Note 1 — PART II THE TERRITORIAL FORCE

In the course of the controversies raised by my Manchester speech the fallacy of the superiority of the volunteer to "the unwilling conscript" has once more reappeared. I must here repeat what I said in the House of Lords in April, 1911, that much of this talk about "one volunteer being worth two pressed men" is nonsensical. The truth is that one man, whether pressed or not, if well disciplined and carefully trained, is worth at least half a dozen undisciplined, insufficiently trained volunteers. No doubt, if I had to lead a forlorn hope requiring men determined to carry out the job, no matter what the odds against them might be, I would rather have half the number of men who volunteered than double the number ordered to perform it, provided all were equally well trained; but if it were a question of soldiers versus untrained volunteers, I would infinitely prefer to have ten well-trained and well-disciplined soldiers than fifty ill-trained and ill-disciplined volunteers.

I could give many instances from history in support of this view—the opinions of great commanders like Washington and Napoleon—but I will here cite only one incident from my own experience of war:

During the Franco-German War of 1870-71, the French, from having an army without any means of expansion, were forced, after the first few weeks, to employ hastily-raised levies. These levies, even in greatly superior numbers, were no match for the highly-trained German soldiers. On one occasion towards the end of the war, 35,000 German soldiers found themselves engaged with a force of these recently-raised levies, numbering between 140,000 and 150,000. They had been given such training as was possible while war was going on, for four and a half months. They were brave men fighting for their own country, and in their own country, and what happened? Within a month 60,000 of them were killed, wounded, prisoners, or missing, while the remaining 80,000 were driven over the Swiss frontier and there interned.