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reduce the number of the Regular forces of the East Africa Protectorate to 27 officers and 1,001 other ranks, and to reduce the Regular forces of Nyasaland to 10 officers and 622 other ranks (including 300 reservists), a total net reduction of 13 officers and 480 other ranks.

4. So far as the East Africa Protectorate in particular is concerned, the Governor, Sir Percy Girouard, holds that there is an important military asset in the Protectorate. in the shape of the European population. It is understood that he intends to take steps for improving and extending the European Volunteer Force, and in his recent conversations at this Office he has expressed himself as entirely free from apprehension as to the results of any attempt at invasion from an adjacent territory.

I am, &c.

G. V. FIDDES.

(Signed)

II.

War Office to Colonial Office.

(Secret.)

(0165/6255 (M.O. 1).) Sir,

·

War Office, London, S.W., April 18, 1911.

I AM commanded to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 20794/1910, dated the 17th February, 1911, transmitting for the consideration of the Army Council a copy of Memorandum No. 431 M by the Colonial Defence Committee on the position of the East and West African Protectorates in the event of war with a European Power.

The Council offer the following observations on the Memorandum :-

The existing policy in regard to the Colonial military forces maintained in the East and West African Protectorates is described in paragraph 3, and an adherence to it is recommended in paragraph 13. That policy is no doubt a cheap one, and might meet defensive requirements if there were reason to suppose that the same policy would be adopted by the other European Powers whose territory is contiguous to British territory in East and West Africa. But their doing so seems improbable. It is believed, moreover, that the desirability has never been questioned of the over-sea possessions of the Crown being capable of local self defence against reasonably probable attack by land without its being necessary at once to dispatch reinforcements by sea to protect them against such attack. In the case of the East and West African Protectorates, British troops or troops of European descent would suffer severely from the climate if employed on sedentary duty or in field operations, and although it is possible that Indian troops, it available, might be used in East Africa, it seems likely that objection would be raised to their employment in West Africa owing to the unhealthiness of the climate and the distance from India. In the opinion of the Army Council the policy indicated in paragraphs 3 and 13 provides at present a very narrow margin of safety, while in the future this margin may disappear if our Colonial military forces are to be reduced in inverse proportion to the increase in the internal tranquillity and prosperity of the Protectorates, without regard to the strength of the local forces maintained by the neighbouring foreign Powers.

The argument advanced in paragraph 11 is somewhat academic in its character. It seems to be assumed that in the event of war we must be decisively victorious, and would insist on the restoration of the British territory which an enemy during the war might have effectively occupied. Even under that assumption regard should be had to the damage to British interests and property which would result from such hostile occupation.

The Council cannot admit the entire correctness of the statement made in paragraph 12 of the Memorandum. It seems to them necessary to differentiate between the over-sea Dominions inhabited by men of British or European race, and capable of raising land forces for their own protection out of their own population, and tropical or sub-tropical possessions, where the local land defence must mainly depend on the presence of a British garrison or on the raising of adequate land forces from the native races or on a combination of British and native troops. It is also necessary to differentiate between British possessions which, in the event of war, would be liable to attack from the sea and those where the main dangers to be apprehended are land attack by the local forces of a neighbouring foreign Power or internal disturbance. Thus, for example, while British troops have been withdrawn from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, they are still kept in South Africa pending the organisation of

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