The abolition of commission by purchase did not, however, effect a change in the social blend of the officer corps that had perhaps been hoped for. Cardwell did not take this opportunity to review officers’ pay and conditions which left the door of recruitment open to the upper classes and wealthy landed classes and firmly shut to those without private means. Regrettably the continuing necessity of a private income was arguably in itself a purchase system that maintained the restrictive practices of officer recruitment.
However, having removed purchase, Cardwell continued to fly in the face of tradition and next turned his attention to the basic structure of Britain’s Army. Under his localization scheme the country was divided into sixty-six brigade districts each based on county boundaries and population density. All line infantry regiments would now consist of two battalions, sharing a regimental depot and an associated area from which it could recruit. One battalion would serve overseas, while the other would be stationed at home for training and home defence. Included in his reorganization were the part-time militia units that were now to be brought under the administrative umbrella of the regimental depot and re-numbered. Thus the 28th and 61st of Foot became the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Gloucestershire Regiment and the two Gloucestershire Militias became the 3rd and 4th Battalions. Many regiments, including those in Gloucestershire, were required to amalgamate to form the new two battalion structure. This inevitably resulted in a complicated internal wrangle involving much debate over regimental traditions and seniority, an aspect of military restructuring that continues even today when long established regiments and traditions fall victim to so-called modernization.
It took another war and a further series of military humiliations to bring about the next raft of change. The backlash from the reverses suffered in the South African War of 1899 to 1902 served two functions; it highlighted the army’s shortcomings in the field but more importantly it served as a national wake-up call. The Royal Commission, chaired by Lord Elgin, that reported on the conduct of the war, was scathingly critical of the army’s performance and in particular its inability to respond quickly to national emergency abroad and have sufficient reserves to draw upon. The South African War was a timely rehearsal for the future that provided the catalyst for further reform. However disastrous the South African War was to Britain’s international prestige, without it and the subsequent changes it brought about, Britain would have been unable to mobilize as quickly and as efficiently as it did in August 1914.
Richard Burton Haldane’s far reaching reforms that he introduced to Parliament on 25 February 1907, brought into being the Territorial Force and disbanded the Militia replacing it with the Special Reserve. Up until 1908 the Militia was an accepted route by which a permanent commission in the Regular Army could be obtained. Rather than pass through Sandhurst, many potential officers, after passing the necessary examination, went straight from the Militia into their regiment, often as a second lieutenant. In 1890, when the young Winston Churchill was considering his future, he expressed his desire to enter the army through the Militia in a letter to his father,1 ‘It is a well known thing that a fellow who goes through the Militia is always much more use than a Sandhurst Cadet.’ In the event Churchill did enter Sandhurst, albeit by the skin of his teeth, and ultimately was appointed to 4/Hussars as a second lieutenant.
Historians will argue that the Cardwell reforms fell short in two respects, firstly by not removing the Duke of Cambridge and more crucially, by failing to create a General Staff. With the Duke of Cambridge now gone Haldane moved to complete Cardwell’s work and created the Imperial General Staff with Sir Neville Lyttelton as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He also placed the final piece of the jigsaw into place by laying the foundations of an Expeditionary Force that would respond quickly to situations in Europe and the Empire. In doing so, Haldane was not only responding to the recommendations of the Elgin Enquiry of 1902 but was demonstrating a consciousness of Britain’s future role in Europe.
Sadly the Territorial Force, one of Haldane’s most innovative reforms, was never thoroughly tested in 1914 and was largely distrusted by Lord Kitchener who failed to appreciate the potential of these units as a reserve. In the event several territorial units did fight in Flanders during 1914 when the need for reinforcements became acute and one of these, the 1/14th London Scottish, a territorial infantry battalion, was brought into action at Messines on 31 October. Typical of the part-time soldiers that had signed up with the battalion was William Gibson, a 29-year-old Commercial Clerk from Ilford. William was mobilized early in August when the London Scottish were placed on a war footing and landed in France on 16 September 1914.
Just as the arrival of the twentieth century began a new era of military efficiency and professionalism for Britain’s army, so it also began to sweep aside the old Victorian order that had underwritten the training of gentlemen cadets at Sandhurst but this did not happen overnight. By the time my grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Howard Murland, entered Sandhurst in 1901, Regy Wyndham, the third son of Henry Wyndham, the 2nd Lord Leconfield, had already graduated and joined the 17th Lancers. However, in the seven years which separated the two cadets, military instruction at Sandhurst had hardly changed. In 1901 my grandfather was being instructed from the same military manual and drill book that the young Wyndham would have been familiar with in 1894. Astonishingly, cadets in 1901 were still being taught how to form a hollow infantry square to receive cavalry, with the front rank kneeling and the rear rank standing behind. Almost certainly the last time such a square had been used on the battlefield was at Ulundi on 4 July 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War, although there were some later defensive formations based on the square used in the Sudan in 1896 and at Omdurman in 1898.
Training was also deficient in one other important skill that is fundamental to infantry soldiering, that of musketry. Even in 1902 cadets were not taught to shoot either with a rifle or a revolver despite the fact there was a range nearby. The shooting skills of British soldiers in the South African War, which had concluded twelve months previously, had been ridiculed by the Boers and generally shown to be below standard. Yet Sandhurst cadets who wanted to shoot had to pay an additional £1 per term to join a shooting club in order to become at least familiar with the mechanism of the rifle and revolver. In fact, more importance was placed on pipe clay than on the teaching of tactics.
However, it was the 1902 intake of cadets who were the first to benefit from the new order. The old blue serge uniform with the blue and red forage cap which Regy Wyndham and my grandfather wore was replaced by khaki for everyday wear. This coincided with khaki being adopted by the whole of the army and the introduction of the Sam Browne belt, so called after an Indian Army officer who was responsible for its design. Later, in 1902, a long overdue revised drill book was issued which probably caused more problems for the drill sergeants than it did for the cadets and the infantry square was at long last consigned to history where it belonged. Moreover, instruction in military strategy was brought up to date. Also abolished along with the blue serge was the post of Governor which was replaced with a new post of Commandant and the first to hold this post was Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Kitson, who had recently served as commandant at the Canadian Royal Military College at Kingston.2
Gerald Kitson took a keen interest in the education of officers and had given evidence to the 1902 Parliamentary Commission on Military Education that examined whether the instruction at Sandhurst and the sister establishment at Woolwich should be purely military and technical, or whether it should embrace general scholarly education as well. In the event a more rounded curriculum was introduced and Kitson’s appointment was the beginning of a new period of development for Sandhurst which was begun just in time for the next generation of cadets. While the majority of cadets of my grandfather’s era were senior captains in 1914, many of those cadets who entered Sandhurst during Kitson’s tenure as commandant found themselves on the front line in 1914 as platoon commanders and suf
fered the most appalling losses.
The Royal Military College, Sandhurst was now the principle conduit for entry to the officer corps for both the British and Indian Armies and for many, the preferred method of obtaining a commission. Cadets who intended to make a career in the artillery and engineers attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich which had opened twenty years before Sandhurst in 1781. The two institutions would remain apart until 1947 when they were amalgamated into the Royal Military Academy.
From the tone of his many letters to his mother while he was at Sandhurst, it would appear that the 18-year-old Regy Wyndham found his military education rather hum-drum. Writing to Lady Constance in September 1894 he gives his first impressions of his new surroundings:
‘This is a rather fearful place. I am in F Company which I am told is about the best for getting leave which is a good thing. I sleep with 2 others as present but shall probably get a room alone next term It is rather difficult to get fed which is a bore. One is only allowed to wear either uniform or regulation flannels with leave. It is a very pretty place with a huge lake in front of it. At present I am dressed like an ordinary private soldier which does not mean comfort. One feels rather like a convict without the broad arrows on. We do no riding school until our second term, tomorrow we work all day without a minute to ourselves.’
Apart from his obvious enthusiasm for horses and riding to hounds, none of his letters contain very much about the military training he was receiving although he does mention firing a ‘cannon’ which he considered to be ‘rather fun’, which for a potential cavalry officer I suppose must have been a bit of a novelty. There is very much of the gentlemanly disdain for professionalism in his letters, an attitude that was very much prevalent amongst officers in the cavalry and the foot guards at the time. In December 1894 a letter home reported a typhoid outbreak that would have caused Lady Constance some considerable anxiety:
‘I have nothing to record about this place but a chapter of accidents, one man in the company is very ill with Typhoid and it is very doubtful if he will get round. It appears that they have lately been picking several dead rats out of the hot water system and I suppose he must have drunk some of this water, probably out of a kettle for tea. One of the instructors here has broken his leg, he was a great football player and had played for England once or twice.
PS please ask papa to send me some money some time this week.’
It is refreshing to know that teenage students in 1894 differed little from their modern counterparts in their requests for money from home and their apparent relish in reporting incidents of doom and gloom. His father responded with a five-pound note sent from the Sussex family seat at Petworth with a reminder to ‘be thrifty’. A month later Regy added to his poor mother’s stress with an account of a fire:
‘The whole place had a near escape of being burned down the other day while I was in the Gymnasium. One of the large cupboards in our mess was apparently fastened to the wall with wooden pegs and one had been burned through into the kitchen flue.’
In another letter, smarting from being admonished by his father for spending too much money on ‘unjustifiable fripperies’, he attempts to give reasons for his spending:
‘I hope you don’t think I have been spending money as I still have some left out of the former £5 and have spent absolutely nothing except on travelling expenses and what I have to give to my servant.’
Nevertheless, despite all the disasters and his apparent apathy towards all matters military, Gentleman Cadet Wyndham did pass out of Sandhurst unscathed and presumably with some military knowledge and understanding as his overall report described his three terms at Sandhurst as, ‘very good’, ‘good’ and ‘very good’. At his passing out parade in January 1896 he marched in review order past the Duke of Cambridge, who in one of his last appearances as Commander-in-Chief took the salute. Two months later, on 24 March, the newly appointed Second Lieutenant Wyndham joined the 17th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) Lancers at Fulford Barracks, York.
Before 1914 an army career had been a popular vocation for the sons of the aristocracy and landed classes. Plenty of sport, particularly hunting and riding, provided these gentlemen officers with an occupation and a hobby. Undoubtedly being able to be a gentleman was probably why most men joined the army in the first place. It enabled them to perpetuate their lifestyle and social status at a time when other occupations connected with trade were not considered suitable employment for a gentleman. Other career choices such as the clergy and the law were unpopular; entry into the clergy required at least a measure of faith and decorum to be present and practising law demanded not only hard work and application but a university degree to boot!
Consequently the distribution of aristocrats and the landed gentry in the officer corps at the beginning of the twentieth century was fairly evenly spread across most regiments in the army, although this tended to fluctuate. Between 1875 and 1912, for example, there was a sharp decrease in the number of titled officers in the Guards and a noticeable increase in the Life Guards. Moreover, War Office figures show that by 1912 1/Life Guards had become the most exclusive regiment of all, seventy per cent of its officers had titles, eighteen per cent were from the landed gentry and only twelve per cent were from the middle classes. Interestingly, this degree of exclusiveness was only found in English regiments and amongst those, it was the preserve of only a small number, particularly in the Household Division and the cavalry. Few, if any, officers in the Indian Army for example, were titled or came from the affluent landed classes. Generally speaking, after 1870, regular officers were products of the public school system. Understandably so as the great majority of officers were recruited through open competitive examination at age eighteen, an examination that required passes in eight papers. These requirements practically guaranteed the public schools had control of admission to the officer corps through their special classes that specifically prepared students for the exam.
While a large number of army officers came from the upper and landed classes, as the nineteenth century drew to its close, the professional classes were beginning to make inroads into the ranks of the officer corps. Irrespective of class, however, by 1914 nearly half of all army officers were either the sons of serving or former officers or had a military tradition in the family. This was certainly the case with the Wyndham family. Regy’s father, Henry, served in the Life Guards and his uncle, Percy Scawen Wyndham, fought with the Coldstream Guards in the Crimea. Percy Wyndham’s son, Guy, followed his father into the army and joined the 19th Queen’s Lancers, eventually retiring as a lieutenant colonel. Further back, Regy’s great uncle, General Sir Henry Wyndham, fought at the Battle of Waterloo with the Guards in 1815 where he was severely injured. He took part in the famous closing of the gates at Hougoumont where his life was saved by Corporal James Graham, the soldier said to be responsible for slotting the bar home after the North Gate was shut.
Another cadet who entered Sandhurst in August 1896 was 20yearold Bernard Gordon Lennox who had a long and illustrious military tradition behind him. The family’s Sussex seat at Goodwood House was established at the end of the seventeenth century and has housed more than ten generations of the Lennox family. His great-great grandfather, Charles, the 4th Duke of Richmond, is probably best known for his unfortunate duel with the Duke of York in May 1789 while serving as commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards. Meeting with their seconds on Wimbledon Common,
‘both parties were agreed to fire at a given signal The signal being given, Lennox fired, and the ball grazed His Royal Highness’s side curl: the Duke of York did not fire.’3
Despite shooting at the second son of King George III, the incident did not prevent him from later becoming ADC to the King and, in 1814, a full general. Lennox was also appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1807 where the young Arthur Wellesley, who would later become Duke of Wellington, became his secretary. Their paths crossed again in 1815 when Charles’ wife, Lady Charlotte, hosted the reno
wned Duchess of Richmond’s Ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo.
Also at Waterloo, serving as ADC to the Prince of Orange, was Bernard Gordon Lennox’s great grandfather, the 5th Duke of Richmond. He fought in the Peninsular War as ADC to the Duke of Wellington and was wounded at Orthez in 1814. He was later ADC to Queen Victoria. Not to be outdone, Bernard Gordon Lennox’s grandfather also became ADC to the Duke of Wellington during his service with the Royal Horse Guards. Charles, the 7th Duke and Lord Bernard’s father, was the first of the family to be educated at Eton and purchased a commission in the Grenadier Guards in 1865. Described as ‘a stern military figure,’ he not only lost Bernard in the Great War but also a cherished grandson, Lieutenant Charles Henry Gordon Lennox, in the North Russian Expeditionary Force in 1919.
No young man joining the army was under any illusion that it would make them rich. On the contrary the costs of serving could be quite high. Parents had to pay fees to enable their sons to go to one or other of the military colleges at Sandhurst or Woolwich. Even after being commissioned, officers needed a private income to sustain the lifestyle which regimental tradition demanded as a gentleman. The exception to this was to be found in the Indian Army where officers were generally able to live on their pay. Officers did not actually begin to earn a living wage until they were promoted to captain, which usually occurred after nine years of service. It was generally considered that a newly commissioned officer in a line infantry regiment in 1900 would require at least £200 to purchase his uniform, furniture, civilian clothes, servant’s wear and an incoming mess payment. Another £100 to £200 per annum drawn from a personal income would be needed be cover his essential expenses of socialising and sport. Officers in the Guards and other exclusive regiments would need considerably more and for those in a cavalry regiment additional personal expenses could run to as much as £600 per annum.
Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery Page 4