396 THE PURCHASE SYSTEM.' 'Seeing that a true theory is a compendium of particular truths, it is necessarily true as applied to particular cases. The terms of the theory are general and abstract, or the particular truths which the theory implies would not be abbreviated or condensed. But unless it be true in particulars, and therefore true in practice, it has no truth at all.'-Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. Ar the risk of being denounced a second time in the House of Commons as the author of 'feeble and melancholy trash,' I will venture to state the main objections to the purchase system which impress civilians like myself. We have as good a right to an opinion on it as Mr. Seely, Mr. Baillie Cochrane, Mr. W. H. Smith, or even Lord Elcho; and I shall show that on every essential point we have the highest military authority on our side. Shrinking from the perilous doctrine that public employments or trusts of any kind are proper subjects of sale, the advocates of the purchase system content themselves with asserting, in every variety of phrase, that, if indefensible in theory or principle, it works well that its practical results are excellent: that it has given us an army which, in the words of the Iron Duke, would go anywhere and do anything:' that all the recorded triumphs or daring deeds of that army are owing to it that (in Mr. Baillie Cochrane's opinion) it 1 The publication of this brochure, originally intended for a letter to a leading journal, was accidentally delayed till after the practical decision of the question, and only a few copies were circulated towards the end of July, 1871. It is now reprinted under an impression that the real character and tendency of the purchase system are still imperfectly understood. is the mainstay of our military system; that (in Lord Elcho's) the purchasing class of officers are the salt of the service; that (according to another senator) our regimental system, which could not exist without it, 'is worthy of the admiration of the world.' Now, did it ever occur to any of these gentlemen, or to any one of the associate colonels, to analyse their own precise meaning, or to follow out their assertions to the strictly logical and inevitable conclusion? The purchase system, unknown in any other army, is confined to the Guards, the Infantry of the Line, and the Cavalry. It does not exist in the Artillery, the Engineers, the Marines, or the Navy. It should follow, therefore, that, cæteris paribus, the officers of the Guards, the Infantry of the Line, and the Cavalry, are superior in all officer-like qualities to the officers of any other branch of either service-indeed, to any other officers in the world: that they are braver, endowed with a higher sense of honour, and better qualified in all respects to inspire the confidence and command the willing obedience of their men. Nay, more it should follow that if, at a grand review of all our available forces, the Commander-in-Chief were to ride along the line and give the word, Over-regulationprice officers to the front,' they would be found to comprise all, or nearly all, who have added or are likely to add lustre to our arms. If this does not follow, what is meant by calling them the salt of the service and 'the mainstay of the military system?' I am not denying their good qualities. I am simply contending that, these qualities having no connection with money, they are not necessarily endowed with more of them than their brother officers who have not purchased, and that, as for bravery, they are not braver than the private who fights for a shilling a day. By way of testing this point, let us take the cavalry charge at Balaclava, which has been repeatedly men tioned in the debates on the Army Regulation Bill as the gem, the pride, the crowning triumph of the purchase system; not without some show of reason, for most of the officers engaged in it had given high prices. for their commissions, and their noble leader had paid, sooner or later, about 26,000l. for his. Nothing could be finer or more admirable than the manner in which this devoted band rode up that fatal valley to face death; but was there one particle of difference between the bearing of the officers and the men? Did a single trooper draw bridle rein or swerve till the battery was reached? They were like the Scots at Flodden: 'No thought was there of craven flight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, It may be unjust to question the personal courage of Lord Cardigan. Where he failed was in coolness, presence of mind and military coup-d'œil; but it is a fact which cannot and ought not to be kept back that, when this spoilt child of the purchase system, honestly thinking he had done enough for glory, was galloping to the rear, a non-commissioned officer, Sergeant O'Hara, of the 17th Lancers, got a part of his troop together, and, after pursuing the momentary advantage, did a leader's duty in covering the retreat. The late Lord Alvanley used to say that, after being in one battle, he made up his mind never to be in another, having had to find courage for his men when he had only just enough for himself. He forgot that this was rather too serious a matter for a joke. The British soldier never needs or expects courage to be found for him. He would be simply annoyed by the eternal en avant of the French officers; and there is an authentic anecdote of the Peninsular war that, when an aide-de-camp rode to the front of a regiment drawn up to receive cavalry and exhorted them to stand firm, he was gruffly answered from the ranks, 'Ay, ay, sir, we know our duty.' 6 It is after describing a scene of disastrous confusion at Albuera for want of a guiding mind in any quarter, that Napier exclaims: And then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights.' And the same sight may have been seen over and over again during the present century under nearly similar circumstances-i.e. when the lack of generalship and professional skill had to be made good by hard fighting. Of what frequent application has been the criticism of the French General on the Balaclava charge: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' How often have British officers merited the peculiar and qualified praise which the American awarded to the bull which he saw taking up a position to charge an express train advancing at full speed: I admire your courage, but d-n your discretion.' Except where the great Duke was present in command, things almost invariably went wrong: as in the Walcheren expedition, the Corunna campaign, and the repulse before New Orleans. To be present was not enough. He was obliged to be omnipresent. 'I certainly feel every day more and more the difficulty of the situation in which I am placed. I am obliged to be everywhere, and, if absent from any operation, something goes wrong.'-(Despatch, May 15, 1811.) 'The ignorance of their duty of the officers of the army who are every day arriving in this country, and the general inattention and disobedience to orders of many of those who have been long here, increase the details of the duty to such an extent as to render it almost impracticable to carry it on; and owing to this disobedience and neglect I can depend upon nothing, however well regulated and ordered.'-(Oct. 13, 1811.) When he said that the British army would go anywhere and do anything, he was speaking of the Peninsular army as he left it at the close of the war; and it would be strange if, at the end of several years' active service in the field, an army formed under his eye was not well seasoned for its work. To try the system, we must see what kind of officers it gave us after a long peace at the commencement of a war. Take the Crimean army as it landed at Eupatoria, or as it took up its cantonments for the winter on the heights before Sebastopol. A more gallant army never existed. The officers of all grades were distinguished by courage of the highest order, by patient endurance, by never-failing readiness to share, if they could not mitigate, the privations of the men. But (not to dwell on the darker shades of the picture) how happens it that no genius for high command, no military mind of the first order, emerged from the crowd of British officers before Sebastopol? There were opportunities enough in all conscience, but those who hope to profit by opportunities, must be prepared for them. Wolfe, who fell in the arms of victory at 34, owed his early distinction (I am not speaking merely of promotion) more to that ardent love of his profession and thorough knowledge of it in which he far surpassed his fellows, than to the bravery in which he could hardly do more than equal them. The modern spirit is unfavourable to the production of a Wolfe.2 Before the purchase system can promote bravery, military education, or military proficiency of any kind, the operation of all the ordinary motives which have 1 'Do you conceive that the army, when it left France for the Pyrenees, was in as efficient state for service as an army can well be brought to?' 'I always thought I could have gone anywhere and done anything with that army.'-Evidence on Military Punishments. 2 In the autumn of 1855, five or six officers of a regiment just returned from the Crimea and quartered in a neighbouring town, dined at a country house at which I was staying. The conversation happening to turn on military matters, they were asked the meaning of a traverse.' Neither of them could tell, and we were obliged to refer to a military dictionary. This certainly was eighteen years since. |