Sham versus Real Home Defence
Sham versus Real Home Defence is an article by Arthur Conan Doyle published in The Nineteenth Century in march 1901.
This is a reply to the article of the same name Sham versus Real Home Defence by Colonel Lonsdale Hale published in the same magazine in february 1901.
Sham versus Real Home Defence
As Colonel Lonsdale Hale, in his article of last month, has referred very ful]y to me and to the views which I put forward about Home Defence, perhaps I may be permitted to say a few words myself upon those views. I should hardly have ventured to publish the last chapter of my Great Boer War had I realised the number of controversies in which it would plunge me, and yet I cannot regret it since I am more convinced than ever that my conclusions are sound, now that they have run the gauntlet of a good deal of professional criticism, and come out undamaged, or at least very slightly modified.
A large part of that last chapter was devoted to the effect which the war has had, and will have, upon the different arms in our Service. Some of the views there put forward. are already accomplished facts. I refer to this because it shows thll.t, though some of my critics have discounted my remarks as being those of a civilian, my judgment was none the less correct as to the military lessons of the war. I spoke, for example, of the need for breaking up batteries into their sections, and it has been very largely done since then. I spoke of the approximation of the cavalry to the mounted infantry, and we have seen a cavalry brigade go out armed with the rifle. I spoke of the uselessness of the lance, and I saw a letter from a lancer the other day which described how they stuck their lances into the ground at the beginning of an action, and came back for them when it was finished. I spoke of the necessity for getting the extra seven stone off the cavalry horses, and something has since then been done in that direction. In these and other instances I read the signs of the times correctly. I put forward this fact to screen me against the foolish and narrow-minded suggestion that a civilian cannot be correct in military matters-a suggestion which has never been made by Colonel Lonsdale Hale, but frequently in other quarters.
The remainder of my last chapter was devoted to sketching out a method of reorganising our military forces by which, as it seemed to me, they might be made more formidable. The encouragement of the civilian rifleman was only one out of several factors which were to add to our strength, but for some reason it appears to have eclipsed all the others completely, and to have left upon the mind of some professional critics the idea of a bogey rifleman — a dreadful person, undisciplined, turbulent, unorganised, pushing aside regulars, volunteers, and militia, to claim the sole right of forming that mob behind a hedge-row which seems to act ae a nightmare upon so many military writers. It was remarked lately, with great truth, in an article in the Spectator, that if my suggestion had been to put the navy out of commission, and to disband the army, some of the criticisms which have been evoked. could not be more grotesque. There are many who may have read these criticisms without seeing the original article, so let me say again for their benefit that I have never contemplated the civilian rifleman as our first line of defence. Let us first have an overpowering navy, let us next have as large and efficient an army as we can afford, let us back it up by a strong militia, and a generously encouraged volunteer force. Then, and only then, let us make a reserve of the rest of the nation by covering the country with rifle clubs, and teaching every man that which is the most difficult and the most essential portion of a soldier's training. If the net result of the movement should be a single rifleman, he will be one rifleman to the good. How the country could suffer by such an addition to its defences passes the wit of man to discover, and yet I have read a dozen articles which allude to it as if it were the obvious end of the British Empire. Perhaps the fault lies with some obscurity of expression of my own, and so I will go over the ground again, with such additions or modifications as have been suggested by fuller consideration and by criticism.
There is a limit to the amount of money which can be spent upon the regular army without excessive taxation on the one side or starving the navy on the other. How are we to spend this sum? Is it better to get the largest number we can at the lowest wage, or would it be better to have fewer at a wage which would ensure that they should be picked men. Personally I believe that we should get better value for our money by having fewer regulars and paying them more highly. Every officer knows that he has certain men in his regiment or battery who are useless as fighting men. Yet these men take the same pay, the same food, the same equipment, and the same transport as an efficient soldier. The British soldier has his fighting to do in Northern India, in Southern Africa, or in China. Is it not false economy to transport a man for these thousands of miles, and to sustain him there, unless he is absolutely a first-class article? Many that we now have are first-class material. But many are not. If you wish that they should all be so, you can only effect it by railing the pay until there is a keen competition to enter the army, and you can dismiss the worthless man with the certainty of getting a better one in his place. By doing this you are diminishing the numbers of the paper army, but you are not diminishing the numbers of your effective army. When the pinch came in South Africa, nearly a hundred thousand men who had figured in our paper army were left behind because they were unfit to go out. Yet these useless men were costing the country great sums of money. With a higher scale of pay you would have fewer men, but they would all be effectives, and no money would be wasted. It may be argued that the hundred thousand men were or the nature of a reserve who would mature as the war went on. But such a reserve might as well be formed at the outbreak of a war, and would equally mature. We should not then be paying for so large a number of inefficient men in time of peace.
A man who is not a good shot is not merely no use in the firing line, but he becomes a positive hindrance, as he is likely to be himself hit, and when hit he has to be tended. There should be no place in the regular army for a man who is not a marksman. But at present we have to be only too glad to enrol any man of the required measurements who presents himself, and to retain him, however hopeless his shooting may be. If the scale of pay were high enough you could ensure that every man should be a dead shot — or should become one under penalty of dismissal. Under such a system it would be your much-abused civilian rifle clubs which would furnish you with the best recruits. Colonials too with a taste for adventure would flock into the ranks of the Imperial army.
If you were to pay two shillings or half-a-crown clear a day, and so secure a good long-service soldier whom you could train to a very high pitch of efficiency, how many would be sufficient for the needs of the Empire? I should suggest as many as we could afford to have. But at so high a rate of pay the number must be limited. I mentioned 100,000 in my original article and my critics have convinced me that it is an under-estimate. I amended it to 130,000, to contain a large corps of highly trained mounted infantry. The scheme must be supplemented by home arrangements by which nearly all these men would be available for the service of the outer Empire. In that case they would represent nearly as large a force as we could possibly send abroad at present — and an infinitely more effective one.
Apart, from the fact that without compulsory service we cannot have more soldiers than we can afford to pay for, there is much to be said, as it seems to me, for the small effective mobile army, as against the large one. If one considers a modem battlefield one cannot but wonder where the large army is going to put itself. When advances are conducted with intervals of ten paces, and a company covers a thousand yards, a comparatively small army occupies a very great area. The attack advances in successive waves, but each wave must come some distance behind the other, and a brigade may find itself with a front of several miles and perhaps a mile of depth. Any other formation becomes impossible under magazine fire. Several brigades, therefore, will occupy the greatest space which a general can control. Where is he to put his great numbers? If they wait as reserves, they will, if they are within five miles, be exposed to the enemy's shell fire, without being able to help in the engagement. If they are beyond that distance, their presence will have no effect save a moral one on the battle that is being fought. The large army will doubtless endeavour to outflank the small, but even the small army upon the defensive can cover a very extended area, and the large one may find it difficult to turn its flanks, and may then itself be so far removed from the centre that the supply of food and ammunition will become a serious matter. Altogether, Providence is not now so obviously upon the side of the big battalions, and a decrease of numbers and increase of efficiency may prove to be the general law of the future. This, however, is speculation. What is certain, as it seems to me, is that: (1) It is false economy to employ anything but a first-class man; (2) That you can on]y get first-class men by a considerable increase in pay; (3) That this must mean a decrease in numbers.
Now if the regular army is to be set free for the service of the Empire, it can only be safely done by making ourselves invulnerable at home. There is only one way in which this can be effected, and that is by the enforcement of the militia ballot for home defence. Colonel Lonsdale Hale advocates this measure as if it were an antidote to the civilian riflemen. I have merely advocated the civilian riflemen as a supplement to a reorganised militia. 'We must depend upon a developed system of militia,' I say in one place, and later, 'We must have such an extension of the Militia Act' as would give us a competent home defence army. That demon civilian rifleman seems somehow to have drawn the attention of every military critic from all the, points of my suggestion except his undisciplined self. Not only have I made the same suggestion as Colonel Lonsdale Hale now puts forward, but I have indicated how things may be done which he states as desirable. For example, he says, 'The regular army must no longer use the militia as its milch-cow.' This can only be prevented by putting the regular army upon an entirely different footing as a highly-paid foreign-service army in some such way as is here suggested.
There are two alternatives before the nation, and one or other must eventually be adopted. The first is universal military service by which the whole nation might be passed through the ranks, each man serving for one year and then being enrolled in the reserve. That such a measure would have an admirable effect on the physique and, in some ways, upon the mind of the nation is undoubted. But I do not think that it has come within the range of practical politics. People do not make such changes in cold blood. Nothing short of a European coalition will ever rouse us to the pitch of national energy which would be necessary for making a new departure so foreign to our traditions. Besides we cannot pretend that we really have, or could have, need for so numerous a host as such a measure would produce.
It is different with the militia ballot, which is a good old constitutional measure of native growth. If it were used impartially, temperately, and with discretion and consideration, I do not think that the nation would now shrink from it. The present Government is strong enough to pass such a measure, but its effect would be much greater if the details could be settled by a committee drawn from both political parties. The men should be under arms for at least a year, during which time they would draw little pay, but they should be well fed, well lodged, and considerately treated in every way. Let them be sedulously exercised in what is practical in a soldier's duties, in judging distance, in shooting at unknown ranges, in entrenching, but let us at last have an end of those vexations pieces of routine which bear no relation to true discipline, The soldier's time is wasted anu his patience tried by childish roll-calls (four of them a day), by mechanical manoeuvres of no service in warfare, and by the polishing and whitening of metal or straps which seem to be chosen for the express purpose of giving trouble. A brown strap instead of a white one, or a horn button instead of a metal one, makes no great difference to a uniform, but a great deal to its wearer. Relaxation in all such matters should be accompanied by greater severity in cases of drunkenness, desertion, or other offences which really do impair a man's value as a soldier.
I find then that I am in perfect agreement with Colonel Lonsdale Hale upon the question of the militia, of which I should like to see 150,000 under arms. We come therefore to the next line of defence in the volunteers. The only change which such a scheme as I have outlined would cause in this force is that their capitation grant should be increased, their equipment improved, and their organisation made as business-like as possible. At the same time I do most strongly believe that Colonel Lonsdale Hale is much too depreciatory in his allusions to the volunteer soldier. The only opportunity which we have ever had of trying him has been in South Africa, where we have had volunteers — i.e. non-professional soldiers — from every part of the Empire: British volunteers, Canadians, Anglo-Indians, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians, Natalians Cape Colonists and refugees. There were some l,800 C.I.V.'s, and all of them, horse, foot, and artillery, did most excellently. Of the volunteer companies of the regular regiments I do not know enough to speak, but I remember that when shrapnel burst over the volunteer company of the Gordons, and struck down seventeen men, the rest of the company marched on as if nothing had occurred. Men of such nerve should be good enough for anything. The yeomanry who were largely civilians were invaluable. Of the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders nothing but praise has been heard. At the battle of Rhenoster Kop the other day the New Zealanders were, in the presence of two veteran regular regiments, awarded the honours of the day. These men were graziers, shepherds and small farmers. The Canadian volunteers bore off the honours of Paardeberg, and the Australians and Rhodesians those of Eland's River, the best defence of the war. The defence of Mafeking was conducted by a garrison in which, outside the officers, there were no regular soldiers. The South African volunteers have more successes and fewer failures in their record than any body of men in the country. The defence of Wepener was almost entirely their own. Thorneycroft's Irregular Horse stood the fiery ordeal of Spion Kop and lost more heavily in proportion to their number than any other corps. It was a body of Natal volunteers who blew up the first Long Tom at Ladysmith. Above all, the single regiment which has carried off by general consent the honours of the war is a regiment of non-professional soldiers, the famous Imperial Light Horse. Everywhere over the seat of war the lesson has been the same — that the volunteer soldier, British or Colonial, is little, if at all, inferior to his professional brother. Why, then, should Colonel Lonsdale Hale say that 'the much-vaunted voluntary system has been at work for years, and has shown itself to be a complete failure in producing an efficient army of good troops for Home Defence'? The samples which we have tried prove them to be excellent troops. They may not be perfect at barrack-square tricks, and their uniforms are occasionally rather weird, but they are keen, intelligent and brave. Colonel Lonsdale Hale's ordre-de-bataille army would not be weakened, I think, by a leavening of volunteers.
The introduction of the militia ballot would furnish a most powerful weapon for strengthening the volunteers, as exemption from the ballot might be granted to those men who undertook to make themselves efficient and to remain in the corps for five years. In the same way they would be officered by gentlemen who wished to avoid the militia. If mounted infantry and cyclist corps were raised in each battalion, and if each district were made to furnish a proper proportion of infantry, engineers and artillery, then each would become a complete little military unit capable of exercising all arms upon a field day or conducting operations against a neighbouring district.
I hope I have shown now that in no part of the scheme suggested did I desire to supersede existing forces, but that on the contrary I desired a long-service, highly-paid army for the service of the Empire, and a compulsory militia and highly-organised volunteer force for the defence of our own shores. There remain those terrible civilian riflemen. My argument — which I fear that I have repeated
ad nauseam — is that the greater portion of the manhood of this country cannot under existing circumstances serve in the volunteers. Their distance from a centre or the nature of their occupations prevents them. Is it then impossible to utilise them in any way, or to form them into any sort of a national reserve? I believe that it is perfectly possible, and indeed easy, to induce them to acquire skill with the rifle, and I assert that a country in which a fair proportion of the male inhabitants are good riflemen becomes for that reason formidable. We have had an object lesson of this in South Africa, and in spite of Colonel Lonsdale Hale I maintain that both Switzerland and Norway are examples of the same thing. It is absurd to contend that because Switzerland was overrun by the French at the end of the eighteenth century, at a time when that country had deep political dissensions, that that shakes my argument. It is the long-distance magazine rifle which has made the defence so strong against the attack, and people like the Swiss, who have made rifle-shooting their national pastime, could, I believe, never be subdued.
If then behind our army, behind our militia, and behind, our volunteers we had the main body of the people of this country expert in the use of the rifle, it seems to me to be a truism to say that it would greatly strengthen our military position. All these questions about their organisation, their transport — one critic was even anxious about their hats — are premature. The first practical thing is to get the butts, the rifles, and the men. This should not be hard. The less Government helps the better, I think. We are getting too much into the way of crying for help when we should be doing things for ourselves. Government should at once remove the tax upon rifles, and it should supply rifles and cartridges at absolute cost price to bonâ fide rifle clubs. So much is bare justice, but we should ask no more. Let miniature ranges (Morris-tube or other) be started in every village, and then let the neighbouring miniature clubs combine in each district to have one proper range open to all of them. I will answer for it that there will be no want of riflemen who will be perfectly willing to pay for their own cartridges, and who will rapidly develop into good shots. It is for the country gentlemen all over Britain to give the lead in starting such clubs. If any reader should desire exact information how to do it, and the cost involved, I should be happy to answer any inquiry addressed to me here at Hindhead. Our own club is a great success, and is already the father of several others.
Now we will suppose that these clubs form a network over the whole country, as I believe that they will do, and that in a few years there is a national reserve of half a million of men who can use a rifle. How are these men to be used in case of an emergency? Are they to be led as they are against an enemy, lined up behind a hedge, and left there? That is midsummer madness. And yet from the tone of my critics one would imagine that such a suggestion had been made. These half-million men would form a great reservoir upon which all the branches of the Service would draw. They would not remain as a force of civilian riflemen at all, In the universal enthusiasm which would be called forth by a menace .of invasion they would flock in to fill the gaps of the militia and the volunteers-even in some cases of the regulars-and instead of raw recruits these regiments would find that they bad got men who were already highly instructed in that which is the most essential and the most difficult part of a soldier's education. In this guise, as regulars, militia, and volunteers, they would help to line the hedge-rows of England, those hedge-rows which Lord Dundonald, fresh from South Africa, described the other day as being as formidable for defence as the kopjes. A residue of civilian riflemen would be left over to serve as guides, scouts, and irregulars in the particular district which they inhabit.
Now what is there against such a scheme? It is quite independent of and supplementary to all other lines of defence, and can therefore interfere with none of them. Is the objection that it will engage the attention of Government and distract it from other reforms? But it requires a minimum of attention from Government. Is it that it will intercept recruits for the militia and volunteers? It was argued once that the volunteers would do this, but in practice it is rather found that when a man has once begun to handle a rifle he is often inclined to go further with it. Is it that it is a sham or untried movement? But it was always suggested as being a supplement to a militia ballot, so it will not interfere with the drilled soldier. Why then has the civilian rifleman idea encountered so bitter an opposition? Is it that the very word 'civilian' seems to imply a want of confidence in the professional? But Colonel Lonsdale Hale truly says, 'The feelings of national patriotism, personal pride, and self-respect, love of country and home, combine to treat with scorn, and even indignation, the notion that the defence of the heart of the Empire should be conducted solely by the "professionals."' But if these are his sentiments, why does he object to civilians preparing themselves in the only way possible for the duty which may lie before them?
Supposing for argument's sake that such a scheme as that which is here outlined were adopted, how would the force of the country stand?
Regular Army, 130,000. — Highly-paid army of long-service men. One hundred and fifteen thousand might be taken as actually with the colours abroad. Fifteen thousand represent the Guards and the depôts at home. This force could be extended in time of war, and supplemented by organised colonial contingents so as to bring it to at least 200,000 effectives.
Militia Army, 150,000. — For home defence only. Raised by ballot. Pay small, but every effort made to study the comfort and convenience of the men, while making them good practical soldiers.
Volunteers, 250,000. — Men serving in this unpaid force and making themselves thoroughly efficient should be exempt from the militia ballot.
Yeomanry. — Men volunteering for this should also be exempt from the year's training under arms involved in the ballot. By this means there should be no difficulty in raising 20,000.
Reserves from the Regulars. — There would be a considerable force of reserves, at first from men who had served under the present conditions, and later from men who had done their term of service in the reformed army. Say 80,000.
Then finally Civilian Riflemen. — Rifle clubs should eliminate bad shots and have on their rolls only expert riflemen. A strong effort should be made by individual patriotism and public opinion to enrol the greater part of the men of the nation, of any age, in these clubs, which would form a reserve for all other forces of the Crown. We will suppose that they reach 500,000.
The net result would be that we should have in the service of the Empire an army as numerous as we could send abroad now, but of far greater efficiency, and that at home we should have a million men of different grades, but all accustomed to the use of arms. I have not reckoned in this enumeration the trained men who have passed through the militia. These alone would soon amount to some hundreds of thousands. If such a state of things were brought about I cannot understand the frame of mind of the man who would still fear invasion. It may be objected that there is no guarantee that the 500,000 civilian riflemen would respond to the call of duty. The guarantee lies in the national spirit, which was never more alive than now; but if there should be any hanging back Parliament could of course on an emergency pass a universal compulsory service Bill which would place them all at the disposal of the State. Even at the risk of annoying Colonel Lonsdale Hale I am bound to repeat that under these conditions (all of which were laid down in my original article, save that I understated the regular army by 30,000) I still think that 'the bugbear of an invasion of Great Britain would be reduced to an absurdity,' and that 'the invasion of Kent or Sussex, always a desperate operation, has become an impossible one.'
As to the exact method in which these very large forces should be disposed in the event of an invader landing, I bow to Colonel Lonsdale Hale's authority. What seems to me certain is that if we only have men enough, and rifles enough, and the men can use the rifles, our vastly superior numbers must bring us victory. We might be beaten and beaten again, but we should come and come again, and for ever replenish our losses far more rapidly than the invader could do. He could move in no direction without having to carry positions, and all England would be one endless vista of positions, with swarms of men to hold them — 'a huge crowd of men firing rifles from behind hedge-rows,' as Colonel Lonsdale Hale, with the bogey rifleman always before his eyes, prefers to describe it. The Colonel goes on to state that professional soldiers search through the military history of the world to find any support for such a theory of defence, and search in vain. The very thing itself is going on before our eyes in South Africa. If the numbers of the Boers had been far superior to our own what chance would we have had of being able to conquer their country? But the Colonel does less than justice to his own knowledge of military history when he asserts that he cannot recall many instances of undisciplined, or slightly disciplined, fighting men being able to hold their own against highly organised troops, and even, unless in a hopeless minority, being able to tire them out. Apart from South Africa and the recent instance of the Afridis, which are the more important as showing how modern weapons have affected the question, we have in the past such examples as the American War of Independence, the victories of Hofer over the Bavarians and the French in 1809, the three years' struggle between the Vendéans and the Republican armies, and many others which occur to even so superficial a student of military history as myself.
In conclusion let me say that I fully recognise that Colonel Lonsdale Hale is earnestly pursuing the same object as myself, although I have the temerity to differ from him in detail. I hope that, if he will do me the honour to read what I have written, he will find that our points of agreement are more numerous and of strife less serious than he has, possibly through my own faults of expression, been led to believe. It is an invidious thing to argue upon professional subjects with a professional man, but I do it under a strong sense of duty, feeling convinced that the country is suffering from want of men, and that the men could easily be found if some method could be devised by which they could render themselves efficient. Without universal compulsory service I can think of no way save the extension of rifle clubs to get at the main body of the people, and that is why I grudge no time or work which can help to that end.
- A. Conan Doyle.
- Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere.
