War Office

“ The beginning of wisdom with respect to all problems of defence is the recognition of the two-headed principle that Policy depends on Armaments just as certainly as Armaments depend on Policy.
The duty of the Admiralty and the War Office is to keep their armaments abreast of the national endeavour. ”

“ Nor can the War Office be robbed of its claim to have borne the chief share in performing what was the greatest miracle of all the miracles performed during the course of the contest. Within the space of less than two years the United Kingdom was, mainly by the exertions of the War Office, transformed into a Great Military Power. ”

“ Although, as I have tried to explain, its system of administration is not altogether adapted to meet the requirements of parliamentary government, and although in some respects the Navy and Army are not in such close association as seems desirable, still these defects are capable of remedy, and, at all events, are in no way attributable to the chiefs of the various departments, military and civil, of the War Office, who are men of the highest character and experience, [Pg 294] and who carry out very difficult duties with loyalty and success, even under a somewhat imperfect system. ”

“ It was when one reached the heart of things, the War Office, that one began to realize the undercurrents which were being set up in the national life as a result of the war. In the court yard of the War Office, which was carefully guarded by policemen, were large numbers of women, young and old, waiting for news of son or husband, wounded or killed. ”

“ Instead of taking men's names, telling them the exact facts, and sending them home to wait till they could be called for, the War Office raised the physical standard for recruits, and this dealt a blow at popular enthusiasm from which it has never recovered. ”

“ A good many of us in the War Office were a little inclined to cavil at our Chief's deliberation in the matter of demanding a system of national service, when the country had arrived at the stage where expansion of the fighting forces was no longer hopelessly retarded by lack of war material. ”

“ The War Office Staff, it was stated in the House of Commons, has been reduced from 21,807 to 19,510 since the Armistice. It is only fair to point out that the vast bulk of them were not asked whether they wanted an Armistice. ”

“ My belief is that, if ever the history of our military administration of recent years comes to be impartially written, it will be found that most of the large reforms, which have beneficially affected the army, have been warmly supported, and sometimes initiated, by the superior civilian element in the War Office. ”

“ The chiefs of these bureaus are under the immediate orders of the Secretary of War, who, through them, in fact commands the army from "his office," but cannot do so "in the field"--an absurdity in military if not civil law. ”

“ To this the War Office replied that they were in receipt of our favour, thanked us for our kind patronage, assured us of their immediate attention to our esteemed commands on this and all occasions, and begged (positively begged) to be allowed to remain our obedient servants. ”

“ As will be seen from the chapter on the work of the Navy, it was only in the year 1899 that the Admiralty, who necessarily would have to transport whatever strength was thus employed, became aware for the first time that the War Office would need shipping for more than one army corps. The British army has had more, and more varied, service during the nineteenth century than any other in the world. It undoubtedly included more officers and men, who had experienced what it meant to be under fire, than any other. ”

“ The soldier's office at present is indeed supposed to be the defense of his country against other countries; but that is an office which—Utopian as you may think the saying—will soon now be extinct. I say so fearlessly, though I say it with wide war threatened, at this moment, in the East and West. For observe what the standing of nations on their defense really means. It means that, but for such armed attitude, each of them would go and rob the other; that is to say, that the majority of active persons in every nation are at present—thieves. ”

“ He insisted that no army could be efficient unless the command, discipline and training of the troops were in the hands of one man, and that man a soldier; and he urged that the Commander-in-Chief should either be made the real head of the forces, or that the office should be abolished, and the Secretary of State for War should be himself a military man. [98:1] The only direct result that the memorandum had on the organisation of the War Office was the reëstablishmemt of the control of the Commander-in-Chief over the department of the Adjutant General by an Order in Council on Nov. ”

“ A Record Office is established at the Base, to carry on all office work in connection with the personnel from which it is desirable the units in the field should be entirely freed, such as the soldiers’ attestations and medical history sheets, and their accounts. ”

“ your friend the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office. ”

“ The entire adjutant-general's office should be under the entire control of the general-in-chief of the army. No orders should go to the army, or the adjutant-general, except through the general-in-chief. ”

“ The military government is established upon a system of wonderful regularity. When the great council determines on going to war, they proceed immediately to elect a commander-in-chief, who is in some measure the dictator of the country during his continuance in office. ”

“ On one side of the apartment, cases, divided into minute boxes, rise to the ceiling. Each one is large enough to take a flag tightly rolled. Over all hangs a curtain; and here these rags, which have outlasted the wasting march, the sore defeat, wait to tell their story in silence to coming generations.
The War Department is now divided into the following Bureaus:
463Secretary’s Office: The Secretary of War is charged, under the direction of the President, with the general control of the military establishment, and the execution of the laws relating thereto. ”

“ The French Foreign Office, wishful to allay the anger of the Parisian mob clamouring for war with England, secured this admirable couple and sent them round the town. You cannot be amused at a thing, and at the same time want to kill it. The French nation saw the English citizen and citizeness—no caricature, but the living reality—and their indignation exploded in laughter. The success of the stratagem prompted them later on to offer their services to the German Government, with the beneficial results that we all know. ”

“ No fighting men have been more ready for war, yet so indifferent to military glory, more imbued with patriotism, yet so prone to fight for themselves alone, more courageous, yet so careful of their lives, more lethargic, or even languid by nature, and yet so capable of the most strenuous activity. Such were the Boers of the veld. In one particular they had never been surpassed by any troops. No Boer but was a bold horseman and a skilled horsemaster, who kept his mount ready at any moment for the longest march or the swiftest gallop, in darkness, or over the roughest ground. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It had become the practice of the War Department to present to the army every five years a comprehensive military problem involving an imaginary attack upon this country by a powerful foreign foe, and the proper line of defense. The competition was open to both officers and men. ”

“ Still the General was unwilling to retreat. Accompanied by his staff officer, he was on his way to find new ground, out of range of Impati, before that mountain had become indistinct in the twilight. He was long in the saddle, examining the northern slopes of Indumeni for a suitable spot. Night drew on, the rain increasing with the dying light; the regular fire of the enemy's guns became intermittent, then ceased, and darkness closed round the British force on the spur. ”

“ No provision had been made in peace for the training of men for the duties of the Staff. At Pretoria, the Commandant-General, forced to reign alone over the twin kingdoms of administration and command, had not unnaturally failed to govern either. The chain of authority between Commander-in-Chief and private soldier, a chain whose every link must be tempered and tested in time of peace, was with the Boers not forged until war was upon them, and then so hurriedly that it could not bear the strain. ”

“ It is one thing for the army corps of a great Continental State, in which everyone has been practising his own special part precisely as he will be engaged in war, to march straight upon its enemy in its then existing formation, and it is quite another to draw together a staff formed of men, each of them experienced both in war and peace, none of whom have worked together, while few have fulfilled the identical functions which they have to discharge for the first time when bullets are flying and shells are bursting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If these conclusions were sound—and the course of events during the first month of the war was to prove their general correctness—it was highly desirable that detachments of British troops should remain in the northern districts of the colony, and thus carry out the double function of encouraging the loyal while checking lawless spirits, and of retaining possession of those lines of railways, the use of which would be a matter of vital importance to the field army in its subsequent advance from the coast. It was obvious that these isolated posts of a few hundred men would run serious risks. ”

“ It is impossible to trace the vicissitudes of an army which lost, regained, then lost again fifty per cent. of its strength within a week. Nor is a periodic enumeration of vital military interest. With the Boers the numbers actually present in the fighting line were not, as with European troops, the measure of their effective force. For the Boer, whether as absentee at his farm, or wandering demoralised over the veld, was often little less a portion of the strength of his side than his comrade who happened to be lying alert in a shelter trench at the same moment. ”

“ It became necessary to develop to the utmost limit the strength that could be spared for work on shore in order to gain time for the arrival of reinforcements. Happily our public services, both civil and military, have grown up in the traditions that each branch and department, while it has special grooves in which its own particular duty runs, is at all times on the look-out to help any other department. The Navy and Army are no strangers to this practice of mutual aid. ”

“ The transport by sea to South Africa from the United Kingdom and the Colonies of a force much larger than any which had ever crossed the seas before in the service of this or any other country affords a remarkable illustration not only of the greatness of British maritime resources, but also of what can be done when careful forethought and preparation is applied to the object of utilising rapidly in war instruments which are in peace solely engaged in the purposes of civil life. ”

“ The British army, on the contrary, throughout the nineteenth century, since the great war came to an end in 1815, has had to carry out a series of expeditions in every variety of climate, in all quarters of the globe, amidst the deserts of North Africa, the hills, plains and tropical forests of South Africa, the mountains of India, the swamps of Burma, or the vast regions of Canada. ”

“ From the reports herewith communicated of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with the subsidiary documents annexed to them, will be discovered the present condition and administration of our military establishment on the land and on the sea. The organization of the Army having undergone no change since its reduction to the present peace establishment in 1821, it remains only to observe that it is yet found adequate to all the purposes for which a permanent armed force in time of peace can be needed or useful. ”

“ The shipowners, as a body, showed every desire throughout the war to meet the wishes of the Admiralty, often (in the early days) placing their ships at the disposal of the Government at great inconvenience to their own trade, and making great personal exertions to expedite the despatch of the troops and to ensure their comfort. In no case was any vessel engaged, either for troops, animals, or stores, which was not a registered British ship, and as far as possible the crews were British subjects ”