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Late Victorian Defense Policy - 1865-1914

There is nothing new in the concept of defence reviews. Some have sought to derive lessons from military failures while others have attempted a root-and-branch rethink of defence strategy. Not all have seen Parliamentary input. Arguably, the first identifiable review (certainly the first in which Parliament had any role) was Cromwell's work in 1643 which led to the formation of the New Model Army. It was, in military terms, a success. Over the ensuing centuries, the United Kingdom has regularly adjusted its defence posture in relation to real or perceived changes in the nature of external threats to its territorial integrity, imperial ambitions or trading interests, or in response to revised Exchequer views of affordability.

These reviews had a variety of targets. The balance of force structure between the Navy and the Army was a constant preoccupation. So too was the structure of the policy-making and decision-making superstructure. In 1688/89, Parliament asserted in the Bill of Rights that no standing army could be maintained in peacetime without its permission. The struggle for supremacy between Crown and civilian control of the military continued however, and was conducted over the hubbub of an endlessly renewed battle by the military to seize control of their own budget and command structure.

From the Civil War up to and beyond the Napoleonic wars, the overriding and inescapable commitment was home defence against invasion. Over the first part of the nineteenth century the Army gradually waxed, while the Navy waned, perhaps because it faced little serious opposition. This process continued throughout the era of the Pax Britannica, during which the need for the stationing of land forces overseas to defend the colonies against internal and external threats increased. The consequential loss of a sustainable expeditionary capability was dramatically manifested by the incompetent prosecution of the Crimean War; and the setting up of a parliamentary inquest, in the form of the Select Committee on the Army before Sebastopol, brought down a Prime Minister in 1855.

The death of Palmerston, in 1865, was followed by a long period during which the British foreign policy was generally one of aloofness from Continental affairs. The Liberals, dominated until his retirement in 1894 by the masterful personality of Gladstone, were interested primarily in domestic progress, and, though, with their leader, they raised their voices from time to time in behalf of oppressed nationalities, they aimed, as far as possible, to pursue their course unhampered by European complications.

Disraeli, so long as he led the Conservative party, applied his spacious imagination mainly to popularizing the idea of Imperialism and fostering the British overseas dominion. "England," he declared so early as 1866, " has outgrown the European Continent. . . . Her position is no longer that of a mere European Power. England is the metropolis of a great maritime Empire, extending to the boundaries of the furthest ocean, though she is as ready and as willing, even, to interfere as in the old days when the necessity of her position requires it." Salisbury, his successor, though quick enough to take a firm stand whenever British interests or honor seemed to be threatened, assumed as his guiding aim the maintenance of the peace of Europe.

While British statesmen, from the generation following the American Revolution up thruogh the middle of the 19th Century, expected and even wished for a sundering of the Imperial dominions - much to the distress of loyal Canadians and Australians - a great change then took place, especially in the last decades of the 19th century. The British people, formerly ignorant and indifferent in all that concerned Imperial questions, became - owing in no small degree to the vision and eloquence of Disraeli - enthusiastic and active.

Over the remainder of the nineteenth century, a growing perception that the UK depended for its wealth on the protection of its access to its imperial possessions and trading interests resulted in a re-emphasis on naval power; the focus of spending switched to the Navy and perhaps in consequence the 1887 Select Committee on the Estimates found that the Army did not have the capability to sustain its roles. The Stephen Commission of the same year recommended a reassessment of defence spending on the basis of what might now be termed a threat assessment rather than a perception of affordability, and also recommended a reduction of political control of the armed forces.

Conferences of Colonial Ministers, beginning at London during the Jubilee of 1887, did much to draw the Colonies to the Mother Country. The aid furnished by Canada and Australia in the Sudan campaign of 1885 and in the Boer War, the penny post, the improved steam communications, and the cable to Australia have been additional links. The Colonial Conferences - known since 1907 as Imperial Conferences - became regular institutions meeting every four years and discussed such vital questions as Imperial defense. And in the intervals of their meeting a permanent Imperial secretarial staff was in constant session at London under the supervision of the Colonial Secretary to keep the Dominions informed of all matters of common concern that may come up at future conferences. The League of Empire was active throughout the British Dominions for the furtherance of education in Imperial concerns.

The European feeling manifested against her at the time of the Boer War had awakened Great Britain to a realization of her isolated position and stirred her to the task of settling her outstanding disputes with various countries, of restoring the balance of power and of extending the policy of international arbitration. Under the Marquis of Lansdowne, who succeeded Salisbury as Foreign Secretary in 1900, the ties with Italy and Portugal had been strengthened and cordiality with France had been reestablished. In this work the British Foreign Minister was greatly assisted by the pacific Edward VII, who as Prince of Wales had formed many warm personal attachments in France, though, in his new capacity as King, he was careful not to usurp the functions of his responsible Ministers. In 1903, during his first Continental tour since his accession, he stopped at Paris, and his visit was returned by President Loubet in July. This prepared the way for the Entente Cordiale concluded by Lansdowne and the French Foreign Minister Delcasse, 8 April, 1904.

A review (the Hartington Commission) had resulted in the establishment of the War Office and the Elgin Commission, after the Boer War, established the Committee on Imperial Defence which laid the foundations of an integrated civilian/military command structure. Subsequently, the Esher Committee report of 1904 resulted in the permanent establishment of that Committee and the final abolition of the post of Commander in Chief of the Army.

Beginning in 1905 came ten years during which the storm clouds had been gathering, and ten years in which a Liberal Ministry had been in power, a Ministry concerned primarily with domestic political and social reforms. Their leaders were on principle opposed to preparedness; pacific in intent themselves they sought to close their eyes to the German menace, or at least to avert it by negotiation rather than by armaments. Indeed, when Great Britain entered the war, three members of the Cabinet resigned as a protest against the step. The majority of the people outside, although determined from the outset to meet their obligations, were only gradually awakened to the gravity of the situation.

While there were Englishmen who indulged in reckless utterances, the statesmen in power, backed by the majority who kept them there, strove for peace at every crisis, notably in 1908, 1911, and 1914. They refused to increase their land army in spite of the fervid agitation of Lord Roberts. They made no protest against the great military force which Germany regarded as essential for the protection of her frontiers. The Liberal Administration, in power for eight years previous to the War, sought in every way to preserve the peace; the commercial classes were those most opposed to war.

By 1908, the growing burden of financing the policy of equipping the Navy to match the size of the two next largest navies (the 'Blue Water' policy) caused the government to reduce the ratio of naval superiority. In the run-up to 1914, the work of the Haldane Committee resulted in the reorganisation and modernisation of the Army. It established a 'National Army' on the basis of an expeditionary force of Regulars and the modern Territorial Army (TA) for home defence, formed from the merger of the Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers. An underlying principle of the legislation, commonly known as the Haldane principle, was the separation of the tasks of administration, recruiting and accommodation of the Territorial Army from those of command and training, which were to remain under the regular Chain of Command. Lord Haldane explained the rationale behind this separation: "We find that we are constantly maltreating the Volunteers for want of local knowledge and we feel it to be absolutely essential that they should have some power of organisation in the counties and of controlling their own affairs."

Britain had made specific agreements with France in 1904 and with Russia in 1907, which apparently contemplated joint action in case of necessity, though she was free to decide what constituted a case of necessity. However, she was bound in honor to protect the French coast, since the French had withdrawn their whole fleet to the Mediterranean, leaving the British to concentrate in the Channel and North Sea. Furthermore, together with Prussia, Austria, France, and Russia, she had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium in 1839. Austro-German domination of the Balkans might seriously menace her Eastern possessions, while German occupation of Belgium, in conjunction with her steadily increasing navy, might threaten the very existence of the British Isles. Finally, in the event of a European War, Great Britain would have to face the issue of standing by France and Russia or leaving them to be crushed, with the certain prospect of having to fight the victor alone in the near future.

With all their fine qualities of courage and steadfastness the British were, in general, slow and unimaginative. Unmilitary, unsystematic, and liberty-loving, they were constitutionally averse to sacrificing their cherished institutions in order to meet the emergency; skilled labor, for example, was reluctant to yield its hard-won privileges; there was a widespread opposition to Government regulation and control of industry, to conscription, and to all that would enable those in authority to act arbitrarily and effectively.

At the outbreak of the War there were three leading figures in the Cabinet: the Premier, Mr. Asquith, a great reconciler, who favored allowing everyone to have his say in counsel and debate and whose policy was "wait and see"; Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, mainly bent on saving money on armaments in order to apply it to his projects for the betterment of the masses; and Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, who, while far from oblivious to threatening situations on the Continent, hoped to avert trouble by conciliatory negotiation rather than by armed preparedness.

The British people in general were unmilitary, distrustful of change, of system, of Government encroachment on their individual liberty, and prone to muddle through difficulties. Largely unconcerned with foreign affairs, they had plenty of disquieting problems at home to occupy their attention. Organized labor was striving further to better its position by frequent strikes, the militant suffragettes were still on the rampage and the Irish situation was acute.

In spite of the earnest pleas of Lord Roberts for a more adequate army, and the solemn warnings of Sir Percy Scott that the submarine would destroy their vaunted naval superiority, the great majority of the British people felt complacently secure in their island fastness and, even after the War broke out, continued for a time to nourish the delusion that they could do their part to meet the German menace with a small expeditionary force in addition to their fleet, and the resources of the Empire which they could contribute.

Gradually they awoke to the situation, which the leaders of the dominant party were all too tardy in disclosing to them in its full gravity; there was much faltering and bungling, but their ultimate achievement in meeting the crisis was marvelous. Most amazing of all was the readiness with which they cast aside their old prejudices and cherished individual rights, and submitted to a degree of Government regulation which, hitherto, no one would have believed possible.

In spite of the tenseness of the European situation, accentuated by German patriotic celebrations at the centenary of the Battle of Leipzig (October, 1913), Mr. Lloyd George pleaded in the Daily Mail, 2 January, 1914, for a reduction of armaments on the grounds that (i) British relations with Germany were infinitely more friendly than they had been for years; (2) Germany was concentrating on her army rather than on her navy; and (3) the spread of revolt against military oppression throughout Christendom.