PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
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C.O.
885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
8
ments which have been made by Lord Hill, do undoubtedly tend to show that if the existing arrangements be adhered to, this difficulty will be felt to a considerable extent, arising from, first, the want of sufficient means of providing for the relief of regiments upon foreign service, and secondly, from the inadequacy of the depots of those regiments of which the Service Companies are to be of the strength of 559 and 600 rank and file, to perform all the duties expected from them.
In the memorandum of the 17th November, the insufficiency of the means of reliev- ing regiments serving abroad, was the principal subject of remark, but since the above date, the increase in the establishment of those regiments of Infantry which had not previously been augmented, and the changes in some of the colonial garrisons, which your Lordship has directed, having provided for diminishing in the course of the present year the total number of battalions of the line, now serving abroad, from eighty-one to seventy-sexen, and for making a proportionate increase of the number serving at home, the difficulty of furnishing the required reliefs has, for the present, been rendered less urgent than was apprehended; hence the General Commanding-in-Chief, in his last communication, has directed his observations, principally, if not exclusively, to the insufficiency of the depôts of 180 and of 189 rank and file, for the objects for which they are intended, and in consequence of this insufficiency, his Lordship proposes that the establishment of the regiments to which these depots belong, if not that of all the regiments in the service, except those employed in India, should be raised from 789 to 899 rank and file. This measure, as Lord Hill states, would give an addition of 3,698 rank and file to the numbers of the army, which, by the orders already given, will be increased by 6,640 men beyond the force maintained in the year 1837-8, so that, if the proposition be adopted, the total increase of the military establishment, as compared to that year, would amount to 10,338 rank and file. Nor is this all; your Lordship is aware that till very recently it was the practice only to raise recruits to meet the casualties actually reported to have taken place, and that consequently, owing to the time which elapsed before the vacancies which occurred in the ranks of regiments serving in the colonies could be known, new vacancies had always taken place before the former ones could be supplied, and the result was, that the really effective strength of the army was upon an average about 1,500 below its nominal establishment. This circumstance having attracted my attention, after communicating with the Government, I addressed to Lord Hill, on the 22nd February, 1888, a letter authorizing his Lordship to direct the raising of recruits, not merely to supply the vacancies actually reported, but those which might be anticipated to have taken place, and by this arrangement, which has since been followed, a real though not a nominal addition has been made to the strength of the army of not less than 1,500 men, so that even, without adopting the present pro- posal of Lord Hill, the infantry of the line in the ensuing year will be raised 8,140 men above the numbers of the year 1897-8, and if his Lordship's suggestion should be followed, the augmentation will be 11,898, or if the depôts generally should be increased, it would amount to no less than 16,440 men.
It certainly appears to me that an increase of force, even to the smaller of the two amounts last mentioned, can hardly be required for the purpose of keeping up in an effective state the amounts of force allotted to the various parts of Her Majesty's dominions. As I have stated above, there will, when the measures already in progress shall have been completed, be an effective increase of the infantry of the line, as com- pared to the year 1836–7, of 8,140 men. It is true that this augmentation of the Force does not equal the increased demand for troops in North America, arising from the unfortunate events which have taken place in Canada; the number of rank and file allotted to this portion of Her Majesty's dominious having in the beginning of 1837 been only 4,311, whereas for the present year, it is to be no less than 12,400. But this increased demand for force in North America, has in part been met by sending thither two battalions of Guards of 1,600 men, and by reductions which have either already been effected, or have been ordered in the garrisons of other colonies, to the extent, as shown in the margin, of no less than 2,807 men.*
Deducting therefore the force of two Battalions of Guards not previously employed upon foreign service, and of the reductions in other colonies, it will be found that the increased demands of the colonial service upon the infantry of the line since the
* Mediterranean
Gibraltar
Jamaica
Mauritius
958
474
159
319
Ceylon
798
2,708
Deduct increase-West Indies
81
Cape and St. Helena,
320
401
2.307
0
breaking out of the troubles in Canada, do' not exceed 4,182 men, whereas the increase of force which has been already ordered, amounts, as I have shown, to 8,140, that is to say, comparing the effect of the present arrangements and of those which were contemplated when the estimates for the year 1837-8 were prepared, the augmentation of the Infantry of the Line, already ordered by Her Majesty's Government, will give an increase of the numbers of the infantry of the line beyond the increased demands which have been made upon their services abroad, of 3,058 rank and file.
It is not
From the preceding statement it will, I think, appear to your Lordship, that there is nothing in the relative numbers of the troops at home and abroad, as they will stand when the arrangements now in progress are completed, which need cause any greater difficulty in keeping the force effective than was experienced in 1837, and I may add, for any previous years. But though this is the conclusion which I think must be arrived at, upon a comparison of the actual and of the former state of things, I must nevertheless, express my concurrence with Lord Hill in the opinion he expresses, that the depots which will be left at home by the regiments, of which the service companies abroad are to be upon the establishment of 359, or of 600 rank and file, will be found altogether ineffective for the purpose of aiding the force upon the home service. As to the causes of this inefficiency, and as to the best means of correcting it, I am not, however, prepared to agree with his Lordship. In discussing these points, Lord Hill adverts to the existing practice, according to which, when a regiment is ordered abroad, four out of the ten companies of which it is composed, are left at home as a depôt, and he observes that "the whole efficiency of our military system has unquestionably been hitherto mainly preserved through the instrumentality of these depots." without considerable hesitation, that I venture to express my dissent from an opinion so decidedly stated by so high a military authority, but nevertheless, having taken all the means in my power for ascertaining what have been the practical effects of the present mode of dividing regiments into service and depot companies, I am compelled to come to the conclusion that they have not been those which are attributed to it by the General Commanding-in-Chief. The advantages attributed to the system are thus described: "Our force abroad has been kept effective, the service at home has been well performed, the constant severe pressure of distant colonial service upon officers and men, has been in some degree relieved, the sudden, unexpected, and extensive demands for reinforcements in British North America, have been rapidly and most effectually met, and all the extraordinary contingencies arising out of our distant colonial service have been supplied by the regular and effective working of this system; and thus, by means of these depots, the army has been enabled to extend its comparatively small means, and to do that duty, which, without such an arrangement, must have required a much larger and more expensive establishment." Upon this statement, I have to make the following observations; the efficiency of the force abroad can hardly be attributed to the depot system, since that system has not been extended to the regiments serving in Australia, which, I believe, have not upon the whole, been found less efficient than those employed in other colonies. That "the severe pressure of distant colonial service upon officers and men has been in some degree relieved," I can still less admit, so far at least as the men are concerned, since I find, upon examination, that practically, there has been little or no interchange of privates between the depot and the service com- panies of regiments serving abroad. The proportion of soldiers in the latter who have come home except for the purpose of being discharged, has been exceedingly small, and this being the case, it is obrious, that the effect of the system, so far as they are concerned, must necessarily have been to increase instead of to dimi- nish the pressure of foreign service. This result will be evident if it is considered that the force abroad, exclusive of India and Australia, at the beginning of 1837, consisted of fifty battalions, each composed of six companies on an establishment of 479 rank and file, or in all 23,950 men. The infantry of the line at home, at the same period consisted of fifty depôts each of 180 rank and file and of twenty-nine entire regiments. Now, if this same force at home and abroad had been differently composed, say, for instance, that each battalion had consisted of 550 instead of 179 rank and file, the whole number of battalions abroad would have been reduced from lifty to forty-four, while the number at home would have been increased from twenty-nine to thirty-five. Adding in both cases to the number of battalions abroad the twenty-four in India and Australia, in the one case, the proportion of regiments abroad to regiments at home, would have been as seventy-four to twenty-nine while in the other it would only have been as sixty-eight to thirty-five.
It is scarcely necessary to add that the proportion of foreign to "home service, which each regiment in its turn is called upon to perform, would have undergone precisely the same reduction. These figures conclusively prove that with respect to the private soldiers who remain almost invariably with the service companies from the time it goes abroad till it again returns unless previously discharged, the effect of the depôt system has been not to alleviate, but greatly to aggravate the pressure of the colonial service. With respect to the officers, the case may be somewhat different, but even as regards them, I believe more inconvenience than benefit has, upon the whole, resulted from the system, and that whatever advantage may have resulted from it to individuals, has been obtained by
• Increase in Canada
Deduct-Guards
8,689
1,000
Reductions in other colonies
2.307
3.007
1.182
D