46. THE BRITISH ARMY. The Regu lar The British army is in many re spects like the British Constitution. It has grown, it has not been made. No single idea has dominated its history, no directing mind has prescribed its form or defined its functions. But while the forces, which formed and molded the British Constitution, and made it from time to time the reflex of the prevailing opinion of the British people, have exercised a con stant pressure— a pressure which has never been relaxed — the forces which have produced the British army of to-day have been inter mittent and irregular. The history of the British army is a long record of vicissitudes of public favor and public neglect. To a nation in whose long history the gates of the Temple of Janus have rarely been closed for a decade, each new war has come as a surprise. Every war, whether it has ended in victory or defeat, has furnished the British people with lessons which they have vowed to learn and never to forget, and which they have invariably for gotten before the ink has dried on the peace preliminaries. Every war has brought with it good resolutions born of anxiety and alarm, and every peace has produced the apathy, the neglect and the self-confidence which are the outcome of real or fancied security.
It would be unjust, and untrue to historical teaching, to infer from these facts that the British are an unwarlike, or, in all their pub lic concerns, an improvident people. The popu lation of the United Kingdom is composed of warlike races, and in regard to the conduct of public affairs it cannot be said that England has been behind the rest of the world. But it is possible to be a warlike without being a military nation, and there can be no doubt that the scientific evolution of a consistent military policy in the United Kingdom has not. kept pace with other branches of national develop ment.
The reason is not far to seek. An insular position and the immense protection afforded by a powerful navy have relieved the inhabit ants of the British Islands from the dangers which ever threaten the great nations of Con tinental Europe whose long land frontiers ex pose them to attack by an ambitious and un friendly neighbor. For nearly 300 years the
people of England have been spared the knowl edge of what war on their own soil actually means. While from Brest to Moscow, from Bergen to Gibraltar, every part of Europe has rung to the tramp of hostile soldiery, and has been the suffering witness of the tragedy of war, the dwellers in English counties carry back their immemorial tradition of undisturbed peace to the day when Oliver Cromwell won the last great battle fought on English soil on the field of Worcester.
Once, and once only since the creation of modern firearms did the people of England come in contact with the realities of war. In 1645 Parliament in conflict with the king found itself confronted by the necessity of fighting, or surrendering to an implacable enemy. Follow ing the custom of the country, the House of Commons sought at first to meet the emergency by the aid of amateur soldiers, maintained by voluntary contributions. But the logic of facts soon convinced them that war cannot be trifled with. The °New Model° Army was called into existence by Act of Parliament, funds were provided by vote of the House of Commons, compulsory service was imposed when volun teering failed to produce the required number of men; and the recalcitrant were hanged. A Regular Army was called into existence, and that Regular Army almost immediately became a *Standing Army.* It is from the days of the °New Model' that the history of the Stand ing Army of England really dates. War on English soil taught its lessons to a practical people. To the Commonwealth England owes, not only the establishment of her standing army, but the actual groundwork of the mili tary institutions of the present day. One of the most famous regiments of the British army, the Coldstream Guards, came into existence at this time; and the very establishment of the modern British cavalry and infantry regi ment is practically what it was made by Oliver Cromwell and the soldiers of his day.