EDUCATING THE ARMY.
The beginning of an interesting movement--The work of a few
enthusiasts--The unexpected peace--Humours of lectures to the
Army--Books for the Army--The Army Printery.
In the last phase of the war G.H.Q. saw a remarkable new development in
Army organisation: the inclusion of civic education as part of the
soldier's Army course. Before this war, of course, there had been Army
schoolmasters, and these in peace time did valuable work in teaching
illiterate soldiers. Cobbett, we know, owed his education to the Army;
so did one of the famous Generals of this war, Sir William Robertson;
and once we had as a visitor and lecturer at G.H.Q. an American
University Professor whose first education had been won as a ranker in
the British Army.
But the new Education Scheme had a much wider scope than the old Army
schools. The plan in brief was to make civic education a definite and
compulsory part of Army life, so that every man joining the Army should
have a course of humane and technical or professional education. The
plan is now in course of being carried on to successful fruition, and in
the future the Army will be a Continuation School as well as a defence
service.
This may prove to be one of the most useful results of the war. It was
due to the enthusiasm of a little band of soldiers and civilians, the
leaders of which were Colonel Borden Turner, Major-General
Bonham-Carter, Colonel Lord Gorell and Sir Henry Hadow.
The Army Educational movement had a small beginning with the
organisation of lectures. After the fighting of 1917 it was felt that
something more than the usual round of cinema shows and the performances
of Divisional theatrical troupes was necessary to help to recreate the
fighting value of the Army, and that what was required was something
more solid and intellectual, something that would raise an interest in
civic subjects quite apart from the war. It was therefore decided to get
as many scholars as possible to come out and give lectures to the men.
During the previous winter the Y.M.C.A. had arranged for a few lecturers
to come out and lecture in back areas, and they had machinery already
existing for looking after them in France. The Y.M.C.A. now again
undertook the work of housing, feeding, and transporting the lecturers
in France, and for all arrangements for getting them to the country.
Major-General Bonham-Carter persuaded some of the Government offices,
viz., Reconstruction, Food Control, Pensions, Labour, Education, to send
out men who could help the movement; and Lieutenant-Colonel (then
Captain) Borden Turner came to G.H.Q. to supervise the details. All
arrangements for lectures were made by the General Staff with the
Y.M.C.A. Lecturers were sent to units in the fighting areas rather than
to the Lines of Communication.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL C. BONHAM CARTER]
Later on it was decided that we must have an organisation to carry out a
big scheme of general education directly an armistice was declared, so
that the time of the men might be profitably employed while waiting for
demobilisation after the fighting was over. This decision was made in
December, 1917. Major-General Bonham-Carter and Captain Borden Turner
worked out a scheme with this idea, and Sir Henry Hadow, an
educationalist of great renown, gave his assistance.
Already efforts in this direction had been made in England and in the
Canadian Corps and elsewhere by individuals, to provide facilities for
education and hold classes, and a few voluntary classes were being held
by the Y.M.C.A. There was, however, no organised effort anywhere except
in the Canadian Corps.
In January, 1918, it was decided to get the scheme started as early as
possible and not wait for the Armistice. But at that time there was a
great shortage of men, and naturally any scheme which demanded new
establishments met with objections. For this reason things moved slowly.
However, a scheme was got ready, waiting for the favourable moment to
arrive. It arrived sooner than was expected. At an historic dinner one
night at Lord Haig's château his personal enthusiasm was aroused, and he
gave orders for the preparation of a scheme for general education
throughout the Army in France with the object (1) of making men better
citizens of the Empire, by widening their outlook and knowledge, (2) of
helping them by preparing them for their return to civil life.
Lord Haig approved of the scheme that had already been prepared, but it
was put into force slowly, because very few men could be spared from
fighting and Lines of Communication work to fill the establishments
required. But a start was made. The scheme arranged for the work to be
administered by General Staff officers and attached officers in all
Formations, but on the Lines of Communication the Y.M.C.A. carried out
all teaching work as agents of the General Staff.
In April, 1918, it was realised that the efforts in France would be
greatly hampered if they were not co-ordinated with those in England and
elsewhere. The War Office was therefore urged to undertake this
co-ordinating work. Lord Gorell, who was at that time working under
Major-General Bonham-Carter in the Training Branch at G.H.Q., was
appointed to the War Office for the purpose.
The Army Education movement had warm sympathy from those at the head of
affairs. The Commander-in-Chief when once it was put before him was
enthusiastic. So was Lord Milner, then Secretary of State for War; and
Sir Travers Clarke, Q.M.G. and Major-General Daunay (Staff Duties) gave
it every support. But it was a movement from below rather than from
above, a movement springing from a widely-spread feeling amongst the
soldiers that they should win some better outlook on life from their
term in the Army.
If one man more than another should be singled out in this movement,
which really sprang from spontaneous generation, it would be Borden
Turner. He had the crusading spirit and preached Education to every
authority until what was a vague aspiration came to be a concrete fact.
Certainly Borden Turner was a scarcely tolerable friend to many of the
already over-busy officers at G.H.Q. He was always urging them to give
lectures, to take on classes. At this time there was practically no
"Establishment," and the only hope was to get officers to give spare
time to educational work. They had no spare time, but at the
remorseless urging of Borden Turner they stole hours from sleep or from
the Ramparts and gave lectures or took classes.
Before the Armistice the Organisation of the Education Branch had
progressed to some extent. Lord Gorell had gone to London and found a
sympathetic leader in Major-General Lyndon Bell, the Director of Staff
Duties, War Office, and S.D. 8 was established, having as its chief
officers under Lord Gorell, Sir Henry Hadow, Colonel Sir Theo. Morrison,
Major Basil Williams (the writer of a famous Life of Chatham), and Major
Frank Fox. General Bonham-Carter and Lieutenant-Colonel Borden Turner
remained in France, and the work of the new branch was being established
and co-ordinated with that of the Y.M.C.A. and with the Canadian,
Australian, and New Zealand Army Education schemes when the German
unexpectedly threw in his hand. A feverish rush for demobilisation at
once set in. As a consequence of newspaper agitation the original
demobilisation plans were seriously upset, and one of the worst
sufferers was the Army Education movement. Still an amount of useful
work both on the humane and the technical side was effected. Best of
all, the principle was firmly established that if a nation takes away a
young citizen from civil life it owes it to him that when the time comes
to send him back to civil life it will not be into a blind alley; his
term in the army will be employed to make a sound citizen of him and to
give him training in some vocation.
[Illustration: LIEUT-COLONEL D. BORDEN TURNER]
The Army Education organisation set itself to search out teaching talent
in the Army before calling in outside assistance, and it made some
interesting finds. Many a University don was discovered in a very humble
position. A gentleman described as "one of the most learned men in
Europe" was a bombardier in a battery. N.C.O.s and rankers who were
Fellows of famous colleges were common enough. Most of them were drawn
into the Education organisation.
One of the officers taken by Education from G.H.Q., where he was a staff
captain in the Adjutant General's Branch, was Captain Hansell, who had
been the Prince of Wales' tutor in his student days. Hansell, in
addition to his scholarship, is a sagacious urbane diplomat with a deep
and sympathetic knowledge of French life. He would have been best placed
on the Military Mission to the French Army. But that would have been a
serious loss if it had taken him away from G.H.Q., where his
after-dinner talk cheered the seniors and his artful unobtrusive
tutelage helped the juniors. Captain Hansell took charge of the
Lecturers' Headquarters for Education, and the task must have made a
very heavy demand on his tact. Lecturers of all kinds were being sent
out to France to address the troops, some of them with very vague
notions of what was required of them in the way of kit. One lecturer
vastly pleased his soldier audiences, but imposed a heavy strain on
transport by always appearing on the platform in full evening dress.
Another lecturer went out--in a Flanders winter--with a frock-coat as
his warmest garment, "and it was the thinnest frock-coat in
Christendom," observed a sympathiser. Of course a very great deal of
"roughing it" was the lot of the lecturer going from unit to unit to
troops living under active service conditions.
Moreover organisation was not perfect at the time. At one period a
steady stream of lecturers was arriving at Lecturers' Headquarters but
none was going out to lecture, because all transport for the time was
absorbed in a particularly heavy phase of demobilisation. The lecturers,
on whose damask periods idleness was as a cankering worm in the bud, got
into a sad state of impatience and were threatening to lecture one
another, or do something else desperate, when the position was saved by
a timely visit to them of the Prince of Wales and his brother, Prince
Albert, who had tea with them, chatted over their work, and convinced
them that they were not out on a fool's errand. Shortly afterwards the
transport situation was relieved, and the lecturers rushed to their
audiences and peace reigned again. But it is dreadful to think of what
might have happened if there had not been the urbane and diplomatic
Captain Hansell smoothing over troubles. A mutiny of lecturers would
have afforded some puzzling problems to the Provost-Marshal.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN H. P. HANSELL]
Before the Army Education organisation was born a great number of men in
the Army did some good solid reading. The Camps Libraries organisation
in England sent out to every unit parcels of books. Most of these were
of the opiate class, light magazines and light stories intended to
bemuse and not to educate the mind. But a proportion of good books
slipped in and were warmly appreciated by some.
* * * * *
The Army itself had a very fecund printing press, but it was devoted
almost solely to the production of books of orders and regulations and
text books. Regimental annuals of a humorous kind existed but were not
encouraged. As a rule they were printed in England, not in France, and
the conditions of censorship--more perhaps than the taste of writers and
readers--confined them as a rule to somewhat feeble japes.
There were very often mooted proposals for a G.H.Q. Monthly. It might
have drawn on a very distinguished band of writers. But authority
contrived that these proposals should never come to maturity. The
expenditure of time and material was grudged, and G.H.Q. was naturally
very nervous on points of "Intelligence." There are a thousand and one
ways in which military secrets can be given away with quite harmless
intent. An Intelligence General's aphorism on this point ran: "We find
out far more from the stupidity of our enemies than from the cleverness
of our spies."
It is clear that silence is the one sound policy. If a man says nothing,
nothing can be discovered from him. If he will speak, even if it is only
with the intention of deceiving, he may disclose something. British
diplomacy abroad (which was not such a foolish show as some critics say,
or else how comes it that the British Empire, from the tiny foundation
of these islands, has come to its present greatness?) was always the
despair of the inquisitive Foreign Correspondent, for it never said
anything. An Embassy or Ministry which would tell a lie, especially an
elaborate lie, was far preferable, for from something you may deduce
something; from nothing, nothing. G.H.Q. acted with a sound discretion
in smothering all proposals for a G.H.Q. Monthly.
The Army did most of its own printing, of maps, orders, forms, and
training books. Maps were done by the R.E. mapping section, other
printing by the Army Printing and Stationery Services under Colonel
Partridge. This was a highly efficient department with printing presses
of the most modern type at Boulogne, Abbéville, and elsewhere. A.P. and
S.S. printed daily General Routine Orders and, as occasion demanded,
poured out in millions Army Forms, posters, pamphlets, and books. Both
the French and Americans used its services. It could print in Chinese
and Arabic as well as in European characters, and some of its
achievements in the way of quick and good printing would do credit to a
big London printing house.
The Boulogne Printing Press, which was under the care of Major Bourne,
was a particularly up-to-date establishment much praised by the
Americans and the French as well as by our own Army. It put a strain
once, however, on the politeness of the French. The French Mission at
G.H.Q. wanted a book printed giving a record of its organisation. A.P.
and S.S., in the right spirit, did its best to make the book a handsome
one, and designed a special cover with _fleur-de-lys_ decorations. The
French Mission, with tact but with firmness, pointed out that France was
now a Republic and a monarchical symbol could hardly be permitted on an
official publication. It might give rise to a suspicion that the Army
contemplated a _coup d'état_. The printers regretted and tried again.
The second cover design bore the good old Roman Republican device of
the lictors' fasces. But they were shown reversed. The French were
desolated at being so exiguous, but could something else be tried, just
plain type? The printers were determined, however, to give the good
French something to show what an artistic people we English really are,
and made a third effort at a decorated cover. This showed a really
charming design in which the Gallic Cock strutted triumphantly along a
rose-point border. The French were enchanted, so enchanted that they
found reason to have another book, an annexe to the original book,
printed with the same cover.
American Army publications were normally somewhat more solemn and staid
than our own. Occasionally, however, the American humour broke out, as
in the gas warning leaflet, which had not, perhaps, the sanction of
American G.H.Q. but was widely (and usefully) circulated in the
trenches. It began:--
In a Gas Attack
There are only Two Crowds
The Quick and the Dead
Be Quick and get that Gas Mask on!
After the Armistice, the Printing Services, no longer so much pressed
with other Army work, were able to undertake some purely educational
printing. But by this time demobilisation was sweeping away the classes,
and the best of the opportunity had passed.