Читать книгу: «Britain at Bay», страница 9

XVII
A NATIONAL ARMY

I propose to show that a well-trained homogeneous army of great numerical strength can be obtained on the principle of universal service at no greater cost than the present mixed force. The essentials of a scheme, based upon training the best manhood of the nation, are: first, that to be trained is a matter of duty not of pay; secondly, that every trained man is bound, as a matter of duty, to serve with the army in a national war; thirdly, that the training must be long enough to be thorough, but no longer; fourthly, that the instructors shall be the best possible, which implies that they must be paid professional officers and non-commissioned officers.

I take the age at which the training should begin at the end of the twentieth year, in order that, in case of war, the men in the ranks may be the equals in strength and endurance of the men in the ranks of any opposing army. The number of men who reach the age of twenty every year in the United Kingdom exceeds 400,000. Continental experience shows that less than half of these would be rejected as not strong enough. The annual class would therefore be about 200,000.

The principle of duty applies of course to the navy as well as to the army, and any man going to the navy will be exempt from army training. But it is doubtful whether the navy can be effectively manned on a system of very short service such as is inevitable for a national army. The present personnel of the navy is maintained by so small a yearly contingent of recruits that it will be covered by the excess of the annual class over the figure here assumed of 200,000. The actual number of men reaching the age of twenty is more than 400,000, and the probable number out of 400,000 who will be physically fit for service is at least 213,000.

I assume that for the infantry and field artillery a year's training would, with good instruction, be sufficient, and that even better and more lasting results would be produced if the last two months of the year were replaced by a fortnight of field manoeuvres in each of the four summers following the first year. For the cavalry and horse artillery I believe that the training should be prolonged for a second year.

The liability to rejoin the colours, in case of a national war, should continue to the end of the 27th year, and be followed by a period of liability in the second line, Landwehr or Territorial Army.

The first thing to be observed is the numerical strength of the army thus raised and trained.

If we assume that any body of men loses each year, from death, disablement, and emigration, five per cent. of its number, the annual classes would be as follows:—

This gives an army of close upon a million men in first line in addition to the British forces in India, Egypt, and the colonial stations.

If from the age of 27 to that of 31 the men were in the Landwehr, that force would be composed of four annual classes as follows:—

There is no need to consider the further strength that would be available if the liability were prolonged to the age of 39, as it is in Germany.

The liability thus enforced upon all men of sound physique is to fight in a national war, a conflict involving for England a struggle for existence. But that does not and ought not to involve serving in the garrison of Egypt or of India during peace, nor being called upon to take part in one of the small wars waged for the purpose of policing the Empire or its borders. These functions must be performed by professional, i.e. paid soldiers.

The British army has 76,000 men in India and 45,000 in Egypt, South Africa, and certain colonial stations. These forces are maintained by drafts from the regular army at home, the drafts amounting in 1908 to 12,000 for India and 11,000 for the Colonies.

Out of every annual class of 200,000 young men there will be a number who, after a year's training, will find soldiering to their taste, and will wish to continue it. These should be given the option of engaging for a term of eight years in the British forces in India, Egypt, or the Colonies. There they would receive pay and have prospects of promotion to be non-commissioned officers, sergeants, warrant officers or commissioned officers, and of renewing their engagement if they wished either for service abroad or as instructors in the army at home. These men would leave for India, Egypt, or a colony at the end of their first year. I assume that 20,000 would be required, because eight annual classes of that strength, diminishing at the rate of five per cent. per annum, give a total of 122,545, and the eight annual classes would therefore suffice to maintain the 121,000 now in India, Egypt, and the Colonies. Provision is thus made for the maintenance of the forces in India, Egypt, and the Colonies.

There must also be provision for the small wars to which the Empire is liable. This would be made by engaging every year 20,000 who had finished their first year's training to serve for pay, say 1s. a day, for a period say of six months, of the second year, and afterwards to join for five years the present first-class reserve at 6d. a day, with liability for small wars and expeditions. At the end of the five years these men would merge in the general unpaid reserve of the army. They might during their second year's training be formed into a special corps devoting most of the time to field manoeuvres, in which supplementary or reserve officers could receive special instruction.

It would be necessary also to keep with the colours for some months after the first year's training a number of garrison artillery and engineers to provide for the security of fortresses during the period between the time of sending home one annual class and the preliminary lessons of the next. These men would be paid. I allow 10,000 men for this purpose, and these, with the 20,000 prolonging their training for the paid reserve, and with the mounted troops undergoing the second year's training, would give during the winter months a garrison strength at home of 50,000 men.

The mobilised army of a million men would require a great number of extra officers, who should be men of the type of volunteer officers selected for good education and specially trained, after their first year's service, in order to qualify them as officers. Similar provision must be made for supplementary non-commissioned officers.

XVIII
THE COST

It will probably be admitted that an army raised and trained on the plan here set forth would be far superior in war to the heterogeneous body which figures in the Army Estimates at a total strength of 540,000 regulars, militia, and volunteers. Its cost would in no case be more than that of the existing forces, and would probably be considerably less. This is the point which requires to be proved.

The 17th Appendix to the Army Estimates is a statement of the cost of the British army, arranged under the four headings of:—

In the above table nearly a million is set down for the cost of certain labour establishments and of certain instructional establishments, which may for the present purpose be neglected. Leaving them out, the present cost of the personnel of the Regular Army, apart from staff, is, £15,942,802. For this cost are maintained officers, non-commissioned officers and men, numbering altogether 170,000.

The lowest pay given is that of 1s. a day to infantry privates, the privates of the other arms receiving somewhat higher and the non-commissioned officers very much higher rates of pay.

If compulsory service were introduced into Great Britain, pay would become unnecessary for the private soldier; but he ought to be and would be given a daily allowance of pocket-money, which probably ought not to exceed fourpence. The mounted troops would be paid at the rate of 1s. a day during their second year's service.

Assuming then that the private soldier received fourpence a day instead of 1s. a day, and that the officers and non-commissioned officers were paid as at present, the cost of the army would be reduced by an amount corresponding to 8d. a day for 148,980 privates. That amount is £1,812,590, the deduction of which would reduce the total cost to £14,137,212. At the same rate…

This is slightly in excess of the present cost of the personnel of the Army, but, whereas the present charge only provides for the heterogeneous force already described of 589,000 men, the charges here explained provide for a short-service homogeneous army of one million and a half, as well as for the 45,000 troops permanently maintained in Egypt and the Colonies.

The estimate just given is, however, extravagant. The British system has innumerable different rates of pay and extra allowances of all kinds, and is so full of anomalies that it is bound to be costly. Unfortunately, the Army Estimates are so put together that it is difficult to draw from them any exact inferences as to the actual annual cost of a private soldier beyond his pay.

The average annual cost, effective and non-effective, of an officer in the cavalry, artillery, engineers, and infantry is £473, this sum covering all the arrangements for pensions and retiring allowances.

I propose in the following calculations to assume the average cost of an officer to be £500 a year, a sum which would make it possible for the average combatant officer to be somewhat better paid than he is at present.

The normal pay of a sergeant in the infantry of the line is 2s. 4d. a day, or £42, 11s. 8d. a year. The Army Estimates do not give the cost of a private soldier, but the statement is made that the average annual cost per head of 150,000 warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and men is £63, 6s. 7d. The warrant officers and non-commissioned officers appear to be much more expensive than the private, and as the minimum pay of a private is £18, 5s., the balance, £45, 1s. 7d., is probably much more than the cost of housing, clothing, feeding, and equipping the private, whose food, the most expensive item, certainly does not cost a shilling a day or £18 a year.

I assume that the cost of maintaining a private soldier is covered by £36 a year, while his allowance of 4d. a day amounts to £6, 1s. 4d. In order to cover the extra allowances which may be made to corporals, buglers, and trumpeters, I assume the average cost of the rank and file to be £45 a year. I also assume that the average cost of a sergeant does not exceed £100 a year, which allows from £40 to £50 for his pay and the balance for his housing, clothing, equipment, and food. I add provisions for pensions for sergeants after twenty-five years' service.

These figures lead to the following estimate:—

The figures here given will, it is hoped, speak for themselves. They are, if anything, too high rather than too low. The number of officers is calculated on the basis of the present war establishments, which give 5625 officers for 160,500 of the other ranks. It does not include those in Egypt and the Colonies. The cost of the officers is taken at a higher average rate than that of British officers of the combatant arms under the present system, and, both for sergeants and for privates, ample allowance appears to me to be made even on the basis of their present cost.

When it is considered that Germany maintains with the colours a force of 600,000 men at a cost of £29,000,000, that France maintains 550,000 for £27,000,000, and that Italy maintains 221,000 for £7,500,000, it cannot be admitted that Great Britain would be unable to maintain 220,000 officers and men at an annual cost of £17,500,000, and the probability is that with effective administration this cost could be considerably reduced.

It may at first sight seem that the logical course would have been to assume two years' service in the infantry and three years' service in the mounted arms, in accord with the German practice, but there are several reasons that appear to me to make such a proposal unnecessary. In the first place, Great Britain's principal weapon must always be her navy, while Germany's principal weapon will always be her army, which guarantees the integrity of her three frontiers and also guards her against invasion from oversea. Germany's navy comes only in the second place in any scheme for a German war, while in any scheme for a British war the navy must come in the first place and the army in the second.

The German practice for many years was to retain the bulk of the men for three years with the colours. It was believed by the older generation of soldiers that any reduction of this period would compromise that cohesion of the troops which is the characteristic mark of a disciplined army. But the views of the younger men prevailed and the period has been reduced by a third. The reduction of time has, however, placed a heavier responsibility upon the body of professional instructors.

The actual practice of the British army proves that a recruit can be fully trained and be made fit in every way to take his place in his company by a six months' training, but in my opinion that is not sufficient preparation for war. The recruit when thoroughly taught requires a certain amount of experience in field operations or manoeuvres. This he would obtain during the summer immediately following upon the recruit training; for the three months of summer, or of summer and autumn, ought to be devoted almost entirely to field exercises and manoeuvres. If the soldier is then called out for manoeuvres for a fortnight in each of four subsequent years, or for a month in each of two subsequent years, I believe that the lessons he has learned of operations in the field will thereby be refreshed, renewed, and digested, so as to give him sufficient experience and sufficient confidence in himself, in his officers, and in the system to qualify him for war at any moment during the next five or six years. The additional three months' manoeuvre training, beyond the mere recruit training, appears to me indispensable for an army that is to be able to take the field with effect. But that this period should suffice, and that the whole training should be given in nine or ten months of one year, followed by annual periods of manoeuvre, involves the employment of the best methods by a body of officers steeped in the spirit of modern tactics and inspired by a general staff of the first order.

The question what is the shortest period that will suffice to produce cohesion belongs to educational psychology. How long does it take to form habits? How many repetitions of a lesson will bring a man into the condition in which he responds automatically to certain calls upon him, as does a swimmer dropped into the water, a reporter in forming his shorthand words, or a cyclist guiding and balancing his machine? In each case two processes are necessary. There is first the series of progressive lessons in which the movements are learned and mastered until the pupil can begin practice. Then follows a period of practice more or less prolonged, without which the lessons learned do not become part of the man's nature; he retains the uncertainty of a beginner. The recruit course of the British army is of four months. A first practice period of six months followed by fresh practice periods of a month each in two subsequent years or by four practice periods of a fortnight each in four successive years are in the proposals here sketched assumed to be sufficient. If they were proved inadequate I believe the right plan of supplementing them would be rather by adding to the number and duration of the manoeuvre practices of the subsequent years than by prolonging the first period of continuous training.

The following table shows the cost of two years' service calculated on the same bases as have been assumed above. Two years' service would mean an army with the colours not of 200,000 but of 390,000 men. This would require double the number of officers and sergeants, and the annual estimates for personnel would be £34,000,000, and the total Army Estimates £41,000,000. There would also be a very great extra expenditure upon barracks.

XIX
ONE ARMY NOT TWO

The training provided in the scheme which I have outlined could be facilitated at comparatively small cost by the adoption of certain preparatory instruction to be given partly in the schools, and partly to young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty.

It has never appeared to me desirable to add to the school curriculum any military subjects whatever, and I am convinced that no greater mistake could be made, seeing that schoolmasters are universally agreed that the curriculum is already overloaded and requires to be lightened, and that the best preparation that the school can give for making a boy likely to be a good soldier when grown up, is to develop his intelligence and physique as far as the conditions of school life admit. But if all school children were drilled in the evolutions of infantry in close order, the evolutions being always precisely the same as those practised in the army, the army would receive its men already drilled, and would not need to spend much time in recapitulating these practices, which make no appreciable demand upon the time of school children.

Again, there seems to be no doubt that boys between the ages of seventeen and twenty can very well be taught to handle a rifle, and the time required for such instruction and practice is so small that it would in no way affect or interfere with the ordinary occupations of the boys, whatever their class in life.

Every school of every grade ought, as a part of its ordinary geography lessons, to teach the pupils to understand, to read, and to use the ordnance maps of Great Britain, and that this should be the case has already been recognised by the Board of Education. A soldier who can read such a map has thereby acquired a knowledge and a habit which are of the greatest value to him, both in manoeuvres and in the field.

The best physical preparation which the schools can give their pupils for the military life, as well as for any other life, is a well-directed course of gymnastics and the habits of activity, order, initiative, and discipline derived from the practice of the national games.

A national army is a school in which the young men of a nation are educated by a body of specially trained teachers, the officers. The education given for war consists in a special training of the will and of the intelligence. In order that it should be effective, the teachers or trainers must not merely be masters of the theory and practice of war and of its operations, but also proficient in the art of education. This conception of the officers' function fixes their true place in the State. Their duties require for their proper performance the best heads as well as the best-schooled wills that can be found, and impose upon them a laborious life. There can be no good teacher who is not also a student, and a national army requires from its officers a high standard not only of character, but of intelligence and knowledge. It should offer a career to the best talent. A national army must therefore attract the picked men of the universities to become officers. The attraction, to such men consists, chiefly, in their faith in the value of the work to be done, and, to a less degree, in the prospect of an assured living. Adequate, though not necessarily high, pay must be given, and there must be a probability of advancement in the career proportionate to the devotion and talents given to the work. But their work must be relied upon by the nation, otherwise they cannot throw their energies into it with full conviction.

This is the reason why, if there is to be a national army, it must be the only regular army and the nation must rely upon nothing else. To keep a voluntary paid standing army side by side with a national army raised upon the principle of universal duty is neither morally nor economically sound. Either the nation will rely upon its school or it will not. If the school is good enough to serve the nation's turn, a second school on a different basis is needless; if a second school were required, that would mean that the first could not be trusted.

There can be no doubt that in a national school of war the professional officers must be the instructors, otherwise the nation will not rely upon the young men trained. The 200,000 passed through the school every year will be the nation's best. Therefore, so soon as the system has been at work long enough to produce a force as large as the present total, that is, after the third year, there will be no need to keep up the establishment of 138,000 paid privates, the special reserve, or the now existing territorial force. There will be one homogeneous army, of which a small annual contingent will, after each year's training, be enlisted for paid service in India, Egypt, and the oversea stations, and a second small contingent, with extra training, will pass into the paid reserve for service in small oversea expeditions.

The professional officers and sergeants will, of course, be interchangeable between the national army at home and its professional branches in India, Egypt, and the oversea stations, and the cadres of the battalions, batteries, and squadrons stationed outside the United Kingdom can from time to time be relieved by the cadres of the battalions' from the training army at home. This relief of battalions is made practicable by the national system. One of the first consequences of the new mode of recruiting will be that all recruits will be taken on the same given date, probably the 1st of January in each year, and, as this will apply as well to the men who re-engage to serve abroad as to all others, so soon as the system is in full working order, the men of any battalion abroad will belong to annual classes, and the engagement of each class will terminate on the same day.