Britain at Bay - Spenser Wilkinson
20,000 non-commissioned officers and men would
cost . . . . . . . . L18,295,215
Second year of 20,000 mounted
troops at L60 a year each . . . 1,200,000
Add to this cost of first-class Reserve
of 96,000 at L10 7s. 6d.
each . . . . . . . 997,600
Cost of 30,000 men for six months'
extra training at the rate of
L60 a year each . . . . . 900,000
Cost of extra training for supplementary
officers and non-commissioned
officers . . . . . . 500,000
-----------
L21,892,815
Add to this the cost of the troops
maintained in the Colonies and
Egypt so far as charged to
British Estimates . . . . L3,401,704
-----------
Total personnel . . . L25,294,519
Materiel (allowing for additional
outlay due to larger numbers) . . 4,500,000
Staff and administration . . . 1,500,000
------------
Total Cost of Army at Home
and in the Colonies . . L31,294,519
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 L473, 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 L500 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 L42, 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 L63, 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 L18, 5s., the balance, L45, 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 L18 a year.
I assume that the cost of maintaining a private soldier is covered by
L36 a year, while his allowance of 4d. a day amounts to L6, 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 L45 a year. I also assume that the average cost of a sergeant does
not exceed L100 a year, which allows from L40 to L50 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:--
7000 officers at L500 L3,500,000
14,000 sergeants at L100 1,400,000
Pension after twenty-five years for sergeants,
L52 a year 396,864
(An annual class of 14,000, decreasing
annually by 2-1/2 per cent., would consist,
after twenty-five years, of 7632)
------------
Carry forward L5,296,864
Brought forward . . . L5,296,864
200,000 privates at L45 a year . . 9,000,000
2nd year of 20,000 mounted troops (cavalry
and horse artillery at L60 a year each) 1,200,000
Six months' extra training for 30,000 men
with pay (total rate per man L60 a year)
(20,000 for paid reserve and 10,000
fortress troops) . . . . 900,000
First-class reserve . . . . 997,600
Training supplementary officers and sergeants 500,000
------------
L17,894,464
Colonial troops . . . . . 3,500,000
Total personnel . . . . L21,394,464
------------
_Materiel_, allowing for additional cost due
to larger numbers . . . . 4,500,000
Staff and administration . . . 1,500,000
------------
Total cost of army at home and in the
Colonies . . . . . L27,394,464
============
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 L29,000,000, that France maintains 550,000 for
L27,000,000, and that Italy maintains 221,000 for L7,500,000, it cannot
be admitted that Great Britain would be unable to maintain 220,000
officers and men at an annual cost of L17,500,000, 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 L34,000,000, and the total Army
Estimates L41,000,000. There would also be a very great extra
expenditure upon barracks.
Estimate of Annual Cost for Two Years' Service.
13,650 officers at L500 a year L6,825,000
27,300 sergeants at L100 2,730,000
Pension for sergeants' annual class
of 27,300, decreasing by 2-1/2 per
cent., gives after twenty-five years
L12,403; at L52 a year pension
is 644,956
390,000 privates at L45 a year 17,550,000
Third year mounted troops, 20,000
at L60 1,200,000
First-class reserve 997,000
Training supplementary officers and
sergeants 500,000
----------
Carry forward L30,446,956
Brought forward L30,446,956
Colonial troops 3,500,000
----------
Total personnel L33,946,956
_Materiel_, allowing for extra
numbers 5,000,000
Staff and administration, allowing
for extra numbers 2,000,000
-----------
L40,946,956
===========
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.
XX.
THE TRANSITION
I have now explained the nature and working of a national army, and
shown the kind of strength it will give and the probable maximum cost
which it will involve when adopted.
The chief difficulty attendant upon its adoption lies in the period of
transition from the old order to the new. If Great Britain is to keep
her place and do her duty in the world the change must be made; but the
question arises, how is the gulf between one and the other to be
bridged? War comes like a thief in the night, and it must not catch this
country unready.
The complete readiness which the new system, when in full swing, will
produce, cannot be obtained immediately. All that can be done in the
transition period is to see that the number and quality of men available
for mobilisation shall be at least as high as it is under the existing
system. It may be worth while to explain how this result can be secured.
Let us assume that the Act authorising the new system is passed during a
year, which may be called '00, and that it is to come into force on the
1st January of the year '01. The Act would probably exempt from its
operations the men at the date of its passing already serving in any of
the existing forces, including the territorial army, and the discussion
on the Bill would, no doubt, have the effect of filling the territorial
army up to the limit of its establishment, 315,000 men.
On the 31st December '00 the available troops would therefore be:--
Regulars in the United Kingdom (present
figure) 138,000
Special reserve 67,000
Army reserve (probably diminished from present
strength) 120,000
Territorial force 315,000
--------
Total 640,000
========
From the 1st January '01 recruiting on present conditions for all these
forces would cease.
The regular army of 138,000
would lose drafts to India and the
Colonies 23,000
and would have lost during '00
by waste at 5 per cent 6,900
-------
29,000
This would leave: -------
regular army under old conditions 108,100
and leave room for recruits under new conditions 91,900
=======
The total available for mobilisation during the year '01 would
therefore be:--
Regulars 200,000
Paid reserves (the present first-class reserve.
I assume an arbitrary figure below the
actual one) 120,000
Special reserve (I assume a large waste and
a loss from men whose time has expired) 50,000
Territorial force 315,000
Less 5 per cent 15,700
-------
299,250
-------
669,250
On the 1st January '02 the regular army would be:--
Old engagement 108,000
Less waste 5,400
Indian and Colonial reliefs 23,000
------- 79,600
Recruits under new system 120,400
Mounted troops serving second year 20,000
--------
Total of regulars 220,000
New reserve 91,900
Less 5 per cent. 4,580
-------
87,320 87,000
Paid reserve 120,000
Special reserve, reduced by lapse of engagements 40,000
--------
Total liable for national war 467,000
Add--Territorial force, reduced by 5 per cent
waste (14,962), and lapse of (78,750)
engagements 205,538
--------
672,538
========
In the year '03 there would be:--
Old regulars, 79,600; less 5 per cent. waste,
3,950; less drafts for abroad, 23,000--
leaves 52,050, say 50,000
Regulars, recruits under new conditions 150,000
Mounted troops serving second year 20,000
New reserve 197,331
Paid reserve 120,000
Special reserve 30,000
---------
Total liable for national war 567,334
Territorial force 116,512
---------
683,846
=========
In the year '04 there would be:--
Old regulars 50,000
Less 5 per cent. 2,500
-------
47,500
Less drafts 23,000
------- 24,500
New regulars 175,500
Mounted troops, second year 20,000
---------
220,000
New reserve 329,000
Paid reserve 120,000
Special reserve may now be dropped ---------
Total liable for national war 669,000
Territorial force 116,512
Less 5 per cent. 5,825
--------
110,687
Less 78,750
-------- 31,937
--------
700,937
========
At the end of '04 the territorial force would come to an end and in '05
there would be:--
(Old regulars, 24,000, after waste just enough
for drafts.)
New regulars 200,000
Mounted troops, second year 20,000