Chapter LVI: Army and Navy in Parliament (1)

I.

In 1892, when Sir Charles Dilke returned to the House of Commons as member for the Forest of Dean, his mind was made up in regard to the subject of national defence, and from that time on he worked in and out of Parliament to bring about an organization for war of the resources of the nation and of the Empire.

At that time the management of both services was hampered by the accumulated changes made by three generations of statesmen intent upon home affairs, under which were buried and hidden the traditions of an earlier period of wars. In 1857 the Duke of Cambridge had been appointed Commander-in-Chief in deference to the belief of the Prince Consort, inspired by Baron Stockmar, that in order to avert revolution the royal authority over the army must be exercised through a Prince, and not through the channel of a Minister responsible to Parliament. The Duke thought it his mission to resist changes, and his obstruction had been the bane of successive Ministers. Accordingly, the statesmen of Cabinet rank and experience were anxious at all cost to establish the supremacy of the Cabinet over the army, and for this purpose had welcomed the proposal of the Hartington Commission to abolish the office of Commander-in-Chief whenever the Duke of Cambridge should cease to hold that post. The Commission had not considered that a change of persons might solve the difficulty, and was led astray by the proposal to appoint "a Chief of the Staff," who was to be, not the strategical adviser of the head of the army, but rather its administrator in chief. In every modern army there is a Chief of the General Staff to assist the Commander-in-Chief, the principal executive officer, as well as an Administrator-General to manage the business of supply. The Hartington Commission proposed to give the name "Chief of the Staff" to an Administrator-General. It further proposed the creation of a Committee of the Cabinet to hold the balance between the requirements of the War Office and those of the Admiralty.

Dilke recognized as fully as the occupants of either front bench the necessity for the paramount authority of the Cabinet. He also felt the need for co-ordination between the War Office and the Admiralty, and considered that both these needs would best be met by a single Minister, the Prime Minister, supervising or taking charge of both offices. The essence of co-ordination would consist in framing the arrangements for both services with a single eye to victory in war.

Dilke's first step was to get into touch with those members of Parliament who were most keenly interested in the army and navy.

'On February 21st (1893) I had a meeting, which I had suggested,
with Lord Wolmer, General Sir George Chesney, and H. O.
Arnold-Forster, and agreed on joint action in all service matters,
and to attend the meeting of the service members fixed for the next
day, to which, although civilians, Arnold-Forster and I were asked.
We wrote Wolmer's motion for him.'

At this time Campbell-Bannerman was Secretary of State for War. On March 9th the House was to go into Committee of Supply, and on the motion "that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair" Lord Wolmer moved "that in the opinion of this House the present system of military administration fails to secure either due economy in time of peace or efficiency for national defence." Lord Wolmer in his speech referred to the breakdown in the system of recruiting which had been disclosed in the report of Lord Wantage's Committee. He was supported by Sir George Chesney, who referred to the report of Sir James Stephen's Commission as "a scathing exposure of mismanagement," and to that of the Hartington Commission as "an unqualified and alarming denunciation of our military system." Arnold-Forster also supported the resolution, in favour of which Dilke made a short and incisive speech. Campbell-Bannerman declined to take the discussion seriously. "The first observation," he said, "that must occur to anyone reading the motion is, What in the world has the report of Lord Wantage's Committee to do with the present system of military administration? It is as if the noble lord were to call attention to the Tenterden Steeple, and to move that the Goodwin Sands are a danger to navigation." But the breakdown of recruiting was the crucial evidence of the weakness of the military administration.

In September, 1893, the question of the then recent appointment of the Duke of Connaught to the command at Aldershot was raised in the House of Commons by Mr. Dalziel. It was defended by Campbell-Bannerman on the ground that the Duke possessed sufficient qualifications for the post. If that had been the sole question, said Dilke, he should have supported the Government.

"But there was another point. Aldershot was a training-school not
only for the men and regimental officers there employed, but also
for the Generals commanding. It might be said to be the only school
in the United Kingdom where a general officer could obtain
experience in commanding men in battle, and therefore only officers
who were likely to command armies in case of serious war ought to be
put in command of such a place. Was it likely that the Duke of
Connaught, under the circumstances, would be called upon to take the
chief command against a European enemy in case of war?"

In the division Dilke voted against the appointment.

On December 19th Lord George Hamilton moved a resolution "that a considerable addition should at once be made to the navy." Mr. Gladstone regarded this proposal as a vote of censure on the Government, and delivered an indignant reply. Dilke deprecated making the navy a subject of party controversy, and made an appeal to his Liberal friends:

"All naval experts who have been consulted on the question have
always laid it down that, for safety, you must have a supremacy of
five to three in battleships, that you require that supremacy for
the policy of blockade.... If ever we engage in war ... it is a
necessity of the position of this country that our frontiers should
be at the enemy's ports.... I know this is not a popular policy, but
the existence of the Empire depends upon it.... Liberals should give
up thinking of this question of national defence as a hateful one,
and as one against which they ought to close their eyes and ears. I
know that, in these days of great armaments on the Continent, the
old tradition of the Liberal party, that they should look to the
possibility of using the forces of this country on behalf of
Continental freedom, has become a dream of the past. They must
remember that our liberties at home depend upon the efficiency of
our fleet, and that, beyond this, the very existence of our Empire
is concerned in the question which the House is at this moment
debating."

The sequel to this debate was Mr. Gladstone's retirement in February, 1894.

Early in the autumn of 1893 Dilke had talked over with Spenser Wilkinson the line to be taken in Parliament by the service members. Wilkinson had urged as a preliminary some effort to obtain agreement among the "experts," suggesting that Chesney as the ablest of them all should first be approached. On November 8th Chesney and Wilkinson dined at Sloane Street, and, Chesney having expressed his general concurrence in the views as to administration explained in _Imperial Defence_, Dilke proposed that Wilkinson should draft a letter to the Prime Minister, embodying the main points, to be signed by all three and by Arnold- Forster, if he should be in accord with them, and to be sent not only to Mr. Gladstone, but to the leaders of the Opposition. The result was the following letter, which was eventually signed and sent on February 12th, 1894, to Mr. Gladstone (then Prime Minister), to Lord Salisbury, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Chamberlain:

Sir,

The late debate in the House of Commons on the subject of the navy
was one of many symptoms of a widespread uneasiness with regard to
the defences of the Empire. There is a doubt of the sufficiency of
the naval establishments and of the efficiency in some respects of
the systems under which the navy and the army are administered. This
failure of confidence has been of gradual growth. Those who think it
justified do not attribute the responsibility for it to any one
administration or to either party in the State. Yet it seems
difficult to discuss these doubts in Parliament without, at least,
the appearance of censure upon the Government of the day, a result
which is unfortunate, for the subject should unite rather than
divide parties, and upon its paramount importance there is no
difference of opinion.

For this reason a service may perhaps be rendered by the
communication to the Prime Minister and to the leaders of the
Opposition of suggestions which commend themselves to men of
different parties who have from different points of view for many
years given attention to questions relating to national defence.

No arrangements which aimed at or resulted in a subversion of the
principles which experience has shown to be essential to the working
of constitutional government could be seriously considered. But no
system of defence, however constitutional, can avail unless it be
shaped with a view to war. It is to the conciliation of these two
necessities, that of compatibility with the constitution and that of
adaptation to the purpose of war, that our attention has been
directed.

If the preservation of peace depended upon the goodwill of the
British Government, there would perhaps be little need for a navy or
an army. The existence of these services implies that this is not
the case, and that safety in time of war depends upon forethought
and preparation in advance. Such preparation involves a view of the
nature of a possible war and an estimate of the intensity of the
effort it would impose, this view and this estimate furnishing the
standard for the quantity and quality of the means to be kept
available.

The design, without which even a defensive war cannot be carried on,
and in the absence of which preparations made during peace must fail
to serve their purpose, is properly the secret of the Government.
Yet, where the Government is responsible to a Parliament, it is
indispensable either that so much of the design should be
communicated to Parliament as will enable it to judge of the
necessity and of the sufficiency of the preparations for which
supplies must be voted, or that Parliament should know who are the
professional advisers upon whose judgment the Government relies.
Neither of these conditions seems to us at present to be fulfilled,
and as a consequence of the omission there has arisen in the public
mind that distrust to which we have alluded.

The leading decision in the administration of the national defence,
governing the whole course and character of any future war, is that
which settles the total amount of expenditure upon preparation and
apportions it between the naval and military services. For this
decision the Cabinet is, and must ever be, responsible. Yet in the
distribution of the business of the Cabinet into departments there
appears to be no office specially entrusted with the consideration
of war as a whole, embracing the functions both of the navy and of
the army. Of the sums usually devoted each year to warlike
preparations, the larger part is spent upon the army, and only a
lesser part upon the navy, upon which the maintenance of the Empire
and the security of Great Britain must ever chiefly depend. It is
difficult to believe that this apportionment is the result of
deliberate examination of the requirements of war. It would seem
more probable that the separate existence of a department of the
navy and a department of the army leads in practice to the
management of each for its own sake rather than as an instrument
serving a more general purpose.

In order to secure the special consideration by the Cabinet of
national defence as distinct from and superior to the administration
either of the navy or of the army, we would suggest the appointment
of one and the same Minister to the two offices of Secretary of
State for War and First Lord of the Admiralty, or the amalgamation,
with the consent of Parliament, of these two offices.

We would further suggest that the Cabinet should select for each
service an officer whose professional judgment commands its
confidence, to be at once the responsible adviser of the Cabinet
upon all questions regarding the conduct of war so far as his own
service is concerned, and the principal executive officer of that
service.

We understand by a responsible adviser one who stands or falls by
the advice which he gives. He would, of course, have at his
disposal, in the formation of his views, the best assistance which
the professional staff of the navy or of the army could supply. But
the opinion which, after mature consideration, he would submit to
the Cabinet, and formally record, would be his own and would be
given in his own name. It follows that a difference of opinion
between the Cabinet and its naval or its military adviser upon any
important matter of naval or military policy would lead to the
resignation of the latter. In our view, the essence of
responsibility for advice is that the officer giving it is
identified with it, and remains in the post only so long as his
judgment upon the professional matters with reference to which he is
consulted is acceptable to the Cabinet which he serves. In order to
facilitate his independence in this respect, provision should be
made, in case of his resignation, for his employment in another post
or for his honourable retirement.

If these suggestions were adopted, the passage in case of need from
peace to war would take place without personal or administrative
change. The adaptation of the whole service, whether naval or
military, to the necessities of war, as understood by a competent
officer studying them with full responsibility, would be assured.
The House of Commons and the public would have in the person of the
naval and of the military adviser a guarantee of the sufficiency and
of the efficiency of the navy and of the army. The authority of the
Cabinet and the control of the House of Commons would be unimpaired.

We are, sir,

Your obedient servants,

Charles W. Dilke.

George Chesney.

H. O. Arnold-Foster.

Spenser Wilkenson.

In December, 1893, Dilke had communicated to Mr. Balfour the draft of this letter and his plan for sending it to the leaders of both parties. Mr. Balfour thought the best plan for co-ordinating the two services would be by a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, of which Dilke put his finger on the weak point, that it gave no guarantee of meeting the requirements of war. [Footnote: The letters printed in Appendix I., p. 451, embody the substance of previous conversations between Dilke and Mr. Balfour. In Appendix II., p. 456, are given the replies of Mr. Gladstone and the other leaders to the joint letter, which was afterwards published in the newspapers.--Ed.] It was after these communications that Mr. Balfour made his speech at Manchester on January 22nd, 1894, in which he said:

"It is responsibility which is chiefly lacking in our present
system. If anything goes wrong with the navy, you attack the First
Lord of the Admiralty. If anything goes wrong in the army, you
attack the Secretary for War. If anything goes wrong in the Home
Department, you attack the Secretary to the Home Department. But if
the general scheme of national and imperial defence is not properly
managed, there is nobody to attack but the whole Cabinet; and the
Cabinet as a whole is not, in my opinion, a very good body to carry
on the detailed work of that, any more than of any other, department
of the State."

These private discussions between Dilke and Mr. Balfour foreshadowed the actual course which reform was to take. It began in 1895 with the adoption of Mr. Balfour's plan of a Committee of the Cabinet; it ended in 1904 by Mr. Balfour as Prime Minister adopting Dilke's plan, and undertaking himself, as chairman of that Committee, the co-ordination of the two services. Then and not till then the fundamental principle of the primacy of the navy in the defence of the Empire was formally recognized.

The next step of the signatories to the joint letter was action in Parliament. Dilke gave notice that, on the introduction of the Army Estimates, he would move the following resolution:

"That this House, before voting supplies for the maintenance of
military establishments in the United Kingdom, seeks an assurance
from Her Majesty's Government that the estimates for that purpose
submitted to it are framed upon consideration of possible war by sea
and land, and upon a consideration of advice tendered in that behalf
by such officer of either service as is fitted to command in war Her
Majesty's forces of that service."

The debate took place on March 16th, 1894. In the course of his speech Dilke said:

"What I want to know, and what the Cabinet in framing the estimates
ought to know, is this: Are the proposals before the House those
which alone are capable of securing the safety of the country and of
the Empire?... I wish to know whether the Government present these
estimates as representing the least, but still what is sufficient,
for the needs of the country for the next twelve months, not only
for the protection of the whole country and the Empire, but for the
protection of our trade in all parts of the world....

"The Cabinet must obtain the best advice possible. I, for my part,
should prefer that the advice should be concentrated for each
service, because I think it is far more responsible advice if it
comes mainly on the responsibility of a single man as regards the
army and navy respectively than if you dispersed it among a great
number of people.... As far as I am concerned, form in this matter
is immaterial. I have stated what I want to secure, and I will put
two or three different ways of securing it which would very often
come to the same thing. What I ventured to suggest at first was that
the Prime Minister should be brought to take more personal concern
in the defence of the country than is the case at the present time;
that he should consider himself mainly responsible for the joint
consideration of the whole defence proposals; that he should hear
the Secretary for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and their
advisers, if he is doubtful, and that they together, more seriously
than has been the case in the past, should go into the difficulties
of the problem, and he should then advise with them as to the
estimates.... There was another suggestion made--that a Defence
Minister, a Minister who should represent the army and navy, should
be the person charged specially with the responsibility to this
House.... But I am not wedded to any particular form. Whether the
Prime Minister specially undertakes the duty, whether it is
undertaken by a Defence Minister, or whether the suggestion is
adopted--which, I believe, is that of the Leader of the Opposition
(Mr. Balfour)--that a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, which I have
heard was instituted by the late Government, should be provided with
a more avowed and distinct position, armed with permanent
responsible advisers, and equipped with records so as to hand over
its work to those by whom they might be succeeded in office--all
these plans would come at the present moment to very much the same
thing."

The resolution was seconded by Arnold-Forster, and supported in a clear and relevant speech by Sir George Chesney. In the debate which followed, Mr. Balfour expressed his adherence to the third of the plans described by Sir Charles Dilke. "I rather contemplate," he said, "that the Prime Minister, with or without his colleagues, or a Committee of the Cabinet, with or without the Prime Minister, should constitute themselves a body with permanent records and confidential advisers." Campbell-Bannerman expressed general agreement with the object Dilke had in view, and added: "I entertain almost identically the opinion which has been expressed by the Leader of the Opposition." Having thus obtained the concurrence of both parties to one of the plans which, it was thought, might fulfil the purpose in view, Dilke withdrew the motion.

In 1895 (March 11th) a resolution couched in the precise words of that of 1894 was moved by Mr. Arnold-Forster on the introduction of the Navy Estimates. In supporting it Dilke said:

"The sole purpose of all this very large expenditure was to enable
us to achieve victory at sea, which was essential to our very
existence as a nation; and what the resolution asked was an
assurance that the Government had had under its consideration the
nature of the efforts that would be called for to secure victory and
the distribution of these efforts between the land and sea forces."

On March 15th, in the discussion of the Army Estimates, Dilke raised a doubt "whether there was in our system of military administration any security that those we put into positions of high command, where they were able to get military experience, were only those men who were fitted for such posts and would hold command in time of war."

On June 21st, 1895, Campbell-Bannerman announced the retirement of the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, and his own intention to adopt the main lines of the scheme of the Hartington Committee. He would appoint a Commander-in-Chief with reduced powers who would be the principal military adviser of the Secretary of State, and he, with the other heads of departments, who would each be directly responsible to the Minister, would constitute a deliberative Council, so that the Secretary of State, when he gave his decisions, would be guided and supported by the express opinions of all the experienced officers by whom he was surrounded.

Thereupon Mr. Brodrick, now Lord Midleton, moved to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State by way of a vote of censure on the insufficiency of the supply of cordite ammunition. A brief debate followed in which Campbell-Bannerman failed to convince the House that the supply was adequate, and in the division this vote of censure was carried by 132 against 125. This division overthrew the Liberal Ministry. Dilke took no part in the debate, but voted in the majority. For this vote Campbell-Bannerman never forgave him.

In the new Ministry formed by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister, Mr. Balfour became First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Lansdowne Secretary of State for War, Mr. Brodrick Under-Secretary of State for War, and Mr. Goschen First Lord of the Admiralty. The first act of the new Government was to remodel the general arrangements for national and imperial defence. The scheme was described in general terms by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords on August 26th, and more specifically by Mr. Brodrick in the House of Commons on August 31st. There was to be a Defence Committee of the Cabinet under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire. Mr. Brodrick's words implied that the creation of this body was due to the action of Sir Charles Dilke, who, in the debate on the Address, had again urged his views on this subject.

Of the army Lord Wolseley was to be the new Commander-in-Chief. But, instead of being at the head of the military departments of the War Office, he was to have charge only of the intelligence and mobilization departments, and to be the President of an Army Board of which the other members were to be the Adjutant-General, the Quartermaster-General, the Director of Artillery, and the Inspector-General of Fortifications, each of whom was to be directly responsible for his own department to the Secretary of State. "The main principle of the change," said Mr. Brodrick, "is the separate responsibility of the military heads of departments to the Secretary of State for their departments, and the focussing of military opinion by means of the Army Board presided over by the Commander-in-Chief." When Mr. Brodrick had finished his statement, Dilke immediately rose and said that

"he had listened to the statement with something like dismay, for
some of the changes made had been in his view entirely in the wrong
direction.... There certainly had not been, during the many years he
had been in the House, any debate in which the issues presented to
the House had been so momentous.... To that portion of the
Government's scheme which involved the position of the Duke of
Devonshire in relation to Imperial defence he was fully favourable.
He believed he was the original suggester of the proposal in 1888.
What had been said by the Undersecretary went to suggest the
creation of a Committee of the Cabinet only, which had been formed,
they were told, by the late Government. If so, the matter was
minimized, and there was less security given to the country than
they had hoped. The first thing to be secured was that there should
be the individual responsibility of one great member of the Cabinet
rather than the collective responsibility of a considerable number.

"In regard to the reorganization of the War Office itself, he viewed
with dismay the further explanations given to-day by the
Under-Secretary. What had been the main objection to the past
management of the army in this country? It had been that
responsibility had been frittered away among a great number of
different Boards.... He hoped that the new man chosen to be the head
of the army would be in practice the real head of the army and the
real adviser of the Secretary of State. What he feared they were
doing was to create a copy of the Admiralty in those particular
points in which the Admiralty itself had been the subject of
criticism.... The Government, he contended, ought to recommend the
one man, the Commander-in-Chief, and in the first instance take his
opinion and regard him as ultimately responsible. Having picked out
the most competent man, he hoped the Government would put the
arrangement under that man and not under the civilian Secretary of
State.... It was a mistake to give the Commander-in-Chief a
department; he ought to be above the departments, and the
departments ought to report to him. He had ventured for many years
to ask in the first place that the Cabinet should consider the whole
problem of Imperial defence, and in the second place that they
should pick out the best man and trust him."

In reply to Dilke, Mr. Balfour said:

"If you put the Secretary of State for War in direct communication
with the Commander-in-Chief alone, I do not see how the Secretary of
State for War can be anything else than the administrative puppet of
the great soldier who is at the head of the army. He may come down
to the House and express the views of that great officer; but if he
is to take official advice from the Commander-in-Chief alone, it is
absolutely impossible that the Secretary of State should be really
responsible, and in this House the Secretary of State will be no
more than the mouthpiece of the Commander-in-Chief. It seems to me
that the differences in this branch of the subject between the right
hon. gentleman (Sir Charles Dilke) and the Government are of a more
fundamental character than I anticipated."

The difference was indeed fundamental, for Dilke was thinking about war, and Mr. Balfour was thinking only of Ministerial responsibility. In case of a war in which the welfare, possibly the independence, of the nation would be at stake, what civilian Secretary of State would wish to be personally responsible for victory or defeat, or to be more than the mouthpiece of a great soldier at the head of the army?

The Commander-in-Chief had been a military officer whose function was to co-ordinate the work of the heads of the several military departments. The change made in 1895 transferred to the Secretary of State this duty previously performed by the Commander-in-Chief. Sir James Stephen's Commission had reported in 1887 that it was morally and physically impossible that any one man should satisfactorily discharge the functions which at that time belonged to the Secretary of State. To them in 1895 the Government added those of the Commander-in-Chief. The result was that in 1899 the Secretary of State failed to fulfil the most important of all his functions, that of maintaining accord between the policy of the Cabinet and the military preparations. The Committee of Defence, which was appointed in 1895, might perhaps have performed this essential function if it had ever taken a serious view of its work. But it in doubtful whether it ever did any work at all.

II.

In the new Parliament, Dilke moved on March 5th, 1896, for a return of the number of British seamen available for service in the navy in time of war.

"One difficulty," he said, "that had to be faced was that in debates like the present they had no real opportunity of engaging in a collective review of the whole defensive expenditure of the country on the army and navy taken together.... They expected from the Government a policy which could be explained to the House--either a policy of alliances, to which he himself was rootedly opposed; or the policy, which was the only true policy for this country, of keeping up such a fleet as would make us safe against any probable combination. The point to which he wished to draw most urgent attention was that the real reserve of England was disappearing very fast. The British sailor was becoming more and more a rare article of luxury. He was used on the first-class liners, and not used elsewhere.... There was another point of importance. Among these foreigners there were many masters of ships, and they were taught the pilotage of our rivers. That was a very serious matter, and might become a great danger in time of war."

It soon became evident that the changes made in 1895 had not produced improvement either in the Government's arrangements for national defence or in the management of the army. In November, 1896, Lord Lansdowne, Secretary of State for War, and Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made speeches the same evening at Bristol. The Secretary of State expressed the intention to make a slight increase in the number of battalions in the army, while the Chancellor declared that he would consent to no increase in the Army Estimates until he could feel more confidence in the manner in which the money was expended. This disagreement between members of the Cabinet led to inquiries, through which Dilke became aware that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley, wished for a larger increase in the number of battalions than the Secretary of State was willing to propose. The opportunity seemed suitable for raising the question whether or not the military measures proposed by the Government were those suggested by their military adviser--a fundamental question. Lord Lansdowne having explained in the House of Lords in February, 1897, that his proposal was to add two battalions to the Guards and one to the Cameron Highlanders, and that he hoped in this way to restore the equilibrium between the number of battalions at home and the number abroad, Dilke in the House of Commons pointed out (February 8th) that the measure proposed would not establish the desired equilibrium, and that the proposal was anonymous. Who, he asked, were the military authorities on whose advice the Government relied? Mr. Brodrick, in reply, said that the proposals of the Government, taken as a whole, had been gratefully accepted by one and all of the military heads of the War Office, as, in the words of the Commander-in-Chief, "such a step forward as has not been made for many years." Thus it became clear that the military heads, including the Commander-in-Chief, were as ready to be overruled in regard to their views as to what was necessary for the army as the civilian Minister was to overrule them.

In the Christmas recess of 1897-98 Dilke prepared for the next Session by writing a pamphlet on Army Reform in which he reviewed the position. He and the other reformers had steadily asserted that the home army could not take the field until it had drawn heavily on the reserve; that it was terribly short of artillery; that the seven to eight years' enlistment was a hybrid, and that the sound course was to have a short-term service with the colours at home followed by a choice between a long term in the reserve and a long term in the Indian or Colonial army; and, lastly, that the administration was over-centralized at the War Office, to the detriment of the authority, the efficiency, and the character, of the generals. The critics had further urged that the linked-battalion system and the hybrid term, bad as they were, could not be worked at all without a large increase of the number of battalions at home. In 1897 the War Office had replied that an increase of three battalions would suffice.

The new estimates were introduced in the House of Commons on February 25th, 1898, by Mr. Brodrick, who admitted that, in order to put 50,000 infantry into the field, it would be necessary to call out 28,000 reservists. In order to have artillery enough for a fraction of the army he asked for fifteen more batteries. He had to admit that the three battalions added in 1897 were not enough, and to ask for six more. The speech was an admission of all the contentions of the critics, though it began by abusing them.

In the debate Dilke moved: "That no scheme for the reorganization of the army will be satisfactory which involves the sacrifice of one unit to secure the efficiency of any other." He referred to the admitted breakdown of the eight-years and linked-battalion system. Mr. Brodrick, quoting Lord Wolseley, had reassured the country by telling them that they could despatch two army corps abroad.

"Two army corps!" exclaimed Dilke, "when it is twenty army corps which this country pays for!... Out of the men at home, if cavalry and artillery were provided, twenty corps instead of two corps might be made.... In the last three years the cost of the army has been considerably increased, and there has been an increase in numbers voted. Yet there has been a decrease not only in the militia, but also in the regular army and in the army reserve as well during that period--an additional evidence of breakdown.... The territorial system here can never be anything more than a sham so long as we have to provide for India and garrison coaling-stations, and so long as the battalions are constantly moved about.... We have year by year made our statements with regard to artillery to the House. Nobody believed a word we said, and it was only last year, when three batteries were sent out to the Cape, and twenty batteries wrecked in men and horses to provide them, that the War Office at last admitted that we had all along been right.... On this occasion we see some results, in the speech of the right hon. gentleman to-night, of our action in the past."

The Navy Estimates were introduced in July. Lord Charles Beresford in his argument had pointed out that the cost of the navy bore a much smaller proportion to our mercantile marine than that of the navies of other countries. Dilke said:

"The position of the British Empire is such that, if by the
mercantile policy of other countries our mercantile marine were
wholly to disappear, or if it were to disappear as the result of a
war in which our carrying trade passed, say, to the United States,
it would be just as necessary as now for us to have a predominant
fleet.... If the pressure of taxation on the poorer classes, if the
unrest in this country on the subject, were so great that it was not
possible to make the sacrifices which I for one think it necessary
to make, I would sooner give up the whole expenditure on the army
than give way upon this naval programme.... This matter of the fleet
is vital to our position in the world. The army is an arguable
question."

Dilke continued steadily to press for a strong navy. In 1899 he once more supported Mr. Goschen's proposals, and again urged that, if the cost of the army and navy should be too great, we must save on the army, but not on the navy. His chief criticism of the Admiralty was that "we have got into the vicious position of beginning our building programme each year at the extreme end of the financial year."

The keynote of his speech was: "This Empire is an Empire of the seas, and the navy is vital to our existence, but our army is not. Our Indian army is vital to our possession of India, but India pays the full cost of it, perhaps rather more."

III.

During the winter of 1898-99 the opposition of purposes between the British Government and the Government of the South African Republic was causing grave apprehension to public men. The High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, paid a visit to England, and on his return to the Cape was authorized in May, 1899, to meet President Kruger in a Conference at Bloemfontein. On June 7th the failure of the Conference was announced, and was thought by many to be the equivalent of a diplomatic rupture, the prelude to hostilities. No serious military preparations were made by the British Government, though various measures were suggested by the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley, and by Sir Redvers Buller. It was not until September 10th that 10,000 men were ordered from India to Natal, and not until October 7th that orders were issued for the calling out of the reserve and for the mobilization of an army corps and other troops for South Africa. The Boers began hostilities on October 11th, and the operations were unfavourable to the British until the middle of February, when Lord Roberts began the advance towards Kimberley.

At the end of January, 1900, the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, said in the House of Lords: "I do not believe in the perfection of the British Constitution as an instrument of war ... it is evident that there is something in your machinery that is wrong."

In the debate on the Army Estimates on February 1st, Dilke, with his usual courage, raised the question of responsibility, in a speech to which little attention was paid at the time, but which will now, in the light of subsequent events, be better appreciated.

"The country," he said, "has gone through an awful winter, and under our constitutional system there are persons responsible, and we have to examine the nature of their responsibility. Some Government speakers, who during the recess have addressed the country, have drawn certain comparisons between the occurrences in this war and those of the Crimean War.... I confess that I believe the present war has been far more disgracefully conducted than the Crimean War had been, and that the mourning is far more applicable to this case. Now, with regard to the checks or reverses--that is the accepted phrase--we are really afraid in these days to talk about 'disasters.' The First Lord of the Treasury at Manchester distinctly stated there had been 'no disaster.' There has been no single great engagement in which we have met with an absolute disaster, but for the first time in our military history there has been a succession of checks or reverses--unredeemed as they have been by a single great military success in the whole course of the war--in many of which we have left prisoners in the enemy's hands. We began with the abandonment of the entrenched camp at Dundee, and of the great accumulation of stores that had been made there, of the wounded, and of the dying General, and we lost the headquarters of a regiment of cavalry that tried a cavalry pursuit. We lost the headquarters of two battalions at Nicholson's Nek; we lost the headquarters of one battalion and a very large portion of another battalion in the repulse at Stormberg; we lost the Colonel, most of the field officers, and the whole of one company of the Suffolks, on another occasion. These headquarters of cavalry, and the principal portion of the remaining men of five battalions of British infantry, are now prisoners at Pretoria--not to speak of what happened to the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein, or of the loss of the guns in the repulse at the Tugela, or of the fact that thirteen of our field guns, besides a mountain battery, are now in the enemy's hands. The loss of guns in proportion to our small strength of guns is equivalent to the loss of some 300 guns by the German army. None of these events constitutes what the First Lord of the Treasury calls a disaster. Probably he is right. But can any member of this House deny that the net result of these proceedings has been disastrous to the belief of the world in our ability to conduct a war? Therefore, if there has been, as the right hon. gentleman says, not one disaster, surely the result of the proceedings has been one disastrous to the credit of this country. There has been one immense redemption of that disaster, which is that all the Powers, however hostile, have very frankly acknowledged on these occasions the heroism of the officers and men. Our military reputation, which undoubtedly never stood lower in the eyes of the world than at the present moment, is redeemed in that respect, and the individual courage of officers and men never stood higher in the estimate of the world than it does now. It seems to me to be a patriotic duty of those who have in the past discussed in this House the question of Cabinet responsibility for military preparations to discuss the question now; to see who is responsible, whom--I will not say we will hang, but whom we are to hold blameworthy in the highest degree for what has occurred. I believe that the opinion is attributed to the Prime Minister that the British Constitution is not a fighting machine. I am told that he has thrown doubt upon the working of the British Constitution as a Constitution which will allow this country successfully to go to war. That is a very serious matter. The Constitution of this country has been maintained as a fighting machine by the members of this House who are now responsible for the Administration. No one has ever put the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility for the preparation for war higher than it has always been put by the present Leader of the House (Mr. Balfour), and anything more direct than the conflict on that point, as on many others, between his opinion and the opinion of the Prime Minister it is impossible to conceive.... On Thursday last the right hon. member who preceded me in this debate--the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Brodrick)--delivered a speech and said that all that had been done in this war had been 'solely dictated by military advice,' and 'military advice alone determined all that had been done.' I should like the House to consider what that statement means. The right hon. gentleman was the member who, on three occasions, brought the question of the ammunition supplies of this country before the House: it was he who moved the amendment which turned out the Rosebery Administration on the cordite vote, and he led the discussion on two subsequent occasions on which we debated the same question. At the opening of the next Parliament the whole question of Ministerial responsibility for war preparation was thoroughly and exhaustively considered by this House. I confess that I did not expect to hear the right hon. gentleman--who on those three occasions so firmly pressed, to the very extinction of the Government itself, the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility--as it were sheltering the Cabinet behind military advice, advice which he rejected, as also did the Leader of the House, with scorn upon that occasion.... I feel it a duty to myself, and to all who hold the same opinion, to press home this doctrine of Cabinet responsibility on this occasion. In that debate the hon. member who seems likely to follow me in this debate--the present Under-Secretary for War (Mr. Wyndham)--took part. He was then a private member and warmly occupied his mind upon this question, and he used these words: 'If they were overwhelmed by disasters, the Minister for War would be held responsible.' Not only he, but the whole Cabinet are responsible, and the present Leader of the House, in following the hon. member in that debate, emphasized that fact, and pointed out the importance of complete Cabinet responsibility. That doctrine was emphatically maintained. There are practical reasons why this question should be pressed home on this occasion. This is obviously the time to press it home if ever it should be done, and it seems to me that such practical reasons are to be found in two considerations. We have been told that at the beginning of every war it is always fated that there should be muddling. We have been told it from both sides of the House, that we always begin by muddling our wars. If there is one fact more certain than another, it is that in future wars, not with Boer Republics, but with Great Powers, there will be no time for muddling at the beginning of war, and it is vital that this muddling should be guarded against. If we are to look forward as a matter of certainty that this country is always to muddle at the beginning of a war, then we may look forward with almost certainty to defeat."

Dilke then examined the excuses that had been made for the Government, to the effect that the war took them by surprise and that they had no knowledge of the Boer preparations. He showed that both these pleas were inconsistent with the facts. Mr. Balfour had said that the Government had thought it their duty, during the negotiations which preceded the war, to abstain from unnecessary menace. Dilke pointed out that they did not so abstain. Lord Salisbury had said on July 28th, 1899, "the Conventions are mortal ... they are liable to be destroyed." That could only be understood by the Boers as holding out the prospect of a war in which the independence of their country would be taken away. Were these words wise when used without the smallest preparation for war having been made? As regards knowledge of the Boer preparations, the Intelligence Department had admirably done its work. No Government was ever so well informed as to the resources of its opponents as the British Government in entering upon this war. Dilke went on to say:

"Both by those who would have anticipated war and by the Government
it has been alleged that the existence of a Parliamentary Opposition
was the reason why the military precautions of the Government were
inefficacious. But the Government has been in power since July,
1895, and has been supported by overwhelming majorities, and it
would have had the cheerful acquiescence of the House of Commons for
every measure of military precaution and all the military
expenditure which was asked. The Cabinet are responsible; but if
there is to be any difficulty on account of the existence of a
constitutional Opposition--even a weak one--I say that by that
doctrine we are fated to be beaten on every occasion we go to war.
The time for the reform of our military system will come when this
war has ended. We cannot reform it in a time of war. We have often
addressed the House upon this subject. We preached to deaf ears. We
were not listened to before war. Shall we be listened to when war is
over? While I admit that in a time of war you cannot reform your
military system, what you can do is to press home to the Cabinet the
responsibility.... For some years past there have been discussions
as to Empire expansion which have divided some of us from others on
military questions. There are some of us, who are strong supporters
of the Government in preparing for war in the present situation of
the world, who are not in favour of what is called the expansion of
the Empire. We have resisted it because we believed the military
requirements of the Empire were greater--as it was put by Lord
Charles Beresford, whom we see here no longer--than we were prepared
to meet. And the Government now come down to the House and quietly
tell us that that is so. They have put it in the Queen's Speech. We
have it stated that, although the money we have to spend in military
preparations is more than that of any other Power in the world, we
are going to be asked to spend more. I should hope that good may
come out of evil, and that a result of this sad war may be the
proper utilization of our resources in preparing, in times of peace,
all the military forces of what people call Greater Britain.... I
venture to say that the Government went into this war without the
preparation they should have made. Their neglect of that precaution
has brought about the reverses we have met with, and the natural
consequence is the failure of our arms I have described. As regards
the Crimean War, which in some respects has been compared with this,
one is reminded of the present Commander-in-Chief, who has written
these momentous words: The history of the Crimean War shows 'how an
army may be destroyed by a Ministry through want of ordinary
forethought.' I confess that I think there is only one point in
which the two cases are exactly parallel--for there are many
distinctions between them--and that is in the heroism of officers
and men."

On July 27th, 1900, on the occasion of a supplementary estimate for the South African War, Dilke criticized the censorship of letters from the front, in consequence of which the truth about the military mistakes made remained unknown. He reviewed a series of blunders that had been made in the war, and quoted the opinion of an eminent foreign strategist to the effect that "the mistakes which had been made were mistakes on immutable and permanent principles." Thus, there was a doubt whether the army had been properly trained for war in the past and was being properly trained at that moment. He asked for a full inquiry into these matters.

That inquiry was never made. The Royal Commission appointed after the war to inquire into its conduct began by disclaiming authority to inquire into the policy out of which the war arose, and by asserting its own incompetence to discuss the military operations.

In a paper contributed to the _New Liberal Review_ of February, 1901, Dilke reviewed the South African War, and summed up:

"The war, then, has revealed deficiency in the war training of the
Staff in particular, and of the army generally. It has shown that
the recommendations of the Commander-in-Chief to the Cabinet for the
nomination of Generals to high commands were not based on real
tests. It has called attention to the amateurishness of portions of
our forces. It has proved that for years the reformers have been
right, and the War Office wrong, as regards the number and
proportion of guns needed by us and the rapidity of the mobilization
of our artillery.

"Remedies which will certainly be attempted are--Better training of
the Staff, especially in the thinking out and writing of orders;
weeding out of incompetent amateurs from among our officers; better
pay for the men; careful preparation in time of peace of a picked
Imperial force of mounted infantry from all parts of the Empire. But
greater changes, urgently as they are demanded by the national
interest, will not be accomplished, as public excitement will die
down, and triflers and obstructives will remain at the head of
affairs, in place of the Carnot who is needed as organizer to back
the best General that can be found for the Commander-in-Chief.

"The greatest of the lessons of the war was the revelation of the
neglect, by statesmen, to prepare for wars which their policy must
lead them to contemplate as possible.... The long duration of the
war, with all its risks to our Imperial interests, is to be laid at
the door of the politicians rather than of the Generals. This, the
greatest lesson, has not been learnt."

IV.