Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts

“ To one whose sole desire is to see his country safe and at peace, pursuing the path of her destiny to even greater heights than she has as yet reached, it is simply amazing that anyone can imagine that the conflict of which I have spoken can be permanently averted merely by denying that there is any danger, or by abandoning our preparations for defence as an amiable invitation to Germany to do the same. ”

“ Germany—indeed the whole world—is well aware of the real feebleness underlying the proud appearance of our naval and military strength. She knows that the efficacy of armaments to-day, even more than a hundred years ago, depends essentially upon their being founded upon the nation itself, and drawing their strength of mind and muscle, of courage and inspiration, from the very heart of the whole nation. Such armaments can be attained by one means only—the training of all the able-bodied men of the State. This alone will give a basis, solid as a rock, to all machinery of war ”

“ For remember that war does not begin, nor does it end, on the day of battle. There is a kind of war which goes on silent and unperceived amid apparent peace. That is the war which undermines commerce, which profoundly affects a city like your city. If once you permit any one State to be your undisputed superior by sea and land, that hour, even if not a shot be fired, you cease to be a free nation. ”

“ For the essence of a Fleet in such an Empire as ours is the utmost mobility: it must have complete freedom of action. But if, in addition to its own duties, our Fleet has to perform the role of an army of defence, what must follow? It becomes a "wooden wall" indeed, unmoving and inert, anchored around these shores. It is helpless to protect our food-supplies, without the regular arrival of which we must starve.
A paramount Navy we must possess, whether of two keels to one or three keels to two. ”

“ At the same time there is Germany, a great homogeneous State, with a population of 66,000,000, which is consciously aiming at becoming a world-Power with "a place in the sun," where its vigorous progeny may develop a German life, actuated by German thought and ideals. This nation has already built up, in an incredibly short space of time, the second Navy in the world, not, moreover, scattered over the seven seas, but concentrated like a clenched mailed fist in the waters of the German Ocean. ”

“ I am too much accustomed to adverse criticism in my efforts to arouse the nation to a sense of its unpreparedness for war to resent in any way the attacks of my opponents. But when a paper of such standing as that of the Manchester Guardian completely misconstrues what was certainly a salient passage in my speech, I feel bound, in justice to the cause which I have at heart, to explain my meaning more fully than was possible when I was dealing with the whole question of National Defence in relation to our position as a world-Power. ”

“ No one who has followed with attention the efforts of the National Service League has any right to imagine that we desire a strong army solely in order to invade the territory of European or more distant States; or that we wish to root out the Territorial Force in order to establish in its place an army system modelled on the army system of Germany; or, again, that we have the ambition of resuscitating once more medieval blood-lust, anarchic plunder, and delight in war! ”

“ For the transformation of the most heroic enthusiasm into an effective weapon of war demands time, exactly as the transformation of the Territorials into an efficient Army demands time. But when war comes it will come with great suddenness; the essential crisis will be on us in an instant, and for Great Britain—as Lord Salisbury in his latest utterances significantly warned us—the stake is not to be reckoned in millions of a war indemnity; the stake is our very existence as an Empire. ”

“ Gentlemen, arguments which prove the folly and criminality of war are, at the present stage of history, like the arguments which prove the folly and criminality of ambition and of the love of glory. Even those who argue most eloquently against glory do, by that very eloquence, seek to win glory; and those who argue most forcibly against war do, nevertheless, live, and for long will continue to live, under an invisible power which has made war an inseparable portion of human polity. ”

“ Nevertheless, with how much more confidence should we be able to appeal to the young men of this nation and the Empire to do their duty as citizen soldiers if we had the certainty that they regarded England, not as a harsh stepmother, but as a true motherland, sedulously nurturing its youth, and not indifferent to their welfare in manhood or in age, and if we could further appeal to them to defend the nation and the Empire, because within its bounds they can live nobler and fuller lives than on any other spot on earth! ”

“ In former times, when the ruling classes of this nation consisted in very deed of the men of birth and property, that class considered it as its sacred right and inalienable privilege to serve the nation in war. Now, in the twentieth century, when the working men of this country have by the gradual extension of the franchise succeeded to the political influence and supremacy of the old aristocratic class, is it too much to hope that, as their condition of life improves, they will seek in the same spirit to secure that right and that inalienable privilege—service in war? ”

“ We ask any open-minded man whether a Force thus constituted is an army at all, much less an army to which this country can entrust its existence as a great Nation?
We do not bring these facts forward in order to discredit Lord Haldane's courageous efforts or to depreciate the patriotism of those now serving in the Force. We bring them forward simply in order to demonstrate the impossibility of constructing a defensive Army equal to this country's needs on a basis of voluntary enlistment. ”

“ Thus the very men who ought to declare the facts in the plainest terms to the nation, the very men who ought to be endeavouring to rouse the nation from its fatal apathy, are the men who are fostering that spirit of indifference and self-confidence to which the nation of itself is already too prone. A democracy like ours will never take the necessary measures to safeguard itself so long as Ministers and a partisan Press proclaim that we are as a nation perfectly safe, when, as a matter of fact, our position is precarious in the extreme. ”

“ Clear understanding of and prompt obedience to an order become an instinct to the properly trained soldier, whereas the imperfectly trained man, when he finds himself in an unfamiliar and trying position, frequently misunderstands the word of command, and, when matters become acute, he does not heed or even hear it.
Gentlemen, when I tell you that discipline is the backbone of an army, I ask you whether it is possible for that essential quality to be instilled into the ranks of the Territorial Force with the amount of training that is given to them. ”

“ You yourselves are the capital of the nation—the life-wealth of the nation—its manhood. Weapons, however perfect, will not make an army. Men are necessary—men of spirit, men of energy, loving their country, not merely loving their class or themselves. ”

“ How can you most easily and most securely better yourselves as Britishers—as working men? By making England better, by making it better worth your while to be a citizen of, and a worker in that nation! ”

“ My Lords and gentlemen, in mentioning Germany in this connection I want to make it perfectly clear that I do so in no spirit of hostility, with no wish to stir up any feeling of resentment or enmity against a great people bent upon working out their own salvation. I have not the slightest sympathy with the Press controversies carried on in both countries, which have done so much to embitter the feeling between what are really two branches of the same race. What I desire to point out to my fellow-countrymen is simply this: Great Britain has attained to the limits of her territorial expansion. ”

“ Gentlemen, other world-Powers besides Germany have arisen and are arising around us; but there is one way in which Britain can have peace, not only with Germany, but with every other Power, national or imperial, and that is, to present such a battle-front by sea and land that no Power or probable combination of Powers shall dare to attack her without the certainty of disaster. That is the only reply worthy of our past and wise for our future which we can or ought to make to those unparalleled efforts which I have described. And there is a way in which England can have war ”

“ Arbitration most certainly is more humane than war; but, at the present stage of the polity of nations, arbitration again and again refuses to extend itself to some of the most vital and essential questions—questions which, to a nation or empire sensitive alike to its honour and to its abiding interests, make war unavoidable. ”

“ They alone can know that it is by discipline, and discipline alone, that bodies of men can be relied upon to work together in times of great difficulty and danger, and to withstand the disintegrating effect of war; for they have learnt that it is discipline alone which prevents panic seizing upon men when unforeseen circumstances arise. They alone know that amongst untrained or ill-trained troops panic spreads with lightning rapidity, and that when there is no sense of discipline to be appealed to and to keep the men together, defeat is the inevitable result. ”

“ Nor, in more recent times, has Manchester abated her zeal or her vital energy in every phase of English political life. The greatest, most temperate, and statesmanlike Liberal newspaper in England is night by night printed within your walls; so that, at least in one phase of our national life and amongst one group of our fellow-citizens—the Liberal party, that is to say—it is literally true that what Manchester thinks to-night London thinks to-morrow. ”

“ I shall only observe in this place that in a democratic nation the working classes are themselves the ruling classes, and that the interests of England and of the Empire are their interests. Does Mr. Blatchford really imagine that the working men are so blind that, rather than defend those interests like men, they will prefer tamely to hand them over to Germany or to any other foreign Power? For this, and this only, is the logical consequence of his assertion, that he and his fellow-workers prefer invasion to universal compulsory service. ”

“ Gentlemen, I am told by my opponents that it is unpatriotic of me to express these opinions, and that by doing so I am discouraging the Territorial Force. But which is really the more unpatriotic course, to tell the truth about the Force, so that the people of this country may insist upon its terrible deficiencies being remedied, or to gloss over these deficiencies and thus to expose to certain disaster the few patriotic men who have joined it, and who are asked to be prepared with a Force untrained, under-officered, and under-manned to cope with a highly-trained enemy. ”

“ The German Socialist, it is said, will not make war upon his French or his English comrade. Gentlemen, it is to the credit of the human race that patriotism, in the presence of such organizations, has always proved itself superior to any class or any individual. Love of country has on the actual day of battle always proved itself superior to love of profit. That law has not been abrogated, and if war broke out to-morrow the German working man would quit himself like a German, and the British working man, I hope, like a Briton. ”

“ When Lord Haldane cites the exploits of untrained or semi-trained forces, when he speaks of "a whole nation springing to arms at the call of duty," he has his eyes fastened upon other circumstances and upon other times than ours. Under the conditions of modern war, discipline alone can confront discipline on a field of battle.
"We appeal to our countrymen to join us in our effort," I went on to say. "We appeal, above all, to the officers and men of the existing Territorial Force. ”

“ I venture to think, gentlemen, that I am doing you no disservice in speaking plainly about the Territorial Force. My hope is that when its grave condition is no longer concealed from our countrymen, they will realize the folly of trusting the defence of these shores to a make-believe Army, that they will take to heart the false position in which the patriotic members of the Force are placed, and that they will insist upon a law being passed by which all able-bodied men must be prepared to take their place in the Citizen Army. ”

“ No party can long continue in power which relies for its prestige solely upon fomenting class hatreds—that is, by dividing the State against itself. But before a great national sacrifice to patriotism can fitly be demanded, a great act of national justice must be performed. The Unionist party missed its opportunity with respect to granting old-age pensions on a contributory basis. Now in 1911 it is confronted by larger issues; by problems affecting the industrial life of the entire nation, and touching, so to speak, the very fountain-head of the Empire's life. ”

“ For in the upbuilding of that Empire what city in our dominions has taken a more conspicuous part than this city, made illustrious almost since its foundation by commercial enterprise and by its political sagacity and spirit in affairs? In the eighteenth century your merchants aided the designs of the elder Pitt, and of the statesmen who followed him, in founding that power in India and the East which to-day is the envy and the admiration of the nations. ”

“ If the nation still hugs this delusion, I hope it will abandon it before it drags us down to disaster. For one hundred years the voluntary system for Home Defence has been tried and found wanting. Under it a sufficient number of men have never been forthcoming, and can never be forthcoming, to devote enough time in peace to render the Army fit for war. Discipline cannot be acquired by homeopathic doses; nothing but a considerable period of continuous training can give individual soldiers and military units that self-confidence and cohesion which are essential to success in war ”

“ Now, gentlemen, at the present day, now in the year 1912, our German friends, I am well aware, do not, at least in sensible circles, assert dogmatically that a war with Great Britain will take place this year or next; but in their heart of hearts they know, every man of them, [3] that, just as in 1866 and just as in 1870, war will take place the instant the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human calculation can be made certain. "Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck." ”