The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

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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.

After the General Election of December, 1900, there was a shifting of
offices in the Cabinet, by which Mr. Brodrick succeeded Lord Lansdowne
as Secretary of State for War, and Lord Selborne became First Lord of
the Admiralty instead of Mr. Goschen. Lord Roberts was brought home from
South Africa to become Commander-in-Chief, and the direction of the war
was left in the hands of Lord Kitchener. The first important event in
the new Parliament was a speech by Lord Wolseley in the House of Lords,
in which he warned the nation against the dangerous consequences of the
system introduced in 1895, which failed to give its proper place to the
military judgment in regard to preparations for war. The warning was
disregarded. Mr. Brodrick announced the determination of the Government
to maintain the system set up in 1895, and to give to Lord Roberts as
Commander-in-Chief the same position of maimed and crippled authority as
had been given to Lord Wolseley six years before.

Mr. Brodrick, while carrying on the war in South Africa, attempted at
the same time to reform the army. The results were the more unfortunate
because on vital matters, both of organization at the War Office and of
the reorganization of the army, Mr. Brodrick insisted on overriding the
great soldier to whom, as Commander-in-Chief, was due whatever
confidence the country gave to the military administration. Mr. Brodrick
was much preoccupied with the defence of the United Kingdom against
invasion. In the debate on the Army Estimates of 1901, Dilke said:

"I am one of those who hold that the command of the seas is the
defence of this country. I believe that the British Army exists
mainly for the reinforcement of the Indian garrison, and, if
necessary, as the rudiment of that army which, in the event of a
great war, would be necessary."

Dilke continued to support the Admiralty in its endeavours to strengthen
the navy. In the debate on the Navy Estimates of 1901 (March 22nd) he
said:

"The Secretary of State for the Colonies a few years ago made a
speech in favour of an alliance with a military Power. [Footnote:
See _infra_, p. 491.] He said that the alternative was to build up
so as to make ourselves safe against a combination of three Powers,
and that that would entail an addition of fifty per cent. to the
estimates. Since that time we have added more than fifty per cent.
to our estimates. Of course the expenditure is very great; but is
there a man in this House who believes that it is not necessary for
us to maintain that practical standard which would lead even three
Powers to hesitate before attacking? During the last year we have,
happily, had friendship between ourselves and Germany; I believe
that friendship may long continue, and I hope it will. But it is
impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that there have been
distinctly proposed to the German Houses, by Admiral Tirpitz,
estimates which are based on the possibility of a war with England.
Von der Goltz, who is the highest literary authority on this
subject, has said the same thing. We have seen also that remarkable
preparation of strategic cables on the part of Germany ... in order
to be entirely independent of British cables in the event of a
possible naval war. In face of facts of that kind, which can be
infinitely multiplied, it seems to me it would be monstrous on our
part to fail to maintain that standard, and that it is our bounden
duty to make up for the delays which have occurred, and to vote
programmes for the future which should be sufficient to keep up that
standard."

When the Navy Estimates for 1902 were introduced into the House of
Commons by Arnold-Forster as Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty,
Mr. Lough moved an amendment: "That the growing expenditure on the naval
defences of the Empire imposes under the existing conditions an undue
burden on the taxpayers of the United Kingdom." Dilke, in opposing the
amendment, deprecated the introduction of party considerations into a
discussion concerning the navy. The time taken to build ships ought to
be borne in mind. The usual period had lately been four years; many of
the ships of the 1897 programme had not yet been commissioned; therefore
it was necessary to remember that the country would go into a naval war
with ships according to the programme of four or five years before war
was declared. Mr. Goschen was a careful First Lord of the Admiralty, yet
Mr. Goschen in his programme year after year alluded to the necessity of
maintaining a fleet which would cause not two but three Powers to pause
before they attacked us. To his (Dilke's) mind, it was infinitely more
important to the country that its expenditure should be shaped, not
towards meeting a sudden attack by two Powers, which was not going to
occur, but towards meeting--not immediately, but in time to come--the
possibility of an eventual joining together of three Powers, one of
which was very rapidly building a magnificent fleet. From that point of
view the programme of the Government this year was a beggarly programme.

In introducing the Navy Estimates for 1903 Arnold-Forster said that they
were of a magnitude unparalleled in peace or war. Dilke, in supporting
them, said (March 17th):

"The standard which Lord Spencer gave to this House was not a fleet
equivalent to three fleets--not a fleet, certainly, on all points
equivalent to the fleets of France, Germany, and Russia--but a
standard which gave us such a position in the world of fleets as
would cause three Powers to pause before they entered into a
coalition against us. That was a position he had always contended
was necessary for the safety of this country.... The only weak point
that one could discern as really dangerous in the future was the
training of the officers for high command and the selection of
officers, which would give this country, in the event of war, that
real unity of operations which ought to be our advantage against any
allied Powers."

V.

On June 20th, 1902, Lord Charles Beresford had raised the question of
the organization of the Admiralty, which he held to be defective for the
purpose of preparation for war. "The administrative faculty," he said,
"should be absolutely separate from the executive faculty, but at
present they were mixed up." Campbell-Bannerman held that no change was
necessary. Dilke supported Lord Charles Beresford, and after reviewing
the cordite debates of 1895, to which both the previous speakers had
referred, gave his reasons for holding that the duty of the Cabinet was
to control both services in order to secure that each should take its
proper share in defence. "If there was a very strong man, or even one
who thought himself very strong, at the head of either department, the
present system tended to break down, because, unless there was some
joint authority in the Cabinet strong enough to control even a strong
First Lord of the Admiralty, no joint consideration of the views of the
two departments could be obtained. At the present moment the two
services competed." Lord Charles Beresford and Dilke were supported by
Sir John Colomb, and in his reply Arnold-Forster said: "I cannot but
reaffirm the belief I held before I stood at this table, and since I
have stood here, that there is a need for some reinforcement of the
intellectual equipment which directs or ought to direct the enormous
forces of our Empire." The question was raised again on August 6th by
Major Seely, in a speech in which he commented on the lack of a body
charged with the duty of studying strategical questions. Mr. Balfour
thereupon said:

"We cannot leave this matter to one department or two departments
acting separately. It is a joint matter; it must be a joint matter.
I hope my honourable friend will take it from me that the Government
are fully alive, and have, if I may say so, long been fully alive,
to the difficulty of the problem which presents itself to his mind
and which he has explained to the House; and that that problem is
one always present to our minds. It is one which we certainly do not
mean to neglect to meet and grapple with to the best of our
ability."

In 1903, in an article contributed to the Northern Newspaper Syndicate,
Dilke wrote:

"We are face to face with the fact that Mr. Brodrick's scheme is
admitted from all sides, except by those actually responsible for it
who are still holding office, to be a failure; that under this
scheme the charge on the British Empire for defence in time of peace
stands at eighty-six millions sterling, of which fifty-two millions
at least are for land defence, nevertheless ill secured; that
without a complete change of system these gigantic figures must
rapidly increase; and that, while all agree that in our case the
navy ought to be predominant, no one seems to be able to control the
War Office, or to limit the expenditure upon land defence as
contrasted with naval preparations. The service members of the House
of Commons, who used to be charged with wasting their own and the
nation's time upon military details, or upon proposals for increase
of expenditure, have shown their patriotism and their intelligence
by going to the root of this great question. They brought about the
declaration of the Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Arnold-Forster,
on June 20th, 1902, and the complete acceptance of that declaration
by the Prime Minister on August 6th. They have now forced on
Parliament and on the Prime Minister the necessity of taking real
action upon his declaration that 'the problem of Imperial defence
cannot be left to one department or two departments acting
separately.' The utilization of the resources of the British Empire
for war must be the business of the Prime Minister, who is above the
War Office and the Admiralty, and who alone can lead the Cabinet to
co-ordinate the efforts of the two services."

In October, 1903, Arnold-Forster was appointed to succeed Mr. Brodrick
as Secretary of State for War. He had previously expressed, in
conversation, his wish to see the whole subject of Imperial defence
entrusted to a Committee of three men conversant with it, and had named
Sir Charles Dilke and Sir John Colomb as two of the three whom he would
choose if he had the power. In November a Committee of three was
appointed by Mr. Balfour to report on the organization of the War
Office. Its members were Lord Esher, Admiral Sir John (now Lord) Fisher,
and Sir George Sydenham Clarke (now Lord Sydenham). The first instalment
of this Committee's report, published on February 1st, 1904, proposed
the reconstitution of the War Office on the model of the Board of
Admiralty, and as a preliminary the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief
and the heads of the great departments at the War Office.

At the same time the Cabinet Committee of Defence was reconstituted
under the presidency of the Prime Minister (Mr. Balfour). Thus at
length, eleven years after Sir Charles Dilke's first conversations with
Mr. Balfour on the subject, was adopted the suggestion he had urged for
so many years, and so fully explained in his speech of March 16th, 1894,
that a Prime Minister should undertake to consider the needs both of the
army and navy, and the probable functions of both in war.

VI.

The result was very soon manifest in a complete change of policy, which
was no doubt facilitated by the presence in the Cabinet, as Secretary of
State for War, of Mr. Arnold-Forster, one of the signatories of the
joint letter of 1894.

On March 28th, 1905, Arnold-Forster said:

"We have been adding million after million to our naval expenditure.
Are all these millions wasted? If it be true, as we are told by
representatives of the Admiralty, that the navy is in a position
such as it has never occupied before--that it is now not only our
first line of defence, but our guarantee for the possession of our
own islands--is that to make no difference to a system which has
grown up avowedly and confessedly on the basis of defending these
islands by an armed land force against an invasion? Is that to make
no difference? Is this view some invention of my own imagination?
No, sir, that is the deliberate conclusion of the Government,
advised by a body which has been called into, I believe, a useful
existence during the last eighteen months, and which I regret was
not called into existence much longer ago--the Committee of
Defence.... I have seen it stated that, provided our navy is
sufficient, the greatest anticipation we can form in the way of a
landing of a hostile army would be a force of 5,000. I should be
deceiving the House if I thought that represented the extreme naval
view. The extreme naval view is that the crew of a dinghy could not
land in this country in the face of the navy."

This speech showed the conversion of the Government, for which Sir
Charles Dilke had laboured so long, to the doctrine of the primacy of
the navy and of defence by the command of the sea.

On May 11th, Mr. Balfour in the name of the Committee of Defence put
forth the general view which that body had reached. In the first place,
provided the navy was efficient, a successful invasion of the country
upon a large scale need not be contemplated. Secondly, the Committee had
gone on the broad line that our force should as far as possible be
concentrated at the centre of the Empire. This had rendered unnecessary
expenditure which had been undertaken under a different view of our
needs, the most notable case being the works at St. Lucia, which had
been made by Lord Carnarvon into a great naval base. Lastly, with regard
to India, the Government adopted Lord Kitchener's view that in addition
to drafts there should be available in the relatively early stages of
the war eight divisions of infantry and other corresponding arms.

Dilke, who had described himself as a constant supporter of the
blue-water view, agreed with the Government with regard to invasion, and
welcomed Mr. Balfour's moderate view with regard to the needs of India.
But he pointed out that vast sums of money had been spent in the
fortification of places which were now discovered to be unnecessary.

"He asked the Committee to remember how far the responsibility of
all this expenditure had been on the present occupants of office. He
believed that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet was created by
Lord Rosebery at the end of his Administration in 1895. That was the
first form of the Committee. Immediately the new Government came in
it assumed its second form, and the Defence Committee of the
Conservative Government, formed in 1895 under the presidency of the
Duke of Devonshire, lasted for many years, and was composed of
substantially the same gentlemen as were in power now. It was
constantly vouched to the House as the great co-ordinating
authority, and as the body responsible for expenditure on an
enormous scale on principles diametrically opposed to those now
held. The third form of the Committee was that which was adopted
when the Prime Minister acceded to his present office. The right
hon. gentleman came to this House and at once explained the new form
of the Committee on March 5th, 1903.... The Committee had heard
to-day the extent to which invasion at home was believed in by the
Defence Committee.... It was firmly expected from the moment that
the Government announced their naval view that the reduction would
be under the military head. But instead of that the reduction had
been on the Navy Estimates, and that had not been accompanied by a
reduction on the army votes. That had been the amazing effect of the
co-ordination. Had any member of the Committee calculated how much
money had been wasted in the last nine and a half years by the
non-adoption in 1895, when virtually the present Government came
into office, of the policy which had been adopted now?"

VII.

The Government which had thus tardily followed Sir Charles Dilke's lead
had lost the confidence of the country. The General Election of 1905
gave the Liberals a large majority. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the
new Prime Minister, had not forgotten Dilke's vote in the cordite
division of 1895, and did not share his view of the necessity to be
ready for war, and to rely, not upon arbitration, but upon the
organization of defensive preparations. Dilke was not included in the
new Ministry, in which Mr. (now Lord) Haldane was appointed Secretary of
State for War. Mr. Haldane undertook a fresh reorganization of the
military forces of the country, taking the Committee of Defence and the
Army Council as they were left by Mr. Balfour after the changes proposed
by the Esher Committee. The Order in Council gave the Secretary of State
the power to reserve for his own decision any matter whatever, and to
impose that decision upon the Army Council, a power not contemplated by
the Esher Committee's report. Mr. Haldane availed himself of this power
and of the assistance of Colonel Ellison, who had been Secretary to the
Esher Committee, but was not a member of the Army Council, to prepare
his scheme. It consisted in the organization of an expeditionary force,
which was to be composed of six divisions and a cavalry division, with a
total field strength of 160,000 men, fully equipped for war, together
with additional troops at home to make good the losses of a campaign.
This force was to be made up of the regular army (of which the
establishments were reduced by some 20,000 of all arms), of its reserve,
and of the militia, renamed special reserve, also with a reduced
establishment, and with a liability to serve abroad in case of war. The
Volunteer force was to be renamed the Territorial force, and its
officers and men to be brought under the Army Act, the men to be
enlisted for a term of years and paid. It was to be organized, as the
Norfolk Commission had suggested, into brigades and divisions. But the
further suggestion of the same Commission, that a member of the Army
Council familiar with the volunteer system should be charged with its
supervision, was not adopted. Mr. Haldane's view was that the
territorial troops could not in peace receive a training which would
prepare them for war, but that, as England was not a Continental Power
and was protected by her navy, there would be six months' time, after a
war had begun, to give them a training for war. The force was to be
administered by County Associations to be constituted for the purpose.
The scheme was gradually elaborated, and in its later stage improved by
the transformation of the University and some other volunteer and cadet
corps into officers' training corps. The works which, at the suggestion
of Sir John Ardagh, had been prepared for the defence of London were
abandoned.

Mr. Haldane first expounded his plans in March, 1906, and in the debate
of March 15th Dilke said:

"There was a little too much depreciation of the Volunteers; and
although he had always been considered a strong supporter of the
'blue-water' view, yet he had always believed in accepting from the
Volunteers all the service they could give, as he believed they
would give an enormous potential supply of men."

Mr. Haldane explained (February 25th, 1907) that the expeditionary force
would require only seventy-two batteries, while the army actually had a
hundred and five; there was therefore a surplus of thirty-three
batteries which he would use as training batteries in which to train men
for divisional ammunition columns. Upon this Dilke's comment was that
"if the officer difficulty could be solved, then the real military
problem would be solved." We could raise men fast enough through the
volunteer system, and turn them into good infantry, provided there was a
sufficient supply of officers qualified to train them; but the infantry
which could thus be produced in a few months would require to be
supplemented by artillery and cavalry which could not be improvised. He
would have faced the cost of keeping up these arms, and would not have
saved by turning batteries into ammunition columns.

In the debate on Mr. Haldane's Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill (June
3rd), Dilke voted for an amendment of which the purpose was to establish
a department at the War Office under an officer having special knowledge
and experience with the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, ranking as
third member of the Army Council. This amendment, however, was not
carried.

In an article in the _Manchester Guardian_ of June 6th, 1907, Dilke
explained his main objections to Mr. Haldane's scheme and to the Bill
which was to lay its foundation.

"The cost," he wrote, "must undoubtedly be large, and it is difficult to
see where the substantial saving on Army Estimates, twice promised by
Mr. Ritchie when Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not yet secured, is to
be obtained. As an advocate of a strong fleet, I have a special reason,
equivalent to that of the most rigid economist, for insisting upon the
reduction in our enormous military charge, inasmuch as the money
unexpectedly needed for the army will come off the fleet."

Dilke thought that the defence of Great Britain depended upon the navy;
that so long as the navy was equal to its task invasion was not to be
feared. The function of the military forces would be to fight an enemy
abroad. He, therefore, held it a mistake to increase expenditure on
troops which it was not proposed to train to meet foreign regulars. The
Territorial army would be the volunteers under a new name, but without
an improved training. As the linked-battalion system and the long term
of service were retained, the regular army would still be costly, and
its reserves or power of quick expansion less than they might be. Mr.
Haldane would be compelled to retain a high rate of War Office
expenditure, and this would involve a reduction on the outlay for the
navy, which was all-important. Mr. Haldane, however, had the support of
a very large majority, and argument was of little avail. Sir Charles
Dilke therefore threw his weight into the debates on the Navy estimates,
in which he consistently supported the Admiralty in every increase.