Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846. Various
British army, its strength considered, and in comparison with the armies of other countries, is, undeniably, a very expensive establishment, and the necessity of economy has been urged as an argument in favour of unlimited enlistment. The evidence both of Dr Fergusson and of Mr Marshall goes far to prove that one more fallacious was never advanced. Innumerable are the artifices resorted to by soldiers, under the present system, in the hope of obtaining their discharge – artifices sometimes successful, frequently entailing expense on the government, and at times almost impairing the efficiency of an army. Speaking of the last war, Dr Fergusson says, – "Artificial ulcers of the legs were all but universal amongst young recruits, and spurious ophthalmia was organised in conspiracy so complicated and extended, that at one time it threatened seriously to affect the general efficiency of the forces, and was in every respect so alarming that the then military authorities durst not expose its naked features to the world. These are the results, and ever will be the results, whilst human nature is constituted as it is, of service for life." That unlimited service is the chief cause of desertion may be proved beyond a doubt, if there be any value in the statistics of armies as given by Mr Marshall. In the year 1839, the mean strength of the French army was three hundred and seventeen thousand five hundred and seventy-eight men; the number condemned for desertion was six hundred and six. Eight hundred and eighty-one conscripts were punished for failing to join their corps. In the same year, in our army, of which the strength was less than one third of the French – under one hundred thousand men – the deserters punished amounted to two thousand one hundred and ten, or nearly one-fifth of the number of recruits annually raised. Where must we seek the cause of so monstrous a disparity? Chiefly in the difference of the term of service. The English soldier is by far the best paid and rationed; most of his comforts are more cared for than those of the Frenchman; but the latter takes his service kindly, because he knows that in six or seven years (the period varies a little according to the arm served in) he will be free to return to civil life, whilst still at an age to begin the world on his own account. The following extract from the Military Miscellany illustrates and confirms our present argument, that unlimited enlistment is no saving to the country.
"I have no adequate materials to enable me to state the mean duration of service of men who enlist for the army; but I am disposed to conjecture that it is not much, if at all, above ten years. It has, I believe, been ascertained, that the average length of service performed by men now on the permanent pension list, is about fifteen or sixteen years. Upon these grounds I conclude that enlistment for life, as a means of obtaining an average length of service of more than from ten to twelve years, is a fallacy; and consequently, I submit whether it would not be an advisable measure to abolish enlistment for an unlimited period, and to adopt a regulation whereby a soldier might have the option of being discharged after a certain length of service, say ten years."
In estimating the average duration of service at ten to twelve years, Mr Marshall has, we conjecture, taken into consideration the men discharged under fifteen years' service, before which time they would not be entitled to a pension. To the ten years' enlistment proposed by him, we should prefer the term of seven years, fixed by Mr Wyndham's bill, passed in 1806, but rendered nugatory in 1808, by a clause in Lord Castlereagh's Military bill, which made it optional to enlist for life, adding the temptation of a higher bounty. The latter bait, aided by the thoughtlessness of recruits, and by the cajolery of recruiting sergeants, caused the engagement to be almost invariably for life. And since then, Horse-guards' orders have been issued, forbidding recruiting officers to accept men for limited service. According to Mr Wyndham's plan, the seven years' engagement was to be prolonged indefinitely in war time. We should not object to the latter arrangement, which is necessary for the safety of the country. Nor is it when actively engaged in the field that soldiers are likely to repine at length of service, but in the tedium of a garrison, when no change, or prospect of one, no opportunity of distinction, or chance of promotion, relieves the monotony of a military existence.
There is one advantage of short enlistments that has been overlooked both by Dr Fergusson and by Mr Marshall, but which nevertheless is, in our opinion, an important one. It is the increased military character that it would give to the nation, the greater number of men whom it would familiarize with the use of arms, and render competent to use them effectually at a moment's notice. We believe that short enlistments, and the other improvements already referred to, and which we shall presently speak of at greater length, would produce, in this thickly peopled kingdom, a regular annual supply of recruits, a large proportion of them of a very superior class to those who now offer. On the other hand, the army, instead of being thinned by desertions, transportations, and feigned diseases, would each year give up from its ranks a number of young and able-bodied men, who, whilst entering upon the occupations of civil life, would in a great measure retain their soldierly qualities, and be ready, in case of an emergency, to stand forward successfully in defence of their homes and families. We have long been accustomed to look upon this country as guaranteed from invasion by her wooden walls. Noble as the bulwark is, there is no dissembling the fact, that its efficiency has been greatly impaired by the progress of steam, rendering it extremely difficult, in case of a war, effectually to guard our long line of coast. And although Europe seems now as disinclined for war as a long experience of the blessings of peace can render her, this happy state cannot, in the nature of things, last for ever. Let us suppose a general war, and a large body of French troops thrown upon our shores in a night, whilst our armies were absent on the battle fields of the Continent, or of America. The supposition is startling, but cannot be viewed as absurd; many looked upon its realization as certain when circumstances were far less favourable to it than they would now be. How far would volunteers and militiamen, hastily raised, unaccustomed to services in the field, and many of whom had never fired a ball-cartridge in their lives,3 be able to cope, with any chance of success, with fifty thousand French soldiers? And admitting that they did successfully contend, and that superior numbers and steadfast courage – although these, without good drill and discipline, are of little avail against a veteran army – eventually gained the day, how much more effective would they be, and how much loss of life and injury to the country might be avoided, did their ranks contain a fair proportion of men trained to arms, and able to instruct and encourage their comrades? But these are subjects so suggestive as to afford themes for volumes, where they might be better discussed than in the scanty pages of a review. We can only afford to glance at them, and to throw out hints for others to improve upon.
The liability to the lash, inflicted, until very recently, even for the least disgraceful offences, has long been thrown in the teeth of the British soldier by his foreign brethren in arms. That infamous punishment has been utterly disapproved and eloquently argued against by military men of high rank and great abilities, whose enlightened minds and long experience taught them to condemn it. The feeling of the nation is strongly against it, the armies of other countries are seen to flourish and improve without it, and yet it is still maintained, although gradually sinking into disuse, and, we hope and believe, drawing near to its abolition. Unnecessarily cruel as a punishment, ineffectual as an example to repress crime, and stamping the indelible brand of infamy on men the soul of whose profession should be a feeling of honour, why is it so lovingly and tenaciously clung to? "The service would go to the devil – could not be carried on without it – no soldiering without flogging," is the reply of a section of officers – the minority, we assuredly believe. "No one can doubt," says Dr Fergusson, "that for infamous crimes there ought to be infamous punishments, and to them let the lash be restricted." Be it so, but then devise some plan by which the soldier, whose offence is so disgraceful as to need the most humiliating of chastisements, shall be thenceforward excluded from the army. When he leaves the hospital, let his discharge be handed to him. "A fine plan, indeed!" it will be said. "Men will incur a flogging every day to get out of the service." Doubtless they will, so long as service is unlimited. And this is one reason why short enlistments and abolition of corporal punishment should go together. Against desertion, transportation has hitherto been found an ineffectual remedy. If men were enlisted for seven years only, it would cease to be so. Few would then be sufficiently perverse to risk five or seven years' transportation in order to get rid of what remained of their period of service. To flog for drunkenness, however frequent the relapse, is an absurdity, for it usually drives the culprit to habits of increased intemperance, that he may forget the disgraceful punishment he has suffered. In war time,
"The author, soon after his last return from the West Indies, at the close of the year 1817, was induced, from the then troubled state of the country, to join the ranks of a volunteer corps in Scotland, which was drilled and instructed by experienced men in all manner of ways, with the exception of the one thing needful – the firing ball – for during the whole time he remained with them, nearly two years, that was never thought of; and this was the case generally with the whole volunteer force of Great Britain, as well as the militia, at least in the early part of the war. Future wars must and will recur, and volunteer corps will again be formed; but if they be unused to the full-charged musket, however much their first appearance may impose, they will be found, when brought into action, of as much use as so many Chinese. Let them not suppose that until they have attained this skill, which it is in the power of every man to do, they are qualified to fight the battles of their country. * * * * In their present state, supposing two such bodies to get into collision, it would indeed be matter of wonder to think how they could contrive to kill one another without the aid of the cannon and other adjuncts. If they carried broomsticks on their shoulders, instead of muskets, they would no doubt make a sturdy fight of it; but with fire-arms which they had never been taught to use, the battle would resemble those of the Italian republics in the middle ages, when mailed knights fought the livelong day without mortal casualty." – Dr Fergusson, p. 42.
Is ball practice sufficiently attended to in our army generally? We are inclined to doubt it. "We are economical people," says Dr Ferguson in another place, "famed for straining at gnats and swallowing camels, and the expense of ball cartridge is ever brought up in bar of the soldier being in the constant habit of firing it." We should also like to see some of our muskets replaced by rifles, an arm in which we have ever been deficient.