In the preceding survey we have purposely confined ourselves chiefly to extracts from the songs themselves, as most interesting to our readers at the present time, without entering into discussions upon their merits and defects. The task of exclusion has been more difficult than that of selection. But we have tried to give specimens of the various branches of the subject, and to note the various ways in which German patriotic songs are evolved from, act upon, or illustrate, German national character.

ART. VIII.-1. Modern Warfare as influenced by Modern Artillery. By Colonel Macdougall. London, 1864.

2. Report of the Royal Commission on the Volunteer Forces. 3. Memorandum upon the Present Military Resources of England. By Henry Brougham Loch, C.B. London, 1870.

THE

HE bill of indictment which we have elsewhere brought against the Admiralty is a weighty one; we wish that it were possible to temper it by making a better report of the War Department and its doings. Not that it would be fair to throw the whole blame of the confusion into which everything connected with the army and its administration has fallen upon the present chief of that department. Mr. Cardwell, when he came into office, accepted a heritage of blunders. He is but one in a series of statesmen, whom the miserable policy of fifteen years ago thrust successively into a position, for which neither their education in early youth, nor the habits of their maturer years, furnished them with a single qualification. Overwhelmed with details about matters entirely new to them, how could these unfortunate persons ever find time to give a single serious thought to the principle on which all army administration ought to be conducted? And how, still more, could they hope to grasp the faintest idea of the mode by which this general principle might best be applied to the specialities of an English army? Nor is this question answered, when we are told that our Ministers of War, however ignorant they may themselves be of the business which they are set to transact, can at any moment obtain, when necessary, the best military opinions in the empire; and that they have constantly near them the Commander-in-Chief with whom to advise. The facts may be, and, indeed, are so. But it is one thing to meet in consultation persons with whom we are able to give and take, as the discussion goes on; it is quite another, to be closeted with those from whom we must learn everything. Conclusions, be they ever so logical, make little impression upon a mind which cannot take in the premises on which they rest, and advice received on trust, as it never reaches the understanding, so it invariably operates in one or other of two ways. Either the party advised accepts the recommendations offered, and acts upon them unhesitatingly, in which case he ceases to have any real control in the matter; or else he disguises his own ignorance, and, seeking advice elsewhere, sets up an inferior against a superior judgment greatly to his own, or it may be to other people's hurt.

How

How far the latter of these two principles of action may have brought our army and its administration to the state in which we now find them, it is not for us to say. But one thing appears to be certain, that ever since a single Minister of State had thrown upon him the responsibilities of six,-indeed earlier still, ever since the Cabinet ceased to include among its members at least one soldier of acknowledged ability and high standing, who had a right to give an opinion on military subjects, and to whom his colleagues would listen, nothing has gone really well with the army,-in its administration, in its discipline, in its efficiency, in the personal content of the men and officers, and of the classes in civil life, from which they chiefly come. Plenty of experiments have been tried, plenty of changes brought about, almost all of them very costly, some ridiculously so, yet the general effect has been, neither to add to the relative strength of the body operated upon, as compared with other armies, nor to make its members more satisfied with their condition. These are strong assertions, for which, before we leave the subject, sufficient reasons will be assigned. Meanwhile, other and not less important points demand our attention.

If the solitary Minister, who has had all this weight of responsibility thrown upon him, were of necessity a soldier from his youth-if an Act of Parliament had determined, that the place of Minister for War should never be filled, except by an officer of high rank and large practical experience-even in this case, with a War Office mounted as ours is, and a restless and illinstructed House of Commons to deal with, the task of rightly constructing the military machine, and keeping it at all times in a state of efficiency, would overtax the strength of the ablest and most patient administrator that England can produce. As matters stand, it would appear that against military men of high rank and large practical experience the doors of the War Office are virtually closed. Just consider who the gentlemen were, and are, and what their qualifications, to whose management this most important and complicated branch of the public service has in succession been entrusted. Two, and only two out of the whole number-and seven have held office within the space of barely fifteen years,-ever served in the regular army at all. Lord Dalhousie, we believe, attained to the rank of Captain in a Highland regiment, and was for a short time on a General Officer's personal staff. General Peel was a Major in the Rifle Brigade, and Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel in the Guards; but neither, unfortunately for himself, ever did a day's duty except in times of profound peace. They never, therefore, saw an army in the field, nor had the opportunity of observing how a corps, a division,

a division, a brigade, a battalion, or even a company is managed and supplied, while a campaign goes on. Had they been differently circumstanced in this respect, even in a slight degree, or had they been well known as careful students of military history and strategy, we should have been ready to repose in either of them as large a measure of confidence as could honestly be given to any individual in such a false position; for they are both able men, and equally possess the inestimable qualities of decision and firmness. But they had no such experience, and often, we venture to say, acknowledged to themselves how very much, through the absence of it, their powers of usefulness were hampered. At the same time it is just to add that, limited as their knowledge of military affairs might be, it gave them a prodigious advantage over all who preceded or came after them at the War Office. Their mistakes, and they made many, were errors of judgment only; of a judgment, that is to say, which had some ground of reason to go upon. The blunderings of their collaborateurs were, in every instance, such as men might be expected to commit, who, knowing nothing whatever about the most important of the questions which they were day by day called upon to decide, found themselves on every difficult occasion under the necessity of leaning for guidance upon others. What else could Sir George Cornewall Lewis do, or Lord De Grey, or Mr. Sidney Herbert, or Sir John Pakington? What else can Mr. Cardwell do at the present moment? Nor let us be suspected of undervaluing in the smallest degree, the general ability, much less the honesty of purpose, of any of these gentlemen. They are, and were, all of them men of mark. Sir George Cornewall Lewis and Mr. Sidney Herbert were much more. But not one among them all had a right to give an opinion,--through lack of special training, not one among them all was capable of forming an independent opinion on a subject at once so vast and so technical as the organisation and administration of armies. Mr. Sidney Herbert, the kindest and most generous of men, sacrificed his life for the soldiers' comfort, in labouring to elevate whose moral and physical condition he never grew weary. But he could not be made to understand how much of time and care are necessary to convert a single raw recruit into an effective soldier, far less what troops can and what they cannot do, when brought together as an army into the field. And as to Sir George Cornewall Lewis, we believe that we quote his own confession, if not in words certainly in substance, when we say that, when he first entered the War Office, he did not know the difference between the butt-end and the muzzle of a musket.

These are truths obvious to the common sense of all men

capable

capable of reflection, and they are melancholy truths; yet others, not less melancholy, remain to be told. The maddest project ever entertained in a country, entirely governed as England is by party, was the setting up of a special Secretary of State to be Minister for War; and investing or trying to invest him with the powers, not less than with the responsibilities appertaining to the office. Continental nations, even the freest and most constitutional among them, as for example Belgium, or Holland, or Switzerland itself, cannot afford to indulge in such a luxury. They know what they are about, and commit the supreme management of their armies to practical soldiers, who are so far taken out of the whirlpool of faction, that they need not be, and often are not, members of the legislature at all. It is, of course, required that their general views in politics shall agree with those of the party in power; but beyond this they are never expected to go. We, on the contrary, make it a point-sine quâ non-that whoever undertakes the management of the army shall likewise be a member of the legislature; and that for every act performed-not by himself alone, but by any one of his subordinates-he shall be prepared, at the shortest notice, to give an account to Parliament. It is true, at least, so we have been given to understand, that when this supreme act of administrative folly was determined upon, a upon, a sort of half-formed scheme was devised for keeping the new Secretaryship of State in the hands of a Peer of the Realm. The House of Lords, it was assumed, would be considerate and forbearing the Commons are notorious for their irrepressible curiosity, especially about points connected with public expenditure. Keep the War Minister in the House of Lords, and he will be comparatively at his case. But the wise heads which entertained this idea forgot that if the Secretary of State himself be in one house, the parliamentary Under Secretary, of whom every office has one, must be in the other; and the parliamentary Under Secretary for War soon found himself badgered so far beyond his powers of endurance, that he ceased to be any buffer at all between his chief and the Commons. The consequences were precisely such as ought to have been anticipated. The Secretary of State for War is now, has been for some time past, and will continue to be, till the machine breaks down altogether, a member of the House of Commons. Thus, besides the inconvenience to which he is personally subject, a great obstacle is interposed in the way of providing the right man for the right place. Thanks to our successive Reform Acts, there are no close boroughs left, through which gifted men, possessing special qualifications for serving the

State,