THE PASSING AWAY OF THE BRITISH VOLUNTEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 149, 24 June 1908, Page 6

THE PASSING AWAY OF THE BRITISH VOLUNTEERS.

(By ROBERT H v BAKEWELL, MJ), formerly Honorary Surgeon Ist Staff, R.V.)

I trust that my readere will permit mc .to make a few remarks on the new arrangement of the defence forces oi Great Britain, by which the Volunteer force, as established in 1659, has been desrtoyed, and the members of it released from their engagement. It is a very serious event; it is one of historical importance, just as the foundation of the Volunteer force in 1859 marked an epoch in our national history. As one of the few remaining veterans who formed the original corps in 1859, I must confess that I have read the accounts of the dissolution of the magnificent volunteer army, which no other nation possessed, with some pangs of grief. We had in the Volunteers of Great Britain an absolutely unique force, on army, as regards its fighting material, complete in itself, comprising cavalry (she Imperial Yeomanry), artillery, engineers, infantry, and medical staff. True, the arrangements for transport and commissariat were in the hands of the War Department, but this, after the truly English fashion, was 'left to be muddled out when the force was mobilised and the invader was threatening our shores. But this was not our fault.

A country must be very rich and very superabundant in the material for making soldiers, and very confident that the right men will come forward on an emergency, when it can with gaiety of heart entirely destroy, dissolve, and disperse an army of 250,000 entirely unpaid men, who, out of their own time, and at their own expense, offered themselves to be trained in the art of soldiering, and engaged in case of invasion to go anywhere within the limits of the United Kingdom.

The oldest Volunteer force in the Kingdom is, of course, the Honourable Artillery Company of the City of London, a force established .by charter oi King Henry VII., and continued without break to the present day. Its head* quarters were and are at Finsbury, where in the days when Finsbury lay in the fields, it possessed several acres of land, which must now be of immense value. The corps was iv 1859, and had been for many years an exclusive and expensive force to join; the first year's subscription, entrance fee, and uniform were, if I remember rightly, something like £35. There was an annual subscription, and the uniform would require to be kept up. It was exactly the same as that of the Grenadier Guards, except that -where the officers of the Guards wore gold, those of the artillery company wore silver lace. Even the privates wore this uniform, including the tall bearskin, and swords. The wearing of swords when off duty waa to emphasise the fact that the privates were all gentlemen. In my younger days in London, I have often seen the privates going to their barra-cke to drill with swords on. I suppose they' were removed when on parade. The force at present comprises a squadron of cavalry, a battery or two of artillery, and a battalion of infantry. It was —and I hope I may still say, it ia a magnificent corps. It sent a contingent to South Africo during the late war.

In 1857 two corps, the Victoria Rifles and the Ist Devon, were formed, which existed, but in rather a debilitated state, until tlie scare in 1859, which caused 1 the formation of the Volunteer army, which has just been dissolved. In 1859 there was a sudden and marvellous awakening of the national sentiment that the handful of regulars and the Militia did not form an adequate force for the defence of the country against invasion, and all o«-»r Great Britain volunteer corps were formed with great zeal. Whenever sixty men could be got together, they could apply to the Horse Guards to be gazetted as a corps, and weie entitled! to a captain and two subaltern officers. When four such corps united, they were- entitled to a major who commanded the whole; six or more had j< lieutenant-colonel. The strength of each corpe or company was to be not less than sixty or more than one hundred rank and file. I joined the 3rd West Kent as one of the original members before it was even gazetted.

Neither men nor officers (except the adjutants, drlll-sergeanfcs, etc), received any pay. These adjutants did not form part of the Volunteers, but were detached from a regular regiment, and had a battalion or its equivalent under their care. They transacted all business and correspondence with the War Department, and the drill-sergeants wer e under their control. In the first year of their existence, 1859-60, the Volunteers attained a strength of 119,146 of all ranks. In 1907 the strength was said, to be 246,416 (Hazell, 190S). In 1901, during the war, the strength reached 288,476.

The men and officers were all sworn in, and while on duty the men were under the Mutiny Act. They could! resign afc any tiicc bj giving a fortnight's notree, and giving up their rifles, etc.

I do not know of any national movement in our history moTe thoroughly disinterested' and patriotic than the* Volunteer movement of 1859, and the fortyeight years subsequent. We had to encounter the sullen hostility of the War Department, who grudged us every penny they Biit-nt on us, and the open derision contempt and abuse of the lower class of working men. Unfortunately, when returning from class-firing, one fool, finding his rifle loaded, discharged it at a stray dog. The dog was killed; the affair got into the papers, arid thenceforth, for many months, certainly for at least a year, no volunteer could appear in streets inhabited by the working classes without being greeted by yells and hootfngs, and cries of "Who shot the dog?" This may appear a trifle, but I can assure my readers that it required no little self-con-trol to prevent a young man in possession of a rifle and a bayonet from using one or both to disperse a crowd of hooligans yelling out their cry. The working classes at first looked upon this Volunteer fores as one that might be called out to disperse mobs, or put down riots, and hated us accordingly. This feeling wore off in a few years, when some working-class corps were formed, and a better feelinc prevailed. In my first corps, the wich company of the West Kent, we had to pay an annual ■subscription of a guinea, members hadi after the first formation of the corps, to be proposed and elected by the whole body of the corps (no man could join just by paying a subscription) and we had to find our own uniforms, and pay for all ammunition used in class firing and target practice, as well as the railway fare to the firing range. Altogether the first year's expenses came to six pounds. For officers it was much more. At first, but only for a. few months, the Government only gave, or rather lent, rifles, to the extent of 25 per cent of the strength of the company, and many members bought their own rifles. u lsnt even the War Office saw tha impropriety of allowing thousands of mon to own military rifles, and after a few

months one was aenmsd out for each member. -. '■> i y-.[--^L : ;" r We" had: to find our own drill shed and magazine for rifles and ammunition, band instruments;, orderly rooms, etc. Daring Jthe" first year of our existence, the Queen reviewed Cthe volunteers of London and the suburbs. There were present nearly 20,000 mean. As no one was allowed to be present in the ranks but those who had passed for squad and company drill, and learnt what was then called the "manual and platon" exercise rwibh the rifle, the men- reviewed only represented what would now be called the efficients. No man was reckoned an efficient who had not passed out of the third class in firing, after making a certain number of points. The review by the Queen in Hyde Park" was a great succes3, but as I have already described it in these columns, I need say no more about it.

We had to work hard at our drill. Evening after evening -we assembled in our drill room, and most humiliating and annoying it was to be practicing the -goose-step before a crowd of ladies, who would, insist on coming in. I can never forget the exquisite annoyance Ehis presence of women occasioned. 'But they did not care. Every corps chose its own uniform. This privilege was, I feel sure, granted by the military authorities solely with the object of making us ridiculous;' and in a few cases it had this effect, for iae naiforms chosen were most absurd. But in the great majority of cases the uniforms were only copies of the regular tunic or shako, In varying shades, of g>ey and green. The artillery invariably copied.the Royal Artillery, as did the engineers. The London Scottish and several corps in Scotland wore the kilt, but wibh grey tunics. The officers had broad swords like" the Highland regulars. Still, the effect, when some thousands were massed together, was distinctly had, and it was a great improvement when all the infantry regiments took the scarlet.

The weak point of the volunteers was that every corps would have a band. Now, everybody knows that a military brass band is a very expensive affair. The maintenance of one out of the capitation grant and the subscriptions of She honorary members wae out of the question, unless the corps were a. very large one, so that a great burden was laid on the officers. Hence, it happened that sometimes officers were chosen •rather for their money than their braine.

This was a point on which the 'War Office might very well have interposed and refused to allow a brass band to any corps with less than 600 members. Drums and fifes and a bugler or two were all that were wanted.

From the first the -higher military authorities disliked us, and did everything they could to injure the movement. Of course, as we all had votes, and the suffrage was much more' restricted than it is now, they were obliged to be cautious and civil. One way they had, which, Qiowever, did not do much harm, for we all saw through it, was to send down some fool of a colonel' or general who would praise us up in the most extravagant fashion, and aseuie us that Tew of Her Majesty's regiments could go through the drill in a better style than we did! If these men had heard us privates laughing at them after the inspection, and the extremely uncomplimentary language we used, they would never have tried that game on another corps.

I served as a private for about five years, first in the West Kent, and then in the North Staffords, and learned squad and company drill, all the rifle exercises, and a little battalion drill thoroughlywell. There, was one point on which we :bcat the regulars and militia out and out, and that was shooting. We beat them in our averages, and I think a volunteer has always taken the Queen's Prize at Bisley or Wimbledon. We were also very good at the bayonet exercise, which was more complicated than the present system. Indeed, the whole drill, is simpler and easier, and if they go on' in the way they did in South Africa, all the manoeuvres will be confined to taking cover and running away as soon as they "find the bullets whistling about them

Before the commission sent out to examine into the causes of the numerous disgraceful surrenders, surprises, and defeats that occurred in South Africa, 'I observe that all the generals who -were examined expressed their distrust of the volunteers; they, could not rely oh them j Lord Roberts, while praising the C.1.V., which he admitted was a splendid corps, said he had to "nurse" it for some weeks before sending it up to the front. Well, if 'he had heard the language that was used about him in consequence of this and a few other things he did, he would perhaps doubt the wisdom of distrusting and "nursing" the very pick of the volunteers of London.

The extraordinary thing is-that these generals, who so despised and distrusted the volunteers, had themselves been defeated and baffled for two years and nine months by an army, or, rather, a. guerilla or undrilled, undisciplined, farmers, -largely consisting of old men and young boys, and had been, obliged to call in the aid and assistance of colonial and British volunteers, because, though far out-num-bering the Boers, they could not subdue their , alone!

But the last persons to sneer at volunteers or other irregular soldiers are the generals of the British army, for they have been particularly unfortunate in their combats with irregulars. About the ■first regular army that was ever formed was in the Civil war, when Charles I. embodied his household troope' and the, militia, and was thoroughly beaten by a country gentleman of the name of Cromwell, who knew nothing of soldiering until foe was 40 years old. James 11. •had a tough fight for it at Sedgmoor; and it is doubtful whether his army would have been victorious but for the dreadful mistake made <as to the ground. In the rebellion of 1745 the welldrilled aaid disciplined forces of George 11. were driven out of Scotland by a rabble of Highlanders, who had no discipline whatever, and were very scantily aupplied with arms and ammunition They marched as far south as Uttoxeter, and were- not dispersed until they got back into Scotland again. A few years after , this the British regulars surrendered or were defeated by the American irregulars, who ultimately procured the independence of then country. Why a number of men who have been taught their drill and the use of firearms by men belonging to the regular service, and who ar« willinand anxious to obey orders, should be distrusted any more than any other resee" Mf* r™, nati °™lity, I faU to about ih r? my 00 *Plaintsmade were Jt o V ° lu + nte ? r companies, which th^ru-\ tho War wlth America Sn 1812 rc S« la ™ wore again defeated lSv I* fOU , B ' lt was Si TP 0 ' 04 Of vr '- ™* recruits, hurried off to fill U p the places of the

seasoned veterans who were 'hurriedly : discharged after -the firstabdication of p."-' r ' Napoleon rOf first .Boer ■war, there' , "•'• is ; n6 to speak.- Remember Ma jubali I find myself in. a difficulty ia rwriting '~ about'' : the spirit thai, animated those .■/,''■' volunteers of 1859 and the early sixties, - before the corps toad b^ome.thoroughly established, because I Was one of themj . ; and it would look like self-praise. Practicing skirmishing drill at, seven, on. a winter's moming, with-the snow on the ground, and your fingere so cold* you could iardly hold the rifle, "was a subject of laughter then; but it 'required" •'". some little self-denial. This I may. say, '. that the spirit of the men was that oi I dogged determination to do their duty, in spite of the discouragement of the military authorities, and the hootinga of : the mob. However, the generals have triumphed, and~ one must not grudge them their i, ':■ triumph, for they hive mot often had one of late years. They have got rid of "those d—— volunteers," and I only hope that the day may not come "when \ Britain will bitterly regret having de- }i stroyed a force such as no other country ' in the world, had ever possessed—an army of a-quarter of a million of ,; trained and disciplined men, serving without pay, and ready to sacrifice ihe'ic lives in defence of their native country.' • " Of my comrades of 1859, the grealj majority -are in their graves. "Their J bones are dnst, their good swords rust, but their souls ate -with the saints we :.■■ ■trust." And as for us, the few old men who remain, tottering on the brink of i the grave, who see and lament the folly . '. and ineptitude with which the Empire ,: : is governed, the sooner we follow themthe better! • J may mention fchat I served 21 years in the volunteers, partly in Eng- •; land and partly here. My remarks refe? ■to English volunteering 0n1y.—8..H.8.