Page:The empire and the century.djvu/225

 the hopelessness of ever getting anything done, or ever finding out what it is wanted to do, and from the War Office hopelessness and indifference spread throughout the army.

The South African War brought out the defects of our military system in the most striking fashion. Not only the nation and the Government, but the army itself, apart from its inadequacy in numbers, was completely unprepared for war. There was hardly a single officer or sol&er who was really trained for war, who knew what war meant, who realized the intellectual and physical preparation required for it, or the energy and the sacrifices demanded in waging it. Our military failure in South Africa was not merely that of antiquated tactical methods, and insufficient bookwork or defective maps, though all these features played a part in it; it was also a failure in the military spirit. The attitude of the army was as unwarlike in its essence as the attitude of the nation. The absurd fear of casualties, the hysterical excitement about the Boer artillery, the exaggeration of the depth of rivers and steepness of mountains, which were so conspicuous features in the reports of press correspondents, were but the reflection of the attitude of the officers from which those correspondents derived their impressions, and who censored their despatches.

To secure an efficient defence we must have a nation interested in defence, and fully cognizant of its meaning and of its methods. The study of military problems ought to form an essential part of the citizen's education in his political duties. Military history ought to be included in the curriculum of our public schools and Universities. It is a national disgrace that there is no Chair of Military History or of Strategy at either Oxford or Cambridge. In a country like Germany, where the leading of the army is intrusted to a military class largely separate from the body of the nation, it may do to have military history confined to a section of the General Staff. In a democratic nation like ours,