Nr. 407, 1. September 1855.
Mittagblatt

X. London, 23 August. (Uniform and equipment of the British soldier) are a model of everything they ought not to be. Up to this moment the uniform, as the army used to wear it until 1815, remains in common use, only superficially altered by a new dress regulation which gave the red coat a Prussian cut, the infantry the Austrian shako or képi, and the cavalry the Prussian helmet. England alone has retained in its army the red coat, the “proud red coat” (the proud red coat), as Napier calls it. The Danes and Hanoverians used to wear it formerly. The first campaign in Schleswig proved to the Danes what an excellent target it offers to the enemy.

Nevertheless, an improvement has been introduced in the British army that leaves everything similar in other countries far behind – the arming of the entire infantry with the Minié rifle improved by Pritchett. There is no doubt that the Minié rifle, by the murderous certainty of its aim, decided the day of Inkerman in favour of the English.

The cavalry consists of fine men, well mounted and provided with sabres of excellent pattern; what it can accomplish it showed at Balaclava. But on average the men are too heavy for their horses, and a few months of active campaigning are therefore ruinous for the British cavalry. Since the horses are too heavily loaded, they must break down before they can be used with success against the enemy. The Crimea has furnished a new example of this.

The artillery likewise consists of men who are too tall. The artillery material is first-rate. The cannons are the best in Europe, the powder is acknowledged to be the strongest in the world, the balls possess a smoothness of surface such as nowhere else. The artillery material is the product of modern, industrial England, while the artillery officers are the product of Old England. The former, therefore, stands as far above, as the latter stands deep below the level of the European armies.

The education of the British artillery officers generally stops at the mere elements of the science of artillery, and in practice at the handling, which remains imperfect, of field-guns. Two qualities distinguish the British artillery, privates as well as officers: unusually sharp eye and great calmness during the action.

On the whole, the effectiveness of the British army is essentially impaired by the theoretical and practical ignorance of the officers. The examination to which they have recently been subjected is truly laughable – a captain is examined in the first three books of Euclid! But the British army is principally established to place the younger sons of the aristocracy and gentry in respectable situations. The measure of education for its officers must therefore be regulated, not by the requirements of the service, but by the scanty information which is on average expected of an English “gentleman”. As regards the practical military knowledge of the officer, it is equally insufficient. The British officer knows only one duty: to lead his men straight against the enemy on the day of battle, and to set them an example of bravery. Skill in the handling of troops, the seizing of favourable opportunities, and the like, is not expected of him, and to look after his men and their needs – such an idea would appear to him utterly disrespectful and heterodox. One half of the disasters of the British army in the Crimea sprang from this general incapacity of the officers. They possess, however, a quality which fits them for their functions. Mostly passionate hunters from youth, they share the instinctive and rapid perception of the advantages of terrain, which the practice of hunting more or less produces. The incompetence of the officers nowhere works greater mischief than in the staff. There exists no regularly educated staff corps. Every general forms his own staff out of his relatives and protégés among the regimental officers, without any regard for special knowledge. Such a staff is manifestly worse than none at all. Reconnaissances in particular must therefore always be carried out in the most defective manner.

The education of the other special corps is somewhat better, but far below the standard of other nations, and in general an English officer would pass for an ignoramus everywhere else among men of his rank. Witness the British military literature. Most works are full of gross blunders, which elsewhere would not be forgiven to a candidate for the rank of lieutenant. The most ridiculous communications from foreign books are therefore readily credited and adopted. See, for example, Colonel (now General) Chesney’s work on firearms, and Chesney is considered one of the best artillery officers in England. We must not forget, however, that there are some honourable exceptions, among which W. Napier’s “War in the Peninsula” and Howard Douglas’s “Naval Gunnery” take the first rank.

We have repeatedly pointed out the wretched state of the commissariat, transport, and other auxiliary departments. They formally broke down in the Crimean campaign. Efforts are ostensibly being made to improve them and likewise to centralise the administration, but little good can be expected, as long as the civil administration, or rather as long as the governmental power, remains in the same hands. With all these enormous shortcomings, the British army manages to pull through every campaign, if not with success, at least without disgrace. A loss of human life, a degree of mismanagement, a conglomeration of errors and blunders that astound us when we compare them with the condition of other armies under similar circumstances, but no loss of military honour, rare repulses, full defeats almost never. It is the great personal courage and tenacity of the troops, their discipline and their unconditional obedience, that are owed this result. Clumsy, awkward and helpless, as the British soldier is when isolated on his own resources, or when he has to perform the service of light troops, no one surpasses him in a pitched battle, where he acts in masses. His force is the action in line. An English line of battle does what has scarcely ever been accomplished by any other: to receive cavalry in line, keeping their muskets loaded to the last moment, and to deliver a shower of bullets only when the enemy has approached to 30 yards – almost always with the greatest success. The fire of the British infantry perhaps surpasses that of any other troops, because executed with calm coolness even in the most critical moment. Thus the Highlanders in line drove back the Russian cavalry at Balaclava. The indomitable tenacity of this infantry never showed itself with higher lustre than at Inkerman, where the French, under the same circumstances, would certainly have been overpowered; but, on the other hand, the French would never have allowed themselves to be surprised in such a position, unwatched and unprotected. This solidity and tenacity in attack and defence constitute the great compensating quality of the British army, and have alone saved it from many a defeat that was well deserved and almost deliberately provoked by the incapacity of its officers, the absurdity of its administration, and the clumsiness of its movements.