LORD ROBERTS' MESSAGE TO THE NATION BY FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS V.C., K.G. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1912 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PART I PEACE AND WAR A Speech to the Citizens of Manchester Letter to the _Manchester Guardian_ PART II THE TERRITORIAL FORCE Introductory Note: The National Service League and the Territorial Force The Mansion House Speech: Lord Haldane's Scheme Examined PART III THE NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE AND WORKING MEN Introductory Note: Mr. Blatchford's Criticism of the Manchester Speech Letter to the _Times_ on Compulsory Service and the Social Condition of the Working Classes PART IV TERRITORIAL OFFICERS AND THE PRESENT CRISIS Address at the Annual Dinner of the Kentish Men and the Men of Kent INTRODUCTION My recent speech in Manchester has been so widely discussed, and, in certain quarters, so gravely misrepresented or misunderstood, that, in the interests of the cause which I there defended, I am impelled to place before the public a complete text of that speech with such notes and supplementary matter as seem necessary to make my meaning unmistakable except to faction or to prejudice. No one who has followed with attention the efforts of the National Service League has any right to imagine that we desire a strong army solely in order to invade the territory of European or more distant States; or that we wish to root out the Territorial Force in order to establish in its place an army system modelled on the army system of Germany; or, again, that we have the ambition of resuscitating once more medieval blood-lust, anarchic plunder, and delight in war! What, then, are our aims? We desire, in the first place, that all patriotic men within this Empire should be made to see and to feel that from one cause or another England, by neglecting her armaments, has drifted into a position which it is impossible to describe otherwise than as a position of danger. We desire further that all patriotic men should, without either insincerity or delay, put to themselves the questions: How are we to arrest that drifting, and how are we to evade or overcome that danger? And, in the third place, with regard to foreign nations or empires, our ambition is simply that States well-disposed towards us, whether near or distant, may have it in their power to mix with their friendliness respect, and with their goodwill esteem. In the following pages I have stated in brief the solutions of these problems which, after some experience of peace and war and after some deliberation not free from anxiety, I have come to look upon as the only workable solutions, as the only solutions consonant with our honour and our continuance as an Empire.