The Express.
London, England, 1864-08-02 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 2.

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the Army has
reported to the SECRETARY for WAR, as the COM-
mander-in-Chief of the Volunteer force, his opinion
upon the performance of these troops at the Wim-
bledon Review. The judgment passed on them is
satisfactory, and not the less so because extravagance
of laudation is avoided. Owing to the critical state
of the wounded guardsman who still lies on the field,
that part of ordinary reviews which is most showy
and least useful, the expenditure of blank car-
tridge, was avoided, and the General Command-
ing was able to devote the whole period to an ex-
amination of the drill and discipline of the respec-
tive corps. Of these matters his Royal High-
ness is a competent judge, and the occasion
afforded a salutary means of checking the
reports which the local inspecting officers have
forwarded to head-quarters. Everyone who
has attended a Volunteer inspection must
have observed that these gentlemen, in
their natural desire to give all the encourage-
ment they can, are apt to use comparative rather
than positive terms, and to commend the regiment
which they address in somewhat vague generalities,
as having a good place among the other unnamed
corps of the same service. Posaibly the effect of
inspecting Volunteers only may be that • standard
of excellence becomes insensibly planted in the
inspector's mind a good deal lower than that which
he would apply to regular troops. But the
Duke of CAMBRIDGE, who sees the Volunteers
in • body only once a year, looks at them with the
eye of a general who has to oonsider what such
forces can do. This is complimentary to them
in the best sense. And they will not,
therefore, take it ill that he tells them they have
still much to learn. They must, he urges, practise
still more in the company and battalion move-
meats, which are the foundation of every more
extended formation or manoeuvre. It would seem
it is not so much knowledge that they are deficient
in, as readiness, quickness, and accuracy. These
qualities of expertness can only be gained by dili-
gent practice, and on practice he therefore insists.
It is, however, unfortunate that the Duke of
CAMBRIDGE has in this recommendation assumed
that it will be understood by the Volunteers in the
same sense as it would be understood if addressed
to a regular brigade. The implied censure
would in that case be telt to fall
upon the officers alone, for it would be
recognised by all that they were responsible for
any slackness in the men. But Volunteer officers
claim immunity from such a test, on the ground
that they cannot compel their men to work. That,
no doubt, is perfectly true. Bat the excuse covers
more than the facts warrant. They cannot compel
the men to practise ; but, on the other hand, the
men have practised more in proportion than most
of them have themselves. All that a mere soldier
needs to do is quickly and easily learned, and
easily retained. When he can march with steadi-
ness, wheel without jostling, face, and turn to the
right, left, and about, and "form fours," he has
actually learned everything which is required of
him in close order. Eight men in each company
must know a little more, as they are the " first
" men " of sections, but • single drill will teach
it them. Such are the whole duties the
privates have to perform, and their extreme
simplicity is such that the Volunteer Commission,
comprising several officers of the army, recom-
mended that attendance on 30 drills should be held
sufficient to make • recruit an effective, and that
15 drills • year afterwards should be sufficient to
keep him so. But the work of the officers and
non-commissioned officers is very different. On
them devolves the execution of the really compli-
cated movements. They take np the positions
which the ikAdier is to be moved into, and they
give the proper words by which he is marched I
or wheeled into the positions ordered. So their
education only begins where that of the privates
ends. But everything that the privates can do
depends on the correctuess of what their sergeants
and officers must first do. One of these in a
wrong place disorders and delays a com-
pany, a battalion, perhaps a brigade.
One of them even doubtful or tardy confuses the
men under him, and those whose movements de-
pend on his. Nor are these duties such as can be
lightly learned. In the little red book which
forms the whole duty of man with the drill instruc-
tor the drill of the men occupies but fifty pages,
the drill of officers and non-commissioned officers of
a regiment occupies 150 more. It is obvious then,
at the roughest computation, that the latter should
drill three times as much as the privates, if they
are to be equally expert with them in their re-
spective reeks. They might do so, for there is
what is called skeleton drill, in which a few men
may represent a battalion, and go through
all the movements as effectively as if 600
men were on parade. Therefore there
is both the need and the possibility of practice
among those on whom the efficiency of a corps de-
pends to an extent commensurate with their higher
responsibilities. And therefore, though they can-