THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
509 
time will ever be given for the encampment of large bodies of troops, 
as was the case 100 years ago. If these manoeuvres are to be 
repeated, it might be worthy of consideration whether any very 
great hardships would be enforced on the inhabitants of a district by 
the billeting officers and soldiers upon them for one, or two nights at 
most. At any rate, the country at large would be the gainer; and to 
judge by the business done in the villages during the recent manoeuvres, 
the natives themselves would have no objection whatever to the society 
of the soldiers for a night or two. At any rate, no real experience can 
ever be gained by the control branch until the conditions of actual war 
are more closely imitated. 
As you may doubtless have heard, there have been shortcomings, and 
the bringing of them to light can do no possible harm, if done in a 
fair and proper spirit. It has been too much the fashion to call out, 
“ The control broke down,” without waiting to enquire exactly what 
is meant by the sentence. If it be meant that the system broke 
down, that was impossible, for there was no system, it is in course of 
creation; if it be meant that the controllers and their subordinates 
were lazy or stupid, I beg to offer my distinct contradiction, as no 
department worked harder, and more cheerfully from before daylight 
until sometimes long after dark, at the end of which time, they were 
generally only received with grumbling, as a reward for their exer¬ 
tions; and I may with pride allude here to the self-denial and the zeal 
shown by the detachment of our own Regiment, lent for the occasion, 
without whose cordial co-operation the manoeuvres could never have 
taken place. 
It was always a difficulty to know where the duties of the control 
ended, and that of the regiments began, with reference to supply, and 
this was an endless source of discomfort to everybody. Again, there 
was a tendency on the part of the Control Department to assume the 
position of a separate body, responsible only to their own chiefs, and 
ignoring all military chain of authority. This is an item of most con¬ 
siderable importance, and as soon as that department act under and 
through the staff of the general, some progress may be made in the 
administration of the army, but as long as the body assert an inde¬ 
pendent and irresponsible position, with regard to the military author 
rities, so long will chaos and confusion exist, besides failing to secure 
for themselves, the support of the staff, and the confidence of the troops* 
Some regiments adopted a system of regimental transport which 
answered very well; the artillery always did, and I think on the whole 
fared the best of all the arms employed. I need hardly say that the 
various tea carts, vans, drays, and shandy drans of sorts, supplied by 
civil contract broke down utterly in all directions, and were useless, or 
worse, to the army, whilst their drivers were subject to no discipline 
nor control whatever; although some of the drivers did their duty con¬ 
scientiously, and to the best of their ability, they could however never 
bo relied on, and their pace averaged from one to one and a half miles 
an hour. 
I am afraid to think that the staff were hardly free from all blame; 
as a rule, the country was hardly thoroughly explored and known, and 
