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of view, the retention of troops in Cyprus has been condemned long ago, as, in the absence of any defended port in the island, Cyprus has no value to the Empire for any naval or military purposes. As far as the Committee can gather, they are now retained there purely on political grounds, in compliance with a request made by the Foreign Office in 1888. The arrangement is expensive, and also dangerous, seeing that the possibility of withdrawing them safely to Malta at outbreak of war is problematical.
The following remarks are offered on the details of the Scheme:-
7. Although the defence has been divided into three sections, this division is nominal rather than real. So far as can be gathered from the Scheme, it appears that the command and control of all forts and works, and of the troops in them, is vested in the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery in the section; while the command of all troops outside the works in the section is vested in the Infantry Officer Commanding the field force of the section (vide p. 13; p. 74, paras. 2, 7; p. 52). The Officers commanding the forts are placed under the orders of the General Officer Commanding Royal Artillery on the Staff (p. 13), who, under certain circumstances (p. 74, para. 6), is to assume control of the fire of the forts. Very similarly, combined movements of the Sectional field forces are to be directly commanded by the Officer Commanding Infantry Brigade (see p. 13). This sharp division between the Artillery and the Infantry of the defence is inadvisable. In the case of the home ports, General Officers Commanding have been expressly warned against this separation of the arms.* Moreover, to create within one area two paramount authorities, practically independent of one another, is likely to result in friction. It has been found in similar cases perfectly practicable to place an officer in supreme command of a section of the defence, with the control of the troops of all arms in that section, and consequently having under him the Artillery Officer who commands and controls the Artillery fire of the section, and there appears to be no reason why a similar practice should not hold good at Malta.
8. Under the head of Organization, some account (possibly in a tabular form) should be given of the method of command obtaining on mobilization, showing the composition of the various Staffs (both Head-quarters and Sectional), position of head-quarters, and names of (or peace posts held by) the officers appointed to the more important commands, Staff and Departmental duties. A Sectional Engineer Officer is spoken of on p. 51, para. 9, but there is nothing to show officers commanding sections who this officer is. There is also to be an Intelligence Officer on the Head-quarters Staff (see p. 23), but it does not appear what officer is nominated for the duty. Officers are appointed to command the various sections into which the defence is divided, and possibly they are to be assisted by Staff and Departmental officers. The Head-quarters of sections, &c., are also fixed. But in order to find out these matters, a reader has to turn to various parts of the Scheme. A synoptical Table would show all these points at a glance.
9. The Tables giving the distribution of the troops have been drawn up with care, but they are capable of improvement. In the Section Distribution Table, for example, it is not possible to see what particular unit furnishes the men at any particular work; on the other hand, the Corps Distribution Table does not show the particular works or points to which the numbers of a given corps are distributed. Certain figures have been printed in italics on p. 16, apparently in order to show that, under certain eventualities, these numbers are to be
*"The object of introducing the Sectional system is not only to assimilate our peace organiza- tion to that which must prevail in war, but also to give greater cohesion and unity to the working of the different arms, corps, and departments towards their common end-the effective protection of the fortress. There is a certain tendency at present, for the different branches of the defence of a fortress to be looked upon as separate matters instead of as parts of one general whole, for its Artillery defence to be considered as an Artillery matter solely, its Submarine Mine Defence as solely for the Royal Engineers, its Infantry defence questions as to be dealt with by the Infantry alone, and so on. The result is that, while all work zealously at their own special functions, each is ignorant of the general lines upon which the defensive plans of the other are based. It is the object of the appointment of Sectional Commandants to do away with this separation of arms, and to gather together for each section all the different means for its defence into the hands of one officer, who, acting under you, will be able to take a comprehensive view of its general condition and organization, and to impart to its defensive arrangements greater unity than there is reason to believe exists at present." (Extract from letter of Adjutant-General to the Forces to General Officers Commanding fortresses at home, dated 31st August, 1889, No Gen. No. 5/7389.)
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