G.H.Q. AND THE "NEW ARMY."
What G.H.Q. thought of the "Temporaries"--Old prejudices and their
reason--The material of the "New Armies"--Some "New Army" Officers who
did not play the game--The Regular Army Trade Union accepts its
"dilutees."
What did G.H.Q., whose view may be taken as the authoritative one, think
in 1918 of what used to be known as "the New Army?" G.H.Q. in 1918
represented in the main the pick of the old Regular Army. Nearly all its
senior officers were "Regulars." The majority of the junior officers
were "Temporaries." What was the feeling between them after the mutual
knowledge that the years had brought?
Often I talked this over at dinner, sometimes with men whose opinions I
had known in 1914 and 1915. There was H----, for instance, who, in those
early years of the war, was an unsparing critic of the "New Army" which
was, he used to say then, slovenly and a makeshift sort of show and
could not salute properly, and suffered, and always would suffer, from
the "non-military mind."
The non-military mind, according to him, was an affliction which was
born in one, like original sin, and could only be exorcised by going to
a Military Academy and becoming a Regular Soldier. I used to be very
meek and long-suffering with him (he was senior to me) and only
occasionally mentioned people like Blake (a civilian whom Cromwell made
a General, and afterwards an Admiral, and a right good General and a
right better Admiral he was) or non-militarily-minded men like Botha and
Smuts.
But to what argument I did venture upon he was impervious. I noted that
fact for him and quoted it as, perhaps, a characteristic of the mind
which was _not_ non-military. And altogether we had some charming
quarrels, as amusing, almost, as those of old men in their clubs, who if
they could not bicker could not digest their dinners, and then where
would they be?
Now H---- takes it all back. He is at last convinced that the New Army
is all right. Of course it is. Why should it not be? Is not the British
Empire all right? And is not the New Army a sort of Representative
Assembly of the British Empire?
G.H.Q. in 1918 saw clearly enough that never before in the history of
any Empire was such splendid raw material for an Army gathered together
as in Great Britain in 1914-1918. There were things to offend dainty
tastes in the recruiting campaign of which the New Armies were the
harvest. But nothing can spoil the value of the result, that many
hundreds of thousands of the best men who ever served in an Army joined
the colours.
Judge the New Army by the standard of the "Regulars."
The soldiers of the first Expeditionary Force (the "Regulars," the men
who, despite the booming of certain special units, did the greater part
of the heroic work of Lord French's command up to Loos) have proved
themselves so nobly that it is possible to say now, without fear of
offence, that if they had been judged as individuals before they joined
the Army, they might not have been held to represent the best average of
the British people. There is nothing ungracious in saying this now, when
even the furious and blinded foe is compelled to admit their excellent
virtue. The men of the old Regular Army themselves would admit almost
unanimously that it was the Army that made them, and that they
occasionally took the King's shilling for lack of prospect of another
shilling. The people of England must confess, on their part, that they
rather boasted of "not being a military nation" and were content with an
army system which did not seek to levy fairly upon the average manhood
of the nation but trusted chiefly to the patriotism and instinct for
rule of an officer class.
The material of the ranks was not bad material, nor even poor material.
The British blood is a good brew. For it has tapped the most adventurous
and hardiest veins of the Celt, the Anglo-Saxon, the Scandinavian, and
the Norman; and this British blood learned by some subtle alchemy to
draw always fresh savour and wholesomeness from the girdling sea. Put
out of consideration a few criminal degenerates, and the mentally
emasculated politicians who used to preach the gospel of no nationalism,
and no British stock is actually bad stock, as can be seen from the
superb young nations that have sprung, partly from its lees, in the
Dominions.
But the raw material of the New Armies represented a great improvement
on the raw material from which was built up the old army. Other things
being equal, therefore, the New Armies could be expected to beat the
Expeditionary Force. Other things, unfortunately, were not equal, such
as officers' education and time of training. But in all the
circumstances the New Armies, after some blooding, might be expected to
attain, and actually did attain, the high standard set in the field by
the British Regular.
The material of the New Armies was such as no recruiting sergeant in
1913 could have hoped to secure. In a fairly typical batch of recruits
which I had to take over one day were engine-fitters, brass finishers,
coal miners, agricultural labourers, gamekeepers, two foremen, one
compositor, one valet, one pugilist (a champion), one stud groom, one
cycle mechanic, one clerk. The wages of these men before they joined was
high, and only two out of thirty-eight had been of the "usually
unemployed" class. Among these men, accustomed to the discipline of the
workshop, many of them with experience as gangers or foremen, possible
non-commissioned officers were sprinkled thickly. I have seen batches of
recruits for the old army just when they joined, and they looked usually
rather forlorn--men accustomed to be unemployed, men at a loose end,
disappointed men, with just a sprinkling of eager men taking to the
soldier's life for the love of it. Only after three months of the
wholesome life, the wholesome food, the kindly discipline of the Army,
would they fairly compare in physique, manhood, and intelligence with
the recruits of the New Armies.
A well-marked stream coming to join the flood of New Army recruits was
that of British men from overseas. The British blood is strangely
responsive to the magic of the seas. Send a careless young Englishman
abroad to Australia, South Africa, or to some foreign land such as China
or the Argentine, and the salt air of the seas as he traverses them
seems to set tingling in his blood a new keenness of Imperial pride. His
outlook comes closer to that of the Elizabethan Englishman. Perhaps it
is from the first actual consciousness of what it means to be one of a
nation which is mistress of the seas. Perhaps one must seek deeper for a
more transcendental explanation, finding it in something analogous to
the Greek myth of the giant who renewed his strength whenever he touched
Mother Earth.
Let the reason be what it may, the fact is clear enough. Of British men
abroad--I speak now of British born, not of those born citizens of the
Dominions--one can dare the guess that ninety-nine out of a hundred
turned their thoughts at once to the joy of service on the outbreak of
this war.
In a city of China I know there were 18 young Englishmen in various
commercial houses. Of them 17 came away home to the war. In most cases
it meant abandoning their positions and all their future prospects.
Money was scarce, and the little band travelled steerage. To realise how
great a sacrifice that was, one must know the tropics and the disgusts
of having coolies for fellow-travellers. From the Argentine, from Canada
and the United States, from New Zealand and Australia, the English
streamed home to serve. From such a place as the Argentine there was
almost a stampede of British men of fighting age.
Starting with a big handicap of quality in their favour, the men of the
New Armies very soon found that it was all necessary if, within the
much briefer time allowed them to become fit for the fighting line, they
were to succeed in keeping level with the soldiers who would be their
comrades. The recruits of the old Regular Army before the war came into
an organisation which was officered, from brigade generals down to
junior subalterns, by specialists. Officers were drawn mostly from a
class with a tradition of rule, and were given a very close training.
Those who came in as officers from circles which had not that tradition
were in a minority, and during their course of training learned to
conform to the pattern set. Very much of the success of the British Army
has been due to the qualities of courage, coolness, and _noblesse
oblige_ of the officers. As a class they gave the best of leads--a far
better lead than did the generally domineering, sometimes brutal, German
officers. The recruits to the New Armies did not have the advantage of
coming to an organisation fully officered by men with this tradition of
command and technical knowledge of their work. They had to rely for
officers on material which was slightly poorer on the average.
The officers of the New Armies came from five sources:--
1. A few officers spared from units at the Front and devoting
themselves to the dull but glorious duty of helping on the new men.
These were usually first class.
2. "Dug-outs." A "dug-out" is not a form of entrenchment or shelter
but an officer who, having completed, as he thought, his soldier's
work, volunteered back to service in the New Army. Some of the
dug-outs were up to the standard of the Regular Army and, having
kept abreast of modern military progress, were able to "take post"
from the outset. Other dug-outs were more or less behind-hand with
modern military science. A few were frankly deplorable. But the
"dug-out" in the majority of cases made an excellent officer after
a little schooling (sometimes without). Lots of him were at G.H.Q.
Sometimes he proved valuable only for the preliminary work of
regimental organisation, and was then remorselessly passed over
when his unit was finally put into shape for the Front. He
bombarded the War Office with furious protests, then took up the
licking into shape of another raw unit.
3. Promoted non-commissioned officers from the Regular Force,
nearly always proficient in their technical work, and in the
majority of cases with also a sound instinct of leadership.
4. Recruited officers from the Universities and the public schools.
Almost invariably they had a sense of leadership. They had learned
a tradition of rule. In most cases they soon learned the technical
part of their work.
5. Recruited officers from the bulk of the community: in many cases
very good; sometimes just passing muster; in a few cases distinctly
poor. The necessity of a weeding-out was soon recognised.
Summing up in regard to the officers of the New Armies it has to be
admitted that they came below the standard of the Expeditionary Force,
but not much below the standard: and that they got to the standard of
the Territorials.
Put to the test of getting a post at G.H.Q., which was supposed to be
the crowning test of efficiency, the New Army Officers did not do badly.
I made a rough poll one night at the club dinner. More than half the
officers present were "New Army" men. In what may be called "specialist"
branches New Army men predominated.
The very wide sweep of the net which gathered in recruits gave the New
Armies a very varied stock of knowledgeable men to draw upon. The ideal
army officer should be, besides a gentleman and a skilled tactician, a
good horse-master, a good house-keeper, and a clever mechanician, able
to train men, to repair a telephone, a saddle, a cooking-pot or a wagon.
No one man can have all that knowledge in perfection, but with the New
Armies it was possible to get within a unit men trained in civil life
to every form of skill wanted. A regiment, with average luck, would have
recruits from the most varied industries and trades, and the picked
specialists in time got to "staff jobs" as a rule.
* * * * *
The "Regular" in 1914 and early 1915 was, I suppose, pretty generally
convinced that there was not much hope in the "Temporary." Especially
was this conviction firm in the mind of the very junior Regular. The
"Shop" boy, the young second lieutenant just from Woolwich, had a
blighting scorn for the "Temporary," whom he called a "Kitchener" and
often affected to regard as not an officer at all but some sort of
stranger whom you had to admit to Mess and tolerate in uniform because
authority said so, but who obviously was not a "pukka" military man, for
he could not talk about his "year" or exchange stories about wonderful
"rags." The average senior Regular probably thought very much the same
sort of thing, but, having cut his wisdom teeth, did not allow it to
show so palpably.
There was a certain amount of justification for this feeling, for the
advent of the huge number of "New" officers made a vast change in the
social conditions of the Army. It soon became obviously necessary that
the Temporary "Pip-Squeak" should come under a severely motherly
eye--that of the War Office and of various private philanthropic
agencies who would have us all dull and good (and if we cannot be both
we can be the one at least). That eye then also glared upon the
Temporary lieutenant and other Temporary officers of more exalted grade,
and also, to their intense disgust, on permanent officers, who professed
to understand why the "Temporary" should be the victim of sumptuary
regulation, but not the "pukka commission" man. All these officers
agreed that it was the wickedness of the Temporary Second Lieutenant
(otherwise Mr. Pip-Squeak) that had caused all the trouble, and could
not understand why authority did not recognise this view and make their
new rules apply only to the most junior officers. But the rain of rules
fell on the just and the unjust alike, and some of the just were wroth.
I could sympathise a good deal, even if I laughed a good deal more, at
the officer who found himself "treated like a child," as he put it. The
dignity of the position of a British officer in the old Regular Army
_qua_ officer was remarkable. His officer's rank gave him the confidence
of his banker, of his tradesmen, of society generally. To see a British
officer in uniform with doubtful company or under doubtful circumstances
was almost unknown. The tradition of the officer clan was jealously
guarded by the system of training. When at last, having got his
commission, Mr. Regular Pip-Squeak reported to his regiment in the old
days he found himself still very much in leading strings. Until he had
won six months' standing his safest attitude, even in Mess, was that of
"don't speak unless you are spoken to." Justice he could expect from his
brother officers, and sympathy too, but the sympathy was tempered by
severe snubbings to restrain any tendencies to effervescence. Above all
things, he was trained to respect his uniform; and as he had generally
the right to wear mufti when off duty, this high respect was more easy
than in war time, when uniform had to be almost constantly worn.
With the first recruiting of the New Armies, commissions were freely
issued to men with no training, and in some few cases with no manners.
For a little while a bewildered public did not appreciate the change,
and bankers, tradesmen, hosts, had some unhappy experiences. But what
may be called the "commercial" aspect of the question was soon put
right. Officers' rank ceased to give credit rights. Socially, the
readjustment was far less easy. The War Office was at last compelled to
assist that process of readjustment with various restrictive orders.
"We have been asking for it," commented one officer grimly when some
particularly repressive regulations were published. And without a doubt
we had been asking for it--that is to say the conduct of some officers
had made not merely advisable but necessary a degree of motherly (or
grandmotherly) supervision. Exhortation preceded regulation by many
months.
Afterwards commissions were only granted after some service or a Cadet
term of training. But the stringent regulations, which offended the
dignity of some "Regulars," remained. It was not that a milk-sop
standard was aimed at. It was not the case that leave was only given to
go out to Mothers' Meetings, Sewing Circles, and High Teas in
Presbyteries. It was recognised that boys will be boys. But there is a
time when parents must be parents; and the War Office was in this case
_in loco parentis_.
* * * * *
But all that in 1918 was an old tale and mostly a forgotten tale. At
G.H.Q. there was no scorn at all left for the Temporary who had done his
share of fighting, even when he joined the scarlet-tabbed ranks of the
elect. He was accepted as a brother officer with the fullest cordiality.
"Very much more interesting show, the Army is now," confessed one
Regular Colonel to me. "Talk in Mess now _is_ talk. You've no idea how
solemn and stuffy a Regular Mess could be, say in India or in a garrison
town."
There remained a little good-humoured chaff still for the Temporary who
had jumped to a high appointment without any real soldier life at all.
Brigadier-General ----, the eminent expert in ----, who became a General
very suddenly, was reported to go around partly in dreadful, partly in
proud anticipation of a guard turning out for him when he wandered from
G.H.Q. area.
The chaff was good-humoured. It was never put under the nose of its
object. So it did not do much harm. In truth I was struck by the general
good temper with which the Trade Union of Officers ultimately took its
"dilutees."
But without a doubt the Officers' Trade Union, or rather the Amalgamated
Society of Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men of the Regular
Army, was rather inclined to give the cold shoulder to the "dilutees" in
Lord Kitchener's time. These New Army people had not put in their proper
term of apprenticeship, had not paid their Union fees. Should they be
treated as full members of the Society? But that feeling died away as
the blood-bond of a stubborn campaign broadened and stiffened. It could
not even be kept alive by the somewhat silly advertisement in some
quarters of Territorial units and New Army units and Colonial units at
the expense of their Regular brethren.
[Illustration: THE BOULOGNE GATE From the town]