The Washington herald., 1915-08-29

/
| in 1873. with a contingent Of 200 British
She had only 5000 q the siege of Toulor
| the next year. Wellington began hi
celebrated peninsular campaign agains
Napoleon with 5000 men, and it is doubt
full II he ever had more than 5000 scat
tered over the wide field of his opera.
tions. Finally. he had just 1891 British
| at Waterloo. where Germans. Hollanders
| and Belgians formed two-thirds of hil
| army.
The Queens Shilling.
Naturally. warfare is something allen
to people who have hardly caught a
fieeting glimpse of foreign foe in eight
centuries. Or heard a gun fired IN domes.
tic strife in more than 900 years. 1t is
equally natural that in the course OF
that long immunity the English should
have quite lost the taste of stopping
bullets, and that the trade of the pfi-
vate soldier should have fallen into
natural contempt.
In the spacious days of Queen Eliza
beth. England's army was Of about tie
same quality as that to which President
Diaz was reduced in the last years #
his Mexican dictatorship. The prison
doors were opened says the historian
Of the British army. the jails were
swept clean: robbers, highwaymen and
cut-purses. the sweepings of the nation.
were driven into the ranks
England's recruiting methods down al
most to our own time well expressed
the low opinion in which the nation held
the soldiers Contractors used to round
up and deliver men Just as they now
supply horses for the army. The pris IN
cruiting stations. Magistrates presented
to condemned malefactors the alterna-
tive of enlisting. thereby placing the
army on a level with a cham gang and
a convict camp.
The, brothel and the ale-house were
the favorite grounds of the recruiting
sergeant. who needed only to slip the
Queens shilling into the mug or .he
pocket Of his drunken victim. Until as
lately as 1879, the possession of that CON
was sufficient evidence that its possessvr
had accepted conduct money" and
thereby bound himself to enter the army.
And often the mug still has a glass
bottom, as a souvenier of the days when
a prudent Englishman would not drink
unless he could see that the fatal shiH-
ing had not been smuggled into his
ale.
There is the Illuminating story of
that method of recruiting and who
awakened from their spree to find
themselves enrolled beneath the hated
cross of ST George. After the drill
sergeant had done his best to instruct
the bewildered pair in an army cate
chism, they were brought before the
colonel to see if they had learned their
lesson. why should you fight for the
oueen?" he asked as question num-
ber one. Quite forgetting the cate
chism one of the recruits turned to the
other and warmly exclaimed, The
colonel is right! Why SHOULD we
fight for the Queen"
Under that system of enlisting, men
In one year-lS5S-oO.000 deserted
from an army of 10000. AS an in
ducement to make recruits more con-
tented with the service. fifty lashes
were prescribed in 1859 for the first
desertion, and if that did not suffice.
the letter D was branded an inch long
over the heart Of the deserter.
While men were being shanshaied
into the ranks. officers were chosen
from them in a way that equally ex-
pressed the national scorn for the
army. Commissions were auctioned
off to the highest bidders. like seats on
the stock exchange or boxes at the
opera. Any noodle whose father had
him was deemed good enough to COM
mand a regiment.
Fighting with Gold.
England is engaged now not only in
her first effort to put a big army in
the field. but ii is actually the first
time in 200 years and more that she
has been under the necessity of max
ing an important campaign in Europe
without the help of the Germans For.
from Blenheim to Waterloo. every Eng
lish victory was shared with the arms
of the reutons.
The Tudor sovereigns would have none
other in the Royal Guards. choosing not