The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-04-19 00:00:00

cStourbribge Obsetter

SATURDAY, APRIL 10th, 1884.

THE VOLUNTEER MANCEUVRES.

THE Easter Monday volunteer outing has this
year taki:n a turn d.Zerent feorn that of its pro-
d, eessors. It is a long Cnre ago thar, Lord
Itinetagh clraracteri the annual review as a
sha:n, and us the tuidtary authorities seemed to
think there was net much pzactical utility in
such a gathering, for some years it was not
held. BL ttis was a sewn) rather than a common
sense view to take. Easter Monday is a general
h:diulay, and if a volunteer review served no
other purp9se, it gave the men themselves some
healthy recreation, drew together a vast multi
tude of spectators, increased their interest in
the movement, and enconraged the marial spirit
,of the people. The review was, therefore, very
wisety revived, to the pleasure and prat of the
people of Brighton, or of Portsmouth, wherever
it mightihappen to be held. But this year, in
accordance with a suggestion from the Com-
mander-in-Chief, a more military aspect has
been given to the Easter Monday manceuvres.
Leaving for once the attr•-ctions of that agree.
able watering-place which is fatuiliriey known as
London on the-Sea, the citizen army was
divided into two forces, and in the imultZate
neighbourhood of the fortifications of Dover and
Portsmoath, in association with the regular
troops the authorities have endeavoured to soon
them something practical in the way of mimic
warfare.

Events move rapidly in these days, and per-
haps never was the flight oi Time more remark-
ably illustrated than in the reflection that five-
aed-twenty years hive elapsed since The
Volunteer movement became general. Those
who look back upon the history of that period
often marvel at the national scare which passed
over the land. The Napoleonic legend had,
however, been•revified in France ; and, some-
how or other, the people on this side of the
English Channel did not place much faith on
the assurances of the Emperor Napoleon. True,
he had declared at Bordeaux, in 1855, that "The
Empire is Peace !" but the tradirions of the
name were utterly opposed to this. He had
been on the throne of France less than three
years when he joined England and Turkey in
a costly war agaicist Russia. France had not
paid this off when, in the spring of 1859, the
Emperor engaged in war against Austria "for
an idea." That idea was the freedom of Italy
from the Alps to the Adriatic ; but after a short
and brilliant campaign on the plains of
Lombardy, his Imperial Majesty was content
with less than this programme, and, so far as
tbe Adriatic was concerned, Venetia was still
left in the hands of Austria. But when the
French Emperor returned from Lombardy to
Paris—in the suahner of 1859—with the laurels
of Magenta and Solferitho upon his brow, he
was undoubtedly the most powerful Sovereign
of his time. It did not fail to be noted here
that the Treaty of Vienna, which had for ever
destroyed the power of the First Napoleon, was
signed by the representatives of four great
Powers—Austria, England. Prussia, and Russia.
Now, the nephew had not long been on the
throne of his uncle, but in the short space of
less than seven years he had dealt, with two of
those Powers—Russia and Austria. Who knew
but what our turn might come next? Even in
the previous year, after the attempt to
assassinate the Emperor, and before the French
army had been flushed with triumphs in Lom-
bardy, the colonels had demanded to be led
apinst this country " Give us the order, sire,
and we will pursue those wretches to their hid.
ing places." This language had been resented
at the time, and was remembered now. Then
came the thoughts of . national defence, the
practical outcome of which was the formation of
the volunteer force.

It is impossible to say what might have hap-
pened if tha national institution in which we
take so much pride to day had never existed.
An invasion of England] was at the time
ridiculed by many as a chimera, as a creature of
the imagination, and as a physical impossibility.
Hai it been undertaken, no doubt it would have
met with the fate of the French attempt . to in-
vade Germany in 1870. Prussia was the fourth
of the great powers which signed the Treaty of
Vienna, and it was against Prus:Aa that France
then declared war. But specalatioa on what
might have occupied the mind of the Emperor
Napoleon would serve no purpose now. He has
gone to his account, his remains rest on English
soil, for he came here after all nct as a con-
queror, but as an exile under sentence of per-
peinal expatriation from the land over which he
had ruled. The force which had been celled
into existence through a universal national
suspicion of what his intentions might be, has
proved no mushroom organisation. It has not
withered away before the influence of carping
criticism, it has proved no mere phantom of the
night, to pass sway in the morning as the mist
fades in the valley when it is stricken with the
sunbeam. It is in fact a plant of very sub-
stantial growth, surrounded by the. associations
of a quarter of a century, and making the echoes
alike of the streets of our large towns and of our
eountry-sides ring with the inspiriting sounds
of the martial airs of England.