British officer

“ If, overstepping the boundaries of Europe, we inquire whether our predominance over the Asiatic and native peoples is due to any special attraction of personality exercised by us over them, it must equally be answered, no. We present ourselves to oriental eyes in the threefold aspect of soldiers, business men, and civil administrators. The British officer, admirable in discipline and conduct, is exclusive. In habit and pastime he is insular. He obeys orders; he utterly ignores local politics; he maintains discipline. Our men of business are meritorious, upright, and efficient. ”

“ No British police serve within its confines, nor is it garrisoned by British troops. British supervision is represented by a single political officer, whose moral influence is the slender thread that ties the State to the protecting British Power. ”

“ It must be said, on the other hand, that the French officer has more required of him in time of peace than the British officer; he is required to be in closer contact with his men, and to undertake more arduous duties, and, on the whole, French officers are keen soldiers, intent on the performance of their duties, taking themselves and their work very seriously. ”

“ And how strangely also, and inconsistently, are honours conferred upon officers in our army—not for alone distinguishing themselves in action, but because they happened to hold a rank sufficiently high to entitle them to a certain command, or to be the head of a department, and to which the greater part of them had attained, perhaps, by money, well backed by interest; for an officer may have been in every action of importance, from the beginning of the present century up to Waterloo ”

“ In universal service armies reserve officers are drawn from retired regular officers, selected non-commissioned officers, and most of all from young men of good social standing who are gazetted after serving their compulsory period as privates in the ranks.
Foreign Armies
The training of the officer of a foreign army differs very slightly from that of the British officer. Each country specializes according to its individual requirements, but in the main the training is much the same. ”

“ Generally speaking, I consider the British officer a very brave man, though I do think he sometimes is guilty of excess in that respect—that is to say, that he goes impractically to work, and, the young officer especially, is driven by ambition to do desperate and stupid things. To this foolhardiness (p. 508) may be largely attributed the heavy losses in officers suffered by the British Army in the War. ”

“ A great love and sympathy always seem to exist between the British officer and his men. One of the reasons is the justice and unselfishness of the officer. For instance, a British officer among the walking wounded never goes ahead of his men to have his wounds dressed. ”

“ The foremost living British General, and one fit to rank with any soldier in Europe, is, as Generals go to-day, a young man, only fifty-six. He is at once a scientific soldier after the most modern plan, and a true leader of men. Having been a brilliant Staff officer, he has a proper understanding of the functions of a Staff. Chary of speech, bold in design, resolute in execution, he raised first his Corps and then his Army to a foremost place among British forces, and now he has raised the British Army to a foremost place among the armies of the world. ”

“ French officers above a certain rank develop and show their own individuality. In the lower grades the conditions of service enforce a certain uniformity. The British officer is a British gentleman first, and an officer afterwards. The Frenchman is an officer first, though none the less the gentleman stands behind it. ”

“ They have called our officers reckless, and said that they risked their lives too freely. Weel—I dinna ken! I am no soldier. But I know what a glorious tradition the British officer has—and I know, too, how his men follow him. They know, do the laddies in the ranks, that their officers will never ask them to go anywhere or do anything they would shirk themselves—and that makes for a spirit that you could not esteem too highly.
It was the second car that was our problem. We put Johnson, my accompanist, in the tonneau first, and then we covered him with cigarettes. ”

“ Regulation No. 1, when a man gets a commission in the British Army, is: “Men first, officers next.” An officer’s business, in other words, is to see that his men are well looked after. If there is any time left when he has done that, he may look after himself. But [149] Tommy comes first. That is why the relations between superior and subordinate in the mighty Citizens’ Army of Britain are perfect in the highest degree. Duke’s son and cook’s son are real pals. Class distinctions are non-existent in the England that is the trenched fields of France and Flanders. ”

“ A soldier may be made in a year; a company officer cannot be made in three years. There are many [97] officers in the American army of great theoretical and some practical knowledge; there are many in the British army lazy and indifferent;—but no one would think for a moment of comparing the acquirements, in a military sense, of the officers of the two nations. ”

“ The British officer is not of such an erect or square shoulder build as the members of the rank and file, the drill he puts in less exacting, and the labour he has to perform is less heavy, so that he does not develop the muscles of his shoulders or produce so much prominence of chest as those who are under him. ”

“ When we look back and reflect how very few officers of the hundreds of thousands who have served in the British army during the last two or three centuries, have acquired that knowledge of the military art which qualifies an officer to form the plan of a war, we are forced to conclude, either that but few officers ever attain so much knowledge of their profession, or that opportunities have been wanting to develope their abilities in this peculiar department of their art. ”

“ He is not so well versed in the history and theory of his profession as the German officer, and not a patch on his British comrade, who, after all is said and done, is the finest officer in the world. ”

“ Being informed that the King's Adjutant General in America has been stopt, under Major General Arnold's passports, and is detained a prisoner in your Excellency's army, I have the honour to inform you, Sir, that I permitted Major Andre to go to Major General Arnold, at the particular request of that general officer. You will perceive, Sir, by the inclosed paper, that a flag of truce was sent to receive Major Andre, and passports granted for his return, I therefore can have no doubt but your Excellency will immediately direct, that this officer has permission to return to my orders at New York. ”

“ Aspirants, or probationary young officers, not of full commissioned status.
The continental officer is on an average considerably older, rank for rank, than the British; but he is neither younger nor older in respect of command. In the huge “universal service” armies of to-day, the regimental officer of France or Germany commands, in war, on an average twice the number of men that are placed under the British officer of equal rank. Thus a German or French major of infantry has about 900 rifles to direct, while a British major may have either half a battalion, 450, or a double company, 220 ”

“ When the British cavalry officer succeeds, in spite of official opposition, expense and discouragement, in getting on service across the frontier, he is apt to look with envious eyes at the officers of the Frontier Force, who are taken as a matter of course and compelled to do by command, what he would solicit as a favour. ”

“ To raise a great corps of officers who have voluntarily selected the career of an officer as an exclusive and absorbing profession has been possible in Germany and in France. But it has only become possible there after generations of effort and under pressure of a long-standing tradition, extending from decade to decade, under which a nation, armed for the defense of its land [195] frontiers, has expended its money and its spirit in creating such an officer caste.
Now, the British nation has put its money and its fighting spirit primarily into its Navy and its oversea forces. ”

“ But there was no failure, and there was no rally. Never had our tried Army leaders, General Horne, General Byng, and General Rawlinson carried out more brilliantly the general scheme of the two supreme Commanders; never was the Staff work better; never were the subordinate services more faultlessly efficient. An American officer who had served with distinction in the British Army before the entry of his own country into the war, spoke to me in Paris with enthusiasm of the British Staff work during this three months' advance. ”

“ Lieutenants and subalterns are given charge of a troop in the cavalry, a gun or section—according to the number of young officers available—in a battery and of a section of men in an infantry51 company. Nominally in command of their men, they are in practice largely dependent on their senior non-commissioned officers for the efficiency of the men under their command. An officer’s real efficiency, in peace service, does not begin until he “gets his company” or squadron: in other words, until he is promoted to the rank of captain. ”

“ In the British service, regimental and staff officers are allowed the indulgence of a steady and well-drilled soldier for a servant; and field-officers, keeping horses, two each. These soldiers are to take their share of any duty on which the officer to whom they are attached is employed, and they must fall in with their respective troops and companies at all reviews, inspections, and field-days. In the U. S. service, officers are not permitted to employ soldiers as servants. ”

“ I am inclined to entertain the opinion that in the British army duties of inspection and control over the conduct and habits of the soldiers, the performance of which by somebody is the only effectual check to disorder and all its consequences, are imposed upon the subaltern officers of regiments, which duties British officers, being of the class of gentlemen in society, and being required to appear as such, have never performed and which they will never perform. ”

“ OFFICERS AND NON-COMS. The higher ranks of officers have very little to do with the daily life of the soldier. Two or three times a year the general officer commanding the station comes round on a tour of inspection, while other general officers and inspecting officers pay visits at times. The highest rank, however, with which the soldier is brought in frequent contact is the commanding officer of his own regiment or battalion. ”

“ He takes account of the strength of every regiment as often as he pleases; reviews them, sees that the horse are well mounted, and all the men well armed and clothed. He receives and inspects the muster rolls, and knows exactly the strength of the army. The British have created an inspector general of cavalry, which answers every purpose for which that of muster master general was intended.
Commissary-general of stores, a civil officer in the artillery, who has the charge of all the stores, for which he is accountable to the office of ordnance. ”

“ The system, one must acknowledge it, works better in Germany; and the British army cannot, of course, be compared to either these armies in which every citizen has to serve; but I feel certain that had the troopers of my regiment been placed under the command of British officers, things would have been very different from what they were. ”

“ There is, however, no comparison between the American and the British officers in the knowledge of their strictly military profession. This is not to be wondered at when their difference in training is considered. One has been taught to be a social success, while the other has been trained to be a man of tempered steel, being compelled to pass at each promotion an examination of which not half the officers of the British army could meet the requirements.
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General Ian Hamilton in South Africa. ”

“ A long peace has probably brought into our corps a more robust description of men, than we had often to make the best we could of during the late wars, and many of whom were frequently most wretched creatures, so [Pg 99] much so, that it was unfair to expect that British officers, however zealous they might be, could always be successful in battle against the finest men of France, which the conscription brought into the French ranks ”

“ To be raised at once from a position so subordinate and anomalous, so unrecognised and so fraught with useless peril as that of a gentleman volunteer, from the ranks as it were of that army whose dreadful sufferings he shared and whose many dangers he risked—to be raised to the rank of an officer in a regiment so distinguished as the Royal Fusiliers, and to be at once, temporarily though it were, placed on the general's staff, and beyond the reach of Cosmo's coldness, pique, and hauteur, was indeed to be independent, and to taste of happiness supreme! ”

“ Unlike the system of promotion that exists in the British army, the English officers of the native corps attain the different grades after a certain number of years’ service—nine for captain, eighteen for major, twenty‐six for lieutenant‐colonel—and may occupy any position in their regiments irrespective of the rank they hold. ”

“ The English non-commissioned officers are excellent; but their courage and their talent are not encouraged by promotion to higher grades. They are nominated by the commander of the regiment, and cannot be broke but by the sentence of a court-martial. ”

“ It appears to Lord Grey that, considering the nature of the appointment and also the great advantage which would result from affording greater encouragement to the officers serving under the Ordnance, it would be very proper to confer this government upon a General Officer belonging to the Royal Artillery or Engineers. There is some difficulty in making a selection from the officers of these Corps, because, from their retiring only by seniority, they seldom attain the rank of General Officer while they are still in possession of sufficient strength and activity for employment. ”