THE ARMY OF GEORGE I.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15557, 6 March 1911, Page 5

THE ARMY OF GEORGE I.

Few tilings have tended more to prejudice the quiet, intelligent inan ngaiust modern Imperialism than the froth and forgetfulness with which it is promulgated as a political doctrine (remarks “The Graphic”). If the creed were the discovery of some Victorian politicians (owing much to the Oriental imagination), the deed traces centuries back. But just as it was accomplished absentmindedly, as Seeley brilliantly put it. so tho men who helped to achieve it have too frequently been forgotten. This lias been conspicuously the case with the Army, so that we • have the extraordinary spectacle of the publication of our early Army Lists being loft to single-handed private endeavour, whereas in America similar work has been dono by the State. It is to Mr Charles Dalton that wo are indebted for graving the names of the early officers of our Standard Army. For fourteon Jong years lie plodded away in constructing the roll of officers between 1661 and 1714, a monumental work m six volumes, at which, perhaps, lie himself is astounded in looking back. Ho followed it in 1907 with his “ Irish Army Lists,” 1661-85, and tho following year saw his “Scots Army.” 1601-BS. Between times he has given us tho Blenheim and the Waterloo Roils, and now he begins the bridging of the period till 1740, when tho first official Army List was printed. He lias started with the first of two volumes on “George tho First's Army, 1714-27,” which tho King’s Printers have appropriately produced in the year of George the Fifth’s Coronation. Ail this work should have been done by tho State rather than by the individual enthusiast, who can never hope to be recompensed, except m “' ,e pleasure of having accomplished a great task.

When Queen Anne died the total strength of the Army in Great Britain was /313, with about SCOO on tho Irish establishment. The Hnriev and Bolingbroke Ministry disbanded" whole regiments of cavalry and infantry, and reduced all the others to a “peace ” strength, and “the British public in general highly approved at the time of the dismemberment, of the Standing Army.” The new King, however, was a soldier of wide experience, and so between January and July, 1715, he restored all the old regiments, and the warning of the Jacobite outbreak against him forced thirteen regiments or dragoons and eight of infantry into tne service.

It is the details of this change of front that Mr Dalton lias to tell, and lie does it with a wealth of detail which fen' other men in this country could muster. __ Having devoted detailed biographies to eleven field officers of the time, from the great Duke °* Argyll to George Keith, Earl Marischal, Mr Dalton prints the names of the officers of the different regiments, identifying thorn as far as possible, an exceedingly difficult task which only the accumulated knowledge of many family historians could cover fully. For example, in tho opening list, that of Hie Ist Life Guards, ho identifies only four out of eighteen officers, and with the Ist loot Guards he can trace only twelve out of ninety-five names. It is a curious fact that much more has been done with the Jacobite officers of the period, who are partly linked up with the Hanoverian by reason of the face that King George compelled some general officers who commanded regiments and were suspected of Jacobite leanings to sell their commissions. Mr Dalton supplies (from a manuscript in tho British Museum—which really ought to he with the military material at the Record Office) a list of over 400 officers who were displaced by King George betweep October, 1714, and January, 1718, identifying a fifth of them. No review can hone to do justice to the enormous amount of work involved in the production of this book.