December 28th, 1899
War is the Nation's business and, when it comes, the most important part of
the Nation's business. A Nation that for many years neglects this branch of
its affairs is liable to suffer to any extent. The proverb, "a stitch in
time saves nine," gives a very fair idea of the proportion between the
amount of effort required in a properly-prepared and well-conducted war, and
the amount required when there has been previous neglect.
There must be some way in which a national affair of such importance can be
properly managed, and just now it might be well to consider how a nation can
manage a war. Certainly not by the methods of political decision to which
recent developments of democracy have accustomed us. You cannot fight a
campaign by consulting the constituencies or even the House of Commons
before deciding whether a general shall move to his right or his left, shall
advance or retire, shall seek or shall avoid a battle. Neither can you
settle by popular vote whether you will make guns of wire or of fluid
compressed steel, what formations your infantry shall adopt, whether the
soldier is to give six hours a week to shooting and one to drill, or six to
drill and one to shooting.
Yet all these questions and many others must be settled, some during peace
and some during war, and they must be settled correctly or else there will
be defeat. In political matters the accepted test of what is correct is the
opinion of the majority as expressed by votes in a general election, but in
war the test of what is correct is the result produced upon the enemy. If
his guns out-range yours, if his troops at the point of collision defeat
yours, there has been some error in the preparation or in the direction,
unless indeed the enemy is a State so much stronger than your own that it
was folly to go to war at all, and in that case there must have been an
error of policy. The decisions upon which successful war depends turn upon
matters which have no relation to the wishes or feelings of the majority;
matters not of opinion but of fact; matters about which eloquence is no
guide, and in regard to which the truth cannot be ascertained from the
ballot box, but only by the hard labour of prolonged study after previous
training. For success in war depends upon the troops being armed with the
best weapons of the day, upon their being trained to use them in the most
appropriate manner, upon the amount of knowledge and practice possessed by
the generals; upon a correct estimate of the enemy's forces, of their
armament and tactics, and upon a true insight into the policy of the Powers
with which quarrels are possible.
A
year ago it was known to many persons in this country, and the Government
was informed by those whose, special duty it was to give the information,
that the Boer States aimed at supremacy in South Africa, that they were
heavily armed, that a large force would be required to defeat them, and that
to postpone the quarrel would make the inevitable war still more difficult.
It was well understood also that the difficulty lay in the probability that
if a small force were sent it would be exposed to defeat, while if a large
one were sent its despatch would precipitate the war. These were the facts
known more than a year ago to those who wanted to know. Is it not clear that
the Government's management has been based upon something other than the
facts; that the Government was all the time basing its action not upon the
facts but upon speculations as to what might come out of future
ballot-boxes? They were attending to their own mission, that of keeping in
office, but neglecting the Nation's necessary business, that of dealing
promptly with the Boer assault upon British supremacy in South Africa. The
explanation is simple. Every man in the Cabinet has devoted his life since
he has been grown up to the art of getting votes for his party, either at
the polls or in Parliament. Not one of them has given his twenty years to
studying the art of managing a war.
But a war cannot possibly be well managed by anyone who is not a master of
the art. Now and then there has been success by an amateur--a person who,
without being a soldier by profession, has made himself one; such a person,
for example, as Cromwell. Apart from rare instances of that sort, the only
plan for a Government which does not include among its members a soldier,
professional or amateur, is to choose a soldier of one class or the other
and to delegate authority to him. But this plan does not always succeed,
because sometimes a Government composed of men who know nothing of war
postpones calling in the competent man until too late. There have been in
our time two instances of this plan, one successful and the other a failure.
In 1882 Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet drifted against its will and to its painful
surprise into the Egyptian war. The Cabinet when it saw that war had come
gave Lord Wolseley a free hand and he was able to save them by the victory
of Tel-el-Kebir. A year or two later, being anxious to avoid a Soudan war,
they drifted slowly into it; but this time they were too late in giving Lord
Wolseley full powers, and he was unable to save Gordon and Khartoum solely
because he had not been called upon in time. The best analogy to the course
then pursued is that of a sick person whose friends attempt to prescribe for
him themselves until the disease takes a palpably virulent form, when they
send for a doctor just in time to learn that the patient's life could have
been saved by proper treatment a week earlier, but that now there is no
hope. For war requires competent management in advance. There are many
things which must be done, if they are to be done in time, before the
beginning of hostilities, and the more distant the theatre of war the more
necessary it may be to take measures beforehand.
The management of a war can never be taken out of the hands of the
Government, because the body which decides when to make preparations is, by
the fact that it has the power of making that decision, the supreme
authority. If, therefore, a Nation wishes to have reasonable assurance
against defeat it must take means to provide the supreme authority with a
military judgment. The British system for a, long time professed to do this
by giving the Secretary of State for War a military adviser who was
Commander-in-Chief. Such a plan might have worked on condition that the
Secretary of State kept the Commander-in-Chief fully informed of the state
of negotiations with other Powers, and invariably followed his advice in all
matters relating to possible wars. The condition has never been fulfilled,
and for many years, as there were no serious wars, the mischief of the
neglect was not apparent except to the few who understood war, and who have
for many years been anxious. But in 1895 the present Cabinet began its
career under the inspiration of Mr. Balfour, who knows nothing of war, by
giving the Secretary of State absolute authority over the Army and all
preparations for war so far as the Army is concerned, and by formally
declaring that the Secretary of State could please himself whether he
followed the advice of the Commander-in-Chief. Thus the Nation in its
indifference allowed the fate of its next war to be entrusted to hands not
qualified to direct a war, and allowed itself to be deprived of the means of
knowing whose advice was being followed in regard to the preparation of its
defences. At the same time a Committee of Defence was formed of members of
the Cabinet, a committee of untrained men, to settle the broad lines of the
Nation's preparations for the maintenance of the Empire. The results of
these remarkable arrangements are now manifest, and yet the cry is that
there is to be no change in the Government.
But unless there is a thorough change as soon as possible, unless steps are
taken to find a man competent in the management of war and to give him a
place in the Cabinet, where he can keep the naval and military preparations
abreast of the policy, or check, a policy for the execution of which
adequate preparation cannot be made, what guarantee can the Nation have that
it will not shortly have a second war on its hands, or that the war now
begun will be brought to a successful end?
But if war as a branch of the Nation's affairs ought to be entrusted to a
man competent in that branch, what about the tradition that any politician
of eminence in the party is fit to be the Cabinet Minister at the head of
any branch of the public service? Is it not the truth that this tradition is
bad and should be got rid of, and that every branch of the Nation's business
has suffered from the practice of giving authority for its direction to a
minister who has not been trained to understand it? The war will have been a
great benefit if it leads to the universal recognition of the plain fact
that Jack of all trades is master of none, and that no branch of the public
service can possibly be well directed unless its director is thoroughly
conversant with the business with which he is entrusted. So soon as the
Nation grasps the idea that democracy can fulfil its mission only when the
electors are resolved to choose leaders by their qualification for the work
they have to do, the British Nation will resume the lead among the nations
of the world.
