WI: Cardwell Reforms different

Saphroneth

Banned
The Cardwell reforms in the mid-late 19th century were something of a mixed bag at best for the British Empire.

Cardwell went into them with a remit to cut expenditure and abolish purchase of commissions, which meant that - while some genuinely good things were done - the British Army was also fundamentally reorganized in a way counter to its main strategic objective.

Pre-Cardwell, a soldier enlisted for 11 years with an extra 10 (IIRC, the numbers may be off) optional, and large numbers took the optional. With the at-the-time establishment strength of 220,000, the British Army could meet colonial commitments with relative ease (since most of the army could be sent overseas for garrison - young soldiers weren't allowed) and maintain a large force in the UK to raid for overseas deployments.


Cardwell introduced short service, which reduced the time spent in service drastically and meant that time was spent in the reserve instead of on active duty. This chops up the number able to go overseas, reduces the average experience level of the soldiers (the average soldier pre-Cardwell would have well over five years of experience, post-Cardwell it's more like two to three at best) and means that the reaction force in the UK is too small to provide major commitments.

(From memory, the army is shrunk by something like 40,000 to 50,000 men, which means that the home force takes the brunt of the loss and that it's mostly the less experienced men).




So.


What would have changed in British history if the worse parts of the Cardwell Reforms had been skipped or ameliorated? Could it have had an effect on British culture to have a reasonably large standing army (on a continental scale, though at the small end) in addition to the militia and volunteers?
And would any wars have gone significantly differently?
 
The Cardwell reforms in the mid-late 19th century were something of a mixed bag at best for the British Empire.

Cardwell went into them with a remit to cut expenditure and abolish purchase of commissions, which meant that - while some genuinely good things were done - the British Army was also fundamentally reorganized in a way counter to its main strategic objective.

Pre-Cardwell, a soldier enlisted for 11 years with an extra 10 (IIRC, the numbers may be off) optional, and large numbers took the optional. With the at-the-time establishment strength of 220,000, the British Army could meet colonial commitments with relative ease (since most of the army could be sent overseas for garrison - young soldiers weren't allowed) and maintain a large force in the UK to raid for overseas deployments.


Cardwell introduced short service, which reduced the time spent in service drastically and meant that time was spent in the reserve instead of on active duty. This chops up the number able to go overseas, reduces the average experience level of the soldiers (the average soldier pre-Cardwell would have well over five years of experience, post-Cardwell it's more like two to three at best) and means that the reaction force in the UK is too small to provide major commitments.

(From memory, the army is shrunk by something like 40,000 to 50,000 men, which means that the home force takes the brunt of the loss and that it's mostly the less experienced men).




So.


What would have changed in British history if the worse parts of the Cardwell Reforms had been skipped or ameliorated? Could it have had an effect on British culture to have a reasonably large standing army (on a continental scale, though at the small end) in addition to the militia and volunteers?
And would any wars have gone significantly differently?

Yes, I think that the British Army was tiny, no where near 220,000 men (I'm assuming this number may have been the Napoleonic Era, or the Boer Wars, certainly nothing from 1815 to 1890).

See the Wikipedia entry:
The starting point was a Royal Commission in 1858, established in the aftermath of the Crimean War, under Jonathan Peel, then Secretary of State for War. In addition to the obvious instances of incompetence and maladministration which had been revealed, it was evident that the provision of an army of only 25,000 in the Crimea had stripped Britain of almost every trained soldier. The lesson was reinforced by the Indian Mutiny, which once again required almost the entire usable British Army to suppress.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Actually, it was

Yes, I think that the British Army was tiny, no where near 220,000 men (I'm assuming this number may have been the Napoleonic Era, or the Boer Wars, certainly nothing from 1815 to 1890).

See the Wikipedia entry:
The starting point was a Royal Commission in 1858, established in the aftermath of the Crimean War, under Jonathan Peel, then Secretary of State for War. In addition to the obvious instances of incompetence and maladministration which had been revealed, it was evident that the provision of an army of only 25,000 in the Crimea had stripped Britain of almost every trained soldier. The lesson was reinforced by the Indian Mutiny, which once again required almost the entire usable British Army to suppress.

Actually, in 1862 it was:

British Regular Forces – 218,309 officers and men (includes active forces, depot and garrison troops, and overseas “local and colonial” forces; all volunteer; no conscription; 10-12 year enlistment). Of these, there are 192,852 “active” and 25,457 garrison and depot troops; plus
“Foreign and Coloured” troops – 175,153 o&m (India – 3 year enlistment)


Source is:

Petrie, Capt. Martin (14th F.) and James, Col. Sir Henry (RE - Topographical and Statistical Dept., War Office), Organization, Composition, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office; by direction of the Secretary of State for War, 1863 (preface dated Nov., 1862)

If one counts up all the regular infantry battalions in Britain, Ireland, and the Channel Islands, it comes out to (roughly) ~50-60, or about six infantry divisions at the then-Aldershot standard of three brigades of (presumably) three battalions each.

Worth noting is that because of the Russian war and the Indian rebellion, about 36 infantry battalions (three of the six nominal divisions mentioned above) were added to the regular establishment in this same period.

The objective of Cardwell - along with burying purchase - was to create enough a regular and reserve cadre in the UK proper to provide something resembling a useful army/corps-sized force that could be used overseas if needed, as well as providing the necessary garrisons and field forces in India and elsewhere across the Empire. The obvious concern was another European war; as it was, the experience in the Crimea and the utter inability of the British to even consider any sort of effort on the Continent in this era, at a time when the Prusso-Germans, Austrians, French, and Russians were mobilizing hundreds of thousands of men, the British would have been hard-pressed to (for example) put much more than a corps ashore if they had tried to intervene on the behalf of the Danes in 1864.

Trying to create a centralized reserve and free up both the army and navy from a multiplicity of imperial assignments was part of the reasoning behind absorbing the EIC's armies, confederation in Canada and (eventually) Australia and South Africa, and consolidating the RN in home waters and the Med.

Best,

 

Saphroneth

Banned
Yes, I think that the British Army was tiny, no where near 220,000 men (I'm assuming this number may have been the Napoleonic Era, or the Boer Wars, certainly nothing from 1815 to 1890).

See the Wikipedia entry:
The starting point was a Royal Commission in 1858, established in the aftermath of the Crimean War, under Jonathan Peel, then Secretary of State for War. In addition to the obvious instances of incompetence and maladministration which had been revealed, it was evident that the provision of an army of only 25,000 in the Crimea had stripped Britain of almost every trained soldier. The lesson was reinforced by the Indian Mutiny, which once again required almost the entire usable British Army to suppress.

Wrong, sorry.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ygPtKUZvn3gC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=British+army+size+1860&source=bl&ots=l7weMaFbeO&sig=DvvEHOxOO6v2bl9iGUKXWJn4FmM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwADgKahUKEwiUl-au1o_JAhWGWRQKHTOwD6E#v=onepage&q=British%20army%20size%201860&f=false

"...however, by 1860, their numbers had climbed to nearly 220,000 as a consequence of the Crimea, the Mutiny, and contemporary fears of a French invasion".


The British, believe it or not, noticed that their army was too small in the Crimea and Mutiny, and took steps to rectify it.


The distribution, by the way, was roughly 100,000 home establishment + 50,000 colonial establishment + 70,000 British Indian establishment.
This does not count the newly created militia and volunteers, either, which for once provided the British Army with a large home reserve.

So, now we've established that Cardwell broke something... what would happen if he didn't?
 
Cardwell introduced short service, which reduced the time spent in service drastically and meant that time was spent in the reserve instead of on active duty.
It's understandable why Cardwell did this: the fashion of the time is for emulating Prussia, and it's certainly a better step than adopting the pickelhaube as they do subsequently. But the problem is that Britain has an empire, and Prussia doesn't. Britain needs to be able to send troops out to garrison colonies, and have them stay there for a long period of time (more of my thoughts on Cardwell here).

After the Boer War, the war minister Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster basically solved all the problems with Cardwell, though he was removed from office before he could enact the bulk of his reforms. He had a number of proposals, but the core of them were to have two armies: one long-service, and one short-service. This had been suggested before by, among others, Sir Charles Dilke and Sir Frederick Roberts.

Arnold-Forster proposes that the long-service army serve nine years with the colours and three years in the reserves. Three quarters of the battalions are overseas; one quarter are at home, where they produce a corps-strength striking force based at Aldershot. Home battalions are kept close to full strength, and only need a few hundred reservists to bring them up to strength. Soldiers from the long-service army have the option of extending their service and providing NCOs for the short-service army.

The short-service army has two years active and six years in the reserve. The battalions are all at home, most based close to their regimental districts. They're kept at c.600 men in peace time, and in the event of a European war are brought up to strength with large drafts from the reserves. They hold annual manoeuvres at full strength, calling up certain classes of reservist for two weeks in order to do so. In the event of war, the spare reservists and officers form a reserve battalion akin to the second-line battalions of WWI or the German Landwehr.

The main problem with Cardwell is that he tries to combine the long-service imperial requirement with the short-service reserve generating requirement in a single kind of enlistment. However, the two are so fundamentally different that it always makes a poor compromise. I haven't seen a solution to the compromise better than the one Arnold-Forster suggested, but perhaps someone here can one-up him.

Another one of the big flaws which you didn't mention is the linked battalion system. Under Cardwell, one battalion serves abroad and the other stays at home training recruits. As such, every year the home battalion is stripped of its best men: when it's called on to serve in a war, therefore, it has vast numbers of men unfit for service which it has to slough off and replace with reservists. Arnold-Forster proposes that all training should last six months and be performed in large depots resembling the infantry brigades of 1948-68. Based on the example of the Royal Marines and the Guards, both of whom had large depots, he believed this would have been more efficient and more effective.

I actually fleshed out an Arnold-Forster British army at one stage. Turns out it could have been done without totally destroying the Cardwell/Childers regiments and militia identities, which were seen as two of the significant detriments to the scheme. The problem is that Arnold-Forster is too much of an intellectual to propose anything other than the most purely rational solution, or to moderate his ideas in response to the irrational critiques of opponents. I prefer Haldane's version of the TF, though.

Anyway, I'll have a think about the ramifications of having this short-service/long-service split in place from the 1870s and see where it takes us.

Yes, I think that the British Army was tiny, no where near 220,000 men (I'm assuming this number may have been the Napoleonic Era, or the Boer Wars, certainly nothing from 1815 to 1890).
It's amazing how many times a false impression needs to be corrected before the correction sticks.
the British Army (50-60K worldwide) was tiny
Actually, they had 70,536 men on the Indian establishment alone (1 November 1861). There were a further 148,680 men on the British establishment at the same date, 114,003 all ranks present at the 1861 militia inspection, and 162,935 enrolled volunteers (1863).
 
Last edited:
In what way did the deficiencies of the Cardwell army ill serve the British during this period? The Empire expanded massively between 1870 and 1905. I see notable military victories in this period against the Ashanti, Xhosa, Afghans, Zulus, Egyptians, Burmese, Mahdists, Zanzibar, Boxers, and Boers. They had some trouble with the Boers and Mahdists, admittedly, but I don't see much evidence that the British were unable to meet their imperial commitments as a result of deficiencies in the army.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
In what way did the deficiencies of the Cardwell army ill serve the British during this period? The Empire expanded massively between 1870 and 1905. I see notable military victories in this period against the Ashanti, Xhosa, Afghans, Zulus, Egyptians, Burmese, Mahdists, Zanzibar, Boxers, and Boers. They had some trouble with the Boers and Mahdists, admittedly, but I don't see much evidence that the British were unable to meet their imperial commitments as a result of deficiencies in the army.

I must admit, that seems like the first time I've seen a list of British victories on this board...


Rob's detailed the ways in which the system is a bad fit. It's linked to how the British Empire is sometimes called "empire on a shoestring" - a lot of the problems that come up are linked to an often-inadequate ability to deploy force "just-in-case" and a need instead to scramble when a crisis does come up.
 
I must admit, that seems like the first time I've seen a list of British victories on this board...


Rob's detailed the ways in which the system is a bad fit. It's linked to how the British Empire is sometimes called "empire on a shoestring" - a lot of the problems that come up are linked to an often-inadequate ability to deploy force "just-in-case" and a need instead to scramble when a crisis does come up.

Well, sure, but surely that's mostly because nobody in England (outside the Colonial and India Offices, I suppose) actually cares much about what's going on in the Empire until a crisis develops. The electorate doesn't care, parliament doesn't care, the cabinet doesn't care. Clearly, the war office and the army didn't care very much, either, given that the two positions at the time were "Cardwell reforms" and "sticking with the old, utterly inadequate, system with no changes whatever".

And, I mean, the system worked. The British Empire expanded dramatically, and it defeated virtually every colonial threat. The British also pretty clearly expended more resources on its empire than any other European power did. I guess I'm just not sure what we're looking to have the British Empire accomplish that it didn't accomplish OTL. It beat up on Africans, Boers, and Asians alike and it seized by a considerable margin the largest share of the colonial spoils of the late nineteenth century. Yeah, it took a while to beat the Boers. Yeah, there were some other military campaigns they had initial problems with. But ultimately the army did what the British needed it to do. This seems like a solution in search of a problem.
 
In what way did the deficiencies of the Cardwell army ill serve the British during this period?... I see notable military victories in this period against the Ashanti
The Ashanti campaign exemplifies what was wrong with the Cardwell system. Sending a small number of battalions to a short campaign is exactly the sort of thing the British army should be capable of without breaking a sweat. However, the new Cardwell battalions are so full of recruits and young men that Wolseley- a staunch defender of the Cardwell system- requests that he not be given the next complete battalion on the list for foreign service. Instead, he wants a composite battalion with one company of picked men from each of the next eight battalions on the list. Subsequent campaigns show similar flaws with the system, often requiring reservists to be called up in order to fill the gaps in the ranks: I'll discuss Tel-el-Kebir later.

Furthermore, the impact is not so much on efficiency in the colonial sphere but the ability to project power on the European continent. Cardwell's seven year active service doesn't generate reservists particularly efficiently, but also results in a churn rate of men in the colonies that's so high it leaves the home battalions drained of able soldiers. Sir Charles Dilke calculated that concurrent short/long service would produce an expeditionary force of seven and a half corps for the same price as the Cardwell system. If this larger deployable force changes the late 19th century from being a period of paranoia about Britain's security to one of relative calm, that has a massive effect on British politics and diplomacy.

Well, sure, but surely that's mostly because nobody in England (outside the Colonial and India Offices, I suppose) actually cares much about what's going on in the Empire until a crisis develops. The electorate doesn't care, parliament doesn't care, the cabinet doesn't care.
This seems to fly in the face of much of the literature on popular imperialism in the late 19th century.

Clearly, the war office and the army didn't care very much, either, given that the two positions at the time were "Cardwell reforms" and "sticking with the old, utterly inadequate, system with no changes whatever".
These weren't the only two positions, though. Even the Duke of Cambridge, long stereotyped as the archetype of unthinking military conservatism, makes his own proposal for forming a reserve in 1866 which in many respects foreshadows Cardwell's. And, as I've said before, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts, with better experience than Wolseley of the requirements of India, has his own ideas about the length of service. He proposes these on 14 February 1881 at a speech in the Mansion House over which the Duke of Cambridge presides. If it appears that there are only two positions, it's because Wolseley uses his position of influence to ensure that these are perceived as being the only two options on the table.

I guess I'm just not sure what we're looking to have the British Empire accomplish that it didn't accomplish OTL.
The effects of concurrent long and short service lay more in the realm of civil-military relations than pure military or imperial history. For a start, Cardwellian short service discharges large numbers of soldiers onto the job market aged 25 and older with no meaningful skills. The plight of unemployed soldiers is a continual matter for concern throughout the period: more importantly, it's a massive factor in dissuading the respectable working class from joining, which in turn lowers the status of soldiers in the public eye. Concurrent long/short service resolves this problem. Under the new system, short service soldiers are discharged after a couple of years in the military and can re-enter normal employment far more easily than Cardwellian soldiers. The small number of government sinecures available, too small for the large number of Cardwellian soldiers, would be just right for discharged long-service soldiers; long-service soldiers also have the option of re-enlisting as NCOs in the short-service battalions. So the result of concurrent long/short service might well have been a dramatic improvement of the army in the public eye. A large number of working-class reservists at large in the population might also have repercussions for wider social and political trends. The rise of organised labour; social reform; popular militarism; pacifism in the Labour party; franchise extension: reservists affect all of these.

Concurrent long/short service would also have eradicated much of the dissent among the top ranks of the army. The Duke of Cambridge's falling-out with Wolseley is spectacular, and largely based on the fact that he believes Wolseley to be a publicity-driven hypocrite. In public, Wolseley insists that the Cardwell system is perfect and labels anybody who criticises it as antiquated. In private, he does things like write to the Duke asking permission to select the best men for his Camel Corps because most Cardwellian soldiers are too young for the stresses of campaign. With a force of long-service soldiers available for colonial expeditions, the disagreement between Wolseley and the Duke would have been dramatically reduced; with a long-service colonial army, so would the disagreement between Wolseley and Roberts. A less dysfunctional establishment raises the efficiency overall, and affects the ability of the army to keep up with tactical and organisational developments.

reduces the average experience level of the soldiers (the average soldier pre-Cardwell would have well over five years of experience, post-Cardwell it's more like two to three at best)
I did the maths, based on 'Return showing, with respect to the British infantry and cavalry, respectively, present at the action of Tel-el-Kebir, the ages and length of service of the men, the number who had volunteered or had been transferred from other regiments, and the number of reserve men,' Parliamentary Papers 1883, Cmd. 78. Here's the average service compared to enlistment terms:

12 years active, no reserve
Household Cavalry: 6.92
1870, 8 years active, 4 reserve; 1881, 7 years active, 5 reserve:
Line cavalry: 6.76
1870, 6 years active, 6 reserve; 1881, 7 years active, 5 reserve:
Foot Guards: 5.57
Line infantry: 5.48

Line infantry are 17.5% reservists, which pushes their average service length up: the other categories had negligible numbers of reservists. Breaking this down into categories:

More than 10 years’ service:
18% of Household Cavalry and 19% of line cavalry
12% of Foot Guards and 12.5% of line infantry
7 to 10 years’ service:
25% of Household Cavalry and 18% of line cavalry
6% of Foot Guards and 11% of line infantry
Less than 7 years’ service
57% of Household Cavalry and 63% of line cavalry
82% of Foot Guards and 76.5% of line infantry

And this is the difference between 12 years and 6 years, rather than the difference between 21 years and 6 years.
 
Last edited:
The Ashanti campaign exemplifies what was wrong with the Cardwell system. Sending a small number of battalions to a short campaign is exactly the sort of thing the British army should be capable of without breaking a sweat. However, the new Cardwell battalions are so full of recruits and young men that Wolseley- a staunch defender of the Cardwell system- requests that he not be given the next complete battalion on the list for foreign service. Instead, he wants a composite battalion with one company of picked men from each of the next eight battalions on the list. Subsequent campaigns show similar flaws with the system, often requiring reservists to be called up in order to fill the gaps in the ranks: I'll discuss Tel-el-Kebir later.

I'm certainly not arguing that the system worked perfectly (and obviously you know far more about the military details than I do). Just that it seems to have served British imperial needs about as well as can be expected.

Furthermore, the impact is not so much on efficiency in the colonial sphere but the ability to project power on the European continent. Cardwell's seven year active service doesn't generate reservists particularly efficiently, but also results in a churn rate of men in the colonies that's so high it leaves the home battalions drained of able soldiers. Sir Charles Dilke calculated that concurrent short/long service would produce an expeditionary force of seven and a half corps for the same price as the Cardwell system. If this larger deployable force changes the late 19th century from being a period of paranoia about Britain's security to one of relative calm, that has a massive effect on British politics and diplomacy.

Okay, that makes sense, although other posters in this thread were saying the exact opposite. But I'm not sure this makes much of a difference, either. In the whole period between the Cardwell reforms and the Haldane reforms, you have maybe half a dozen times the British seriously contemplate war on the continent (the "War in Sight" crisis of 1875, before the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Fashoda Crisis, the Russo-Japanese War, and the First Moroccan Crisis - am I forgetting anything?). None of those times comes particularly close to an actual war, and all of those situation resolve pretty favorably for Britain.

I guess I'm still not really getting what political goals the British are seeking to accomplish in these 30-odd years that they're unable to accomplish because of the imperfect state of the army.


This seems to fly in the face of much of the literature on popular imperialism in the late 19th century.

Does it, though? I've always thought the more recent research has shown that, in fact, imperialism was not particularly popular. Certainly there's a "rally round the flag" effect during individual crises - most obviously the Boer War. And there are certainly some people who are motivated by pro-imperialist sentiment. But, at best, people wanted empire on the cheap, and there's plenty who aren't terribly interested in it at all. Certainly there's not any groundswell of popular support for the idea of "spending a lot more money on the army so it's easier to conquer places in Africa nobody's ever heard of before."
 
it seems to have served British imperial needs about as well as can be expected.
As such, one of the inherent questions in this premise is whether "imperial needs" change as a result of greater capacity. If the Indian Army feel they can rely more on their British contingent, do they expand their war goals and push for annexation of Afghanistan in 1878? On the other hand, does the forward school ever emerge if Britain knows it has seven and a half army corps to help reinforce India in the event of war with Russia?

Furthermore, you're disassociating "imperial needs" from wider social trends. When the Cardwell system fell through in 1882 and again in 1885, army reservists had to be called up to fill out the ranks. Britain might have achieved her imperial objectives in both cases, but many of the reservists lost their jobs as a result- no employment tribunals in those days. Abolish the need to rely on the reserve for anything other than the direst emergencies, and how does Britain change socially as a result?

Okay, that makes sense, although other posters in this thread were saying the exact opposite.
Are you sure? I mean, before you pulled the focus onto the colonial sphere the premise said:
the reaction force in the UK is too small to provide major commitments... the home force takes the brunt of the loss... Could it have had an effect on British culture to have a reasonably large standing army (on a continental scale, though at the small end) in addition to the militia and volunteers?

But I'm not sure this makes much of a difference, either. In the whole period between the Cardwell reforms and the Haldane reforms, you have maybe half a dozen times the British seriously contemplate war on the continent (the "War in Sight" crisis of 1875, before the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Fashoda Crisis, the Russo-Japanese War, and the First Moroccan Crisis - am I forgetting anything?).
You missed the 1885 crisis over Panjdeh, when the militia was embodied and the army reserve was called up. Seriously contemplating continental war six times in forty years seems like quite a few to me.

None of those times comes particularly close to an actual war, and all of those situation resolve pretty favorably for Britain.

I guess I'm still not really getting what political goals the British are seeking to accomplish in these 30-odd years that they're unable to accomplish because of the imperfect state of the army.
Surely the point is that the British understood the military resources available to them and cut their cloth accordingly. In a situation where they have greater military capacity, their diplomatic ambitions within Europe might be greater; they might have been prepared to push further and come closer to war. And that's the kind of thing we're trying to understand through the means of this counterfactual, although it was never intended to take a purely military or diplomatic focus.

You also seem to assume that the intention is for this change to wank Britain by enabling her to beat up additional varieties of natives. In fact, an interesting question is whether Britain might have been encouraged to over-step herself as a result of these changes. A Britain with a greater sense of security might have been led to continue 'splendid isolation' post-1900, for instance, or a more aggressive Britain stumble into war with Russia in defence of Turkey or in pursuit of Afghanistan.

Does it, though? I've always thought the more recent research has shown that, in fact, imperialism was not particularly popular.
Not really. Porter, by defining imperialism narrowly as the exertion of political power over foreign countries, has argued that there wasn't much enthusiasm for it. However, what you suggested was that "nobody in England (outside the Colonial and India Offices, I suppose) actually cares much about what's going on in the Empire until a crisis develops". The vast swathes of popular culture dedicated to imperial themes- everything from music halls to literature to drama to panoramas to advertising to popular songs to lecture tours- suggest that people actually do care deeply about what's going on in the empire, regardless of whether there's a crisis there or not. Looking back at contemporary British political rhetoric, historians might conclude that we didn't care much about the NHS unless there was a crisis: in fact, the perception of crisis is the catalyst for existing underlying interest to be made manifest in a political form.

Certainly there's not any groundswell of popular support for the idea of "spending a lot more money on the army so it's easier to conquer places in Africa nobody's ever heard of before."
Which is why, as I pointed out, the schemes which I highlighted for amending Cardwell were intended to be cost neutral. If it was just a matter of spending more money, we'd look to the Duke of Cambridge's near-continual suggestions that the government stop cutting back on horses, staff officers, regimental officers, battalion establishments, artillery, wagons, harness, and so on.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
What's interesting is the suggested "divide" between a

I'm certainly not arguing that the system worked perfectly (and obviously you know far more about the military details than I do). Just that it seems to have served British imperial needs about as well as can be expected - snip -
... I guess I'm still not really getting what political goals the British are seeking to accomplish in these 30-odd years that they're unable to accomplish because of the imperfect state of the army.

You're not alone. If it is for home defense, than what's the Royal Navy for, exactly? (much less the garrison artillery/ volunteers/ yeomanry/ territorials/ militia/etc?) If it is for service in Europe, what's the difference between European service with an "professional" army of volunteers, or Imperial service with an "professional" army of volunteers?

What's interesting about the suggested "divide" between a long-service army of volunteers for colonial/imperial service and a short-service army of volunteers for home defense/European/continental service/whatever is that it is unclear whether any of the other imperial states tried anything along these lines.

The European state with the closest strategic position to Britain in this period (large empire plus continental interests), France, did raise what amounted to a long-service volunteer force for imperial duties (a mix of the Troupes Coloniale/Legion Etrangere/and local forces - both "settler" and "natives") and a short-service force with reserves for service in France (and possibly by extension, Europe in the event of a major war), but that later was a draftee force - not something likely to go over well in Britain, considering the reality it took the crises of WW I to even contemplate wartime conscription, and even then it could not be imposed in Ireland (much less the "white" dominions, some of which opposed conscription for unlimited service overseas in wartime until 1945...

As was made clear in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, for Britain to have any significant ability to project military power on the European continent required:

A) allies with their own need and resources for the fight;
B) allies with substantial military resources willing to place them at Britain's disposal; or
C) conscription.

A, ultimately, required true coalition warfare, which no power really got right until well into the Twentieth; B worked for a time, given the scale of the conflict, but could be overcome by a continental power willing to use conscription to swamp the ally; while C is not something that was possible politically absent a democratized Britain and an existential cause, which is why it took until 1916, and even then did not encompass Ireland, much less the dominions, colonies, etc.

Even after Cardwell, it took the British decades of expenditure of time and money to get to the point where they could field anything like an organized expeditionary force in the UK as a centralized strategic reserve and even in the 2nd South African war it still took most of three years and a force structure that outnumbered the total Boer mobilization by 5-1 to drive the conflict to a conclusion, and it took massive numbers of short service volunteers to fill that order of battle ...

The same thing, essentially, happened in 1914; the long-service regulars were effective enough, but given the casualty rates to be expected (and sustained) the BEF was a wasting asset from M Day, which puts the concept of any small, professional force into perspective. A Western enemy that is willing to conscript always will swamp the "professionals"...

Now, if the response is the British should have recruited an ever larger professional force, the obvious question is how and why, both in terms of the money necessary for such a force and the manpower, especially considering the administative duplication necessary between the short-service volunteers for "European" service and the long-service volunteers for "Imperial" service, and at a time when Britain was both rapidly industrializing and urbanizing, and when emigration was less expensive for the individual or family then ever before, and when the potential destinations for emigrants was ever-increasing, why are any more recruits going to walk in?

Again, these have to be volunteers, unless someone is suggesting the British would find the political will to adopt conscription in peacetime and at some point before 1916 ... which seems doubtful.

It is worth noting, after all, that in the 1860s, when the European regulars of the EIC's armies were (essentially) conscripted into the British Army, they became so rebellious something like 40 percent were discharged amidst concerns about a "white" mutiny that would have put Europeans into armed conflict with each other in India all of four years after the "great" mutiny was put down...

As always, once a world-girdling empire was assembled, it had to be defended, and the lessons of the world wars was how limited the Empire's "peacetime" resources truly were...

Best,
 
Last edited:
I
I actually fleshed out an Arnold-Forster British army at one stage. Turns out it could have been done without totally destroying the Cardwell/Childers regiments and militia identities, which were seen as two of the significant detriments to the scheme. The problem is that Arnold-Forster is too much of an intellectual to propose anything other than the most purely rational solution, or to moderate his ideas in response to the irrational critiques of opponents. I prefer Haldane's version of the TF, though.

Anyway, I'll have a think about the ramifications of having this short-service/long-service split in place from the 1870s and see where it takes us.

Could you share your take on the Arnold - Forster British Army... seems fairly interesting to my mind. IT could be done, but it would to my mind require a fairly nuanced mindset that would have to be accepted by both sides of Parliament. A tall order in any event.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
[SIZE=+1]I WENT into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e smiles an' sez, "Come sit yourself down here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I sat back on the tavern stool an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, welcome in " ;
But it's " Better you than me, lad," when the drums of war begin.
The drums of war begin, my boys, t[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1][SIZE=+1]he drums of war begin[/SIZE],
O it's [/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]" Better you than me, lad," when the drums of war begin.



(It's still resentful, but it's a more... nuanced kind of resentment. Rather than complaining that they have no use for a soldier in peacetime, it's more that they're happy to know him but not to join him.)
[/SIZE]
 

Saphroneth

Banned
What about impressing people into the army?
You don't really need any major change or, indeed, conscription - as of 1860 the army was 220,000 strong off recruitment (i.e. it was at establishment strength) and there wasn't any need to supplement that with conscription.

Arguably you need to prevent any trend that took place 1865 onwards in reducing the popular position of the army, and for that Rob's suggestions would work.

Indeed, the very fact that it's 1916 and not 1914 that the British bring in conscription is a demonstration that in times of crisis the patriotic effect can bring in a massive groundswell of support. (Numbering in the millions.)
 

TFSmith121

Banned
They tried it in the 1780s;

What about impressing people into the army?

They tried it in the 1780s; it was not well recieved, and actually applied to all of Great Britain for only six months. The 1779 act was repealed in May 1780, and army impressment ceased ... naval impressment lasted longer, of course.

Depends on one's definition, of course, but impressment or conscription or however ones wishes to frame it into the British forces was not well-received, by the British population or their neighbors, of course.

Best,
 
As such, one of the inherent questions in this premise is whether "imperial needs" change as a result of greater capacity. If the Indian Army feel they can rely more on their British contingent, do they expand their war goals and push for annexation of Afghanistan in 1878? On the other hand, does the forward school ever emerge if Britain knows it has seven and a half army corps to help reinforce India in the event of war with Russia?

First - thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. There's much to think about here. In this case, I suppose this is conceivable, although I'm not sure it makes much difference. I think an especial issue here is that the people making foreign policy decisions (the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, primarily; with the India Secretary and Viceroy, I suppose, involved in decisions relating to India) are somewhat isolated from the army's concerns. I'm not sure how much they're considering the army's actual fighting capacity when making decisions of this sort.

Furthermore, you're disassociating "imperial needs" from wider social trends. When the Cardwell system fell through in 1882 and again in 1885, army reservists had to be called up to fill out the ranks. Britain might have achieved her imperial objectives in both cases, but many of the reservists lost their jobs as a result- no employment tribunals in those days. Abolish the need to rely on the reserve for anything other than the direst emergencies, and how does Britain change socially as a result?

This is an interesting question I don't know very much about. How large a scale are we talking about?


Are you sure? I mean, before you pulled the focus onto the colonial sphere the premise said:

Looking back to find it, I see that it is in fact you who said this:

It's understandable why Cardwell did this: the fashion of the time is for emulating Prussia, and it's certainly a better step than adopting the pickelhaube as they do subsequently. But the problem is that Britain has an empire, and Prussia doesn't.

Surely you are implying there that the Cardwell system was not well-suited to imperial needs?

You missed the 1885 crisis over Panjdeh, when the militia was embodied and the army reserve was called up. Seriously contemplating continental war six times in forty years seems like quite a few to me.

Isn't that generally how it went in those days? As I said, none of them actually came particularly close to a real war.


Surely the point is that the British understood the military resources available to them and cut their cloth accordingly. In a situation where they have greater military capacity, their diplomatic ambitions within Europe might be greater; they might have been prepared to push further and come closer to war. And that's the kind of thing we're trying to understand through the means of this counterfactual, although it was never intended to take a purely military or diplomatic focus.

Yes, indeed, this might be true. I would contend that it is somewhat unlikely, largely based on my knowledge of British diplomatic efforts in this period (I certainly know much less than you about the military stuff).

You also seem to assume that the intention is for this change to wank Britain by enabling her to beat up additional varieties of natives. In fact, an interesting question is whether Britain might have been encouraged to over-step herself as a result of these changes. A Britain with a greater sense of security might have been led to continue 'splendid isolation' post-1900, for instance, or a more aggressive Britain stumble into war with Russia in defence of Turkey or in pursuit of Afghanistan.

This is, I suppose, possible, but as I said before, I suspect you're over-emphasizing the extent to which the foreign policy policymakers actually grasped the strategic limitations of the army. Look at the Boer War, for instance, which the British stumbled into without really understanding how much of an effort would be required. Wars with major European powers didn't happen in this period not because the British thought they would lose them, but because they thought that the issues at stake were not worth a major war. Or else they didn't happen because Britain's opponents backed down almost entirely.

Also, does sticking with "splendid isolation" really constitute the British over-stepping themselves? Mightn't one, more accurately, argue that participation in World War I was an example of the British Empire overstepping itself?

Not really. Porter, by defining imperialism narrowly as the exertion of political power over foreign countries, has argued that there wasn't much enthusiasm for it. However, what you suggested was that "nobody in England (outside the Colonial and India Offices, I suppose) actually cares much about what's going on in the Empire until a crisis develops". The vast swathes of popular culture dedicated to imperial themes- everything from music halls to literature to drama to panoramas to advertising to popular songs to lecture tours- suggest that people actually do care deeply about what's going on in the empire, regardless of whether there's a crisis there or not. Looking back at contemporary British political rhetoric, historians might conclude that we didn't care much about the NHS unless there was a crisis: in fact, the perception of crisis is the catalyst for existing underlying interest to be made manifest in a political form.

Okay, fair enough, although I think this remains a matter of some dispute. Obviously many (but not all) people care about the *existence* of the British Empire. But that doesn't mean there's the political will to put more resources into the military/empire. (I realize that you're not necessarily suggesting there is - to some extent we're apparently talking past each other, perhaps because of your much better sense of the details of these proposed military reforms)


Which is why, as I pointed out, the schemes which I highlighted for amending Cardwell were intended to be cost neutral. If it was just a matter of spending more money, we'd look to the Duke of Cambridge's near-continual suggestions that the government stop cutting back on horses, staff officers, regimental officers, battalion establishments, artillery, wagons, harness, and so on.

Fair enough, as I said above. I'm certainly convinced that there might be interesting consequences of these changes. I'm still doubtful that they would do much to influence British foreign policy. The relatively small scale social changes are much harder to figure out, I think.
 
Top