THE ARMY AND SOUTH AFRICA.
The foremost political lesson of the late war was the solidarity of
military spirit throughout the Empire. But this cohesion is only in
spirit, and the actual position of colonial forces is that of isolated
units, connected in no system, and subject to no central direction.
For a student of military law, or that branch of it which concerns the
relation of military forces to the civil power, a survey of the
British colonies has much curious interest. Speaking generally, since
1868 there have been no imperial forces in any self-governing colony,
since we have acted on the principle that when a colony became
autonomous the defence of its borders, except by sea, must be left to
its own government. Colonial troops are, therefore, militia and
volunteer, who take different forms according to the needs of the
colony. In some the militia, or a part of it, is to all intents a
regular force, performing garrison duty and acting as a school of
instruction for the other auxiliary forces. In Canada, for example,
there were in 1902 a troop of cavalry, a troop of mounted rifles, two
batteries of field artillery, two companies of garrison artillery, and
a battalion of infantry, in which the men were enlisted for three
years' continuous service. In New South Wales, to take one state of
the Australian Commonwealth, provision was made for a permanent
force, which included a half-squadron of cavalry, three companies of
garrison artillery and one field battery, a company of infantry and
various supplementary services, with men enlisted for five years. In
New Zealand the enlistment for the permanent force, which consists of
artillery and submarine miners, is for eight years, three of which
may be passed in the reserve. Next comes the militia proper on the
home model, where the men are partially paid and are subject to a
certain amount of annual training. Lastly there is a wide volunteer
organisation, stretching from fully organised companies of infantry
and mounted rifles down to small local rifle clubs. In certain
colonies where there is an aboriginal or unsettled population, such
as Canada, Cape Colony, and Natal, there is also a permanently
embodied police force, which may rank with the permanent militia as a
sort of colonial regulars. All such forces are under the full control
of the Colonial Governments, whether, as in the Australian Commonwealth
and Canada, under the Federal Ministry of Defence, or, as in Cape
Colony, under the department of the Prime Minister. An imperial officer
may be lent, as in Canada and Australia to-day, for the command of the
colonial force, but as soon as he enters upon his command he becomes a
servant of the Colonial Government. To that Government alone belongs
the power of raising new forces, of changing the status of existing
troops, of ordering their distribution, of regulating their rates of
pay, and of lending them for service beyond the colony. A strong
general officer commanding may have great influence in all such
decisions, but technically he is merely an adviser who receives his
orders from the local authorities.
This is one chief type of the organisation of our over-sea imperial
force. The other is furnished by India. There we have a native Indian
army, and a large number of imperial troops, all of whom are under the
authority of the commander-in-chief in India, who in turn is under the
control of the Indian Government. When imperial troops are stationed
in any other part of the Empire they are commanded by an officer who
is directly subject to the War Office; but in India, as soon as a
battalion lands it takes the status of the local forces and passes
under the authority of the local government. The War Office retains
certain powers, but for all practical purposes the Indian command is
wholly decentralised.
South Africa affords the spectacle of a confusion of the two types. It
is made up partly of Crown colonies and dependencies and partly of
self-governing states. At this moment it is occupied by imperial troops
whose numbers, for the purpose of this argument, may be put at 30,000.
Such troops are stationed in Cape Colony and Natal as well as in the
new colonies, and the command has been unified and vested in one
commander-in-chief, who is subject only to the War Office and has no
responsibility to the local governments. We have, therefore, the
anomalous case of an autonomous colony occupied by imperial troops, a
policy which is out of line with English practice. When self-government
is given to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the South
African general will command what will be neither more nor less than an
alien army of occupation. At the same time, wholly apart from the
regular forces, there are police troops in Natal, Cape Colony, the new
colonies, and Rhodesia; and a large number of volunteer regiments, who
are directly under the control of the local governments. The South
African military organisation is thus split in two by a deep gulf, and
unless some method of union is found, we shall be confronted with a
system alien to the tradition of our colonial policy and in itself
clumsy and unworkable. But this question is intimately bound up with
others--the desirability of the retention of imperial troops, the
organisation of such troops in relation to the imperial army, indeed
the whole question of that branch of imperial federation which is
concerned with the defence of the Empire. It involves certain problems
of military reform which are violently contested by good authorities.
In this chapter it is proposed, as far as possible, to consider the
matter of the South African army solely from the standpoint of South
African politics, referring to the military aspect only in so far as
may be necessary at points where South African politics are merged in
wider schemes of imperial unity.
The first question concerns the policy of keeping imperial troops in
South Africa at all. The size of the force depends, of course, on the
duties which it is intended to perform, but for the retention of some
troops there seems to be every justification. Few people believe that
there is much likelihood of another outbreak, but after a war of the
magnitude of that which we have recently gone through it would seem
scarcely provident to leave the peace of the country solely to the
care of the police. In a country, again, where British prestige is a
plant of recent growth, it is well to provide the moral support of
regular battalions. If useful for no other purpose, they serve as a
memento of war, a constant reminder of the existence of an imperial
power behind all local administration. We have also to face the fact
that we have committed ourselves to some kind of occupation force by
undertaking a large preliminary expenditure on cantonments, which will
be money wasted if the scheme is dropped. For this purpose we have
spent between two and three millions, and unless we are to be held
guilty of causeless extravagance, we must abide by the plan to which
this outlay has committed us.
The original scheme was for a garrison force. For this purpose 30,000
men are too many if our forecast be correct, and far too few if it be
wrong. Half the number would be ample for any peace establishment, and
we may be perfectly certain that as soon as self-government is
declared in the new colonies there would be many attempts to cut down
the number or do away with the force altogether. Alien garrison troops
will be always unpopular, and, as has been said, they are foreign to
British policy with regard to autonomous colonies. A force on the
garrison basis would find itself with little to do, the general
commanding would be exposed to the jealousy of the colonial troops,
and involved in constant difficulties with the colonial governments,
and, save in the unlikely event of a rebellion, would have no very
obvious justification for the existence of his command.
If South Africa is to remain a station for any considerable number of
imperial troops, some mode of co-operation must be discovered with the
local governments. This co-operation would be possible between the
colonial administration and a garrison force; but it would be
infinitely more satisfactory if the whole status of the imperial
troops were changed. For a garrison establishment makes it difficult,
if not impossible, not only to bring the general commanding into
touch with the governments, but to bring the local troops into line
with the regular, and both unions must be accomplished before any
satisfactory settlement can be given to the problem. The simplest
solution was to treat the South African force, not as a garrison, but
as part of the regular army on the home establishment, sent there for
the purpose of training, and liable to be utilised at any moment for
active service in any part of the Empire. There are certain objections
to the scheme, plausible enough though not insuperable, from the
military standpoint; but for the present we may limit our argument to
those points which concern South Africa, and those difficulties which
spring from the nature of the country--difficulties which are far more
real to the soldiers who are directly concerned than the wider
question of the present scheme of military organisation.
The advantages are sufficiently obvious. There are few finer
manoeuvring grounds in the world than the great Central South
African tableland. There is sufficient cover to make scouting possible
and not enough to make it easy, and the intense clearness of the air
and its singular acoustic properties will train a man's senses to a
perfection unknown in other armies and impossible to acquire in the
restricted areas of a populous country. The soldier will have to face
the rudiments of war in a far more difficult country than he is likely
to be used in. He will learn to shoot, or rather to judge ranges
correctly under unwonted conditions, which is rarer and more vital
than mere accurate marksmanship. He will learn the real roughness of
campaigning in long manoeuvres; and from the same cause regiments
will acquire that elasticity and cohesion which come from constant
working together. If we except enteric, caused by bad sanitation,
which has been the curse of the war, but is not a speciality of the
country, the veld is almost exempt from diseases. Life there will not
only train the senses and the intelligence, but will give health and
physical stamina. A year of such training will make a man of the young
recruit from the slums of an English city. Physique is the final
determinant in war, and with our present system of recruiting and
training there is no guarantee for its existence. Lastly, our soldiers
trained on the veld will become natural horse masters, which few even
of the cavalry are at present. They will learn that care of their
horses which every Boer has as a birthright, that simple veterinary
skill and common-sense whose lack has cost us so many millions. South
Africa is a natural horse-breeding country, and in co-operation with
Government stud-farms a breed of remounts could be got which would
unite the merits of the Afrikander pony with the weight and bone
required for army work. Instead of having to ransack foreign countries
for our horses, we should breed all we wanted for ourselves under the
eye of our imperial officers, and breed them too in a place which is
the best centre in the Empire for distribution to any possible seat of
war.
The objections to the scheme are partly of sentiment and partly of
technical difficulties. South African service, it is said, is at
present unpopular. Our army has recently concluded a long and arduous
war, fought under conditions of extreme discomfort. Small wonder if
troops who have been kicking their heels for eighteen months in remote
blockhouses should have little good to say of the pleasures of the
life. For the officers there have been dismal quarters, a cheerless
dusty country, heavy expenses, little sport, and no society; and the
lot of the men, though relatively less hard, has been equally
comfortless. The proper answer to such a contention is to ignore it.
It is the objection of the non-professional officer, and cannot be
entertained. The forces in South Africa are sent there for training,
not for garrison life, and if the place is a good training-ground, the
question of congenial society and interesting recreation has nothing
to do with the matter.[38] But there is no reason why South African
life for the future should be unattractive. An English society is
rapidly arising, English sports are becoming popular, the cantonments
can easily be made comfortable homes, and there are a thousand ways,
such as the allotting to each soldier who desires it a small patch of
land to cultivate, in which the men can be made to feel an interest in
the country. For the officers there is a sporting hinterland as fine
and as accessible as the Pamirs to the Indian sportsman. Living is
undoubtedly more costly, and there will have to be special allowances
for South African service; but with a proper canteen system, such as
existed during the war, the cost of luxuries might be kept low enough
for all. There is a future, too, for the reservist which he cannot
look for at home. Even as an unskilled workman he can command wages
which are unknown in England; and the men who, at the end of their
three years' service, would join the South African reserve, would be
young enough to begin civil life in whatever walk they might choose.
The chief technical difficulties, exclusive of sea-transport, which is
outside our review, are the extra cost, the difficulty of recruiting,
and the delays in bringing reservists from home in case of active
service. The last will be met in a little while by the creation of a
South African reserve; but in the meantime there are many ways in
which it might be surmounted. Battalions might be brought up to
fighting strength by the inclusion of men from local forces. It would
be an easy matter to introduce into the terms of enlistment of the
South African Constabulary a condition of foreign service, and to keep
from 1000 to 2000 men in readiness. It would be possible also to
enlist 1000 men of the Transvaal volunteer force for special foreign
service, paying to each man a bonus of L12 per annum. The real
solution of this difficulty is bound up, as we shall see later, with
the whole theory of a colonial army; but even on the present system it
is easy to provide a working expedient. The question of extra
cost--for each man would require an extra 6d. per day, or L9, 2s. 6d.
per annum--is answered by pointing out that such a force being on the
home establishment would do away with the necessity of linked
battalions, and would effect a saving of twenty-four battalions and
six regiments of cavalry, so that even if the extra cost were 50 per
cent, the total saving would far outbalance it.[39] The recruiting
difficulty is unlikely to be a serious one. We may lose to the army a
little of the loose fringe of half-grown boys from the towns,--stuff
which, as history has shown, can be transformed into excellent
fighting men, but which at the same time does not represent the last
word either in moral or physical qualities. But many of the best of
our young men, whose thoughts turn naturally to the colonies, would
gladly seize the chance of three years' service there, in which they
would gain experience of the new lands, and be able to judge, when
their turn came for entering reserves, which line of life promised
most. No Emigration Bureau or Settlement Board would be so effective
an agency in bringing the right class to the country. But, further,
such a system would throw open to us the vast recruiting-grounds of
our colonies. It is difficult for one who has not been brought face to
face with it to realise the military enthusiasm which the war has
kindled not only among the more inflammable, but among the coolest and
shrewdest of our younger colonists. They know--none better--the joints
in our armour; but they have paid generous tribute to the solidarity
of spirit, the gallantry of our leaders, the unbreakable constancy of
our men. A few fanciful war correspondents have done a gross injustice
to our colonial soldiers by painting them as a race of capable
braggarts, who laughed at our incompetence in a game which they
understood so vastly better. It is safe to say that in the better
class there was no hint of such a spirit; and the way in which
irregular horse, with fine records of service, have traced the source
of victory in the last resort to the stamina of the British infantry,
does credit both to their judgment and their chivalry. They have
become keen critics of any organisation, looking at war not only with
the eyes of fighting men but of professional soldiers. All the details
of the profession are of interest to them, and an imperial force in
South Africa could draw largely both for officers and men upon the
local population. The benefit of such a result, both to the colonies
and to ourselves, is difficult to over-estimate. A common profession
would do much to smooth away the petty differences which are always
apt to widen out gulfs. The army would become a vast nursery of the
true imperial spirit, and a school to perpetuate the best of our
English traditions; and would itself gain incalculably by the infusion
of new and virile blood, and the weakening of prejudices, both of
class and education, which at present are a grave menace to its
efficiency.
* * * * *
If the imperial Government accept the retention of a South African
Army Corps as part of the home establishment, it is worth while
considering how best this new departure in army policy can be used to
further the interests of South Africa herself, and those wider
imperial interests which are daily taking concrete shape and casting
their shadow over local politics. Leaving for a moment the question of
imperial forces, we find in South Africa a local military activity
which, though less completely organised than in some of the older
colonies, is yet well worth our reckoning with. The war brought into
being a large number of irregular corps, most of which have now
disappeared. In Cape Colony the permanent force is the Cape Mounted
Rifles, which has an average strength of 1000 men, enlisted for five
years, and sworn to "act as a police force throughout the colony, and
also as a military force for the defence of the colony." Since the war
the town guards and district mounted troops, the former limited to
10,000 and the latter to 5000 men, have been placed on a permanent
footing. They are loosely organised volunteer forces, enlisted for no
fixed period, and bound to serve in the one case in the neighbourhood
of the towns, and in the other within their own districts. There are
also a number of ordinary volunteer corps, composed chiefly of mounted
infantry, and field and garrison artillery, and a number of mounted
rifle clubs for local defence. All types of corps included, there are
probably not less than 20,000 men undergoing some kind of military
training and pledged to some form of service in Cape Colony alone.
Natal presents a very similar picture. Her regulars are the Natal
Police Force, with a strength, including the Zululand Police, of
between 500 and 600 men, enlisted for three years, and including both
mounted and foot divisions. There is a considerable volunteer force,
with artillery, infantry, and mounted rifles, two companies of naval
volunteers, and a number of rifle clubs with a strength of over 2000.
We may put the defensive strength of Natal, which, considering her
size, is remarkable, at a little under 5000 men. The British South
African Police, which is stationed in Southern Rhodesia, has a
strength of a little over 500, and the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary
and volunteers increase the forces of that district to nearly 2000
men. In the new colonies the chief force is the South African
Constabulary, with a nominal strength of 6000 men, of which two-thirds
are stationed in the Transvaal. It is an expensive force, each man
costing on an average L250 per annum; but there is reason to believe
that the figure may soon be reduced to L200, or even less. In the
Transvaal a volunteer force has been organised of nine regiments. No
ultimate strength has been fixed, but 10,000 may be taken as a fair
estimate. In April 1903 the force numbered fully 3000, and as the
country becomes more populous there is little reason to doubt that the
maximum will be reached.[40]
There is thus a force of over 40,000 men engaged in local defence
throughout South Africa, and of this the 8000 police are for all
practical purposes regular troops. At the present moment the command
of this force is split up among the different colonial governments and
is wholly dissociated from any connection with the command of the
imperial regulars. We have seen that the situation is full of grave
difficulties for the regulars themselves, since there is no place in
colonial policy for an alien garrison force. But the strongest
argument in the present system lies not in the difficulties which it
involves but in the advantages which it forgoes. We have in South
Africa a population which, to use Napier's famous distinction, is not
only bellicose but martial, with a natural aptitude for soldiering and
a keen interest in all details of military organisation. Until the
regular command is brought into line with the local forces this genius
will expend itself on casual volunteering, and when we next call for
colonial aid we shall have the same haphazard units, instead of
colonial regiments drilled and manoeuvred on one system and forming
a part of some regular division. The arguments for a federation of
the whole South African command are difficult to meet, and there is
little danger of opposition from the local governments. The danger
lies in the fact that it would necessarily involve some reconstruction
of our whole military system, and military conservatism is slow to
depart from the traditions of the elders.
If imperial defence means anything it must include the provision
in every great colonial unit, in Canada, Australia, South
Africa,--particularly in South Africa,--of a force on the lines of
the Indian army, with an elastic organisation, embracing both imperial
regulars and local troops. Granted the sanction of the imperial
Government, there is no special difficulty in the machinery required
to create it. If South Africa were federated it would be simplicity
itself. All that would be wanted would be to bring the general officer
commanding the imperial troops, since his command has been unified,
into relation with the Federal Ministry of Defence, and unite in his
person the functions which Sir Neville Lyttelton now exercises in
South Africa and those which at present belong to Lord Dundonald in
Canada. But, pending federation, we must have recourse to one of those
intercolonial representative bodies which form the thin end of the
federal wedge. The general commanding would be given the command of
local forces by an act of the local legislature, subject in all
questions of policy, finance, and organisation to the authority of an
intercolonial committee of defence.[41] Each colony would elect two or
more representatives, on the lines of the present Intercolonial
Council of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony; the council thus
formed would be empowered by the legislatures which elect it to decide
what share of the cost was to be borne by the separate colonies, to
arrange for combined manoeuvres, to supervise appointments, and, in
case of local wars, to decide what force should be sent to the front,
and in the event of an imperial war, to say what local forces should
be lent for service. The general commanding would be responsible to
the War Office for moving imperial troops, subject to its direction,
and for the internal discipline and organisation of the imperial
divisions. There would, thus, be clearly defined limits of authority
for both the imperial and local Governments, and at the same time
every inducement to co-operation. In so far as he was in command of
the whole of the South African forces, the general commanding would be
subject in South African matters to the defence committee; while, in
so far as he was in command of imperial troops, he would take his
orders on imperial questions, such as a foreign war, from the Home
Government. The present officers in command of colonial police and
volunteers would, of course, come under his authority precisely on
the same basis as officers of regulars.
The advantages of such a scheme are many, both from the standpoint of
policy and of military efficiency. It would please the colonies, who
would have an army of their own, drilled on regular lines and
affiliated to the imperial army, and at the same time would feel that
they had a share in the control of the forces and the military policy
of the Empire. It would ensure the efficiency of local troops, and
would prepare them for co-operation with the regulars,--not the clumsy
partnership of troops tagged on to a division which cannot use them,
but the true co-operation which follows on absorption in a larger unit
with which they have been trained. It would provide an easy means for
the transfer of colonial officers to imperial regiments, and would act
as a magnet for colonial recruiting. In the case of local wars, as I
have said, the whole force would be ready to take the field under the
orders of the general commanding. In the case of a foreign war the
imperial Government would direct the distribution of the regulars, and
it would be for the committee of defence to say what local troops
should be lent for foreign service.[42] Beyond this, the only duties
of the War Office would lie in the selection of staff officers and the
general commanding--a matter in which the concurrence of the colonial
governments might be obtained as a matter of courtesy. On the
financial side it is probable that the scheme would considerably
lessen the burden of defence. The only way in which the colonies can
ever be expected to contribute to the cost of imperial defence is by
providing armies and navies of their own. To pay for that which does
not directly concern you is a form of tax, and so hostile to the
letter and spirit of our colonial traditions. But if local governments
are given a direct interest in an imperial army in which their own
troops are subsumed, and whose policy they largely control, I do not
think they will be ungenerous. There is no reason why they should not
meet the cost of the general and his staff, and contribute part, if not
the whole, of the extra pay which the regular troops in the South
African command must receive, and the bonus to the volunteer corps
which are held ready for foreign service. Such payments, once the
federation were effected, would no doubt come as a spontaneous offer.
Decentralisation and centralisation are, by way of becoming catchwords,
repeated without understanding to justify the most diverse schemes. But
every true policy must include both, since in certain matters it is
well to decentralise, and in others unification is imperative. Such a
scheme as has been sketched combines the sporadic colonial forces in
one effective unit of organisation, and at the same time relieves the
tension at imperial headquarters by relegating detailed administration
to the local authorities, who are best fitted to supervise.
The military is, as a rule, the most difficult aspect of a federation,
but in our circumstances it is likely to be the simplest. We have a
federal nucleus in the imperial command, and a strong impulse in the
fact that the local volunteer and police forces have already served
side by side with regulars in the field, and are inspired with a
military spirit which may soon disappear unless fostered and utilised.
A federation of local forces exists in Canada and in the Australian
Commonwealth; a union of the imperial forces exists in South Africa.
The problem is to federate the local forces in advance of a political
federation, and to unite them with the imperial command in a system
which, though a new departure in military policy, contains no detail
which has not been somewhere or other already conceded. If the scheme
in itself is worth anything, the practical difficulties are small. It
is unlikely that the colonial governments will offer any opposition;
and so far as South African interests are concerned, the foundations
would be laid of a true federation. From the point of view of imperial
politics the step would have an even greater significance, for a type
would be created of a new army organisation which would provide for a
federated imperial defence; and the precedent having once been
created, the other colonies would readily follow suit.
[38] The final answer to this objection would be the
reorganisation of the militia--the only force for home
defence--and the release of the present regular army
for service over-sea.
[39] I have thought it unnecessary to recapitulate in detail
the financial argument used by advocates of this policy.
Roughly it is as follows: The present Army Corps system
provides for 78 battalions at home, 66 in India, and 12
in South Africa--a total of 156. The proposed system
provides for 42 at home, 24 in South Africa, and 66 in
India--a total of 132. There is thus a saving of 24
battalions, besides 6 regiments of cavalry.
In figures, 24 battalions at L64,000 = L1,536,000
And 6 cavalry regiments at L45,000 = L270,000
----------
A total of L1,806,000
Including supplementary expenses, the total reductions
would be over L2,000,000.
[40] The details of the force may be of interest. In April
1903 it consisted of two regiments of the Imperial Light
Horse, one regiment of the South African Light Horse,
one regiment of the Johannesburg Mounted Rifles, one
regiment of the Scottish Horse, one regiment of the
Central South African Railway Volunteers, one regiment
of the Transvaal Light Infantry, one regiment of
Transvaal Scottish, one regiment of Railway Pioneers, a
medical staff corps, and a headquarters' staff. The
names of some of the most famous irregular corps are
thus perpetuated. A new regiment--the Northern
Rifles--has recently been formed at Pretoria.
[41] A committee of defence has been formed in Natal,
consisting of the officers commanding the imperial and
the local forces and representatives of the local
government.
[42] This scheme would involve a departure from the present
military organisation on the basis of army corps. We
cannot expect to get an army corps for each colonial
district, and the advantages disappear if such
reinforcements are to be distributed to make up the
strength of the army corps drawn from the whole Empire.
The unit must be smaller--something in the nature of a
division of, say, three brigades with one brigade of
mounted troops. In South Africa we could have several
divisions of regulars and several of local troops. The
system would have the merit of harmonising with the
organisation of the army in India, where reinforcements
are most likely to be required.