Salisbury Plain—A cycle ride in the dark—Plan of Tidworth Barracks—Colonel Grierson—his forecast of Russo-Japanese War—An enthusiastic Horse Artillery man—The Blackmore Vale—Netley Hospital—Faulty Administration—A prolific Dame—Yeomanry characteristics—Tipnor Magazine—Bulford Camp—Stables, new plan—Shooting 180 years ago—The Chaplain-General—Surgeon-General Evatt—Improvement in visual efficiency—The choice of an Aide-de-Camp—The King’s gracious letter.
On the 1st October I went to stay with friends at Andover, accompanied by my second son, Captain C. M. Wood, Northumberland Fusiliers, who had just returned from South America, where he had gone, intending to leave the Army, but after personal experience declined a well-paid business engagement. He was better educated than are most Army officers, having on leaving school studied with Messrs. Wren & Gurney for the India Civil Service. When about to present himself for Examination, the entrance age limit was raised from seventeen to nineteen, dating from April 1st, and his birthday being on the 2nd April, the change would have obliged him to wait from seventeen till he was twenty years of age. I hesitated as to the expense involved, and he was unwilling to wait, so on a few days’ notice he passed into Sandhurst. His experience in Egypt, China, and in South Africa as Adjutant during the war had been valuable, and I offered him the post of Assistant Military Secretary, or Aide-de-Camp, warning him that he must not expect in the better paid post to hunt as often as I did, and he decided that hunting with me was better than the extra emoluments. This suited my convenience, for he not only hired houses and stabling, but managed all my disbursements, leaving me free to devote my time to my profession, and to as much amusement as I chose to take.
He and I cycled on the 1st October from Andover to Tidworth, then in the hands of contractors. I had previously pointed out to the Secretary of State the great delay which had occurred in commencing to build the barracks, because no precaution had been taken to arrange with the Midland Railway Company how much the contractor should pay for the use of the short line from Ludgershall to Tidworth over the line which was made for Government by and was still in the hands of the Midland Railway. This I got arranged, and on the 1st October the contractor’s son had begun, having about a thousand men at work.
The sites for the barracks had been approved by officers in the War Office who evidently had not been to the spot with the plans in hands, for a Barracks to be called “Assaye” looked close into a hill, and all the Commanding officers’ quarters had been thrown so far forward in front of the barracks that they could not have walked to Mess, and as their stables adjoined the quarters, the grooms would have had a distance varying from 800 to 1100 yards intervening between their rooms and the horses. I could not alter the position of the barracks, but I moved the Commanding officers’ quarters back, and personally never approved of any site which I did not see on the ground.
I found the question of the Tidworth barracks so interesting that we stayed late, and were benighted while we had still 7 miles to cycle to Penton Lodge, where we were staying with Mr. and Lady Susan Sutton. I was in front, followed at some distance by my son, the wheel of whose cycle catching a big stone turned him over, the somersault being so complete that a box of matches fell out of his waistcoat pocket. Walkinshaw, who was a few hundred yards behind, must have passed close to him, but in the darkness, the lamp having been broken, was unaware of what had occurred, and I was just starting back, after reaching Penton Lodge, to look for my son, when he appeared, cut about the face, but not seriously hurt.
Mr. Sutton mounted us at four o’clock next morning for cub-hunting, and after another visit to Tidworth I started on a round of inspection of my extensive District. I knew Dover, Portland, and Milford Haven, and had been stationed as a sailor at Portsmouth and Plymouth, so had some knowledge of the 2nd Army Corps District.
As it was necessary to hire a house in Salisbury as an office, I was obliged to request the Generals to carry on as before for a short time. My son acted as my Staff officer, besides taking charge of my domestic concerns, until Colonel Grierson340 joined me at the end of October. I had had the pleasure of meeting him before, and renewed his acquaintance late one evening, when I found him sitting on an empty packing case of stationery in a fireless, carpetless room, lighted by a guttering candle fixed in a mound of grease on the mantelpiece. I named him Mark Tapley, for on that occasion, as in other trying circumstances, he showed the utmost good-humour, and talked as if he were sitting in a well-furnished office.
In the two years we worked together I cannot recall we ever had a difference of opinion, and I found his knowledge of Continental Armies of great assistance in organising the Army Corps.
Six months before the Russo-Japanese War broke out, Grierson, who knew both Armies, said to me in reply to a question, “Yes, sir, the Japanese will win all along the line. Why? Because, they are just as brave, are better instructed and equipped, and on the battlefield will be more numerous than the Russians.”
When we got to work I found it was difficult to extract from the War Office any delegation of authority in spite of the earnest wishes of the Secretary of State. As an instance in point, I mention the case of a sergeant of the Army, serving with a Yeomanry Regiment, whose Colonel thinking badly of him, asked that he might be remanded to his Regiment. This I recommended, pointing out that although it might be necessary if his Regiment had been out of the District that I should refer the point to the War Office, yet as both the Cavalry and Yeomanry regiments were in my Command, I submitted it was a matter for my decision. This view was not accepted at the time, although it was later on approved, after indeed much correspondence. Lord Roberts, to whom I appealed, saw matters as I did, but it was many months before the schedule of questions which I suggested should be dealt with locally, was approved.
I asked the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief to cut me off from the War Office for three months, except in important financial matters, suggesting that if I had done anything seriously wrong at the end of that time I should be removed. My intimacy with Mr. St. John Brodrick helped me considerably, as did his repeated desire that I was to endeavour to obtain “real Service efficiency as cheaply as possible.”
I was interested when making a surprise inspection of Taunton Barracks to find a sergeant proceeding to the post-office, about 400 yards from the Barracks. I had imagined that the reforms I introduced at Aldershot in 1889–90 had spread, but was mistaken, as indeed I was in believing I had done away with Sunday cleaning-up work, for when I visited some Artillery stables after I had been more than a year in command of the Army Corps, one Sunday morning, I found a general sweep-up being carried out, and stopped it peremptorily.
When I went to Aldershot in 1867, Sunday was a show day in stables, which gave rise to a Horse Artillery man’s curious request. A young soldier going up to his Commanding officer, said, “Please, sir, I want to change my religion.” “What’s up? What do you want to be?” “I want to be a Roman Catholic.” “Priest been at you?” “No, sir; no priest.” “Woman?” “No, sir.” “Well, I shall not allow you to change your religion.” “Please, sir, any man may be any religion he likes in the Army.” “Yes, but I have got you noted as being a Church of England man, and I don’t mean to allow you to change without giving me some reason.” The man then admitted his real object. “Well, you see, sir, a Roman Catholic always goes to church at eight o’clock, and I think if I was a Roman, it would give me a better chance with my ’arness.”
The feeling of pride in the Horse Artillery is great. Grierson had a very good servant whom he wished to get put on the Married roll. Going up to London, having a friend in the Office, he got the servant put on the Married roll in Field Artillery, there being no vacancy in the Horse, and on coming back, told the man, thinking he would be pleased, but received for answer, “I am much obliged to you, sir, but I beg leave to decline, as once ’orse Artillery always ’orse Artillery. I won’t go into Field, even to be put on the Married roll.”
The day after I arrived at Salisbury, doing inspections without any Staff officer, I sent my son to Sherborne, where he hired for me a lodging and stabling, which I used in the winter throughout my three years’ Command. The north part of the Blackmoor Vale Hunt country is as near perfection as possible, and a more pleasant set of hunting gentlemen it would be impossible to imagine. Mr John Hargreaves, a son of an equally enthusiastic Master of Fox Hounds, whom I had known in my first days at Aldershot, “carried the horn” himself, and the first season I hunted with him, 1901–2, accounted for a hundred brace of foxes.
The first time I was stopped by frost, I went on from Sherborne to Falmouth, and thence to the Scilly Islands. We were caught in a gale, and the Admiralty yacht, which by the Admiral’s kindness had been placed at my disposal, made bad weather, so after enjoying for a day or two the hospitality of Mr. Dorrien-Smith, whose brother, Smith-Dorrien, had served with me in the Egyptian Army, I came back by the passenger steamer to Penzance, and as the frost still held, went from Exeter to examine a Rifle range about which the Inspector-General of Fortifications had disagreed with the General officer commanding the Western District. When we left the train at Lydford, Dartmoor was coated with ice, and the horses had great difficulty in keeping their feet. Grierson, however, extolled cheerfully and continuously the merits of the fine fresh air on the moor, his circulation being, I imagine, much better than is mine.
Just before Christmas I made a Surprise Inspection of Netley Hospital, and saw much of which I could not approve. A battalion at Portsmouth furnished a half company of 53 young soldiers all under a year’s service, and these men had only done two hours’ drill during the last three months, being employed in every sort of menial work. At least twice a week, six of them were supposed to be weeding gardens. If they did anything at all, they must have made them as bare as the General at Aldershot did the Long Valley, which he found covered with heather in 1855.
The misuse of soldiers had in this instance one good effect, for it helped me to abolish the appointment of Commandant just then vacant, and to let the Doctors manage their Hospital. There were many objections raised to the company being taken away: the Government lighter which brought stores from Woolwich would be kept waiting for men to unload it; there would be no guard to take charge of the Army Medical Corps men if they got drunk; there would be no one to keep the patients who were allowed to go outdoors from straying into the adjoining villages, and there would be no one to keep civilians out of the Hospital grounds. It took me many months, but eventually I was allowed to hire two civilian policemen, who with a few military police did everything that was required, the Army Medical Corps being told that if some of their men got drunk, others would have to go on guard; while the window-cleaning and coal-carrying was done by taking on a few discharged old soldiers. The Infantry can never be adequately instructed for Service until the Army Council and Generals realise that Service efficiency must be put before local administration.
It was fortunate that I was at the Railway station when a party of invalids, discharged from Hospital, and out of the Service, were being sent off, some of them to travel as far as Edinburgh. They were without greatcoats or rugs of any description, the thermometer being at 30°. This was in accordance with existing Regulations. I sent them back, and had coats issued at once, Mr Brodrick supporting my unauthorised action.
In February some Militia occupied the Bulford hutments. A battalion of the Lincoln were fairly grown men, but there was another alongside of it the sight of which indicated we had come to the end of those who enlist voluntarily even in a war. I asked one lad, who was about fourteen, his age, and he said seventeen, which was obviously inaccurate.
I now lost the assistance of General Grierson for some months, as he was called to London to work in the office of the Quartermaster-General; but he came down at his own expense every Saturday afternoon, thus keeping in touch with the work by reading up on Sunday what had been done during the week. My friend Colonel S. Lomax, who was Adjutant of the 90th Light Infantry with me in 1878 in South Africa, joined as Staff officer, and although he had not been on the Staff, yet being a thoroughly good Regimental officer, was useful. He had been at the Staff College, so soon acquired the necessary knowledge of Staff duties.
I had lived in a house belonging to Lord Pembroke on first going to Salisbury for six months, but on the return of the tenant was persuaded by my son to go into another, called “The Island.” It was surrounded by streams, which after rain came up flush with the surface of the ground. There was obviously no possibility of a cellar, but my son was quite correct in asserting the house would be dry, for there was not a damp room in it, and it stood in a charming old-world garden.
There were thirteen Yeomanry regiments in the Command, all of which I saw yearly. They varied in efficiency, but all Commanding officers had loyally accepted the new idea that the Yeomanry should use their horses as a means of locomotion, dismounting to fight.
As a general rule, if an imaginary north and south line is drawn on a map through Bath, the men of the Regiments to the west of it were generally farmers or their sons, riding their own horses. The amount allowed, £3, for the hire of a horse in the west gave ample margin, while in the east of my District there was considerable difficulty in obtaining the horses, which mostly came from Livery stable-keepers in London, or on the south coast of England.
I always inspected Yeomanry in practical work, and in the first two years I looked at every man individually, finding there was much room for improvement in the saddlery, and the way in which it was fitted. Some of my readers will think this is scarcely the duty of a General, but I did it with an object, for my inspection induced closer attention by the Squadron commanders, who had evidently in some cases inspected in a perfunctory manner in previous years.
The Regiments nearly all trained about the same time, and as the Commanding officers naturally wished to have a week or ten days’ work before the inspection, I had to use two sets of horses and servants, and to travel day and night to get from Welshpool or Tenby, to say Lewes, and Shorncliffe. In my second year of Command I induced two or more Regiments to train together, and encamped with them a battery of Artillery.
I received many offers of hospitality, but was too much hurried to avail myself of them as a rule, but I spent a delightful twenty-four hours at Badminton, where there is a stately avenue, three miles long, which runs up to the house through the park, nearly ten miles in circumference.
The men of the Glamorganshire raised during the War were mainly clerks and mechanics. The Colonel, Wyndham Quinn, a good officer with a progressive mind, had taught his town-bred recruits a great deal in a limited time. The County had behaved liberally in equipping the Corps, and I found the men encamped in Margam Park, which was generously placed at their disposal by the owner, Miss Talbot. Immediately opposite to her dining-room windows there is a steep hill, for the oaks on which it is said the Admiralty, shortly before the invention of iron hulls for ships, offered her father £100,000, which he declined.
The most remarkable of the Yeomanry Regiments in the 2nd Army Corps was the North Devon. It was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Viscount Ebrington, who if he had not been a Peer of the Realm might have been a successful man of business, for all his arrangements indicated a mastery of finance. I stayed with him one or two days on Exmoor, twelve miles north of South Molton, where he had converted a disused public-house into a fairly comfortable abode. The table arrangements were remarkable in that the whole of our dinner came off the estate on the moor. The soup made from mutton bred on the estate; the fish—trout—from a stream immediately above the house; while the joint, poultry, and indeed everything except the sweet, was produced within a few hundred yards of where we were sitting.
Next morning, when we left my entertainer, he guided me for a dozen miles over the moor to a cross track, where we were met by the huntsman of the Devon and Somerset Stag Hounds, who piloted us another ten miles, until he put us on to a bridle path leading into Minehead, where the West Somerset were awaiting my inspection. The North Devon is the only Regiment I know in which, among the officers, were to be found eleven Masters, or ex-Masters of hounds.
The Montgomeryshire Yeomanry were quite different in appearance from any others in the Command. Many understood little, and spoke no English. They performed tactical operations, however, with intuitive skill. The officers were unusually efficient, and nearly all the men were small farmers. It was remarkable that while some of the Eastern Regiments paid 4s. 6d. for their messing, the Welsh were content to expend only 1s. 6d. or 2s. per diem for their food. Colonel Sir Watkin Wynne would be a remarkable man anywhere. Possessed of great determination, he generally had his way, and being a believer in the theory that horses did not catch cold in the open, he brought into camp in 1902 eleven of his hunters, which stood in a sea of mud at the picket post without injury.
Visiting the Military Hospital at Portsmouth, in order to decide a point between the Sister Services, as the Navy wished to annex a bit of the Military Hospital grounds, I found I had sufficient time to visit Tipnor Magazine, a strange out-of-the-world place, reminding one of Quilp’s counting-house in The Old Curiosity Shop.341 I had just succeeded in carrying out, after months of importunity, a change of system which I had inaugurated when I was Adjutant-General. For a month at a time, an officer, 2 sergeants, and 33 men were stationed at Tipnor to guard the magazine. There was nothing for the soldiers to do, and any man confined to a beat, and given a rifle and a bayonet which he must not use, is as inefficient a watchman as can be readily imagined. Perhaps some of my readers may remember the picture of the gutter boy making faces at a handsome Guardsman at Whitehall, who says to the urchin, “You go along out of that.” The boy replies, “That’s just what you can’t do.”
I got permission for the Metropolitan Police to take over charge of the Magazine in 1900, when the number of trained soldiers remaining in the country made it difficult to find any such guard. I had represented to the Chief Commissioner, my friend Sir Edward Bradford, it was a most important charge, and must be carefully watched. A few days afterwards, I met Sir Charles Howard, one of the Divisional Superintendents, who lived in the same street as I, and he told me with much amusement that having gone to Tipnor unannounced he found the officer and two sergeants were away, and a Lance Corporal was the only person of authority in the place. To my regret, the soldiers have been ordered to resume charge of the place, which would have been much more effectually watched by three or four Civil or Military policemen.
My next visit to Portsmouth was made to decide as to the necessity of having a sentry over a Magazine. I had taken off all the Divisional sentries except one over the General’s house, as I did not wish to deprive him of the honour which he prized, but which I had given up on assuming command of the Aldershot Division.
The Commanding officer, whose judgment I generally accepted, judged it to be essential that a guard should be retained, as the Magazine contained ball ammunition. On visiting it, I found it was fairly protected by its natural position, and as the total amount of ammunition in it never exceeded £120 in value, I considered it was bad economy to employ a guard, which cost at least £300 per annum in pay, food, and clothing for the men, and removed it, without any unfortunate result up to the time of my leaving the Command.
Some of the sentries removed have already been replaced. I was sitting at dinner towards the close of my Command between Lord Roberts and General Sir Forestier Walker, and mentioned to his Lordship the previous week I had found a sentry whose primary duty was the protection of a Regimental pet ram, to ensure its not being teased by children. “What Regiment?” he asked. I said, “No, my lord; it is one of my children, and I cannot tell tales out of the family. But you can be satisfied the ram is being teased now; at all events, the sentry is not protecting it.” I then told him I had recently seen a sentry at Plymouth, who, on my asking him his duties, answered, “I am to prevent anyone landing at the steps below me in plain clothes except Lord Morley and Lord Mount Edgcumbe.” I said, “Do you know these lords?” “No,” he said; “I don’t know one lord from another.” Sir Forestier said, “Why, is that sentry on? I took him off when I was in command.” I said, “He has been put back, and I am trying to get him removed by fair words.” Sir Forestier observed, “His orders were much better in my time; they ran, “I am not to allow anyone to bathe at these steps improperly dressed, except Lord Mount Edgcumbe.”
In one of my visits to a southern fortress I had been assured £500 should be granted for iron rails for fencing, but on visiting the spot I found that more than the length of railing already existed, and by a slight alteration no addition was required. Similarly, £180 for a Drill Hall having been strongly recommended, I found on visiting the spot there was already a verandah not required for other purposes, 700 feet long by 10 feet wide, which fully answered the purpose.
I did not always succeed. For example, after a year’s correspondence, I got the stabling for the Mounted Infantry at Bulford built in the form of a hollow square, the parade being in the centre. My object was to save sentries, and the angles where no stabling existed were closed by five-feet-high iron railings, with gates which swung on rollers. After the stables had been in use for six months, I found that my reasons not having been passed on, the gates were not closed at night, as I had intended, and the economy of sentries had not up to that time been effected.
I shocked some of the Army Corps Staff by my practice of inspecting the unsavoury places at the back of Barracks during my unexpected visitations. The notice I gave as a rule was to despatch a message to the Senior officer on arriving at the Barrack gate. I found much that was undesirable, but never anything to equal that in the Eastern District in 1886–87, where I found a Commanding officer who had occupied barracks for six months did not know whether his latrines were on the dry-earth or water-carriage system, nor where they were situated.
At the close of the hunting season 1901–2 I was staying at Melbury, Lord Ilchester’s seat, which is remarkable for many objects of beauty, but in the Fox-hunter’s point of view particularly so, in that there were twenty-two litters of cubs in the vicinity of the house. His Lordship, who kept also a pack of Deer Hounds, told me that his best recorded run was some years ago, in the month of June. After dinner, most of the party sat down to Bridge, and Lady Helen Stavordale, his Lordship’s daughter-in-law, knowing my tastes, gave me an old game book in which the list of game shot at Melbury and its vicinity has been noted for 150 years. I was reading about A.D. 1726, where the daily bags of Lords Digby and Ilchester are recorded. It appears they considered two pheasants was a poor day’s sport, but anything over eight was held to be satisfactory. There is a curious entry in 1726, “Lord Digby made a very fine shot, and killed a cock pheasant. This was difficult, as it was siting (sic) on a hedge.” Sportsmen of the present day should remember that the firearms of their predecessors were very different from those now in use.
I had several agreeable visitors at Salisbury, one or two belonging to the Opposition in Parliament, who thought more highly of Mr. Brodrick’s scheme of the three Army Corps before they left the district, but perhaps the most pleasant of all was the new Chaplain-General. He kept me up till past midnight talking, being most earnest and enthusiastic about religion, but with a remarkably broad mind. He was addressing a crowded audience in the evening, and was arguing that the Church of England was like the nave of a wheel, the spokes representing all the other branches. When the people were dispersing a coachman came up to him and said, “I liked your address very much, and especially the story about the wheel, but, excuse me, I am a coachman, and think you might well have added the tyre is the love of Christ which should bind us together.” The Bishop said, “Thank you, I will use that next time.”
In all my efforts for decentralisation I was backed by Mr. St. John Brodrick. He was never wearied of hearing from me, and sympathised with my efforts, often ineffectual, to relieve the offices in London of petty details. I pointed out that I was not permitted to authorise a tenant who rented a piece of beach at Portsmouth which was gravelled, to have it cemented, without referring it to the Inspector-General of Royal Engineers. Mr. Brodrick tried to help me also in my efforts to induce delegation of authority to local Engineer officers. I found in the Western district stairs leading down into an engine-room, on which the soldiers had to carry coal trays, with much difficulty owing to a sharp turn, avoidable if a hole had been cut in the ground, as you see in every London street; and when I disapproved, I was told officially that it was a type, and types must be followed. Similarly, every screen for shutting off a bath is made about 7 feet high, as if intended for a zenana. Mr. Brodrick endeavoured to assist me in all such points. After inspecting the new Barracks being erected, he wrote: “I congratulate you most heartily on the immense progress made on Salisbury Plain since you assumed command.”
He is one of the few Cabinet Ministers I have met who realise the importance of having somebody at the head of troops who can be held responsible for seeing that they are prepared for war. Such an officer must exist to ensure that the ammunition columns, waggons, and equipment of every kind is complete; that the harness for the horses, and the vehicles are all in good order. There are numbers of officers who have a divided duty in these matters, but there should be one person to whom the Army Council can look, and who can be held responsible that the command is ready for War Service.
I was greatly assisted in my endeavours to improve the sanitary state of the barracks in the 2nd Army Corps district by the persevering efforts of the principal Medical officer, Surgeon-General G. J. Evatt, M.D., C.B., than whom I have never had a more enthusiastic sanitary assistant. He introduced great changes, incurring a certain amount of ill-will, as all eager reformers do. His visits to the kitchens of the officers’ messes in the barracks of the district brought to the notice of the Commanding officers what I had long known, they were the dirtiest places in barracks, except perhaps the canteens. In few of the latter was there sufficient accommodation, with the result that the contractor’s agent was reported in several instances to be “sleeping at the back of the grocery bar, with his head on a cheese and his feet in a butter bowl.”
The Surgeon-General helped me to obtain a concession for the soldiers, for which I had striven many years in vain. Up to the time of my command at Salisbury the soldier never had more than two shirts; as one went to wash if he got wet, he had to sleep in it, or sleep naked, at his choice, but day and night one shirt at the wash, and one shirt on the man’s body was the custom. With Evatt’s assistance and his graphic accounts of the state of some Militia regiments, the Secretary of State gave way, and authorised a third shirt.
I had hoped that Evatt and I might serve on to get the men a sleeping suit, but the “guns having ceased to shoot,” to paraphrase Mr. Kipling, there is now less consideration for the private soldier than is felt in War time.
My indefatigable Sanitary Inspector sympathised greatly with my desire to reduce the number of sentries, appreciating as a doctor the unfavourable effect of night duty on the health of the young soldier; and although I, personally preferring a hard bed, did not sympathise so thoroughly with a reform he advocated, yet I authorised in the command the abolition of the boards on which the soldier slept in the guard-room, which were replaced by bedsteads.
The Surgeon-General found out in one Hospital some reprehensible customs, such as the officer in charge signing his Diet Sheets for a week in advance, and this was in a district where the Ward master, after committing frauds of over £100 on Diet Sheets alone, had just committed suicide.
Surgeon-General Evatt tried to help me in another Reform, which may, I hope, be effected by my successors, for when I gave over the Southern Command in December 1903, my recommendations were “still under consideration.”
When I was Quartermaster-General, a company of Garrison Artillery detained for Free Town, Sierra Leone, was quartered half at that Station, and half at Plymouth, ready to embark if required. My study of the Health statistics disclosed the fact, that of 16 men, the 1st Relief of the guns in a battery, at King Tom, situated at the head of a lagoon, 13 were continuously on the Sick Report. I got this detachment removed up to hills, whence they could still get to the battery quickly in case of need. In the nineties a complete Company was stationed at Sierra Leone for twelve months, and in June 1903, when I was inspecting a Company at Falmouth, which had returned four months previously, I was so perturbed by the look of the remains of malarial fever in the men’s faces, that I demanded a history of their service on the West Coast. The Company disembarked at Free Town 93 men of unusually fine stature; lost 5 dead, 5 invalided, 1 sent home, and 1 deserter. Struck by the fact that no man died, or was invalided within the first six months of residence, I submitted that irrespective of dictates of humanity, we should exchange the men every six months, as a more economical arrangement.
The first year I went to Salisbury I gave a cup, with a view to improving the shooting of the Rank and File at unknown distances. Each of the Sub-Districts in the command sent a team of four, who were presumably the best in the corps, as they were ordered to have a preliminary Competition. The result was such as would, if known, encourage soldiers in their first battle. The ground on Salisbury Plain is certainly difficult, consisting of rolling plains without a tree or any mark to guide the eye, and consequently it is very difficult to estimate distances. The first team was composed of three very young soldiers and one veteran who wore spectacles and could not double 300 yards, which was a condition of the competition. Another team consisted of soldiers of about four months who had not done the “Trained Soldier’s course” of musketry. The third, from the Devon Regiment, which won, had men of seven, eleven, and eighteen years’ service. The targets were actually 2500, 1400, 800, and 340 yards distant. The judging, except at 2500 yards, was ludicrously erroneous, and when the targets jumped up like a “Jack in the box” at 340 yards, all the teams guessed 500 or 600. These targets were only the size of a man’s chest, but those 1½ miles off represented a quarter of a Battalion standing in column, and were a broad and deep mark, but in the result 1100 shots fired by the three teams gave only five hits. Although this was very unsatisfactory, it called attention to our faulty training, which I am glad to believe has since been rectified.
The result of the above competition induced me to consult the Surgeon-General, whom I told that when the targets jumped up close to the men, being visible only for forty seconds, many men did not see them until they were disappearing, and under his advice I initiated a system of improving the visual efficiency of the soldiers. It was taken up by Colonel S. Lomax, who was temporarily in command of a brigade, and the result gave satisfaction to everyone. The doctors tested every man separately in the first instance, and the company officers then endeavoured to improve the eyesight of all.
I mentioned the successful result of enabling the Army Service Corps to do their own work and eliminating the middleman as a forwarding agent of Stores,342 but I was able, by bringing to the notice of the generals under me, to cause them to make considerable saving of public money; that in one Sub-District amounting to something over £2000 per annum.
I called for a return of all the boats in the Command belonging to Government, and also those hired, with a very curious result. It transpired that in one district a coxswain and crew had been paid, although from time immemorial no boat had existed. The oldest clerk in the office had never heard of the boat, nor was there any record of it, and to render the situation rather more comical moorings had been for years hired for that boat. This was explained later by the statement that the moorings were available for all boats, and they merely happened to be entered to that boat as a matter of account; but further inquiry whether any of the boats used the moorings, elicited a negative reply, and a further statement that the hiring of moorings had been discontinued. I said nothing more on the subject, on ascertaining that the general concerned made the economies I have stated above. In another great Naval port there was a similar case, and that was also terminated.
Perhaps the most interesting part of my duties consisted in the instruction and practice of Artillery. I took my Senior Aide-de-camp343 without ever having seen him, from the recommendation of one of the best Senior officers of Garrison Artillery in the district, Colonel W. W. Smith, writing to him: “Will you please recommend me a Garrison Artillery-Aide-de-camp? He must be able to ride, and must have a good knowledge of, and be keen about his work.” He named Major C. Buckle, D.S.O., who found for us the Rhyader Range after looking over many places in Cardiganshire and the adjoining counties. There were only two or three small houses on it which was essential to vacate. The range is quite safe for 12,000 yards, but it has its disadvantage, as have all such places, that it is isolated, and there is a steep climb up to the range of mountains.
I saw some of the Garrison Artillery at one of my inspections fire at a target 3800 yards distant, travelling at 6 miles an hour. The first five shots were all on the target, and the sixth shot cut the connecting rope by which the steamer was towing it.
Early in the Spring of 1903 I read at breakfast in the Times that Sir George White had been made a Field Marshal by His Majesty the King, who was visiting Gibraltar, and when I got to the office I found the Army Corps Staff indignant, as Sir George was a colonel when I, as a Major-General of four years’ standing, had got him brought out to Egypt for the Khartoum Expedition. I sent him a telegram congratulating him on his good fortune, and received a reply in a very short time, that he had heard on the best authority I had received the same honour. In the afternoon I had a kind private letter from the Secretary of State announcing His Majesty’s pleasure, to whom I wrote a letter of grateful thanks the same evening, and received the following gracious reply:—
H.M. Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert,
Malta, April 1903.My dear Sir Evelyn Wood,—Many thanks for your kind letter. It has given me the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to promote you to the rank of Field Marshal, after the long and distinguished services you have rendered for the Crown and country.—Believe me, very sincerely yours,
Edward R.