The Cambridge Footnotes

TFSmith's views of the British army- incompetent prisoners of tradition- are encapsulated in his view of the Duke of Cambridge. Like much else in Burnished Rows of Steel, this view is very, very wrong.

Chapter 15, part 1 sees Cambridge described thusly:

Cambridge was the odd man out; a military conservative, even reactionary, he fought tooth and nail against any proposed reform of the army, ranging from disallowing the purchase of commissions to opposing promotion by merit and even a prohibition of night marches and exercises (he disapproved of training at night because, after all, “it would interfere with the horses’ rest.”)

For a start, this is horrendously badly phrased. Are we expected to understand that Cambridge 'fought tooth and nail against reforming the army and disallowing purchase', or that he 'fought tooth and nail against opposing promotion by merit and prohibiting night marches'? If the author cannot maintain focus until the end of a sentence, it is hardly fair to expect the reader to to trawl through a quarter of a million words and counting of text.

What is more important than the fact this is badly phrased, however, is the fact that is a lie. The Duke of Cambridge did not fight 'tooth and nail against any proposed reform of the army': he proposed many of them himself. Before the Crimea, he had advocated the creation of a peacetime divisional structure for the British army and suggested further reforms to the infantry, cavalry, and the list of generals. Between his appointment as commander-in-chief and the Trent, he masterminded reforms of the army's medical services and to the militia, and stood behind the system of exercising at the Curragh and Aldershot despite attempts by politicians to abolish the additional expenditure. He created a system of military education, and inaugurated the Staff College. He proposed a permanently staffed commissariat- a move opposed by civilians on ground of cost- and introduced the school of artillery. In fact, in the years between his appointment and the outbreak of the Trent War, the Duke had been instrumental in more concerted schemes of reform than any United States Commanding General would be between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century.

TFSmith probably never took the trouble to follow up his anecdote about the Duke prohibiting night exercises. In fact, it comes from Evelyn Wood's From Midshipman to Field-Marshal. The full quote reads as follows:

On the 22nd of July, after the conclusion of a parade of the Cavalry brigade, the Commander-in-Chief, in the presence of Commanding officers and Squadron leaders, animadverted strongly on my practising Night operations, of which he expressed strong disapproval... I felt that my position was difficult, and wrote that evening to the Adjutant-General offering to resign the command. This he strongly discouraged, writing, "Pray go on as you are doing;" and I did so. At a Ceremonial parade which followed soon afterwards, the Commander-in-Chief announced "He had never seen anything better," which praise was repeated practically at every succeeding inspection during my command. The Chief had previously apprehended novel tactics implied relaxation of discipline.

The observant will notice two problems with this story. The first is that it dates from 1889, which is after TFSmith's self-imposed limits of two decades either side of the story date. The second is that the Duke clearly did not prohibit night exercises: he expressed his disapproval, but allowed Wood to continue to practice them. Indeed, in 1872 the Duke supervised manoeuvres which saw Sir Robert Walpole's army make night marches to set up outposts.

Perhaps TFSmith's belief that the Duke prohibited practicing night marches is why he ignores the vast amount of historical evidence that shows the British were capable of making them. Or perhaps both stem from the same failings in research, and TFSmith does not know nearly as much about the mid-Victorian British army as he thinks he does.