THE PROBABLE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW MILITARY ELE MENT ON OUR SOCIAL AND NATIONAL CHARACTER.

BY CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED.

Ir is a wonderful and startling change this, our transformation from the most unmilitary nation in the civilized world to-perhaps not exactly one of the most military, but one of those having the largest armies! A strange sight, this half-million and more of men, sprung up like the Cadmus-sown dragonteeth! If the "peculiar institution" were as it seems likely to be-swept clean away out of existence, its disappearance would not be a greater phenomenon than the appearance of this new element. A new element, and a permanent one; for they are as short-sighted as sanguine who suppose that this year, or next year, or the year after, nine-tenths of our officers and soldiers are to retire into private life. For some time to come we must expect to keep several hundred thousand men under arms. The complications of our foreign politics alone are enough to render a large army necessary.

When men of middle age, who were brought up amid the profoundest peace, look back on their early impressions of soldiers and military life, they are astonished in very spite of themselves at the recollection of the abhorrence with which they then regarded what are now the objects of their pride and honor. Armies were ranked with kings and nobles as Old-World encumbrances, with which we had happily been able to dispense. Indeed, the idea of a monarchy and aristocracy being established among us would have appeared to most of our people nearly or quite as probable as that of a gigantic army becoming indispensable. The popular idea of a soldier-at least throughout the Eastern and Middle States-was a barbarous, un-Christian, behind-the-age, much-to-be-avoided personage, the antagonist of reason, and the incarnate representation of brute force. In a political work of no small ability, written barely ten years ago, we find this passage:

"The soldier, nursed in blood and robbery, however mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best only a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted."*

Whatever effect the Mexican War may have had in the South and West, it certainly did little to change the prevalent feeling throughout the rest of the country. Those who supported it did so chiefly on party grounds; those who opposed it took the ground not merely of opposition to this particular war, but of

* Hildreth's "Despotism in America," p. 143.

hostility to wars generally, as barbarous and anti-Christian. The readiness with which volunteers offered themselves brought out the fact that there was a good deal of military spirit and military material latent in the country; but it was a fact soon lost sight of by both natives and foreigners.

T. C. Grattan, whose remarks on America were not generally characterized either by accuracy or profundity, made a better, hit than usual when he noticed (in 1859) the capacity of our people for being moved in masses, as an ominous germ of military strength; but few strangers agreed with him; and, at the beginning of our troubles two years later, there was a very general opinion abroad that we should not be able to raise a serious army!

The great change of fact has brought with it a corresponding change of opinion, and has shown that our ideas of the soldier were in a great measure the result of an ignorance of the worst kind, that sort of ignorance which has a plausible basis of truth. Our present object, however, is to discuss, not the alteration of opinion about a certain class, but the future influence of that class as a now important element in society. It may guide us in, or at least prepare us for, our speculations, if we briefly examine the social and political position of the soldier elsewhere.

On turning back twenty, or even fifteen, years, we find the relations of the English army to society no more creditable than those of our own, perhaps less so. Here, it was a nonentity, a sort of tradition; there, it was ridiculous, or worse. During a long spell of peace the doctrines of the economical school had in their progress tended to make the army unpopular; and it must be confessed that the conduct of its members had not been exactly such as to diminish this unpopularity. There was a growing impression that its rank and file were filled from the ne'er-do-wells of low life; while its officers were supplied from the most ignorant, and certainly not the most virtuous, of the upper classes. Their want of education was a standing joke with English satirists; and want of education was not the worst charge brought against them. A regiment was apt to be the terror of the town where it was quartered. The freaks of the younger officers among themselves and the townsmen varied from the pranks of overgrown schoolboys to the orgies of "plug-uglies" out on a holiday. Hard would it have gone with England when suddenly exposed to the shock of war; but, most fortunately for her, a splendid system of national sports and manly exercises had kept up a physical material which no length of idleness could rust, no amount of mismanagement spoil.

The rude lessons of the Russian War, with its striking contrasts of personal bravery and administrative incapacity, were

On the one

not lost on the English Government or nation. hand, a rigid system of examinations was adopted, which has already removed the stigma of ignorance from the army;* on the other, its exploits in the Crimea, and afterwards in India, made it extremely popular. Still, we can never expect it to form a predominant element in English society. It is not large enough in proportion to the whole population, and much of it is scattered abroad. It has not sufficiently numerous points of contact with the nation. Nor can we expect the English, without total disruption and reconstruction of their society, to become a military people. The volunteer movement in 1859 and '60 clearly showed their unmilitary character. Magnificent as a popular uprising and demonstration against foreign menace, it must have presented many ludicrous points to the professional soldier.

We cross the Channel, and at once find in this, as in many other respects, a great change. But here we must discriminate. It seems the merest truism and platitude to say that the French are a great military nation; yet this proposition is often so stated and so understood as to be any thing but true. In the time of the first Napoleon it was correct in its strictest application. France had then no industry but what was warlike, and little art or literature that was not more or less connected with war. At present there is indeed a strong military element in French society, but also a very strong industrial and peaceful element, generally alluded to by the emperor and his tools under the disparaging term of "vulgar interests." This was exemplified at the time of the Italian War. Broad as the assertion is, it may be safely affirmed that no Frenchman unconnected with the army or the Government desired that war. Could a free popular vote have been taken on the question, the majority for peace would have been immense. To-day we see a similar illustration of the fact in the public feeling against the iniquitous invasion of Mexico, a feeling so strong that the emperor's own relations and right-hand men, with all their impudence, could not altogether deny or condemn it. The truth is, that the French belligerent propensity-like all propensities, national or individual-may be greatly modified by encouragement or discouragement. The "present head of the state,' owing his throne in a great measure to the bayonets of his troops, and needing a constant supply of foreign "glory" in order to drown the voice of discontent at home by the shouts of victory, has naturally encouraged warlike tastes, and petted the

* Some of the largest and most influential schools in England at present are those like Cheltenham College, which combine a civil and a military department; and it is worth noticing that in them the military department (for such it is in fact, though not always called by the name) is constantly gaining on the civil, both in numbers and reputation.

men of the sword at the expense of all other classes. Great license is allowed all soldiers. Crimes which a civil court would visit with long terms of imprisonment are dismissed by a military tribunal with a few weeks' confinement. Duels were indirectly encouraged, till the officers, not finding civilians or strangers enough to prey on, turned upon one another, and made such a consumption of themselves that the Government was obliged to interfere and check the practice. French officers-though usually men of good education, and frequently men of the best families-are too often distinguished by a swash-buckler, sabre-trainant air, which makes them the reverse of agreeable in general society. Even in their own country they behave as if en pays conquis. Why should they not? They have conquered it. It does not require a long residence in Paris to perceive that France is under the reign of the sabre. There was as much truth as wit in Punch's parody, "L'Empire c'est l'épée."

Let us now go eastward, over the Rhine. We still find a strongly predominant military element, though its predominance is manifested in a way less unpleasant to the stranger, whatever it may be to the inhabitants. In some respects the army is even more fashionable than in France. There are small capitals, like Stuttgard, where the business of every young man in good society seems to be playing at soldiering.

When we recollect that, by the laws of most German States, every man capable of bearing arms is compelled to pass at least two years of his life in active service, we might expect to find a considerable amount of military knowledge and habitudes diffused among the people. Nevertheless, it cannot be affirmed that the German armies represent the people or the popular feeling, except on extraordinary occasions, such as the threat of a French advance to the Rhine. To be sure, there is not the same rough-riding over the pékins that is practised in France. If the stories of Austrian brutality in Hungary and Italy are correctly reported, we must suppose that the Austrian officers keep their bad manners for external consumption, as landsmen are said to do their old clothes for sea-wear, and decorous Anglo-Saxons their bad morals for Parisian use.

Of Russia it is sufficient to observe that all social distinctions there are founded on the grades of military rank. This one fact shows the predominance of the military element, a predominance perhaps required in the present stage of Russian civilization.

It will not be necessary to go through all the European nations in detail. As a general rule, we may say that excepting some free, but third-rate, states, such as Belgium and Switzerland, we find throughout Continental Europe a strong military element in society, more or less dominant over the civil

element, directly sustained by the Government, and mutually sustaining it.

Now, we in our free institutions resemble the English, but in the size and proximity of our army the Continental nations. Which are we likely to resemble in the relations of our civilians and soldiers? The question assumes a certain importance as we recall the frequent predictions of "military despotism' hurled at us by enemies abroad and too readily re-echoed by false friends at home.

On comparing our armies with the European, we immediately perceive a fundamental and radical difference, which covers the whole ground. A European army* is a body of men distinct from the people. Its mass must, of course, be derived from the people, even some of its officers may be; but its immediate dependence is on the government. It is that government's creature. It is looked to by government for support, if necessary, against the people. Its duty is not only to fight the enemy in time of war, but to keep the people quiet in time of peace. So natural is this view to a European that we have seen it set forth in French nursery-books:

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Papa, what are soldiers for?"

"My son, first, to defend us against strangers [polite French for "conquering" other people's territory]; then, to prevent bad men from overturning," &c.

And this is the great obstacle, after all, to a general reduction of armaments. If the emperors and kings had only one another to fear, they might make some common agreement which would enable them to divide their armies by ten, or even reduce them to smaller fractions; but who then would take care of the Red-Republicans and Socialists and other monsters at home?

Our army, on the contrary, is the creature of the popular breath. By that it lives. The people made it, as they made the war. Suppose a large majority of the country opposed to this or any war: how long could the Government carry it on?

"Le combat cesserait faute de combattans.' Suppose, in time of peace, a decided majority resolved that the army ought to be reduced: how long could the Government (supposing it wished to) stave off that reduction? In short, our army is the people in its military phase and capacity, the fighting development of the

nation.

We see this principle carried out in every detail. Where has there been any antagonism between the people and the army? In some places mobs have been put down by military force, but in almost all these cases the rioters belonged to the very worst part of our foreign population, and all respectable citizens hailed

* Except in the cases already mentioned Switzerland, &c.