PROFESSIONALISM IN BRITISH ARMY OFFICERS BEFORE 1914: A STATISTICAL VIEW
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Mars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
PROFESSIONALISM IN BRITISH ARMY OFFICERS BEFORE
1914: A STATISTICAL VIEW
Andrew Duncan
The historiography of the First World War is packed with discussion of the quality of
leadership in the British Army. A great deal of this is condemnatory, sometimes
blisteringly so, as in the case of Alan Clark’s The Donkeys, but the long trend of
revision begun by John Terraine has continued with work like Stephen Badsey’s
Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry which overturned myths about the
cavalry, cavalry officers, and the higher leadership of the army, and Albert Palazzo’s
Seeking Victory on the Western Front, which debunked the idea that the army
mistrusted technology and blindly followed traditional ways of doing things. Most,
although not all, of the writing focuses on senior officers, and sometimes only on
Haig, which is perfectly legitimate but leaves subalterns comparatively neglected.
This article focuses on junior officers, particularly the levels of professional
engagement that existed in the regular army’s officer corps prior to 1914.
‘Professional’ in this case does not mean simply that officers were paid, but is
otherwise close to the dictionary definition, namely, that officers required specialist
training, and needed to give competent, expert and dutiful attention to the
responsibilities of their commission.
This paper will explore the prevalence of these professional qualities in the pre-war
officer corps of the British army, focusing on junior officers. It is worth noting that it
is primarily the ‘expert training’ side of professionalism which is under consideration.
Being an officer requires many skills, only some of which are mental. Leadership and
care of the men under an officer’s command, and the sheer physical strength and
endurance necessary to handle the strain of campaign, are two of the most obvious
needs which have very little to do with training in tactics or the theory of war. There
is not space to consider more than one facet of officers’ professional abilities, and
even the sternest critics have not alleged that officers ignored their men’s welfare or
were physically unfit. The examination of the mental side of the military profession
will initially with evidence drawn from the papers of a few officers, who have been
chosen because their papers contain a good body of relevant thoughts and
observations which are broadly in agreement with the rest of the archival evidence.
Then the statistical evidence, drawn from the subscription lists of the Royal United
Services Institute Journal, will provide some context to show how typical these
officers were. As well as providing this wider context for pieces of textual evidence,
the subscriptions to the RUSI Journal are also interesting in their own right, for
reasons that will be explored below.
Richard Meinertzhagen was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers in 1899, entering
via the Militia after serving first in the Yeomanry, and went on to serve in India and
Africa before 1914, seeing active service in Kenya and entering Staff College at
Quetta in 1913.1 He recorded many judgments on other officers in his diaries, some
positive and some scathing, always corresponding to whether the officer in question
seemed to know his job or not. During a practice camp near Delhi in 1912, his
battalion observed a battery in action, and he wrote that ‘we as infantry officers were
1
Richard Meinertzhagen. Army Diary 1899-1926 (London: Oliver and Boyd, 1960), p.4, p.7 & p.10.
67
www.bcmh.org.ukMars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
disappointed’. He lambasted the gunners for being slow to open fire, and inaccurate
when they did so. He uses the words ‘farce’, ‘disgrace’ and ‘deplorable’ in an
extensive entry full of criticism for an arm that the infantry would rely on in war, but
ends sounding somewhat mollified by the fact that the general commanding the
exercise called the gunner officers a disgrace to the Royal Artillery and stopped all
their leave for six months.2 On arrival in Kenya in 1902, he notes that the adjutant, a
former ranker, is ‘keen, of the sergeant-major type, but most anxious to get efficiency;
I like him’.3 ‘Efficiency’ is a word that crops up regularly in his diary, mostly in
praise of other officers, but sometimes describing his own command if he feels it to be
in good condition. Meinertzhagen took the mental side of his profession seriously, and
was incredulous when he found in 1899 that talking shop in the Mess was forbidden.
‘I was caught reading a military book in the Mess last week and was told to get out; if
I try and discuss soldiering I am snubbed’.4 He felt that this ban on reading about and
discussing military issues was a ‘stupid regulation’, as did a fellow subaltern with
whom he discussed the matter.5 But soon after this he was away on his posting in
Kenya, and when he returned to his battalion in 1906, he found that ‘all the officers
seem now to be taking a greater interest in their profession and any effort to improve
one’s mind is not jeered at as it used to be’.6 He found the professional climate much
improved, although it seems that the seeds of the change in his battalion were present
before he left, as at least one other subaltern felt the need for change as well.
Arthur Burnell entered Sandhurst in September 1912, and after passing out was
commissioned into the Rifle Brigade, joining the fourth battalion in India.7 His letters
don’t make much mention of other officers, but contain quite a few mentions of the
thinking side of war. He wrote to his parents from Sandhurst that ‘We did a paper on
“Tactics” the other day. It is, of course, the most important of our subjects. The worst
of it is that if we don’t get 30% in every subject and 60% altogether we “drop” to the
next term, which quite a lot [of us] do. We all live in holy terror of doing so’. In the
same letter, he complains that a new teacher is too lenient.8 Once he was
commissioned, he began studying to pass an exam in Hindustani soon after arriving in
India. He wrote to his parents about the lessons he learned from training exercises,
and described a lecture from a Colonel of a Gurkha battalion on North West Frontier
fighting as one of ‘two chief events’ of the week.9 His Colonel spoke to Burnell four
months after his arrival, praised him, and suggested that he should aspire to be
battalion adjutant in the future. The Colonel undertook to assist Burnell to take any
courses that he wished to take.10 In July 1914 he wrote to his parents that ‘I am
reading such an interesting book now, called “Small Wars” by Callwell. His chapters
on hill warfare are supposed to be excellent, and what is more are jolly interesting’.11
It is highly likely that a fellow officer recommended the book and discussed his
thoughts on it with Burnell, which suggests that military reading and professional
discussion within Burnell’s battalion was quite common.
2
Ibid., p.51.
3
Richard Meinertzhagen, Kenya Diary (1902-1906) (London: Eland Books, 1983 [1957]), p.9.
4
Meinertzhagen. Army Diary, p.15.
5
Ibid., p.16.
6
Ibid., p.26.
7
A. C. Burnell, The Making of an Officer: Or, A Boy’s Life Told in His Letters (Winchester: Warren
and Son, Ltd. 1916), p.38 & p.83.
8
Ibid., p.46.
9
Ibid., p.101.
10
Ibid., p.110.
11
Ibid., p.122.
68
www.bcmh.org.ukMars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
The picture that emerges from the papers of these officers is one of professional
competence, mental engagement, and a desire to acquire and hone the skills of their
job. This is not limited to these two examples, but is, as noted earlier, broadly
representative of evidence drawn from the papers and memoirs of other junior officers
of the era.
There appears to have been a general acceptance of this level of professionalism right
across the Regular army, at least in the sense that no one branch seemed to be
particularly amateur or professional compared to the others. Members of the Royal
United Services Institute (the RUSI) were sent the Institute’s Journal, which was
essentially a monthly professional magazine for military and naval officers.
Membership could therefore be taken as a rough indication of particular professional
interest. The RUSI archives contain lists of all the new members who joined the RUSI
between November 1904 and July 1914, providing the name, rank and regiment of
each officer. All of the following tables are drawn from this information. It is worth
noting that the membership of the RUSI was growing steadily in the years before
1914. It reached 5654 members in 1912, and climbed slightly higher before war
began.12 There does not appear to be a surviving full membership list for any point
during the period, which does impose limits on what can be done with the available
data, since only inferences can be made about those men who were already members
by November 1904. However, the averages of nearly a decade of monthly
subscriptions do make a fairly long-term source of information, and it is not
unreasonable to assume that the overall membership would have been similar in
breakdown of arm and corps (if not in rank) to the breakdowns from the new
subscribers.
Number of new members Percentage of total
Regular Army 1414 58%
Royal Navy 314 13%
Royal Marine Light Infantry, 43 1.8%
Royal Marine Artillery
Territorial Force, Special Reserve, 315 13%
Yeomanry and Militia
Royal Naval reserves 37 1.5%
Indian Army 176 7.3%
Royal Indian Marine 4 0.1%
Other 117 5.3%
Total new membership 2420 100%
Figure 1: New Members of the RUSI13
This table (figure 1) is simply a breakdown of the 2420 men who joined over the
decade. The numbers of the listed subdivisions do not quite add up to the total, as a
few new members fell outside the military categories listed—civilians holding senior
posts in the government, for example. The largest single group of subscribers is
Regular Army officers, and if Indian Army and Regular Army officers are taken
12
RUSI Library: RUSI Annual Reports 20th Century, RUSI Reports 1909-1913, 82nd Meeting, p. xii.
13
The numbers in this chart, and in the charts that follow, have been drawn from the monthly new
membership lists printed in the RUSI Journal, Volumes XLVIII-LII, which are held in the RUSI
Library.
69
www.bcmh.org.ukMars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
together, they comprise fully two thirds of the new membership. Incidentally,
comparing these subscription numbers with the Army and Navy lists, and assuming
that the proportions of new subscribers are roughly equal to those of the overall
membership in the period, indicates that Army officers were more likely to subscribe
than Naval officers, with roughly 25% of Army officers subscribing, compared to
about 20% of Naval officers doing so.14
Number of officers Percentage of total
Infantry 839 59.4%
Cavalry 159 11.2%
Royal Artillery 258 18.2%
Royal Engineers 92 6.5%
Other 66 4.7%
Figure 2: New RUSI Members by Branch
Figure 2 divides the Regular Army officers by branch. Stephen Badsey notes that
cavalry officers are roughly 7% of the officer corps,15 and the numbers show them to
be proportionally overrepresented in the new subscribers. This should be borne in
mind when viewing Figure 3, which lists infantry and cavalry officers together, as that
is how the contemporary Army List grouped them. The ‘other’ category includes
officers of the RAMC and other non-combatant corps and departments.
New RUSI Members 1904-14 Army List June 1914
Number Percentage of total Number Percentage of total
Infantry/Cavalry 998 69.3% 7069 55.8%
Royal Artillery 258 19% 2597 20.5%
Royal Engineers 92 6.8% 1069 8.4%
Other 66 4.9% 1942 15.3%
Figure 3: Comparison with Army List Figures
Figure 3 compares the information in Figure 2 with the Army List of June 1914. Both
the infantry and cavalry subscribe at rates higher than their numbers in the Army
would suggest, although it is the margin of oversubscription by cavalry officers which
is substantially wider and arguably, therefore, more significant. The artillery officers
subscribe at rates roughly commensurate with their numbers, engineers at rates
slightly below their numbers, and the balance is made up by under-subscription from
officers in the ‘other’ group, which includes the RAMC, the Army Pay Department
and the Army Ordnance Department. This provides a contrast with notions of
unthinking cavalrymen, which Stephen Badsey has comprehensively debunked, but it
also suggests that there is room to reconsider the related notion that sappers and
gunners were the thinkers of the army, and more professional in their approach.
14
The Naval List used for this comparison was that of April 1914.
15
Badsey, Doctrine and Reform p.206.
70
www.bcmh.org.ukMars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
Joined Percentage of Officers, June Percentage of
RUSI: total: 1914 total:
Field Marshal 0 0% 9 0.06%
General 2 0.1% 18 0.1%
Lieutenant-General 3 0.2% 29 0.19%
Major-General 11 0.8% 128 0.8%
Colonel 63 4.6% 592 3.4%
Lieutenant Colonel 47 3.4% 1154 6.7%
Major 162 11.8% 2851 16.5%
Captain 533 38.7% 6173 35.7%
Lieutenant 346 25.1% 4689 27%
Second Lieutenant 211 15.3% 1645 9.5%
Figure 4: New RUSI Members by Rank, compared with the Army List
Figure 4 gives a breakdown of the new membership by rank, again compared with the
numbers of the Army List, and the percentage of each rank within either the new
subscribers or the army as a whole. The indication is that junior officers, even newly
commissioned subalterns, showed a distinct interest in the Journal, and subscribed at
or above the rate that their numbers in the army would suggest, a pattern which holds
true up to the rank of Major, where there is a notable drop, perhaps because many
men had already subscribed by the time they reached that rank. It picks up again
noticeably for Colonels, and above that, subscription rates neatly match percentages in
the army.
As already mentioned, the lack of a full membership list for any date in this period
means that Figure 4 can only be an indication of the rank breakdown of all
subscribers, which would obviously change somewhat from that presented here as
officers gained promotion, and would thus likely contain somewhat higher
proportions of senior officers. However, these numbers can be fairly taken as an
indication that junior officers, especially those commissioned between the Boer War
and 1914, were displaying a marked interest in professional matters, and recognising
from early on the value of subscribing to an internationally recognised professional
magazine.
The RUSI Journal had been awarded the Great Gold Medal Diploma after being
deemed the best military and naval journal in the world at the ‘Exhibition of Latest
Inventions’ in St Petersburg in 1910, and as well as its own articles, it published a
variety of translated articles from international sources, which it sourced quite widely.
Unsurprisingly, French and German articles appeared frequently, but articles from
Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands and Norway were also published in
translation.16 Subscribers, then, were exposed to a wide variety of military material
and thought, presented in one of the foremost publications of the day. That this was of
interest to so many Regular officers, many of them subalterns, provides some
quantitative evidence that the serious thought and professionalism indicated by
officers’ papers was not unusual, but rather widespread, both throughout the hierarchy
of the army, and across the branches of the force.
16
Damien O’Connor, Between War and Peace: British Defence and the Royal United Services Institute
1831-2010 (London: RUSI, 2011), p.129.
71
www.bcmh.org.ukMars & Clio No.36 Spring 2013
It has already been noted that the numbers of subscribers over this period was rising
steadily; the RUSI did its best to encourage this. In July 1906 and also in January
1907, the Council noted their ‘hope that members will not relax their energy in the
direction of introducing new members’. To that end, each copy of the journal included
a little slip of paper for signing up new members, and current members were
encouraged to hand this to anyone they felt might be interested.17 Given the restricted
scope of membership at the time, which was almost exclusively military, this was
almost certain to be other officers within a unit, or perhaps friends in a different unit.
In either case, the RUSI would have been unlikely to attempt such an effort if it was
felt that this method of expanding membership would not fit well with prevailing
army culture. This suggests that discussion of professional matters and professional
reading material was widespread throughout the army, with no particular distinction
between branches. However, the evidence does suggest that some regiments had more
subscribers than others; sixteen officers of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers joined over
the decade in question, while only two officers of the Liverpool Regiment joined in
the same period. Similar variations are evident between cavalry regiments as well.
Eight officers of the 7th Dragoon Guards joined in the decade prior to 1914, while
only two officers of the 3rd Dragoon Guards did so. Whether this was because of
particularly keen professionalism in some regiments or battalions, or a few officers in
one unit started a trend of new subscriptions by handing out the new membership
slips, or simply because some regiments already had more members than others, is not
clear. So, with the caveat that there could be variations between regiments, the
subscription lists of the RUSI indicate that professional interest, as measured by
subscription to professional reading matter, was broadly constant across the combat
branches of the army.
This article has attempted to examine the professionalism and intellectual engagement
of the British army’s pre-war officer corps from a new angle. While the mental ability
and dedication to duty of British officers of the period has been rehabilitated after a
long period under the cloud of the ‘lions led by donkeys’ school, notions of
unthinking officers persist, albeit mostly in public perception rather than in academic
discourse. Approaching the issue from a quantitative angle, in conjunction with an
examination of more usual archival sources, allows the evidence drawn from letters
and other documents to be generalised across the 12,738 men who made up the officer
corps.18 The available data also throws some interesting light on the divisions, or lack
thereof, between officers of various arms, and between officers in different regiments.
The conclusions on some points are necessarily tentative, but it is hoped to expand
upon them provided that further sources of similar quantitative data can be found.
Andrew Duncan
17
See the second item of the Secretary’s Notes, RUSI Journal, September 1910, Volume LIV, No 391.
18
Gary Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the
British Army in the Era of the First World War (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 2000), p.30.
72
www.bcmh.org.ukYou can also read
