Part 13

A general officer, now long in his tomb, entertained certain very odd notions, in which I sometimes fancy that I participate; in one of his usually laconic addresses, or exhortations, in which he was fond of indulging even when going into action, upon one occasion, and rather to the astonishment of the soldiers he led, though accustomed to his ways, and after cautioning them, that he would not give the word _fire_ until he could see the white of the enemy's eyes; and he was very near-sighted--he thus addressed them--"Now, lads, there is the enemy, if you don't kill them, they will certainly kill you; and it is better to break their shanks than to fire o'er the crown of their heads." There was much to be admired in this pithy address, which could be perfectly understood by soldiers. But I must say, that I have often regretted seeing a useless, distant fire kept up, which had no effect whatever upon the enemy, and certainly did not improve the taste of our soldiers for the bayonet, in whose hands it may be always made a very useful instrument for deciding the fate of battles. I must, however, apologize for taking up the reader's time with these remarks, and also for having so unceremoniously introduced the general, my worthy ancestor, to him; yet I must beg to add, that a very brave and esteemed friend of mine, Major Smith, 45th regiment, who fell fighting gloriously, but too rashly, for he really went up to the French bayonets at Busaco, had also sometimes a very odd way of expressing himself. I remember hearing him on one occasion emphatically observe, "I don't like your prudent officers, Sir, who deal in long shots, and who talk so much of sparing the effusion of human blood--their prudence, Sir, always increases it in the end, Sir." But those who knew him will readily recognize this to be genuine; and it may be well supposed, that he must have come up to Sir Thomas Picton's ideas of what a good soldier should be; at all events, he considered that the 3rd division and the country, sustained an irreparable loss when Major Smith fell. But to proceed--I beg to recommend, that there be erected, as near as may be deemed consistent with the safety of the passers by, and even against the high walls of barracks, sufficient mounds of earth against which to fire with ball; and this should not only be made the means of useful instruction, but also, like the bayonet and sword exercises, conducive to the soldier's amusement; and whilst I would greatly increase the allowance of ammunition for practice, I would also suggest that a sum of money be annually granted to regiments to be laid out at the discretion of commanding officers, in rewards to the best shots and the best swordsmen. This is very essential, as light troops are so much employed in modern warfare, that their being good marksmen cannot be dispensed with; therefore, with a superior description of musket, having a good percussion lock, serviceable in wet as well as in dry weather, and fire never being uselessly thrown away in action in a volley like a single report, which in former times was considered so fine, our soldiers would be more than a match for the Yankee Back-woodsmen, or any other troops in the world.

I have now arrived at a part of my undertaking in which I am very much interested, and to which I am desirous of attracting attention; for I am sure it will be readily allowed, that amongst any body of men, there will always exist irregularities and misconduct; it is therefore indispensable, that there should be at hand the means of making those guilty of offences promptly feel the consequences of committing them. With this in view, I conclude it will be thought necessary, that there should be several small, dark, dry, and well ventilated cells in all prisons attached to barracks at home and abroad, in which offenders can be separately confined, either upon bread and water, low diet, or otherwise for fixed periods, according to the present system, and to the sentences of courts-martial, for I am obliged to write so as to suit the times, and whilst undergoing this kind of punishment, the inmates should be subjected to the most perfect silence; which, if duly attended to, will soon be found to constitute the severest part of the punishment, and to produce the most desirable results; every necessary precaution should, therefore, be taken on this head; but it should never be overlooked, that such kinds of punishment for the maintenance of discipline, can never be resorted to when regiments are in the field.

In no regiment that I have ever had any thing to do with, have I yet found the link of responsibility perfectly kept up. For instance, the majors were not made answerable for the state of their respective wings. The captains were almost never interfered with by the majors, who were really little else than sinecurists: indeed, commanding officers in general, did not like their doing so; as they too frequently looked upon it as meddling with what did not concern them; and they too often rendered the captains also mere nonentities with their companies; managing all promotions, &c. (so powerful is the love of patronage) between themselves and their adjutants. It was the same as to granting leave of absence from the regiments, or even from common parades; and thus captains were entirely stripped of influence. It was also much the same with regard to men guilty of crimes or irregularities: their names were found in guard reports; the adjutants were made to inquire into the reasons of their confinement, and they were sometimes sentenced by courts-martial, and even punished, without any reference whatever being made to their captains; and I have heard commanding officers say, that there was no use in consulting them, as they knew nothing about their companies; but whose fault was that, and why were they not encouraged and made to do their duty, and to look after their men's conduct?

In former days (and I may go back even to the days of Marlborough) captains were men of some importance, and were allowed to exercise much more authority over their companies, than has for many years past been the fashion. They could keep them at drill, or confined to barracks, or camp, if their conduct was irregular, till the offenders were found out, and punished by the soldiers themselves. These offenders were tried by what were then called Company Courts-Martial, which consisted of a non-commissioned officer and four privates. The sentence (nothing else being written) having been approved of by the captain, or officer commanding the company, it was in presence of the non-commissioned officers, and sometimes of a subaltern, privately carried into execution, either by the drummers of the company giving the culprit a certain number of blows, or else all the soldiers had to do so with the slings of their firelocks. This having been properly, and often severely done by _themselves_, the company was considered as purified, and were then dismissed from drill, or released from confinement to barracks or camp. If a plan of this kind in spirit was properly followed up, how admirably it would be found calculated for service in the field even in our days. When the importance of company officers is raised, so is proportionally that of the non-commissioned officers; and does not the superiority of our companies of guards consist in the respectability of their non-commissioned officers?

Not very long ago, what, I believe, was called Picketting, was practised as a punishment in our regiments of cavalry for minor offences, and I have heard from old officers, that the soldiers had a great dread of it; they assured me it did not in the least injure their health, or unfit them for immediate duty; and it almost entirely obviated the necessity for flogging. Would it not therefore be well, if the reviving of this kind of punishment in every corps, when an army took the field, were to have due consideration. I am aware of the outcry which most likely would be raised by injudicious men against such a plan, and nothing would have induced me to venture to mention it, but my abhorrence of flogging, and my fear that capital punishments might become frequent and unavoidable, if there were no other mode, of maintaining discipline amongst our troops. I therefore must not shrink from suggesting it, as I feel convinced, that in the field, our military police, might be safely trusted with the power of using it as a punishment; and it would, I have no doubt, deter soldiers from straggling from their corps in search of liquor or plunder.

We are constantly hearing of the horrors of flogging in our regiments, and scarcely an instance occurs, but that some of the newspapers endeavour to hold it up in the most exaggerated language, and strongest colouring, to the detestation of the nation; but after all, what is such punishment, as now inflicted, to what takes place all over Germany, and in the armies of the Czar? We are told--and it should be known in Great Britain--that the kind of bastinado, by which the flesh is most cruelly torn off by the point of the stick, is so severe in the German and other armies, that few men can stand many blows of the corporals who inflict it; and as for the Russian knout, half a dozen strokes, or even less, can be made fatal by a skilful hand.

Unluckily, by our mode of proceeding, punishment is, in some measure, converted, by its slowness, into a kind of torture; and if flagellation is to be unfortunately allowed to continue in a British army, it most probably would be better if fewer lashes were awarded by the sentences of courts-martial, but to be inflicted more after the manner practised in our navy. At all events, what may be termed the teasing system, which now prevails in regiments, and to which commanding officers, in compliance with existing circumstances, must adhere, cannot be productive of good, and must from necessity, and want of time and means, be nearly abandoned when our army is actually in the field. In what way then, I beg to ask, are officers to maintain discipline, if their power and influence in their companies are not increased?

It has always been the practice in our army to direct attention--and in this commanding officers of regiments had no choice--more particularly to what was necessary for home service, or garrison duty abroad, or their attention was called (as in the Russian service) to what would produce effect, through a splendid display of neatness, uniformity, and regularity in dress, messing, barrack and other arrangements; which in themselves are much to be lauded and admired; but with regard to what were really essential and indispensable in the field, for which most of this instruction or knowledge, but little prepared them, such matters seemed generally to be left to chance, or to be acquired by both officers and men when once there; and this was one of the reasons why so few regiments did not fall off in every respect, the very first campaign in which they were employed.

One of the chief objects which I have in view being, however, to do away with corporal punishment, and still to insure our having a well-conducted and highly disciplined army, I consider as essential towards securing this, that the utmost attention should be paid to what was formerly so lamentably neglected--that is to say--the religious instruction, and general education of corps. Without this all our efforts must be useless and unavailing.

To expect that such objects can be attained by merely paying the clergymen of towns, where troops are usually quartered, a certain sum annually for performing clerical duties, is altogether out of the question. Every regiment ought to have its own chaplain, and the changes which have of late years taken place in the religious, as well as in the moral feelings of the country, (for we ought not to attend to the wild ideas and effusions of men, who in the present day are leading the unwary astray,) have rendered their appointment to corps no longer objectionable. The regimental chaplains should be required, before appointment, to produce to the chaplain general, certificates from bishops of the church of England, or from, at least, two ministers of the church of Scotland, setting forth the respectability of their characters, their fitness to discharge the religious duties, and to direct and superintend the instruction of the regiment, to which they might be attached, and in which a higher description of education was hereafter to be looked for.

I must here declare, and I do so after long and serious consideration of the subject, that the consequences of a mixture in corps of men professing Protestant and Roman Catholic creeds have always been, that religion, of any kind, became altogether a forbidden subject, and I firmly believe, that much of the depravity and irregularities committed by our soldiers, may be attributed to this cause; for what could be expected from men, who, I may say, never gave religion even a thought. The officers were almost all Protestants, whilst a considerable proportion of the soldiers, in many regiments, from having been raised in Ireland, were Papists; and it, unfortunately, yet clearly, became the duty of those under whose command they were placed, to show no respect of persons, or to hurt the feelings of either party on account of religious opinions or differences; and thus what is commonly looked upon as sacred amongst men, could not even be named, and much less brought to the assistance of officers in the management of their men, so that fear of punishment was all they had to depend upon (and even corporal punishment when too frequently resorted to, lost its effects,) for the maintenance of discipline, it was, therefore, to the system pursued, and not to the officers that blame ought to have been attached for much of the misconduct which the commanders of our armies, and Lord Wellington in particular, had to lament and contend with. Much more might be said upon this subject, but I do not wish to pursue it farther.

But let us for a moment look at the effects of unanimity in religious views in a Russian army, in which, however, is to be clearly seen far too much of the old Prussian severity of discipline to be productive of good; and I am also aware, that in consequence of the power that the upper class--themselves exempted from the conscription--possess over their serfs, many bad characters are forced into their ranks; yet their Emperor, generals, officers and soldiers are, I may say, of one mind and of one religion. See the whole joining in its--to them--sacred offices, and imposing ceremonies; and who then can deny, but that their chiefs thus establish a firm hold upon the minds and affections of their soldiers, who may, by this means, be led to respect morality, and to imitate praise-worthy conduct, whilst they are at the same time rendered more formidable as enemies.

Regimental chaplains ought to be married, and should be allowed sufficient means to provide themselves with suitable lodgings, and when it could be done, outside the barrack walls; and to insure their respectability and fitness for the performance of their important duties, they ought to receive the same pay and allowances as pay-masters.

Very few churches in provincial towns, or villages, can afford proper accommodation for the troops quartered in them, and they ought not to be dependant upon this; and as regiments would thus have their own clergymen, there should be attached to every barrack, at home or abroad, a large comfortable school-house, in which divine service might be performed twice a day on Sundays; so that one wing of a regiment could be accommodated in the morning, and the other in the afternoon.

Every corps ought to have a well paid, and highly respectable school-master, with whom no one should have a right to interfere, but the commanding officer and chaplain; and part of the duty of the latter should be to superintend the school and to direct the system of education to be pursued in it. Every school-house ought to be furnished with a carefully selected collection of books, which should be handed over, in good order, from one chaplain to another, and according to an inventory kept for the purpose. Of course the regiment relieved would have to pay for any books lost or damaged. There ought to be also a sufficient allowance of fuel and candles granted for the school-house; and it would be most desirable that the soldiers should, as much as possible, be induced to spend their evenings there; and in order to increase this inducement, the books should not only be instructive, but also amusing; and as far as practicable, different at every station. A place of public resort of this kind, where a certain number of non-commissioned officers should be required to be present, would be particularly desirable everywhere, but especially in our North American possessions, where in winter it is so difficult to find means of amusement, for soldiers, and thereby to keep them out of mischief. But all kinds of out-door amusements ought also to be encouraged in every part of the world, and even money should be allowed to commanding officers to provide what is required for them; and every thing possible done, so as to make soldiers feel that their regiments are their homes, and their officers their best friends. With this most desirable object in view, officers must see what vast responsibility devolves upon them, and how much they are called upon to teach by example.

It is well known, that in the United Kingdom, society is very differently circumstanced to what it is in any other part of the world. No nation can boast of such a high-minded and enlightened middle class as we possess; and education and manners place most of them upon a level with the highest. Almost all the officers of our army and navy are taken from this middle class; but I regret to say, that too many of them, as well as the first class, know as little of the habits or feelings of the lower orders, as the latter know of theirs. Thus the very formation of society is against that community of feeling and interest, which ought to exist between officers and soldiers, or sailors; and to the want of this sympathy among us, may be attributed much of that powerful influence which dangerous men are able to exercise over the lower orders of the people of the present day; for they are generally destitute of the virtues or principles to be found among men in a similar state; and the dependence in which they are held by the more wealthy part of the community, engenders feelings of jealousy and even dislike towards them, which may be expected at any time, when opportunity offers, to burst forth in those acts of open violence, which occasionally disturb the tranquillity of the empire.

The fancies and absurdities of some of our commanders in former times, were most truly surprising; but to us who were their victims they were any thing but amusing or laughable. Some of them ought to be held up as beacons to warn others to avoid them; but doing so, and showing their effects upon those under them, would occupy much more time and space than I can devote to the purpose. But how rapidly an army whose spirit has been already subdued by a too severe system of discipline is vanquished, was clearly proved, by what occurred in the year 1806. On the 7th of October in that year, the Emperor Napoleon announced to the Senate, that he had quitted his capital to repair to his army in Germany. Already had the Prussian army, completed to its war establishment, passed their frontier, in all the confidence of discipline, and had invaded Saxony; and their advanced posts had even made their appearance not far from the cantonments of the Imperial army.

The French were instantly put in motion to cross the Rhine, and by forced marches, the several corps occupied the points assigned them, and every thing was arranged for advancing against the Prussians. By the evening of the 8th, the French, after several brilliant affairs, in which the Prussians were invariably beaten, had passed the Saale. Events succeeded each other with great rapidity, and according to the Emperor's account of what occurred, Marshal Davoust arrived at Naumbourg on the night of the 12th of October. The Prussian army being thus caught, "en flagrant délit," their left being turned, and many of their depots of provisions taken. The king of Prussia intended to have commenced hostilities on the 9th of October, by moving his right upon Frankfort, his centre upon Wurtzbourg, and his left upon Bamberg; but the Emperor seems to have anticipated this arrangement by marching upon Saalbourg, Lobenstein, Schleitz, Gera, and Naumbourg, when the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, were necessarily occupied by the Prussians in changing their positions, and in recalling their detachments; so that upon the 13th they were, by concentrating their troops, in number about 150,000, enabled to offer battle to the French between Capelsdorf and Amerstadt.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th, the Emperor arrived at Jena; and from a height occupied by his advanced guard, he reconnoitred the Prussian position, and made his dispositions for the morrow.

The Prussian army on the morning of the 14th displayed a splendid front of infantry, cavalry, and seven or eight hundred pieces of cannon. All their manœuvres were executed with that precision and rapidity which might be expected from troops who spent their lives at constant drill, and in military evolutions; in all of which the French were very inferior; yet they had been sufficiently taught their business as soldiers, without that severity of discipline having been resorted to, which too frequently dispirits men, and renders them indifferent to events.

The results of this campaign, of seven days duration, and the famous battle of Jena, were 30,000 prisoners, and amongst them twenty generals; upwards of twenty colours, three hundred pieces of cannon, and great quantities of provisions taken by the French. The Prussian loss was estimated at 20,000 in killed and wounded; and the wreck of their army fell back in consternation and disorder, whilst the French admitted only the loss of a few generals, and about 1,500 men killed and wounded.