Volume 1

Minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the South African War, 1899-1900
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and orders were given to push the thing ahead as much as ever they could, and to convert every one of the field guns into the new pattern. It was a question of @ spring to govern the recoil, and every field gun in the country was converted within that period. 1257. I suppose that we shall get all these details from Sir Henry Brackenbury?—Yes. That sort of pre- paration was going on. It was what would be done in ordinary course, only it was pressed on with greater Tapidity. 1258. But not till the summer of 1899?—No, the pattern had not been decided upon. We were in an awkward position ; our patterns, due to experiments and experience, and learning the changes introduced epee countries, are being constantly revised, and this was one of the patterns that was being examined just at that time, and a good deal of money was spent upon it. So with regard to some other things—I am mentioning things that occur to me—for instance, the transport carts; when it was seen that if there was a campaign, it would be a campaign in South Africa, it was decided to alter every transport waggon in the whole service from shafts to pole, in order that they would be fitted for the mule draught. That sort of thing was going on. You will get the details from Sir Henry Brackenbury. 1259. Is there any other point that comes under your special observation and experience that you would like to call our attention to?—Of course I should like to repeat what I have said on several occasions, that it is almost fruitless re-organising a department unless you give it a proper house to live in. I know one member of your Commission here knows well how, and for how long so far as the department is concerned, it has been pressing for a proper office in which to carry on its duties, 1260. It is being built?—One is now being built, due very much to one of the distinguished members of your Commission, and of course also to an accident— I mean the Death Duties surplus. Whether it would ever have been decided upon if that surplus had not turned ‘up I cannot say, but the department as a department has been pressing for a house in which it could carry on its business for years and years. We thought some 15 years ago we were going to have it. It was most awkward to be found in the position of entering upon such a campaign as that which has just been carried to a successful issue, in a series of offices very badly constructed and separated from one another by distances which made conference almost an impossibility, and at all events involved always enormous waste of time. 1261. Of course the dislocation of offices must tend to the inefficient working of a department?—Yes. I know that the Admiralty have suffered very much in the same way. 1262. At the same time you will get now a very much better office than you would have got 15 years ago?—I doubt it 1263. Have you not increased in size ?—Yes, we have incr2ased in size, but I remember the plans at that time, and I thought they were excellent plans. I cannot remember exactly the increase that has taken place in the interval, but it has been considerable. Since the war it has increased. It was extremely awk- ward being placed in the difficulty of carrying out all these arrangements, when the office was scattered in the way in which it was. 1264. From Pall Mall to a fourth floor flat in Victoria Street?—Yes. I have no doubt they were the best within reasonable reach tnat could be provided, but we were absolutely without a house, and to reorganise a department without a proper house to put it in is prac- tically fruitless. I may mention one instance to which attention has been drawn, the Intelligence Division and the Mobilisation Division ; those were, I remember, some few years ago integral parts of the same division, the Intelligence Division, but they were down at Queen Anne’s Gate with a very large amount of impedimenta, not very easily removed. However, in order that the mobilisation part of it should be in touch with the high military officers, that limb of it was cut off from the Intelligence Department, and it was brought up to the War Office, so that the Intelligence Department and the Mobilisation were locally divided, and that tends very much to absolutely cut off the connection between one and the other. Now, fortunately, owing 72B 59 house in St. James's Square for the time those depart- ments can be brought together agaim, and they are being amalgamated now. Your lordship has pointed two or three times to the general belief that prepara- tions upon the necessary scale were not entered upon sufficiently early. I do not think anybody, however, with any experience at all, would deny the fact that the War Ottice did enormous things; I know the efforts that were made and the difficulties that were overcome, and one or two of those I have mentioned called upon people to do work which they were willing to do, but had never done before in their lives, and { do not believe, in consequence of having done them now they would ever be capable of doing them again, and very great difii- culties were overcome in obtaining what was necessary. It is absolutely clear that if any operations of this kind have to be entered upon, they must be entered upon, and preparations made as to the provision of transport long before the time at which they were made on the occasion of this war. That was not due to the depart- ment, but due entirely to political exigencies, 1265. (Viscount Esher.) Sir Ralph, what papers go before the Under-Secretary of State, as a rule— everything that goes to the Secretary of State ?—That is the rule ; but, unfortunately, there are very many exceptions in consequence, as I have said, of this power of personal access on the part of the heads of depart- ments to the Secretary of State himself, and they were constantly carrying papers to him and getting decisions from him which, according to my view, should properly go through the Under-Secretary of State. 1266. Therefore it was not certain that you saw every- thing that the Secretary of State saw %—Certainly not, by no means. 1267. When was your attention drawn to the pro- bability of a war in South Africa?—I cannot fix any particular date ; it varied with different people. There were those who thought that the difficulty would be Overcome in other ways than by a war, but that it was @ possibility really, you may say, began with the raid, as 1t ls commonly called. 1268. How soon do you remember efforts being made by the military authorities, by the Commander-in-Chief or the Intelligence Department, to bring pressure upon the Secretary of State to make preparations in South Africa’—These things were done so very much by conversation between the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief and other officers, that I really cannot say. 1269. Do you remember, or do you know, that Lord Wolseley pressed the Secretary of State, say a year beforehand, or six months beforehand, to make prepa- rations for the possible despatch of an Army Corps to South Africa ?—i believe about this time there were varlous proposals made. 1270. You mean about June P—Yes, about June. I understand from the speech made by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords that Lord Wolseley had sug- gested what I suggested, viz., the mobilisation of an Army Corps. I was very much interested indeed in the scheme that had been adopted 30 years ago, as I practically devised it myself, of working the system of short service in our Army, but I was never able to answer those people who criticised it by saying: “Oh this thing will not succeed. You will] not get the men,” and that was the sort of popular criticism. I always had great confidence in the system, and I said: “J cannot say to you or to anybody that this thing will come off satisfactorily, but I think that we are bound almost at our first opportunity to see whether it will come off, and to see whether it is a system on which we can rely of any strength at all,” and I urged that an Army Corps should be mobilised. ‘ 1271. At what date was that ?—I cannot time ; I did it verbally. ot say the exact 1272. Was it early in 1899? ’—Yes, it was early in 1899, and I understand that Lord’ Wolsel : mended the same thing. olseley recom 1273. There is no record of of my suggestion. 1274. Your point is that the military authorities, the War Office practically apart from the Secretary of State, did what they. could to mobilise an Army Oorps early in 1899 ?—Yes. 1275. And that the refusal to do so rests entirely H 2 that, is there ?—No record Sir BR. H. Knox, K.C.B. 17 Oct. 1902,
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