There is something about the voluntary military spirit of Britain that is irresistibly attractive to the foreign mind. With our own people unaccustomed to conscription, or possession of dangerous home frontiers, the self-sacrifice of men who join the irregular element of the land forces is seldom acknowledged at its true value. Yet the German Emperor is reported to have said that the volunteer spirit of Britain is an asset of unique character, and, whilst most foreign Governments look with respect upon the voluntary system, they themselves, having no complete sea barriers, are compelled to maintain enormous armies seemingly out of proportion to the national life and population.

Herein lies the peculiar fascination which our voluntary troops possess, and, although no one has solved the great problem of adequately training them, the latest development of Home Defence, the Territorial Force, offers the framework for a National Guard without disturbing the labour market. And as the year 1909 will, to an extent, determine the measure of success or failure of the Territorial Force, some account of the experiment and the work of the training season now commenced should prove of more than ordinary interest.

The present Territorial Force is the modern development of that call to arms which in 1860 resulted in the establishment of the Volunteers. This venture forty-nine years ago attracted far more serious attention on the Continent than in these islands. Frenchmen and Germans, Austrians and Danes, knowing something of the bitterness of war as it affects the home viewed the rise of a British Volunteer Force as a serious experiment which might serve an island power very well. In Britain, however, we had the other side of the picture. Ignorant of horrors of war round the homestead, owing to the centuries of unbroken peace with regard to invasion the mass thought on military affairs, and the nation scarcely possessed a military policy. The Volunteers were almost strangled at first by ridicule. "Fireside soldiers - dare not go to war!" This was the gibe of the street urchin thrown at the rifleman as he walked to his armoury, although he was the embodiment of an ideal. This juvenile comment reflected the adult view, for the masses' unthinking idea was that war happened abroad, and, therefore, in the words of the gamin, "fireside soldiers" were of no use since we did not have fireside wars. Long periods of peace had helped towards this apathy of the nation, but the minority - a splendid one - hung on the Volunteer idea, and it triumphed.

When the first Volunteer made his appearance in 1852 a curious state of military management was fast coming to an end under which the Colonial Office transacted war matters and the Home Office dealt with the Militia and Yeomanry. When the Volunteers became strong no one knew quite what to do with them. They were tolerated officially, and a clerk, Mr. Marshall, seems to have had more to do with them than anyone else until an inspector was appointed. What followed between 1860 and 1878 is laughable when one looks back upon it. The Volunteers were dealt with by the Militia Branch, then by one officer, then by the military commanders, then the Commander-in-Chief had a cut in, followed by the Adjutant-General supervising, after which came a newly awakened interest on the part of the Secretary of State.

In 1880 the Commander-in-Chief again had the force under his wing, but before long distributed the duties, whilst in 1894 the Inspector-General of Regular Recruiting took on the work of the force! A year later there was more shuttlecock work between the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant-General as regards responsibility, but in 1900 Lord Landsdowne cut the knot by appointing an Inspector-General of Auxiliary Forces. Four years later the Adjutant-General lost the control of the Volunteers, recovered it, and then came another distribution of the work. The new post of Inspector-General was abolished for the third time, and a Director of Auxiliary Forces was made instead. From all this it will be realised that everything was tried except the essential common-sense act of establishing a Volunteer Department and of giving the force due organisation.

The soldiers who have from the first had charge of the Volunteer Force laboured under many changing difficulties. They include some well-known names. Col. Percy Douglas handled the first 10,000 men raised, and then came Lord Paulet, Col. Ersking, Major-Gen. Hon. J. Lindsay, Sir Garnet Wolseley, Major-Gen. Stevenson, Lieut.-Gen. Armstrong, Major-Gen. Elkington, Major-Gen. Hon. J. Dormer, Major-Gen. Lyon Freemantle, Sir R. Gipps, Sir Francis Grenfell, Sir T. Kelly-Kenny, Major-Gen. Borrett, Sir Alfred Turner, and Sir William Mackinnon.

For forty-eight years - that is to say, from 1860 until last year - no official attempt was made to give effective organisation to the Volunteer Force, and it existed as an immobile mass of riflemen and garrison gunners who could not have taken the field for lack of stores, and not an army at all. Foreign officers ridiculed us for want of enterprise. The professional soldier did not assist the Volunteer movement. As an amateur body it was "kept under" and starved lest it prove a serious menace to the Regular Army and postpone indefinitely the day of universal service.

Up to the present year the force had not been tried and trained under serious conditions, but we are in the middle of an experiment which will make or mar the system, and the result of which will change the whole policy of defence preparation. The Volunteers and Yeomanry have been abolished as such and formed into a Home Defence Army with a complete organisation of 14 Divisions and 14 Mounted Brigades, and the composition of each runs on Regular lines. A reversion to the old County or Territorial system has been made for the purpose of raising recruits, maintaining units, and administering them. Each county has its Association under the Lord-Lieutenant, and comprising military and civilian members. The training is in the hands of the Regular generals commanding various divisions. The force consists of the following numbers:-

Two-thirds of these numbers have been obtained, but in comparison with the totals existing before the change the decrease is 60,000. To secure adequate support for the masses of infantry, being raised and trained; supply and transport units formed; field engineers, telegraphists, ambulances and the like arranged for.

London Scottish on the March

II.

The whole plan of service in the Territorial Force has been "tightened" as compared with the Volunteer Force. When a young man desires to work as a Volunteer he no longer "enrols" himself but has to "enlist." He signs a Regular like document with pains and penalties set forth. He is no longer a Volunteer but a soldier enlisted for four years, yet should he wish to leave he can do so by giving three months' notice and paying £5, if the authorities deem that he ought so to do.

Let us follow our prospective recruit to the drill hall. His bench mate is perhaps a "Terror" and "introduces" him to his corps, and in due course parades in the hall to begin in 'cruity drill. This consists of 40 parades in the infantry (ten afterwards) and a course of musketry. He is measured for his clothing and, perhaps may not escape the hoary-headed joke of being sent to the sergeant-instructor to be measured for a sentry box! Two suits of khaki are supplied to him with a service dress cap and a great coat, a "swagger dress" for walking out being optional according to the desire of each corps. He looks like a Regular in his smart kit, but the letter "T" on the shoulder - strap classifies the man easily. Curiously enough, no official provision is made for the supply of boots, and yet these articles are half the battle to an infantryman. Woe betide the unfortunate Territorial Tommy who attempts big work in a pair of cheap, thin shoes. He is soon shoeless and under treatment for sore foot.

Once a year the battalion goes under canvas for fifteen days' training, and here it is that the regular finds out whether the preliminary work of the year have been well carried out. If it has been the battalion settles down inside a week. If it has not it is still floundering when the second week is commenced. The generals know, and down in the fatal report go serious words of praise or reproof. The time for training is limited a fact which may be gathered from the statement that a "Terror" costs £8 whilst a regular costs £80 per annum. The leaders seek to instruct individually and then in small tactical work, but lucky is the battalion which goes to Salisbury Plain for camp, as there the higher work is given and the training is at its best. The fortnight is all too short for real results but it for real results but it is instructive, and at the end the men return to work straightbacked, healthy and bronzed.

Nothing, perhaps, is so interesting to the men as night operations. As the moon rises over Wiltshire's famous West Down a column will steal out and make a march on El Barrow. Ghost-like, it moves across the grass, ever and anon throwing a black shadow against the sky. Moving by the compass, the column tramps steadily onward, the rough grass swishing under the foot and the silence of this massed humanity striking the senses as uncanny.

"Halt!" The word is whispered. "Fix bayonets!" Then as a pale grey streak steals into the sky, there is a rush, a rousing cheer, and a thousand men are launched at the trenches. Vivid lines of fire cut into the gloom of dawning day as hundreds of drab figures charge until the bugles blare their warning note over the din, sounding the stand fast. This is realistic and good training, and the lesson of discipline comes easily under the curb of silent night work. Interesting too, are the big field days with the Regulars, such as Sir Ian Hamilton prepared. As many as 30,000 have taken part in these, and Sir Ian, who has done much for the force, says it must sink or swim on its merits.

But the training is not all work and no pay, for the men draw their daily shilling in camp. Every regiment has its camp amusements, from the old practice of dressing up men in blankets to represent prehistoric beasts to the elaborate pageant which Sergeant Duncan Tovey evolved for the London Scottish last year at West Down. Nor is the camp without its natural humour, and the old stories are retold as now ones happen. "Are you a Cameronian ?" asked an officer of a Scot who joined a London battalion to be attached for drill. "No, sir," replied the man from Glasgow, "I'm a Presbyterian."

A good story is told of Sir Evelyn Wood, who, hearing that the dinners of a certain corps were not quite nice, went one day to personally inquire. He met a man coming from the field - kitchen carrying a steaming pannikin. "Let me taste that, my man," said the General peremptorily, scenting bad soup. He took a good swig. "Why," he exclaimed, "it's no better than dirty water!" "Yes, sor," answered the man, who was Irish; "that's just what it is." And he emptied it out and took in his cleaned can for the real article. Yet the corps do their own cooking in the field, and do it well, despite this incident.

There is a little railway station set in the wilds of Salisbury Plain that will one day be an historic spot. It is called Ludgershall. If ever the Territorial Force mobilises for war this junction will concentrate men from all parts for the Plain. In the training season it affords an idea of what its platform will be like in wartime, for trainloads of men from Lancashire and elsewhere run phantom-like into the siding in the dark, men detrain and march into the black, shrouded wilds of the Wiltshire desert.

An amusing tale is told of a northern battalion the night before it entrained for home. The officer commanding feared that a neighbouring corps would raid his lines in parting mischief; but, not wishing to spread his fears, he took hold of the sentry at midnight and enjoined upon him that for that particular night he was to rouse him (the colonel) in his tent if anything, small or big, happened which was out of the usual run of things. The man seemingly understood, and at 2 a.m. the flap of the colonel's tent was shaken. Jumping up, he demanded the news. "What's happened?" "Nothing, sir, nothing - just a small thing," replied the sentry; "the sergeant - major has come back sober!"

With a Machine Gun

(The 2^nd V.B. Fusilliers)

Field artillery is being created for the force, but last year the too enthusiastic friends of the scheme attracted national scepticism to this branch by describing it as "almost equal to the Regulars." This at a time when only 150 guns out of 800 needed had been issued, and when the men had had little else than riding drill. The gun is the old 15-pounder cast from the Regular service and made up (i.e. converted) into a quick-firer. Lord Roberts has denounced both the gun as obsolete and the spare time training of auxiliary gunners as a waste of energy. So grim an onslaught shook the confidence of everybody; but the authorities hope to overcome all difficulties by utilising the undoubtedly superior qualities of intelligence found amongst the men of the Territorial Field Artillery. On all hands it is hoped that the issue of the guns will be rapid and not like the issue of a certain Maxim to a London corps, who were advised that the gun was about to be sent. In three weeks' time the expectant corps received a spanner, and for a whole year this nut tightener was the only part which came to hand, and the machine-gun section paraded fifty times with it. It is interesting to record that the married non-commissioned officers receive separation allowance when in camp, but this boon is withheld from the private, because the cost of it would be £50,000.

The engineer service is also attractive one, with balloons and field telegraphs; whilst officers, like Colonel Kearns, the City of London's Sergeant-at-Arms, are turning their energies into the creation of efficient transport and supply services

A Scene at Aldershot

(1^st London Division, Army Service Corps)

Last, but not least, the Yeomanry are to be the "eyes and ears" of the battle line. No need is there to tell of the high state of efficiency existing in this branch, save that, like other mounted branches, they are not provided with horses for the war, the actual shortage in the whole force being still enormous. This is one of the serious problems; for an army, however good, is immobile and useless without horseflesh. The Yeomanry are a special class of men, and not of the kind who formed the second contingent for the South African War. These latter were not Yeomen at all, but merely a street collection of anybody who wanted five shillings a day.

The real Yeoman is fond of telling a war story against this hotch-potch contingent. Two of them were sent out scouting against De Wet one day. The raider captured them, but let both depart. The next day he again took them whilst they were "scouting," and again released both. As they had not reported their dual capture they were sent out for a third time, and again taken. De Wet, fond of a joke, sent them in under escort with a sarcastic note requesting the commander to keep these scouts in camp as he was tired of capturing them.

The war story of the force is a fine one. Seventy thousand volunteered to go, and over 30,000 were sent, and thus the Volunteers' first battle honours were won and will appear on the newly-given colours with a scroll bearing the words, "South Africa". The King himself will, it is said, soon review the Territorial Force. The effects of these Royal inspections, of course, are almost marvellous - as witness the King's famous Volunteer Review at Edinburgh.

III

For centuries the Navy has ensured the safety of these islands and a continued peace is historically associated with militant degeneracy. But while we have been immune from invasion the British Navy maintained itself on the coastline of its enemies and covered raids innumerable by military forces. This has been possible owing to the possession of dominating naval power, and it is an argument in favour of the chance of the scales being turned upon us whenever an enemy or combination of foes enters the field with naval strength sufficient to give us battle. In a few years the margin of the balance of power in the North Sea will be much smaller than it now is; great navies are also arising all over the world, particularly in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. It is for us to look ahead and realise possible danger.

Foreign powers, gauging in the customary academic sense the chances of landing a sea-borne force, take into account certain moral factors which tend to enhance their opportunities towards the development of a scheme of invasion. These are as follows: -

1. The loss of command of the sea to which Britain has been accustomed for generations would, even if only temporary, cause panic here; and the landing of an invading force, which had nearly always been thought impossible, would cause national demoralisation for a time.
2. The British troops available would be the non-regular forces, who in their present condition are as yet unprepared for serious warfare.
3. The invading force would therefore strike at some vital part before Britain could concentrate here county troops, and before she could recover from the stupefaction which her position would necessarily entail, but which would not be of long duration owing to the fine national characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon people for facing and overcoming difficulties.
4. Whilst this blow was being struck at a disconcerted populace attempt would be made by large forces to influence the situation in Britain by a victory abroad, which, if sustained would prolong the operations at home.

The moment the telegraph ticked out the news of a landing the whole Territorial fabric of home defence would be put in motion, and if it proved to have been neglected utter confusion would ensue of a magnitude impossible to a field army abroad. Our initial work would be the massing by rail and road on a broad line of 40,000 men from the midlands, 20,000 from Essex, 10,000 from Surrey, 20,000 from Middlesex and 20,000 from London.

If an enemy landed on the Norfolk coast, the objective of the invaders would be to seize the telegraphs of the Great Eastern and Great Northern railways with cavalry or cyclists, and drive a wedge between the northern and southern home forces to prevent them uniting. The natural obstacles to be met with on a line of march in accomplishing this consist of waterways and marshes of no considerable moment, and a vigorous offensive would be developed if possible before the Territorial Army could be concentrated.

The further objective would be the isolation not only of the north, but of the west by inward menace and feints at other landings. A force to besiege London would, covered in rear, ultimately guarded in the west, and with the left flank resting safely on the seacoast, move against such portion of our home army as might be assembled as a covering force round London. It is possible the 60,000 men would move south against the capital, another 40,000 being used as a holding force in the north midlands and in the west.

The troops available to meet an enemy would, if all Regulars were abroad, be the fourteen Territorial Divisions, of whom five or six, say 110,000 men, would be immediately available for operation against the enemy's main advance on London. The home command would, when his forces united, probably attempt to "draw" the enemy until the latter's line of communication became long and weak; he would probably threaten the enemy's western flank in order to make him advance with his force concentrated. The defenders might then fall back upon a prepared position outside London and give battle. This is the course of action which commends itself to one of our foremost soldiers at the probable trend of events, and it indicates that Home Defence should be a specialised training.

Let the Territorial Force therefore be taken from inland standing camps and be practised in on the Suffolk flats, the hedge-country of Essex, the close fields of Bucks, and on the natural positions, such as the Chilterns, the Fens, the Lea and the New River, the South Downs, and other places where they may gain a local knowledge of terrain such as the Boers possessed and which gave them many victories. With this training, and secure in full numbers and with moden scientific equipment, Great Britain could make invasion so hazardous that none would attempt it. This strength is not with us yet, but the nation is face to face with the problem and must find a solution.

Perhaps one of the most convincing arguments why we should have a strong home army - Lord Roberts says our total force should be a million men - is to be found in the enormous growth of foreign armies, any one of whom could afford to throw 300,000 men away at a venture of invasion.

As a consequence, many professional military men contend that we, as a nation, will eventually have to adopt compulsory military service, or conscription. This idea is also favoured by a large number of civilians, but the leaders of both political parties in the House of Commons believe that the English people as a nation love their liberty too well ever to accept any military exacted from them by compulsion, and hence we are witnessing the present attempt to organise the Yeomanry and Volunteers into an army in the full, proper, and complete sense of the word.

This really agreed to be final effort to obtain voluntary means a Home Defence Force capable of resisting invasion or raid. To show the serious nature of the problem, however, I append the statistics of foreign armies in comparison with our own, the total of all forces being taken:-

"Defence, not Defiance." To be strong is to be respected