CHAPTER XI

Although the narrative of the War of the Spanish Succession has not infrequently been interrupted in order to give the reader an occasional glimpse of the progress and difficulties of the military administration at home, yet much has been of necessity omitted, lest the strand, enwoven of too many and too distinct threads, should snap with the burden of its own weight and unravel itself into an inextricable tangle. I propose therefore at this point to summarise the orders, regulations, and enactments of the War Office and of the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Anne to the Peace of Utrecht, so as, if possible, to convey some notion of the legacies, other than those of glory and prestige, that were bequeathed to the Army by this long and exhausting war.

The reader will, I think, have gathered at least that the extension of operations and the consequent increase of the British forces during the war was almost portentously rapid. A few figures will make this more apparent. In 1702 and 1703 Flanders was practically the only scene of active operations, the raid on Cadiz being of too short duration and too little account to be worthy of serious mention. In both of these years the British troops with Marlborough were set down at eighteen thousand men. In 1704 to 1706 they rose to twenty-two thousand, and in 1708 to 1709 to twenty-five thousand men, reverting once again to twenty-two thousand from 1711 to 1712. Concurrently with the first increase of 1704 came the first despatch of eight[555] thousand troops to the Peninsula, rising to nine thousand in 1705, ten thousand in 1706, and twenty-six thousand[380] from 1707 to 1709, relapsing between 1710 and 1712 to rather over twenty thousand. The total number of forces borne on the list of the British Army at its greatest was six troops of Household Cavalry, eleven regiments of horse, sixteen of dragoons, and seventy-five of foot, comprehending in all seventy-nine battalions.[381] The nominal war strength of a battalion in Flanders was, as a rule, in round numbers nine hundred and forty of all ranks, in the Peninsula from seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred and eighty, a diversity of establishments which gave rise to much trouble and confusion. It would not be safe to reckon the British infantry at any period during the war as exceeding fifty thousand men. The regiments of dragoons again varied from a normal strength of four hundred to four hundred and fifty, rising in occasional instances to six hundred; but they cannot reasonably be calculated at a higher figure than six thousand men. The regiments of horse were subject to similar variations, but their total strength, even including the six strong troops of Household Cavalry, cannot be counted as more than seven thousand men. There then remains the artillery, of which, from want of data as well as from vagueness of organisation, it is impossible to make any accurate calculation. Speaking generally, the highest strength actually attained by British troops at home and abroad during the war may be set down at seventy thousand men.[382]

[556]

The defect that will seem most flagrant, according to modern ideas, in the scheme above sketched is the multiplicity of distinct units that go to make up so small a force. The French had long abandoned the system of single battalions, and indeed given to their regiments the name of brigades. In the British Army the Guards and the Royal Scots alone had two battalions; and though we know by actual information that, in the case of the former, the battalions at home were used to feed those abroad, yet it is indubitable that both battalions of the Royal Scots took the field and kept it from beginning to end of the war. For this, however, the principles that then governed the conduct of a war and the maintenance of an army sufficiently account. The year was divided for military purposes into two parts—the campaigning season, which lasted roughly from the 1st of April to the 1st of October, and the recruiting season, which covered the months that remained over. Directly the campaign was ended and the troops distributed into winter quarters, a sufficient number of officers returned home to raise for each regiment the recruits that were needed. In strictness no officer enlisted a man except for his own corps; and it was only occasionally that a regiment, having enlisted more recruits than were required for its own wants, transferred its superabundance to another.

But apart from this, we find throughout the reign of Queen Anne a resolute and healthy opposition to the principle of completing one regiment by drafts from[557] another. At the beginning of the war the ranks of the Army were, thanks to the wanton imbecility of the House of Commons, so empty that it was impossible to send any appreciable number of regiments abroad without depletion of those that were left at home. As an exceptional favour therefore the first troops sent to Spain and to the West Indies were completed by drafts; but at that point the practice was checked.[383] Marlborough had early set his face against so vicious a system, and although once, under pressure of orders from the Queen herself, he directed it to be enforced, yet it is sufficiently clear from his language and from his ready deference to the protest of the officer concerned, that he fully recognised the magnitude of its evil.[384] After the disaster of Almanza the War Office appears to have been urged in many quarters to resort to drafting, but St. John told the House of Commons outright that the practice had been found ruinous to the service, prejudicial alike to the corps that furnished and that received the draft. As Marlborough's influence declined, the mischievous system seems to have been revived, and although in more than one case colonels flatly declined to part with their men,[385] yet at the close of the war we find garrisons denuded by drafts to an extent that was positively dangerous.[386] The same objectionable practice, as is well known, is still rampant among us; would that the authority of Marlborough could help to break it down.

There remains the question why, instead of raising new regiments, the authorities did not raise additional battalions to existing regiments? The reply is that they doubtless knew their own business, and adopted the best plan that lay open to them. Englishmen have [558]a passion for independent command. To this day, as the history of the volunteers shows, there are many men who, though unwilling to serve in any existing corps, would cheerfully expend ten times the care, trouble, and expense on a regiment, or even on a troop or company, of their own. It must be remembered, too, that a regiment in those days was not only a command but a property, that it afforded to officers opportunities for good and for evil such as are now undreamed of, that, lastly, it was in the vast majority of cases called by its colonel's name.

Let us now, before examining the measures taken for the supply of recruits, glance briefly at the principal centres and causes of consumption and of demand. The inquiry must not be considered superfluous, for the primary force in the maintenance of a voluntary army is attraction, and it is only after full knowledge of the elements of repulsion which work counter to it that the failure of the attractive force, and the necessity for substituting coercion in its place, can be rightly understood. The theatres of war claim first attention, and of these Flanders claims the precedence. It is well known that sickness or fatigue are more destructive in war than bullet and sword, and Marlborough's campaigns can have been no exception to the rule. Yet it is remarkable that the British were never so much thinned as after the campaign of Blenheim, wherein they bore the brunt of two severe actions. The march to the Danube was of course severe, but the men stood it well; nor do we hear of extraordinary sickness on the return march. All that we know is that when the British regiments reached the Rhine they were too weak to be fit for further work. We never hear the like in subsequent campaigns, in spite of severe marching and sieges. Yet the capture of one of Vauban's fortresses was always a long and murderous piece of work, while, if the trenches were flooded by heavy rain or the natural oozing of marshy ground, an epidemic of dysentery was sure to follow. We have no returns of the losses[559] from sickness in Flanders, but it is certain that the operations in that field were by no means the most deadly to the troops, nor the most exhausting to England. This must be ascribed almost entirely to the care and forethought of the great Duke. Marlborough knew the peculiar weaknesses as well as the peculiar value of his own countrymen, and was careful to keep them always well fed. In the second place, and this was most important, the theatre of war was but a few hours distant from England, so that a force once fairly set on foot could be maintained with comparative ease. Recruits, too, did not feel that they were going to another part of the world, and would never return home. Moreover, a bounty had been granted for Blenheim, there was some prospect of plunder,[387] and there was the glory of marching to certain victory with Corporal John.

It was far otherwise in the Peninsula. There a campaign was broken not only by winter-quarters, but also by summer-quarters in the hot months of July and August. Again, the voyage to Lisbon, and still more to Catalonia, to say nothing of the risk of storm and shipwreck, occupied days and weeks, whereas the passage to Flanders was reckoned by hours. The transport-service, too, had a bad name. Although after 1702 the official complaints of bad and insufficient food ceased, yet the mortality on board the troop-ships sent to the Peninsula shows that the sickness and misery must have been appalling. The reinforcements despatched to Lisbon in the summer of 1706 with a total strength of eight thousand men were reduced to little more than half of their numbers when they landed in Valencia in February 1707. They had suffered from bad weather and long confinement, it is true, but theirs was no exceptional case.[388] In 1710, of a detachment of three hundred men that were landed, only a hundred ever [560]reached their regiments.[389] In 1711 five weak regiments lost sixty men dead, and two hundred disabled from sickness in a voyage of ten days.[390] A private of the First Guards summed up his experience of a month in a transport as "continual destruction in the foretop, the pox above board, the plague between decks, hell in the forecastle, and the devil at the helm."[391]

This was one great discouragement to recruits; and others became quickly known to them. The Peninsula was ill-supplied, transport was difficult, the quarters of the troops were very unhealthy, and the Portuguese unfriendly even to brutality.[392] Altogether, though steel and lead played their part in the destruction of the British in the Peninsula, the havoc that they wrought was trifling compared with that of privation and disease. Prisoners of course were never lost for long, as Marlborough had always abundance of French to give in exchange for them; but in spite of this, the waste in Portugal and Spain was terrible, and the service proportionately unpopular.

So much for the two theatres of war; but the sphere of foreign service was not bounded by these. New York, Bermuda, and Newfoundland each possessed a small garrison; and the West Indies, as we have seen, claimed from four to six battalions. This colonial service was undoubtedly the most unpopular of all. When the single company that defended Newfoundland left England in 1701, their destination was carefully concealed from the men lest they should desert. The most hardened criminal could hope for pardon if he enlisted for Jamaica. Once shipped off to the West Indies, the men seem to have been totally forgotten. No proper provision was made for paying them; [561]colonels who cared for their men were compelled to borrow money to save them from starvation; colonels who did not, came home, together with many of their officers, and left the men to shift for themselves.[393] Clothing, again, was entirely overlooked. The troops in Jamaica were reduced almost to nakedness; and when finally their clothing, already two years overdue, was ready for them, it was delayed by a piece of bungling such as could only have been perpetrated by the War Office.[394] Another great difficulty was that, there being no regular system of reliefs, colonels never knew whether to clothe their men for a hot or a temperate climate. Recruits were consequently most difficult to obtain, although owing to the unhealthiness of the climate they were in great request. The result was that old men and boys were sent across the Atlantic only to be at once discharged, at great pecuniary loss, by the officers, who were ashamed to admit creatures of such miserable appearance into their companies.[395]

Again, during the course of the war, two new acquisitions demanded garrisons of three or four battalions apiece. Minorca appears to have given no very serious trouble; but Gibraltar having been reduced virtually to ruins by the siege was, owing to the lack of proper habitations, a hot-bed of sickness. The authorities seem in particular to have neglected the garrison of Gibraltar, though they took considerable pains for the fortification of the Rock. In 1706 more than half of the garrison was disabled through disease brought on by exposure,[396] yet it was not until four years later that [562]orders were given for the construction of barracks,[397] while even in 1711 the men were obliged to burn their own miserable quarters from want of fuel.[398]

These lapses in countries beyond sea might possibly find some excuse in the plea of inexperience, though this should not be admitted in a country which for nearly four centuries had continually sent expeditions across the Channel, and for more than two centuries across the Atlantic also. Yet there were similar faults at home which show almost incredible thoughtlessness and neglect. Thus in 1709 many soldiers at Portsmouth perished from want of fire and candle,[399] while the garrison of Upnor Castle was required to supply a detachment of guards in the marshes three miles from any house or shelter, where the men on duty stood up to their knees in water.[400] No one had thought that they might want a guard-room or at least tents. Again, it was not until a ship's load of men invalided from Portugal had been turned adrift in the streets of Penrhyn, penniless and reduced to beg for charity, that any provision was made for the sick and wounded. Then at last, in the fourth campaign of the war, commissioners were appointed to make them their special care. So far no one had been responsible for them, the duty having been thrust provisionally upon the commissioners of transport.[401] In a word, no forethought nor care was to be found beyond the reach of Marlborough's own hand; all administration on the side of the War Office, even under the secretaryship of so able a man as Henry St. John, was marked by blindness and incompetence.

The ground being now cleared, and the principal obstacles in the way of recruiting being indicated, it is [563]time to examine the means employed by Parliament to overcome them. We may properly confine ourselves to England, since she with her population of five and a quarter millions was necessarily the main source for the supply of men. Ireland was not yet the recruiting-ground that she became at a later day, for the simple reason that none but Protestants could be enlisted. She had, however, her five distinctly national regiments,[402] a small proportion which enabled her to provide a dozen or fifteen more in the course of the war. Protestant Ireland, in fact, still under the spell of William of Orange, played her part very fully and generously during these years. Scotland, as became a country of great military traditions, maintained a larger number of national regiments than her sister,[403] but being thinly populated, inaccessible in many districts and already engaged to furnish troops to the Dutch service, was unable to provide more than three additional battalions. The greatest stress therefore fell, and fell rightly, upon England.

Transporting ourselves therefore for a moment to the opening of the war, when the Army was still smarting under its shameful treatment by Parliament after the Peace of Ryswick, we find without surprise that the strain of providing recruits made itself felt very early. The Mutiny Act of 1703 shows this by a clause empowering the Queen to order the delivery from gaol of capital offenders who had been pardoned on condition of enlistment. This enactment was of course something like a reversion to the methods of Elizabeth; but although this class of recruit does not sound desirable, yet the competition for it was so keen that a regular roster was kept to ensure that every regiment should profit by the windfall in its turn.[404] It must be remembered that many a man was then condemned [564]to death who would now be released under the First Offenders' Act; but apart from this, criminals were welcome to the recruiting officer, first, because they cost nothing, and secondly, because they were often men of fine physique.[405] In the later years of the war the sweepings of the gaols were in particular request, and the multiplication of petitions from the condemned shows that the fact was appreciated within the walls of Newgate.

In the session of 1703-4 an Act, for which there was a precedent in the days of King William, was passed to provide for the discharge of all insolvent debtors from prison, who should serve or procure another to serve in the fleet or Army. This probably brought some useful young recruits who enlisted to procure the release of their fathers; and there is evidence that the bankrupt was as much sought after by recruiting officers as the sheep-stealer. Another most important Act of the same session was the first of a long series of annual Recruiting Acts. Under this, a bounty of one pound[406] was offered for volunteers; and justices of the peace were empowered to levy as recruits all able-bodied men who had no visible employment or means of subsistence, and to employ the officers of borough and parish for the purpose. For each such recruit a bounty of ten shillings[407] was allowed for himself as well as a fee of ten shillings to the parish officer. To remove any temptation to malpractice, no officer of the regular Army was permitted to sit as a justice under the Act; and all voters were specially exempted from its operation, the possession of the franchise being apparently considered, as it probably was, a sufficiently visible means of subsistence.

This latter measure brought with it a considerable crop of abuses. In the very next session it was found [565]necessary to give special protection to harvest-labourers, many having been already impressed, while many more had hidden themselves from fear of impressment. But this was by no means all. Voters occasionally shared the fate of their unenfranchised brethren, and required hasty deliverance with many apologies to the member for their borough.[408] The high bounty again gave a stimulus to wrongful impressment, fraudulent enlistment, and desertion. It was found necessary after a few months to restrain the zeal of parish officers, who enlisted men that were already soldiers. Again, there were recruiting-officers who would discharge the recruits brought to them for a pecuniary consideration, an occurrence which though not common was not unknown. Finally, recruits would occasionally try to break away in a body, which led to desperate fighting and to awkward complications. In one instance a large number of recruits made so determined an attempt to overpower the guard and escape that they were not quelled until two of them had been actually slain. The guard, who thought with justice that they had done no more than their duty, then found themselves threatened with an indictment for murder; and the War Office was obliged to call in the Attorney-General to advise how they should be protected.[409] Turbulent scenes with the rural population over the arrest of deserters and the impressment of idle fellows were by no means infrequent. We have, for instance, accounts of the whole town of Exminster turning out with flails and pitchforks against an officer who claimed a deserter, and of the mob of Abergavenny, mad for the rescue of an impressed recruit, driving the officers from house to house, and compelling them to fire in self-defence.[410]

After the campaign of Blenheim, the heavy losses in the field, and the resolution to send a large force [566]to the Peninsula drove the military authorities to desperate straits. Suggestions of course came in from various quarters; among them a proposal from a gentleman of Amsterdam that every one who had two or more lacqueys should send one into the Army, the writer having observed that members of Parliament "abounded in that sort of person."[411] But the stress of the situation is shown by the fact that a Bill was actually introduced to compel every parish and corporation to furnish a certain number of recruits, though it was presently dropped as being an imitation from the French and unfit for a free country.[412] The authorities therefore contented themselves by ordering stricter enforcement of the Recruiting Act, and apparently with success.[413] During the next two years there was no change in the Act, excepting the addition, in 1706, of a penalty of five pounds against parochial officers who should neglect to execute it. But in 1707 the measure showed signs of failing, and was hastily patched up by increasing the bounty to two pounds[414] for volunteers enlisting during the recruiting season, and to one pound for such as enlisted after the campaign had been opened. Some effort was also made to systematize the power granted by the Act by convening regular meetings of justices at stated times and places.

The close of the year, however, found the Commons face to face with the disaster of Almanza, and with urgent need for close upon twenty thousand recruits. The Recruiting Act now assumed a new and drastic form. The authority to impress men of no employment was transferred from the justices to the commissioners of the land-tax, with full powers [567]to employ the parochial officers. The penalty on these officers for neglect of duty was increased to ten pounds, while for diligent execution of the same a reward of one pound was promised them for every recruit, as well as sixpence a day for the expense of keeping him until he should be made over to his regiment. The parish likewise received three pounds for every man thus recruited, in order to quicken its zeal against the idle. Finally, as an entire novelty, borrowed be it noted from the French,[415] volunteers were enlisted at the same high rate of bounty for a term of three years, at the close of which they were entitled to claim their discharge. Great results were evidently expected from these provisions, for the standard of height for recruits was still maintained at five feet five inches,[416] men below that stature being accepted only for marines. So from this year until the close of the war it is possible to study the first trial of short service in England.

Unfortunately abuses seemed only to multiply under the new Act. The campaign of Oudenarde, prolonged as it was into December, drained Marlborough's army heavily, and the spring of 1709 found the forces in want of yet another fifteen thousand recruits. Moreover, from the moment when Marlborough's power began to decline the tone of the Army at home began to sink. The justices again were jealous of the commissioners of land-tax, and in some instances openly abused and reproached them.[417] In at least one case they were found conniving with officers to accept money for the discharge of impressed men.[418] Officers on their [568]side also began to misbehave, withholding the bounty from recruits and subjecting them to the gantlope if they complained, and in some instances not only withholding the bounty but demanding large bribes for their discharge.[419] As the war continued, matters grew worse and worse. Sham press-gangs established themselves with the object of levying blackmail;[420] and as a climax Army and Navy began to fight for the possession of impressed men.

At the opening of 1711 the first batch of men enlisted for three years completed their term, but found to their surprise that their discharge did not come to them automatically, as they had expected. The officers had no instructions. They were unwilling too to part with the sixty best soldiers in each regiment, for such these men of short service had proved to be, and could only promise to let them go as soon as orders should arrive from home. Harley's Secretary-at-War, with the characteristic ill faith of the politician towards the soldier, boldly proposed to pass an Act compelling them to serve for two years longer; but the Attorney-General, to whom the matter was referred, decided that the men were beyond all question entitled to their discharge.[421] Thereupon, rather late in the day, the Secretary-at-War hurriedly ordered the instant discharge of a man whose term had expired, in order to encourage others to enlist.[422] Finally, in 1711 abuses increased so rapidly under the new administration that the whole system of recruiting broke down.[423] The evils of Harley's short tenure of office were by no means bounded by the Peace of Utrecht.

[569]

There remains a further question still to be dealt with, that namely of desertion, which directly and indirectly sapped the strength of the Army as much as any campaign. Let it not be thought that this evil was confined to England, for it was rampant in every army in Europe, and nowhere a greater scourge than in France. Nor let the deserter from the army in the field be too severely judged, for his anxiety was not to serve against his own countrymen but simply to get back to his own home. Some of the English deserters in Flanders were even cunning enough to pass homeward as exchanged prisoners belonging to the fleet.[424] But it was before starting for the seat of war that deserters gave most trouble, particularly if, as was often unavoidably the case, the regiments were kept waiting long for their transports.[425] No punishment seemed to deter others from abetting them.[426] If we may judge by the records of the next reign a thousand to fifteen hundred lashes was no uncommon sentence on a deserter, while not a few were actually shot in Hyde Park.[427] The only resource, therefore, was to check the evil as far as possible by prevention. Thus we constantly find large bodies of troops under orders for foreign service quartered in the Isle of Wight, from which they could not easily escape. This remedy was at least in one case found worse than the disease, for the numbers of the men being too great to be accommodated in the public houses, very many of them perished from exposure to the weather. Thereupon the Secretary-at-War made inquiry as to barns and empty houses for them, according to the traditions of his office, fatally too late.[428]

[570]

Another practice, which from ignorance of its origin has been blindly followed till within the last few years, also took its rise from the prevalence of desertion at this period, namely that of shifting troops from quarter to quarter of England by sea. On the same principle men were frequently cooped up in the transport-vessels for weeks and even months before they sailed on foreign service, occasionally with frightful consequences. Thus in 1705 certain troops bound for Jamaica were embarked on transports on the 18th of May. They remained there for two months with fever and small-pox on board, until at last, the medical supplies being exhausted, the case was represented to the Secretary-at-War. The reply was that they were to receive such relief as was possible; but they remained in the same transports until October, when at last they were drafted off in parties of sixty on the West Indian packets to their destination. Forty-eight of them were lost through a storm in port long before October, but the number that perished from sickness is unknown, and was probably most sedulously concealed.[429]

Let us now turn to the pleasanter theme of the changes that were wrought for the benefit of the soldier. The first of these appears in the Mutiny Act of 1703, and was doubtless due in part to the scandals revealed in the office of the Paymaster-General. The rates of pay to all ranks below the status of commissioned officers are actually given in the Act, with express directions, under sufficient penalties, that the subsistence money shall be paid regularly every week, and the balance over and above it every two months. Further, all stoppages by the Paymaster-General, Secretary-at-War, commissaries, and muster-masters are definitely forbidden, and the legitimate deductions strictly limited to the clothing-money, one day's pay to Chelsea Hospital, and one shilling in the pound to the Queen. The continuance of this last tax was of course a crying[571] injustice, but the abolition of the other irregular claims was distinctly a gain to the British soldier, due, as it is satisfactory to know, to the newly appointed Controllers of Accounts. Altogether the condition of the soldier as regards his pay seems decidedly to have improved, Marlborough's attention to this most important matter having evidently borne good fruit. It is true that in Spain and the colonies, to which he had not leisure nor opportunity to give personal attention, the neglect of the Secretary-at-War caused great grievances and much suffering; it is true also that even in England, when his influence was gone, there was a recurrence of the old scandals under the miserable administration of Harley;[430] yet on the whole the improvements in this province were at once distinct and permanent.

Another valuable reform in respect of clothing was due to the direct interposition of Marlborough himself. In 1706 the abuses in this department were, at his instance, made the subject of inquiry by Secretary St. John and General Charles Churchill, with the ultimate result that the pattern and allowance of clothing and the deduction of off-reckonings were laid down by strict rule, while the whole business of clothing, though still left to the colonels, was subjected to the control of a board of six General officers, whose sanction was essential to the validity of all contracts and to the acceptance of all garments. Thus was established the Board of General Officers,[431] whose minutes are still the great authority for the uniforms of the eighteenth century.

Unfortunately these benefits could weigh but little against the disadvantages already described. It is certain that despite the standard laid down by Act of [572]Parliament, vast numbers of boys were enlisted as well as men of fifty and sixty years of age, who no sooner entered the field than they were sent back into hospital. Good regiments, however, then as now obtained good recruits, sometimes through the offer of extra bounty from the officers,[432] more often through the character of the officers themselves. The presence of thieves, pirates, and other criminals in the ranks must necessarily have introduced a certain leaven of ruffianism, yet neither in Flanders nor in the Peninsula do we find anything approaching to the outrageous bursts of indiscipline which were witnessed a century later at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. There was, it is true, the mutiny under the Duke of Ormonde, but it was of short duration and easily suppressed; and altogether, for reasons that shall presently be given, Marlborough's army seems to have been better conducted than Wellington's. Unfortunately, although two men who served in the ranks left us journals of a whole or part of the war, we remain still without a picture of the typical soldier of Marlborough. The one figure that emerges with any distinctness from the ranks is that of Christian Ross, a woman who served as a dragoon in several actions, was twice wounded before her sex was discovered, and ended her career as virago, sutleress, and out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital.[433] The rest, with the exception of Sergeant Littler, Sergeant John Hall,[434] and Private Deane remain buried in dark oblivion, leaving a lamentable gap that can never be filled in our military history.

From the men I pass to the officers. Our information in regard to them is curiously mixed. Certain of the abuses that dishonoured them have already been revealed, nor can these be said to exhaust the list. There [573]were grave scandals in the Guards, which had the misfortune to possess one colonel, of a distinguished Scottish family, who revived the worst traditions of Elizabeth and Charles the Second. Not only did he systematically enlist thieves and other bad characters as "faggots,"[435] but he did not scruple to accept recruits who offered themselves for the sake of defrauding their creditors, to receive money from them for doing so, and to extort more money by threatening to withhold his protection or to ship them off to fight in Spain. These men did no duty,[436] wore no uniform and drew no pay, to the great profit of the colonel and the great disgrace of the regiment; and the evil grew to such a height that when the House of Commons finally took the matter in hand, the "faggots" were found to number one-fourth of the nominal strength of the regiment.[437] Such cases, however, as this of the infamous Colonel Chartres were rare; and the decrease of this particular vice of officers in Queen Anne's time presents a pleasing contrast to its prevalence in the time of King William.

Another habit, which sounds particularly objectionable in modern ears, was the occasional unwillingness of officers to accompany their regiments, and their readiness to leave them, when employed on distasteful service. This was especially true of regiments on colonial stations, particularly in the West Indies,[438] and was by no means unknown of those actually on active service in Flanders and the Peninsula. Sometimes the offenders had received leave of absence, which the Secretary-at-War would willingly grant as a matter of jobbery in the case [574]of a friend,[439] but more often they took leave without asking for it, occasionally for as much as five years together,[440] without objection from the colonel or rebuke from the War Office. One colonel took it as a great grievance when Marlborough insisted that he should sell his commission since he was unwilling to do duty;[441] and altogether the general connivance at shirking of this kind rendered the offence so little discreditable that it must not be judged by the standard of to-day. Speaking generally, however, the officers had far more grievances that command our pity than faults which provoke our indignation.

One hardship that bore on officers with peculiar severity was the expense of obtaining recruits. They received, of course, levy-money for the purpose, but this was frequently insufficient, while no allowance was made for recruits lost through desertion, sickness, or other misfortunes over which they had no control. Marlborough was most strict in discouraging, except in extreme cases, any attempts of officers to transfer their burdens from themselves to the State, though he freely admitted, not without compassion, that officers had been ruined by sheer bad luck with their recruits. We find bitter complaints from officers in the Peninsula that owing to the heavy mortality in the transports, their recruits, by the time that they reached them, cost them eight or nine pounds a head.[442] Indeed, if one may judge from contemporary newspapers, which are quite borne out by scattered evidence, the sufferings [575]of officers on account of recruiting were almost unendurable.[443]

Remounts again were a heavy tax upon the officer. An allowance of levy-money at the rate of twelve pounds a horse[444] was granted to officers for the purpose, but was complained of as quite inadequate to the charge,[445] in consequence of heavy losses through the epidemic of horse-sickness in Flanders. Carelessness in the hiring and fitting of transports also caused much waste of life among the horses,[446] until Marlborough, as his letters repeatedly show, took the matter into his own hands. It is interesting to learn that Irish horses, being obtainable for five pounds apiece,[447] were much used in Spain, though less in Flanders, Marlborough having a prejudice in favour of English horses as of English men, as superior to all others. This cheapness, however, was of little [576]service to the officers. They were expected to pay for the transport of their horses at a fixed rate, and though at length in reply to their complaints free transport was granted for twenty-six horses to a battalion, yet this privilege was again withdrawn as soon as it was discovered that Irish animals were to be purchased at a low price.[448]

Again, the officers were always subject to extortion from civilians. Parish constables, to whom the law allowed sixpence a day for the subsistence of recruits, declined to deliver them unless they were paid eightpence a day.[449] But as usual the chief delinquents were the regimental agents. The Controllers of Accounts early made an attack on these gentry, but with little success, the fellows pleading that they were not public officials but private servants of the colonel, and therefore not bound to produce their accounts. The complaints of the officers against them were endless, and with good reason. Perhaps the most heartless instance of an agent's rascality was that of one who stole the small allowance made by a lieutenant on active service to his wife, and refused to pay it until ordered by the Queen.[450] Officers clamoured that the agents should be tried by court-martial, but this was not permitted, and perhaps wisely, for a court-martial would probably have sentenced a scoundrel to the gantlope, in which case the men would not have let him escape alive.

Yet another tax fell upon officers in the shape of contribution to pensions and regimental debts. In every regiment except those serving in Flanders a fictitious man was allowed in the roll of each troop or company, whose pay was taken to form a fund for the support of officers' widows;[451] but in Marlborough's army [577]these widows were supported by a voluntary subscription from the officers, without expense to the State. By some contrivance, which seems utterly outrageous and was presumably the work of the War Office or of the Treasury, this voluntary fund was saddled with the maintenance of widows who had lost their husbands in the previous war, so that in 1709 Marlborough was obliged to protest and to ask for the extension of "widows' men" to some at least of his own troops.[452] Again, some regiments appear to have been charged with pensions to particular individuals, though by what right or for what service it is impossible to say.[453] Yet again, by misfortune, carelessness, or roguery of a colonel, or more commonly of an agent, regiments found themselves burdened with debts amounting to several thousand pounds, as, for instance, through the loss of regimental funds by shipwreck or through mismanagement of the clothing. In such cases the only possible relief was the sale, by royal permission, of the next company or ensigncy for the liquidation of the debt.[454]

Another form of pension which, though sometimes used for worthy objects, was at least as often perverted to purposes of jobbery, was the appointment of infant officers. In many instances children received commissions in a regiment wherein their fathers had commanded and done good service, either for the relief of the widows, if those fathers had fallen in action, or for a reward if they were still living. Sometimes these children actually took the field, for there is record of one who went to active service in Flanders at the age of twelve, "behaving with more courage and conduct than could have been expected from one of his years," [578]and ruined his career at sixteen by killing his man in a duel.[455] But beyond all doubt in many instances the favour was granted without sufficient cause, while even at its best it was an abuse of public money and a wrong done to the regiment. This abuse was of course no new thing, and did not amount to an actual grievance; but it had fostered a feeling, that was already too strong, of the privileges conferred on colonels by their proprietary rights in their regiments.

The grant of commissions to children was forbidden by the Royal Regulations of 1st May 1711, a collection of orders which had at any rate for their ostensible object a considerable measure of reform, and therefore demands some notice here. Hereby the grant of brevets, which had given considerable trouble to Marlborough, and had already been forbidden in 1708, was again prohibited; and finally an attempt was made to limit the sale and purchase of commissions. To this end no sale of commissions whatever was permitted except by royal approbation under the sign manual, and then only to officers who had served for twenty years or had been disabled by active service. The announcement appears to have been treated as a joke;[456] and within six months the rule, in consequence of representations from Marlborough, was considerably modified.[457] If (so the Duke pointed out) subalterns who have been unlucky with their recruits may not sell their commissions, the debt will fall on the regiment: if, again, the successors to officers who die on service do not contribute something towards the dead man's wife and family, many widows and children must starve; lastly, colonels often wish to promote officers from other regiments to their own when they have no officer of their own fit for advancement, which is for the good of the service but must [579]become impracticable unless the superseded officer receive something in compensation.[458] His arguments were seen to be irresistible unless the State were prepared to incur large additional military expenditure, and the rules were shortly afterwards amended in the spirit of his recommendations and for the reasons that he had adduced.[459]

Thus almost the final administrative act of Marlborough as Captain-General was to uphold the system of purchase then existing against the hasty reforms of civilian counsellors. Enough has been said to show that contemporary military policy in England, with which he was chiefly identified, tended always to make the regiment more and more self-contained and less dependent on the support of the State: it will be seen before long how regiments met the charge imposed on them by the institution of regimental funds in the nature of insurance. The drawback of such a system is obvious. Excess of independence in the members can hardly but entail weakening of central control, with incoherence and consequent waste of energy in the action of the entire body. Regimental traditions, regimental pride, are priceless possessions well worthy the sacrifice of ideal unity of design and perfect assimilation to a single pattern. But regimental isolation, fostered and encouraged on principle to the utmost, must inevitably bring with it a certain division of command, a want of subordination to the supreme authority, in a word that measure of indiscipline in high places which distinguishes an aggregation of regiments from an army.

[580]

Yet who can doubt but that Marlborough acted with his usual strong good sense as a soldier and his usual sagacity as a statesman? He had risked his popularity in the Army by his avowed severity towards officers in the matter of recruits,[460] because he knew that the slightest attempt to shift this burden upon the State would mean the refusal of Parliament to carry on the war, and a wholesale disbandment of the Army. He favoured the sale of commissions on precisely the same principle; for, as his letter clearly shows, he foresaw the growth of what is now called a non-effective vote, and doubted the willingness of Parliament to endure it. That which he dreaded has now come to pass, for better or worse; the country is saddled with a vast load of pensions, and the Commons grow annually more impatient over increase of military expenditure without corresponding increase of efficiency. Marlborough's choice lay between an aggregation of regiments and no army, and of two evils he chose the less. It still remains to be proved that he was wrong.

From the regimental I pass to the general administration. Herein the first noticeable feature is the amalgamation by the Act of union of the English and Scotch establishments into a single establishment for Great Britain. Ireland of course still remained with a separate establishment of her own, and all the paraphernalia of Commander-in-Chief, Secretary-at-War, and Master-General of Ordnance. There continued always in Ireland as heretofore a different rate of pay for all ranks, which, owing to constant transfer of regiments from Ireland to England or abroad gave rise to great confusion in the accounts. The chief matter of interest in Ireland is the very reasonable jealousy of the Irish Commons for the retention within the kingdom of all regiments on the Irish establishment, or at least for the substitution of other regiments in their place if they should be withdrawn. Their intention was that Irish revenue should be spent in Ireland, and it is satisfactory[581] to note that it was rigidly and conscientiously respected by the authorities in England.[461]

Another important matter was a first attempt to settle the position of the marines, who up to the middle of the reign were subject to a curious and embarrassing division of control. St. John early disclaimed all authority over them,[462] but they were evidently subject to the regulations of the army and suffered not a little in consequence. The rigid rule that regiments must be mustered before they were paid inflicted great hardship on marines, for it could not be carried out when a regiment was split up on half a dozen different ships, and the result was that the men were not paid at all. Even when ashore they were exposed to the same inconvenience owing to the inefficiency of the commissaries,[463] so that some regiments actually received no wages for eight years.[464] The inevitable consequence was hatred of the service and mutiny, which at one moment threatened to be serious.[465] Finally, on the 17th of December 1708, the marines were definitely placed under the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral.[466]

I come now to the most fateful of all changes in the administration, namely the rise to supreme importance of the Secretary-at-War. Attention has already been drawn to the duties and powers which silently accumulated in the hands of this civilian official after the death of Monk, owing to the lack of [582]efficient control by the Sovereign. The reigns of King William and Queen Anne, in consequence of the constant absence of the Captain-General on active service, did nothing to restore this lost control, and the almost unperceived change which released the Secretary-at-War from personal attendance on the Commander-in-Chief in the field virtually abolished it altogether. The terms of the Secretary-at-War's commission remained the same, "to obey such orders as he should from time to time receive from the Sovereign or from the General of the forces for the time being, according to the discipline of war;"[467] but the situation was in reality reversed. Even in King William's time the Secretary-at-War had countersigned the military estimates submitted to Parliament; from the advent of St. John he assumes charge of all military matters in the Commons, often taking the chair of the committee while they are under discussion. Thus he becomes the mouthpiece of the military administration in the House, and, since the Commander-in-Chief is generally absent on service he ceases to take his orders from him, but becomes, except in the vital matter of responsibility, a Secretary-of-State, writing in the name of the Queen or of her consort, or finally in his own name and by his own authority without reference to a higher power. Lastly, his office, thus exalted to importance, becomes the spoil of political party; Secretaries-at-War follow each other in rapid succession,—St. John, Walpole, Granville, Lord Lansdowne, Windham, Gwynne; and the Army is definitely stamped as a counter in the eternal game of faction.

The power of the Secretary-at-War in Queen Anne's time is sufficiently shown by his letter-books. In the Queen's name he gives orders for recruiting, for[583] drafting, for armament, for musters, for change of quarters, relief of garrisons, hire of transports, embarkation of troops, patrolling of the coast, escort of treasure, and in a word for all matters of routine. In the Duke of Marlborough's name also he directs men to be embarked, money to be advanced, and recruits to be furnished, and even criticises the execution of the orders issued by him on behalf of the Queen.[468] On his own authority he bids colonels to send him muster-rolls and lists of recruiting staff and to provide their regiments with quarters, regrets that he cannot strengthen weak garrisons, and lays down the route for all marches within the kingdom.[469] He corresponds direct with every rank of officer without the slightest regard for discipline or dignity. We find Walpole threatening a lieutenant with forfeiture of his commission for absence without leave, bidding a captain be thankful that owing to his own clemency he is not cashiered for fraud,[470] regretting that he cannot in conscience excuse one subaltern from attending his regiment on foreign service,[471] ordering another to pay for his quarters immediately,[472] summoning a third person to the War Office to account to him for wrongful detention of a recruit. Granville promises an officer leave of absence from foreign service, but must first, in common decency, apply to the General in command.[473] Lord Lansdowne begs the Governor of Portsmouth not to be too hard on a young regiment in the matter of guard-duties, orders the discharge of a soldier when three years of his service have expired, and writes to the Irish Secretary-at-War for leave of [584]absence for a friend.[474] Finally, all ask favours of colonels on behalf of officers and men. One thing only they left for a time untouched, namely the sentences of court-martial, which St. John expressly abjured in favour of the Judge Advocate-General; but for the rest they issued orders, approbations, and reprimands with all the freedom of a Commander-in-Chief.

The Office of Ordnance remained as before independent of the War Office, though of course liable to fulfil its requisitions for arms and stores. It is remarkable that Marlborough, like Wellington a century later, no sooner became Master-General[475] than he restored the organisation of King James the Second. But the strain imposed upon the Department by the multitude of forces in the field was too severe for it. Two months before Blenheim was fought the supply of firelocks and socket-bayonets was exhausted; and in succeeding years, as disasters grew and multiplied in Spain, the Office was obliged frequently, and to the great indignation of English manufacturers, to purchase arms abroad.[476]

The subject of weapons leads us directly to the progress of the Army in the matter of armament, equipment, and training. The first point worthy of notice is the disappearance of the time-honoured pike. Pikes were issued to a battalion in the proportion of one to every five muskets as late as 1703, but were delivered back into store in the following year;[477] and in 1706 a letter from St. John announces that pikes are considered useless and that musket and bayonet must be furnished to every man.[478] The bayonet was, of [585]course, the socket-bayonet; and the musket, being of a new and improved model, was a weapon much superior to that issued in the days of King William.[479] Partly, no doubt, owing to the efficiency of this musket, which carried bullets of sixteen to the pound, as against the French weapon, which was designed for bullets of twenty-four to the pound, and still more owing to superiority of discipline and tactics, the fire of the British was incomparably more deadly than that of the French.[480] The secret, so far as concerned tactics, lay in the fact that the British fired by platoons according to the system of Gustavus Adolphus, whereas the French fired by ranks; and the perfection of drill and discipline was superbly manifested at Wynendale. For this, as well as for the better weapon, the Army had their great chief to thank, for the Duke knew better than any the value of fire-discipline, as it is called, and would put the whole army through its platoon-exercise by signal of flag and drum before his own eye.[481] Nevertheless, the cool head and accurate aim for which the British have always been famous played their part, and a leading part, in the victories of Marlborough.

Of the drill proper there is little to be said, though some few changes are significant of coming reforms. The number of ranks was left unfixed, being increased or reduced according to the frontage required, but probably seldom exceeded three and was occasionally reduced to two. The old method of doubling ranks was still preserved; but the men no longer fell in by files, and the file may be said definitely to have lost its old position as a tactical unit. A company now fell in in single rank, was sorted off into three or more divisions and formed into ranks, by the wheel of the divisions from line into column, which was a complete [586]novelty. The manual and firing exercise remained as minute and elaborate as ever; and a single word of command shows that the old exercise of the pike was soon to be adopted for the bayonet.[482] With these exceptions there was little deviation from the old drill of Gustavus Adolphus; but the real improvement, which made that drill doubly efficient, was in the matter of discipline. That the lash and the gantlope were unsparingly used in Marlborough's army there can be no doubt, and that they were employed even more savagely at home can be shown by direct evidence;[483] but the Duke, as shall presently be shown, understood how to make the best of his countrymen by other means besides cutting their backs to pieces.

For the cavalry, of which he was evidently very fond, Marlborough did very signal service by committing it definitely to action by shock. Again and again in the course of the war the French squadrons are found firing from the saddle with little or no effect, and the British crashing boldly into them and sweeping them away. There are few actions, too, in which the Duke himself is not found in personal command of the horse at one period or another of the battle—at Blenheim in the great charge which won the day, at Ramillies at the most critical moment, at Malplaquet in support of the British infantry, and most brilliantly of all at the passage of the lines at Landen. Yet he was too sensible not to imitate an enemy where he could do so with advantage. The French gendarmerie had received pistol-proof armour in 1703;[484] the British horse in Flanders, at Marlborough's suggestion, received a cuirass [587]in 1707, a reform which was copied by the Dutch and urged upon all the rest of the Allies.[485] It is characteristic of the Duke's never-failing good sense that the cuirasses consisted of breast-pieces only, so that men should find no protection unless their faces were turned towards the enemy.

As to the artillery there is little to be said except that the organisation by companies appears to have been thoroughly accepted, and the efficiency of the arm thereby greatly increased. The Duke was never greater than as an artillerist. Every gun at Blenheim was laid under his own eye; and the concentration of the great central battery at Malplaquet and its subsequent advance shows his mastership in the handling of cannon. For the rest, the artillery came out of the war with not less, perhaps with even more, brilliancy than the other corps of the army; and, though no mention is made of the fact by the historian of the regiment, it is likely that no artillery officers ever worked more strenuously and skilfully in the face of enormous difficulties than the devoted men who brought their guns first down to the south side of the Danube and then back across the river to the battlefield of Blenheim.[486]

It is impossible to quit this subject without a few words on the great man who revived for England the ancient glory of Cre?y, Poictiers, and Agincourt, the greatest, in the Duke of Wellington's words, who ever appeared at the head of a British Army. There are certain passages in his life which make it difficult sometimes to withhold from him hard names; but allowance should be made for one who was born in revolution, nurtured in a court of corruption, and matured in fresh revolution. Wellington himself admitted that he never understood the characters of that period, nor exercised due charity towards them, till he had observed the effects of the French Revolution on the minds and consciences [588]of French statesmen and marshals. Marlborough's fall was brought about by a faction, and his fame has remained ever since a prey to the tender mercies of a faction. But the prejudices of a partisan are but a sorry standard for the measure of one whose transcendent ability as a general, a statesman, a diplomatist, and an administrator, guided not only England but Europe through the War of the Spanish Succession, and delivered them safe for a whole generation from the craft and the ambition of France.

Regarding him as a general, his fame is assured as one of the great captains of all time; and it would not become a civilian to add a word to the eulogy of great soldiers who alone can comprehend the full measure of his greatness. Yet one or two small points are worthy of attention over and above the reforms, already enumerated, which were introduced by him in all three arms of the service. First, and perhaps most important, is the blow struck by Marlborough against the whole system, so much favoured by the French, of passive campaigns. It was not, thanks to Dutch deputies and German princelets, as effective as it should have been, but it still marked a step forward in the art of war. It must never be forgotten that we possess only the wreck of many of Marlborough's finest combinations, shattered, just as they were entering port, against the rocks of Dutch stupidity and German conceit. Next, there is a great deal said and written in these days about night marches and the future that lies before them. It will be well to glance also at the past that they have behind them, and to mark with what frequency, with what consummate skill, and what unvarying success they were employed under far greater than modern difficulties by Marlborough.
Next let it be observed how thoroughly he understood the British soldier. He took care to feed him well, to pay him regularly, to give him plenty of work, and to keep him under the strictest discipline; and with all this he cherished a genial feeling for the men,[589] which showed itself not only in strict injunctions to watch over their comfort but in acts of personal kindness kindly bestowed. The magic of his personality made itself felt among his men far beyond the scope of mere military duty. His soldiers, as the Recruiting Acts can testify, were for the most part the scum of the nation. Yet they not only marched and fought with a steadiness beyond all praise, but actually became reformed characters and left the army sober, self-respecting men.[487] Marlborough, despite his lapses into treachery as a politician, was a man of peculiar sensitiveness and delicacy. He had a profound distaste for licentiousness either in language or in action, and he contrived to instil a like distaste into his army. His force did not swear terribly in Flanders, as King William's had before it, and although the annual supply of recruits brought with it necessarily an annual infusion of crime, yet the moral tone of the army was singularly high. Marlborough's nature was not of the hard, unbending temper of Wellington's. The Iron Duke had a heart so steeled by strong sense, duty, and discipline that it but rarely sought relief in a burst of passionate emotion. Marlborough was cast in a very different mould. He too, like Wellington, was endowed with a strong common sense that in itself amounted to genius, and possessed in the most trying moments a serenity and calm that was almost miraculous. But there was no coldness in his serenity, nothing impassive in his calm. He was sensitive to a fault; and though his temper might remain unchangeably sweet and his speech unalterably placid and courteous, his face would betray the anxiety and worry which his tongue had power to conceal.[488] With such a temperament there was a bond of humanity between him and his men that was lacking in Wellington. Great as Wellington was, the Iron Duke's army could never have nicknamed him the Old Corporal.
The epithet Corporal suggests comparison with the Little Corporal, who performed such marvels with the French Army. Undoubtedly the name was in both cases a mark of the boundless confidence and devotion which the two men could evoke from their troops, and which they could turn to such splendid account in their operations. Marlborough could make believe that he was meant to throw away his entire army and yet be sure of its loyalty; Napoleon could throw away whole hosts, desert them, and command the unaltered trust of a new army. In both the personal fascination was an extraordinary power; but here the resemblance ends. Napoleon, for all his theatrical tricks, had no heart nor tenderness in him, and could not bear the intoxication of success. Marlborough never suffered triumph to turn his head, to diminish his generosity towards enemies, to tempt him from the path of sound military practice, or to obscure his unerring insight into the heart of things. Twice his plans were opposed as too adventurous by Eugene, first when he wished to hasten the battle of Malplaquet, and secondly when he would have masked Lille and advanced straight into France; but even assuming, as is by no means certain, that in both instances Eugene was right, there is no parallel here to the gambling spirit which pervaded the latter enterprises of Napoleon. "Marlborough," said Wellington, "was remarkable for his clear, cool, steady understanding," and this quality was one which never deserted him. Nevertheless, if there be one attribute which should be chosen as supremely characteristic of the man, it is that which William Pitt selected as the first requisite of a statesman—patience; "patience," as the Duke himself once wrote to Godolphin, "which can overcome all things";[489] patience which, as may be seen in a hundred passages during the war, was possessed by him in such measure that it appears almost godlike. These are the qualities which mark the sanity of perfect genius, that distinguish a[591] Milton from a Shelley, a Nelson from a Dundonald, and a Marlborough from a Peterborough; and it is in virtue of these, indicating as they do the perfect balance of transcendent ability, that Marlborough takes rank with the mightiest of England's sons, with Shakespeare, with Bacon, and with Newton, as "the greatest statesman and the greatest general that this country or any other country has produced."
END OF VOL. I