Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/40

34 plicated conditions is the one already cited, that vacancies ought to take place laterally as well as at one end of the list. And it might be objected that if compulsory retirement were insisted on in the grade of colonel only, the result would be that every officer would succeed in turn to the command of a regiment, and hold it for only a few months before his turn came to be shelved. And very frequent changes of regimental commanders would, of course, be bad. But it is doubtful if such a result would follow. As the rules now stand, indeed, each officer feels assured that if he can escape compulsory retirement, his turn will come to rise to the top of the regiment, and so is tempted to hold on; whereas if he saw that there was little chance of the way being cleared for him, he would retire of his own accord. This is what used to happen in the old days, when a lieutenant-colonel would sometimes remain ten or fifteen years in command of a regiment. The officers below him saw that he had no intention of making way for them, and therefore they gave up waiting, and went themselves: if they had known that he had only a short tenure of office, they might have been tempted to hold on. Few men indeed would care to take up the command of a regiment unless they saw their way to holding it for a reasonable time. And generally it may be said that if the age for compulsory retirement be extended, the fewer will there be to whom the rule is applied. Many a man will retire of his own accord at fifty, to whom it would have been a great hardship to place him on the shelf at forty. Lastly, there remains the effectual remedy of promotion by selection, now so sparingly applied.

We have already remarked upon the degradation of military rank which has taken place in the multiplication of field officers in a regiment. A German regiment of three battalions, which in peace time is 1800 and in war time 3000 strong, has an establishment of five field officers; a French regiment of four battalions and a depot has seven field officers. For a battalion of English infantry, which in peace time is usually as low as 500 strong and in war time is not to exceed 1000, if ever it can be got up to that strength, an establishment is provided of six field officers. A cavalry regiment consisting of four, and in India of only three weak squadrons, is supplied with a staff of five field officers. The second lieutenant-colonel in all these cases has nothing to do; in fact he is kept up simply to justify the War Office and the retirement regulations. The majors in the infantry command companies, and in the cavalry troops: in every other army the much stronger company or squadron is commanded by a captain. Thus military rank in the English army has come to represent something quite different from what it represents in every other army, and has of course become cheapened in foreign estimation as well as at home; in short, a distinct degradation has been brought about of military rank. It may be said that the new double-company column of attack will furnish an adequate command for the major. But the British double company is a smaller body than the German or French single company; and the British squadron of two troops has always up to the present time been commanded by the senior of the two troop captains.

Another melancholy instance of the misuse of what should be the