Misunderstanding of Military matters—Forecast of change of Staff by a Charwoman—Antiquated Military Exercises abandoned—A change in Inspections at Sandhurst—Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Victoria—Offer to go to South Africa—Accepted, but not carried out—Lord Roberts approves certain reforms initiated by me—I leave Pall Mall, after eight years’ work.

All through the war I was asked by my friends, “Why ever did you send out so-and-so; see how badly he is doing?” And again, “Why did you not make better plans?” The ignorance of the Public is the more comprehensible when we consider that in February the Under-Secretary of State stated, in the House of Commons, that the Divisional and Brigade Commanders were appointed on the recommendation of the Army Board. He had been misinformed, and his informant, on my remonstrance, admitted the error. I was never able, however, to tell my friends the truth, until asked to give evidence before Lord Elgin’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into the War. I then stated, in reply to questions, the facts. The Order in Council under which the War Office was administered at the time, had placed the Heads of the great Departments in a position of quasi-independence of the Commander-in-Chief, by allowing them the privilege of dealing directly with the Secretary of State for War, at his option. The Commander-in-Chief, however, ordered me to address him on any matters which I desired to place before the Secretary of State, and therefore, although Lord Lansdowne minuted papers to me, he received them back through Lord Wolseley; I therefore had no independent position. In regard to plans, as Adjutant-General I never knew of one plan of Military operations. The expression frequently used by the Secretary of State in the House, “My Military Advisers,” implied only the Commander-in-Chief and the Director-General of Military Intelligence.

Throughout the year I was asking for an increase in the Establishment of officers, showing we had in one case, one officer to pay 850 men, of whom half were at Hounslow and half at Aldershot. I was urging that the Establishments of Rank and File were insufficient to enable us to train our soldiers, for when we had taken out the best educated and most intelligent men in each company for Mounted Infantry, as signallers, for Regimental Transport, and servants, there were few left capable of acting as section or group leaders; there were too few officers and too few men.

In one of the papers I submitted to the Secretary of State I wrote: “I am certain that all officers who have been fighting in South Africa will agree that the want of training has been the direct cause of many of our heavy losses, and of some of our reverses.” I explained that the Rank and File were as untrained as they were brave, and this from no fault of their own or of their officers, but because the British soldier was never given sufficient opportunity of practising his profession in the United Kingdom. I was engaged in another long correspondence with Cavalry Colonels, endeavouring to reduce the obligatory expenses of officers.

Lord Lansdowne went to the Foreign Office in November. I had worked under his direction for five years, and regarding him with genuine affection, shall always gratefully remember his sympathy in my disappointment in not being allowed to proceed to South Africa. If it were not so sad, the animadversion of the Press on his want of vigour as War Minister would have been comical. He added ten Line Battalions, one of Irish Guards, and 330 field guns to the Army.

When it was foreseen that Lord Lansdowne would leave the War Office there were many speculations as to his successor, and we were under the impression that Mr. George Wyndham was on the point of being nominated, before it was decided to send him to Ireland; and I got him to agree in anticipation to support my proposition that any pensioned private soldiers of good character should receive an increase at the age of sixty-five to make up a living income. In the office it was universally believed that when Lord Wolseley’s Command terminated, some of the Senior officers who had shared his many years of work in trying to render the Army fit for War would be removed, and this feeling was amusingly indicated by the conversation of two women who, when scrubbing the floors of the War Office, were overheard talking by General Laye, the Deputy Adjutant-General, as he went into his room one busy morning at nine o’clock. During the War a Restaurant had been started in the basement of the building, and I, finding the smell intolerable, had a glass air-shaft carried from the basement above the level of the Adjutant-General’s room. One woman, looking up from her scrubbing and pointing to the carpenter’s poles, asked, “Sally, what ‘as they put up that ere scaffolding for?” The other replied, “Don’t yer know? That’s where the new lot’s going to ’ang the old lot.”

When it became evident that the class of Yeomanry who for patriotic reasons, went to South Africa at Army rates of pay was exhausted, the Secretary of State enlisted men at five shillings, many of whom, in the opinion of the General Officer Commanding at Aldershot, were no better in education or class than the average Cavalry recruit.

The General Commanding in South Africa telegraphed for more Mounted Infantry, and I then suggested that, the Boers having no longer any Artillery, it would be simpler to train our Artillery in South Africa to shoot with a rifle. I was not certain how the Gunners would like the idea, but the sense of duty is very high in the Corps, and the result was very satisfactory.

In the Autumn I addressed the Commander-in-Chief, pointing out that our drill-book contained many obsolete movements, and asking leave to curtail as useless for war our Manual Exercise, containing in slow time nearly fifty motions, which most of our Generals and many of our Commanding officers still cherished, as their predecessors had, since it was instituted in 1780. I stated the Chinese was the only other nation which had any exercise like it; that Germany and Austria were content with teaching the men three motions; and also that we continued to practise the bayonet exercise, all of which was more suitable for a Music Hall than for training men to fight. The Commander-in-Chief approved, and on the 1st December an order was issued forbidding the Manual and Bayonet exercises being performed at Inspections or at any other time, as Regimental or Battalion parade practices. The order was actually signed by myself as Adjutant-General, although it was issued on the day I became acting Commander-in-Chief, for Lord Wolseley gave up his office on the last day of November.

In my one month of command I was able to carry out one reform. It became part of my duty to inspect the academies at Woolwich and Sandhurst. At the former I endeavoured, with only slight success, to render the inspection more practical, but at Sandhurst the reform was drastic. For eighty years, since the College was established, the young officers had been inspected in marching past, and in performing the Manual and Bayonet exercises as a preparation for war. When I ordered an inspection of the cadets in a practical Outpost scheme, one officer Instructor intimated privately his intention of resigning, as he considered my demands on him were outside his duty. I sent back a message that his resignation would be accepted; heard nothing more of it, and saw an attack on a line of Outposts, for which I had set the scheme, very well carried out.

At the end of 1900 and the beginning of the new year, I was occupied in preparing papers for a Committee of Inquiry into the War Office system, of which Mr. Clinton Dawkins was Chairman. I advocated strongly before the Committee the transfer to General officers commanding Districts, the greater part of the Administrative and Financial part of the business then transacted at the War Office, in two carefully prepared memoranda, and supplemented my arguments by giving evidence at length before the Committee.

I was much impressed by Mr. Clinton Dawkins’ quick apprehension of points in administration; but his manner was so quiet that, as I told him months later, when he asked me what I thought of his report, “Oh, I am delighted; but I was astonished when it came out, for I thought when I left your committee room that I had failed to make much impression on you, and you have practically endorsed nearly all my suggestions.”

Lord Roberts returned to London on the 3rd of January, when my brief command of the Army ceased. He took up at once the question of officers, by Lord Wolseley’s directions, wearing uniform335 at the War Office, on which an order I had drafted two years previously was and is still in print, but it has not yet been issued.

In the evening of the 22nd January Her Imperial Majesty the Queen died, and besides my personal grief, I realised I had lost a Patroness who since the Zulu war had treated me with the most gracious kindness.

The hours in the office for the next week were longer than ever, much unnecessary work being occasioned by different departments overlapping in their desire to have everything according to the King’s Commands.

On the 2nd February, the day of the funeral, the morning was bitterly cold, and the Commander-in Chief, being doubtless anxious, left his hotel ten minutes before the Head Quarters Staff were ordered to be present to accompany him. There was then a wait of over an hour and a half at Victoria Station, and when at last the procession moved, on a wave of the Chief’s baton, it was difficult to start immediately the head of the column, which was already to the north of Buckingham Palace. When we moved, it was nearly impossible to make the cream-coloured horses walk at the pace of Infantry marching “in Slow time,” and I apprehend the Procession could not have satisfied His Majesty the King.

When the team, being hooked in to the made-up gun carriage, moved from Windsor Station the bands, which were immediately under the overhead passage then recently erected, clashed with such a reverberating noise that some of the horses threw themselves into the collar violently, and the carriage rocked ominously. Fortunately the off wheeler broke the swingletree, and as there was no other at hand the sailors drew the coffin up to St. George’s Chapel,—perhaps a more appropriate manner of haulage than horses for a Naval monarch.

Some people assumed it was the fault of the Adjutant-General that there was no spare swingletree as there is on every gun service carriage, but I had no difficulty in producing correspondence showing that I had been instructed from Windsor Castle that the War Office need not interfere in the matter of the made-up gun carriage, which was to be supplied by the Carriage factory at Woolwich on requisition by the Lord Chamberlain.

On the 1st February the Military Secretary came into my office and asked if I was willing to go to South Africa and serve under Lord Kitchener. I took two hours for consideration, and then assented, mentioning verbally, I thought that for Service there was no question of dignity involved, although Kitchener was a Lieutenant when I had been some years a Major-General.336 On the 7th February I was informed it had been settled I was not to go to South Africa, and although I was not allowed officially to see the telegram on which the decision was based, it came into my hands, and was to the effect (telegram from Lord Kitchener), “While he would be delighted to serve under Sir Evelyn Wood, if he were sent out, he felt he ought not to have him under his command.” I could not thank him at the time, but did so eight months later.337

All through January we were discussing the organisation of Ammunition columns, and to my regret I failed to make my Superiors realise that such could not be formed, unless the officers were available. I was asked, “But surely you can get them somewhere?” So far as I know, the matter is “still under consideration.”

In the second week in February His Majesty intimated his intention of presenting medals to a Colonial Corps which was about to arrive in the Thames. The matter was not definitely settled, so I was unable to let the Commanding officer know the reason why I sent him a written request couched in polite terms for a nominal roll of all Ranks: I received back for answer a verbal message, “he had no time for such Red-tape nonsense.” Eventually, however, I obtained the names from a courteous subordinate, and by keeping Colonel Crutchley and non-commissioned officers of the Guards sorting up to a late hour, the medals wanted for the parade next day were arranged by Squadrons on trays. When the decorated men had passed, there were a dozen or so who were indignant at not receiving medals, but I elicited from them that they had been on sick leave in England, and only joined the Corps as it marched into the garden of Buckingham Palace! On the 22nd March the Secretary of State informed me that it had been decided to reduce the status of the Adjutant-General, and asked for my views. I had worked for many years with Mr. Brodrick, and being on terms of personal friendship I offered to resign at once, if it would render his position less troublesome. This offer he declined to accept, and eventually it was settled I should go to Salisbury when the Army Corps system, which had been explained in his speech in the House of Commons on the 9th March, was brought into operation. He stated that his object was to centralise responsibility in the districts, but decentralise administration, and he fulfilled his object eventually to a great extent.

On the 15th May the Commander-in-Chief motored round a part of Essex from the Thames to Epping, in order to study the tactical features of the country. As we passed three miles to the east of Ongar I stopped the car at Stondon Place, in order that Lord Roberts might leave a card on my young friend Maurice White,338 Rifle Brigade, who after showing marked courage, and being slightly wounded on the 22nd December 1900, was shot through the spine four days later. He chanced to be at the gate in an invalid carriage wheeled by his elder brother, one of the hardest riders in the Essex Hunt, as we passed, and I presented the wounded lad to his Lordship, who spoke very kindly to him.

I had arranged with Lord Roberts, who was dining with the Speaker, that he should go up by train from Epping; but when he saw I meant to drive through the Forest for pleasure, he elected to accompany me. Between Woodford and Walthamstow we passed a light grocer’s van; the man was not driving carefully, and after we had passed, the noise of the motor frightened the horse, which, swerving, collided with a lamp-post. The shafts parted, the horse broke away, and the man was pitched into the road, where he lay insensible, till running back I picked him up. While Lord Roberts with General Nicholson proceeded to London, I put the man, whose thigh was broken, into the car, and drove to a Hospital about a mile off. The Matron and nurses were sympathetic and anxious to help, but they assured me that every bed was occupied. A Committee of doctors was sitting at the time, and one of them coming out to see who was talking, I offering money, used Lord Roberts’ name; but all in vain, the Doctor saying, “It is not a question of money; our sole objection is that there is absolutely no spare bed.” Handing him my card, I asked where I could take the man, on which he said, “You are Essex, I see; we must try and do something for you. If you will have the man lifted out, I will clear a bed.” This he did by taking one of the patients who could best bear moving up to a nurse’s room, and putting the injured man in his place.

I was now seeing more of the Commander-in-Chief daily, for we had been strangers until he took over Command. Travelling about with him we interchanged ideas, and I realised the charm of the personality which has so agreeably affected most of those with whom he has worked in his long career. On the 21st May he wrote to the Secretary of State that he had intended to take up the revision of Confidential Reports on assuming Command, but found it had already been done.339

I accompanied him to the Aldershot Central Gymnasium in July, and he was so impressed with the training that he wrote to me next day urging we should do all in our power to develop the individual intelligence of the men, and no longer train them like machines. I had the satisfaction of informing him we had taken up the matter in October 1900, and what he saw at Aldershot was being carried out at every Infantry Depot, and that the Commanding officers were all in favour of the new system.

In July the Commander-in-Chief, impressed by the difficulty of training officers with small companies, considered whether it would not be better to have four companies instead of eight in a battalion. I was able at once to give him the history of the proposals which had been made during the last forty years. I did not mention, as was the case, that General Blumenthal, when he attended our Manoeuvres in 1872, told a friend of mine that he envied us our small companies, and that the large companies in Germany were due only to the impossibility of finding adequate numbers of gentlemen to officer the Army. I pointed out that most of the advantages were obtainable from two companies being worked together for five months in the spring and summer. This arrangement has, moreover, the advantage of enabling Commanding officers to so associate them that the most capable officers are responsible for the two companies. Lord Roberts wrote to me next day: “Your note on four versus eight companies is unanswerable; I shall not move in the matter.”

Somewhat later he was not able to agree with me at first in my views about Volunteer Field Artillery. He had seen the excellent work done by high-class mechanics sent out by the Vickers Company, and wished to create batteries of Volunteers. I had frequently put on paper that it was impracticable for Volunteers to give sufficient time to become efficient Field Artillery men, but the Secretary of State formed a Committee composed of the Financial Secretary, a Militia officer, and a civilian, to report on the subject, and they soon came to the same conclusion as I had done. Indeed, although a limited number of Infantry brigades have trained in camp for fifteen days, to their enhanced efficiency, yet as three months’ initial, and a month’s annual training is essential for Field Artillery, the proposition was not feasible.

Before I left the Office I got a grant from the Treasury, the mere idea of which was received with ridicule when I first mentioned it in the War Office. I pointed out that the Staff College graduates in 1899–1900 had fed the Drag Hounds and paid the wages of the kennel huntsman, although on duty in South Africa, the period for which they would have remained at the College had the war not arisen. When the Establishment was closed, no more funds were available, and so at the conclusion of the War, or when it was in sight, and we were arranging to re-open the College, there were no Drag Hounds. Now the most gifted Staff officer is useless in the Field unless he is at home in the saddle, and there are many who go to the College who have never had an opportunity of riding across country and over fences until they follow the Drag Hounds. I put this clearly, and to the astonishment of the Secretary of State the £200 was granted, and handed over to an officer who was rejoining on the Tutorial staff. I had met him when I was looking at some tactical operations near Tidworth, and heard the story, which interested me much, as I knew the educational value of the Drag Hounds.

In July I heard the name of my successor, and I then asked if I might be told officially that I was to leave the War Office at the end of September, and eventually got a month’s notice.

I was the more anxious to make certain because I had received a tempting offer from the Chairman and Directors of a property in South America to go over, and make a report on it, receiving an honorarium of £1000, and all expenses for myself and a secretary. I informed the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of State of the offer, bearing in mind the apprehensions of the War Office in 1880, who had deprived me of all pay, even half-pay of 11s. per diem, for the six months I was in South Africa with Her Imperial Majesty the Empress EugÉnie. Anxious to avoid the Secretary of State being inconvenienced by any questions in Parliament, I suggested I should go on half-pay for two months, and take up my new work on the 1st January. Neither of my Superiors raised any objection, but on reflection I thought that any delay in initiating the working of the Army Corps Districts might weaken the arguments of the Secretary of State, in favour of what I still regard as being a sound system, so I reluctantly abandoned the idea, going straight from Pall Mall to Salisbury.

On the 3rd September my comrades in the Adjutant-General branch, both Civil and Military, gave me a Farewell Dinner, which induced a touching outburst of regret from those who knew how I had tried to do my duty during the War.

The Commander-in-Chief, who was away from London, wrote in kind terms thanking me for the help I had afforded him during the nine months of our association. He dwelt especially on the use I had been to him from my knowledge of War Office details, and intimate acquaintance with the various localities to which I had accompanied him on his tours of Inspection.