The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—It is remarkable how closely the military
Forces of Prussia appear to resemble in numbers,
constitution, and division the military forces of this
country. A standing army of 200,000 men, sup-
ported by reserves of 350,000, would serve for a
description of one establishment almost as well as
of the other. It is only on paper, however, that
this likeness can be traced. Our regular army is
not, like the Prussian regular army, stationed at
home ; we retain only a fraction of it ; while the
rest is distributed over the various quarters of the
globe. That is the first and most important dif-
ference, nor does it admit of removal ; but in our
reserves we ought certainly to possess resources not
inferior to those which have carried Prussia so tri-
umphantly through a momentous conflict. There is
not the slightest reason, on the face of things, why.
the British militia, supported by the British volun-
teers, should not be as effectide as the first and
second levies of the Prussian Landwehr. If they
are not so, the fault lies, not in the men, but in the
system. We have no system whatever for the col-
lection or management of our army. We have
barely got to such a stage of organisation:as enables
us to establish small military camps, or muster a
few regiments of volunteers. We could sent out
20,000 men, but that is about the extent of
our military capacities, though we have fully
300,000 soldiers of one class or another in these
islands. We have a very small, but very efficient,
Army of Regular Troops ; we have a second Army
of 120,000 Militia, and a third Army of 150,000
Volunteers, without reckoning the Enrolled Pen-
sioners or the Irish Constabulary. But between
these Armies there is no link or connexion by which
they could be promptly drawn together and amal-
gamated into an effective and formidable whole.
The Regulars know nothing of the Militia, and the
Militia know nothing of the Volunteers. This is all
the more remarkable because the principle of cohe-
sion is obviously established in local origin. Every
county has not only its own Militia and its own
Volunteers, but its own regiment of the Line, and
that regiment is constantly discharging its time-ex-
pired soldiers, still young and vigorous, exactly like
the battalions of the Prussian Army. The diffe-
rence between the two.services is this,—that whereas
in Prussia the discharged soldiers of the Line pass
at once into the Landwehr, our Militia derives no
such advantage from the Standing Army, but re-
mains a mere stagnant force without the elements of
efficiency which such an infusion would communi-
aate. The Militia of a county should be equivalent
to a reserve battalion of the county regiment, avail-
able for home service. In the county Volunteers
we have the best materials for a third battalion, but
we have no.system of organization by which these
forces could be thus brought to account. Nobody
can read the descriptions given by our Military
Correspondent with the Prussian Army without
becoming painfully sensible of the contrast between
the Prussian Reserves and our own. More than
half the army which decided a great war in ten days
was composed of Reserves, or, as we might say, of
Militia. Of the behaviour of these troops in the field
we say nothing, for that is not the point on which
we need anticipate any defects at home. But
can anybody persuade himself that on a sudden
emergency our Reserves" could be fused into the
Regular Army at a month's notice, and to such
purpose as to be scarcely distinguishable from
the Regular Troops ? Could our Yeoinanry dis-
charge all the manifold duties of cavalry in the
field as successfully as Lancers or Hussars ? It
must never be forgotten that nearly two-thirds of
those soldiers who in less than a fortnight changed
the face of Central Europe were engaged but a few
weeks before in the ordinary avocations of civil life,
and will in a few weeks more'return to those avoca-
tions again. Prussia has achieved this high renown,
not by her standing army, but by her armies of re-
serves. She is poor; she is not thickly peopled;
and her administration is one of the most frugal in
the world. Yet from her population of, at most,
£19,000,000, and at a cost of less than £7,000,000,
without encroaching on the claims of industry, or
deranging the conditions of social life, she can put
into the field at the first call -500,000 soldiers, who
have not found their equals in one of the most
famous armies of Europe. We ought to learn
something from such a lesson. We have a popula-
tion of 30,000,000 instead of 19,000,000 ; we have
a revenue of £70,000,000, instead of £20,000,000 ;
and we spend upon our army £14,000,000, instead
of £7,000,000. Have we anything like proportionate
results to show for these resources? Be it observed,
that though we have not suggested any numerical
increase in our military forces, these forces are small
compared with the numbers of the population. At
the close of the last great war we maintained, in
regulars and Militia, at least 650,000 soldiers out
of a population not exceeding 13,000,000, or less
than half that of the present day. But it is not in
numbers that our weakness lies. We have soldiers
enough if we could combine them into an army. The
elements of a formidable force are lost by dissipa-
tion. There is no cohesion whatever between the
various branches of our service—no organization
by which the whole force could be converted at
Will into one mighty machine. This is the more
disappointing, because we have taken, one after
another, all the steps except the last to a better
system of national defence. We have enrolled our
militia, we have established our Volunteer force,
and we have spent, happily with admirable suc-
cess, great pains in organising a powerful artillery.
But we have never put all these forces together, nor
devised any system by which they could be put to-
gether, nor provided, in short, for the rapid con-
struction of an army out of the materials at hand.
Yet nothing can be more practical than these final
arrangements. We do not want a war to teach us.
The example of Prussia is sufficient to prove that the
best military organisation may be devised and con-
summated in profound peace, and without the expe-
rience of a single campaign. The system which has
worked all these wonders was thought out by men
sitting at home, assisted only by common sense,
patience, and inquiry. The great secret of all was
forethought. While the political rulers of Prussia
knew exactly what they wanted her military autho-
rities knew exactly what to do. Every battalion of
the army and reserves was kept well in hand. Every
function of every department had been carefully
studied, and provision made for its fulfilment. The
initiative being left to Prussia, the whole campaign
went like clock-work. No resource failed, no sub-
sidiary department broke down, no calculations were
disappointed ; and all this was done by steady, quiet
preparation, which left nothing to be extemporised
or hurried when the hour of action came. The
Prussian armies reached Vienna as punctually as
our regiments reach Caesar's camp according to pro-
gramme in a shame fight at Aldershot. Is it too
much to say that we might do something of this'
kind, not with the view of destroying a neighbour,
but for the safety of our own homes ? We have got
the men, and we have got the money—more of both,
indeed, than ever Prussia had. But we have not yet
got any effective organisation by means of which
our army, our militia, and our volunteers could be
brought shoulder to shoulder in defence of the king-
dom. We have no plan, no system, no ready
machinery of combination, no connexion subsisting
between our army and its reserves, no schemes for
keeping these reserves effective. That is the fault,
and a terrible fault it would prove in the hour of trial.
But the remedy is plain, and as the problem cannot
be impracticable, we hope the zeal of a new Minis=
try may rescue us from the danger.

HERALD.—There is one passage in Governor
Eyre's most able vindicatory reply to the farewell
address presented to him by the 1200 gentlemen of
Jamaica, on his departure from that island, well
worthy of attention, as proving that far greater ap-
parent barbarities than those said to have been com-
mitted in Jamaica during the existence of martial
law there may be perpetrated elsewhere, not only
with impunity, but even with public and official
approbation, provided only that African blacks be
not the victims. After justifying himself from the
charge of participation in acts condemned as un-
justifiably harsh by the report of the Commission,