MOUNTAIN ARTILLERY ESTABLISHMENTS, ETC, 
259 
3. To be sufficiently self-contained to despatch when required, 
one or two sections with any small expeditionary force on 
active service. 
4. To relieve periodically the battery in Natal. This can only be 
carried out at a certain time of the year, as when this battery 
is abroad, there is naturally no means of carrying on effici¬ 
ently the depot duties. 
It will be seen, therefore, that at home we practically have no means 
of reinforcing our Indian Establishments, nor a single battery available 
for service in Asia Minor, Eastern Europe or the Colonies, but merely 
an overworked depot battery at Newport. Notwithstanding the fact 
that there are suitable sites for quartering and training Mountain Bat¬ 
teries in the lake district of Cumberland, the Western Highlands, and 
North Wales, no expense is likely to be sanctioned for such an increase 
at present. Some other measures must, therefore, be suggested as a 
compromise, to strengthen our present position in this respect. 
Under the present system of organisation, our Mountain Artillery 
has been formed from the Garrison Artillery units, and the branch 
affiliated to one of its divisions—the Western—the home Mountain 
Battery being, in many respects, but the sub-depot of the head-quarter 
depot; at Plymouth. Thus all invalids and time-expired men, &c., 
returning from the batteries abroad, join the depot at Plymouth and 
are disposed of by the Officer Commanding the Western Division, the 
former being sent to the Mountain Battery at Newport, or to service 
companies of the Western Division, if found fit for further service. 
The majority of officers, and all the men, are selected for the Moun¬ 
tain from the Garrison branch, and are thus afforded a pleasant variety 
of duties and greater chances of active service whilst in that branch. 
W r e are rather too prone to look upon our Foot, or Garrison Artillery, 
as solely maintained for fortress warfare; but in the British service 
our requirements are so numerous aud varied in different parts of the 
world that, in the event of war, it must be called upon to supplement 
our small force of Field Artillery, by carrying out the duties in the 
field in connection with Position or High-Angle Firing Batteries, with 
Ammunition Columns, or in the formation of Mountain Batteries, as 
required. Of course, it may be urged that although the chances of 
our ever requiring to put a large siege train in the field, in Europe, are 
excessively remote, still, if any invasion were ever contemplated, the 
time selected would be when a large portion of our field army was 
engaged abroad, and that our Garrison Artillery would then be re¬ 
quired to man our forts. But our latest organisation of the Garrison 
Artillery provides for the maintenance of a large force of specialists, 
and as the training of our Militia and Volunteer Artillery becomes 
more perfected, we should, with the aid of a small force of Garrison 
Begular Artillery as a stiffening, be surely enabled to release a small 
portion of the latter for more active operations in the field. As regards 
a sufficiency of men for manning the guns, we are told at p. 514 of 
“The Army Book for the British Empire,” that our Volunteer Artil¬ 
lery is in excess of our first requirements for coast defence. 
The following measures are, therefore, suggested for improving our 
