The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

After one of these excursions, a midshipman brought to me the gun I had lent to him, with the barrels bent.

"I am very sorry, sir," he said. "The fact is, I slipped on the rocks, and fell with the barrels under me. But," he added eagerly, "it shoots just as well as it did before, sir."

I turned to another midshipman who had been of the party.

"Did you see him shoot before the accident?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No, sir."

"Did you see him shoot after the accident?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No, sir."

"Then," I said to the first midshipman, "your statement is correct. Will you please take the gun to the armourer to be repaired?"

I landed at Gibraltar very early in the morning, about four o'clock, with the intention of cub-hunting. At the stables I found a midshipman, dressed in plain clothes, whom I did not know. I asked him what he was doing. He said that he wanted to go cub-hunting, but that he hadn't a horse. I gave him a mount and told him to stick to me. He did as he was told, literally. He was in my pocket all day; he jumped upon the top of me; I couldn't get rid of him. When I remonstrated, he said:

"You told me to stick to you, sir. And I say, sir, isn't it fun!"

He reminds me of the first time Fred Archer, the famous jockey, went out hunting. He stuck as close behind his host as my midshipman did to me; but his reply to all remonstrance was:

"What are you grumbling at? I'm giving you half a length!"

Part of my scheme of training midshipmen in the Mediterranean was to send them away, under the charge of a lieutenant, for two days at a time, to fend for themselves upon one of the islands. I sent them away in the pinnace, and they took guns and provided their own food, and enjoyed themselves to the full.

At Alexandria, the midshipmen of a United States warship challenged the midshipmen in the Fleet to a pulling race. At that time I had a private galley, the Hippocampe, which had never been beaten; while the Americans had a boat of special construction, much lighter than our Service boats. As the Hippocampe was not a regulation Service boat, I asked the American captain whether he had any objection to her. He said he had none. I trained a crew selected from the midshipmen of the Fleet. The American midshipmen were of course older and heavier than our boys, as they enter the Navy at a later age. At one point in the race they were ten lengths ahead; but at the end they were astern.

While I was in command of the Undaunted, two of the midshipmen of the Fleet performed the feat of climbing the Great Pyramid on the wrong side, where the stone is rotten. It was a most perilous proceeding; and as I was responsible for the party, when the boys, having nearly reached the top, crawled round to the safe side, I was greatly relieved, and so was the Sheikh, who was imploring me on his knees to stop them. The fact was that the midshipmen had refused to take the Arab guides, and had started before I knew what was happening.

I used to take the midshipmen out for paperchases at Malta. The flag-lieutenant and myself, being mounted, were the hares. Crowds used to watch us, and we finished up with a big tea. Races on horseback for the midshipmen were held at St. Paul's Bay, myself being the winning-post, at which they arrived hot and panting. There were only two accidents on record, a broken arm and a broken leg.

We ascended Vesuvius together, taking a heliograph, with which we signalled to the flagship, lying below in the Bay of Naples. Upon the very day the last great eruption began, we looked down the crater and saw the lava heaving and bubbling like boiling coffee in a glass receiver, and smoke bursting from it. The guides hurried us away and down; and no sooner had we arrived at the station, than there sounded the first explosion, which blew up the spot upon which we had been standing.

Seldom have I been more anxious than upon the day I stood on the roof of the Palace at Malta, and watched a crew of midshipmen struggling to make the harbour in a whole gale of wind. I had sent them in the launch to Gozo, and they had taken my bull-dog with them to give him some exercise. While they were on shore, the gale blew up; and rather than break their leave, the boys set sail. To my intense relief, I saw them make the harbour; and then as they hauled the sheet aft to round-to, over went the boat, and they were all swimming about in the harbour; but happily they all came safely to land, including my bull-dog.

There was once a midshipman (an Irishman) who, perceiving treacle exposed for sale upon the cart of an itinerant vender of miscellaneous commodities, was suddenly inspired (I do not know why) with a desire to buy that condiment.

"What should the like of you be wanting with treacle?" said the man, who was a surly fellow.

"Why shouldn't I buy treacle?" said the boy.

"How much do you want?"

"As much as you've got."

"I've got nothing to put it in," grumbled the man.

"Put it in my hat," insisted the midshipman, proffering that receptacle. It was a tall hat, for he was in mufti.

The vender of treacle reluctantly filled the hat with treacle.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked again.

"I'll show you," returned the midshipman; and he swiftly clapped the hat over the other's head, and jammed it down.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE PARLIAMENTARY ANVIL

Shortly after the expiration of my appointment as second in command in the Mediterranean, I was back again in the House of Commons, this time as member for Woolwich, having been returned unopposed. Many improvements in the Navy had been accomplished under Lord Salisbury's administration; but the central defect in the system remained; and the name of it was the want of a War Staff. There was no one in existence whose duty it was to discover and to represent what were the present and the future requirements of Imperial defence. The purpose with which the Intelligence Department had been constituted at the Admiralty, that it should be developed into a War Staff, had not been fulfilled. The First Sea Lord was indeed charged with the duties of organisation for war and the preparation of plans of campaign; but no one man could by any possibility accomplish so vast and so complex a task. How, then, was it done? The answer is that it was not done. The extraordinary achievement of the late Sir Frederick Richards may of course be cited to exemplify what one man can do; but Sir Frederick was the man of a century, alike in knowledge, ability and character; and that he was enabled, as First Sea Lord, temporarily to conquer the difficulties inherent in the system, merely proves that the system was so bad that a man of genius was required to overcome its defects, and (in a word) to achieve his purpose in spite of it. The supply of such men is extremely limited. When such an one appears, which (with luck) is once or twice in a generation, the system may be disregarded, for he will make his own system.

But the need of a War Staff is sufficiently proved by the fact that, ever since it was established in 1912, its members have been working day and night. Two flag officers, four captains, five commanders, one lieutenant; three majors, Royal Marines, six captains, Royal Marines; one engineer-commander, three paymasters, and a staff of clerks: 25 officers and 19 civilians; now (1913) constitute the three divisions of the Admiralty War Staff; more than double the number composing the Intelligence Department when in 1912 it became one of the Divisions of the War Staff. The balance of officers and clerks was added to the Admiralty to discharge new duties. Who performed these duties before the addition was made? No one. What was the result? The Government were ignorant of all save obvious requirements, and often of those; and in the result, occurred periodical revelations of deficiencies (sometimes called panics), involving that excessive expenditure which is the price of neglect.

I have wrought hard to reform the system all my life. My successive sojourns in Parliament have been chiefly dedicated to that enterprise. So in 1902 I began again to hammer on the Parliamentary anvil. In March, I addressed the London Chamber of Commerce upon the lack of administrative efficiency in national organisation for defence. In June, I moved the reduction of the First Lord's salary in order to call attention to defects in Admiralty administration. It was pointed out that the time of commanders-in-chief upon most naval stations was habitually expended in representing to the Admiralty deficiencies which would never have occurred were there a Department at the Admiralty charged with the duty of providing against them; and that, in the lack of such a War Staff, the Budget for naval purposes was based upon financial and political considerations, leaving naval requirements out of the reckoning.

Mr. H. O. Arnold-Forster, Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, admitted that "there was need for reinforcement in the intellectual equipment which directed or ought to direct the enormous forces of the Empire." That was one way of putting it; he was perfectly right in affirming that (in similar language) a thinking department was required in which the best sailors and soldiers should combine to formulate the requirements of Imperial defence for the information of the Cabinet.

The Government would then (at least) know what the requirements were. In default of that knowledge, Ministers were open to the reproach expressed bluntly enough by The Saturday Review at the time (28th June, 1902):

"That the one essential qualification for commanding a great service such as our Navy should be an utter and entire ignorance of it and of everything belonging to it, so that this commander may approach the consideration of all questions relating to its well-being with absolute impartiality and perfect freedom from prejudice, is surely one of the most monstrous propositions ever put before men who were not candidates for Government departments at Yarmouth" (lunatic asylum).

In the following month (July) I asked Mr. Balfour (who succeeded Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister) in Parliament a question based upon Mr. Arnold-Forster's statement aforesaid, as it was the considered admission of a member of Government. The question was: "Whether the attention of the Government had been given to the need for some reinforcement of the intellectual equipment for directing the forces of the Empire and for better preparation in advance with regard to the defence of the Empire."

Mr. Balfour replied that he would be delighted to increase in any way the intellectual equipment in connection with this or any other subject. Upon being further asked what steps he proposed to take, Mr. Balfour merely added that he would be glad to avail himself of such talent as may be available.

The Press thereupon accused the Prime Minister of frivolity. In December (1902), however, Mr. Balfour, in reply to another question asked by me in the House, said that the "whole subject is at this moment engaging the very earnest attention of the Government." There was already in existence a Committee of Defence constituted by Lord Salisbury, as described in a previous chapter, but apparently it had only met on one occasion, nor could anyone discover that it had ever done anything. In 1902, nearly twelve years had elapsed since the Hartington Commission had recommended the "formation of a Naval and Military Council, which should probably be presided over by the Prime Minister, and consist of the Parliamentary Heads of the two Services, and their principal professional advisers… It would be essential to the usefulness of such a Council and to the interests of the country that the proceedings and decisions should be duly recorded, instances having occurred in which Cabinet decisions have been differently understood by the two departments and have become practically a dead letter."

It may be hoped, indeed, that records are kept of the meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence. They should contain some singularly interesting information when the time comes for their publication, which will be when the nation insists, as it does insist now and then, upon finding a scapegoat.

To Mr. Balfour belongs the credit of having constituted the Committee of Imperial Defence. After the experiences of the South African war it could scarcely be argued that some such body was not needed. Here, then, was a ripe opportunity, not only for co-ordinating the administration of the two Services, not only for rightly estimating the requirements of Imperial defence, but for lifting the Services above party politics. That opportunity was lost. The Committee of Imperial Defence immediately became, what it has remained, a sub-committee of the Cabinet, wholly in subjection to party politics.

But in 1903, another and a highly important step was taken towards organisation for war, in the formation of the Commercial Branch of the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty, charged with the duty of dealing with the relations of the Navy and the mercantile marine in time of war and with the protection of commerce and food supply.

A few years later, the Department was abolished during a period of confusion; but it was restored as part of the War Staff soon after the constitution of that body.

It will be observed that the utility of the Committee of Imperial Defence depended primarily upon the work of a War Staff; for its naval and military members could only be placed in possession of the information with regard to requirements which it was (theoretically) their duty to impart to the political members, by means of a War Staff. But for several years after the formation of the committee, there was no War Staff in existence at the Admiralty.

In December, 1902, occurred an opportunity for introducing physical and military instruction into the elementary schools. The Education Bill was then before Parliament; in the elementary school system, the machinery required to provide physical and military training already existed and in my view, it should be utilised, "in order that our manhood should have had some previous training if called upon to fight in defence of the Empire." With regard to physical education, its necessity was exemplified in the large number of recruits rejected for disabilities during the South African war; and as to military instruction, the proposal was based upon the necessity of teaching discipline and the rudiments of manly accomplishments to the young, by means of education in marching, giving orders, swimming, and shooting with a small-bore rifle. These considerations were placed by me before the Duke of Devonshire, who had charge of the Education Bill in the House of Lords, at the same time asking him to exert his influence to obtain the insertion of a clause embodying the proposals.

The Duke replied that Lord Londonderry, who was then Minister of Education, was considering how far it was possible for the Board of Education to effect the objects desired. But he added the surprising information that "a considerable portion" of my suggestions "referred to matters which can only be dealt with by the War Office."