The War Office Its Work and Personnel 1898

Title : The War Office Its Work and Personnel 1898  
Author : A Hilliard Atteridge
Source : Windsor Magazine
Year Published : 1898
Page Count : 8
Image Count : 9
Word Count : 4,762
File Size in MB : 4.4
File Type : PDF

"The British Army may be said to be in one very important respect like the British Constitution. It has been a thing of gradual growth, with not a little of practical makeshift and more or less successful compromise in its organisation and system of command. No one claims for it ideal perfection. On paper its organisation seems complicated and cumbrous beside the simpler and more symmetrical systems of the great armies of the Continent. So far as mere pounds, shillings and pence go in the calculation, it is more costly than they are in proportion to its numbers. But those who indulge in these rough and ready calculations forget that the men who organise and direct our Army have to deal with very different conditions from those which define the far lighter task of a Continental Minister of War. It is easy to sum up the alleged deficiencies of our Army by pointing to the fact that in a sudden emergency we could despatch only two, perhaps only one, corps d'armee to some distant land. But when this is asserted, an..."