46 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
who lie on Cathcart's Hill. In the early part of the campaign,, Englishmen 
gained an imperishable name for bravery, but they threw away their light 
cavalry. Later on, they won Sebastopol, but lost an army. Since then the 
knowledge of war in the English service has advanced steadily, step by step, 
as on a ladder; each step being toilsome, but affording foothold from whence 
to attempt another movement of progress. So that one of the wisest and 
cleverest of our late foreign visitors, w r ho knew us well, both at the Crimean 
time and ten years later, is able to say that he is fairly astonished at the pro¬ 
gress made; but the same officer is of opinion that we have still much to learn. 
There will be some to say—“ What! is the splendidly-appointed English 
army to learn from continental soldiers ?" Yes, gentlemen, we have still 
much to learn. .Remember the confidence with which all looked forward in 
1866 to the triumph of the Austrians. No soldiers could have fought more 
gallantly or with more dogged resolution; yet you know the result. You 
must have read, too—everybody has read it—the Archduke Albert's 
pamphlet on “ Responsibility in War," published in 1869, when that 
Imperial Prince was devoting his whole attention to the reorganisation of 
the Austrian army. You remember the passage where he speaks of the 
“ exaggerations and trifles " of peace among soldiers who passed their life in 
the service. He says:—“They thought it their duty to be continually 
occupied, and were led into refinements, into exaggerations in the uniformity 
and elegance of dress and equipment, of manual exercises with arms, and of 
movements. Narrow intellects excelled in these arts, acquired thereby ill- 
merited reputations, but rendered the service insipid, and checked the 
intelligent soaring as well as the advancement of more gifted officers." 
Beauty of uniform and nicety of step and carriage on parade are excellent 
things in their way, but fatal to the man who regards them as the one 
thing needful of soldiering. They are but as the polish of the pieces and of 
the board in a game of chess—not at all to be despised for their moral 
effect, but entirely subordinate to the knowledge of the game. 
What has the student of chess to learn ? Eirst, the movements and power 
of the pieces. This corresponds with the movements of various troops in 
war. “Everybody knows this!" Not so. At the late manoeuvres, the 
miscalculations of time in which marches could be made was quite extra¬ 
ordinary—so much so as to defeat almost every attempt made at combined 
movements. Then, at chess, in the early part of our progress, we have to 
learn a few openings and combinations of action among the pieces to attain 
a certain end, corresponding with the handling of the three arms—infantry, 
cavalry, and artillery—under different circumstances and for different purposes. 
In our knowledge of this, as soldiers, it must be confessed that our visitors, 
learned in war, found us eminently deficient. Each English officer could 
drill his own men, but too many were embarrassed when those of another 
branch were put under their hands. The remedy for this want of knowledge 
is plain. In other countries, comparatively junior officers are given all three 
arms to handle. Surprise at the want of such a system in England was 
expressed by our foreign visitors, as it is by all soldiers who know civilised 
warfare. We must learn to walk before we can fly. There is nothing in 
the profession of the soldier to free him from the old necessity so well 
expressed in the proverb, “ There is no royal road to learning." It is said 
that “ Poeta nascitur non fit," but even poets have to plume their young 
