A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be : $b illustrated by examples during the Peninsular War; with observations upon India; the United States of America; Canada; the boundary line; the navy; steam warfare, &c.Campbell, James
History
A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be : $b illustrated by examples during the Peninsular War; with observations upon India; the United States of America; Canada; the boundary line; the navy; steam warfare, &c.
Campbell, James
Great Britain. Army
We are constantly hearing of the horrors of flogging in our regiments,
and scarcely an instance occurs, but that some of the newspapers
endeavour to hold it up in the most exaggerated language, and strongest
colouring, to the detestation of the nation; but after all, what
is such punishment, as now inflicted, to what takes place all over
Germany, and in the armies of the Czar? We are told--and it should be
known in Great Britain--that the kind of bastinado, by which the flesh
is most cruelly torn off by the point of the stick, is so severe in
the German and other armies, that few men can stand many blows of the
corporals who inflict it; and as for the Russian knout, half a dozen
strokes, or even less, can be made fatal by a skilful hand.
Unluckily, by our mode of proceeding, punishment is, in some measure,
converted, by its slowness, into a kind of torture; and if flagellation
is to be unfortunately allowed to continue in a British army, it most
probably would be better if fewer lashes were awarded by the sentences
of courts-martial, but to be inflicted more after the manner practised
in our navy. At all events, what may be termed the teasing system,
which now prevails in regiments, and to which commanding officers,
in compliance with existing circumstances, must adhere, cannot be
productive of good, and must from necessity, and want of time and
means, be nearly abandoned when our army is actually in the field. In
what way then, I beg to ask, are officers to maintain discipline, if
their power and influence in their companies are not increased?
It has always been the practice in our army to direct attention--and in
this commanding officers of regiments had no choice--more particularly
to what was necessary for home service, or garrison duty abroad, or
their attention was called (as in the Russian service) to what would
produce effect, through a splendid display of neatness, uniformity, and
regularity in dress, messing, barrack and other arrangements; which
in themselves are much to be lauded and admired; but with regard to
what were really essential and indispensable in the field, for which
most of this instruction or knowledge, but little prepared them, such
matters seemed generally to be left to chance, or to be acquired by
both officers and men when once there; and this was one of the reasons
why so few regiments did not fall off in every respect, the very first
campaign in which they were employed.
One of the chief objects which I have in view being, however, to
do away with corporal punishment, and still to insure our having a
well-conducted and highly disciplined army, I consider as essential
towards securing this, that the utmost attention should be paid to what
was formerly so lamentably neglected--that is to say--the religious
instruction, and general education of corps. Without this all our
efforts must be useless and unavailing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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