LORD ROBERT'S TASK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6625, 17 February 1900, Page 4

LORD ROBERT'S TASK.

Discussing the miiitary situation on December 25th the London Daily Times said :—

-From every point of view the task which .Lord Robertp has patriotically assumed is beset by difficulties. He will find himself face to face with a situation which is not of his making. His trooDS are everywhere on the defensiye, scattered over a vast area, and most of them are committed to lines of action which cannot be abruptly changed. The army corps, which neyer existedjexcept in tabular forms printed at the War Office, is widely dispersed. Divisions, even brigades, are broken up in a bewildering fashion. A slow stream of reinforcements will continue to reach the shores of South Africa ; but the effect of the latest steps taken by the Government and of the great national movement now in progress cannot be felt for many weeks. Last, but not least, the conduct of operations at headquarters will fall under the control of an entirely new staff. Eeaders of the exceedingly interesting work of General yon Verdy dv Vernois cannot have failed to notice how largely the success of the German arms in 1870-71 was due to the fact that the members of the headquarters staff were perfectly accustomed to work together, and that they were dealing with other army staffs of which they had knowledge. A collection of individuals, however brilliant cannot assume the direction of affairs so complex as are military operations on a large scale without suffering initial disadvantages. Time is needed for the members of a staff to shake down into their places, to learn each other's methods and characteristics, to organise modes of procedure which cannot be prescribed by regulations of Chinese pattern. Except in this country, arrangements of command and of staff

which can pass without material change from a state of Deace to one of war are _ ¥ a generally recognised necessity. We have been unfortunately accustomed to trust to makeshift measures devised on the spur of the moment, and to ignore the great part which personal factors must clay in the conduct of the war. British officers can always be counted upon to act loyally together in the service of the nation, and our improvised arrangements have sometimes worked more smoothly than we had any right to expect; but no amount of good will can wholly make up for want of complete mutual knowledge when a headquarters staff takes the field. The task before the new staff which will shortly assemble at Capetown is virtually to organise a field army out oi the large aggregate of troops now in or on the way to South Africa. (Test a recomrnencer, as the stout-hearted PeUissier said after the repulse at Malakoff, and all will be abundantly retrieved ; but there must be no impatience if the process requires a long time for its lull accomplishment.