Minister of War

“ But if war as a branch of the Nation's affairs ought to be entrusted to a man competent in that branch, what about the tradition that any politician of eminence in the party is fit to be the Cabinet Minister at the head of any branch of the public service? ”

“ If, however, the Right Honorable Gentleman should say to me, 'Where else would you put that Noble Lord, would you have him appointed War-Minister again?' I should say, Oh no, by no means,—I remember too well the expeditions to Toulon, to Quiberon, to Corsica, and to Holland, the responsibility for each of which the Noble Lord took on himself, entirely releasing from any responsibility the Commander in Chief and the Secretary at War. ”

“ Fox would be if he was Secretary of State and the Duke of Bedford First Lord of the Treasury. In short it depends, and must ever depend, on other circumstances than the particular name by which a person is called; and if you was to have a Secretary of State for the War Department tomorrow, not a person living would ever look upon him, or any other person but you, as the War Minister. All modern wars are a contention of purse, and unless some very peculiar circumstance occurs to direct the lead into another channel, the Minister of Finance must be the Minister of War. ”

“ His foresight, his prevision of the accidents inevitable in war, would necessarily be far inferior to those of men who had spent their lives in applying strategical principles to concrete cases; and it is exceedingly unlikely that he would be as prolific of strategical expedients as those familiar with their employment. Nevertheless, a minister of war cannot divest himself of his responsibility for the conduct of military operations. In the first place, he is directly responsible that plans of campaign to meet every possible contingency are worked out in time of peace. ”

“ A Council of Ministers has been constituted by the Emperor, Ministers being appointed for Justice, Finance, Commerce, War, Foreign Affairs, Posts and Telegraphs, Interior, and a sort of Lord Privy Seal. The most important Minister is the Minister of War. ”

“ It is impossible for any person to controvert the position I now state; and therefore, when you talk of a War Minister, you must mean a person to superintend the detail of the execution of the operations which are determined upon. ”

“ It is hardly necessary to observe that no civilian minister, however deeply he might have studied the art of war, could be expected to solve for himself the strategic problems which come before him. In default of practical knowledge, it would be as impossible for him to Duties of the War Minister. decide where garrisons should be stationed, what fortifications were necessary, what roads should be constructed, or how the lines of communication should be protected, as to frame a plan of campaign for the invasion of a hostile state. ”

“ One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. ”

“ I know not where that principle has been admitted in our military administration. If we have committed gross errors, it has been owing to an excess much more than to a defect of professional influence and counsel. In my opinion the qualities of a good administrator and statesman go to make a good war minister, especially at this juncture, far more than those of a good soldier. ”

“ In Germany and in Austria-Hungary the German Emperor and the Emperor-King respectively are virtual general inspectors-in-chief of the whole army, but in France and in Russia there is less unity of command. The Minister of War in Russia, in Germany, and in France is intended to be at the head of the supplies of the army in time of war, directing the administration from the capital, and not taking his place in the field. ”

“ For, other things being equal, the first duty of a soldier is the care of his own army. In our country it seemed the wisest course for the War Cabinet to leave all important military decisions to the military chiefs. The previous Government, indeed, had fortified the Generals with an Order in Council which practically gave them strategic control. ”

“ The commanders of the British, American, German, French, Italian, Russian, Austrian and Japanese detachments have met and conferred—each carefully instructed by his own Minister just how far he is to acquiesce in his colleagues' proposals, which is, roughly speaking, not at all. We can have no effective council of war thus, because there is no commander-in-chief, and everybody is a claimant to the post. ”

“ That the Minister of War cause the several men of the different State lines to be arranged within their respective lines, in such manner as to form complete corps, or parts of corps, so that there be a due proportion of men to the officers according to the establishment as near as may be. ”

“ The traditional practice of having a civilian Minister inside the Cabinet with all the authority, and a soldier with all the knowledge outside the Cabinet, was devised for electioneering purposes, and not for war. ”

“ Like many men of strong will and commanding ability, he was a centralizer by instinct and in practice. He took over the position of War Minister with very clearly defined conceptions of what must be done to expand the exiguous fighting forces of his country in face of the tremendous emergency with which it stood suddenly confronted. ”

“ This, as long as there exists no cause of complaint common to the whole army, will be sufficient to preserve tranquillity. In the mean time, due attention should be paid to the manly representations of the Minister of War respecting the mode in which the army is at present recruited, and the greatest pains taken to prevent the ranks from being filled with the scum and refuse of society, with which the States but too often supply the deficiencies in their legal Contingent. ”

“ In the case of the army, as well as of the navy, the functions of the secretary are decidedly more important than those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not only administration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on the movements of all the forces, since the President as commander-in-chief has to act through these ministers. ”

“ The policy of the minister was neither sanguinary nor revengeful: his favourite maxim was rather to appease the minds of the discontented by lenity, than to have recourse to violent measures; to be content with losing nothing by the war, without being at the expense of gaining any advantage from the enemy; to suffer his character to be very severely handled, provided he could amass much wealth, and to spin out the minority to the greatest possible extent. ”

“ Nothing induces me now to retain my office but the sense of duty, which constrains me to remain as long as I have the confidence of the Emperor and the majority of the delegations. A soldier with any sense of decency does not desert. But no Minister for Foreign Affairs could conduct negotiations of this importance unless he knows, and all the world as well, that he is endowed with the confidence of the majority among the constitutional representative bodies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Minister for War, who must be a general officer, has charge of the military administration of an army lately fixed at 6,000 men, and the chief control of men and matters in the army, and is to exercise supervision over army divisions, and all buildings and forts under his Department. ”

“ I have, moreover, good reason for believing that on that day there was present on the Treasury bench a representative of the War Office, not a Cabinet Minister, who was ready and willing to defend the Master-General of the Ordnance and who was acquainted with the facts, but that the Minister of Munitions, being in charge of the House, refused to sanction his speaking. Happily such occurrences are rare in the public life of this country. ”

“ An ancient form of ordnance of small size, the caliber of which was about 3 inches.
Minister. Is one who acts not by any inherent authority of his own, but under another. Thus, in England all ministers act under a supreme authority, which is vested in the sovereign, lords, and commons, to whom they are responsible. In military matters, there is not only a war minister, but a secretary at war, who likewise acts conjointly with the secretary of state. ”

“ It is the duty of the German Minister and his staff in any foreign country, and particularly in countries likely to become hostile, to get as close as possible to members of Governments, members of Legislatures, leaders of thought and society, and members of the Press, especially the first and the last in this category. ”

“ The army must be the rallying point; the army must furnish example, must furnish instruction, must give us the principles on which that national system [Pg 267] of defence must be formed; and by which the voluntary forces of this country, though in a military view inferior to a regular army, would, fighting on their own soil, for everything dear to individuals and important to a State, be invincible.'
These quotations will, I think, give a general idea of the views which were uppermost in the mind of the Minister for War when he gave vitality to the principle of localisation. ”

“ You cannot expect a Cabinet of twelve or eighteen men ignorant of war to create a good war-fighting machine. You cannot entrust the organisation of your Army to any authority but the Government, for the body that creates your Army will govern you. The only plan that will produce the result required is to give authority over the making and using of the Army to a man or men who understand War—War as it is to-day. In short, a Nation that is liable to War requires men of War in its Government, and, in the case of Great Britain, the place for them is in the Cabinet. ”

“ But he was to be the adviser or assistant, not of a military commander, but of a civilian governor-general of the army.
An army cannot be directed in war nor commanded in peace under the immediate authority of a civilian. There must be a military commander, the obedient servant of the Government, supported by the Government in the exercise of his powers to discipline and direct the army, and sheltered by the Government against all such criticism as would weaken his authority or diminish its own responsibility. ”

“ CITIZEN-GENERAL,—The military talents of which you have given so many proofs, and the confidence of the Government, call you to the command of an army. During the winter you have REORGANISED the War Department, and you have provided, as far as circumstances would permit, for the wants of our armies. ”

“ As the commander in chief, his own soldiers would have a right to instruct him in the mode of performing his military functions, as, indeed, they would have a right to tell congress, when and against whom to declare war! ”

“ There is a sound instinct that war is a special business, and that it should be managed according to the judgment of those who are masters of the trade; not those who can write about it, but those who have practised it and proved their capacity. But those men, the generals who are, believed to have a grasp of the way to carry a war through, are all outside the Cabinet. The Cabinet has its chosen expert adviser, the Commander-in-Chief ”

“ The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion. It contends that it may now take one out of every twenty-five men, & any part or the whole of the rest, whenever its occasions require. Persons thus taken by force, & put into an army, may be compelled to serve there, during the war, or for life. They may be put on any service, at home or abroad, for defence or for invasion, accordingly to the will & pleasure of the Government. The power does not grow out of any invasion of the country, or even out of a state of war. ”

“ My unpopular belief that nobody should meddle with the management of a war unless he understands it is, I admit, most uncomfortable, for as a war is always managed by the Government I am obliged to think that every Government ought to understand war. But in this country the Government is entrusted to a Committee of Peers and Members of Parliament, none of whom is supposed to be able to take a military view of war. If my belief is right, a British Cabinet is very liable to take a civilian view, and the consequences might be awkward. ”

“ So that we have for a Secretary of the Navy a man who headed a Philadelphia mob, to encourage the administration to pursue the war, and a Secretary of the Army, a man who exerted his best abilities to induce the heroes of the revolution to turn their arms against their own country. ”

“ A man who is not a soldier, and who is entirely ignorant of war, is selected solely for political reasons to be Secretary of State for War. I might with quite as great propriety be selected to be the chief surgeon in a hospital. ”