ARMY CONSERVATISM

Evening Star, Issue 22026, 11 May 1935, Page 2

ARMY CONSERVATISM

In a recent address to the Staff College at Quetta, Field-marshal Sir Philip Ghetwood opened his mind freely, on the- ‘ brain-slackness ” of the Britisli Army, and stated that, in his opinion, officers as a class had not improved in general education or military instinct and leadership since the war. That, says the London ' Spectator,’ is a grave indictment. The war revealed the fact that! the higher ranks were filled with men who owed their position more to the accident of seniority than exceptional talent; and the Army as a whole was a machine, static in character, governed by tradition, and controlled by officers for each of whom it was a duty to bo the unquestioning agent of the man above him. The many changes in Army organisation that have occurred in the last 15 years, the development ' of the Imperial Defence College, and various efforts to improve Army education might have been ; expected 'to broaden the interests of officers, and in many individual cases certainly have, done so. But the system itself, as controlled from the top,, remaints too inelastic. One thing that is needed is a more general education of future officers up td the; ’age of 21. Specialism begins too early in the Army, and much too early in -the Navy—whose case is worse. ■ /i ' - ■