RIVAL RINGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12160, 26 March 1900, Page 7

RIVAL RINGS.

With regard to the charges that have been made both in England and abroad (writes " Ex-Attache" in, an American paper) that the existence of favouritism and ring influence at the War Department in England are responsible for the reverses to which the British troops have been subjected until now in South Africa, there is a certain amount of foundation for these accusations. It is perfectly true that,there are rings at the Yfar Department. Perhaps it would be more fair to describe them as schools, since the word " ring " implies corruption. These schools are, broadly speaking, three in number, namely, the Indian school, headed by Field Marshal Lord Robers, far and away the most popular officer of the army; the modern school, headed by Field Marshal Lord Wolseley, and the oldfashioned school, of which the old Duke of Cambridge was the moving spirit and impersonification, as long as he ruled at the Horse Guards. Sir Redvers belongs to the Wolseley school, but is parted from him by feelings of personal rivalry and animosity, which are so bitter as to have led the Duke of Cambridge to make a particular favourite of Buller, although he differed radically with him in military doctrines.

The modem school, with Lord Wolseley at its head, aims at the introduction into the English army of the methods that prevail in Germany, unfortunately blind to the fact that owing to the non-enforcement of the existing but widely ignored laws of universal and obligatory military service in the United Kingdom, the War Department in London has not the same material at its disposal as the Kaiser. The short service system is all very well on the Continent, where the laws of compulsory military service are enforced, and where a man, after two years with the colours remains liable to be called upon for military duty, either for manoeuvres or actual war, throughout a number of years. But in England the introduction of the short service system has merely had the effect of depriving the troops of the opportunity of becoming properly seasoned. The modern school is likewise very strong in all the doctrinal and technical branches of military science, and endeavours to model itself upon the methods pursued by the general staff at. Berlin. The Indian school, on the other hand, is opposed to the short service system and possesses an infinitely greater degree of practical experience of campaigning. Lord Roberts, for instance, commanded the magnificent forced march to Gandahar, which excited even the warm admiration of Moltke.. Indeed the successes of the Indian school have been so numerous as to imbue it with a. certain amount of disdain for the more mathematical and doctrinal science of the modern school, which has had but little experience in the field. These sentiments of contempt on the part of the practical .soldier, the veteran of many an African and Asiatic battlefield, for his purely scien. tific comrade of the modern school, is returned by the latter, who argues that the Indian school has never yet bad the opportunity of facing white troops or the armies of a civilised power, and that in order to deal with the latter scientific •methods of the most up-to-date description are indispensable. In the present war the Indian school has been entirely excluded from all operations, with the exception of General White, whom there is every reason to believe was selected as the most unlucky and unsuccessful of Anglo-Indian commanders, with the special view of discrediting the Indian ring. Any chances which White may have had of achieving a success were handicapped by the fact that he was subject in every particular to a council of war in London analogous to the Board of JTaval Strategy at Washington during the last war. It is only fair to General Buller to state that he is much hampered by the petty jealousies and animosities which divide, so to speak, the modern schopl. Lord Lansdowne, for instance, the Secretary of State for War, is playing at cross purposes with Field Marshal Lord Wolseley, and much the same cdndition of affairs prevails between the Cabinet Minister and the Com-mander-in-Chief in London as existed between the ranking general of the United States Army and Secretary Alger during the Spanish war. It may safely be asserted that there is no corruption or dishonesty in the British War Department. But there surely is an absence of proper co-operation and cohesion, due to the personal jealousies and animosities existing between those highest in authority, and likewise between their immediate subordinates.

If the war in the Transvaal is unduly prolonged, and if the Boer farmers are able to hold their own beyond the spring against the trained forces of Great Britain, officered by men who devote their entire lives to the study of military science, it will be mainly due to the petty jealousies and personal animosities at the War Department at Pall Mall.