The New York herald., 1878-02-28
Organising an English Army.


+ Organising an English Army.
1t is reported positively from London that
if the British government sends an expedl-
tionary force to the East the command will be
given to Lord Napier of Magdala who will
have for his chiefof staff Sir Garnet Wolseley.
OF Ashantec. 10th of these men may be first
rate soldiers. notwithstanding the circum-
stance that the most conspicuous element
in the career of each is kind OF service
whose experiences it would be his first duty
to unlearn in war against real military
Power. Lord Napier successfully overcame
the natural obstacles to march in
Abyssinia and gained his laurels in
conflict in which the enemy was tie
fact of least account With British
troops opposed to such foe as the
Abyssinians the only difficulty, of course,
is to get at the foe, and this difficulty Napier
overcame. Wolseley had equal success with
the so-called warlike Ashantees. But the
error of supposing that experience gained
in victories over naked savages armed with
bows and spears and some few firearms OF
the most primitive pattern is valuable
against troops as good as ones own has been
strikingly exemplified in its consequences
in the recent history of Europe. No more
terrible blunder has been made than was
fallen into by the French administration
when it assumed that its Algerian conflicts
constituted school of war fitted to train its
officers to fight the Germans.
1t is pity that the government had not
been inspired to keep Sir Garnet Wolseley
home and make him Secretary of War.
From the points which the cable sends of
his article in the Nineteenth Century, on Eng
land's military power he seems to see pre-
cisely by what steps and methods England
can put good army in the field. and that is
above all others the kind OF man they want
in the administrative department that is to
put an army on foot if the occasion actually
comes. By comparison with the impor-
tance of having such o man in such place
it may be said that it is Of comparatively
little importance who commands the army,
or even who commands the commander.
In fact they might almost intrust the
army to the commander-in-chief him.
self, for anybody can handle it well
enough if it is once put in the field. But
to send away the man who seems to see how
it can be put in the field is madness. 1t is
true that if Sir Garnet had the responsible
ity of the administration on his shoulders
he might not reach the Same conclusions
with his arithmetic as he does in the pages
of magazine; but he would not vary more
than half, and as in the magazine he prom
ises four hundred thousand soldiers he
might, as Secretary, supply two hundred
thousand, which would be just one hundred
thousand more than any other man can get
He makes, it will be observed, very great
difference between the troops that are to be
put s'in line" and the troops that are to be
put at the seat of war. He is to have four
hundred thousand men ''in line" but to
fight the Russians he is to have two army
corps of thirty thousand men each.
There is, consequently, an important re-
duction in the number of four hundred
thousand when the need is that the troops
shall be put where the trouble is He can
supply four hundred thousand men "imme-
diately;" not, however, for war, but only to
"fall in line" at home. 1t is somewhat like
the man engaged to take part in the chorus
because he could sing at sight, but who
subsequently confessed that it was ''not
at first sight" Sir Garnet's four hundred
thousand Immediately means half that many
by and by. But with the Russians at San
Stefano, and with two or three hundred
thousand of them between the Turkish cap
ital and Adrianople, how long would it be
after q British expeditionary corps was on
the sea before the Russians would occupy
Constantinople2 And what could sixty
thousand do toward getting them out? And
could the next sixty thousand arrive before
these were used up? 1t will not do for the
English to keep in their heads the figures
that were good in the Ashantee war, nor yet
the figures with which they used to count
when they appeared on the Continent with
powerful continental allies.