a satisfactory standard; for
Lord Haldane has been concentrating all his efforts and the attention
of the public on securing, at almost any cost, the number of men for
the Territorial Force--that is, the total of 315,000 men, to which his
ideal of a Nation in Arms has shrunk. But even in this he has failed.
These frantic efforts to secure a nominal success are designed to
distract attention from the far more serious question of the training
of the Territorial Force, and to create the impression that the scheme
is a masterpiece which is beyond criticism, and which has, once for
all, made it quite unnecessary to discuss the question of compulsory
service for the Home Army.
So much for organization and numbers; now for the third
condition--namely, the _training_ of the Territorial Force. In
discussing this question I must try to avoid misinterpretation by
saying that, in stating plain facts, I am not criticizing the officers
or men of that Force. On the contrary, I honour them for their
patriotism, and for the admirable example they are setting to their
apathetic fellow-countrymen. It is the voluntary system that I
condemn, and the politicians who are hoodwinking this nation into the
belief that that system is adequate and sufficient for our needs. And
surely I need not apologize for examining the standard of training laid
down for the Territorial Force. Lord Haldane himself, in 1906,
declared, "It is preparedness for war which is the key to the sort of
organization we ought to have in peace"; and on another occasion he
said, "The contemplation of large numbers by the people of this
country, who are unable to take into account questions of war
efficiency and war organization, necessarily promotes dangerous
national illusions." It is against such "dangerous national illusions"
that I wish to warn my fellow-countrymen in the following analysis of
the training of the Territorial Force.
The Territorial soldier can be enlisted at seventeen years of age, and
the engagement is for four years. In the first year he must do a
minimum of forty drills of an hour each, and a minimum of eight days or
a maximum of fifteen days, in camp. In the next year he must do ten
drills of an hour each, and the same camp training. The musketry
standard can hardly be described as high, seeing that each man is only
provided by the State with 90 rounds per annum, and in some cases this
number is disposed of on an enclosed range on one day in the year.
This is simply ludicrous, considering that, in modern war and with the
modern rifle, the soldier who cannot use this weapon with skill and
confidence is absolutely useless.[1]
Such is the minimum peace training laid down for the Territorial Force.
It is less than the minimum training in any army or Militia in the
world. I am aware that many officers and men do a great deal more as
individuals. But what is far more important--and I ask you, my Lords
and gentlemen, most earnestly to realize the fact--a large number do
not reach even this minimum amount of training.
The proposal to give six months' training after war breaks out is so
amazing as to be unworthy of consideration, and it is difficult to
believe that it was made seriously by its talented author, seeing that
readiness for war is the purpose aimed at by every European nation; and
now-a-days, when war breaks out with the greatest suddenness, and the
stake at issue between two great nations going to war would be so
gigantic, the temptation to secure the advantage of the initiative and
to commence hostilities without declaration of war could hardly be
resisted.[2]
But it may be urged that, although the Territorial Force is evidently
not fit to perform its functions without a proper course of recruit
training, surely it would be possible to secure that training in time
of peace, instead of postponing it until the outbreak of war, as Lord
Haldane proposed. If the nation still hugs this delusion, I hope it
will abandon it before it drags us down to disaster. For one hundred
years the voluntary system for Home Defence has been tried and found
wanting. Under it a sufficient number of men have never been
forthcoming, and can never be forthcoming, to devote enough time in
peace to render the Army fit for war. Discipline cannot be acquired by
homeopathic doses; nothing but a considerable period of continuous
training can give individual soldiers and military units that
self-confidence and cohesion which are essential to success in war; and
no modification of the voluntary system, no amount of lavish
expenditure, no cajolery, no juggling with figures, will ever produce
an adequate and efficient Home Army.
This truth was clearly expressed by the Duke of Norfolk when he said,
with reference to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Auxiliary
Forces, of which he was the President: "The breakdown is in almost
every case attributed essentially to the nature of the voluntary system
itself, which makes it impossible to demand a reasonable standard of
efficiency without greatly reducing the forces."
Curiously enough, Lord Haldane, speaking of the Territorial Force,
seems to have recognized the correctness of this conclusion, for in the
House of Commons on March 9, 1908, he said: "Because it is a voluntary
Army on a voluntary basis, you can only give it just so much training
as volunteers are able and willing to take...." Can anything be more
condemnatory of the value of a Force, which will assuredly be required
the moment war breaks out? And to quote the Duke of Norfolk again: "If
you trust the present organization ... you will be leaning on a prop
which will fail when the day of trial comes."
What would be the result is simply this--for six months the striking
force could not strike. The Regular Army could not leave these shores
to assist our fellow-countrymen in India and the oversea Dominions, or
to reinforce our friends and allies in accordance with the obligations
of honour and mutual interest which we have undertaken. For six months
the Navy would be hampered and shackled in performing its traditional
duties of seeking out the enemy's fleets--it would, in fact, be
deprived of that "greater freedom" which the Territorial Force was
intended to give it.
But, my Lords and gentlemen, we have not had to wait for war to see the
effects of this pernicious policy; its evil effects are already upon
us, though nominally we are at peace with all the world. Year by year,
during the past decade, the ocean area over which the British flag
floats has been steadily narrowed, and within the past three months,
the most presageful, the most ominous narrowing of all, has taken
place. We have abandoned the Mediterranean Sea. But yesterday that
great sea was like a British lake; to-day not a single British
battleship disturbs the blue of its waters. Could any more
significant, more startling warning ever be given to a Government not
wilfully deaf, or to a nation not wedded to luxury and self-indulgence,
indifferent alike to its past glories and its present security?
What better exemplification could be imagined of the truth of Mahan's
axiom that "a fleet charged with the care of its base is a fleet so far
weakened for effective action"? And what does this whole process of
the withdrawal of the British flag from one sea after another and its
concentration in home waters indicate? It indicates just this, that
while "the British Navy a hundred years ago was superior to the
combined navies of all Europe," it is to-day little more than equal to
the next largest European Navy, and is quite inadequate in proportion
to the interests it has to guard.
This revolution in our relative strength at sea is mainly owing to the
want of foresight on the part of successive Lords of the Admiralty, and
it is incidentally an additional condemnation of our retention of the
old voluntary system of our land defence. While we are standing still,
Germany is moving, and we have this year the announcement of a new and
larger programme, a programme which goes much beyond the Navy Law of
1900, and will, when completed, give Germany--the greatest military
Power in the world--a group of battle fleets in the North Sea
calculated to make us consider whether even our concentrated naval
strength will be sufficient to cope with them.
My Lords and gentlemen, in mentioning Germany in this connection I want
to make it perfectly clear that I do so in no spirit of hostility, with
no wish to stir up any feeling of resentment or enmity against a great
people bent upon working out their own salvation. I have not the
slightest sympathy with the Press controversies carried on in both
countries, which have done so much to embitter the feeling between what
are really two branches of the same race. What I desire to point out
to my fellow-countrymen is simply this: Great Britain has attained to
the limits of her territorial expansion. She neither requires nor
seeks another square mile of dominion. Her object should be to develop
the resources of her people commercially, industrially, and socially,
and to maintain the traditions of religious and political freedom which
have been the main cause of her greatness. At the same time there is
Germany, a great homogeneous State, with a population of 66,000,000,
which is consciously aiming at becoming a world-Power with "a place in
the sun," where its vigorous progeny may develop a German life,
actuated by German thought and ideals. This nation has already built
up, in an incredibly short space of time, the second Navy in the world,
not, moreover, scattered over the seven seas, but concentrated like a
clenched mailed fist in the waters of the German Ocean.
Who is there with any knowledge of the history of nations, or of the
trend of European politics, but must see in these plain facts a danger
of collision, no one can say when, but within a limit of time indicated
by the convergence of the lines of destiny of the two peoples, and
which at any moment may be accelerated by some misunderstanding or some
conflict with the friend or ally of either country. To one whose sole
desire is to see his country safe and at peace, pursuing the path of
her destiny to even greater heights than she has as yet reached, it is
simply amazing that anyone can imagine that the conflict of which I
have spoken can be permanently averted merely by denying that there is
any danger, or by abandoning our preparations for defence as an amiable
invitation to Germany to do the same.
Germany--indeed the whole world--is well aware of the real feebleness
underlying the proud appearance of our naval and military strength.
She knows that the efficacy of armaments to-day, even more than a
hundred years ago, depends essentially upon their being founded upon
the nation itself, and drawing their strength of mind and muscle, of
courage and inspiration, from the very heart of the whole nation. Such
armaments can be attained by one means only--the training of all the
able-bodied men of the State. This alone will give a basis, solid as a
rock, to all machinery of war; this alone will enable the nation to
bring to bear, in support of the national will, the whole might of the
nation's power.
But, my Lords and gentlemen, our statesmen still assert that the
country will never stand compulsory training. Is that so certain? I
am persuaded it is by no means certain. On the other hand, it is
certain that so long as our fellow-countrymen are soothed and flattered
by their leaders into believing that the Territorial Force, as at
present constituted, gives all the backing that is necessary to the
Navy and Regular Army, they can see no need to consider compulsory
training, and are not to be blamed for their belief. But if our
leaders would have the honesty and courage to tell the people the
truth--the truth being that we are on the eve of a great crisis--a
crisis without parallel certainly during the past hundred years, and
that our national forces are unfit to meet the strain that may be put
upon us with any assurance of success--then I feel confident that the
present generation of Britishers would willingly adopt the first
necessary reform, the substitution of universal training--compulsory
upon all, high and low, rich and poor, from the son of a duke to the
son of a labourer--as the foundation of our Territorial Force, instead
of the present foolish and unfair method of basing it on a voluntary
enlistment. The real difficulty is to move our leaders to take the
people into their confidence and tell them the truth about this vital
matter.
My Lords and gentlemen, when I consider the certainty of the struggle
in front of us, its probable nearness, and the momentous issues at
stake, I am astounded that the nation should be kept in the dark as to
the dangers we have to cope with, and for which we most certainly are
not prepared. But if our political leaders will take no part in
putting our true position before the people, all the more necessary is
it for those who love their country, and who have great commercial
interests at stake, to help us in our efforts to prevent Great Britain
falling from her high estate, and to preserve for her the blessings of
peace. With all the strength and earnestness I possess, I want to
impress upon you, gentlemen of this great city, that this aim cannot be
fulfilled unless we are to have a Navy strong enough to insure our
supremacy at sea, and an Army strong enough to prevent invasion, and
free the Navy from the necessity of being tied to these shores.
[1] In the course of the controversies raised by my Manchester speech
the fallacy of the superiority of the volunteer to "the unwilling
conscript" has once more reappeared. I must here repeat what I said in
the House of Lords in April, 1911, that much of this talk about "one
volunteer being worth two pressed men" is nonsensical. The truth is
that one man, whether pressed or not, if well disciplined and carefully
trained, is worth at least half a dozen undisciplined, insufficiently
trained volunteers. No doubt, if I had to lead a forlorn hope
requiring men determined to carry out the job, no matter what the odds
against them might be, I would rather have half the number of men who
volunteered than double the number ordered to perform it, provided all
were equally well trained; but if it were a question of soldiers versus
untrained volunteers, I would infinitely prefer to have ten
well-trained and well-disciplined soldiers than fifty ill-trained and
ill-disciplined volunteers.
I could give many instances from history in support of this view--the
opinions of great commanders like Washington and Napoleon--but I will
here cite only one incident from my own experience of war:
During the Franco-German War of 1870-71, the French, from having an
army without any means of expansion, were forced, after the first few
weeks, to employ hastily-raised levies. These levies, even in greatly
superior numbers, were no match for the highly-trained German soldiers.
On one occasion towards the end of the war, 35,000 German soldiers
found themselves engaged with a force of these recently-raised levies,
numbering between 140,000 and 150,000. They had been given such
training as was possible while war was going on, for four and a half
months. They were brave men fighting for their own country, and in
their own country, and what happened? Within a month 60,000 of them
were killed, wounded, prisoners, or missing, while the remaining 80,000
were driven over the Swiss frontier and there interned.
[2] And as regards the much-needed six months' training, supposing, for
argument's sake, that we could calculate on being given six months'
warning, can we feel absolutely certain that the few patriotic
employers who have allowed their men to join the Territorial Army, and
are good enough to spare them for a week's or fortnight's training
yearly, would or could consent to their being taken away for six
months, during which time their business would go to pieces, while
their competitors in trade, who have refused to allow their men to
serve their country, would be reaping great benefit from their
selfishness and want of patriotism?